Some Thoughts on Blogging by Marilyn Levinson

I can't remember when I wrote my first blog, but it had to be more than ten years ago when my first mystery was published. Then blogging was all the rage. "You must blog," the Promotion Pundits declared. "It's one of the best ways to engage with your readers." Many of them drew up long lists of blogging topics for authors. Those documents are still on my computer, though I can't remember the last time I bothered to read any of them.

As mystery writers, we're well aware of our obligation to promote our books and stories. We do this in a variety of ways. While we never know for sure which methods bring us new readers , we know that new ways of promoting rise up and others fade away. Having a newsletter is a must. Social media is still hot. There's Facebook and Twitter, Instagram and Tiktok. And many more I'm not aware of. Which brings me to the question: Does it make sense to continue to blog?

I write a blog once a month here on Writers Who Kill and even less often on the Blackbirds Writers' Blog. Writing a blog is actually writing an essay—at least it is for me. I suppose my mind has been trained, because I always manage to come up with a topic to write about, usually something related to writing. Doing so takes up time, time away from writing. And the question is: what am I getting in return? I get comments, but these are mostly from my fellow group blogging authors and other author friends. 

Am I communicating with readers as I do when I do an author takeover for one of the cozy groups I belong to? Is blogging helping to create sales? I honestly don't know. But to be fair, I'm going to list a few of the reasons why I will continue to blog:

1. I like writing about writing or any other subject I'm thinking about and like sharing my thoughts with other people. After all, I am a writer and it's natural for me to express myself this way.

2. Blogs have longevity. One of my fellow Blackbirds Writers made a comment to a blog I'd written a year ago. 

3. Blogs are a way of communicating. I will leave a comment on someone's blog if the subject touched me.

4. Blogs can be reused. The topic, actually, since I always have new thoughts when I rework an old blog.

5. Blogs can be helpful to other authors. I can't count the number of times I've given out "Twelve Things to Include When Writing a Mystery Series," which was first written as a blog.

6. Guest blogs are a good way to have exposure to possible new readers.

7. Mystery writers are also mystery readers;  blogging is a way for them to learn about my books and me.

Though some say blogging isn't as important as it used to be, I think it's here to stay. What are your thoughts regarding blogging?

Promotion

Promotion

Promotion. How most authors hate that word and all it implies. Your book is about to be published and a good percentage of how well it sells depends on how much and how well you promote it. We're told, don't wave a banner saying "Buy my book! Buy my book!." Instead, engage readers, entice readers, dangle a lure in front of readers—so they will buy your book. These days we authors have become quite skilled at promoting our books. It's part of our job, and being creative people we've learned to promote in creative ways.

Promotion often involves spending money. There’s that old adage “You have to spend money to make money” But there’s no foolproof method of knowing what will bring in sales. A BookBub promotion which costs big bucks might be very successful one time but not another. I don’t spend a lot of money on promotion. I’m hoping that word of mouth, great reviews, and the promotion that I do do will spread the word about my books.

The one "rule" that I follow regarding promotion states that authors should promote  in ways they find comfortable. I enjoy chatting with readers on Facebook, having Facebook parties when I've a new book coming out. I join friends' parties as well, and I'm happy to offer a giveaway and have the opportunity to chat with readers about a
writing-related topic.

I enjoy posting on the various Facebook cozy groups' pages when I've something to report about my books. And, much to my surprise, I enjoy putting out my newsletter every four to six weeks. For years I avoided doing a newsletter for fear that I'd have nothing to say. But it turns out that there's always something to report. From the feedback I receive, I've learned that many who receive my newsletter I like finding out which books I've been reading and the TV shows and movies I've been watching.

I do a virtual blog tour when a new book comes out, and I've joined Writers Who Kill, where I blog once a month. I enjoy speaking, and while I don't arrange too many speaking engagements, I do a book signing at my local Barnes & Noble when a new book comes out and speak locally when asked. I attend a few conferences a year, where I love getting together with my writer friends and readers and I taking part in panels.

I've learned to always keep business cards and bookmarks on hand because I never know when I'll be meeting a potential new reader—in a doctor's office, on an airplane, in a store. I've been pleasantly surprised by the number of people I meet who have told me they enjoy reading mysteries.

How do you promote your books, and which methods do you think are the most successful?

How to Analyze a Free Book Promotion

By James M Jackson

In today’s post I will show you how to analyze a promotion’s financial efficacy.

Given my lackadaisical approach to marketing my Seamus McCree series of mystery/suspense/thrillers, you’d be hard-pressed to guess that I earned an A in Marketing during my MBA studies. Knowing what to do and understanding how to evaluate results are different skills than actually doing the darn thing. While I deserve an A for analysis, I’d give myself a gentlemen’s D for my actual marketing efforts.

Fortunately, that lack of marketing means I have near perfect data to analyze a recent sales tactic I employed: providing free copies of the Kindle version of book 1 of the series (Ant Farm).

My specifics:

I have so far published five books in the Seamus McCree series. All are available in paperback, and I have assumed the Kindle promotion had zero effect on paperback sales. I am currently, and have been for some time, part of the KDP select. That means the only place you can buy an electronic version of the books is on Amazon for a device that reads the Kindle format (reader, computer, phone). All my books are enrolled in Kindle Unlimited (a subscription service that allows readers to read unlimited pages each month for a fixed price and pays the authors an amount per page of their works read).

