Murder Mystery Author & Speaker: Robert W. Gregg

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Crooked Lake Mysteries Author Makes a Successful Transition to the Web

Bob Gregg loves a good mystery. After retiring from a career in higher education, he started thinking about his second act and writing traditional murder mysteries seemed like a perfect fit. Traditional mysteries, in the style of Malice Domestic’s Agatha Awards, avoid gratuitous violence, explicit sex, and excessive gore in favor of a compelling whodunit tale.

Six books into his self-published Crooked Lake Mysteries series, Bob decided it was time to get on the Web to expand his audience and connect more easily with fans. Thanks to a local event celebrating the International Day of the Book in Kensington, MD, Bob found the women of Chaos To Clarity in 2011 and set out on a new adventure with the Web.

Like many of our clients, Bob understood the power of the Web but had no idea how to make it work for him. When it comes to implementing various components of a web strategy, we prefer a staged approach to keep the new tools and tasks from becoming overwhelming. Our combination of education and services allows Bob to learn and grow at his own pace while we take care of the big picture and the logistical details.

Knowing that he has a web team in his corner for the long haul definitely brings peace of mind, and it also ensures that Bob has the time and energy to focus on what he really loves to do—and we keep him looking good on the Web while he does it.

Strategy: Promote Bob as an author / speaker with his site and blog, expand his audience with Facebook, make his books more accessible for ebook readers, and set up a mailing list for his fans. Establish a strong sense of place with the site design—Crooked Lake is a central character in the series and Bob’s family has deep roots in the Finger Lakes region of NY.

Challenge: Create a site that speaks to the regional character of his books while giving his fans additional insights into his creative process and the characters they come to care so much about. Guide Bob through his transition onto the Web by helping him make sense of web-based marketing, outreach, and the technological tools involved.

Audience Groups: Mystery fans generally and traditional mystery fans in particular. Residents and fans of the New York Finger Lakes Region. Educators, librarians, community members and other writers who want to learn from Bob’s experience and his writing practice.

The Team

Web Strategy & Information Architecture: Jo Golden
Content Strategy & Creation: Jo Golden in collaboration with Bob Gregg
Design & Development: Tracey Holinka
Maintenance: Tracey Holinka

We began with Bob’s web presence strategy, and charted a course towards engaging his fans through blogging, an occasional email list, and a new Facebook author page. Getting his site up to give him a home base on the Web was the next step. We showcased each book, included a fan-generated list of Frequently Asked Questions, and a piece Bob wrote about the 2 main characters in the Crooked Lake Mysteries—the Sheriff and the Professor—as part of our strategy to help visitors connect with his work. Since Bob loves to speak about the process of writing and what it takes to live a writing life, we included a Public Speaker page, why he writes traditional mysteries, as well as his take on writing murder mysteries.

After the site went live Jo coached him on writing for the Web, SEO basics, and developing his blogging voice. Bob was very motivated to improve his computing skills too, and he learned how to accomplish some of the new tasks his project required by working with us and a local computer support professional.

In midst of all these changes, Bob also worked with his publisher to make the Crooked Lake Mysteries available in all the major digital formats and, of course, he kept writing. Book 7, In the Chill of the Night, is scheduled for publication in May 2012 with the ebook to follow, and we’ll help him promote it and get the word out to his fans when the time comes. Our support is ongoing; managing the social media-related workload, handling WordPress maintenance, and educating along the way.

Tracey designed and developed his website as well as customizing:

Having complementary content and visuals across the Web, and for different forms of communication, gives his fans a sense of continuity and strengthens his brand. To that end, Tracey also designed business cards based on his new site.

Website: robertwgregg.com
(Launched December 2011)

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