Peschel Press Newsletter for April 2023

The Peschel Press Newsletter for April 2023

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!

We pressed [PUBLISH] on Agatha Christie, She Watched! Two and half years of work are done. We’ve watched 201 movies, I reviewed them, Bill edited them, we developed the organization and concept art, and Bill made it happen, all 427 pages.

It’s a gorgeous 8½ by 11 coffee-table-sized book containing over 1,000 photographs to accompany the 201 reviews. Each movie gets a two-page spread with the detailed review, banner, portraits of the six most important characters, cast list, any locations, and two different ratings: fidelity to text (i.e., did the script follow Agatha’s story) and quality of movie on its own (i.e., did the film work on its own terms as a movie).

It’s listed at Amazon at $19.95. You can use the “look inside” feature to get a closer look.

Bill still must make it available on IngramSpark for bookstores and libraries but the first, biggest hurdle is done.

Will there be an ebook, you ask? We don’t know yet. Bill’s also slaving away on that version BUT — and it’s a very big but — because of the huge amount of art, the file size might be too large. He won’t learn if it’s possible until after he makes the ebook and uploads it. Then he’ll know if an ebook edition is possible. As it is, we already know most of the art must be removed. We also already know the ebook is going to be $9.99, $10 less than the cost of the trade paperback because the file size is so large. So for $10 more, you can get a physical book instead of a file on your Kindle.

File size limitations are why we didn’t release an ebook version of Sew Cloth Grocery Bags: we couldn’t include the pattern layouts, diagrams, and hundreds of photographs.

We’ll find out!

We’re still watching the last few Agatha films, by the way. We’re working our way through the Chinese drama series Checkmate, which transformed Agatha yet again. It licensed seven novels and at least two short stories, transferring them to a new pair of detectives operating during the second decade of the Republic of China (1912–1949).

Eventually, all the international adaptations will become a small ebook and a small, separate trade paperback on their own.
The foreign adaptations have been interesting and very different, but you’ve got to get used to English subtitles that may or may not reflect what the actors onscreen are actually saying. Even when watching English films with English subtitles, you can see the words don’t match what the actors are saying. With foreign films, it’s probably much worse.

Upcoming Events

If you want to examine Agatha Christie, She Watched in person, we’ve got six events coming up.

From Thursday, 27 April through Sunday, 30 April 2023, we’ll be at Malice Domestic, the cozy mystery convention taking place at the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel & Conference Center in Bethesda, Maryland. Day passes are available for Friday, Saturday, or Sunday if you only have time for one day. The day pass lets you into all the programming for that day, and you get a big bag of swag. We’ll be in the dealer’s room so be sure to stop by.

We’ll be back at Cupboard Maker Books for their local author weekend on Saturday, 6 May 2023. We’ll be showing off our books (including Agatha Christie, She Watched!) from 3pm until 4:45pm. Local authors will rotate in and out all day and Sunday too, so stop by anytime. You’re sure to find a new author you’ll love.

The very next day, Sunday, 7 May 2023, is Forty Elephants! This is a vintage & handmade market for artisans, taking place at Mount Hope Winery outside of Manheim. If you’ve been to the Pennsylvania Ren Faire, this is the same location. Forty Elephants prides itself on not having the same stuff you see everywhere else. They’re serious about vintage: everything needs to be 80’s or older. Their other category is handmade and unique. We fit into this category because we write our own books, rather than reselling used paperbacks. It’s a good bet we’ll be the only indie writers at the show. It’s all day and it’s free. You do not know what you’ll see at Forty Elephants. If the organizer does what she did last year, there will be food trucks and vintage cars on display too. She also runs a scavenger hunt, so keep your eyes open and you’ll win one of forty prizes. There’s no fee and parking is free.

On Saturday, 13 May 2023, we’ll be at Hershey ArtFest somewhere in the sea of canopies wrapped around the Cocoa Beanery and The Englewood Barn. There won’t be a monsoon this year. The Derry Township Historical Society’s long-range plan is to become a destination art show, probably lasting two days. Each year is bigger and better than the last (if the weather cooperates). Like Forty Elephants, you won’t see the same old things here. There’s no fee and parking is free.

We’ve been accepted by the Gaithersburg Book Festival! Yay! This takes place in Bohrer Park on Saturday, 20 May 2023 in Gaithersburg, MD. It’s free and there’s plenty of free parking so you’ll get your book fix with hundreds of authors, author events, and 20,000 visitors. We’ll be under one of the giant canopies: look for Peschel Press Blue!