While the calculations below are based on my Amazon-only sales universe, the concepts are equally applicable to authors who have their books available for wide distribution (Nook, Kobo, iBooks, etc.).

Step 1: Determine baseline sales.

For me, this was relatively easy because I had done no marketing during the two and a half months prior to the sales campaign. Count the number of books sold (or better royalties paid) for the base period for each book in the series and divide by the length of the base period (in my example 2.5 months).

If you sell wide, you can add together your sales for each book or perform this step separately by venue. For those of us participating in KDP select, we’ll need to collect the royalties for electronic books sold and the Kindle Unlimited (include KOLL) pages read for each book in our series. Normalize these results by converting everything to a per month basis. I assume Amazon will pay an average of $0.045 per page read. That means I expect to earn $45 for every 10,000 pages read.

The reason I estimate revenue per KU page read is I am not willing to wait the extra time for Amazon to let me know exactly what each month’s actual payment rate will be. (It varies each month based on Amazon whim—er secret formula.) If I wanted, I could redo the analysis once the final figures are in.

These are your Base Level Results. If you did nothing else, these are the revenues you would expect to generate from your series.

Step 2: Determine Cost of Each Free Download

If you simply announce the giveaway on your social network feeds and to your newsletter subscribers, you have no cost (unless you have enough newsletter subscribers so you need to pay for that). I chose FreeBooksy (owned by Written Word Media) to advertise my free download opportunity for Ant Farm and paid for a feature that advertised that the giveaway was part of the Seamus McCree series. It cost $142.50.

During the five-day promotion, Amazon indicated I had “sold” 5,915 books at the bargain price of $0.

The Cost per download is Cost of Promotion)/Number of downloads. For this promotion that was $142.50/5915 = $.024.

Step 3: Determine the Revenue earned per download:

Wait a minute; it’s cost me $0.024 per download, where’s the revenue come from?

The great thing about series is that if people like the first book in the series, even though it was free, some of them will buy the second book in the series. If they like that, some will buy the third book in the series. Etc.

The most read book in a series is almost always the first book. Someone who discovers Sue Grafton’s Y is for Yesterday, likes it and wants to read more, is likely to start at the beginning with A is for Alibi. The same for me: they read Empty Promises and like it, they’ll go back to the first book, Ant Farm.

By giving away Ant Farm, I hoped to earn revenue from sales (or KU pages read) of other books in the series.

Because I haven’t run any other promotions on the Seamus McCree series after the giveaway, I can determine how long the effect of the sale lasted. For Kindle purchases, it was about 2.5 months. Interesting to me, for Kindle Unlimited pages read, I’m experiencing a new, higher, “normal” level after the promotion. Regardless of that continuing bump, I cut off the KU effect at 2.5 months as well for purposes of this analysis.

For each book I determined royalties received and Kindle Unlimited pages read during the 2.5 months following the promotion.

That’s not all extra revenue, If I hadn’t done anything, I’d expect to continue to earn all the base revenues for each book. To get the excess revenue for each book, I needed to subtract the 2.5 months of the baseline from the actual sales.

I know lots of authors go cross-eyed looking at formulae. So, using words: we take the average monthly revenue for a product after sale and subtract the average monthly revenue for the same product before the sale to get the effect of the sale. Then, if the effect lasts longer than a month (in my case it lasted 2.5 months) multiply that result by the duration.

Here’s a simple example to see how this works. Say before the sale I earned an average of $10 a month on Book 2. During the 2.5 months after the sale, I earned (say) $60. My extra profit is the $60 less what I would have expected to earn during that period ($10/mo. x 2.5 mos. = $25). The extra revenue is $35 ($60 - $25).

Since I have five books in the series and I have both Kindle sales and KU reads, my total profit on the promotion is the sum of the excess profit on Kindle purchases and pages read under Kindle Unlimited for all five books.

An Aside about Kindle Unlimited

My expectation was that by giving away Ant Farm, those possibly interested in reading it would download it for free. Kindle Unlimited folks apparently have a different mindset. They don’t need to “own” the book; they’re happy to read it and “return” it to the Amazon library. During the 2.5 months following the giveaway, KU readers read over 50,000 pages of Ant Farm, which is the equivalent of almost 100 books for revenue of $225+. That group alone more than paid for the advertising expense of $142.50.

Back to the Main Analysis – Average Revenue per Download

Adding the extra revenue earned because of advertising and giving away free Kindle copies of Ant Farm from both Kindle sales and Kindle Unlimited reads totaled $1,023.60. Dividing that by the number of downloads gives average revenue per download.

$1023.60/5915 = $0.173

Recall that each download cost $0.024. The profit per download was $0.149. Yippee!

Takeaway #1

If we assume future readers will act in the same manner as those who participated in the analyzed sale, my break-even point is 17.3 cents per download. A quick analysis of whether a promotional website delivers value to me suggests that if the cost per download is greater than 17.3 cents, I should avoid it. How can you tell in advance? You can’t, but if something doesn’t work for you, don’t repeat it in the hopes the second or third time is the charm. Also, you can search for results other authors have shared in blogs like this one.

Question: Can we learn more from the data?

Of course. I wouldn’t have posed the question otherwise. It was an unexpected bonus to discover many Kindle Unlimited readers preferred to read Ant Farm through KU rather than downloading for free. Those pages read paid for the advertisement (and more). My original expectation of where I would make money from this promotion was that enough people would like Ant Farm well enough that after reading it they would buy the next in the series, Bad Policy.

