How It All Began

By Nancy Jill Thames

"Ann Fieldman" Serving Afternoon Tea

In 2001 Murder in Half Moon Bay was my very first attempt at writing a book. I love murder mysteries but was burned out with the authors I had been reading, so I decided to write a mystery of my own. The timing was not conducive to complete my story, due to raising a second family born to us in later years, until October 2009. The Half Moon Bay Review showed an interest in my blog featuring chapters from the manuscript I'd begun as a way to finish the book, and wanted to do an interview. I agreed, wrote the final chapters and published the book as an indie author in June of 2010. Since that time, I have written six additional books in the series, with more on the way.

Club Lounge Fare at the Ritz-Carlton Half Moon Bay

My inspiration for Jillian Bradley and her Yorkie companion came from staying at The Ritz-Carlton Half Moon Bay where my husband and I were attending an off-site board meeting for his company. I began taking notes of the surroundings and used my imagination to create a protagonist that might be a guest at a gardening conference.

I used my husband's name Ted (he wanted to be a character) for her little dog, Teddy, since she would be a widow. Walter, the young valet and later detective character, was a combination of a valet at the Ritz-Carlton and a nursery delivery man unloading his plants at a WalMart where I shopped. 

Jillian's Garden Club Having Lunch

The Original Garden Club

Jillian's friends from her Garden Club help solve the mysteries in several of the books. The Garden Club actually still exists to this day. We meet occasionally for - you guessed it - afternoon tea!  The photo on the left shows me at a heavier weight, thus the attention to portions in my books! Inspiration for the characters are "Nicole King" sitting on my right, "Dominique Summers" on Nicole's right,  and  "Ann Fieldman" sitting on the end of the bench. (Not their real names of course!)

As I continued to travel with my husband, I found more settings to write about and continue to dream up scenarios for Jillian and Teddy to solve mysteries. Writing is a new journey for me, but it's turning out to be a rewarding one.

Have a great weekend!

See you in my books!

 ~Nancy Jill 

Mystery novelist Nancy Jill Thames began publishing Christian fiction in 2010. The author of six books in the Jillian Bradley series, she is an award winning blogger and is listed numerous times on the Author Watch Bestseller’s List, this in addition to winning first place for her chocolate cream pie.

When she isn’t plotting her next book, she spends time with her six grandchildren, tags along with her husband on business trips, and plays classical piano for her own personal enjoyment. She is an active member of the Leander Writers' Guild, American Christian Fiction Writers, ACFW CenTex Chapter, and supports the Central Texas SPCA with a portion of her book sales. CONTACT INFORMATION jillthames@gmail.com

Enjoy Book 1 MURDER IN HALF MOON BAY on your ereader for free!

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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!)

The See-Through Author

It's a cat! In a window!

I'm on a transparency kick.

This will be my third post this week on the theme of letting others in on the secrets.

When I first stepped into the shallow-end of the writing-pool I was very fortunate to find a whole passel of great writers ready and willing to share everything they knew and were learning. I try to be like them--honest, helpful, friendly. I wrote a page on my blog called, "Sure, I'll tell you everything I know about publishing." I could talk about writing and publishing for weeks on end, so having one spot to store all of that info seemed like a good thing.

I think the transparency kick actually started when I was putting together my Production Notes post here at CMM. But whatever started it, I have now joined the voices that share openly about the work, expense, profit, and more work, that it takes to make it in the publishing industry.

But where do I start? With my tax return?
I may not be ready for that much openness just yet.
So I'll share a little more about the "work." Namely, the marketing work.

I think free books are great marketing. Especially when the free book is at the beginning of the series. When I give away free books I always see an uptick in my paid sales. To that end, I want to make the first book in my Mitzy Neuhaus series permanently free.

Right now you can grab a free copy of Foreclosed at iTunes, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords, and Kobo is coming soon.

