April Showers Bring May Flowers

For some reason this Spring seems to have been an exceptionally lovely one--maybe because we had a tough winter. Plus the blossoms seem to be staying on the trees much longer than usual--maybe because our nights have been cold. So on Sunday I went out and took some pictures. These are my favorites:

These Kwanzan Cherry trees out at Good Harbor Beach are particularly lovely. I love the deep pink blossoms against the blue of the ocean. 

The white lilacs below are in front of my house. They smell wonderful!  

I don't know what these  bright pi flowers are but I love them. They are so brilliant.

 Both of these trees are out on Eastern Point and the lacy pink branches against the deep blue sky are delicious.

There is a giant rock out on Eastern Avenue that is covered in wisteria. I don't know who planted the wisteria but we should all thank whoever it was. 

And the photo below is from a recent trip into Boston. This is Acorn Street, one of the most quaint and lovely streets in Boston and the white flowers make it even more beautiful.

Happy Spring, everyone, and thanks for reading.

"Writing My Life" on Best Selling Reads Blog

I'm the guest blogger on Best Selling Reads Blog - Best Authors in New Fiction. Stop by and give it a read!

When I was a kid one of my favorite forms of entertainment was listening to the grownups tell stories. I grew up in a big family—seven brothers and sisters and more cousins than I could count—in a rural Pennsylvania Dutch community. Both of my grandmothers’ houses had big porches with swings on them, as did my parents’ house—and you could pretty much count on finding some aunts, uncles, and cousins on any one of them most evenings and weekends. Invariably, amid all the chatter, someone would say “did I ever tell you about the time…” or “remember when we…” and a story would begin. How I loved those stories! Read the rest....

EXCITEMENT! Two Nomination at 2013 eFestival of Words

It is with gratitude that I am announcing that two of my published works have been nominated for awards in the 2013 eFestival of Words Best of the Independent eBook! I have no idea how these nominations are selected--I didn't know about it until I saw them posted on Facebook--but I'm thrilled.

This is the video in which all the nominees are listed, they are also on their web site.    

The books of mine that have been nominated are Depraved Heart: A Novel which is nominated for Best Novel of Mystery/Suspense.

And the short story of The Whiskey Bottle in the Wall, from the collection The Whiskey Bottle in the Wall: Secrets of Marienstadt, is nominated for best short story!

All I can say is that just being nominated is a thrill. And I'll keep you posted.

Thanks for reading.

Story, Story, Story—It's What Readers Want

There's a big kerfuffle in the writing world about Dan Brown's new book Inferno and its meteoric rise in just a week's time. Dan Brown is one of those writers that most of us love to hate. He, like Stephanie Meyers and E.L. James, and a few other writers, are phenomenally successful while being—how can I put this? pretty weak writers. Pretty weak wordsmiths, that is, but they tell stories that people want to read and, for many readers, that's all that counts. Nothing wrong with that, either.

It is a bit frustrating to writers who take great pride in their craft but, even the best writing in the world has to tell a story and if your story doesn't engage the reader, your prose is probably not going to carry the reader through. There are different kinds of readers, of course. I couldn't get into the first Twilight book and gave up about halfway through. I couldn't even get through the sample of the first 50 Shades book (“I scowl at myself...” aurgh!) However, I liked The DaVinci Code and I liked Angels and Demons. I haven't read The Lost Symbol or Inferno but probably will. I think Robert Langdon is a pretentious drip but I love the way Brown pulls together art, mythology, ancient mysteries, history, etc. I got over Langdon's drippiness because I was fascinated by where Brown was going with the story.

Last night I picked up a copy of Andre Dubus' Selected Stories. He is one of those writers who makes just about anything interesting just by virtue of the fact that he is such a good writer. He can tell a simple tale without a lot of twists and turns but the stores are interesting because his characters are interesting and his characters are interesting because he knows them so well and he writes so nakedly about them. I can only imagine Robert Langdon in the hands of a writer of his abilities.