And those who also like Bad Policy would read Cabin Fever, and so on down to Doubtful Relations and Empty Promises. [Did you catch the subtle use of the alphabet for the order of the series novels?]

That follow-through from one book in the series to another is called “Conversion” in the trade.

Conversion

Good conversion, I thought, was the key to making money from giving away the first book of a series. I figured I had a good chance of converting people from Ant Farm to Bad Policy. Ant Farm has a 4.6 rating on Amazon (50+ reviews) and 4.35 rating on Goodreads (100+ ratings).

Before I saw the results of the giveaway, I only considered one kind of conversion: from giveaway to sales of books 2, 3, 4 & 5. I discovered (others already knew this, but I hadn’t thought of it) that Kindle Unlimited readers have a separate conversion from book 1 to 2 to 3, etc.

Here are my actual Kindle sales conversions during the 2.5 months following the Ant Farm giveaway:

Book From	Book To	Conversion %
Ant Farm (free)	Bad Policy (paid)	0.59%
Bad Policy	Cabin Fever	60.00%
Cabin Fever	Doubtful Relations	80.95%
Doubtful Relations	Empty Promises	88.24%

Conventional wisdom suggests that those who download free books do not buy books at market prices (in my case $3.99). In fact, some readers use free books as a no-risk way of checking out new-to-them authors. If they like what they read, they’ll buy more. During the 2.5 months following the free-giveaway, only .59% purchased Bad Policy.

That seems dismal; but in fact, taking those people and following them through the extra sales of the other three series books was sufficient to make the advertising buy profitable.

There is a HUGE drop-off between those who acquired Ant Farm for free and those willing to spend money to purchase Bad Policy. Of those who went on to buy Bad Policy, 60% purchased Cabin Fever and if they bought Cabin Fever they surely became fans: 81% bought Doubtful Relations and of those 88% bought Empty Promises.

As I thought, if I could get people to buy a book of the series, a significant percentage would really enjoy the book and buy more. They key is how many people actually read free downloads. That, I have no way of determining, but enough did that their subsequent purchases more than covered the advertising costs of the giveaway.

Takeaway #2:

Even though the only place to purchase electronic copies of my novels is on Amazon, the giveaway was profitable. Those who could also give away and sell in other markets would be even better off for ebook sales alone.

Conversion for Kindle Unlimited Readers

For Kindle Unlimited, the percentages are a bit different:

Book From	Book To	Conversion %
Ant Farm	Bad Policy	106.90%
Bad Policy	Cabin Fever	60.24%
Cabin Fever	Doubtful Relations	87.58%
Doubtful Relations	Empty Promises	75.37%

I speculate that the result of more than 100% for conversion from Ant Farm to Bad Policy reflects a group of people who did download a free copy of Ant Farm and then used Kindle Unlimited to read Bad Policy. The other percentages are consistent, except the conversion from Doubtful Relations to Empty Promises is lower for KU readers. My guess is that this reflects non-binge readers. Some will pick up Empty Promises in the coming months.

In fact, while Kindle sales have stabilized at pre-giveaway levels. Kindle Unlimited pages read are still more than twice pre-giveaway levels.

Takeaway #3:

Kindle Unlimited readers changed what would have been a modestly profitable advertising buy and book giveaway into a (relatively) huge success.

Takeaway #4:

Although Bad Policy is the second in the series, it was the first published. In my opinion it is the weakest writing of any of my books. Ant Farm, the intended first book, was not bought by a publisher until I completely rewrote it after publishing Cabin Fever. The 60% conversion from Bad Policy to Cabin Fever might be because of this weakness.

It also might be that the back-matter material in Bad Policy is not optimal for eliciting readers to immediately purchase Cabin Fever. I’ve recently changed it, and time will tell whether that will bump up the conversion to Cabin Fever. Anything I can do (other than rewriting the book) is worth money because the conversion rates after Cabin Fever are stellar.

Takeaway #5:

As expected, I earned the most money on sales and pages read of Bad Policy. What surprised me completely was that Ant Farm provided the second largest profit, both from Kindle books sold and Kindle Unlimited pages read.

This, I think, shows the power of Amazon lists and “also reads.” People who did not know of the initial giveaway discovered the book through the power of Amazon’s platform. This had everything to do with placing high on Amazon’s best seller lists. During the giveaway, Ant Farm reached #22 in the overall Kindle Store for free books, and #1 for free books for both Private investigators and Suspense within the Mystery, Thriller & Suspense category.

Takeaway #6

The overwhelming effect of Kindle Unlimited for me is the reason why I remain in the KDP select program and have not gone wide. Most people who have their ebooks available on multiple platforms say they receive anywhere from a rare low of 60% to a more typical 75-85% of their sales from Kindle sales on Amazon.

By comparison, in this sale, I received only 49% of the additional revenue from Kindle sales. The remaining 51% came from compensation based on Kindle Unlimited pages read.

Your results will vary.

You have a different series, different target audience, Mercury may be in retrograde, a tweet could cause everyone to forget to look at books for several days. You may be selling wide, whereas I am concentrated in the Amazon universe. You may have great international sales (mine are miniscule).

The point is, to figure out if your promotions work, you must do this kind of analysis. Now you know how. Questions?

* * * 

James M. Jackson authors the Seamus McCree mystery series. Empty Promises, the fifth novel in the series—this one set in the deep woods of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula—is now available. You can sign up for his newsletter and find more information about Jim and his books at https://jamesmjackson.com.

