One Author’s Challenges of Cozy Mystery Marketing

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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 has always been a fickle industry.

Marketing was once the responsibility of publishing companies. The author had one job and one job only—meet their deadline. However, these days, whether you publish traditionally, independently, or both, most authors are required to do a huge chunk, if not all, of their own marketing. The reason? In today’s topsy-turvy world, publishers devote all their marketing dollars to the top one percent of their authors—the very authors who have such incredibly established names and reputations that their books would sell (and sell well) without the benefit of any marketing and publicity efforts.

Authors are always looking for new ways of marketing their books to readers.

The trouble is, whenever we hit upon something that works, it never lasts for long. Or what works for one author offers little or no results for another. Not only are we constantly in search of that elusive Golden Ticket, when we finally grab onto it, it often slips through our fingers.

Social Media

Social media? Some fellow authors have told me I’ve sabotaged myself by not being on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Maybe they’re right, but I’ve seen the nasty side of social media and want no part of it. I was bullied enough as a kid.

Amazon ads

I tried Amazon ads. They worked great for several years. Until they didn’t. I switched over to what’s called Defensive Ads, at the suggestion of another author who was having quite a bit of success with them. A month and a half later, they’ve resulted in exactly one sale.

I attended a workshop where the presenter claimed her success came from growing her newsletter mailing list through reader magnets, which is creating a landing page on your website where you offer a free read to anyone signing up for your newsletter. Since creating my reader magnet seven months ago, I’ve increased my subscriber list by nearly 1,000. During that time, though, I’ve seen no increase in monthly sales.

Promo newsletters

Promo Newsletters featuring discounted books used to work well for me. Until they didn’t. I wasn’t alone. Other authors have said the same thing. The only one I’ve continued to use is Bookbub—when I’ve been lucky enough to get a spot. They’ve always been extremely successful for me. So I was thrilled several weeks ago when I was offered a U.S. Bookbub promo on Amazon, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, and Apple Books for the 2-book bundle featuring the first two books in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries for .99 cents.

Not only is a Bookbub promo hard to get, but they’re also a huge financial commitment. A bite the bullet, close your eyes, cross your fingers, and hold your breath-sized commitment. You need to sell several thousand books just to break even. The hope is that people who paid less than a dollar for your book (or books, in this case) will enjoy them enough to buy other books in the series at the regular retail price. In the past, that’s the way it’s worked for me.

I’d heard the rumors about other authors not doing well with Bookbub anymore. I suspected enough authors had stopped trying for Bookbub ads that even Bookbub was starting to feel the pinch because they had dropped the price in the Cozy Mystery category by nearly $200. My initial reaction was that I’d have to sell far fewer books to break even.

Bookbub promos always sell the most books the first day of the sale when the promo newsletter goes out. The book then remains on Bookbub’s website for the length of time the author has set for the sale. I’ve always gone with the 30-day max. Each day after the first, sales go down incrementally. However, in the past, I’ve always made Amazon’s bestseller list that first day. Not this time. I was shocked at how few books sold.

My promo end July 10th. Seeing the results this time is both sobering and depressing. I have little hope of breaking even. I know with what’s going on in the U.S. and the world right now, people are worried. I’m worried. But I’d hoped I could give them a little bit of an escape and a few laughs for only .99 cents, and at the same time, help my own financial bottom line. However even .99 cents seems too steep a price for many people to pay these days.

~*~

USA Today and Amazon bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston writes mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” In addition, Lois is a former literary agent and an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry. Learn more about Lois and her books at her website www.loiswinston.com. Sign up for her newsletter to receive an Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mini-Mystery.

Oops! After 15 Years I Killed My Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers Mystery Blog

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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 and create a blog.

I rarely posted on Twitter and eventually closed the account, but I kept up the blog. It changed over the years. At first, I posted new content five days a week. After a few years, I reduced my blogging to three days a week, then once a week. I began having more and more guests because coming up with fresh content, even once a week, is time-consuming, and I also belong to two multi-author blogs. I blog once a month here at The Stiletto Gang and once every seven weeks at Booklover’s Bench. For the last year, I was posting once a month on Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers and hosting guests the other weeks.

Then one day about a month ago, I was uploading a guest post, and Blogger wouldn’t let me add the jpeg of the guest’s cover. I rebooted my computer. Multiple times with no success. I searched the Internet and found various reasons why the jpeg wouldn’t load. I tried other jpegs with no success, and after eliminating all the other suggestions, I tried the only one left. I deleted my cookies. Suddenly, I could no longer get onto my blog dashboard, even after signing in.

