Time for a Pivot? Kindle Unlimited and Marketing in 2015

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Everywhere I hang out as an author, I see blog posts discussing the effect of the introduction of Kindle Unlimited (KU) on authors’ sales. For those authors just waking up to this discussion, Kindle Unlimited is the subscription service Amazon introduced in July. Subscribers pay a monthly fee and can borrow all the books they want that are in the KU library. For most books by indie authors to be part of that library, the book must be enrolled in KDP Select. If you have ever read my blog before, you will know that I found that enrolling the books in my Victorian San Francisco Mystery series in KDP Select was very rewarding—even though it meant accepting the terms of enrollment that prohibited me from selling my ebooks in other stores. If you are interested, click here for a list Read more…


Celebrating Five Years of Self-Publishing with a Giveaway

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When I read Marie Force’s recent blog post celebrating four years as a self-published author, it occurred to me that I should celebrate my own anniversary since I self-published Maids of Misfortune, the first book in my Victorian San Francisco Mystery series, on November 28, 2009––FIVE YEARS AGO. While Force’s success as one of the most prolific and high selling hybrid authors of today is truly remarkable––it struck me that I should honor the fact that when I self-published (with no traditionally published books under my belt, no fan base) I was doing something a little risky––a little ahead of the curve. In 2009, the pundits were still saying ebooks and self-published books were the route to failure, and J.A Konrath and April Hamilton were voices in the wilderness. So, when I clicked publish on that first ebook edition, I was taking a Read more…


Fun Halloween Ideas from the Past

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Hallowe’en. The night wind whispers — Ghosts ! They are waiting for their hosts; The waning moon is weary and will not be up till late ; Already there are shadows at the gate. A word, half heard, that is whispered in your ear, And a presence that is felt when no one else is near. Have you been along the corridors alone — all alone — And listened to the wind up yonder making moan? Have you thought about it all, The footfall in the hall That comes and goes — comes and goes — With the measure of a heartbeat of a life that ebbs and flows ? The poem above was the first item in a nearly 200 page book, Hallowe’en Festivities  by Stanley Schell, put out in 1903, that was devoted to giving suggestions on how to Read more…


Introducing Katja Blum, translator for my German Edition of Maids of Misfortune

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I am very pleased to introduce Katja Blum, the person who did such a lovely, professional job translating Maids of Misfortune into the German edition: Dienstmädchen im Unglück. She graciously answered some of my questions in my quest to get to know her, and I think you will be as charmed as I was with her answers. 1. Please tell the readers about yourself and how you got into translating. I began working as a translator (English into German) while I was studying at Hamburg University in Germany – sheesh, that was almost twenty years ago. My major wasn’t translation, by the way, but American Literature and Women’s Studies. For my first job, I translated Harlequin romances into German. I’m fluent in English, I’m a writer – how hard can it be? The answer: Very. I learned many important things from working with Read more…


Maids of Misfortune in German

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Notice that Victorian woman on the cover? She looks almost exactly as I picture Annie Fuller, the main protagonist in my Victorian San Francisco Mystery series. Which is lovely, since this is the cover of the new German translation of Maids of Misfortune, the first book in that series. Available now for pre-order, this edition is coming out in print and ebook in exactly a month, on September 2, 2014. So how did this happen? As an independent author, I knew that getting my books translated into foreign languages would be more complicated than if I had a traditional publishing contract and/or agent. And, while I knew of other indie authors, like David Gaughran and Joanna Penn, who were working to find translators on their own (often using a royalty splitting agreement), or using a distributor like Babelcube, which matches Read more…