#Snippet Time!

Like a book lover with a whole day to spend at Powell's City of Books, I am faced with a few too many options right now. That is to say, I have too many books going at once! Last week I finally decided which I would focus on, so hopefully I can make better headway in the next two months than I did in the previous.

Much of what I have recently written won't be real books until almost Christmastime, or even later, the poor dears, so I thought it would be a good time to share a sample.

Have you ever seen Renovation Realities on HGTV? I love that show. They follow hapless (sometime not so hapless) homeowners as they fix up their homes. The families have realistic budgets, realistic skills and abilities, and realistic time constraints. None have those crews of twenty working day and night you see on other HGTV shows. It's hilarious, and comforting, if like me, you have a tendency to tear your house apart and put it back together when you are bored.

So when I thought it might be time for a Mitzy Neuhaus novella, I thought of renovation realities. Something short and funny, and maybe with no dead bodies, a little more like Foreclosed, if you will, but a tad shorter.

So, without further ado, here is what may well be the intro of the next Mitzy Neuhaus Mystery.

The Neuhaus Job

The renovation you are about to see is real…

The shoemaker’s children go shoeless, and the developer’s wife lives in an unfinished home. But that’s about to end for Mitzy Neuhaus and Alonzo Miramontes. Alonzo, a local developer has just completed a warehouse renovation and has taken the week off to finish the basement of his 1970’s custom home with his wife, Realtor Mitzy Neuhaus. They have seven days and a maximum cash budget of three-thousand dollars, but are their eyes bigger than their wallets? We’ll find out as the Neuhaus-Miramontes family takes the next week to make their old house…as good as new.

“My name is Alonzo Miramontes. My wife Mitzy and I are turning the wasted storage area in our daylight basement into a workout room. We’ll be ripping out the drop ceiling, plumbing a drinking fountain, adding mirrored walls, a ballet bar, a TV and surround sound. I’m a licensed contractor and my wife isn’t completely useless, so I think we can get this done in a week.” Alonzo nudged Mitzy with his elbow. “You’d agree, right?”

Mitzy smiled for the camera. “I’m far from useless, and we’ll get it done in three days or my name isn’t Mitzy Neuhaus!”

“It isn’t. It’s Mitzy Miramontes, remember?”

Mitzy laughed. She looked away from the camera and fanned herself. “Can I get a retake on that one?”

“No way. We’re keeping that one, right guys?”

The guy with the mic nodded silently, a grin plastered on his round face.

Mitzy drained her coffee mug and checked the time on the microwave clock.

It was five in the morning, but the television crew had already filmed their breakfast sequence.

Now they had to walk around the house explaining the job they were about to undertake.

Alonzo led the way downstairs. He sniffed and tipped his chin at the camera.

“Ready?” The camera man asked.

Mitzy appreciated that the crew wasn't chatty in the morning. She was chatty in the morning, and wouldn't have minded a bit of cheerful company herself, but she had to live with Alonzo, and getting him to film the intro sequence with a smile had been hard enough.

“Sure.” Alonzo shrugged.

The camera man waved to get their attention again. “Okay, you’re live.”

Mitzy smiled for the camera, “Alonzo is a professional. Finishing our basement should be a snap.”

“I usually have a bigger crew than this.” Alonzo grunted. “But we can probably get this done if you can keep your mind on the job.”

Mitzy laughed. “Drink your coffee.”

Alonzo sniffed. “I’m getting a cold, so I don’t want to mess around. Get in, get done, get out.”

Mitzy rolled her eyes. “He’s much nicer by noon, I swear.”

***

In the mean time, if you haven't read any Mitzy Neuahuas, Foreclosed, the first in the series, is always free, for Kindle, Nook, iTunes, Kobo...you get the picture! (The linked Title above takes you to my blog's book page where you can find links for the book at all available outlets.)