Nice Girls Do by Kait Carson

I’ve been on a high-speed merry-go-round lately. Those of you who know me, or follow me, are probably aware that my newest book, Death by Sunken Treasure, released on Tuesday. For most of this month, I’ve been everywhere. Seriously, I had to take vacation from the day job to deal with the demands. Twenty-four blogs, interviews, personal appearances, radio shows, and stpodcasts since March 1, nearly one a day. (Isn’t that a vitamin? I need one.) Yes, I have been busy. And it’s fun. And it’s exhausting. And it’s wonderful to get comments from readers and answer their questions. Do you sense a but coming here? You should.

My parents were older when I came along. (Surprise! It’s a girl!). Their beliefs and mores came from an entirely different time and place. Women didn’t work. If a woman did work, she needed to be a teacher or a nurse. Have a profession that she could fall back on after she had her children. (That one used to give me the creeps. I had an image of shelf after shelf filled with infants each with a nametag just waiting for the perfect moment.) And she had her name in the paper three times in her life. When she was presented to society, when she married, when she died. Nice girls did not promote themselves.

Oh yes they do! Marketing is a part of writing. For me, and most of us from what I’ve been told, it’s the hardest part. When I published my first book, I thought that if I wrote it, they would come. Don’t ask how I thought “they” would know, or even who “they” were. No matter, “they” would show up and love my book, and I would be able to live a quiet life in my office churning out book after book to my adoring fans. What was I thinking?

Death by Blue Water came out in November of 2014. It was gangbusters release, I had a great company do a wonderful, fun, Facebook opening, and I probably did five blogs and maybe two interviews. Then, my work done, I dug into writing Death by Sunken Treasure, the second book of the series. Death by Blue Water, the first of the series, quietly faded below the surface leaving hardly a ripple. (The Death by Blue Water e-book is available right now for Kindle, Nook , etc. for a limited time for $0.99. It could use a little love if anyone is interested.)

The release procedure for Death by Sunken Treasure is an entirely different animal. I have a wonderful company, Escape with Dollycas, who has arranged a fabulous blog tour for me. I hired a publicist, PJ Nunn of BreakThrough Promotions, a public relations company, to keep my name out there and to arrange bookings for me. She’s doing a great job.

It’s taken some getting used to this constant barrage of posts and tweets from me about what I’m doing next. I’m comfortable talking about me on Writers Who Kill. We’re family here. The topics that populate these multiple blogs range from my books, critters, writing style, and writing protocols to the history of cozy mysteries and other topics. The blogs are about everything except me. And I’m comfortable writing about all of that. Hopefully people are interested in reading about it. It took a while, but I realized that I wanted to know my favorite authors better. It’s not an imposition; it’s a reaching out of friendship, welcoming readers into the writer’s life. It’s okay to promote yourself and your books. Nice girls do.

Writers, how do you deal with the marketing aspect of this profession? Do you enjoy it? Readers, what do you find interesting about blog posts and author appearances? Or do you wish we would all just be quiet and write the next book?

Six Rules of Author Self-Promotion

Deep down in the core of my being I hated self-promotion. That loathing was the fruit of lessons learned from my parents long ago. I cannot claim to recall their exact words, and it is certainly possible that I misapplied what they actually said. What matters, of course, is what I believe I heard; what became my core values. I “know” it to be true that I should “stand on my own two feet,” but “not get too big for my britches.” I should “think of other people first” and “work hard and the rest will come.”

I applied this knowledge throughout my life in many ways. When I was an athlete, I preferred team sports because it wasn’t all about me. Even when I ran track I was willing to do events other than my specialty (sprints) if that helped the team.

About now you are probably wondering why you should listen to a guy trapped by his childhood into counter-productive thinking. Why not take lessons from a sales guru or someone who is always out there grabbing attention? Well, if you are like them, you aren’t reading this blog. That means you are more like me: someone for whom self-promotion does not come easy.

Here’s my big secret. Once I learned to do it correctly, I no longer had doubts that it was proper and good to self-promote. I’ve developed six rules.

Rule One: It’s not all about YOU

Self-promotion should be about building relationships. As an author your goal is to build long-term relationships with your readers. Naturally, your writing is what ultimately makes the difference, and you need to make it as compelling as you can. That does not mean you start building relationships once you have something about to be published. That would be all about you. Your relationship building should be an extension of you, your interests, and how they can be useful to others.

Relationships are two-way streets. If self-promotion is you force-feeding your promotions, you will not be effective for long.

Rule Two: Add Value to the Relationship

You have experiences and expertise that you can share with others to make their life [fill in your adjectives here.] If you forget Rule One and all your promotional activities are about you and your needs, why should anyone care?

Instead, within any promotion try to provide value. Entertain, provide new insights into your writing, your work, your life—help others improve their writing, their work, their lives. Let people know what didn’t work and why so they can learn from your mistakes.

Help them along their paths without asking for a return favor. I will be forever grateful to Hank Phillipi Ryan and Steve Hamilton, two high-powered authors who took the time from their busy schedules to write blurbs for my books. Don’t you think I let people know about their helpfulness? (You bet. I just did, didn’t I?) On the other hand, this helping others is self-promotion because people remember who helped them.

