What do a Victorian Lady and a 1940s Gal Gumshoe have in common?: Part One

When M. Ruth Myers and I discovered we were both promoting books in our respective historical mystery series at the same time, we thought how much fun it would be to compare the responses our female sleuths from different historical periods would make to the same questions. On the surface, Mrs. Annie Fuller, the protagonist in my Victorian San Francisco Mystery series, is a rather typical 19th century widowed woman who supports herself by running a boarding house. The fact that she supplements her income as the pretend clairvoyant, Madam Sibyl, is a secret she must protect in order to preserve her reputation as a respectable lady. In contrast, in M. Ruth Myer’s award winning series, her protagonist, Maggie Sullivan, is proud of her profession as private eye. Living in Depression-era Dayton, Ohio, Miss Sullivan drives a DeSoto, carries a Read more…

The unexpected effect of the “perma free” strategy on my productivity

In a post entitled Time for a Pivot? I detailed a shift in my marketing strategy for 2015. In 2014, all my books were in Amazon’s KDP Select (which requires exclusivity) and I used the 99 cent Kindle Countdown KDP Select tool as my primarily form of promotion. In December 2014 I took all my books off of KDP Select in order to sell them in a variety of bookstores (Apple, Nook, Kobo, GooglePlay), and for these first six months of 2015 I have been using the perma free strategy (making Maids of Misfortune, the first book in my Victorian San Francisco Mystery series, permanently free) as my major promotional tool. I also committed to writing more short stories, getting audiobook editions out for the next two novels in my series, and writing a short story for a new science Read more…

Deadly Proof and Historical Fiction eBooks

I am a member of the Historical Fiction Authors Cooperative, a group of authors who banded together several years ago because we wanted a way to reach people who were interested in finding good historical fiction ebooks. The group started small, and our membership is by invitation only, but we now have 47 members and nearly 200 books in our catalog on our website http://hfebooks.com. We feature books and posts by our authors every Monday, and every Thursday we post a list of books that are currently free or discounted and announce new publications. If you are at all interested in historical fiction, I strongly suggest you go on over to the site and subscribe so you will get these posts. Meanwhile, today with the publication of Deadly Proof, it is my turn to have a featured book and a Read more…

Copperfield Review Interview

Meredith Allard has just posted an interview with me at the The Copperfield Review–A Journal for Readers and Writers of Historical Fiction that you might find interesting. The Copperfield Review is an electronic journal that reviews historical fiction (including poetry), and historical non-fiction, as well as does interviews with historical fiction authors. I found the questions very thought-provoking, and I appreciated the chance to write a little more about my journey as a historical fiction author and my participation in the Historical Fiction Authors Cooperative. You can find my interview here. M. Louisa Locke, July 3, 2013