The Carus Chronicles

Coming out of a year-long maternity leave gave me time and clarity to review my promotional and marketing tactics. One thing I never gave much thought to (besides setting up) was my website. I put it up relatively fast and without much effort, slapped my books on the page and included some reviews, awards and contact information. I read a lot of marketing and promotional blogs and articles all touting the importance of a good website. I figured I was good. I didn't need to do anything else to my website besides general maintenance and updating my books because it looked nice and contained the pertinent information. Right? WRONG! I needed to improve my website (and still do), because at the end of the day, although my website is ABOUT me and my books, it's FOR the readers. When I originally designed my website, I lost site...ha, ha, ha, get it? Get it?!?...of this one simple, yet crucial fact. I needed to turn my website  from PASSIVE to INTERACTIVE In no particular...

My debut novel, Shift Happens , is due out sometime in the Spring of 2014. Probably April-ish. I don't have a set release date still, but I want to be as successful as possible. My publisher recommends a long list of things I can do to help promote my book and me as an author. These are the ones I have already completed: Website (  http://www.jcmckenzie.ca ) Blog (duh!) Use taglines on all blog posts (check) Facebook ( http://www.facebook.com/j.c.mckenzie.author ) Twitter (@JC_McKenzie) Post tweets automatically to Facebook (check)  Make a newsletter (I use Mailchimp, and I've tested it. First one due out Dec 15th) And then there's the one's I haven't completed: Post tweets automatically to your website (I'm not sure about this. Seems overkill?) Get people to sign up for your newsletter (how?!?) Create an online press kit (seems like I need a lot of the other things on this list first) Make a video book trailer (I covered my current succe...