Much of what appeals to groups of readers has to do with where they are in their lives, too. I've written before about the “New Adult” genre hat has become so popular. Amazon has just added an entire new category called “New Adult and College Romance.” If you go to the page you will find tons of books in the category—many with covers that are dark and feature luscious male torsos. I like this a lot more than female backsides in thongs, anyway. I'm sort of intrigued by these books, I've skimmed through a few of them and they are sexy but not quite as erotic as the books in the genre I call “Beaten by the Billionaire.” Mostly they are about young women, often with wounds from the past, finding/avoiding/finding a guy who might be somewhat flawed but who is basically decent and whose love heals them from those past wounds.

These stories are tremendously popular with young women. Of course, being an old woman, I am sort of baffled by the appeal. I keep trying to imagine my 20-something self reading them but life was so very different in the 1970s than it is today.

But whether it is sparkly vampires, sadistic billionaires, hot cowboys, or Harvard symbologists, it's the story that keeps the readers coming back. We all love a good story—especially when they all live happily ever...... well, you won't know until the next book in the series comes out.

Thanks for reading.

Guest Blog: Lorna Foreman, author of "Wheat Watchers"

Lorna Foreman is the author of a cookbook for people with Celiac Disease and wheat allergies. I am pleased to have her post on my blog. Scroll down to enter the Giveaway for a copy of Lorna's book:

What does a woman, who absolutely loves pasta, do when she is told that she could possibly suffer from Celiac Disease. And what would I use to soak up that wonderful garlic butter after eating escargots? Well I did what I imagine anyone in my position would do (after I dried the tears from my cheeks) - I wrote a cookbook.

When I announced to my friends that this was what I was planning to do, I was met with much laughter. You see, I hated to cook. I only cooked to stay alive even though I love eating. Unconsciously (or so I said) I chose gentlemen friends who could cook. But circumstances changed and I was always up for an adventure - and adventure it was.

In 1996 when I first starting to get symptoms that were connected to Celiac Disease, there was not as much information available as there is now, but fortunately I had a doctor that went beyond the usual diagnoses. He suggested the possibility and I decided that I would attempt to go gluten-free. I did not want a biopsy and I did not know about the blood test that could be done, so I did the elimination method.

I live in a small city and at that time it was really difficult to find gluten-free products. I had to travel to a large city an hour and a half away and stock up on whatever I could find. It soon became apparent that this was not the route to go and I spent almost the next year experimenting. Fortunately my husband was a wonderful cook and he helped me. However baking was out of his comfort zone so I got out all my mother’s and mother-in-law’s cookbooks, took as many recipes I could find that I thought would be good to bake and translated them into what was becoming known as “Lorna Approved”.

Again, because of difficulty getting some of the ingredients you find in a lot of gluten free cookbooks, I went with two basic substitute flours; rice and soy flour. I now experiment with almond and coconut flour but always seem to go back to the first two. However - and it is a big however, it was the proportions that baffled me. Remember I am not a cook at heart. My mother used to be a fabulous baker but she never could get me interested.

The first muffins I made were a disaster. I used far too much soy flour and a hockey team could have used them for practice purposes. Too much rice and it was more of a crumble than a muffin. But I finally got it right. To make sure I was not fooling myself I enticed several friends who were excellent bakers to test everything for me before it was put into the cookbook.

I decided that not liking to cook was not to my advantage and because my business partner and I actually give workshops on Managing Personal Change, I made myself go through the process and learn to like cooking. Was it successful? Well my mother is probably laughing her head off up ‘there’ as I bake gluten-free muffins and cakes for a local café, two health food stores, and several friends.

One of my favourite muffin recipes follows. I like it and it is popular at the café as it is not too sweet.

Lemon/Cranberry Muffins

3/4 cup rice flour                                                  2 tsp baking powder

3/4 cup soy flour                                                  1 tsp vanilla

3/4 cup vegetable oil                                           1 cup frozen cranberries

½ tsp salt                                                               ½ cup lemon juice

½ cup sugar                                                           2 eggs

Sift flours, baking powder, sugar, and salt into a bowl. Add oil, eggs, vanilla and juice. Beat together. Add cranberries and fold in gently. Pour into greased muffin tins (I prefer using muffin liners) and bake in preheated 350F (180C) oven for 25-30 minutes or until tester comes out clean.