Rule Three: Be Yourself

I am a math guy; always was; always will be. I know that’s not everyone’s cup-o-tea, but it is mine. And I enjoy being out in nature and watching birds and sometimes taking pictures. That’s what I share. With my math background and ability to translate complicated concepts into English, I can help people understand the world in a different way. That’s my niche. And I write financial crime novels, so there is a practical tie-in.

Show your sense of humor. Some won’t get it—they never do, do they?—but those who are tuned to your sensibilities will form a stronger link with you.

Rule Four: Have Permission

How do you feel when a robocall interrupts your family dinner? For me, that’s a perfect reason to never buy the product, vote for the politician or do whatever they had in mind for me to do. All because they did not have my permission to interrupt what I was doing.

I receive unsolicited author newsletters and email promotions all the time. The first time it happens, I chalk it up to inexperience. But when it keeps happening, I employ email junk filters to toss them into the spam pile that is deleted without delay. How likely am I to buy their books or retweet that their latest is on sale? You guessed it, not likely.

Make sure you have permission before sending newsletters. If you make it clear that people entering a contest will be enrolled in your newsletter, that is implied permission, which is fine. But, (not that I’m giving legal advice, because I’m not) you need to have an easy unsubscribe link on every promotional-type newsletter or email you send. There be laws about them things, you know?

When someone asks you to write a guest blog, follow their rules regarding content and promotion. It’s a courtesy both to the blog’s owners and its readers will be more apt to appreciate what you have to say.

Be sensitive to the context you are in. I had an author attempt to hijack a book event I was doing. In the middle of the question and answers this person proceeded to promote his book. I could see the faces of the entire audience—I guarantee no one in that crowd would buy his book no matter how good it was. It was poor manners and everyone except that individual knew it.

Rule Five: If you don’t ask for assistance, you won’t get it.

If there is something you would like people to do, you need to make a direct, clear ask. Here’s my current situation. On the day this blog is published, my novel Ant Farm will have 11 days remaining for people to nominate it for selection by Amazon. If Amazon accepts it into their Kindle Scout program, I will receive a publishing contract from them, which I want. You can read all about my reasons for choosing to follow this route in an earlier Writers Who Kill blog.

If you haven’t already, I would very much appreciate your checking out the Ant Farm sample chapters, and if you like them, please nominate the book. Here is the link.

Instead of asking, I could have wished and hoped for you to figure all that out by having read previous posts or seen my ask on Facebook or received a tweet, but nothing works as well as a direct ask.

If you can, ask in person, but remember, only if you have permission to interrupt whatever the person is doing.

Rule Six: Thank People When They Help You

Strangers, friends, and family do not owe us their support. So when someone offers it, tell the individual or community that you appreciate the time and effort they took to help you out. This common courtesy goes a long way when people know you mean it.

That’s it: six rules that make self-promotion acceptable to my sensibilities. What do you think?

~ Jim

An Interview with Gloria Alden

After writing for years and trying the traditional publishing route, Gloria Alden, a WWK blogger, opted to self-publish. I read her first novel, The Blue Rose, and enjoyed this cozy mystery. As a gardener, Gloria knows her subject well. Her plant descriptions of the public garden where the murder takes place made the setting come alive. E.B. Davis

Before we start, Gloria, could you give us the jacket paragraph so readers will know a bit about the plot in The Blue Rose?

Catherine Jewell enjoys the small quiet town she’s recently moved to where she’s a botanist at Elmwood Gardens and also has a small garden center, Roses in Thyme. At least she does until she discovers a body with a garden fork in his back at Elmwood Gardens. John MacDougal, the police chief of Portage Falls, has never had to deal with a murder in his ten years as police chief. As he questions the suspects, many who are Catherine’s co-workers and friends, she works to divert his suspicions elsewhere since she’s sure none of them could be the murderer. When another body is discovered, they start working together. In spite of their inexperience and several close calls with death, they solve the murders and restore calm to the little town of Portage Falls.

Is there really a blue rose?

     

No – only in The Blue Rose. There are roses with blue in the name, but they’re not a true blue, more of a lavender.

Much like blue roses, your characters aren’t always as they seem. Do you think that most people hide behind facades or withhold secrets?

  

I think most people do to some extent. We probably all have things we’d rather not share whether it’s our own secret or someone else’s.

Catherine Jewell, your main character, doesn’t particularly like the victim. Why does she want to solve the mystery?

The police chief is looking at her friends and co-workers as prime suspects, and she seriously does not believe they could be the murderer.

Although your characters seem traditional, they are not typecast. Why did you mix traditional roles with anomalies, such as John bearing the parenting responsibility and Catherine saving John?

I guess I wanted my police chief not to be a tough macho kind of guy. There are times he assumes that role in this book and maybe even more in the next one, but I wanted him to be more like my dad. And wasn’t it nice to have Catherine saving John? I think so.

Mothers have a hard time in The Blue Rose. Do you think motherhood is a particularly hard job?   

Yeah, they do. I’m speaking from personal experience here.

Your characters are distinctive. I particularly liked how your secondary characters’ backstories lent themselves to plot. How did you choose their characteristics and did you tailor them to suit the plot?  

Yes and no. I find people interesting and certain characters have some of the attributes of someone I know. Ed in my book has a lot of the characteristics – but not the background – of my brother. Because he was an avid gardener, I made Ed a master gardener. Ed is also how I remember my brother working in his gardens. Usually I create murderers from my mind. They are not based on anyone I know, but I do write biographies for them in some detail so I know why they felt they needed to murder their victim.

