A new look, a publicist and a summer release

If you've visited this online journal before, you've undoubtedly noticed a few changes have taken place. No longer do you land directly on this journal if you came by way of www.lostintheivy.com. That's now called the Home Base, and I've made it the landing pad for visitors so that they'll know that they're in the right place if they're looking to learn more about Lost in the Ivy or its author (little ol' me).

The drastic changes that I've made to this website came after I signed on with a publicist, Breakthrough Promotions, which is my real news. I'm truly thrilled to be working in tandem with PJ Nunn and her team at BP, which does promotional campaigns for all kinds of books but specializes in the mystery genre. In fact, I found them after reading a glowing recommendation from an author-client of theirs on the Murder Must Advertise (MMA) Yahoo Group, an invaluable email discussion list for authors who wonder about the best way to promote a new mystery book.

After talking with PJ, I came to realize that my website wasn't doing much at all to promote my book. To some extent I already knew this. I started the journal as a way to get people enthused about my writing, thinking that might get them, in turn, enthused about my upcoming book. Problem is, if you happened to land on my website last week and read "Someone's been very naughty," you'd be more inclined to think this is a porn site than one intended to promote a mystery book. So that's the explanation for the changes that have occurred.

As far as the journal is concerned, the only change is that it's moved. Just because it's in a new place doesn't mean that it won't be updated regularly as it has in the past. Take a spin around the entire site. Almost all aspects of it have been made over in some way. Please let me know what you think of the changes, be it positive or negative. If you have any suggestions, please feel free to share them as well.

Oh, by the way, if you don't want to have to pass through the Home Base each time you stop by to check out what's new on my blog, simply bookmark this URL.

Finally, one last piece of news ... my publisher informed me by email on Friday that they expect, but cannot guarantee at this point, a summer release date for Lost in the Ivy. I guess that means, stay tuned.