I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with Google, leaning heavily toward the hate. Google doesn’t play well with my Mac. Never has. And, of course, it’s impossible to get human help from Google, especially for Blogger, which they stopped supporting years ago. Did I want to waste more hours, days, even weeks trying to get back into my blog, knowing the chances of success were infinitesimal? I’d already wasted hours, the result being that the initial minor problem had grown to a major one. I also wasn’t about to pay a tech expert hundreds of dollars, only to have him or her fail as well.

Maybe the time had come to bid a fond farewell to Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers. The fact that I wasn’t panicking about losing my blog, told me this was an option I should consider. Maybe Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers had run its course after fifteen years. All good things must come to an end. Would anyone even notice or care? Do I care? The more I thought about it, the more I realized I didn’t. Instead, I was looking forward to the time it would free up in my writing schedule and my life.

So, fare thee well, Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers. I bid you adieu as you take your place in the huge expanse of dead blogs floating around somewhere in cyberspace.

Have you stepped away from some or all social media, either intentionally or inadvertently? Were you upset or happy about it? Post a comment for a chance to receive a promo code for a free audiobook download of one of the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries.

~*~

USA Today and Amazon bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston writes mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” In addition, Lois is a former literary agent and an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry. Her most recent book is Seams Like the Perfect Crime, the fourteenth Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery. Learn more about Lois and her books at her website. Sign up for her newsletter to receive an Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mini-Mystery.

Mother’s Day Index?

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There are all sorts of mothers in modern literature, from the unbearably overbearing and ambitious Mama Rose in Gypsy to the kind, upstanding, Marmee in Little Women.

This past Mother’s Day weekend, the local paper published an article about the “Mother’s Day Index” a numerical attempt to calculate the monetary value of a mother’s work, based on time preparing meals, doing laundry, day care, budgeting, counseling, and so on. Apparently, this year, a mother is worth $145,235.

I laughed out loud at that number.

My mother has been gone five years now. She’s still very present in my life, especially lately, as I’m finally emptying the storage space that held lasting remnants of her time on earth.

Surrounded by physical evidence of her life, and what she managed to accomplish—not just for our family, but for the wider community as well—I can’t help but believe that the so-called index calculation is way off. It’s contemptibly low, as is the premise that a mother’s worth can be defined in dollars and cents.

I’m not normally prone to quoting the Bible, but Proverbs 31:10 (often referred to as the “woman of valor” verse) describes a woman who embodies strength, virtue, and wisdom as someone who is worth far more than any earthly treasure.

Surrounded as I am these days by so many mementos from my Mother’s life, that is exactly who and what she was.

Besides excelling at all the mundane Mom skills, she was a whiz at sewing and tailoring, writing, party-making, and creating art in many forms. When my Dad was building his professional practice, she was also his first office manager.

And how to value her volunteer roles as a non-profit museum director? Or as a Braille typist who transformed newspaper and magazine articles into tiny raised dots of code on pages for the blind to read?

Or as president of a statewide women’s organization, where she wrote and produced puppet shows (“The Good Fairy’s Crown” and “The Tooth Fairy’s Helpers”) to promote positive health habits for Texas elementary school students, or her art history adult education series, and her personal art-making as well.

Good Fairy 1967, Tooth Fairy Helper (Astronaut), 1969

I celebrated this Mother’s Day, not at a posh restaurant with Mom, but inside a rapidly emptying storage space and in my increasingly storage-box-cluttered home. I’m glad to have found a couple of appreciative charitable causes to take most of the things I can’t find room for. But I still have some paintings stacked in the corner with no wall space left to hang them on, and other precious mementos I’m not ready to let go of.

How do you measure the life of a woman or a man?

Jonathan Larson‘s lyric from the smash hit musical “Rent” echoes the Bible quote from Proverbs. For those of us lucky enough to have known or been loved by women or men of valor, there’s no way to put a value on that experience, except perhaps with an occasional tug on the heart, a random tear, a wistful smile, and deep, deep gratitude.

May all your celebrations be happy ones.

Gay Yellen is the author of the multi-award-winning Samantha Newman Mystery Series: #The Body Business, #The Body Next Door, and #The Body in the News!