You leave many questions open for the reader in The Blue Rose regarding the past and the future. How many books are you planning for the series?  

Lots and lots. My series is on a monthly timeline. The first takes place in June, the second Daylilies for Emily’s Garden is finished and waiting for a cover. It takes place in July, the third, Ladies of the Garden Club is finished, but not polished. It takes place in August, and I have the plot for my 4^th book in my head and am eager to get started on it. It will take place in September.

Why did you decide to self-publish?

I was tired of trying to get an agent, although I hadn’t been submitting to them for over a year. I thought of the small publishers and sent to a few, but I wasn’t willing to slash as much as

was necessary to meet their word limit. Plus even if I was accepted, it could be another year or so before the book would come out.

Then I started reading on the Guppy list serve of all the Guppies going that way and reading blogs of well-published authors who had gone this route. I started buying the self-published books of Guppies and found that almost all of them were as well edited and interesting as the published books I buy. Another thing, even if a small publisher accepted me, there would be a gap of a year between books coming out – if they even accepted the second. An author has to sell several hundred books before they’ll take on the next one. And from what I hear, most publishers aren’t doing that much promotion for the books, either. With three books finished, I didn’t want to wait any longer.

Will you bring books to Malice for sale?

I’m planning on it. I still need to contact the dealers.

Bonus: Beach or Mountains?  

I like both, but I prefer the mountains. I love trees and camping.

I’ll look for you at the Malice Domestic conference, Gloria. Meanwhile, if you’d like to read Gloria’s The Blue Rose, the book is available at Amazon.

Happy Belated Birthday (to me from you)

Each year I select a few major goals to try to accomplish. They provide me focus. Sometimes I succeed with all of them; often I find I was too ambitious and am only partially successful. I’m flexible; as life changes I make modifications. That’s been a good thing this year.

For 2012 my writing goals were to:

   1. Promote my bridge book One Trick at a Time: How to start winning at bridge that Master Point Press released in early spring. I planned to attend a number of bridge tournaments, give mini-lectures and write monthly bridge columns for one of my bridge club’s newsletter, which had a wide distribution.

   2. Find a publisher for Bad Policy, a novel of suspense (having unsuccessfully tried the agent route).

   3. Submit Cabin Fever, the sequel to Bad Policy to agents.

   4. Develop a wider social presence.

#1. On the bridge front, the first negative development was that at the beginning of the year the club decided to fold the newsletter, ending my monthly columns. Then, during the first tournament I attended, Jan took ill and had to be hospitalized. Naturally I rushed home, cancelling a book signing.

A month later, just before I was to go to the next bridge tournament, this one a national, Jan again got sick and this time underwent surgery. I cancelled the national and during her recovery cancelled an additional tournament. This autumn, just as I was about to begin a second series of tournaments, my father died, forcing me to again change plans.

#2. I was wildly successful with finding a publisher for Bad Policy. I sent out only two query letters, got positive responses from both and ended up choosing Barking Rain Press.

#3. Before I could submit Cabin Fever, I needed to do a rewrite, give it to beta readers, polish to near perfection, craft the query letter and synopsis, research agents, and send out the letters. Even with the various setbacks, I’m through the polishing, but with the time necessary to deal with Dad’s passing, I have not started the query process. That’s what I plan to accomplish this month, so perhaps I can still reach this goal.

#4. I rejoined Writers Who Kill as an active blogger, revamped my website to allow people to buy my bridge book directly, but I have otherwise bogged down.

This is where my belated birthday wish comes in: I want to provide my readers (current and potential) with a quarterly newsletter. However, I personally hate spam and so am unwilling to just send it to everyone in my address book. I’ve signed up with tinyletter.com to manage my newsletter, and now I need people to let me send it to them.

So my birthday wish: please sign up for the newsletter. Signing up will entitle you to receive a link to read the first four chapters of Bad Policy when they are available. I’ll provide background information and details about where and when you can purchase my books. You’ll get information about my appearances. You’ll be the first to see the cover art Barking Rain Press designed.

I promise not to abuse your trust and inundate you with junk email. I will only send you something at most once a quarter. The sign-up process does not take long. Click the link and provide your email. You’ll get a confirmation from tinyletter to make sure you are real, not a bot, and that you and not someone else signed you up. You can always remove your name from the list, but before you can to that, of course, you need to sign up first. Isn’t that an inexpensive birthday present?

And thank you.

~ Jim

Agatha Nominated Sasscer Hill's Racing from Death

The nomination of Full Mortality for an Agatha Award in 2011 hasn’t jaded Sasscer Hill. She’s come back stronger with her second book in the Nikki Latrelle series, Racing from Death. I interviewed Sasscer just after the Malice Domestic Conference in 2011. You can read that interview here. Although I loved Full Mortality, Sasscer’s writing seems even stronger in her second book, and she doesn’t shy away from the horse racing world’s dire issues. If you haven’t yet read the series or the second book, grab a copy and arrange to read it when you have no obligations. You won’t want to stop reading Racing from Death. Please welcome Sasscer back to WWK.                                                                  E. B. Davis

EBD: You aren’t a stranger to the horse racing world. What is your experience with horse racing?