About Lorna Foreman:

Writer and artist, Lorna Foreman, has been a journalist for over ten years, writing on the arts. As well, she is a regular contributor to Fifty-Five Plus magazine, having written her column, The Rest is Best since 1998. Lorna wrote, produced and hosted 30 half hour programs entitled Welcome to My Studio for the local community television channel. She is also a contributor to the online newspaper, Cornwall Free News and is currently working on two children’s books.

Wheat Watchers is primarily for Celiacs and Gluten Intolerant people and it is her first cookbook. She has also written When Life Becomes Real, a compilation of 11 years of her columns. Lorna lives in Cornwall, Ontario with her two cats who are not gluten intolerant but like watching her cook just in case she has something for them. She works with a business partner giving workshops that deal with making changes in your life, something people resist and need to understand how to make into an adventure.

About Wheat Watchers:

On the practical side, “Wheat Watchers” came about when I was told I was possibly a Celiac – or at best – gluten intolerant. That was in 1996 and it was a shock.

I did wonder if I would ever enjoy eating again. Besides the problem with wheat, I am mildly lactose intolerant which presented a double whammy. Little did I know what an adventure I was undertaking – and adventure it was – and still is.

In 1996 trying to stay away from gluten, especially in a small city, was a real challenge. But I am always open to new directions and I set off to assemble a new library of cookbooks. I was dismayed at the dearth of cookbooks dealing with gluten free diets so the obvious thing was to write my own. That is how this cookbook was born.

I spent most of a year translating ordinary recipes into “Lorna Approved” ones. I also invented some of my own. They are a result of much trial and error since it is not always possible to just exchange gluten free flour for wheat flour. Textures had to be taken into consideration as well as what keeps batters together.

My late husband was the cook in our family as I professed to ‘hate cooking’.

He helped considerably with some of the dishes, but the baking was strictly my responsibility. After all it is the desserts that give the Gluten Intolerant and Celiacs the most grief.

After vowing to my mother how I would never bake, she must be dancing and laughing “up there” when she sees me having such a good time in the kitchen. I had a lot of fun over that year and still challenge myself to discover or translate a new recipe.

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Lorna Foreman - Author - Giveaway

A Sample from "The Crazy Old Lady Unleashed"

Whew! This has been a long one. When I wrote The Crazy Old Lady in the Attic, I never imagined it would be as popular as it turned out to be. It was a long short story at 15,000 words--or a short novella--and, it sells for .99. So far over 50,000 copies have sold so writing a sequel seemed like a good idea. The Crazy Old Lady's Revenge was published in March 2013 and, at 39,000 words, is better than twice as long as the original. It has been selling well and, because it ended the way it did, it seemed as though a third volume would be a good idea. Yesterday I finished the first draft of The Crazy Old Lady Unleashed. This one is different from the first two in that it is a real ghost story and is 60,000 words long--which qualifies as a novel. Here is an unedited sample.

When the realtor who listed GrammyLou's townhouse reports that it is haunted and prospective clients are being scared away, Stan, accompanied by ex-cop Joe Quinn and Viv Lang, goes to the fifth floor ballroom to find out what the realtor is talking about:

 Floor-to-ceiling windows in the dormers on either side of the room let in soft, misty light and six Paris Flea-Market chandeliers tinkled softly. The door to the service kitchen stood open. Stan walked cautiously to the center of the room while Viv lingered next to Joe in the doorway.

“Is anyone here?” Stan called.

Silence.

He turned to Viv and Joe, hands out, palms up and shrugged. “Maybe it's just the wind.”

Joe, holding the pistol in both hands, inched along to the service kitchen and peeked around the door frame then stepped inside.

“Nothing,” he said as he returned to the ballroom.

