Sometimes I Wonder if I'm Crazy

The day after Thanksgiving I jumped on a virtual tour bus with 13 other mystery authors on a 14 day book tour. Of course we started long before the tour began by sending each other information about what we wanted to be sent for each blog post, and then of course we had to comply with the requests. Some of the writers took much longer to get their information sent off. Once it was received, in my case I immediately posted it to my blog with the correct date and time for it to appear.

Once the tour began it was important to promote the blogs as much as each author had time to do it. So far I've been promoting my blog with the guest author and whatever blog I'm appearing on that particular day. I've also made an effort to visit each of the other blogs and leave a comment.

Many books are being offered as prizes on this tour and some folks who love books, especially those that are free, have begun to catch on and there names and comments are appearing on the different blogs.
For my blog at http://marilynmeredith.blogspot.com/ I asked the authors to write a post about setting. If you read each of their posts, you'll see that none of them are alike at all. Some spoke about setting itself, others described the settings of their books. I found it fascinating.

Today I'm appearing on Timothy Hallinan's blog http://www.timothyhallinan.com/blog/ he's the author of The Queen of Patpong, a wonderful book.

We have authors of all genres within the mystery field, I think you'll recognize most if not all of these names:
Beth Anderson, Ron Benrey, Pat Browning, John M. Daniel, Alice Duncan, W. W. (Wendy) Gager, M. M. (Madeline) Gornell, Timothy Hallinan, Jackie King, Jean Henry Mead, Mike Orenduff, Jinx Schwartz, Earl Staggs, and Anne K. Albert who organized this whole tour.

It's been a bit of work, but I do think it's paid off. I kept checking my numbers on Amazon for the e-book and they've been going down, which is a good thing.

Being with a small press (two, actually), I've had to work very hard to promote any of my books. The one I've been focusing on for this tour is Bears With Us.

Of course I've also been busy with in-person events, some of which I've written about on this blog.

All that's left for this year is spending two days, December 9 and 10 at the Christmas Boutique at the Porterville Art Gallery from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. I've done this several years and it's a lot of fun. The artists who have their jewelry, cards, pottery, and of course paintings on sale are fun to chat with and their work is wonderful. It's like going to a Christmas party that lasts for two days.

And in the mean time, I had 13 for Thanksgiving dinner, then the next day hauled the leftovers to may daughter's so we could do it all again. (Daughter and granddaughters and great-grand daughter had spent the whole night and most of the day shopping for bargains. I was not crazy enough to do that.)

Hubby and have put up all the Christmas decorations we felt like and it doesn't amount to much.

My collection of moose--not a collection I planned, people just kept giving them to me.

And sort of an Indian display. Oh, we have a small tree with lights that you just have to plug in and the stockings are hung on the mantel, and few other decorations here and there. But with no kids to help me decorate a big tree, not bothering with that this year.

Oh, and about being crazy? This virtual blog tour has taken up a lot of my writing time, but as I tell other authors, if you don't let people know about your book, how will they know to buy it?

And I think I'll take this time to wish everyone a Happy Holiday Season no matter what you might celebrate, as for me it'll be a Merry Christmas.

Marilyn