SH: A roller coaster ride! Nothing compares to the deep valleys and high peaks of owning a race horse. In 1982, I bought a broodmare to keep my riding horse company and establish an agribusiness that would lower our property taxes. The idea was to breed the mare and sell the youngsters. But I’ve always been a speed demon – a fast driver and lover of racing across the fields on horseback. I got bit by the racing bug and kept a foal to race. His sire’s name was “Feel the Power.” His dam was called “Swimming Home.” I named him “Sea Surge.”

The night he was born, I delivered him. Later I broke him and trained him right on the farm. Surge ran fairly well in his first start, but came up lame after the race. He’d sustained a slight crack in his shin bone. I was devastated. The vet said to give the horse several months off. I did and then began riding him on the farm again. When he was almost ready to start serious training, I made the mistake of putting a less experienced rider on him. Surge tossed this rider, took off down the driveway, galloped onto the county road, and hung a left onto Route 301. He ran on the paved shoulder, heading south in the north bound lane for over two miles.

By some miracle, he did not run into an oncoming eighteen wheeler and I got him safely home. I expected him to be dead lame. He wasn’t. He continued training and a few months later came flying down the stretch on the lead at Pimlico racetrack and won both his and my first race. It was one of the best moments of my life. Seeing that colt win was a high that had to be experienced to believed.

EBD: Give us the hook of Racing from Death.

SH: Racing at Virginia’s beautiful Colonial Downs twists into a nightmare for jockey Nikki Latrelle. A sociopath is selling diet cocktails – killing jockeys who struggle to make racing weight. A hidden meth lab, an old family secret, a body buried years ago in the woods, and a friend’s disappearance pull Nicky into a race against death. 

EBD: Is weight a big issue for jockeys?

SH: Yes, for many, it is a huge issue. Consider a young apprentice jockey who is allowed/assigned a lower weight. The lighter weight gives his horse an advantage and racehorse trainers a reason to hire the apprentice. If this jockey is not blessed with a tiny frame and a rocket metabolism how does he make weight restrictions as low as 108 pounds?

There are jockeys who sit in sweat boxes, toss up their last meal like a bulimic, or take diet drugs. The idea for Racing from Death came from a news article about the young apprentice jockey, Emanuel Jose Sanchez, who died at Colonial Downs in 2005 because he had a solid build, and abused his body and starved himself to make the weight. 

EBD: Are illegal drugs at the track a bigger problem for horses or humans?

SH: Horses, because there are some low life trainers who will administer almost anything to a horse to get the win. Thank God these people are in the minority, and more strict laws are being passed almost every month to put a stop to this nefarious behavior. One of the things I so enjoy about Nikki Latrelle is the horse comes first. Not the money, and those who do wrong suffer the consequences.

EBD: Nikki seems more sure of herself in this book. She’s growing. Have you planned her development, her character arc?

SH: Nikki has evolved on her own. I always knew exactly who she was, but learned who she’d become as I wrote the stories. It was clear to me she needed to “woman-up.” The battles she endures give her self confidence, but it doesn’t happen overnight. She really steps up to the plate in the third book in the series.

EBD: Nikki wins races in Racing from Death. (A bit of vicarious fun for the reader too!) Will she become a sought after jockey?

SH: From time to time, yes. But as we writers are only as good as our last book, a jockey is only as good as his/her last win. It’s hard to stay on top, and Nikki is at her best when struggling.

EBD: While Nikki seems unlucky in love, her relationship with her eccentric horse maybe growing. What are relationships like between horses and humans?

SH: They can be absolutely amazing. For me, horses have been far less disappointing than humans. For starters, they don’t lie and if they like and trust you, they will do almost anything for you. But if you do them wrong, they never forget.

EBD: What guides do you use to pace your books?

SH: The races in each story are perfect for pacing. They also provide little story arcs. Nikki either finds a race that fits one of the horses in her care, or is told by the boss or owner a horse is running in a specific race. She has to figure out what the horse needs, and train him for the upcoming race. Is the horse bold, or timid? Is he a plodder or a sprinter? Is it a long race, or a short race? Is it on the turf or the dirt? What other horses will be entered? What are their strengths and weaknesses? But as she does this, the main plot keeps unfolding around her, providing conflict. Events in a race may echo what happens in the plot, and the personalities of the horses often mirror those of the human characters. I like to think the horses and the races bring depth and imagery to the plot.

EBD: Does being nominated for an Agatha Award make a difference in your writing?

SH: Yes. It makes me more competitive with myself. It puts more pressure on me to write something even better than the book that got the nomination.

EBD: Do you have a writing schedule? If so, are you disciplined about keeping to it?

SH: I am terrible about being disciplined with my writing except for when I am. What I mean is, I will find any excuse not to write, then for no reason I can explain, I’ll write a lot every day, print it out before bedtime, read and edit it over morning coffee, then go back to the computer and keep going. I work very well under deadlines, unfortunately my small press never hands them out. I try to make my own drop dead dates. If there aren’t too many life suspending interruptions, this works pretty well.

 EBD: What’s next for Nikki?

SH: Nikki is going to South Florida in the novel, “The Sea Horse Trade.” The manuscript is completed. Here’s the cover copy:

When Nikki works the January meet at Gulfstream Park near Miami, something about new racehorse owner, Currito Maldonista, worries her. Bad enough she’s expected to handle the evil-minded colt that reflects his owner’s personality, but Nikki discovers the Colombian is a drug lord, selling his product to the US. Even worse, she suspects he might be abducting young American girls into a network of overseas slave trade.