Got Your Card?

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My husband is a fan of television games. His favorite? Jeopardy! He likes to record new episodes for us to watch together whenever there’s a half-hour break in our day.

Lately, I’ve noticed that librarians are among the more successful contestants. It makes sense, I suppose, because a primary requirement for both jobs is to love the knowledge that books impart to us.

This is National Library Week in the U.S., and today is National Library Workers Day. Librarians have recently been on the defense, having to fend off a posse of self-appointed book-ban vigilantes. So, let’s all sound the clarions for librarians, those dutiful guardians of our collective cultures.

Librarians these days perform a variety of useful services that go way beyond sorting and cataloguing books. Chances are that your local library offers internet access, dvds, video games, board games, city passes, discounts to other venues, community meeting rooms, research assistance, lectures, craft lessons, Bookmobiles, and more.

And it’s all free and available to everyone.

My brother and his wife take their grandkids to the library every week for story hour and games. It’s a great way to introduce the young ones to books and the comforts a library can provide.

In our neighborhood, there’s a branch  that specializes in family history research. They’ll even help with access to certain genealogical sites and publications that may hold the key to your Great Grandpa Jedediah’s war record or criminal record, as the case may be. I’ve donated a few items to them, and there are plenty more to give, including high school and college yearbooks from the last century. I also have boxes of fiction and non-fiction books ready to drop off at our central library donation center. Even if they already have enough copies of a book, they can add them to the inventory for the next fundraising sale.

My guess is that if you’re still reading this post, you may have a few tomes crowding your shelves that you could donate, too. At any rate, in an increasingly cluttered world, getting rid of excess stuff feels like a much needed catharsis to me.

You’ve got questions? Librarians have answers. So let’s give a shout-out to libraries and their caretakers this week. And if you don’t have a library card already, why not get one?

Do you have memories of going to the library as a child?

Gay Yellen is the author of the award-winning Samantha Newman Mystery Series including:

The Body Business, The Body Next Door, and The Body in the News!

 

A Puzzling Art Mystery Within an Actual Art Theft Within a Cozy Mystery Novel

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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 the retail advertising world, that’s called a “loss leader,” a product that’s sold at or below cost in the hopes that customers will make other purchases at the store while they’re there to scoop up a deal. In the book world, our hope is that readers will love the sale book enough to purchase other books by the author.

I often rely on current events and human-interest stories as inspiration for the plots and/or subplot in my books. However, in Guilty as Framed I incorporated an actual unsolved crime into the book.

I fell in love with the paintings of Dutch master Rembrandt van Rijn as a teenager when I first walked through the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. From that day on, I spent many hours seated in front of my favorite of his paintings, Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer. I even wrote a paper on the painting my senior year of high school.

Because of my love of Rembrandt’s works, I was devastated when the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum was burglarized in 1990. Three of the thirteen works of art stolen were by Rembrandt. These included his only seascape, “Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee”, a painting that was nearly five-and-a-half-feet tall, and the postage-stamp sized etching “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,” featured on the cover of Guilty as Framed.

I followed the investigation as it unfolded and have read countless articles on this still unsolved crime. I’ve also watched several documentaries about the burglary and the efforts to find both the perpetrators and the missing artworks. Thirty-five years later, it’s still considered the largest art heist in history. To this day, not only haven’t the perpetrators been caught, but none of the artworks have ever been recovered. Many of the witnesses and persons of interest have since died, some of natural causes, and at least one of not-so-natural causes.

In Guilty as Framed, I wanted to incorporate the actual museum burglary and the missing artworks into the plot of the book. This gave me quite a challenge. I had to figure out how to connect a decades-old museum heist in Boston to my humorous New Jersey-set cozy mystery series.

Writing fiction rather than true crime allowed me to invent some new characters, change the names of real persons (to protect the innocent and not-so-innocent), and weave various events from the actual crime into the plot of Guilty as Framed.

The original sale invoice

“Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” is also known as “Rembrandt ‘Aux Trois Moustaches.” For those of you who don’t speak French, that translates to “Rembrandt with Three Moustaches.” How could a man have three moustaches? One prevailing theory suggests that the second “moustache” is his beard and the third is the fur on his cap. However, I’ve never heard of a beard being called a moustache, and the cap “moustache” seems quite a stretch. Perhaps “Rembrandt with a Moustache, a Beard, and a Furry Caterpillar on his Cap” would have made more sense.

