Who killed Brienne Cross?

A writer friend of mine, M.J. Hawk, has written a terrific thriller called The Shop, which focuses on the mysterious death of rising pop star Brienne Cross. But these days it's not enough just to write a great book. You have to convince publishers to roll the dice by showing them that there's a built-in demand for the story.

For this reason, my friend has put together a series of Web sites devoted to exploring the mystery of Brienne Cross's tragic death. The sites come complete with photos of Brienne and the house in Aspen where she and her reality-show castmates met their doom. Various posts explore all aspects of the crime. If you didn't know it was all a work of fiction, you'd swear it was real.

The point of this exercise is to inspire people to click the Demand It! button on any of the Web sites, thus registering another vote in favor of publishing The Shop.

I have pressed this button and am now on record as Demanding It! Maybe some of you kind souls would like to do the same.

Here's the main site:

http://briennecross.net/

And here are some of the satellite sites:

http://briennecross.com/

http://whokilledbriennecross.com/

http://celebritymurders.net/

As you can see, a lot of work went into this promotional effort, but even more work went into the book itself. It's a complex, crafty, highly original story that takes off in unpredictable directions and builds to a powerful climax.

If that sounds like the kind of book you'd like to read ... Demand It!

Comments

[Zerdini]

I have done so, Michael.

Is publishing a book in the USA that difficult?

[Zerdini]

I have just done a quick search on the Internet and found that there are new roads to publishing books.

Apparently print-on-demand machines are going into bookstores etc which will make the old style of publishing, well, old-fashioned.

However it is done, I wish her well (M. J. Hawk that is) in her innovative approach to publishing.

[Zerdini]

Off-topic but well worth reading.

"Difficulties of spirit communication explained" in Mike Tymn's blog at:

http://metgat.gaia.com/blog

[Michael Prescott]

Thanks very much, Zerdini.

Yes, publishing really has become that difficult - for fiction, anyway. The last two books I wrote didn't find a publisher. I may self-publish them before long, but there is little money in that.

Print-on-demand and ebooks are the wave of the future, though I suspect that Web piracy will cut into book profits very substantially from now on.

[Cyrus]

Love the marketing work on these, linking to FB and seeing if anyone catches on it's not real.

[Leo]

I don't know if anyone listens to this song but it's great are we human [physical being] or we dancer[soul] by the killers well we are dancer i would say based on the evidence.

[Cyrus]

Leo he's really saying are we human or are we DENSER. That song confused me forever too lol. But maybe it means the same thing.

Or the guy from the Killers is just high, which he usually is.

[Louise]

Is it that difficult for non-fiction, I wonder? I'm writing a book about my connection with Spirit, and I think I'll have to try the American market for it. The Australian market is just too small! (Self publishing isn't on, I don't have that sort of money.)