Viv stayed by the entrance and he joined her there.
“I think we're all getting a little punchy.” Stan walked toward the windows to check the latches.

“I guess you can't go ghost hunting and not expect to find some.” Joe laughed and tucked the gun back in its holster.

“Too many memories,” Viv sighed.

Suddenly, before anyone could believe their eyes, Viv was lifted off her feet and flew, feet first, face down, toward the back wall like a nail being grabbed by a magnet.

“Joe!” she screamed. “What's happening? Joe!!”

Her feet hit the far wall and disappeared into it as Joe and Stan ran toward her.

“Joe! Help me!”

“Murderer!” the voice shrieked. “Murderer!”

Stan reached her first and, grabbing her upper arms, he pulled but she seemed to be sinking farther and farther into the wall. Joe wrapped his arms around her waist and the two men pulled, heaving backwards but whatever force drew her into the wall was stronger.

“Help me,” she pleaded. “Help me.”

Joe let go of her, made a fist, and slammed it into the wall just above where her thighs were disappearing. Plasterboard shattered inward.

“Pull!” he yelled to Stan. He swung his fist and punched again and again, breaking open the wall as plaster and lath flew everywhere.

“She's coming loose,” Stan said. “Help me.”

Joe grabbed her waist and, bracing his feet against the baseboard, pulled with all his strength. Whatever was drawing Viv into the wall released her and she burst free, sending all three of them sprawling onto the floor.

“Murderer! Murderer!”

Before they could get to their feet the floor began to shudder and shake. Stan regained his feet first. Joe jumped up and reached to pick up Viv but the floor was pitching and heaving. The chandeliers rattled madly, and the curtains whipped inward as though in a gale though all the windows remained closed.

The Crazy Old Lady Unleashed is coming this summer.

You're Gonna Smile!

This is so much fun I just had to share it. Prepare to grin--and it just gets better and better!

Flying Over Rockport: An Adventure

I was out at the Granite Pier in Rockport a couple days ago and the waves were rough and beautiful. I noticed quite a crashing of high waves off on the horizon and I was reminded that there are some rocky ledges out there that I know nothing about. I've seen the waves breaking there before and keep meaning to see what I can find out about them. I love stuff like that.

So when I got home I logged on to Google Earth and Google Maps and went flying over Rockport in search of whatever I could find. I found this:

 If the scale on the map is correct, #1 is 2 miles out and #2 and #3 more are around 3 miles from where I was. The arrow on the left is where I was parked and the three items I circled are what I was looking at, so I zoomed in. #1 appears to be an old breakwater though what it is doing way out there baffles me:

It's quite long and seems to be in the middle of nowhere. #2 and #3 are rocky ledges or outcrops or baby islands:

If you zoom in you can see that there is nothing on them, just lots of rocks:

The one on the right appears to be covered in white which is probably gull droppings (heaven knows I get to see enough of that on my car.)

So, since I was flying around I decided to take a buzz over Thacher Island which is a few miles south of these mysterious places:

 I've been out on Thacher Island many times and it is always a lovely place to visit. This is the South Tower and the keepers' houses:

And this is the North Tower which is out of commission but there is still a light burning inside:

Perhaps someone who knows about the places shown in the first few pictures knows more about them and will fill me in. I'm sure all the local sailors and fishermen go by them all the time but for us land-bound folks they are beautiful mysteries. I'm grateful for Google Earth so I can fly over them and let my imagination run wild.

Thanks for reading.

The Folks Next-Door: You Can't Make This Stuff Up

All of us like to think that we are good judges of character. Especially writers, because we think we observe people more closely so we can write about them. We like to think that we would see something that was not quite right and keep our guard up. I've been thinking about that because within the last month two horrific crimes have been in the news and in both cases the suspects lived among people who thought they were nice, normal people.