 

Rembrandt was a serious artist, though. He never displayed a sense of humor in any of his paintings or in the titles of them. It seems unlikely the three-moustache title came from him. Most likely, he titled the etching “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,” a frequent title of his early self-portraits. Or he may have called the etching “Self-Portrait Wearing a Soft Cap.”

“Rembrandt ‘Aux Trois Moustaches” is a mystery within the mystery of the heist. I knew I had to explore that in my story. I began researching and discovered the tiny etching was purchased for Isabella Stewart Gardner in 1886 from the art dealer Frederick Keppel & Co., who listed the etching as such on the sales invoice. Was the three-moustache title Keppel’s idea of a joke? We’ll never know.

Finally, and most unfortunately, my research didn’t lead to the discovery of the missing artworks, which is a shame because there’s still a huge outstanding reward for information leading to their recovery.

But what does this miniature Rembrandt self-portrait have to do with my reluctant amateur sleuth Anastasia Pollack? You’ll get no spoilers from me. For an answer to that mystery, you’re going to have to read Guilty as Framed. Through April 7th, you can do so for only .99 cents.

Guilty as Framed

An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, Book 11

When an elderly man shows up at the home of reluctant amateur sleuth Anastasia Pollack, she’s drawn into the unsolved mystery of the greatest art heist in history.

Boston mob boss Cormac Murphy has recently been released from prison. He doesn’t believe Anastasia’s assertion that the man he’s looking for doesn’t live at her address and attempts to muscle his way into her home. His efforts are thwarted by Anastasia’s fiancé Zack Barnes.

A week later, a stolen SUV containing a dead body appears in Anastasia’s driveway. Anastasia believes Murphy is sending her a message. It’s only the first in a series of alarming incidents, including a mugging, a break-in, another murder, and the discovery of a cache of jewelry and an etching from the largest museum burglary in history.

But will Anastasia solve the mystery behind these shocking events before she falls victim to a couple of desperate thugs who will stop at nothing to get what they want?

Buy Links:

Amazon

Kobo

Apple Books

~*~

USA Today and Amazon bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston writes mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” In addition, Lois is a former literary agent and an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry. Learn more about Lois and her books at her website www.loiswinston.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter and follow her on various social media sites.

Author Lois Winston on Cozy Mystery Books vs. the Mind-boggling World of Minecraft

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By Lois Winston

Image by InoxyBuild from Pixabay

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 high school and into college, in-between assigned literary works like Moby Dick and The Bell Jar.

I also like to think that I have a decent knowledge of current events and trends, although I have no interest in following most of those trends. I can still kill it on Jeopardy most nights, though I’ll admit, the answers aren’t coming at the same rapid speed they once did. The brain is a muscle, and with the inevitability of growing old, all muscles, no matter how much you exercise them, start slowing down with age.

But then there’s Minecraft. My eight and ten-year-old grandsons are obsessed with it. They play it as much as they’re allowed, and when they’ve used up their screen time for the day, they either read Minecraft books or talk about Minecraft incessantly.

And I just don’t get it. Not their obsession. I get obsessions. I had plenty of my own throughout childhood and even into adulthood. My obsessions haven’t ceased. I recently became obsessed with West Wing, a show I had never watched back in the day, but I spent hours binge-watching the entire seven seasons in the autumn and early winter of 2024.

What I don’t get is Minecraft. I’ve tried. I’ve watched my grandsons play and listened to their explanation of the rules. I’ve read aloud chapters in their Minecraft books. But try as I might, I can’t wrap my brain around what strikes me as very random and odd rules concerning assorted worlds, cauldrons, emeralds, ores, ender dragons, wizards, witches, elder guardians, blocky animals, trees that don’t look like trees, and mining fatigue. And those are just a few of the oddities. It’s enough to make my head spin. It really bothers me that I seem completely incapable, even after hours of tutelage, of grasping the most rudimentary aspects of Minecraft. 😵‍💫

Perhaps Minecraft makes perfect sense to the pre-pubescent brain because they’re more open to wonderous possibilities. After all, they still believe in Santa Claus. It’s probably best that I stick to my own imaginary world of the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries. The murder and mayhem I throw at my reluctant amateur sleuth in my cozy mystery books makes far more sense to me than the pixelated world of Minecraft ever will.

