Maggie Pill Mysteries

Here it is: I write books more for me than for you. Early in my career, my agent asked me to write an Amish mystery. I said I didn't know much about the Amish, and she said it didn't matter. Amish mysteries were hot. Yeah, no. I have acquaintances in the biz who write "franchise" mysteries. The publisher owns the theme, maybe a coffee shop location or a schoolteacher protagonist. One person I know wrote a few James Bond books. Another is now Jessica Fletcher. They're paid pretty well to be unknown authors of someone else's ideas. Um, no. I've had publishers who wanted me to write more in a series that was selling well. I've had fans who ask for more stories about this character or that. If I feel like the story arc has ended... No. I write what I want to write, what I feel like writing at this moment in time. I don't care if gazillions of people never hear of the book. I have fun putting it all together as I see the story. Yes, I get editing help a...

   I was having lunch last week when a woman stopped to tell me that CUTEST LITTLE KILLER is my best book yet. I found a review on Amazon with this as its clincher "It's great. I loved it." I'm not sure if those people know how much that helps an author out. We work for months, even years, on a book. We ask for input. We hire editors. We polish and re-read. When it's finally out there, we wonder if it's good enough. Even the best writers of the day admit to asking themselves, "Is this the book that will sink my career?" If you've had success with a former series, as I do with the Sleuth Sisters, it's tempting to stick with the "safe" choice, writing more of the same. But while I enjoy each book and series I've written, I always come to a point where I want to try something new. Cutest Little Killer is quite different from the Sleuth Sisters. That could cause some to look elsewhere for their next read, but readers must at some p...

If this were a typical day, I might have called my sister and talked about nothing for a half hour. She knew I love my husband, so I could gripe for a while about his foibles and she wouldn't judge. She was patient with my stories, which tend to weave a bunch of asides in as I struggle toward the main point. She shared my negative optimism about life: It isn't perfect, but it's what we've got. Instead of calling, I might have driven the 30 miles to her house so we could go out to lunch. Or we might have sat on her porch, sipped tea, and relived our childhood. Those things were typical, but they're impossible now, since my sister died suddenly at sixty-three. There are positives here. She often said she didn't want to linger into old age, and we agreed that a quick death is better than a slow decline. (Hence the deer suit in the Sleuth Sisters stories.) We'd been out together the day she died, and her last words to me were how much fun it was, doing n...

Two schools of thought surround the exclamation point. Over-eager (often newbie) writers use way too many, because they just LOVE what they're writing and they just KNOW the reader is as excited as they are about it. I recently stopped reading a book because of the author's exuberant use of EPs. It wasn't that interesting anyway, but the constant use of unnecessary EPs, sometimes two or three at a time, made it seem like the author was trying to force me to feel excitement where there wasn't any. On the other hand, I've read attacks on the EP that I find downright snooty. Some editorial types insist it should be eliminated. One went so far as to say something like, "Make sure you use no more than ten exclamation points in your novel--then remove those ten." One of those ideas is as bad as the other. Overuse of EPs makes writing seem immature and gushy. Using none at all can make it dead. My position is that anything that helps the reader understan...

A version of this post originally ran on the  Hometown Authors  site on October 9, 2018 You wrote a book. Hooray! Now comes selling the book. Let's talk about that. If you go traditional, your publisher will do some of the work needed to sell your book. My (now former) publisher arranged reviews, announced the book’s release to libraries, and featured it on their website. I learned I was expected to help get the word out, which back then was a surprise. I thought books sort of sold themselves. It takes effort to get a book noticed, and whether you publish independently, traditionally, or somewhere in the middle, you're the one who cares most about your work. You can pay people to promote for you, but that’s expensive and often doesn’t result in the sales authors hope for. You can promote for yourself, choosing how much time and effort you want to put into it. Here are a few ways that can happen. Book tours : Authors do tours so they can talk about their books to...

?????????? I know what my fans will say if I ask: Should the Sleuth Sisters series be done? I've already heard it from some: "No! We love them!" I get that. But what is the saturation point for a series? I always thought it was five books, but I've got #6 mostly done, and I like it. The sisters still have issues to work through, and the two cases this book covers are interesting (There are dogs in one; that's always good.) But in my own reading, I tend to lose interest when a series goes on too long. Yes, I've read twenty-three Sue Graftons, but I space them out so I don't get sick of Kinsey. I love Harry Bosch too, but I was pleased to see that Connelly expanded to the Lincoln Lawyer books and is trying out a new character in The Late Show.  I think I'll know if there should be another Sleuth Sisters book. What happens is my brain starts telling me the story when I'm ready to write it down. There's no telling when that will ha...

