The Paradisi Chronicles: or how I ended up writing science fiction
Paradisi Chronicles… A science fiction adventure through time, space and generations, brought to life through the creativity and independent perspectives of multiple authors. Enter the world of the Paradisi Chronicles, where every new journey is a surprise ride you’ll never want to get off. The Beginning: Almost exactly a year ago, on July 19, 2014, a fellow indie author, Amanda Allen, brought up the idea (inspired by this post by Hugh Howey) that a group of us should get together to create a science fiction world in which we could all write, with the goal of publishing the first round of works all at once. We could then open up the world to any author who wanted to write in that world. A sort of open-source indie version of Kindle Worlds. I loved the idea. While I write historical mysteries, Read more…
News, new books, new strategies, new results
I was just reading a blog post entitled, “Short is the New Black” and I thought…why haven’t I posted anything in…over 2 months!!!! And the answer is, in the past my posts have been long….very long….sometimes longer than a short story. And I have been too busy writing fiction to write blog posts. So I am going to try something different. Short and sweet. News: The audiobook version of the third book in my Victorian San Francisco Mystery Series, Bloody Lessons is now available, and the ebook version is 99 cents in most ebookstores for the next 2 days (May 6-7), and if you by the Kindle ebook version you get the audiobook version on audible for only $1.99) A very good deal. New Books: Deadly Proof, the fourth book in the series, (which is also available in all major ebook Read more…
Deadly Proof–anatomy of a book launch
I am proud to announce that Deadly Proof, the fourth book in my Victorian San Francisco Mystery Series, is now available for sale (see links below). As with the other three novels in this series, Deadly Proof finds Annie Fuller and her beau, Nate Dawson, investigating a crime that will lead them (and the reader) into an exploration of the lives of working women in the late 19th century—in this case women who held jobs in the printing industry. If you read my last two posts on my marketing strategy for 2015, you will know that I decided to take all my full-length books out of KDP Select and upload them everywhere and make the first book perma-free. My hope was that this strategy would provide a fertile field for this newly published book. So far, my hopes have been Read more…
Outside the Box: Women Writing Women
There is an exciting new collection that is coming out this week that I thought that a lot of you might be interested in. This new boxed set brings together some of the best work by self-published female writers. I’ve read one of the books, Blue Mercy by Orna Ross and just loved it–so I am looking forward to reading the rest.—M. Louisa Locke International Authors: Universal Themes While mainstream publishing plays safe with predictable stories and heroines who repeat the same familiar tropes, where are today’s most ground-breaking authors? The answer is that they are self-publishing. Now, seven of the most prominent female entrepreneurial authors have brought their work together in a limited edition compilation of novels —Outside the Box: Women Writing Women. The project is the brainchild of Jessica Bell, an Australian writer living in Athens, Greece. A Read more…
Pivot Post Update
This report on how my plans for marketing in 2015 are working can be summed up in one word: Super. But for those who are interested––here is a little more detail. Recap of Strategic Goals: Recognizing that the Kindle Unlimited subscription service on Amazon was undermining the effectiveness of the Kindle Countdown 99 cent promotions for my books, I decided to: take my 3 full-length novels in my Victorian San Francisco Mystery series (Maids of Misfortune, Uneasy Spirits, Bloody Lessons) and my short story collection (Victorian San Francisco Stories) out of KDP Select upload these 4 books into other bookstores make the first book in my series, Maids of Misfortune, perma-free advertise Maids of Misfortune as free through a BookBub promotion. By the middle of January I accomplished all of these goals. I uploaded my 4 books to Apple, Nook, Read more…
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