Crafting Killer Back Cover Copy

By Lois Winston

---

How do most readers buy books when they’re not searching for a specific title or author? They either scroll through an e-tailer site or stroll around the aisles of a bookstore. Either way, the first thing that will catch their attention is a book’s cover. In a bookstore, the reader picks up a book, flip it over, and reads the back cover copy. On an Internet site, the reader scrolls to the book’s description. 

The primary goal of back cover copy is to act as a tease. If the tease works, the reader flips to the first page or clicks on the sample to read a few paragraphs or pages. If she likes what she’s read, she’ll buy the book. If those first few paragraphs or pages don’t grab her, she continues to scroll or stroll. The back cover copy is the first step in whether a reader decides to buy a book. That’s why back cover copy is so important. It’s meant to whet the reader’s appetite and hook a potential customer. 

Back cover copy should consist of one or more short paragraphs that describe the main plot and main protagonist(s) in a book. If you’ve ever queried an agent or editor, it’s like the section of the query letter that describes your book. Sometimes, an editor may even use the author’s query blurb—with or without a few tweaks—for the back cover copy.

So what should go into back cover copy, and what should you omit? First, you want to include enough information to pique the reader’s curiosity about the book. That means giving an indication of the overall story arc and the main character(s). Who are these people you’ve written about, and what is it about them that will make a reader want to care about them, their world, their relationships, and their problems?

That sounds like an overwhelming task to accomplish in a few short paragraphs, but it’s quite easy if you rely on GMC—goal, motivation, and conflict. GMC is not just for plotting a good story and creating compelling characters. Nailing down characters’ GMC provides an author with a toolbox for creating every other aspect of the book—from the query to the synopsis to the novel to the back cover copy.

Step 1: Define Your Main Character

Use a few adjectives and a noun to define your main character. Be specific. These few words will tell exactly who your character is. This gives you a framework from which to work.

For example, in Love, Lies and a Double Shot of Deception the heroine is described as a “poor little rich girl.” The book is a heart-wrenching romantic suspense. Therefore, the back cover copy is crafted to evoke an emotional response in the reader.

In my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series, my protagonist is a “reluctant amateur sleuth.” Since mysteries are plot driven, I created back cover copy that speaks to the cataclysmic upheaval in Anastasia’s life which propels her into solving each mystery.

Step 2: Define Your Main Character’s Internal and External Goals, Motivations, and Conflicts

Every book must have a balance of plot and characterization. External GMC speaks to plot. Internal GMC speaks to characterization.

For each of your main characters, answer the following questions: 
1.  What does your character want?
2.  Why does he/she want it?
3.  What’s keeping him/her from getting it?

Do this for both the external (the plot) and the internal (the characterization) GMC. Keep each answer to one sentence. When you’re finished, you’ll have six sentences, three that speak to plot and three that speak to characterization.

Avoid unnecessary description. No one buys a book because the heroine is a redhead. Include setting, occupation, and other specifics only if they’re pertinent to the plot and main characters. 

For example, in Assault with a Deadly Glue Gun, the first book in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series, the back cover copy doesn’t mention that the book takes place in New Jersey because it doesn’t matter. However, it does mention that Anastasia is a magazine crafts editor. Why? Because Anastasia discovers the murder victim sitting in her cubicle—glue gunned to her chair. If I didn’t mention Anastasia’s occupation, the circumstances of the victim’s death wouldn’t make any sense.

In Love, Lies and a Double Shot of Deception, I don’t mention Emma’s occupation in the blurb because it’s not relevant. I do mention that the story takes place in Philadelphia because the city plays an important role in the story.

Step 3: Define Other Essential Characters

Back cover copy will often, but not always, mention two or three characters because they’re essential to giving the reader an indication of what the story is about. This will vary depending on the genre and plot. Sometimes only one character is mentioned. If other characters play essential roles in your story, repeat Steps 1 and 2 to define their GMC. You probably won’t use all the information on these characters in crafting the blurb, but writing the information out will help you decide what’s important to include and what you can omit in crafting your back cover copy.

Step 4: Voice

The final component of your back cover copy is voice. Describe your book in a voice that matches the voice of your novel. Look at the examples at the end of this article. Love, Lies and a Double Shot of Deception is an emotionally driven romantic suspense, A Crafty Collage of Crime is a humorous mystery. The voice used in each is different. If you haven’t incorporated the voice from your book in your answers to the GMC questions, go back and tweak the sentences. 

It’s important for the reader to be able to determine whether your book is a romantic comedy versus a romantic suspense or a cozy mystery versus a police procedural. You want to meet reader expectation from the very beginning. Readers usually like surprise plot twists, but they don’t want to be tricked into buying a book that purports to be one genre, only to find it’s a completely different genre.

