The Strange Case of the Mystery Author

My son is visiting Casa Cahoon this week.  So Friday, I took him on a walking tour of the bazillion antique stores in my little Mississippi river town. In the grungy, box-filled, dusty store I found a box of old middle grade mysteries.  "The Case of the Vanishing Magician." "The Secret of the Grandfather Clock." "The Tower Treasure."

I loved these stories growing up. In middle school, I worked in the library (geek alert) and got to check out the series books as soon as they arrived and I typed up a new card for the card catalog. (Yes, I am showing my age.)

I was amazed at the diversity of mysteries in this little box.  Yes, they had Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys, but they also had authors I hadn't read. I'm tempted to return and buy up the box, but I'm on deadline and I know, I'd be sitting and reading rather than writing my own mystery.

What were your favorite stories growing up?  Where you a mystery lover even then?

Lynn

Signed a Contract – Again

For the second time this year, my mystery Murder a la Christie is under contract. The first time the book had been edited and ready for a cover when the publishing house closed its doors because one of the publishers had died. Changes happen often in the publishing world. Years ago, when the only game in town was traditional publishing, my head would spin with all of the changes taking place. Editors moved from one house to another. Editors became agents. Agents became editors. Agents and editors left publishing to work in other fields. There were many orphaned books, books bought and championed by one editor suddenly in the hands of an editor nowhere as enthusiastic about it.

Murder A La Christie, which was a Malice Domestic finalist, is my tribute to Agatha Christie. Dame Agatha and her books are a major reason why I became a mystery writer. My sleuth, Lexie Driscoll, is an English professor whose estranged second husband has burned down her house with himself inside. Needing funds, she agrees to lead a Golden Age of Mystery book club in wealthy Old Cadfield where her best friend Rosie resides. At the first meeting, Lexie is just getting into The Mysterious Affair at Styles, when she notices her old friend Sylvia is looking ill. Before the evening is over, Sylvia is dead and Lexie is certain she’s been murdered.

Lexie spends the summer house sitting Sylvia’s Old Cadfield home. Though she’s out of her element in this wealthy community, she welcomes the opportunity to get to know the book club members better. Every one of them has a secret that may or may not be the reason Sylvia was murdered. Lexie starts dating the world-renown architect who designed Sylvia’s home. Amid more book club meetings and discussions of more Christie novels, more members are killed. Lexie finds herself attracted to the sexy homicide detective in charge of the case. In the final scene when all the suspects are present, she employs Poirot’s cunning and Miss Marple’s means of deduction to reveal the murderer


The next book in the series is Murder the Tey Way. But that’s for another day.

Why Continue Publishing?

Radine Trees Nehring wrote an inspired blog here recently about the reasons for poor financial prospects in the mystery writing game. My heart sank as I read it because it mirrors my own experience.

Even Marilyn Meredith, who has a publication list as long as your arm, writes: “Of course there are those few authors at the top who are actually making money with their writing--but I'm not one of them.”

I’m relatively new at writing mysteries,but I’ve been a paid wordsmith for many decades. I have three police procedurals out and another coming in January. I began self-publishing with Createspace in 2011 with, I think, realistic expectations; that is, it would take a long time for my revenues to exceed my expenses. I’m figuring at this rate I will need to keep producing mysteries until I am 127 before I make a profit.

Those expectations were brought front and center in an uncomfortable meeting with my tax accountant this year. He kept pushing me to say yes or no to the question, “Is this a business that you expect to make a profit from?”

I kept dancing away. Realistically, no.  I can read the trades as well as any of you. But I gave him the answer he wanted to hear. Yes, it is a business.  I’m not such a fool that I’m going to discard the tax advantages that go along with a small business. Profit is another matter entirely.

Last night our writer’s group met, here in the mountain village where I live in Central California. Most of the small group were writing, or had written, or were intending to self-publish. 

When I talk about the money I’ve spent on editors, proofreaders, formatters, designers, conferences, web sites, promotion, and the like, I can read their faces. They think that I needed to do that, but they don’t.

Writing is work, hard work, and discouraging at times. Why keep doing this?  I am a widow with a very satisfying social life, but I spend way too much time alone. Sure, I could work in the SPCA Thrift store, and run for the homeowner’s board, or take up quilting.