I wrote a couple weeks ago about the Tsarnaev brothers who are the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing and subsequent shoot-outs. As more comes to light about them, especially the younger brother Dzhokar, people keep saying what a nice kid he was, how normal, how much fun to be with. One of the most chilling aspects of the story is that after the bombing, when dozens of people were in hospitals, their bodies blown apart, Dzhokar went back to his normal life. He went to classes, worked out at the gym, and when one of his friends commented on the bombing, he said that he had heard about it and how terrible it sounded.

Yesterday we got news from Cleveland, Ohio about three brothers, the Castro brothers, who are the suspects in a horrible kidnapping crime.[Correction: Police now say that only one of the brothers, Arial, was involved. The other two knew nothing about it.] They held at least three young women captive, using them as sexual slaves, fathering children with them, keeping them chained in the upstairs rooms of their house. All of this in a neighborhood in which they were well known and liked. The man who rescued the girls, Charles Ramsey (and what a character he is!) reported that he had barbecued with them, listened to salsa music and discussed women. The very day that the kidnapped girls were discovered he had taken mail to one of the brothers, mail that was delivered to his house by mistake. These are frightening thoughts.

I keep thinking about this. I like to think that I'm a good judge of character but I know there have been times in my life when I have over-looked somethig that I found odd in an individual only to regret it later. As a writer I've always enjoyed setting up “impossible” situations—circumstances in which a person has to confront their own values and instincts. This is especially interesting when readers respond with disbelief and incredulity. I have had more than a few emails from readers who simply cannot believe that a husband would forgive his wife for getting pregnant by another man when he could not impregnate her, or that a woman would not tell her lover about her pregnancy so that he would not give up an opportunity he had longed for. In one of my stories a woman encounters a man she had loved briefly but who abandoned her many years earlier. She realizes how fortunate she was not to have given up everything for him. Yet there have been readers who have said they thought she should go back to him and see if they could reclaim what they once had.

Let me tell you, if I had made up characters like the Tsarnaev brothers or the Castro brothers, readers would think I was nuts. They would never believe that no one suspected they were up to something terrible—and yet they didn't.

I don't know what the answers are but I do know I've spent a tremendous amount of time thinking about it. People are mysterious and, hard as it may be to believe, we often don't see what is right in front of us. The good thing is that, for us writers, there will always be new material.

Thanks for reading.

The Lady in Black: A Boston Harbor Ghost Story

One of the things I love the most about writing is that it gives me an excuse to do lots of research on all sorts of things. I sometimes worry that if the FBI ever monitored my Google history I'd be in big trouble. As I am working on The Crazy Old Lady Unleashed, Volume 3 in my Beacon Hills Chronicles series, I am delving deeper and deeper into ghost stories and hauntings. It's quite fascinating. Yesterday, while doing some research on Boston Harbor Islands I came across the legend of the Lady in Black, a Civil War era ghost story that has an amazing story behind it.

Corridors inside Fort Warren

Fort Warren on George's Island was built in the 1840s and used as a prison to hold Confederate soldiers and those suspected of being traitors. One of the prisoners was a young soldier from Georgia named Andrew Lanier. While imprisoned at Fort Warren, Lanier wrote to his young bride, Melanie, and told him where he was. Melanie, obviously a spunky Southern lady, decided to bust him out. She traveled to Boston and then to the town of Hull, located at the tip of a long peninsula with high hills overlooking Boston Harbor. I have been to Hull and the views of Boston Harbor are just spectacular.

Fort Warren on George's Island

So Melanie camped out in Hull and, with the help of a spy glass, staked out Fort Warren. When she had her bearings and her plan in order, she disguised herself as a man, and on a dark and stormy night (of course it was dark and stormy night) she rowed across the harbor armed with a pick-axe and a pistol. She located where the Confederate soldiers were being held and was able to squeeze through a slat into the prison. The soldiers then hatched a plan to use the pick-axe to tunnel to the fort's armory, arm themselves, and take command of the fort.