Friend Carla Ruben contacts Nikki, desperate to find the teenage daughter she gave up for adoption. The adoptive parents have died unexpectedly, and the exotically beautiful girl was last seen in Miami. Nikki’s ominous association with Maldonista will lead her down a dark road where she must search for Carla’s daughter.

I had the pleasure of meeting Sasscer at the 2012 Malice Domestic Conference, even though we are both SinC Chesapeake Chapter members and should have met sooner. Thanks, Sasscer for visiting WWK again. Her books are available at Amazon and Wildside Press. 

James Montgomery Jackson

This winter, I interviewed all WWK bloggers about their WIPs. A former WWK blogger and a bridge master, James Montgomery Jackson’s book was released last month by Master Point Press, titled One Trick At A Time : How to Start Winning at Bridge. Jim, of course, is also a mystery writer. I wanted to interview him about the publication of his bridge book and his fiction. Please welcome Jim back to WWK. E.B. Davis 

Welcome back, Jim. Master Point Press released your first bridge book last month. It took a little over a year from when you received notice of its acceptance. How did the publishing process go?

Actually, it was over a year and a half between signing the contract and publication! I was originally scheduled for Fall 2011, but it got pushed back to Spring 2012. While the delay was a bit frustrating because I had planned some bridge tournaments to go with an autumnal launch, I am very pleased with the final result, which was much improved by the editing process.

The process of nonfiction publishing is different than it is for fiction. Had you submitted a proposal for your book to publishers? Did you have a detailed outline? Or had you finished the book before submitting proposals to publishers?

Normally for nonfiction you submit a proposal that includes a synopsis, table of contents, target audience analysis, marketing plan and a sample chapter. I waited until I had a complete book before I put together my proposal. I checked all my bridge books to see who the publishers were and Master Point Press kept coming up. I sent the proposal by mail and a few days later received an email request for the rest of the manuscript.

Does Master Point Press help authors promote their books? Do you think that nonfiction promotion is any different than it is for fiction?

The key to any creative promotion is platform. Nonfiction has an advantage over fiction, or art for that matter, in that the subject matter helps define the platform. In my case, since I am not one of the Grand Poobahs of bridge, my platform is essentially that I wrote the book I wished I had read when I was an Intermediate/Novice bridge player. The fact that I am now a Silver Life Master demonstrates I moved past the I/N ranks.

Master Point Press takes care of getting reviews and placing ads in the American Contract Bridge League’s monthly magazine. (I was pleased to see my book advertised on the inside front cover of the March magazine.)

Will you promote your book at tournaments in which you compete?

There are two audiences for promoting One Trick at a Time. The first is to bridge players directly. I’ve arranged to be a speaker at several upcoming tournaments. Before the evening games, tournaments often offer a 20-30 minute mini-lesson by a “celebrity.” I have several lessons I have developed, and I use them to teach something useful and also to illustrate my self-deprecating sense of humor. If they like the lesson, they’ll like the book.

The other important group of influencers is bridge teachers who recommend books for their students. I was scheduled to attend the American Bridge Teachers Association meeting in March, but my wife was hospitalized, so I had to cancel. Maybe next year.

You are obviously a game player. Has using strategy helped you in life? Has it helped in writing mystery?

Those are interesting questions. There is a branch of mathematics based on game theory that I would love to say helped me have a successful business career, but that would be something of a large stretch. I think the proverb that “all work and no play makes Jack(son) a dull boy” has been useful for me to keep in mind in both life and in my writing. When I have come to a problem (work, life or writing) taking a break and playing a game allows my brain to mull things over without pressure and come up with a solution on its own.

The other thing I should mention is that early on, playing games taught me that regardless of innate talent, the taxicab driver’s line about the way to Carnegie Hall being “practice, practice, practice,” applies to anything I want to do well, and that includes writing.

BAD POLICY, for which you won the Evan Marshall Fiction Makeover Contest last year, is the first in your Seamus McCree series. What is the hook of this series?

Each book has a mystery/suspense as its plot line, but I wrote the Seamus McCree novels to explore values. Seamus McCree is a decent and nonviolent person, albeit a bit odd. In Bad Policy Seamus must wrestle with his inner demons when his family is threatened.

Is Seamus a game player?

Yes, but more as backstory than as a major character trait. It comes up from time-to-time in repartee between Seamus and his son, Paddy.

And about that setting…is there any reason you chose it?

Bad Policy has two main sets: The greater Cincinnati area and Boston. Boston gave roots to the man (and the story) and Cincinnati reflects his maturity (staid Midwesterner). Oh, and I happened to live in Cincinnati at the time I started writing the Seamus McCree novels.

Have you queried the BAD POLICY manuscript?

I spent over a year trying to find an agent. I am ramping up to try small presses.

What is the sequel to BAD POLICY?

Cabin Fever is the next Seamus McCree novel. It is set in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Seamus is a Good Samaritan and it naturally goes downhill from there until he solves the mystery. It is just about ready to query agents.

Any other books in your future, fiction or nonfiction?

I started a dystopian novel set in the late 21^st century that explores a world in which corporations are the government. I had about 30,000 words written when I realized I had started the story in the wrong place and that I needed to understand the world I was creating a bit better before going back to it. I’m looking forward to working on that this summer.

I also started an “over-the-shoulder” book of bridge problems for Intermediates. I’ve been teaching a lot of classes and enjoy that more than writing the book, so it’s on hold for now.

And I have a large file of short story ideas…

I’m hoping reincarnation is feasible…