Uneasy Spirits Excerpt: In Celebration of Halloween
Halloween is fast approaching, and I thought it might be fun to put up an excerpt from Uneasy Spirits, the second book in my Victorian San Francisco Mystery series. This is a chapter near the end of the book where the main protagonist, Annie Fuller (a boarding house owner who supplements her income as a clairvoyant, Madam Sibyl), is taking a walk with two of her boarders (Barbara Hewitt and her son Jamie) and one of my favorite characters, their Boston Terrier, Dandy. Chapter Thirty-five Tuesday evening, October 28, 1879 “No Fun for the rats. A ratting match for $200 took place the other evening in a well-known sporting resort…The dogs were the imported bull-terriers ‘Crib’…and ‘Flow.’” —San Francisco Chronicle, 1879 “Jamie, hold tight to Dandy’s leash. I don’t want any rat-catching tonight,” said his mother, Barbara Hewitt, who then Read more…
Update on Categories and Keywords: Why authors should still care
A year ago (October 2011), I wrote a piece entitled Categories, Key words, and Tags, Oh My!: Why Should an Author Care?, which has become the most frequently viewed post on my blog. It has been reposted numerous times, and I still get comments on it weekly. There is a reason for this. The subject is complicated, confusing, and yet crucial to selling a book successfully online. While most of the original post is still relevant, it seemed time to update it, with the special addition of a section on how categories play a role in KDP Select promotions. For those of you who never read the original, I hope this helps. For those of you who did, I hope I have clarified a few sections and added some useful information. This post focuses on ebooks on Amazon (although the Read more…
Report on my latest KDP Select Free Promotion: Getting into that Holiday Spirit
Well, Amazon announced its new Kindles devices this week, and the first of the new Kindle Fire HD devices ship as early as next week, with the rest rolling out in October and the end of November. There is no telling at this point how many of these new devises will be bought as upgrades or additions by people who already have Kindles, but if the past two holiday sales patterns are any indication, authors should expect a growing number of new users to start looking for Kindle books over the next few months, culminating in a book buying frenzy in the months after Christmas. At least that is my hope. In December 2009, my first book, Maids of Misfortune, had just been published, my Kindle sales were miniscule, and unless you typed in “Victorian mystery” as a key word Read more…
Victorian San Francisco in 1880: Social Structure and Character Development
What follows is a brief summary of the social structure of San Francisco in 1880 (primarily from my dissertation, Like a Machine or an Animal) and how this has influenced some of the choices I have made in developing my characters in the Victorian San Francisco Mystery series. Brief Summary: “In 1880 San Francisco, with a population of 233,959 residents, was the ninth largest city in the United States. Located at the end of the peninsula that separates the Bay of San Francisco from the Pacific Ocean, this city of hills, sand dunes, fogs, and mild temperatures had been only a small village called Yerba Buena less than forty years earlier. This small village was one of the chief beneficiaries of the incredible influx of people into the region after the discovery of gold to the north in the winter Read more…
Victorian San Francisco: Domestic Service
If you are going to write mysteries, as I do, set in urban America in the 19th century, servants are going to play a role, and so it is not surprising that you will find servants as important characters in my Victorian San Francisco mystery series. However, as I have mentioned previously, my purpose for writing this series, besides providing entertainment, is to illuminate the kinds of occupations held by women who had to work during the late 19th century. Maids of Misfortune, my first book, therefore was intended, from the beginning, to introduce the reader to the world of domestic service, the most important job young women had in the 19th century. In fact, it was while I was doing research on my doctorial dissertation on working women in the west that I found a diary by Anna Harder, Read more…
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