All Talked Out

My recent blogs have been focused on something the majority of us learn to do at an early age – talking.

 

Chris giving talk on Tartan Noir at Crimefest 2012

 

I’ve been doing a lot of talking lately starting with Crimefest, where I talked about Scottish Crime Writing and how it came by the name of Tartan Noir. You can see my report on Crimefest here http://chrislongmuir.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/crimefest-2012.html Following that I wrote an article for the blog Do Authors Dream of Electric Books where I considered how personal appearances and talks could be used as a promotional tool. You can check that out here http://authorselectric.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/on-conference-trail-by-chris-longmuir.html
 

Chris Longmuir delivering her speech at A Summer Audience in Tetbury

 
Hot on the heels of Crimefest was the Love a Happy Ending event – A Summer Audience – at Tetbury. That was really good because I met up with loads of writers and readers associated with loveahappyending.com, an online literary community of writers, readers and editors, and of course I had to blog about that. You’ll see my blog looking at when virtual friends become real flesh and blood friends, here http://chrislongmuir.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/when-do-virtual-friends-become-real.html But I also gave a cut down version of my talk to Love a Happy Ending and they published it on their site. It’s here if you want to have a look at it http://loveahappyending.com/what-do-psychopaths-and-mystery-writers-have-in-common/
 

Chris still rabbiting on about psychopaths and mystery writers at Tetbury

After those two big events you would think I would have relaxed back to recuperate, but no, there were two more to go. A library talk on the last day of June, where I must admit I used some of the material I’d prepared for Tetbury, interspersed with some readings of my published books, but I also gave them a preview of the work in progress by reading the first chapter. The only problem with that is I am now being hassled by my readers to get the book finished. Yikes, there’s been so much going on this year that my writing time seems to have gone down the drain. Can’t disappoint my readers though, so it looks as if I’m going to have to chain myself to my computer and get on with it.
 
Finally, I gave a highly successful talk to my local writers’ circle on epublishing. So that’s me now until the end of August when I’m booked to talk about epublishing to a writers’ group on the west coast.
 
So, has my marathon of talking been worth it? Well, I did notice a surge in sales after each talk, so I suppose that proves personal appearances and talking does have a marketing spin off. On the other hand it could simply be a coincidence because my sales have been increasing month by month since I first started to epublish. But the main pay off for me has been enjoyment. I have loved meeting my readers and people who are enthusiastic about my writing, even if it has been at the expense of the amount of writing I can do. So I would say, yes, it has been worth it.
 
In the meantime I’m all talked out.

http://www.chrislongmuir.co.uk