Entrance to Fort Warren on George's Island

Naturally the plans went awry and, in the scuffle that ensued, Melanie's gun went off and the bullet struck her husband and killed him (there are a number of variations on the story of how this happened.) Melanie was arrested, tried, and condemned to death. She was hung (hanged?) and her body was buried somewhere on George's Island. The legend says that, to this day, her ghost, dressed in the long black-robe she wore at her hanging, wanders the tunnels and corridors of Fort Warren.

Fort Warren on George's Island

I've been a nut for ghost stories ever since I was a kid and we used to sit around campfires toasting marshmallows and scaring the b'jesus out of each other with stories about golden arms and ivory soap floating. So, naturally, I wove the story of Melanie into COL3. Viv, my intrepid ghost-hunter, her doting but nervous boyfriend Joe, and a gigantic monk called Brother Maksim are determined to rid GrammyLou's townhouse of the mysterious spirits that have claimed it. This is from yesterday's scribblings:

Boston Harbor Light in the foreground and The Graves Lighthouse in background, as seen from Hull

Down a long drive, a weather-beaten salt-box style house sat next to a long greenhouse, all surrounded by neat gardens.

“It's beautiful,” Viv said as she got out of the car and stretched. “What a view!”

“No kidding, huh?” Joe got out beside her. He shaded his eyes with his hands and pointed. “That's Boston Lighthouse right in front of us but see that light farther out?”

“Yes.” Viv followed suit, shading her eyes. “Where is that?”

“That's called The Graves Light. It's nine miles out from Boston. When I was a kid our class went on a boat tour of the harbor lighthouses.” He turned and pointed in the opposite direction. “See that?” He pointed toward a flicker in the loom above the water.

“Another lighthouse?”

“Yeah. That's Minot's Ledge. I bet on a really clear day you can see all the way to Provincetown.”

“I'm going to go knock,” Tom said, coming up behind them. “That's George's Island over there.” He pointed to a rise of land just beyond Boston Light. “You've heard that ghost story, haven't you?”

“I forgot all about that.” Viv turned to look. Every school child in Boston had heard stories about The Lady in Black of George's Island.

Inside Fort Warren on George's Island

Thanks for reading.

Cliffhangers: Love Em or Hate Em?

Since writing my post yesterday about the tremendous success of some indie authors, particularly those in the “New Adult” genre, I've received a couple of emails from readers who told me something I found interesting. This is an excerpt from one email:

The first volume of the series was wonderful and it held my attention and left me wanting more. It was only .99 and, though it was a short read (about 50 pages), I loved the characters and the romance and I couldn't wait for the next volume. The second volume was $2.99 and was also about 50 pages. I liked it very much and the ending was also a cliff-hanger. I checked the author's Amazon page and discovered there were 6 volumes in the series. All but the first were $2.99. That means that thewhole series would cost $15.94! Because each story was about 50 pages that means I'm paying almost $16 for a 300 page story. It made me so mad that the author would do this tht I just quit reading.

I found that interesting and wondered if other fans of this genre encountered the same things. I have three novels that are over 300 pages long (The Old Mermaid's Tale, Each Angel Burns, and Depraved Heart) and they are priced at $3.99 each or $8.99 for all three so the reader makes a good point—is a 300 page series worth paying $15.46?

The answer, of course, is yes, if it is worth it to readers to see what happens next. And, no, if they don't want to spend that kind of money. The method that has worked for the authors of these serials is to write short, highly-appealing stories with cliffhanger endings, acquire an email list of fans, and then send out an email when the next volume in the series is available. There is nothing wrong with this sort of marketing—it seems to be very effective. It just makes me wonder how people feel about these cliffhanger endings.

I went to Amazon and looked up a few of the books I'd heard about. What I found was that while there were a lot of disgruntled readers who were angry about the endings and left 1-star ratings, there were far more happy readers who said, with absolute consistency, “I cannot wait for the next volume.” They love the suspense of waiting and are in no way deterred by price.

Of course, cliffhangers have a long and distinguished history. The great Charles Dickens published several of his books serialized in newspapers and each week's episode would end with a cliffhanger that kept readers breathless in anticipation of the next episode. Serialized television shows have always used cliffhangers to sustain suspense, and, therefore, interest.