But writing structures my days. My detectives in the two series that I write are there waiting for me in the morning. They are my companions. I guess I keep going because I want to know what happens next. Their adventures will never be mine, but I get to tag along and enjoy living in worlds I will never know.

Is that so bad?  Why do you keep publishing?

Mar Preston

My latest contribution to the pile: Free 9-9 to 9-12, 2013

http://www.amazon.com/Payback-Sierra-Mountain-Village-ebook/dp/B00BS8F5OY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1381071519&sr=8-1&keywords=mar+preston

Don't Discount the Freebie

By Chester Campbell

Some of my colleagues here have been discussing the vagaries of book promotion. It is a subject that strikes the center of what we do, write books we hope others will read. Experience has shown that if we don't promote our works, people will not learn about them and, therefore, not buy. One of the sticking points of late is the subject of free books. Should we give some away in hopes of attracting more sales?

Being a midlist (or maybe sub-midlist) author who has never sold a ton of books, I am acutely aware of this problem. Well, I did sell some eighty-plus books at the Kentucky Book Fair several years ago, though I haven't managed to equal that since. At any rate, I decided a year ago that tales my colleagues were telling about freebies sounded like the way to go.

As it turned out, I got in on the tail end of the boom days. The first few I tried on Amazon's KDP Select program (about one a month) did decently well, then toward the end of the year tapered off as more and more writers jumped into the water. As others have noted, things continued to slip during the first half of this year.

When I first read of BookBub, I checked it out and said no thanks at the sight of that $240 price tag. Then I read experiences of people like Jinx Schwartz and Rebecca Dahlke and decided to give it a try. I put my second Greg McKenzie mystery, Designed to Kill, up free for three days the middle of September. It had over 49,000 downloads, far better than anything I'd done before. In the two-plus weeks since it went back to $2.99, I've had more sales than normal, though nothing outstanding. But the other four books in the series have done quite well, bringing total sales of around 400 ebooks.

I should make at least double what I paid BookBub, and my name has gotten out to thousands of new downloaders. Most of them probably aren't readers, but enough have been to make them come back to buy more of the series. Also the number of reviews on Amazon for Designed to Kill has more than doubled to 44, the latest four hours ago with five stars titled "Great read. Page turner."

BookBub doesn't accept every book, but I'll try another in a couple of weeks and see how it goes. My experience tells me don't discount the value of the freebie.

Visit me at ChesterDCambell,com

The Promotion Quagmire

The Promotion Quagmire

by Randy Rawls

   As I begin my promotion drive for BEST DEFENSE, the second in my Beth Bowman, South Florida PI series, which is due out in November, my publicist, PJ Nunn, has scheduled me for a couple of radio interviews and several appearances. I did the first radio gig this morning with Frank Truatt of WTBQ-AM in Warwick, NY on his The Frank Truatt Morning Show. I've interviewed with Frank before. He is smooth at bringing out the best in his interviewee. Our ten minute or so discussion of BEST DEFENSE was fun, and, I hope, entertained his fans.

   My next one is October 14^th with Tron Simpson on KCMN in Colorado Springs. Tron's show is Tron in the Morning. He, too, is one I've worked with before. Another professional who does his best to make the guest look good.

   Those are the only two radio interviews scheduled to date, however, I'm sure PJ has others up her sleeve—she usually does. Beyond those, I have several appearances before reader groups. I enjoy those face-to-face opportunities best. Readers are fun to be around.

   As with all my promotion, I wonder how effective these efforts are.  Hopefully, a few people listen and remember the book when they next go online or visit their bookstore. But, how can I know? How can I compute whether one form of promotion is better than another? Once, the word was "get on lists and contribute." Then, it was "get a web site." Then, specialized sites such as Goodreads, LinkedIn, etc. Now, it's get involved with social media—Facebook, Twitter, and about 50 others, or so it seems. Tomorrow it will be . . .

   But what works, what really works? If I talk to twelve different authors, I get at least 6 different opinions. And the ones who agree—usually it's social media—don't agree on how best to use it.

   It's like the self-publishing of ebooks. Some talk incessantly about how many books they are selling, while others say sales are not huge. I know people, good authors, who are passing on traditional publishing in order to push out ebooks. They are convinced the short cut is the best route for them. Will they strike it rich?