What about you? Is there something about modern culture or trends that leaves you stymied and scratching your head? Post a comment for a chance to win a promo code for a free download of any of the currently available Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery audiobooks.

~*~

USA Today and Amazon bestselling author Lois Winston began her award-winning writing career with Talk Gertie to Me, a humorous fish-out-of-water novel about a small-town girl going off to the big city and the mother determined to bring her home to marry the boy next door. That was followed by the romantic suspense Love, Lies and a Double Shot of Deception.

Then Lois’s writing segued unexpectedly into the world of humorous amateur sleuth mysteries, thanks to a conversation her agent had with an editor looking for craft-themed mysteries. In her day job, Lois was an award-winning craft and needlework designer, and although she’d never written a mystery—or had even thought about writing a mystery—her agent decided she was the perfect person to pen a series for this editor.

Thus, was born the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries, which Kirkus Reviews dubbed “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” The series now includes fourteen novels and three novellas. Lois also writes the Empty Nest Mysteries and has written several standalone mystery novellas. Other publishing credits include romance, chick lit, and romantic suspense novels, a series of romance short stories, a children’s chapter book, and a nonfiction book on writing, inspired by her twelve years working as an associate at a literary agency. Her latest release is Seams Like the Perfect Crime, the fourteenth Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery.

Learn more about Lois and her books at www.loiswinston.com where you can find links for her other social media sites and sign up for her newsletter to receive a free download of an Anastasia Pollack Mini-Mystery.

Writing Life and Inspiration: Strangers + “What if?” = Plots and Characters in Fiction

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By Lois Winston

Whenever I hear a writer complain that she can’t come up with an idea for a plot or character, I offer this advice: “Get off your phone and keep your eyes and ears open.” No matter where I go—from the supermarket to a doctor’s appointment to the line at the DMV—I see people with their noses buried in their phones. I’m the outlier. As an author, part of my writing life is spent eavesdropping on conversations and observing the behaviors of those around me. That’s where I get much of my writing inspiration. For me, strangers + “what if?” = plots and characters in many of my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries.

Ideas for plots and characters are all around us if we just take the time to look and listen. Neighbors, friends, relatives, strangers, and the daily news provide constant sources of ideas for plots and characters. All you need to do is channel your inner snoop gene while pretending not to pay attention.

I’ve been privy to the most sensitive of conversations while sitting on a commuter train, in a department store dressing room, and even while doing the necessary in a mall ladies’ room stall. Sometimes, I’ve even heard both ends of the conversation, thanks to the person on the train or in the dressing room or lavatory having placed the call on speaker. Those lavatory experiences became the source of a scene in Assault with a Deadly Glue Gun, the first book in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series.

The world is full of interesting and odd individuals, and I came across some of the oddest back in 1998 when my husband and I moved to a new house. These people and their strange habits have stuck with me over the years. With the encouragement of some of my readers to whom I told about these former neighbors, I incorporated them into my latest Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery. To my knowledge, none of the real people were ever murdered or committed murder, but the traits I observed did make their way into Seams Like the Perfect Crime, the fourteenth book in my series, currently up for preorder with a release date of February 2, 2025.

Seams Like the Perfect Crime

An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, Book 14

When staffing shortages continue to hamper the Union County homicide squad, Detective Sam Spader once again turns to his secret weapon, reluctant amateur sleuth Anastasia Pollack. How can she and husband Zack Barnes refuse when the victim is their new neighbor?

Revolutionary War reenactor Barry Sumner had the odd habit of spending hours mowing a small patch of packed dirt and weeds until his mower ran out of gas. He’d then guzzle beer on his front porch until he passed out. That’s where Anastasia’s son Nick discovers his body three days after the victim and his family moved into the newly built mini-McMansion across the street.

After a melee breaks out at the viewing, Spader zeroes in on the widow as his prime suspect. However, Anastasia has her doubts. There are other possible suspects, including a woman who’d had an affair with the victim, his ex-wife, the man overseeing the widow’s trust fund, a drug dealer, and the reenactors who were blackmailing the widow and victim.

When another reenactor is murdered, Spader suspects they’re dealing with a serial killer, but Anastasia wonders if the killer is attempting to misdirect the investigation. As she narrows down the suspects, will she jeopardize her own life to learn the truth?

Craft projects included.