Free Cozy Mysteries and Three Ways to Have a Great Free Ebook Promotion

I finally took the plunge and decided to offer Good, Clean Murder for free for a limited time. I'm glad I did because now almost 40,000 people have a copy of it! The book peaked at number 3 on Amazon's best seller list, and has is still number 12!

Today is the last day to grab it for free, so do it while you can! Good, Clean Murder free at Amazon!

For the writers out there wondering about how to maximize the effectiveness of a free promotion, these are my top three tips:

1. Run free promotions for the first book in a series.
The goal of a free promotion is to increase your overall sales, this happens fastest if readers can grab your free book and then buy the next one. Also, I have heard a pretty convincing story that Amazon algorithms have changed and the book that was free no longer has the benefit of increased rank after the free promo ends.

2. Advertise the free promotion.
Effective ads aren't free, which is part of why you want to promote a series: if you do it right you will have to pay for your ads. There are only a few sites that are have a big impact on your sales, but it is wise to go to Authormarketingclub.com and attempt to get an ad at every site they have listed for some point in your promotion. Because things change so quickly in this business the best thing you can do is check out each site that is listed at AMC and then check out how highly ranked the books they advertised are. The ones that are worth paying for have put their books in the top ten of the whole Amazon best sellers (free) list.

3. Boost your Facebook post while your book is free.Facebook lets you boost posts for a little quick cash. Like all ads, this is tax deductible. Unlike many other ads, this post will be targeted to people who know your current fans so it is almost like word of mouth, but not quite. For $30 the post about my free book went out to 6600 people, had 151 clicks, and gained 12 new fans. As for overall impact on the promotion, 151 clicks on my link isn't much compared to the 40,000 people who grabbed a copy, but the 12 new fans are a big deal!

If you have the opportunity to offer you book for a limited time or for a long time, I'd take it. Just make sure you are set up to enjoy the maximum impact!




And hey, if you love free books, Foreclosed: A Mitzy Neuhaus Mystery is still free too!

 

 

Plain Jane's Dirty Little Murder!

When we last saw Jane Adler she had managed to just barely escape being kicked out of Bible School, and there was a young man in her life she wanted to see quite a bit more of. (And another young man she was glad to see the back of!) She had solved her first murder (and likely hoped it would be the last!)

But things aren't easy for stubborn young women with lofty ambitions!

A year after Good, Clean Murder we find Jane cleaning houses and enjoying a relaxing summer. Her boyfriend (is it Isaac or Jake? You must read to find out!) is out of town for the summer, the only flaw in an otherwise perfect break.

The great news is that her church has included her in a group of future missionaries they are interested in supporting.

The bad news is she finds another dead body.

What ought to have been a summer of saving up money, impressing her church, and mooning over her long distance boyfriend becomes a haywire adventure filled with competitive future missionaries, boy troubles, and very jealous wives and widows.

If Jane can't clean this mess up quick she might just crack under the pressure!

For a brief period Good Clean Murder and Dirty Little Murder will be exclusive at Amazon! If you're a prime member, you can read them for free!

Successfully Branding a Mystery Series

I want to give a warm Cozy Mystery Magazine welcome to Molly Snow, and award winning goofball who writes clean and adorable mysteries and romance novels!

We're super lucky to have her guest posting today, so I'm gonna zip it and let her talk!

**

First, a hello to my fellow colleague and friend, Traci Tyne Hilton. Thank you for having me guest post. I’m thrilled!

So, a little about me: I write YA romances, and enjoy that very much. My heart also has a place for mysteries, so I co-write with my mother Z & C Mysteries under the pen name Claire Kane. The first book in the series was published in 2011, called The Riddles of Hillgate. Our mysteries are very clean, and are full of adventure, so you can feel safe sharing them with your daughters.

My mom and I, like any publishing entrepreneur out there, when we hit “Publish,” wanted our series to be a success. We worked hard on producing quality products that were edited, formatted and designed to capture interest and show professionalism. It wasn’t until the third book in the series, Hexes and X’s, was produced that I started to wonder if one or more of these areas we worked so very hard at perfecting wasn’t up to par. Traci  was actually the first (as my memory recalls) to tell me that I should reconsider the covers.

