The Nine Deadly Dolls

Next week a new Justinia Wright Private Investigator Mystery will hit the ebookstores: The Nine Deadly Dolls.

The novelette is a whodunit involving a Voodoo cult, terrorism, and, of course, murder. We even see Tina leave the comforts of home to get her hands dirty — not that she’ll admit to anything.

If you enjoy the classic whodunit, then The Nine Deadly Dolls should be right up your alley.

And if you’d like advance news of upcoming new releases, free stories, and other assorted goodies, then please sign up for my monthly email.

It’s no secret that of all my fictional children, Tina and Harry are my favorites. They’ve been with me the longest, springing from my forehead in the early 1980s. I’m glad I’ve lived long enough to enable them to come alive.

And I hope you enjoy their escapades and banter as much as I do.

Stay tuned!

Peer Reviewed

 

Every professional desires recognition by his peers. Especially those peers who have the greatest recognition by the public and critics, and who are considered the best in the field.

Unfortunately for me, Rex Stout, Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, and Earl Stanley Gardner have passed on to the great writing desk in the sky.

However, in my little pond, I am very honored that I’ve been able to garner recognition from and support of writers who I very much respect. Writers such as Crispian Thurlborn, Richard Schwindt, Joe Congel, and Caleb Pirtle III.

And that means a lot to me. There’s a reason why scientists submit their papers to peer-reviewed journals.

Now there is a danger in peer review. The old, entrenched establishment can use peer pressure to squash new ideas, enforce political correctness, and derail change. We also see the same when the old guard is kicked out and a new group takes over.

This is what has happened in the writing world. For the most part, writing organizations have been taken over by radical elements that are enforcing extreme political correctness on what may be published. And have been extending that censorship to works of the past. Book burning has given way to book suppression and shaming.

Consequently, I find it very refreshing that there is no censoriousness amongst the writers in my corner of the world.

The other day, Joe Congel posted a fabulous review of my book, A Nest of Spies. He is the author of the Tony Razzolito, P.I. mysteries. And he is a doggone good writer.

In Tony Razzolito, Congel has given us a contemporary P.I. who is in the tradition of the hardboiled greats. Reading the Tony Razzolito mysteries reminds me of Hammett and Chandler. There’s none of the frenzied thriller in Congel’s books. Sure there’s action and excitement, but done in the classic whodunit tradition. And done quite well. Quite well, indeed.

You can find the Tony Razzolito mysteries on Amazon.

So when a mystery writer I admire takes a liking to my mystery series, it’s an honor I cherish.

Here’s Joe Congel’s review of A Nest of Spies.

Hawes has hit his stride. A worthy addition to this already fabulous series!

If you’re not reading this wonderful Private Investigator Mystery series, you should be. CW Hawes has created a cast of characters that I believe stand tall next to any traditional detective, whodunit mystery you want to put them up against. 

In this, the 5th installment of the series, the reader gets a peek into private eye, Justinia Wright’s secret government past. A past that she never talks about, not even with her brother, Harry. But when government (the U.S as well as other countries) spies and contract killers start appearing on her doorstep, it becomes obvious to Harry that his baby sister may still have at least one toe dipped in a pool filled with espionage and treason. 

Spies can be a funny bunch; they will put their mutual trust in one another when it’s beneficial to them, but will not hesitate to pull the trigger to save themselves. And all the while, you cannot believe a word any of them say. When a former agency partner tries to unsuccessfully hire Tina to help secure a flash drive with plans for a top-secret weapon by posing as the buyer, it is just the beginning of a fun, interesting mystery filled with lots of twists and turns.

As more and more people from Tina's past show up wanting to talk with and hire the great detective’s services, the lies… and the body count begin to grow. And when Tina is accused of murder, she and her team of sleuths devise a scheme to recover the missing flash drive, catch a murderer, clear their names, and in the process make a little profit for their troubles.

With all that is going on in this story, you would think that the Wrights would have time for nothing else. And as interesting as the main plot of this novel is, the subplot that fleshes out the on again, off again relationship saga between Tina and police Lieutenant Cal Swenson, all the fabulous meals cooked up by Harry and his wife Bea, and the side characters like Tina’s tenant, the quirky artist wannabe, Solstice, is perhaps what really makes this series special. 

