Talking Virtual Book Tours with True Crime Author Lynda Drews

Lynda Drews, a Wisconsin native and dedicated runner, recently gave the commencement speech at the University of Wisconsin La Crosse, her college Alma mater. One lesson she shared with the graduates was: “to journal your life.” When Lynda, a marketing executive, made the decision to retire after her thirty-year career, she returned to an earlier passion. Run at Destruction is the outcome. Lynda and her husband, Jim, a retired guidance counselor and an accomplished runner, have two sons, Collin and Chris, and a golden retriever named Bailey. The family has lived in Green Bay since the mid-seventies and helped launch the local running movement. The city now hosts the nation’s fourth largest 10K, the Bellin Run.

www.lyndadrews.com www.lmdrews.wordpress.com

Lynda Drews is  on a virtual book tour with Pump Up Your Book Promotion Virtual Book Tours in November and is here with us today to give her impression of virtual book tours and online book marketing.

Thank you for this interview, Lynda.  Can we start out by having you tell us briefly what your new book is about?

Lynda: I appreciate this opportunity to talk about Run at Destruction, which I feel is unique. It’s the only book categorized in these two ways: first – True Crime and second – Sports/Running. There’s a love triangle between three teachers/runners, a suspicious bathtub drowning, and a small-town community rattled by speculation. But rather than an intriguing work of fiction, the events in Run at Destruction really happened and they happened to my best friend and running partner, Pamela Bulik. My book takes place during a historical U.S. time period – the running boom of the 80s.  Pam and her husband, Bob, were members of our close-knit running group and two corners of a three-teacher love-triangle, while Linda, a charismatic teacher/runner, completed the third. Normally, football is Green Bay’s only obsession… but that changed when Pam died. Our city prided itself on its extraordinary low crime rate, fifty percent below the national average. There’d never been a tragedy like hers – “somebody up on the hill with a fancy bathroom.” Inside this baffling murder mystery, portrayals of our running community’s friendship are layered between detective work and courtroom drama.  When the trial, deemed to be one of the most sensationalized in Green Bay’s history, unfolds, and I take the stand, the evidence teeters between premeditated murder and a tragic accident, and the reader must decide.

More and more authors are realizing the potential for sales that derives from virtual book tours.  Can you tell us your personal reasons why you chose a virtual book tour to help get the word out about your new book?

Lynda: I know that Run at Destruction is written by an unknown author, that is telling the story about an unknown case, that takes place in Green Bay, WI during the running boom of the 80s. Since its release in August, it’s been selling well on Amazon.com and in regionally based brick and mortar stores like Barnes & Noble, Borders, Waldenbooks, etc. A virtual book tour can be a cost effective means to reach a wider audience. It can also provide some key insight into the author that can’t be discussed at a traditional book talk. The reader, in turn, has the freedom to make comments to the author, opening up an intimate means of communication, not available at a book signing.

Is this the first time you have heard of them?

Lynda: My publisher, Tracy Ertl, from TitleTown Publishing recognized the power of social networking/marketing. She is a small publisher with a limited budget and looks for those routes-to-market that will give you more “bang for your buck.” She sent me an email recommending that I look into a virtual blog tour. I had a friend that had attended a writing workshop with me in Washington D.C. By chance, the two of us had found publishers at nearly the same time. In September I followed my friend’s Virtual Book Tour. I could see how it could generate “buzz” about her book and was excited to do the same with mine.

What do you hope to achieve through promoting your book through a virtual book tour?

Lynda: My own blog www.lmdrews.wordpress.com allows me to track those sites that are sending traffic to mine. I would love to see that my virtual book tour has driven new traffic to my blog site that, in turn, has given me new readers to create an on-going relationship. This virtual book tour will come to an end, but new posts to my blog will continue, focusing on the joys and challenges of becoming a first time author. I hope those that discover me during my virtual book tour will climb on board to share my evolving journey.

Do you promote online through other means?  Website?  Blog?

Lynda: About a year ago, I began my own blog, twitter, facebook, etc. Up to that point I had only developed my static website. I focused on those new efforts before my book’s official release date of August 7, 2009 and pre-sold nearly 2000 books.

Do you promote through Twitter and Facebook?  What are your links there?

Lynda: My Twitter name is @runnerwritergal and on Facebook, you can find me by searching for Lynda Drews in Green Bay. There is also a Lynda Drews Fan Club that’s been established by one of the “characters” in Run at Destruction.

What are your experiences with offline booksignings?  Which do you prefer – online or offline and can you give us the reasons why?

Lynda: I just completed a physical book tour in California last week traveling to Santa Rosa, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Long Beach. The talks and signings went well, but the overall cost of the trip far outweighed the amount of revenue I generated on my book. Of course there are now those readers in this new region that will hopefully tell five friends, who will then tell five friends, etc. and the word will get out. I do enjoy the personal interaction, but there are frustrations, too. Even with all of the publicity, you might show up at a locale for the signing and over a two-hour period only sign a few books. Book signings and talks are an extrovert’s job, which many authors are not. You have to “hawk” your book otherwise people may have the tendency to avert their eyes and just walk by. The online experience can make all authors extroverts!

Here’s a fun question.  If money was no object, how would you promote your book?

Lynda:  I’d secure USA Today media coverage that coincided with mass transit bus advertisements in the top 100 locales that sponsored major marathons – New York, Boston, San Francisco, Chicago, etc.

Thank you for this interview, Lynda.  Do you have any final words?

Lynda: Once your first book is published, there’s no turning back. It’s like giving birth… exciting, lots of hope for it’s future, but unless it’s constantly nurtured, and I mean constantly, it won’t grow up to become memorable.

Visit Lynda’s official tour page here!