By Lois Winston Have you ever read a cozy mystery novel and thought, “No way would that ever happen in real life!”? I know that many readers will think exactly that when they read about the idiosyncratic behavior of Barry Sumner, a character in Seams Like the Perfect Crime, my fourteenth and latest Anastasia Pollack […]
By Lois Winston I’m exhausted! But I’m not complaining. Just stating a fact. The last month has been a good exhaustion filled with family, writers, and accolades. First, at the end of July, my husband and I took our soon-to-be nine and eleven-year-old grandsons to Cumberland Falls State Park in Kentucky for four days. The […]
A Day in the Life of Cozy Mystery Author Lois Winston By Lois Winston Did you ever have one of those days where you look back and wonder what you accomplished between starting your day and ending it? You check your word count for the day and ask yourself how you could have accomplished so […]
The times they are a-changin’. In all aspects of our lives. Maybe the challenges of cozy mystery marketing, or any book marketing, never rank high on most people’s minds—unless you’re an author struggling with ever-increasing expenses and ever-shrinking book sales. For those of us in that boat, it’s a serious personal and financial problem. Publishing […]
Bopping in Historical Waters By M.E. Proctor When I was a kid, I wanted to be an archeologist. I had romantic notions about digging in the Valley of the Kings, excavating the ruins of Troy, or following Percy Fawcett in his search for the lost city of Z—David Grann’s book had not been published yet […]
By Lois Winston Sometimes the universe sends you a signal. Last month, I received one. It began when I was uploading a guest post to Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers, the blog I’d created in 2010 because my editor wanted me to join Facebook, and I had refused. I told her I’d instead join Twitter […]
I’m not a quilter, but I’ve always appreciated the beauty and workmanship of handmade quilts. In many ways, creating a quilt is much like writing a mystery novel. When starting a quilt, the quilter must first decide on a design. As an author, I start by deciding on the book’s story. The quilter then chooses […]
By Lois Winston Marketing is the bane of every author’s existence. Whether the author is traditionally published or independently publishing, we’re all responsible for much of our books’ promotion these days. Currently, Guilty as Framed, the eleventh Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, is on sale through Amazon, Kobo, and Apple Books for only .99 cents. In […]
By Lois Winston There was a time when I enjoyed fantasy, science fiction, and even some horror. The summer before ninth grade, I discovered The Lord of the Rings trilogy and read all three books within a few weeks. The books of Ira Levin, Arthur C. Clarke, and Tom Tryon filled my spare time throughout […]
By Lois Winston For my first Sisterhood of the Traveling Book post, I’m reaching back to 2012 for the best promo ever. The Underground New York Public Library is a photo series by photographer Ourit Ben-Haim. It features riders who are reading while waiting for a train or traveling on one throughout the New York […]