Getting it out there

Marketing and advertising is probably the hardest thing about being an author. Most of us are happiest on our own behind the computer monitor, pounding away on the keyboard. Okay, so that’s me. I admit it, I’m a dyed-in-the-wool introvert. Doesn’t mean I’m unfriendly, I’m just better in writing. But I digress...
In the past, authors published by one of the Big Boys got multi-city book tours, advertisements in newspapers and magazines, etc. Today, whether traditionally or independently published—I do both—we are expected to do our own marketing campaign. If you don’t let readers know they’re there, you might as well hang up your pen.

The good news is, the Internet makes it possible to do a lot of marketing free through social networking. If you build up a fan base through Facebook and ask all of your friends to spread the word, adding a link to your website (because you have to have a good website), and joining LinkedIn groups for mystery writers, as well as groups pertaining to your platform, you’ll be well on your way to selling books. In my case, because my character is a forensic handwriting expert, I’m a member of private investigator and forensics groups. When I have a new book coming out, an article, or am making an appearance, etc., I post it to those lists. The results may not be huge, but supposedly, every new reader represents five more.

You want bigger? If you’re ready to spend a few bucks and have an e-book to promote, BookBub seems to be the way to go. If you aren’t yet familiar with BB (or similar services like Riffle, or Pixel of Ink), check them out. Once you sign up as a reader with BookBub and tell them which genre(s) you enjoy, they will send you an email every day with four or five listings of free or very low cost e-books in that category. You can also be one of the advertisers.

BB charges for advertising according to genre. They decide where your book fits and they write up your blurb. As an author, you pay according to how many subscribers they have in your category. Mystery has the largest number of subscribers—nearly 1 million now. The fee increases according to what you are going to charge for your book. The fee is the lowest if you’re offering your book free--currently $300 for mystery. If you’re advertising your book at .99 - $1.99, the advertising cost doubles, and it keeps rising according to what you are going to charge. These latest numbers were interesting to me because I just advertised a giveaway through BookBub on February 21st. The number of Mystery subscribers at that time was around 750,000 and I paid $260 for my advertisement. Here’s the link to their pricing page: https://www.bookbub.com/partners/pricing.

What’s the benefit? According to their site, the average number of downloads for a campaign in Mystery is 18,700, with an average of 1920 books sold. Over the five days that I offered Poison Pen for free, I had 56,000 downloads! I’ve been tracking my Amazon rankings and even now, more than a week later, I have seen a big bump in sales of all my books. In addition, there have been more than 30 new reviews (mostly good, a couple of crappy ones—why do they do that when they got it for free?!). The rights to my other e-books are owned by Penguin, so I won’t know about those sales until they send me royalty statements, but I have to assume from the rankings that they're doing pretty well.
I should note, BookBub doesn't accept every applicant, and they don't seem to take brand new books. Your book has to have a track record with at least a few good reviews first.

Will I do it again? Oh, yeah. The next book in my series, Inkslingers Ball, is scheduled for release in May, and I will make my standalone available. That is, assuming BookBub hasn’t priced themselves out of the market by then.
What do you do to get your books seen?

Forensic Psychologists in Fiction

Guest post by Stacy Green

Forensic psychologists aren’t profilers.                     

According to the forensic psychologist I recently interviewed, forensic psychologists as profilers is the biggest misconception the general public has of their profession.

These people are essential to our legal system. They make crucial decisions about offenders every day, but are usually grossly misrepresented in both fiction and television. I’ve spent several weeks researching forensic psychology for a trilogy I’m working on, and I wanted to share some of what I’ve learned with the readers of Crime Fiction Collective.

Forensic psychologists don’t visit crime scenes or consult with detectives in search of a serial killer. They work within the court system, and in most states, they have two primary functions: to ascertain if a defendant was insane when he/she committed the crime, and if the offender is competent to stand trial. Their testimony is vital in deciding how a criminal will be tried, and if deemed incompetent to stand trial, they will advise a course of treatment so the offender can recover to competency. 

So what’s the process? Once a forensic psychologist is contacted by the judge or an attorney, they collect all collateral data pertaining to the case: previous interviews, crime scene photos, police video and reports, etc. In other words, a pile of paperwork big enough to make the eyes bleed. But it’s a key part of their process. 

Then it’s time to talk to the offender. Depending on the age and type of crime, the interview consists of risk assessment and various psychological tests. One of the biggest problems forensic psychologists have is defendants who malinger – the psychological term for faking insanity. 

The McNaughton Rule is the highest standard for determining the insanity plea, and the vast majority of defendants don’t qualify. An individual must be so deeply psychotic they truly don’t know what they did was wrong, and that’s rare. 

The three types of most skilled malingers are those who have taken hallucinogens in the past, ex-cons who’ve been to prison and observed mental illness first-hand, and individuals with genuine mental illness, such as schizophrenics taking their meds. 

Experts know true mentally disturbed people don’t jump in and share information about their psychoses. It’s often hard to get them to engage and even more difficult to get them to discuss what’s going on in their heads. Fakers, on the other hand, love to talk about the voices in their heads and the various conspiracy theories they “believe” in. 

Fortunately, a forensic psychologist can rely on more than just gut instinct and observation to figure out who’s malingering. They can turn to the offender’s prior records. Is there a history of mental problems? Have other professionals suspected malingering? By combing through the paperwork, a forensic psychologist can get a pretty good idea of what’s going on. 

Structured testing also helps. There are questions designed to trick the fakers, and my favorite is: We only hear voices in one ear – do you hear voices in your left or right ear? Of course this isn’t true, but the malingerer doesn’t know that. The ones who are faking pick an ear and give themselves away.

So what can we take from this? Forensic psychologists aren’t profilers. They are soldiers, working diligently in the trenches to sort out the bad from the worse and making sure the offender gets the treatment and/or punishment they need. 

As Indie writers, we’re under a microscope, and creating realistic portrayals of popular professions will go a long way in gaining credibility. 

Writers, what do you think? Are mental health professionals and law enforcement often misrepresented in fiction? What are the biggest misconceptions you see?


Stacy Green has degrees in sociology and journalism and uses her fascination of the criminal mind to explore true crime on her popular Thriller Thursday posts at her blog, Turning the Page. When she's not writing, she spends her time with her precocious daughter and supportive husband.

Stacy's debut suspense novel, INTO THE DARK, releases from MuseItUp Publishing on November 30th.

INTO THE DARK: 

He sees her when she's sleeping. He knows when she's awake. Her life he’s determined to take. Featuring a heroine on the edge of disaster, a tormented villain, and Las Vegas’s infamous storm drains, Into the Dark mixes suspense with a dash of romance.

Stacy's blog, www.stacygreenauthor.com
Twitter: @StacyGreen26
Facebook: Stacy Green, Author
Website: www.stacygreen.net