Branding - Bah, humbug!

When I started writing about twenty years ago, "branding" was something done to cattle with a hot iron. I wasn't all that comfortable when the word began to be applied to authors. Branding? You've got to be kidding. Its new meaning, in case you haven't heard:  an author is "branded" as a person who writes one kind of book. The purpose? A reader, when buying a particular author's book can be confident of getting the same kind of book over and over again. This is supposed to be a good thing, mind you. Well, I could give you a few thousand words on why that raised my hackles, but, suffice it to say, I'm a person who doesn't want to do anything twice. I sew, knit, crochet - I don't want to use any pattern more than once. The very thought of making a quilt, with the same pattern repeated over and over again, fairly freezes my blood. And as for sentencing myself to writing the same kind of book for the rest of my life . . .  [Expletives deleted]

And yet, in spite of my lips curling every time I see or hear the word "branding" . . . I ended up "branded." And without the slightest bit of effort on my part. (I'm told most authors work very hard to be branded, for the same reason editors and publishers love branding. It sells books. Ah, well . . .) 

About a year ago, when I discovered the hard way that I'd been branded, I could only groan and wonder what I could do to coax readers minds away from thinking of me as a "Regency" author and realize they just might like the other things I write, like Romantic Suspense, Mystery, Alternative History/Steampunk. So . . .

Just after Christmas 2012, I took down five books that have been selling only fitfully, leaving them only on Amazon, so I could take advantage of KDP Select's rental program and its free-day promotions. I am starting the Free Promotions this week with Airborne - The Hanover Restoration, admittedly easing branding-conscious readers into my "other" books with a story that reads a lot like a Regency, except the date is 1840, there are a number of odd machines, and a young Princess Victoria has been displaced from the throne by the Duke of Wellington.

The other books listed below will also be having "free days" in the near future.

Miss Araminta Galsworthy travels to the home of her new guardian, only to be plunged into marriage, arson, assassination attempts, murder, and treason - all centered around her husband's invention, the first navigable airship. Minta acquires new friends, new enemies, a new husband, and becomes an important part of a revolution: the restoration of the British monarchy. Will she manage, or will her head be piked on the Tower?

Airborne will have its "free" day on Amazon Kindle on Tuesday, January 22, 2013.

Link to Airborne

A Florida Highway Patrol officer investigates his brother's injury in a Medieval Fair tournament and discovers an astounding sub-culture in today's Florida - the Medieval re-enactment group, the Lords & Ladies of Chivalry*. He also finds a Lady Knight, fighting her way out of years of abuse. Michael Turco and Kate Knight both have a great deal to learn before they can solve a crime and lay each other's ghosts and preconceptions. [A Golden Beach book]
      *based on the internationally known re-enactment group, The Society for Creative Anachronisms


[Apologies to all who saw the update saying, Florida Knight would be free on Amazon Kindle on "Friday, Jan. 26." That's a major "oops" for me. Florida Knight will be free on SATURDAY, Jan. 26.]

Link to Florida Knight 

Death by accident, old age, and strangulation. An elderly senior about to marry a con artist. A rash of burglaries. Only an artistic imagination could conjure these disasters into connected events. But costume designer Gwyn Halliday manages it, as she flees trauma in the big city only to discover that bad things can also happen in a sleepy Florida retirement community. [A Golden Beach/DreamWear book]

Death by Marriage will be free on Amazon Kindle on Saturday, February 2, 2013.

Link to Death by Marriage

Want to get married in a hot air balloon? Have the bride step out of a Fabergé egg? Just call Fantascapes, the Halliday family business. Trouble in paradise? Call Laine Halliday, who travels the world smoothing out bumps encountered by high-end clients. But when Fantascapes is used as a front by the Russian mob, in action ranging from Florida to Peru to France, Laine steps into a whole new world of Serve and Protect.
[A Golden Beach/Fantascapes book]

Orange Blossoms & Mayhem will be free on Saturday, February 9, 2013.

Link to Orange Blossoms & Mayhem

FBI Special Agent Valentina Frost and a mysterious Russian arms dealer become strangely matched partners in a search for two nuclear bombs missing from the old Soviet arsenal. As they criss-cross the world in an attempt to prevent a terrorist attack more deadly than 9/11, they form a strong bond. But can it outlast the mission? Will they live that long? [Settings vary from New York, Connecticut, Colorado, New Jersey, & Florida, to Siberia and Iran.]

Limbo Man will be free on Amazon Kindle on Tuesday, February 19, 2013.

Link to Limbo Man

As always, thanks for stopping by. Please scroll on down for Updates to last week's Florida Tidbits, which include the latest statistics on the Python Challenge, an incredible video of one man doing acrobatics with three huge kites, and a scary tale about sharks.

Grace
A list of all Blair's available books