Update on Dacre
In case any of you have noticed my conspicuous absence, or here is my long winded excuse for not getting done things, that I was supposed to get done over the past 2 months!
I have been sequestered up in Saluda North Carolina since early June working feverishly finishing off the final copy edits on “Dracula the Un-Dead”. With great joy and relief I sent off my final version on July 3rd to my publisher.
Since then, Ian Holt, my co author and I have been engaging in a necessary form of marketing. (torture) It is called social media marketing, Website, Facebook, Blogging and Twitter. Up until a year or so ago this was not necessary, but since pop culture has embraced this form of communication as necessary it has become expected of authors, producers, musicians and actors who want to get into and remain in the buzz! I have been told that 50% of the success in writing a book is in the writing of the book, the remaining 50% is in the marketing, both by the publisher and by the author. So I have been learning how to be hip and engage in all sorts of social media interaction on a daily basis.
In addition, I have been working with foreign publishers setting up my tour, speeches, power point presentations and book signings in various countries this fall.
Ian and I have attended the Book Expo of America in New York back in May and the Comicon July 24-26 in San Diego. We are getting primed up for the Vampire-con in Los Angles in mid August. At all of these events we usually sign advance reader copies of our book, give a talk or participate on a panel discussion with other authors.
In the mean time we have hired a Licensing and Merchandising agent to investigate possible licensees or tie ins to products that will pay us to be associated with them.
We have a few leads; T shirts, credit cards, bottled water, to name a few.
I am also pursuing a related cause with the Bram Stoker Society in Dublin. When in Dublin this spring with Jenne I noticed that there is no statue or bust or even a painting of Bram displayed in a prominent location. In fact no one could tell me if anything like this is in existence, other then one done by the Romanians in the Borgo pass. So I am embarking on a fund raising mission to raise the necessary monies to have a bust commissioned once the Bram Stoker Society gets the necessary permissions to have it displayed in an appropriate location in Dublin. This may take a while. We were originally aiming for a 2012 unveiling at a proposed literary conference in Dublin coinciding with the hundredth anniversary of Bram’s passing. This I am told may be too optimistic a time frame. Nonetheless, I have verbal pledges of nine thousand US once we get the go ahead to start collecting the funds.
If you care to follow the action as we build up to the book release in mid October visit our website www.DraculatheUn-Dead.com I will be posting a new blog about once or twice a week. Join our new Facebook fan page, or sign up to follow me on a Twitter account. Really it does not hurt too much! (But then again that is what the count said to Mina Harker.)
Tags: Dacre, General