With the release of her first novel, DATING CAN BE MURDER in 2002, award-winning author Jennifer Apodaca launched what Publishers Weekly calls her “delightful light mystery series,” featuring spunky heroine Samantha Shaw. Apodaca took time out from her series in 2007 to release two standalone novels, THE SEX ON THE BEACH BOOK CLUB and EXTREMELY HOT, but that didn’t completely satisfy her desire for something new. This month she’ll debut the paranormal romance BLOOD MAGIC under a new writing name—Jennifer Lyon—with SOUL MAGIC to follow in November.

She lives in Southern California with her family.

What are the top 5 things you are doing to market your latest book?
This book/series I’m doing differently. I wanted to build a promotion plan that will grow with the series, and that will bring readers in as part of a community. I wrote up a two-page promotion plan, and sent it to my editor and agent. Here are five things from that:

1) I had a blog with a separate “About Jen” page professionally designed. While the books are dark and sexy, I went a little lighter on the blog design—something paranormal, sexy and inviting. The site is “open ended” so if things go well and the series takes off, I can add more pages to the site for a very reasonable cost. Because this is a blog where readers can comment, this makes the site interactive and hopefully will build a community where readers can participate.

2) I had specific goals for the site: Build my “new” name of Jennifer Lyon while creating interest in the book and the series. Everything I’m doing on the site works toward those two goals. The categories on the blog are things like Witches Rock—where I talk about witches in the book, then just fun witch stuff; Hunter’s Safari, where I talk about the witch hunters; Lyon’s Lair, where I have fun with who Jennifer Lyon is … there’s more but that’s the general idea.