Marilyn's Musings

Which ones do you belong to and why? I belong to several. Mystery Writers of America. I joined long ago when my first book was published--and it wasn't even a mystery. I've maintained my membership through the years. And to be honest, I've kept it mostly because of the prestige associated with it. I've never lived close enough to either the Southern or Northern California chapters to attend any of the events. Sisters in Crime. I joined the national group year ago, before there were many chapters. I get a lot of information from being on the listserve. I went to the first get-together where a group of mystery writers gathered together in Fresno to talk about organizing a chapter--now the San Joaquin SinC. I've belonged ever since and do attend meetings whenever I can. I've gotten a lot out of these meetings, besides making many, many friends and hearing lots of interesting speakers, buying lot of author's books, I also got some ideas for books...

One of the facets of being an author is having to promote in order to sell your books, especially when your with a smaller press (and in the case of a mystery author, a press that isn't recognized by Mystery Writers of America). Independent bookstores are usually willing to have booksignings by authors who aren't so well known--but those bookstores are an endangered species. I will be having a signing at one of my favorite independents, Russo's Book Store in the Marketplace, Ming Ave., Bakersfield, Saturday, November 10th from 1 to 5. Book fairs are great fun. This weekend I'll be in Springville with a booth at the Apple Festival both days. This is a fun event but exhausting. My favorite thing to do is giving talks to writers, libraries and service clubs. With writers clubs, I love to give workshops on many different subjects, from craft to getting published--and sometimes I do that at libraries too. Often with libraries and service groups I'll talk about my writing...