Friends With Benefits...Marketing Continues...

Now is the nitty gritty time with Friends With Benefits. Over the next few days, you'll start seeing more and more book touring dates on the ledger. You'll also see less posts about my personal life and more about the upcoming book. No matter how urgent you want to make it, the planning you do months before your book comes out just don't seem too urgent. But a month before, things then seem to be ready to go. So you've got to focus.

I've adjusted the Atlanta date, and it looks like I will be spending at least a week in NYC.

Another part of my strategy is to do combination Divine Nine/Friends With Benefits signings. A LOT of my readers have the Divine Nine, but have never had it signed. That's mostly because I concentrated lectures/signings at college campuses for the past four years, rather than bookstore signings. But this is a great way to get my non-fiction readers to pick up my fiction.

I still haven't heard from Kensington about their publicity plans, but once I finish my book tour schedule, I can let them know where I'm going to be and then they can coordinate their interviews accordingly. My travel schedule is going to be hellish, particularly since I have to pack this all in with three weeks.

Another thing I'm doing for Friends With Benefits is create posters. I've never done that before, but I want posters in bookstores, college campus bookstores, and as give aways at signings. Remember, thousands of books on the shelves. You need guideposts so people will pick up your book.

I also have a new batch of galleys, so I'm going to send them to a list of radio stations and newspapers contacts I have.

For the past year, I've been collecting email addresses from potential readers, and last week I sent notes to about one thousand of them. I still have about five thousand more to send. My fraternity brother Barry Benson throws parties in the Los Angeles area, and he's sending an email blast to about 10,000 LA folks. That should pretty much guarantee a large initial signing at Eso Won and also that I make the Los Angeles Times bestsellers list. You only have to make it once to use it for marketing.

Also, I'm about to do a series of interviews with black newspapers and campus newspapers.

Things are starting to roll, and they should roll until around the end of September.