And finally, this year we’ll be at Old Annville Day on Saturday, 10 June 2023. This big arts and crafts festival takes over eight blocks of Main Street in Annville, PA. This should be fun and interesting and will let you see some of Annville, a charming, historic town east of Hershey. This is also free to attend.

How to Tell People You Published a Book?

As an indie writer, one of your most important tasks is publicity. How do you let people know that you’ve got a new book? That you’ve started a new series? That you’re going to be someplace where — gasp! — readers can talk to you in person in the real world?

You have many tools at your disposal, one of which you, dear reader, are reading right now.

The hard part with all of them is doing the work.

Your first step is your website. You do have one, right? You need to put your upcoming events on the front page of your website at the very top. We list ours on the righthand side, in date order from closest to furthest away. The top event is the one that’s coming up next. Your events should be updated as soon as you schedule something new or an event passes and you remove it from the calendar. How far in advance should you list something? It depends on how much space you’ve got and how many events. Always give at least two weeks notice; more is better.

Do not, do not, do not, make readers search your website to find your appearance schedule. If a potential fan must scroll through multiple drop-down menus to find your events listings, they won’t.

Even more important? Keep your events up to date! I can’t tell you how many author websites I’ve seen with their current event taking place before the pandemic. Worse, I know for a fact — because I’ve seen them in person — they’re doing events and not bothering to update their website.

Yes, we’re all busy. But if you want people to attend your readings and signings, then tell them where you’ll be and do it in advance. Another mistake is telling people after the fact about the fun time you had at the winery literary festival. Your readers aren’t going to hop into their time machine to attend. They’ll just be annoyed that they missed something fun.

Your next step is your newsletter. You can do lots of things with a newsletter. You’ve seen what I do: upcoming books, status reports, occasional news about what we’re up to, discussions of the writing business, and our upcoming events. A newsletter lets you give more details and provide links to the venue’s own website for even more detailed information, like who else is going to be there. If a big-name author’s going to be at the same event, you can bask in reflected glory.

Do you have a Facebook page? The same rules apply. List all your events up top where people can find them, list them as soon as you confirm a date, and update regularly when the event’s done or you’re adding a new one. The same is true of your Twitter account.

We update all those sites for Peschel Press but I’ll admit we’re lax with Twitter.

What I really like is Instagram (thanks for following us!). Unlike Facebook or Twitter, it’s extremely searchable if you properly hashtag your posts. I’ve gotten hits on Instagram posts that are two years old. I make up a schedule for posts so each event gets at least two separate announcements on Instagram. Bigger events like Malice, Forty Elephants, and Gaithersburg will get three, four, or even five announcements, spread out over the weeks before the event. I rarely post more than twice a day so if I’ve got multiple upcoming events, I space them out over each week so my page isn’t cluttered and I don’t jam people’s feeds.

When I make a post on Instagram, the website, or Facebook, I try to use the venue’s own art. They like it, they provide it to be used, and if all the vendors at a given event use the same art, it helps the public remember better because they keep seeing the same image. Supposedly, it takes ten repetitions of an ad (or more!) to make any impression at all.

If you’re on any other social media, do the same thing: let people know where you’ll be with plenty of advance notice and take down events listings when they’re over.

We do have our podcasts about Agatha Christie but for those, I don’t make specific event announcements because I don’t know when someone will listen to the podcast. Instead, I remind listeners to check our website for up-to-date information.

Advertising your events so fans can find you is the obvious reason to go to this trouble.

But there’s another reason — an unobvious reason — that can bite you if you’re slack. It’s that every book event I’ve attended has a dozen or more authors competing for each available slot. Your book event behavior matters so much that it can determine if you’ll be asked back.

So does whether or not you advertised the event.

Why should a book festival accept a local author with a tiny following who does nothing to advertise the festival when they can accept another local author who promotes the heck out of their upcoming events? You aren’t advertising just yourself. You’re advertising the entire show. If each attending author promotes the event, that advertising reaches a much wider audience, ensuring that more fans show up at the front door.

Don’t think the organizers don’t notice. They do. They see who worked hard to promote the festival and who did nothing, just like they see who showed up and sat behind their table playing with their phone instead of engaging with readers.

Don’t be that writer. If you don’t like promoting yourself, your books, and the events you’re doing, you should think seriously about not doing live events at all.

Promotion is part of your author job.

So update your appearance schedule on your social media, thanks again for joining us, and see you next month!

That’s the Peschel Press Newsletter for April 2023. If you want to get the latest news from us on time, consider signing up in the box on the right!