Welcome to Lee Thompson’s A BEAUTIFUL MADNESS blog tour! This blog, and the others participating, will receive a paperback copy to give to a random reader who leaves a comment and shares this post.
Throughout the book tour, I’ll be sharing fun facts about my first Mystery/Thriller, and also offering dubious advice to novice writers because I’ve had writers and editors farther along the path than myself give me tips that have helped me tremendously. If you want to up your game, pay attention and pass what you find useful on to those in your critique groups.
If you’re here as a reader, thanks so much. You’re every author’s life source. You’re the yin to our yang. The stories we set down on paper don’t seem to exist until someone else has read them, and the more the merrier.
Building a Fan Base
I love hearing from fans, and dozens of them—after trading countless emails with me—end up becoming friends, two of which also became beta readers. I think fans give us a lot of energy. We all need someone to believe in us, someone we can vent to, someone with shared interests, someone we feel gets us, and for a professional writer we can’t spread the word ourselves.
I’d bet most of my new fans (99.9 percent) have come from readers like Jennifer, Chris, Char, Jon, Bill, Nancy, Kasia, Jason, Dave, Mark, Pierre, Anita, Ken, Les, Kimberly, Mercedes, Sandy, etc., recommending one of my novels or novellas to one of their friends (someone I never knew existed).
Aside from the quality of our writing, what stories we choose to tell, and our attitude, fans (or a lack of them) make or break us. They help us make dream into reality.
Fan mail: One of the most surreal and rewarding payoffs of being a writer is when you first receive a message from a stranger saying your story made them cry, or think, or remember, or simply stay up all night finishing your novel.
Reviews: A writers first reviews can be super thrilling or devastating, depending on what people are saying. Yet some of them can also be very instructional.
Changing stories: I’m at a point where I’m writing more realistic, gritty Crime fiction and more mainstream suspense. The big question when any writer does this is: Will fans follow that author when they switch genres?
I don’t know. I’m sure some will.
Building your audience is a never-ending process.
You’ll gain new readers in trickles and splurges.
After you write an amazing novel and you have people contacting you about it, I think the most important thing is being approachable. But be warned, if you’re anything like me, it can become cumbersome when you’re trading emails with people a couple hours a day because part of you, like me, is selfish, and time is limited, so we hit a point where we think, Man, I could be writing the next book right now instead of answering emails…
Yet without our fans, we might as well write a manuscript and then burn it.
What has worked best for me is to put my writing first, before I get into interacting with people. Although sometimes I don’t have any energy left after writing, and that’s okay, readers aren’t waiting impatiently for me to reply, they have their own lives.
To build a fan base I think you have to write an exciting book (by this I’m not talking about action, but a story populated by characters that excite the reader), and then another exciting book, and another still after that.
What excites you most about your favorite novels?
Write it down. Are those same things in your novel? Can you find ways to bring them even more to the forefront while simultaneously eliminating dead wood?
One of the best things that helped me gain a surge of fans is when Jason White at the Horror Aficionados group on Goodreads made my novella When We Join Jesus in Hell one of their book-of-the-month reads. The group there is great and had awesome questions and it was a blast to hear their thoughts about that novella. I made new friends there too, although I am not much of a forum person since I spend as much time as I have energy for to create new novels.
If you’re fortunate enough to have a book discussion group read your book, interact with them, and again, be a professional. Also remember that old adage, people might not remember what you say or what you do, but they will remember you for how you make them feel…
Readers talking to other readers about your novel will keep a roof over your head, food in your belly, and satisfaction in your heart.
As a reader, what most attracts you to an author? What are some of your most memorable experiences with a book or a writer?
Buy A BEAUTIFUL MADNESS (Kindle:) http://www.amazon.com/Beautiful-Madness-Lee-Thompson-ebook/dp/B00K36ITGS/
Buy A BEAUTIFUL MADNESS (Paperback:) http://www.amazon.com/A-Beautiful-Madness-Lee-Thompson/dp/1940544297/
A Texas Senator and his wife go missing… On the same day, their son is slaughtered by an enigmatic killer on the lawn of ex-Governor Edward Wood's residence. Sammy, Wood's drug dealing son, suspects his father of the crime. After all, his old man snapped once before and crippled his wife with a lead pipe. But there's something more to these events…something deeper and festering just beneath the surface…In direct opposition to Homicide Detective Jim Thompson, Sammy begins an investigation of his own, searching for the truth in a labyrinth of lies, deception, depravity and violence that drags him deeper into darkness and mayhem with each step. And in doing so, brings them all into the sights of an elusive and horrifying killer who may not be what he seems.A brutal killer on a rampage of carnage…a hardened detective on the brink…an antihero from the shadows…a terrifying mystery that could destroy them all…
Author bio: Lee Thompson is the author of the Suspense novels A BEAUTIFUL MADNESS (August 2014), IT’S ONLY DEATH (January 2015), and WITH FURY IN HAND (May 2015). The dominating threads weaved throughout his work are love, loss, and learning how to live again. A firm believer in the enduring power of the human spirit, Lee believes that stories, no matter their format, set us on the path of transformation. He is represented by the extraordinary Chip MacGregor of MacGregor Literary. Visit Lee’s website to discover more: www.leethompsonfiction.com
A BEAUTIFUL MADNESS main page (http://www.leethompsonfiction.com/?page_id=2423)
Enter to win a paperback copy! There will also be a grand prize at the end of the tour where one winner will receive my novel, and four other DarkFuse novels in Kindle format!
Simply leave a comment on this blog and share the link.
Thanks to those who participate.
Happy reading~ Lee