I went to see SOMETHING ROTTEN this week, a very enjoyable show. In it there's a number in which Shakespeare sings about it being "Hard to Be the Bard." That got me thinking about writing and the levels of difficulty involved. It is hard, but it's also fun. It's hard to write the whole thing . I can't tell you how many people I've met who have three (or five or eight) chapters of a novel written but just can't go farther. Writers get that, but they also get past it. It's hard to make it good . Writing well takes a lot of understanding of language, story, syntax, conversation, style, character--all those things your English teacher used to go on about. They matter. It might be true that everyone has a story inside, but not everyone is ready to tell it well enough that others want to read it. It's hard to make it better. Another group I meet a lot are those who have written their masterpiece and can see absolutely nothing wrong with it. Fi...

When people find out that I write, they often ask for advice. What they want to hear is that I love their idea for a book, that I'm going to IMMEDIATELY tell my agent about it, and I can guarantee they're going to make a ton of money. None of those things is likely. I might or might not love your idea for a book. I'm one person, and what I think really (I mean REALLY) doesn't matter. I no longer have an agent, but even if I did, my recommendation would mean little except she might take a look. Agents judge on what they like and what they can sell (The second is more important, but the first part makes them more invested in the project.) And if you sell a book, your chances of making the money you'd like are pretty small. Most of us are happy with very little. (Experts say most authors make less than $1000/year and most books sell less than 100 copies.) My advice? IF none of the above dampens your enthusiasm for writing, you're a writer.

I like listening to famous authors tell about their writing process, because they're all different. Here are a few examples I've collected, with my reaction. Lee Child says he writes a book once and allows his editor to make a few suggestions for changes, but only two or three.    I could never operate this way, being one who needs feedback. If it works for him, great. Mark Billingham says his process often involves lying on the couch staring at the ceiling for long periods of time.   I can relate to that, although if you're a regular reader, you know I'm more likely to take a walk when I need to think things through. Robert Barnard said he simply began writing and went where the story led him. He admitted he sometimes ended up stuck but said it was like climbing a mountain. You might come to a spot where you can climb no farther, but looking around, you see where you've been and where you need to go. That's most like my process. I simply cannot p...

  A fan wrote to say she read SLEUTHING AT SWEET SPRINGS in one day. She was ready for the next one and wanted to know when to expect it. You're ready; I'm willing, but here's the thing. It takes a LOT longer to write a book than it does to read it.  First, I need a plot idea. Now, a series is nice because the characters are already there, but they have to do something interesting in each book. I won't write the same plot over and over, and I want it to be a true mystery, with clues for the reader and a logical conclusion. I like the subplots (in the case of the Sleuth Sisters, the grammar thing is big) to be interesting, too. Second, I need time to write it down . The story forms in my head, but the writing-down part always creates problems I didn't imagine. Again, the Sleuth Sisters is tricky because of three points of view. Does Retta know what Faye and Barb did last night? If not, how does she find out? Third, I edit, re-edit, and edit again . I h...

I should be receiving ARCs (Advance Review Copies, also known as Proofs) in the mail next week. I'll deliver them to some beta readers with sharp eyes who enjoy being the first to read a book. Covers are done by yeocladesigns--amazing! This stage is our last chance to clear up the pesky little errors that creep into books despite hard-working editors and despite the fact I've probably read the dumb thing a hundred times! I listened to my computer read the book aloud before sending it in for the final setup. As long as I don't let my mind wander, I can hear the tiniest errors, like a pause where I left an extra space or when it reads sat instead of sad . The fact remains that an author can't step back far enough to see places where the reader goes "What?" I'm grateful to have faithful friends who are willing to read and point those spots out to me. For example, a friend who read SLEUTHING AT SWEET SPRINGS noted that in one conversation I'd giv...

First, the upside of arranging pre-orders of an upcoming book. If an author sets a book up for pre-order, the sales that come before the release date count as sales on that day, which raises the book higher in rankings, which shows it to more people, which in turn generates more sales. In theory, anyway. I'm not much for figuring out the ins and outs of selling more books. I'd rather write more. The downside of pre-orders is my anxiety level. I have to cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die promise I'll get the book done by June 20, ten days before the "official" release date so Amazon knows I'm trustworthy. If I fail, they promise to never let me pre-order again (well, for a year, anyway). I could live with that, but I hate failing, so I won't if I can possibly help it. The problem is I'm waiting for others to do their jobs and hoping that their jobs (editing) won't require too much more work from me (re-writing/fixing errors). When I signed a con...

