Are you superstitious? In Jewish tradition, whenever you are thinking about how well things are going, you must give yourself a Kinehoreh (pronounced Kin-ah-HOH-rah) to ward off the evil eye. If you don’t, you are tempting fate to reverse your good fortune. This is a brief excerpt from Died Blonde, in which you can see … Read more
Situational Awareness Research for crime writing often includes advice we can use in our daily lives. Recently, we heard retired police Sergeant Al Hallonquist from http://www.securityconsultants.com speak at a meeting of Florida Chapter of Mystery Writers of America. Here are his safety tips. Use common sense and be aware of your surroundings. In a restaurant, … Read more
Let’s welcome Christa Nardi, author of the Cold Creek cozy mystery series. Why did you choose to write in the mystery genre? As a reader, I’ve always loved mysteries. I am a big fan of cozy mysteries in particular, although I do like romantic suspense as well. Tell us about your story and the … Read more
If procrastination is an art, than as a writer, I must be at the peak of my career. This summer has challenged my writing goals as I seem to be revising the same books endlessly. No matter how many rounds I do, I always find more words to change. When will it end? Probably when … Read more
Fans of cozy mysteries set up a cry of outrage when Penguin Random House/Berkeley/NAL announced the cancellation of many favorite mystery series. Over two dozen authors took the hit. At the same time, Five Star declared the end of its entire mystery line as of March 2017. Yep, that includes Yours Truly. My last book … Read more
Halfway through the year, we should evaluate our status regarding the goals we’ve set for ourselves. Back in January, I listed these objectives for the year. I divided them into Writing Goals and Career Goals. Think about doing this if you’re an author. Let’s see how I’ve done in this progress report. If you’re wondering … Read more
Writing a book these days has five stages. It used to be that you wrote the book, polished your work, and submitted it to a publisher. Then you were done, except for edits, proofreading your ARCs, and some promotion. Now you have many more choices in the publishing arena. Many of us face the challenges … Read more
Step 5 Production—Cover Design, Formatting, Uploads Cover Design Decide if you’re going to use stock cover art or hire a designer. I recommend hiring a professional cover artist. You’ll have many things to consider, such as: · Placement, size, and font for your book title and author name · Series logo · Text color · … Read more
Step 5 – Production—Front and Back Materials Continuing our series on reviving your backlist titles, you’ll want to add front and back materials to your manuscript. What should this include? Front Materials Minimize the front end of things so when the reader clicks on Look Inside at Amazon, he gets to see the text of … Read more
Continuing our series about reviving your backlist titles, consider how and where you want to publish these titles. Do you intend to put them into the Kindle Select program exclusive to Amazon? Do you wish to put them up yourself at the various vendors? Or will you use a company like Smashwords or Draft2Digital? It … Read more