Hawes has developed characters that you can’t help but care about. It’s what makes me continue to buy and read every book in this series. I really want to know what’s going on in Tina and Harry’s personal life as well as how they will solve the mystery at hand.

I highly recommend A Nest of Spies. It is my favorite Justinia Wright Mystery so far, and I can’t wait to dive into the next one to see where the mystery and mayhem takes this talented brother and sister detective duo.

That is high praise. Reviews such as that one get me through the occasional dark day.

If you haven’t read A Nest of Spies, you can find the book on Amazon, along with the entire Justinia Wright series.

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading!

For the Weekend 7

 I’m back with more considerations for your weekend reading.

As you know, if you are a regular reader of this blog, I think reading is the best entertainment. It’s not only fun, but reading fiction stimulates the brain in a way watching TV and movies doesn’t. So reading is fun and good for you. We all want healthy brains. No one looks forward to senility.

First up is a cozy mystery by bestselling Texas author Linda Pirtle.

Scrabbled Secrets (The Games We Play, Book 4)

A long and winding road it is to get to the bottom of this mystery. But amateur sleuth Lillian Prestridge (with a little help from a ghost?) is literally up to the task as she drives her motorhome across the middle of the US and into Canada.

There are thrills and spills a plenty in this cozy mystery that isn’t perhaps so cozy! And you’ll learn a whole new way to play Scrabble, too.

If you like cozies, and perhaps a bit of grit, this one’s for you!

You can find it on Amazon!

Or maybe your tastes run to good old epic fantasy. The classic battle between good and evil. If so, you might want to consider another fellow Texan’s book for your reading pleasure: Michael Scott Clifton’s Escape From Wheel (Conquest Of The Veil, Book 2).

This classic tale of good vs evil gets personal in a hurry. Alexandria discovers she must marry Rodric. And bad old Rodric is in league with some big time baddies.

But Alexandria has other ideas. She leaves town on a winged horse. Escaping your fate, though, is never easy.

There’s magic galore in the magical world of Meredith, both good and evil. Which means it’s a good place to get your fantasy fix.

You can find Escape from Wheel on Amazon!

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading!

The Business of Being Indie — Part 3

 Some Things I’ve Learned

I published my first 4 books in November 2014 and followed up with 2 more in December 2014.

Quite honestly, I had no idea what I was doing. And I shamefacedly admit that I believed in the magic wand. That just by putting my books up on Amazon I would make piles of money, and in a couple years could buy my Rolls-Royce.

Then reality hit a couple, three months later when the sales fell off to nothing.

The School Of Hard Knocks taught me once again there isn’t a magic wand. TANSTAAFL. There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. For a moment there, I forgot and believed in free lunches.

But not anymore. Reality is a Harsh Mistress, to paraphrase Heinlein.

Today I’m sharing with you some things I’ve learned over the years. I’m naturally skeptical. But I, too, have been suckered by those promising me that their snake oil works where all the others have failed.

So here is a list, in no particular order, of things I’ve learned.

1. The Self-Publishing world of today is very much like the pulp fiction magazine world of yesteryear. Study the writers and publishers from back then, apply what you learn, and the study will pay dividends. There is nothing new under the sun.

2. Fiction readers, for the most part, want entertainment. Scare them. Make them cry. Make them feel good. Give them an exciting adventure. If you can do that, you’ll have an audience.

3. Your story doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be good enough. The vast majority of readers aren’t looking for The Great American Novel, they merely want to be entertained. They just want to have fun.

4. If you want fast money from your pen or keyboard, write non-fiction. Something in the self-help area. Non-fiction is the second largest book market after romance.

5. If you want fast money writing fiction, write only in the most popular genres. Right now these are romance, thrillers, and urban fantasy.

6. Start your mailing list before you publish your first book.

7. Pick one or two social media platforms and build a following before you publish your first book. And that goes for setting up your website, too.

8. Your book cover is advertising copy. (And foolish me thought it was about the book!) It must tell the potential reader what genre your book is in. So don’t be original. Be a copycat.

9. Your book’s blurb is advertising copy. Don’t tell the potential reader what the book is about. Tell them how they’ll feel reading it.

