In your Jammies?

"Lisa Black wows us with another tense and unputdownable thriller. She is, quite simply, one of the best storytellers around."

-- Tess Gerritsen

Lisa Black spent the happiest five years of her life in a morgue.

HANK: Lisa wrote that. And it's just about the best pick-up line I've ever heard. I met Lisa at--where, Thrillerfest? The Guppies? Someplace wonderful. But the impending release of her newest book Evidence of Murder sent the intrepid Lisa off into new territories, places unknown, uncharted waters.

Look--just ahead: The blog tour zone.

How'd it go? How'd she do it? And what happened in the blog tour zone? And what--did she wear?

LISA:
I am not a computer guru. I am not a junkie or a hacker…well, I may qualify as a junkie but only because I spend about 70% of my waking hours in front a computer, but that’s not by choice. My day job is a latent print analyst, so I sit in front of a monitor looking at fingerprints and writing reports. My other day job is a writer, so I sit in front of a monitor with a blank page on it while beads of blood slowly gather on my forehead. I have a website which I haphazardly maintain, but no blog. The rest of the time is spent on email, research and searching for the lowest airfare.

I truly do not read all the MSN reports on Kate & Jon, Michael Jackson, and the Octomom. (I might indulge in the latest sure-fire diet or Ten Things Never to Say on a First Date. I’ve never even Twittered.

So I am not the most likely candidate to sign up for a virtual tour. That is, until I figured out that a virtual tour can be done largely by guest-blogging on other people’s sites. A surprising amount of your writer friends will have blogs that they will be only too happy to let you guest on. It gives them a day off, and a new reason to tell their friends to check out their blog that day, and gives them exposure to new readers since—one hopes—you will tell your friends to also check out the blog that day. Provided you write something passably likeable, everyone wins.

Best of all, these blogs can be written days or weeks in advance, with plenty of time to ponder and revise, so that when your pub date arrives you will be available for more in-the-flesh type events and not at home frantically scribbling out blogs.

And so it worked for me. Following the advice of fantasy author Sandy Lender, I set a time frame (two weeks after pub date—maybe I’ll go for a month next time), printed myself a calendar for the month, and set about trying to fill in each date. About 5 weeks in advance, I contacted writer acquaintances of mine and asked if I could guest blog. I have actually met most of them at one convention or another, but some I know only through cyberspace. One I didn’t know from Adam (or, more appropriately, Eve).

But I sent straightforward and only slightly pleading emails to friend and stranger alike. The worst thing they can say is no, and since they’re writers, they’ll be polite about it (unlike people who post comments to online news stories—don’t even get me started!). The only thing I would do differently next time is start sooner. For some sites, five weeks isn’t enough. Some will post only once or twice a week, so their schedule fills up fast. It wouldn’t hurt to put your feelers out a good three months in advance.

I am lucky in my choice of day job—forensic specialist—so that most mystery writer blogs wanted to hear about that. Some sites asked me specific questions, some gave suggestions, and some said to write about whatever I wanted. The former were the easiest blogs to write, the latter the hardest, which is why I don’t have a blog in the first place. The point of your tour is to highlight your book first and yourself second, so find something unusual about both those things to discuss. An occupation—of either you or your character—is a great topic.

People always want to hear behind-the-scenes tidbits of any job, whether you’re a cop, a teacher or the guy who paints stripes on the asphalt. Just flick on the Discovery channel for proof of this.

The catch is to make every blog different. You might begin to run short of stories after two or three weeks of daily blogging, but each essay must be distinct.

Podcasts and phone-in radio interviews are also great venues which do not require you to be physically present, but be careful. These cannot be done in advance. You have to actually answer the phone at the agreed-upon time, which can be treacherous for me. They’re usually early in the morning, and I came home from work the night before having completely forgotten about them and didn’t check my datebook.

Warning: your publicist gets really irritated with you when she’s gone through the trouble to set something up and her client is a no-show. Any other event, when I actually have to be somewhere at a certain time, I have no trouble remembering. But radio interviews, which I can roll out of bed ten minutes before air time and do them in my pjs…what can I say? I have a mind like a sieve. My advice: even if you have to do it two days in advance, leave yourself a note to set the alarm. Then leave yourself a note by the alarm to remind yourself why you set it.

But, just like blogs, you can do them in your pajamas.

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In her job as a forensic scientist Lisa analyzed gunshot residue on hands and clothing, hairs, fibers, paint, glass, DNA, blood and many other forms of trace evidence, as well as crime scenes. Now she’s as a latent print examiner and CSI working with fingerprints and crime scenes. (And see how nicely her book cover mirrors that?) She has been published in Germany, the Netherlands, France, the United Kingdom, Spain and Japan. Her website is http://www.lisa-black.com

and she has promised to help any of you Reds out there with your blog tour, no problem.

HANK: Just seeing if you're actually reading this, She didn't really say that.

But--any questoins on blog touring? I have one! And it's right to the point, although my mother and Miss Manners might shush me from asking. Lisa, do you think it helped your sales?