Supposedly, as if by magic, Amazon will price match it, and then everyone, everywhere can read the first Mitzy adventure, have a laugh, and then go buy the rest.

However (and this is more real life transparency!) I have the terrible feeling they aren't going to do it. I tried to do this same thing about 18 months ago and they just never price matched it. Will they this time? Maybe? I hope so! Either way, feel free to grab a copy from one of the other fine retailers (Smashwords has versions that play on the kindle.)

And, in the spirit of sharing, I will let you know as soon as Amazon matches it. I will also let you know if this has a positive impact on my sales! (And, I will add that sometimes Amazon price-matches faster if readers report that they've seen a lower priced version on another sales site.)

Ho! Ho! Ho! 20 Free Books

I couldn't resist this photo to share the great news that 20 free books are available over the next week, starting today! We at Cozy Mystery Magazine do our best to keep you cozy mystery lovers happy all year long, and this is our special gift to you this year. So, please take full advantage (I certainly am) and download away! Merry Christmas! Ho! Ho! Ho! 

~Nancy Jill

Here's the link: http://www.fliterary.blogspot.com

~Author Nancy Jill Thames
~Author Deborah Malone
~Author C.L. Ragsdale
~Author Linda P. Kozar
~Author S. Dionne Moore
~Author Tracy Hilton

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To-be-Dread

My to-be-read pile used to consist mainly of the table at the library with the sign that said, “Staff Picks.” Every book I ever nabbed from the staff picks table was a winner.

Then I got my Kindle.

Have you ever seen that delightful “free” list at Amazon? 

I thought so. 

As an author, I adore the free list. It has helped me sell thousands of books (and give away thousands more.) 

As a reader I feel like a small child who got lost at Disneyland. I know I should be scared, but it’s all so wonderful. I scan and click, scan and click, moving from one delicious cover to the next. It’s only when the click-fest is over and I’m tired, hungry (for a good read) and ready to settle down that the fear gets me.

I open my red pleather Kindle cover ready to settle in with a cup of tea and a blanket only to discover that all of the beautiful covers that drew me in are nowhere to be seen. (I’ve googled it. I can’t figure out how to make the covers appear on the home page. If you know the answer, please tell!)

I know we aren’t supposed to judge a book by the cover, of course not. I do my very best to apply that rule to people, but books? That’s what the cover is for!

I currently have 76 books on my kindle. I have no idea why I bought most of them because the visual is gone. I can’t even put them in the handy little collections I set up because I just don’t know what they are. Okay, not exactly true. Some of the books, like the delightful Julie O’Hara Mystery Series (Swan Song is free today!) and Death Knell: A Birdy Morgan Murder Mystery make it clear what collection they belong in. But The Typewriter Girl? Gabriel’sRedemption? Did I nab those in a sci-fi-steam-punk mood or in a inspirational fiction mood? There have no covers! I may never know!

I shouldn’t complain about the Kindle. The Kindle launched my writing career and I hold it near and dear to my heart. But my to-be-read list is such a snarled confusion now that I don’t feel thankful. In fact, I confess, the last three books I have read have been from my local library.

One of these days I will sit down and open the books one by one, reading their first pages and then putting them into their collections. After I re-learn how to put books into collections. When the job is done I will never run out of books to read again. I will have the 76 books in my current collection plus many more, all neatly categorized by genre.

Or maybe I’ll just get a Kindle fire. They show book covers on the home page. 

Traci Tyne Hilton is a wife, mother, author of The Mitzy Neuhaus Mystery Series, and award winning playwright from Portland, Oregon. She is madly working on her next mystery series which has finaled in the Books of Hope Contest at Write Integrity Press and has an impending deadline.

Traci earned a degree in History from Portland State University and lives in the rainiest part of the Pacific Northwest with her husband, the mandolin playing funeral director from Kansas, their two daughters, and their dog, Dr. Watson.

More of Traci's work can be found at tracihilton.com