10. The one indie rule for success that has not changed is write lots (and fast), and publish often.

11. Publish a novel, or at the very least a story or novella, at least every three months. More frequently is better.

12. Write in series. Standalones, with rare exception, don’t work well in self-publishing. There are lots of ways to structure a series. Here are four:

1. The multi-volume novel. Think trilogy. Think Lord of the Rings. Think the Kurtherian Gambit. One main story arc stretched over 3 or more novels.
2. The Series Character. Think Sherlock Holmes and Nero Wolfe. Or Lazarus Long and Jules de Grandin. Or Columbo and Star Trek on TV. Each episode is a standalone, but they all tie together.
3. The Same World/Universe. Standalones work better if they are all set in a single world, and perhaps have recurring characters show up.Trollope’s Barchester series started this approach. Lindsay Buroker (writing as Ruby Lionsdrake) used it for her SF Romance novels. And there are others.
4. The idea or object series. This was a favorite of H. Bedford-Jones. He’d write standalone stories and what tied them together was a theme or an object that appeared in each story. One series chronicled the fictional history of a famous emerald. Another the history of ships. And another famous heroes.

13. Don’t waste money on an editor. They are after all only human. I’ve seen too many professionally edited books rife with errors. Today’s AI can proofread and line edit with ruthless efficiency. I’ve become a convert after using ProWritingAid.

14. And if you are having trouble with the overall concept of your book, have a couple fans read it over and tell you what doesn’t work. After all, they buy your books. An editor probably doesn’t.

15. Beware the “expert”. Why? Because most aren’t. They follow the very old saying: read three books on any subject and you are an expert. Which means you might as well read those 3 books yourself. After all, the books are probably cheaper than the course the “expert” is selling.

Fifteen things I’ve learned. And I’m sure lots more learning is on the way.

Comments are always welcome! And until next time — happy reading and writing!

The Business of Being Indie — Part 2

 Last week we took a look at the business side of being an indie authorpreneur. We saw that there are writers who are making piles of money, and those who are strong mid-listers. The mid-listers aren’t on the bestseller lists — but they earn enough to make a decent living. Then there are the rest of us.

We also learned there are no magic wands. There is only work.

TANSTAAFL

Robert Heinlein, in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, popularize the term TANSTAAFL — There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.

TANSTAAFL is at the core of economics — and business is economics.

Everything has its cost. Nothing is free. Somebody somewhere always foots the bill. It may be free to me, but somebody is paying for it to be free to me.

So why is it many writers don’t see selling books as a business? I can’t tell you. However, all one has to do is take a look at Penguin Random House to know that publishing is a business. There is a bottom line. The company, or sole proprietor, either makes money or goes out of business.

There is a third path that indie authors can take: they can write and publish books as a hobby. And some indies do take that road.

Most, however, have dreams of quitting the day job and telling stories for a living. It is possible. But it takes work. As I quickly found out after just a few months.

The Business Model

Barring the one in a million chance I am going to write a runaway bestseller like Gone With The Wind or To Kill A Mockingbird at my first go, I am going to have to work to sell my books. So how do I do that?

We said last week that McDonald’s success lies not in its burgers and fries, but in the location of its restaurants.

A good location provides traffic. The traffic will see those Golden Arches and say, “Hey, I’m hungry. I’ll grab a burger. I don’t have to go out of my way to get lunch.” And McDonald’s makes money.

What we have is:

Traffic —->Desire to Buy = Money

If we want to make a lot of money, there’s a third step:

Traffic —->Desire to Buy —->Scale up = Lots of Money

That is the business model in a nutshell. All successful businesses follow that model.

We indie authors must generate traffic to our books. We must make those books so attractive that lookers become buyers. And if we want to make a lot of money, then we have to scale up the business.

Some Ways to Get Traffic

The first step is to get eyes on your book. How do you do that?

Word of mouth. People like your book and tell others about it. The best advertising.

Social media. Works something like word of mouth. Is perhaps most effective if people read your book, like it, and then go on and tell their followers about it.

Promotions. Tactics such as loss leaders, raffles/sweepstakes, and giveaways can get eyes on your book and gain you buying readers down the road.

Advertising. Paying for ads to get your book before potential readers is an expensive, yet frequently used tool. You will need deep pockets at the beginning until you learn how to make advertising effective so that it will sustain itself through sales.