So, it all comes down to what the fan-base will tolerate—if they are sufficiently intrigued by the story, they will wait with breathless anticipation for the next 50 or so pages and pay accordingly. These are interesting times in the publishing world and I feel like I learn something new every day.

Thanks for reading.

$3k/Day for Self-Published Books? Impossible - Or Not...

The big news from Huffington Post's Book page this week was this article: Self-Published E-Books Dominate Best Seller List. All the authors I know have been talking about it. Mostly what they are saying is “how can I get my book there?” We'd all like the answers to that. But from my perspective this is exciting as a vindication of those of us who choose to publish independently. SPAs (Self-Published Authors) and indie authors have taken a beating in recent years—not all of the criticism is undeserved. Far too many people see the stats on self-published success stories and decide to cash in. They crank out a story they think their friends will like, format it, upload it, and wait. The vast majority of them are lucky if they sell 4-5 books a month.

Then there are the authors like H.M. Ward, Rachel Van Dyken, Abbi Glines, Katy Evans, and Barbara Freethy who all have books in Amazon's Top Ten Bestsellers in the Kindle Store. Damaged by H.M. Ward and Real by Katy Evans have been there for quite awhile. In order to be in the Top Ten it is safe to assume those books are selling around 1000 copies a day. With Kindle Desktop Publishing's 70% royalty on books priced under $9.99, that means a .99 book like Damaged is earning $350/day and a $3.99 book like Real is earning around $3000/day. That's some serious cash and, whether or not you like the style of the writing of these books, you have to admire the authors for having the independence and the savvy to market their books all by themselves and attracting such a wide readership.

I've been publishing independently since 2006 and I've seen my sales go from 2-3 books a month, to close to 250 books a day, and now settling into around 1000 books a month. My books are priced from .99 for the shorts, to 8.99 for a boxed set of my three novels. Most of my books are around $2.99-$3.99. It seems this lower price point does give us indie authors an advantage. Most ebooks published by the big publishers are priced between $7.99 and $14.99 and the author doesn't get a very big chunk of that.

So why do authors need big publishers? For one thing, a lot of authors want what they see as “legitimacy” by getting that big contract. They are also afraid of the rigours of marketing and, trust me, marketing is rigorous! Most of the indie auhors I know who are doing well spend hours every day marketing online. Some indies whoa re sufficiently successful to attract a traditional publisher rtain their digital rights and only sell the print rights. If they are doing well enough to attract a traditional publisher who can blame them?

So where is all this going? Nobody knows but it is interesting and it proves one thing for sure: Indie novels are here to stay and they are kicking some serious butt. All of us aspire to those top rankings and some of us will get there. We just have to remind ourselves, it's a marathon, not a sprint.

Thanks for reading.

A Beautiful Day in Boston

Maybe because of the recent tragedy in Boston, and maybe because I am writing another story set in Boston, and maybe because it is April and the flowering trees are in bloom, I decided to go into Boston yesterday. It was a beautiful day, Boston was packed, and the trees were just stunning.

As I am working on The Crazy Old Lady Unleashed, book 3 in my Beacon Hill Chronicles, I keep thinking about the parts of Boston in which certain scenes take place. First of all, there is the North End where Viv and Joe live in an old renovated warehouse condo on Fulton Street. The North End is my favorite part of Boston and the trees there were especially lovely.

Once we had explored the North End and were armed with coffee and cannoli from Mike's Pastry. We went over to Beacon Hill to find GrammyLou's townhouse. Naturally, I don't know exactly which townhouse belongs to GrammyLou but this is Mount Vernon Street where she lives.

I also snapped a picture of Acorn Street because it is on the cover of each of the three books.

From there we went to the Public Garden where Viv and Mattie played as children and where they take Adam, Mattie's little son, for walks.

So it was a beautiful day and I loved having the opportunity to visit and -- as always -- I was very happy to leave all the hustle and bustle and come home.

Thanks for reading.