Why Your Next Best Marketing Move Might Be . . . a Friend - Women Writers, Women's Books

""We're going analog," he said. "Analog?" I echoed. I was speaking to David Bruns, who with J.R. Olson co-writes the military-espionage Command and Control series. He explained that they're skipping a digital-first playbook. Instead they're leaning into an analog marketing strategy built around thematic speaking engagements, such as with veterans' groups. It's one clear example of how authors are adapting to a publishing landscape where AI-generated content buries books and social media's returns keep shrinking, even as we crank out ever-smarter dance videos."

"For me "analog" means building mutually beneficial human-to-human partnerships. Small, medium, or large, it's been my experience that partnerships make good things happen. Small, but Mighty UK crime fiction writer Jane Harvey-Berrick and I enjoyed talking about the craft of writing over Zoom so much (I live in Tennessee, USA) that we set up a YouTube channel to let our readers in on the fun . Nothing fancy, just raw conversations about what we are writing and the contemporary crime that inspires our books."

"Our modest YouTube collaboration led to Ocean x Murder x 2 , a free ebook box set featuring the first book in each of our respective crime fiction series. by Berrick Ford and Cliff Diver by Carmen Amato (yours truly) were already permafree as individual ebooks with a combined total of around 5000 5-star reviews on Amazon. Combining them into a permafree box set was merely a matter of repackaging."

David Bruns and J.R. Olson are skipping digital-first marketing and pursuing thematic speaking engagements with veterans' groups as an analog strategy. Analog means building mutually beneficial human-to-human partnerships that increase visibility. Jane Harvey-Berrick and Carmen Amato created a YouTube channel of raw conversations about craft and contemporary crime, which led to a permafree box set, Ocean x Murder x 2, combining two existing permafree ebooks. The box set was available across ebook platforms five weeks and achieved nearly 3,000 downloads without advertising. The Dangerous Pen Society focuses on authors helping each other build platforms and boost visibility through shared skills and mentions.

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