LAGNIAPPE, GOSSIP, AND CROSS-DRESSING IN OUR NOVELS
Roland Yeomans here – reader, writer, dreamer.
Have you noticed in our recent Indie novels, everyone is selling, but few are buying?
How do we overcome that recent inertia in customer response?
The old catch phrase is to think outside the “Box.”
I think something both newer and older is called for:
We must expand the dimensions of that “box” by looking at “novel” ways of writing and marketing our books.
We must push out the boundaries of what a new novel can be, what it can offer the buyer.
Lagniappe is a tradition down here in Southwest Louisiana:
Lagniappe is something given to a customer as a bonus or extra gift to say “Thank You for Doing Business with Me.”
I decided to do just that in my new novel:
At the end of my novel, I put a 6,000 word story focusing on three of the not-so-innocents 64 years in the future.
The reader gets another whole new adventure with characters he has grown to know. It adds depth to the short story and to the novel he has just finished.
And he gets it as a surprise and for FREE.
I have primed the pump for Word of Mouth from her/him and garnered a stronger possibility, the reader will buy the next book in the NOT-SO-INNOCENTS saga.
How cool is that, right?
Let’s Gossip!
Gossip. It’s as old as the Serpent asking Eve, “Has God really said if you eat this fruit, you will surely die?”
Let’s talk the gossip found in Book Clubs.
There’s a way of interacting through books that you don’t get through any ordinary transaction in life.
Reading is a solitary act, an experience of interiority.
To read a book is to burst the confines of one’s consciousness and enter another world.
What happens when you read a book in the company of others?
You enter its world together but see it in your own way.
And it’s through sharing those differences of perception that the book group acquires its emotional power.
It’s like sitting around gossiping about people, only you’re gossiping about characters in fiction, which is more meaningful.
SO … I included after my Lagniappe short story, a Reader’s Discussion Guide with questions and links to internet sites for them to read the facts for themselves.
I wanted to make my new novel Book Club Friendly, to make it easier for them to get together to talk about the subjects and personalities found in my pages.
More priming the pump for Word of Mouth.
More Pushing Back the Boundaries of that Box.
NOW ABOUT THAT CROSS DRESSING {Hart jumps up and down}
Ah, that WAS misleading but it grabbed your attention more than Cross Pollination would have, didn’t it?
How is my new novel engaged with cross-pollination?
I am honored enough to have a story in this anthology.
While young Loy (her real name is Myrna) is the true heroine of WEDNESDAY’S CHILD, the mysterious Greek physician who gave her that nickname is the narrator.
His name is Lucanus.
And Lucanus is the physician for the 1st Air/Steamship, the Xanadu, in THE NOT-SO-INNOCENTS ABROAD.
He appears in the second act of the novel, but like Yoda, he is a crucial element to the story being played out.
And at the end in Tangiers, he plays Doc Holliday to Sam McCord’s Wyatt Earp.
Cross-Pollination –
If readers like Lucanus in THE THING THAT TURNED ME, they will pick up THE NOT-SO-INNOCENTS ABROAD.
And if they like him in my new novel, they will want to pick up the anthology.
More Word of Mouth.
More Pushing Back the Boundaries of that darn Box.
And talking about that scene in Tangiers, here is the tune that played in my head as I wrote it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZTkg8GGEOo
The passengers? An insane Abraham Lincoln, a crippled General Sherman, a vampiric Benjamin Franklin, a clueless Mark Twain, 11 year old Nikola Tesla, and his faithful black cat, Macak.
Cost of Passage? Only $9.99!
ABOUT
THE AUTHOR
Roland
Yeomans was born in Detroit, Michigan. But his last memories of that
city are hub-caps and kneecaps since, at the age of seven, he
followed the free food when his parents moved to Lafayette,
Louisiana. The hitch-hiking after their speeding car from state to
state was a real adventure. Once in Louisiana, Roland learned
strange new ways of pronouncing David and Richard when they were last
names. And it was not a pleasant sight when he pronounced Comeaux
for the first time.
He
has a Bachelor’s degree in English Education and a Master’s
degree in Psychology. He has been a teacher, counselor, book store
owner, and even a pirate since he once worked at a tax preparation
firm.
So
far he has written thirty-three books. You can find Roland at his
web page: www.rolandyeomans.blogspot.com
or at his private table in Meilori’s.
The web page is safer to visit. But if you insist on visiting
Meilori’s,
bring a friend who runs slower than you.