Book #1 I looked up the word benchmark but I didn't learn much. It's a combination of bench + mark, and it represents a new standard. (So what's the bench got to do with it?  Do we sit down and rest when we reach a point where we've done something really cool? I don't intend to. Who wants to rest when you're on a roll?) Wherever the word came from, I'm approaching a benchmark with The Sleuth Sisters, the first book in the series. Sometime in the next week it will hit 1500 in audio book sales. For a book I wrote under a pseudonym, published myself, and promoted haphazardly at best, that's amazing. The production company people are pretty happy, too, since I did a 50-50 share of the profits with them rather than pay upfront. With a second, third, and soon a fourth installment in the series, we've got a small but reassuring stream of money coming in. In e-book, print, and audio sales, I'm earning more on the Sleuth Sisters than any of my ot...

Releasing May 30, 2016 Since E. A. Poe wrote the first mystery, the genre has been popular with readers. Though most of us will never deal with murder and wouldn't want to, we like peering over someone's shoulder as he or she pokes into a crime, unearthing secrets and eventually the perpetrator. We began with police officers, whose involvement is logical, since they're paid to find out whodunit. The genre soon picked up private investigators, who also get paid but aren't as hemmed in by rules as the coppers. Then came the amateur detective, someone who should be doing something else, like writing novels (Jessica Fletcher) or Miss Marple (making tea?). They're often just plain nosy, but they can also be clever and fun. Of course there are those who are falsely accused, or connected to someone who is, but that usually works only once (unless you're Jessica Fletcher's nephew). Today's mysteries spread across all those lines. There are lots of police ...

I finished the 4th Sleuth Sisters, SLEUTHING at SWEET SPRINGS, earlier this week and sent it to my #1 beta reader, my sister. I've got no cover art yet (sigh), but here are some random thoughts. *It isn't done. Not only will my sister make suggestions (and after that there's the editor and other beta readers), but the time that passes while I'm away from the book will make me look at some things differently. I already have an idea for an addition--just a couple of lines to create humor. *I'm not sure anymore which sister I'm most like. While I didn't base the characters on real life, I do have two sisters and we are quite different in our outlooks on life. I'm not sure which Sleuth Sister is closest to me. Like Barb, I had a good primary career before taking on my second. Like Faye, I've been happily married for years and don't regret anything I've lived through. And like Retta, I can be clueless and shallow, though I'm not stupid a...

Writers are supposed to write what they know, but once you start writing, you realize you don't know as much as you thought you did. I was raised on a farm, so I have a sense of life there, but that was (mumble-mumble) years ago. Things are different now. As the Sleuth Sisters Mysteries go on, I find myself wandering through Fleet-Farm type stores with new interest. "Look!" I tell my husband. "This is how they water chickens nowadays." "Huh,"  he replies. In the Work In Progress, there is real estate fiddling, so I need to know about deeds and sales and Realtor duties (and yes, that has to be capitalized.) I visit an acquaintance in real estate, and he gets me started. When I run into a snag, I call him and he helps me make it work. "Wow!" I tell my husband. "Dan sure knows the real estate business." "Huh." I've mentioned before the friends who help when I write about exotic animals, like the reindeer in B...

I have many, many people in my writing life who help me out. My friends Paul and Debbie, for example, met with me while I was writing Murder in the Boonies and answered lots of questions about reindeer. My friend Connie reads my stuff when it's still half-baked and gives constructive criticism. My sister loves everything I write and provides encouragement. Yay for them! On the other hand are the people who don't help and even get in the way at times. When I was writing one mystery series, I needed information about a park in another state. I wasn't able to go there and look at it, so I wrote to the park management and asked if they'd answer some questions. I stressed that they'd be specific, like "Is the park well-lit at night?" and I offered them a free copy of the book when it came out. At first I got an enthusiastic "We'd be pleased to help." However, when I sent five questions requiring only short answers, I got no reply. I waited tw...

On the First Day of Christmas, my agent sent to me: a huge check for royalty! On the Second Day of Christmas, on Audible for me: new audio files On the Third Day of Christmas, the artist sent to me: one awesome cover On the Fourth Day of Christmas, the tech guy sent to me: epub mobi formats On the Fifth Day of Christmas, the readers sent to me:   Five Star Reviews! On the Sixth Day of Christmas, some good luck gave to me: promo on BookBub On the Seventh Day of Christmas, my publisher decreed: major U.S.   book tour On the Eighth Day of Christmas, the news announced to me: New York Times top listing On the Ninth Day of Christmas, an editor told me: “Couldn’t find an error.” On the Tenth Day of Christmas, a beta said to me: “Next book’s even better!” On the Eleventh Day of Christmas, my PR girl told me: Outsold Evanovitch! On the Twelfth Day of Christmas, some clerk called to tell me: “Oprah loves your book!” ...