This past week provided me with some excellent opportunities to build audiences, promote my book, and make new connections. If you’ve not read my interview, here’s my blog post talking about that. That was the first of three great connections I made.

Another exciting occurrence was the hugely popular San Diego Comic-Con, where signed copies of my book were sold at the Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore booth! A friend of mine who attended the con even took a picture of Heliopause: The Questrison Saga: Book One at the booth! While I did not attend the con this year, I felt a thrill just knowing my book was there. This was a direct way for genre fans to connect with my book. I can’t thank the wonderful folks at Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore enough!

And as a result of San Diego Comic-Con being here in my city, I had the chance to meet the truly fabulous Karama Horne, aka the blerdgurl. Ms. Horne is a freelance commercial film and video editor, and she works for SyFy. In addition to this, she engages in all forms of geekdom such as comic books, TV shows, blogging, boosting people of color (particularly nerds of color!) and probably rescuing entire cities every night as a superhero (okay that last part is pure speculation by me, but I would not be surprised!). You can follow the blerdgurl on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, and I recommend that you do, because she’s terrific. I’ve followed her for years on social media, but this was the first time I had ever met her in person.

Meeting Karama Horne gave me pure joy and great inspiration for my career. She is beautiful, brilliant, hilarious, wise, and encyclopedic in her knowledge not only of nerd and pop culture, but so many other topics. And she is incredibly resourceful. She gave me excellent advice for how to promote my book from here forward. She encouraged and supported the steps I have already taken, and added so many good ideas to my plans that I raced to write them all down.

Ms. Horne emphasized the importance of social media. This seems a given, but the layers to it may not be obvious to everyone. She urged me to use the deeper facets of connections on social media, such as reaching out to other makers and influencers for advice. She suggested I use Instagram and Facebook’s promotional ads according to my budget as inexpensive ways to boost traffic and sales. Ms. Horne also suggested I reach out to concept artists to provide unique art for the characters and spacecrafts and worlds in my books. In fact, she had so many ideas, I’ll be mulling over them for weeks!

So I came away from our meeting just incandescent with possibilities. That is what I call a great connection. And making these connections is crucial as a writer. On top of that, it’s just a rewarding and enjoyable experience.

Thank you so much, blerdgurl, for your advice and for all that you do!

Image Credit: Karama Horne (the blerdgurl) and J. Dianne Dotson. Copyright J. Dianne Dotson 2018.