Peg Herring, Mystery Author

      https://books2read.com/u/mqrOn6     I love the Kidnap Gang, so it's a little sad to see the end of the series. Why then, is it ending? First, the arc has...well...arced. We meet the characters in KIDNAP.org (which is free here: https://books2read.com/u/mZ58rl  We see them take down a really big bad guy in Pharma Con . ($2.99 here: https://books2read.com/u/mKEOVE)   And we see Robin deal with her past in The Trouble with Dad. (Link above) Second, I have other irons in the fire. Like a lot of authors, I love trying something new. While working with the same characters over and over can be rewarding and is less taxing on the brain, it can also result in stale plots and "jumping the shark," making things happen that are hard for the reader to believe. If you've ever stopped buying a series because things just got too crazy, you know what I mean. So I wish Robin and the gang well, but I'm done with them. I did leave an opening for more books in the future. SPOI

 Yes, I taught English for....many years. Yes, I'm good at commas and quotation marks and all their little friends. I know about story arcs and character development and figurative language. That does NOT mean I don't need a bunch of helpful friends and professionals to check my work. I start with a first reader . This person reads the manuscript in really rough form and gives me feedback on what she sees as its strengths and weaknesses. With her "outside" view (meaning outside my head), I begin to see where I spent too much time with unnecessary explanation or where I didn't "take the reader with me" on a plot point. I kind of feel sorry for my first reader, because she often has to piece things together and wade through a lot of junk that won't make the final cut. When I've reworked the story to my satisfaction, I hire a content editor. This is a professional who will comment on the story's development, strengths and weaknesses. I've h

Book #3, the final book of the Kidnap Capers Series, is now up for pre-order at Amazon.com. https://www.amazon.com/Trouble-Dad-Kidnap-Capers-Book-ebook/dp/B08D3R4P5D This is when authors start worrying, and here are a few things on my list. Will the copy editor get her part done in time? Amazon is very strict about pre-orders. Authors must have the books out by the release date (in this case, September 1st) or they're in TROUBLE. This is a small worry, since my copy editor has never let me down before. Did I choose the right title/cover/blurb (etc.) Second-guessing is what we authors do, and today it hit me that using "Dad" in the title might make the book seem like YA. I don't think that's a big problem either, because most who buy this book have already read Books 1 and 2 and know differently. What kind of promotion should I be doing? Every author I know hates promo, but we also know we need to do it. The guy who edited my last book said the COVID cr

The Kidnap Capers is a three-book series starring Robin and her "hoods," who take down crooks by unorthodox, often humorous methods.  Book 3 will be out on September 1st, so we're trying to settle on a cover. I'd like input from readers on what's eye-catching and gives the sense of a humorous but suspenseful story. Here are their covers (these are for the audio books because that's what I can find right now): Keeping the red/black theme, we got these two possibilities. They'll be fine-tuned once we choose a basic idea. If we skip the idea of coordinating colors, I like this one too: Please tell me which cover you prefer, or choose elements that work for you that might be incorporated into a new cover (e.g., "I like the lettering in X but the picture in Y.")