Preorder now. Available 2/4/25

P.S.: On Monday evening, January 27th at 7pm ET (6pm CT, 5pm MT, and 4pm PT), I’ll be the guest of the Cozy Mystery Party Facebook Group, hosted by Heather Harrisson and Shawn Stevens. If you’d like to join in for a fun hour + of all things murder, mayhem, and cozy mysteries (there will be prizes and surprises!), join the group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/cozymysteryparty. 

Hope to see you there! 

~*~

USA Today and Amazon bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston writes mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, and children’s chapter books. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” In addition, Lois is a former literary agent and an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry. Learn more about Lois and her books at her website www.loiswinston.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter and follow her on various social media sites.

Why Reading Out Loud Is Good for You

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Over the weekend, a series of New York Times articles about the pleasures of reading aloud sent me thinking backwards and forward again. Backwards to my earliest memories of listening to my Mom or Dad read Horton Hatches the Egg or some other wonderful classic to me.

Those lovely moments are imbedded deep in my bones. I’m certain my love of reading was born in those happy times.

The article stated that reading aloud benefits both the reader and the one being read to. Whether you read to a child, or a sick person in need of a distraction, it is an act of kindness—love, really—that provides a rare, intimate connection as you experience a story together.

Which brings me to another memory.

A few years back, my husband spied a 135-chapter, 615-page edition of Moby Dick lurking on our bookshelf. I’d slogged through the book in high school English class. If ever a book begged for an abridged version (I thought back then), Melville’s was a good candidate.

So I was amazed when my spouse took the book to bed with him. I figured he’d be snoozing by Page Two. But, no.

“This is amazing,” he exclaimed. “The writing is great. I feel like I’m there! Can I just read this part to you?”

Thus began a new nighttime ritual. And through his enthusiasm, the story, the characters, and the descriptions in a book that I’d found tedious and old-fashioned in my teens came alive for me, too.

I loved falling asleep to the sound of his voice as he read Melville’s words.

It turns out that grown ups enjoy hearing stories spoken out loud. An entire audiobook industry seem to be alive and well these days, and apparently some people actually enjoy falling asleep while listening to them.

The NYT piece also reminded me of my left-over to-do list from years past for my Samantha Newman Mystery Series. Only Book 2, The Body Next Door, is currently available in audio, which you can buy or sample for free on Amazon.

The first and third books do not have audio versions. This is due to: 1) a change of publishers, and 2) a voice artist who is no longer available, which means that Samantha’s “voice” would change for each book.

Producing audio books is a time-consuming, expensive effort, and I have another book or two to write.  And before you suggest an AI generated voice solution, I’ve heard a few samples, and they sound a little creepy to me. I’m still wrestling with the issue.

(Readers and and authors, I’d love to know what you think I should do about audio for the other two books. Please comment below.)

I’m a wholehearted fan of reading aloud, even if you’re only reading to yourself. Extra points if you do, because reading aloud burns more calories and tones up your lungs and voice muscles.

Like most things in life, reading a book can be even more fun when you share it with someone you love.

Gay Yellen is the award-winning author of the Samantha Newman Romantic Mystery Series, including The Body Business, The Body Next Door, and The Body in the News. She loves talking to book clubs and from readers! You can contact her here. 

 

 

 

Book Marketing is a 4-Letter Word

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Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

By Lois Winston

Book marketing? Unless you’re someone who majored in marketing in college (and maybe not even those people,) most authors will tell you the part of being an author they hate most is marketing their books to readers. Unless you’re James Patterson, Nora Roberts, or one of the few other “anointed ones,” no matter if you’re traditionally published or indie published, the bulk of book marketing rests on our shoulders. Most publishers, including what is known as The Big Five, do very little, if anything, to promote their authors’ books these days. For most, if they’re lucky, they receive a box of free promotional bookmarks or postcards.

And it doesn’t matter the genre you write in, the awards you’ve received, or whether you hit a bestseller list. I have friends who consistently make the New York Times list with each new release and are still required to do the bulk of the promotion for their books, including arranging their own events and handling social media marketing.

The competition is stiff out there, and it’s getting worse. Every author I’ve spoken with, whether traditionally published or indie published, is complaining about falling sales. This year has seen a flood of A.I. generated books going up for sale on etailer sites. There were so many flooding Amazon that they instituted a new policy, limiting uploads of new books to three a day. It maybe stemmed the influx from a major tsunami to a tidal wave.

Moreover, various marketing that once worked well for authors no longer shows the same results. What’s an author to do?

