Liftoff Success!

Tracy MacDonald and Fiona

Today is my blogging day on Inkspot., the blog for the authors of Midnight Ink.  And it seems only fitting at the end of my book launch to thank some of the great people who have helped me make it such a success.  Even better--I have never met any of these people in person!

The gifts of yoga live everywhere--even in people who've never done a single pose.  Check out some of my favorites at http://midnightwriters.blogspot.com/2015/01/liftoff-success.html

Tracy Weber

          

Come visit Whole Life Yoga in Seattle, and check out Tracy Weber’s author page for information about the Downward Dog Mysteries series.  A KILLER RETREAT and MURDER STRIKES A POSE are available at book sellers everywhere! 

It's not a bug, it's a feature!

If you look closely, there might be a hidden message on this shirt!

Monday was my monthly blog day on Ink Spot--the blog for the writers of Midnight Ink. I wrote about a wonderful experience I had recently that was the direct result of a mistake. Check it out, learn about my mistake, and help me thank my wonderful street team for their support!

http://midnightwriters.blogspot.com/2014/10/its-not-bug-its-feature.html

What if, as the yoga teachings say, there are no mistakes?  What if mistakes are meant to draw us closer?

Tracy Weber

Check out Tracy Weber’s author page for information about the Downward Dog Mysteries series. Book 2 in the series,  A Killer Retreat will launch January 8, 2015!

More Online Stuff

I blogged recently about the formation of my street team.  It's certainly been fun, and I hope for a lot more to come.

 

In the meantime, I'm also doing, and preparing for, more online stuff. 

On Thursday, I'm participating in a Facebook party called Genre-Palooza.  It's a bunch of authors who write in different genres each assigned a particular time to post about their work, and there will be prizes, too.  I'll be there from 6:50-7:10 Pacific time.

On Friday, I have a blog post about Alpha Force, my covert military unit of shapeshifters, appearing on the Harlequin Paranormal blog.  My most recent Alpha Force story for Harlequin Nocturne was UNTAMED WOLF, a May release, and I have another one appearing in August: LOYAL WOLF.  I'll have another blog up about LOYAL WOLF then. 

In addition, Friday, which is the 18th of the month, is also my regular day to blog on Killer Characters.  Rather, it's my characters' regular day to blog.  I'm not sure who'll be there this week but I suspect it might be the first post for Rory Chasen, the protagonist of my upcoming new Superstition Mysteries. 

I've also requested that a blog tour be set up for me with Great Escapes Virtual Book Tours in late September/early October to promote my first Superstition Mystery, LOST UNDER A LADDER, which will be an October release. 

Hey, in case you haven't guessed, I like to blog! 

Not that I'm only sitting around home at my computer.  As I mentioned before, I'll be at the Romance Writers of American National Conference.  I'm also participating in some local panels, such as "Paws to Read," a panel about pets in mysteries, to be held on August 2 at the La Crescenta Library.  Gee, I wonder how I was chosen to participate in that one! 

Anyway, I'm still working on an August 1 deadline for the first book in another new mystery series, plus I've got some other writing and editing I need to accomplish.  So, excuse me.  I need to finish this post and get back to work!

My New Street Team

I now have a street team!  What's that?  It's a group of wonderful people who will interact with me and each other and learn more about my writing--as well as telling others about it.

At least that's the way I understand it.  Although I've known about street teams for a while and even mentioned the idea in a blog a while ago, I'm new at this and hope to learn along the way. 

I fortunately have a couple of wonderful, experienced team managers, one who helped to get my street team going and another who will be in charge and teach me what I need to know. 

The team just started this week and has quite a few members already.  It's a group on Facebook, and that's one social medium that I've been fairly active on, so I'm doing fine with it so far.

I asked about the team members' reading preferences and learned that some prefer just mysteries and others are into the kinds of romances I write, too.  I hope we all have a great time with this!  And I'll probably say more about it here in the future.

How about you--if you're a writer, do you have a street team?  If you're a reader, are you on any street teams?

RWA National Brief Recap

I’m home!  I had a wonderful time at the Romance Writers of America National Conference in Atlanta, but it’s good to be back and returning to my regular writing groove. 

I not only networked and met up with a lot of wonderful people, sold and gave away copies of some of my books, and attended a lot of parties, but I also went to workshops.  The program this year reflected the change in the publishing industry.  There were a lot of workshops relating to self-publishing, along with more usual topics like writing craft and promotion--not to mention spotlights on certain publishers.  I had a lot of fun going to Harlequin and Berkley-related panels and events. 

One topic that I focused on more than many of the others was promotion.  I attended several panels on branding oneself, and although I don’t think I have that nailed down yet I doubt anyone’ll be surprised that my brand includes suspense, romance... and animals. 

The other subject that particularly interested me was how to form a street team.  That sounds like so much fun!  What’s a street team?  Well, it’s a group of people who can be friends and fans of a particular writer, who in essence help with that writer’s promotion by reading her work and posting and encouraging reviews, receiving bookmarks and other promotional material and passing them out in bookstores, libraries, and other relevant places, and generally talking about that writer’s work.  In return, they receive free copies of the author’s books and other fun stuff like swag--T-shirts, for example.  And of course they stay in contact with that writer and learn what’s yet to come.

I’m currently considering whether and when to form a street team.  Do you have any ideas?  Do you have, or belong to, a street team?  What’s your opinion of them?  And... if and when I get around to trying to form one, would you be interested in joining??? 

The RWA National Conference--it rocked yet again!