The covers were all designed well, they looked professional, so why wasn’t that enough?

Two reasons:

1.) There was no branding to speak of. Each cover was so unique to itself, a buyer couldn't tell by glancing at a multitude of random thumbnails which books belonged together. Which isn't good. You want potential readers to see a series as a series, all cohesive; it provides an even greater sense of professionalism, an identity (super important!), and a way for buyers to click around easier to purchase.

2.) If a reader sensed any sort of branding going on whatsoever, the covers still failed to do their purpose. Why? The impressions they gave were off. They looked far too serious, and sometimes too dark or horrific. So, not only was there no brand, the first impression, the “judging the book by its cover” thing, was messed up. This is a big deal, because authors do not want the wrong readers checking out their work; it risks earning low reviews: “I thought I was going to read this type of book,and what I got was something else. ONE star!!!”

So..., thankfully someone spoke up and told us what was obviously wrong with our series! It took some convincing for my mother to be open to seeing alternative covers (even a little working behind her back to surprise her!), but when something clicks it clicks.

Our newer covers hit the mark! You can easily see they are branded together: the fonts, illustrations, silhouettes, author names. And—oh—the feelings they exude are perfect. No one will ever mistake one of our books for something they’re not. If you write mysteries, make sure your brand is clear in these ways, and it can save you a lot of time and wondering what could be wrong.

The moral of this story is, I’m a bit grateful now that the series hasn’t yet been a success. It would have sent mixed messages with the old covers, and garnered lots of bad reviews! There is a time and season for everything. This series is finally ready to face the world without any regrets.Wheeee!

**

Molly Snow is a Top 10 Idaho Fiction Author, awarded by The Idaho Book Extravaganza. Her works include quirky teen romances "BeSwitched" and "Fallen Angel." Also a speaker on writing, her school assemblies have been featured in The Contra Costa Times and The Brentwood Press. Snow is married to her high school crush, has a set of silly twin boys and a bobtail cat named Meow-Meow.

Find all of Molly's books at amazon.comAmazon.com

Check out more of what Molly's been up to--including her blogs--at mollysnowfiction.blogspot.com!

Drinking Tea and Eating Crow

 The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency is one of the coziest mystery series of all time. From witch doctors, to beauty queens, Mma Ramotswe faces all of the troubles that come up in Botswana with a traditional attitude, and a cup of traditional Red Bush Tea.

A quick search on Google taught me that Red Bush tea is a miracle drink made from the  Rooisbos plant. It is very popular in Africa, great for allergy sufferers (yeah, I'm one of those) and has a lightly sweet, vanilla like flavor.

I bought the first box I could find, and was so glad I did! It lived up to all of the hype as far as flavor and comfort. I hope that as I continue drinking it I will find my allergies relax their hold on me a little as well!

That's the tea I'm drinking. But I'm also eating crow, and I'll tell you all about that as well.

I published Foreclosed in 2010. It did well and got both good and bad feedback, so I wrote a sequel. Then a third.

By the time the third was out, I knew Foreclosed wasn't the book it could be. But people liked it, so I didn't rush in to make the changes I was hankering for.

But I finally made time to do a real rewrite on Foreclosed, and the finished version was uploaded yesterday.

I am so excited about the new version that I want to call everyone who has ever bought it or read it and tell them to go get the new version!

One of my friends was concerned it would lose it's sarcastic-Traci touch in the rewrites, but I promise, it's still the easy reading, light mystery, with a dash of Traci style humor it's always been.

It's already available, and still free, at Amazon. It will begin to show up at all of the other stores in the next few weeks. I'm incredibly happy that I took the time to do this.

I am so grateful for everyone who has read and enjoyed the Mitzy books and Plain Jane. I could never say thank you enough for giving me the opportunity to entertain you! It is an honor I don't take lightly.

(Grab it free from Amazon!)