First a Book Walk for Plague, now a Book Tour!
The Plague Book walk was a real walk, though largely done for publicity purposes and, it seems, it may have gained an after life of its own. The photo-montages have generated interest and the video is still in production. What’s more, London Walks, the guided walks company, is suggesting that I conduct real, guided walks of the book for members of the paying public. Footprints of London is doing one such of the locations in Blood & Sugar by Laura Shepherd-Robinson as part of a Literary Festival, and that book’s set in the past. So it must be possible to do one about Plague, which, after all, is set in contemporary London. I have already written a Plaguewalk leaflet which will, once it’s been tested, be posted on this web-site.
I might begin with a virtual walk – I went on one such at the weekend around parts of Kensington, at the invitation of David Tucker, its guide, who wears his comprehensive knowledge of London and his erudition lightly. It was great fun. Watch this space for developments.
The Plague Book Tour, or, more correctly, Blog Tour, will be underway before then, running from 28th September to 9th October. Organised by crime/horror 
specialist damppebbles.com, it includes a book blogger a day for twelve days, reading, reviewing and, I hope, discussing Plague on social media. Anyone who follows #booktwitter or #bookstagram will recognise some, if not all, of the names of the book bloggers involved. I’m looking forward to seeing what Karen, David and Maria, Angi, Sharron, IG, Nicola, Emma, Maddy, Sharon, Vikkie, Chelle and Lesley think about Plague and its cast of characters. Starts Monday.
Yes, they are mostly female, but I have had some amazing reviews from male readers already (check out Amazon or Goodreads), as well as some wonderful endorsements from fellow crime and thriller writers, like V.B.Grey, and crime specialists like Jacky Collins, aka ‘Dr Noir’. People like the book!
Of course, a traditional ‘book tour’ of book shops and reading groups isn’t possible because of COVID, but, these days, folk are so social media focussed that a ‘blog tour’ would probably have happened in any event. This one certainly ranges across the country in terms of where the bloggers are actually located. From the Isle of Skye to Kent and from East Anglia to the West Country. That would have been a book tour and a half! I would have made some interesting train journeys.
E-space is where most of the advertising will be focussed too, though there isn’t very much of that. Claret Press isn’t an admirer of Amazon ads, nor those of Facebook, having used them, without any great success, in the past. So we’re going with tightly focused ads, using specialist agencies, via twitter. The usual journals, like the Crime Writers Association ‘Case Notes’ and Newsletter will, we hope, also attract the attention of crime fiction loving readers.
For more about Plague and especially the Book Walk why not try Walking a book, walking a river The book walk continues With an address like that…
Julie Anderson 