   Ten years ago, I was being published by a small press and working my butt off to promote, promote, promote. Today, I am (PROUDLY) being published by Midnight Ink and working my butt off to promote, promote, promote. In months to come, I will be pushing my backlist out in ebooks and audio books and will promote, promote, promote.

   Will I ever show a profit in this business? I doubt it.

First or Third? On the Choice of Narration

My romance writer self, Janis Susan May, just released a new book, a traditional Gothic romance entitled FAMILY OF STRANGERS. While I was doing the publicity for it, a fellow writer – who had bought the book and gushed over how good it was – then asked me a serious question. Since the book was written in first person (which is pretty standard for traditional Gothic romances) did I think there was a return to first person as an acceptable narration? She was hoping there was, as were a number of her friends. According to the universal ‘they’ who know everything, first person narration has been ‘out’ for a number of years. News to me.

Disclaimer : I personally love the first person narrator and find it the easiest to write, so perhaps I might be just a little bit prejudiced.

There’s a couple of sure ways to start a good round of verbal fisticuffs among writers, and one of them is the question of first/third narration. Proponents of first will wax lyrical about how it brings the reader closer to the protagonist and makes the reader a part of the story, that it gives a feeling of intimacy and immediacy to the story. Proponents of third say third gives a well-rounded picture of the story and the varying points of view allow the reader to see all sides while first is stultifyingly narrow.

And they’re both right.

Without meaning to wiffle-waffle, I say that the story itself should dictate the choice of first or third, or in these modern times, sometimes a combination of both. Some stories just cry out to be written in first, others in third and the choice isn’t always the writer’s. My own historical mystery THE HOLLOW HOUSE was never even thought of as being in anything but first person, but my contemporary cozy  BEADED TO DEATH was from the beginning written in third. As to how I knew this when starting out, I can’t tell you – I just know that when I sat to write, that’s how it was and I couldn’t change it.

I don’t know if other writers experience this ‘semi-automatic’ declaration of first or third, but then all writers are different. Certainly every writer – if they can legitimately call themselves a writer – should be equally as facile with either point of narration. Having a favorite is one thing; having an inability is another!

I’d be curious to know how other writers settle the first/third question. Do they choose it, or does it choose them?

But – as long as it’s done well – does it really matter?

What Kind of Planning Ahead Do You Do for Promotion?

When I first started out on this journey we call being a published author, I had no idea that I would be the one doing the majority of the promotion of my book. In fact, the only thing I did for promotion all those many years ago, early 1980s, was to arrange a book signing. Of course there was no Internet back then or anyway to promote except sending out mailings and book stores appearances.

As each book came out, I got smarter and smarter. And some of the publishers that I queried wanted to know what my marketing plans were--so I realized I need to have some.

Over the years I've done many different things--and now, of course, a lot more on the Internet through Facebook and of course, blogs.

For my latest, Spirit Shapes, a Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery, this is what I've planned so far:

A blog tour--wow, that is a lot of work Here's the first week's stops:

September 30    http://Mariaruizauthor.com/ 

October 1   http://SavvyAuthors.blogspot.com/

 

October 2   http://Marilynlevinson.com/blog/

October 3   http://krisneri.blogspot.com/

October 4   http://anastasiapollock.blotspot.com/

October 5   http://mmgornell.wordpress.com/

October 6  http://poluckwithjudy.blogspot.com

October 7  http://lornacollins-author.blogspot.com/

You can find all the stops on my blog:http://marilynmeredith.blogspot.com/

 The person who comments on the most blogs will have their name used for a character in the next book in the series.

I have several in person events:

I'm meeting with a book club, going to be one of six mystery authors on a panel at a new bookstore, will have a booth at Taste of the Arts, and doing a signing at another new bookstore.

Next to plan is a book launch of some sort in my little town, just looking for the best place to do it.

What I'm not doing is going to Bouchercon this year--airplane travel has just gotten to be too big a pain. I do plan to attend Left Coast Crime in 2014 though because it's drivable, actually being on the left coast. Maybe I'll see some of you there.

Tell me what your favorite promotion is? Maybe you can give me some fresh ideas.

To buy directly from the publisher:

 http://mundania.com/book.php?title=Spirit+Shapes

Marilyn