Sharon at CWC Arthur Ellis short list Marilyn Kay photo
The aftermath of getting Beyond Faith published has been nothing close to easy, especially in the book promo department. Don’t get me wrong. I love doing book promo and I realize it all takes time and some of it will get put temporarily in Pending. But …
Well, let’s say that all did not go well for me…and apparently some other authors had the same problem – at the CWC Arthur Ellis Awards. Even CWC itself ran into a few snags – but Elizabeth Duncan who organized it with the Indigo Bookstore venue, fixed them very well. For example, the main guest who was to announce the authors shortlisted for the Arthur Ellis awards was ill and couldn’t make it. Elizabeth had some of the mini-presenters – one per category – go up to the podium, open the envelope(s) and read out the shortlisters. It was such a great choice and maybe could be done in future years.
The venue was good, a little oasis set up for the event surrounded by shelves and shelves of books. What more could an author want? Well, maybe spring weather outside.
Everybody’s presentation went very well and was interesting – much more interesting than eight authors reading excerpts from their books, one right after the other. We had to talk about our books in whatever way we wished. I chose not to do a Dana Bowman skit, but the nosy Private Investigator had apparently jumped out of Beyond Faith a a busy subway transfer station enroute to the bookstore and was lost in the rush-hour crowd. But Dana is not stupid and I knew she would show up. After thanking CWC for arranging the event, I went into my presentation – holding up a photo of Dana Bowman and asking “Have you seen this woman? She is….” After the escaping-the-book business I segued into a bit about what the book is about from the viewpoint of what Dana and her twin PI investigating brother Bast Overture have to contend with. As I neared the finish, I thought I saw Dana darting between the bookshelves, said so, thanked the audience, grabbed Beyond Faith and Dana’s photo, chasing towards the books. A few seconds later when I showed up at the back of the audience, Elizabeth from the front asked, “Did you find her?”
“Yes,” I answered. “She’s back in the book.”
So, what was wrong with this picture? Both Beyond Blood and Beyond Faith, hadn’t arrived at the bookstore and it’s all the distributor’s – Ingram Sparks – fault. First because of all the nonsense with BF not able o be ordered in the Indigo chain stores, yet available for online orders – which had to be fixed twice and also as the bookstore manager told me “sometimes it takes six weeks for books to arrive from Ingram.” But the manager had contacted me beforehand about BF’s not arriving yet and we arranged I would bring in three copies for show and sell that evening, and any left could also be left in the store afterwards to go through usual ln-store selling procedure. When the shipment from the distributor arrived, I could come in to get three copies back from that.
But what happened to Beyond Blood? There were no issues with ordering it in – at least as far as availability was concerned. It has to be Ingram’s tardiness, although another store in the chain had already ordered in copies of Beyond Blood for another event with me and those copies arrived in two weeks time.
And I found out some other authors had the same problem – their books didn’t arrive on time either. No idea if their publisher uses the same distributor.
I know this has happened before to authors, but it is frustrating to an author, especially as I didn’t know about Beyond Blood.
Still, it was a great event.
And there is another CWC one Monday, April 23 in the Richmond Green Library in Richmond Hill, Ontario. Five of us crime novelists are on a “crime” panel there. Here are the highlights.
Crime Writers at RG Panel
If you’re are in the Greater Toronto Area, why not drop in? It’s free and an interesting time is guaranteed.
And our books will be there – we five are bringing copies from our own stashes.
Cheers.
Sharon A. Crawford
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Tags: Arthur Ellis Awards Short List Party, Beyond Blood, Beyond Faith, Book Promotion, Crime Writers of Canada, Dana Bowman, Mystery Novels, Sharon A. Crawford, writing
I have a sequence of events where I am appearing with two of my Beyond mystery series in the next few weeks. One on my own and others with other criminal (I mean “crime”) writers. Fortunately, the snafu with Indigo and its chain of bookstores having problems ordering in Beyond Faith for the actual stores, seems to have been fixed by the distributor, Ingram Sparks. Let’s hope it stays fixed. The store managers and I were perplexed and frustrated by the problem.
Here is the first event.
We will not be reading from our books. Instead we will be doing mini-presentations about our latest books. In my case, will my nosey main character PI Dana Bowman show up? I am trying to contain her between the book covers of Beyond Faith. But who knows what that wily PI will come up with?
And what are the other authors going to do?
Maureen Jennings (Murdock Mysteries) will be announcing the short list for each category for this year’s Arthur Ellis Awards. We (and others present) will be listening with the proverbial bated breaths.
So, if you are in the area in the GTA or actually in Toronto, please drop by for an interesting evening. And it’s all free.
Meantime, you can click on the Beyond Faith book cover at the top for more info about it.
Cheers.
Sharon A. Crawford
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Tags: Arthur Ellis Awards, Beyond Blood, Beyond Faith, Book Promotion, Booksellers, Characters in Fiction, Crime Writers of Canada, Dana Bowman, Mystery Novels, Sharon A. Crawford, writing
I love marketing my Beyond mystery books. I learn so much from all that I do and meet so many interesting people – other mystery writers, readers, librarians and booksellers. But lately I’ve been experiencing an ongoing problem – so is my publisher – so are the Indigo chain booksellers who try to order in Beyond Faith, the latest in my Beyond mystery series.
I have touched on this in a previous post, but since then the problem has again arisen or as I suspect, never was fixed. What happens is when the managers from the Indigo book chain stores tried to order in Beyond Faith they get an error message and the order cannot be processed. No problem ordering in copies of Beyond Blood, the previous novel in the series.
Twice my publisher Blue Denim Press has had to email the distributor (ingram Sparks) and twice the distributor has rebroadcast the book info to Indigo and all done electronically. The first one didn’t work as one store manager found out and let me know politely in an email. I got right back to her by phone and then contacted my publisher. He wasn’t too happy about the situation and I don’t blame him.
But it isn’t just my Beyond Faith book. Several other authors who have different publishers (and perhaps different distributors?? I don’t know about that) have run into the same problem. One of their books can be ordered in by Indigo but not the most recent one.
And before you start blaming Indigo, the weirdest thing is the other author, Michael Robert Dyet, whose book Hunting Muskie was published by Blue Denim Press at the same time as Beyond Faith has had no problems with Indigo ordering in books to their bricks and mortars stores. Another strange thing – Beyond Faith can be ordered in to the bricks and mortars independent bookstores.
Which makes me wonder if it isn’t the distributor but maybe a computer glitch somewhere along the line.
Or maybe gremlins doing some random targetting.
In this overly digital world anything weird is possible.
Meantime I’ve been back and forth with the indigo chain – three bookstores where a possible book signing or other appearance is possible. A presentation with other Crime Writers of Canada published authors is already booked – and that’s where i found out there are other others in the same limbo boat.
At least the Indigo owned bookstores give me (and other authors) the option of selling Beyond Faith on consignment for these events (and possibly leaving copies left over to be placed in the stores’ bookshelves for a bit). And Beyond Faith is still available at Indigo online in paperback and e-copy as you can see with the link from the book cover at the top of this post.
Here’s the flyer for that Crime Writers of Canada event April 18. If you are in the Toronto area, please come to it. it’s free and wlll be different. I’ll give more details about it in my next post.
Cheers.
Sharon A. Crawford
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Tags: Arthur Ellis Awards Short List Party, Beyond Faith and Sharon A. Crawford, Blue Denim Press, Book Promotion, Book Promotion Snafus, Indigo Bookstores, Ingram Sparks Distributor, Marketing your book, writing
Sharon A. Crawford author 