At the Killer Nashville conference in August, I attended a workshop on creating landing pages at Bookfunnel. Most marketing gurus will tell you every author should have a newsletter, that it’s one of the best tools in your author toolbox. I have a newsletter. Prior to Bookfunnel, I had about 1800 subscribers, some of whom are loyal fans. But the workshop instructor had tens of thousands of subscribers. Talking to other authors at Killer Nashville, I learned the best way I could increase sales of my books was to increase my newsletter subscribers.

The thing about a landing page, though, is that you offer a freebie in exchange for the reader subscribing. I’ve always been opposed to giving away huge numbers of books. I’ve heard from too many readers who only download free books and brag that they haven’t bought a book in years. I have newsletter readers who have told me they love my books but only read them if they can get them from the library or by winning a copy when I do the occasional contest giveaway. They won’t even spend .99 cents for a sale book.

I’ve never had a problem with putting a book on sale for .99 cents for a limited time. I think of it as a loss leader to spur sales of the other books in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series. That series currently has 13 novels and 3 novellas. Historically, I’ve seen good results from sales of other books in the series when one is on sale for .99 cents. But even those results have not been what they used to be lately.

So I decided to create a landing page on Bookfunnel and offer one of the novellas in the series for free with sign-up to my newsletter. I’m also taking part in two group promotions with other cozy authors on Bookfunnel throughout November, the Thank Goodness for Cozies promotion and the Cozy Mystery Month promotion. Signing up for any of the authors’ newsletters will get you a free book by that author.

My landing page has been up on my website and on Bookfunnel since mid-October. When the group promotions end at the end of November, I’ll be able to judge the results of the book giveaway. I’ll see how many downloads and new subscribers I’ve had and if all those free books translated into sales of other books in the series. I’m crossing fingers and toes that I’ll be pleased with the numbers.

Love it? Hate it? How do you really feel about marketing? Post a comment for a chance to win a promo code for a free audiobook download of any one of the first 11 Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries. (US and UK residents only)

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USA Today and Amazon bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston writes mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” In addition, Lois is a former literary agent and an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry. Learn more about Lois and her books at her website www.loiswinston.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter and follow her on various social media sites.

Burning Your Zozobra

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While one half of our nation rejoices this week and the other half wonders what went wrong, here comes Thanksgiving, Christmas and Hanukah, when we’re all thrown together at friends’ parties and family reunions. Finding common ground where we can stand together may be difficult as we tiptoe around each other’s feelings after the election.

Four years ago, it also felt like our national unity had frayed, both physically (the pandemic) and culturally (we vs. them). Back then, I wrote a guest post for Jungle Red Writers about a new word I’d learned from an article in The Conversation. This week, our local newspaper reprinted the original essay.

The word is zozobra.

In Spanish, it means “anguish, anxiety, or gloom,” which many of us suffered from in those fear-ridden times.

https://burnzozobra.comI’ve recently heard that in Santa Fe, New Mexico there’s an annual Summer Festival in which they burn an ugly zozobra in effigy as an attempt to chase the gloom away.

And yet, barring a truly effective alternative to lighten our national funk, what better time is there than Thanksgiving to remind us of what’s truly meaningful in life? For me, that includes friends and family (regardless of political differences), the health that still sustains us, and a sense of purpose that keeps us engaged in the world.

Yes, bad things happen every day, and sometimes they happen to us.

But what if we try to minimize the complaining and instead, focus on the positive things we can do to make life better for ourselves and others.

It helps to practice gratitude for the small things that bring us joy.

I am grateful for family and friends, and for being accepted into a writing community where colleagues honor and respect one another, where we share our ups and downs in the wacky world of publishing. To my Stiletto sisters, and to Sisters in Crime and beyond, I would be bereft without your continued friendship and support.

And to our readers! Thank you for reading!

We’re all in this together, come what may. Tomorrow is World Kindness Day. Maybe we could start with that.

Or, if you’re not quite ready to let go of your anxiety, you could plan your very own Zozobra Festival and exorcise the beast.

What are you grateful for today?

Please tell us in the comment section below.

 

Gay Yellen is the author of the  award-winning Samantha Newman Mysteries, including The Body Business, The Body Next Door, and The Body in the News! 

Now available from your favorite bookseller. Readers and book clubs, please contact me at GayYellen.com.

 

 

 

 

 

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