The Mailing List

After nearly 6 years in the independent author/publisher business, I am convinced of one thing: indie authors are mail order businesses.

Think about how people get your books. They get them by mail: email or snail mail.

We indie authors are mail order businesses.

Which means we need to create and build a mailing list.

There are lots of tools available with which to build your list.

• You can ask people.
• Social media is also a way you can attract people to your list. Although, I don’t get many sign-ups from social media.
• Giveaways. Give away a reader magnet using ProlificWorks or BookFunnel. This works best if you join a multi-author promotion, because you will get more traffic. Be aware that you will get a lot of freebie grabbers. But you will also get some gold.
• Raffles. I never used a raffle. But from what others say, they can be successful. They can also be a miserable failure. In the end, they are just another form of the giveaway. You will get a lot of chaff and a small amount of wheat.

Initially, I asked people I knew if they would like to be on my list. I didn’t ask everyone, just those who I thought might be interested

Once I got a small list established, I used ProlificWorks to build my list. I offered my first in series free, and joined several promotions. I got a lot of subscribers. And a lot of unsubscribers. And the latter are fine, because you don’t want them on your list if they have no interest in you. Mailing lists cost money.

To make your mailing list effective and cost efficient, you will need to periodically winnow the list.

Perhaps once a year send an email to those subscribers who don’t open any of your emails or who don’t buy anything and ask if they are still interested in being on your list. To show that they are interested, you can have them click on a link to your Amazon book page.

Those that don’t click or tap the link remove from your list. Because those folks aren’t interested in you or your books.

Some people advocate having a lot of subscribers on your mailing list. Because according to statistics, they say, a large list equals a lot of sales. And perhaps that is true. But a mailing list costs money. It is not free. To make it an efficient and effective list you will need to get rid of those people who show no interest in you. That is just good business.

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading — and writing!

The Business Of Being Indie—Part 1

Indie authors are actually independent author/publishers. And quite frankly, while many, if not most of us, are decent writers — nearly all of us are poor businessmen. In other words, we suck at the publishing part of our business.

McDonald’s

We think of the restaurant with the Golden Arches as a fast food eatery. But McDonald’s primary concern isn’t burgers and fries — it’s location. Their primary concern is real estate: buying the best location in an area. Because the best location will bring in the most traffic — and traffic translates into burgers and fries sold.

Success Stories

I like reading indie success stories. I find them to be a source of inspiration and encouragement. If they can do it, why can’t I?

And there are some very significant indie success stories. Mark Dawson, Michael Anderle, Nick Stephenson, Joanna Penn, Craig Martelle, Diane Capri, to name a few.

But there are also success stories we don’t hear about very often, such as PF Ford, Patty Jansen, and Lindsay Buroker.

If the above mentioned authors can make significant money from their pens, why can’t I?

Roadblocks

There are, though, significant roadblocks on the road to making a living from telling stories. Let me point out two.

Ignorance. Yep, lack of knowledge. Specifically mail-order business knowledge. 

Because, whether we realize it or not, whether we like it or not, we indie authors are, at the heart of it all, mail-order businesses.

How do your readers get your books? By snail mail or email. Very few of us are in bookstores. So if your readers and mine get our books by mail, we are mail-order business persons.

To succeed, we need to get rid of our business ignorance and learn the ins and outs of mail-order business.

Belief in the Magic Wand. Most of us think that our business model goes something like this:

Write book —>Wave Magic Wand —>Thousands of Sales

However, we soon find out that there is no magic wand. We write our books, publish them, and ask ourselves why isn’t anyone reading my Great American Novel?

Generally speaking, people don’t read our books because they don’t know they exist. With millions of indie books published on Amazon, how are readers going to find my book? Because Amazon is a business too. They are going to drive traffic to the books that sell and will therefore make them money. The infamous Amazon algorithms see to that.

There is no Magic Wand. We have to go to work and drive traffic to where our books are. Which means we have to find the traffic, our potential readers, and get our book in front of their eyes. This takes work. There are no Magic Wands. There is just work or excuses for not working.

These two roadblocks kill off most indie authors. Because writing for a living has always been difficult, with few being successful at it. And nothing changed with the advent of ebooks.

Tune in next week to find out what work we have to do in the hope of getting eyeballs looking at our books.

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading and writing!