So Stuff Dreams Are Made Of won the best mystery of the year…presented by the Florida Writer’s Association. Pretty cool! Quite a few submissions and only one winner. And Stuff To Die For won best mystery of the year last year presented by Forword Magazine. So what does an author do with awards like these. First of all, I displayed them, called my friends, put a note on Dorothy L newsletter and had a glass of champagne. But then reality set in. While awards look good on a book cover “Winner of the…whatever award”, I don’t know if they really sell books.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s great to be singled out as the best, but how do you get the word out to the people who are mystery readers? And even if you do…they’re busy buying the same big ten names you see every month on the NYT bestsellers list. It is getting harder and harder to find readers who are willing to spend twenty some dollars on an author they don’t really know…even if he or she is the best book of the year. No author can just write anymore. They have to be out there in person, on the net, on the social pages…self promoting. And I’m probably not alone, thinking that there must be something else I could be doing. I think the works speak for themselves. The awards tell me that my stories entertain, have value. Now, I’ve got to find a way to get the book in the hands of a lot more readers. Any ideas?

Don Bruns
www.donbrunsbooks.com