Peg Herring, Mystery Author

    At the urging of a fellow author, I joined a site for writers a month or so back. Though it’s interesting, I don’t feel that it fits my style—not for writing, not for publishing, and not for promoting. The idea is writing books “to market” or “for market,” which means an author writes what will sell, not what she wants to write. Early on in my career I had an agent who tried to get me to do that. Her push was that I should write Amish romances, because they were big at that moment in time. Later, I had a publisher who wanted me to continue the Loser Mysteries, though I felt they'd reached a logical conclusion. At a conference once, I heard an editor for a big publishing company say that anyone who had anything… anything with vampires in it should send it to her. The market. The market. The market. Book industry people look for books that will "sell through," meaning they earn more than it cost to make them. If you’ve read my work, you know I do pretty much the

  Here are the answers to the High-brow Proverb quiz in the 10-1-23 newsletter. Did you get your free copy of The Dead Detective Agency ? You will love Seamus! 1. Prudence and sagacity are the worthier condiments of intrepid courage. Discretion is the better part of valor.      2. It is fruitless to become lachrymose because of wasted lacteal fluid. Don't cry over spilled milk. 3. Freedom from guile or fraud constitutes the most excellent principal of procedure. Honesty is the best policy 4. A rotating lithoid fragment never accrues lichen. A rolling stone gathers no moss. 5. It is not proper for mendicants to be indicators of preference. Beggars can't be choosers 6. A strong feeling of affection can cause the universe to rotate on its axis. Love makes the world go 'round. 7. Folks deficient in ordinary judgment scurry into areas in which celestial beings dread to set foot. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. 8. Every article which coruscates is not fa

People often ask, "What are you working on?" Currently, I have a book in progress called Aunt Marge (possible cover above). It's women's fiction, focused on Gwen, a Chicago resident who gets herself all messed up due to a series of tragic events. Her aunt, a woman unknown to Gwen until her crises come to a head and she overdoses, offers to take her to her farm in Michigan's U.P. to recover. Gwen is grateful, but she soon figures out that Aunt Marge is no kindly soul, and there's lots going on up there that isn't exactly normal. I got the first draft back from the editor recently. She liked it but had many suggestions for improvement, and I saw that she was right in almost every instance. So that's my current goal: getting Aunt Marge in shape. While the editor was working on that book, I started another one I'm calling Fake. I love the concept, and I managed to get a rough rough draft done before Aunt Marge came home. That one's probably a ye

 I was at an event yesterday where I saw lots of people I hadn't seen for a long time. The question that often comes up is "Are you still writing?" My answer, of course, is "Yes," but I sense that some wonder why. In twenty years, I haven't become a famous writer, and I probably never will. (FYI, I haven't become rich, either.) Why put in the hours and hours (et cetera, et cetera) it takes to write a book, edit a book, and publish a book? I write for the same reasons anyone does what they love: crafters, bakers, amateur athletes, bird-watchers, whoever. It isn't for money or recognition; it's something they call self-fulfillment--the enjoyment of putting effort into something to get the best result you can manage. There are some side perks to writing for publication, though, and a message I got this morning told me I'm not as crafty as I imagined. A reader who knows me well pointed out that the "bad" characters in one of my books ar

 I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that reading has at times saved my sanity (such as it is). I admit that's not true for everyone, but readers know. I thought I'd list some reasons for championing a pastime that isn't always healthy (It's sedentary, and isolating, since we remove ourselves from the real world when we read. Cue my dad's voice: "Get your nose out of that book and do those dishes!") But look what I get that's positive. I learn stuff. From the time I was a kid, I found books that taught me things. The library at school had biographies of famous people, and I discovered they were mostly just people. The encyclopedias my mom bought at the grocery store (with stamps or something similar) were filled with articles about animals, exotic places, and historical events. I recall that when my brother was born, my parents apparently thought I was too young to understand why he didn't come home from the hospital and why the

  People often ask authors, "Where do your ideas comefrom?" Answers will vary. Ideas come from the present. The past. The news. Local gossip. Ancient stories. Out of nowhere. I hit a kind of hiatus this week. The next Maggie Pill book is done, at least until my eagle-eyed beta readers get their hands on the author copies and make their corrections. The next Peg Herring book, tentatively called Aunt Marge, needs time to rest. I believe that, like a roast just out of the oven, a book requires "sitting time," a period where the author puts it away and thinks about something else. In a month or six weeks or whatever, it will read differently, which will bring about all kinds of tweaks and improvements. At least, that's what I preach and practice. Those two things mean, however, that I have nothing to write at present, and nothing to edit either. I had told myself I'd concentrate on reminding readers about my older books as well as helping "Maggie" pus

Truth in Advertising: My hair is no longer this color! Over the last few months, I've written about how I came to self-publish and what I do in that process. Once your cover is great, your MS is perfect (we hope), and your formatting is set for whichever sites you plan to present on, there's just promo left to do...always...forever...eternally.  A person trying to make a living by writing has to promote. Those who aren't (like me) do as much as we choose. Writers understand that promoted books, (often books that aren't as good as yours) will sell, while unpromoted books mean that no one even knows you've got a new one out there. We begin promo long before a book is available for sale. We talk about it online. We do cover reveals. We offer samples. We try to get bloggers interested enough to feature the book. We solicit reviews. Add standing on our heads and screaming, "IT'S MY NEW BOOK!" and you have some idea. The biggest problem is that no one kno