As a side note, cover art should also convey the tone of your book. The cover art and back cover copy should complement each other.

Step 5: Put it All Together

Look at the sentences you’ve created. Depending on the genre, you may or may not use all the sentences you’ve written to develop your back cover copy. Some back cover copy works well as one short paragraph. Most require two, three, or four paragraphs. Choose the sentences that best convey your story. String them together to create your back cover copy, fleshing the paragraphs out with any other pertinent information you believe is essential to hook the reader. Your paragraphs should be tight, concise, and free of unimportant details. Your goal is to make the reader want to flip to the first page of your book to read the opening paragraphs, then head to the cash register or click the Buy Link.

Samples of Back Cover Copy

Humorous cozy mystery:

A Crafty Collage of Crime

Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Award for Best Comedy

Wherever crafts editor and reluctant amateur sleuth Anastasia Pollack goes, murder and mayhem follow. Her honeymoon is no exception. She and new husband, photojournalist (and possible spy) Zachary Barnes, are enjoying a walk in the Tennessee woods when they stumble upon a body on the side of a creek. The dead man is the husband of one of the three sisters who own the winery and guest cottages where Anastasia and Zack are vacationing.

When the local sheriff sets his sights on the widow as the prime suspect, her sisters close ranks around her. The three siblings are true-crime junkies, and thanks to a podcaster who has produced an unauthorized series about her, Anastasia’s reputation for solving murders has preceded her to the bucolic hamlet. The sisters plead for her help in finding the real killer. As Anastasia learns more about the women and their business, a host of suspects emerge, including several relatives, a relentless land developer, and even the sisters themselves.

Meanwhile, Anastasia becomes obsessed with discovering the podcaster’s identity. Along with knowing about Anastasia’s life as a reluctant amateur sleuth, the podcaster has divulged details of Anastasia’s personal life. Someone has betrayed Anastasia’s trust, and she’s out to discover the identity of the culprit.

Emotionally driven romantic suspense:

Love, Lies and a Double Shot of Deception 

Life has delivered one sucker punch after another to Emma Wadsworth. As a matter of fact, you could say the poor little rich girl is the ultimate poster child for Money Can’t Buy Happiness—even if she is no longer a child.

Billionaire real estate stud Logan Crawford is as famous for his less-than-platinum reputation as he is his business empire. In thirty-eight years, he’s never fallen in love, and that’s just fine with him—until he meets Emma.

But Emma’s not buying into Logan’s seductive ways. Well, maybe just a little, but she’s definitely going into the affair with her eyes wide open. She’s no fool. At least not anymore. Her deceased husband saw to that. Besides, she knows Logan will catch the first jet out of Philadelphia once he learns her secrets.

Except things don’t go exactly as Emma has predicted, and when Philadelphia’s most beloved citizen becomes the city’s most notorious criminal, she needs to do a lot more than clear her name if she wants to save her budding romance with the billionaire hunk someone is willing to kill for.

---

USA Today and Amazon bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston writes mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” In addition, Lois is a former literary agent and an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry. Her most recent release is Sorry, Knot Sorry, the thirteenth book in her Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series. Learn more about Lois and her books at www.loiswinston.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter and follow her on various social media sites.

This Crazy Writing Life: Amazon Ads Part Three–Don't Forget to Press the Clutch...

By Steven Womack

---

So you’re the type that wants to be in charge, right? The thought of targeting your Amazon Ads to a bunch of folks you may or not want the ad to go to is a real problem. Maybe you don’t trust the Amazon algorithm. Maybe you’re the kind of person who would rather drive a manual transmission than an automatic.

Okay, there’s room for all types. So how do you get started?

In last month’s installment of This Crazy Writing Life, we pondered Amazon’s automatic targeting and how the Amazon algorithm based its decisions on your metadata. Metadata is a term you see tossed around a lot these days. I kinda sorta think I understand what metadata is and how it works, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen an actual definition of the word.

So I did what people do these days: I Googled it.

Metadata, according to that internet bastion of absolute truth (Wikipedia), means “data that provides information about other data, but not the content of the data itself.”

Say what? Data about data?

Continuing on with Wikipedia, metadata is data that gives you insights into other data. There are numerous kinds of metadata: descriptive, structural, administrative, reference, statistical, legal… A lot to take in, more than we actually need.

Before we get too deep into the weeds on this, let’s narrow our focus to the question of what is metadata for indie publishers and what does it do?

Now we’ve bitten off a bite-sized chunk. Metadata for indie publishers is the information (data) that will help lead a customer to your book. This information primarily falls under two main classifications: keywords and categories. If you’re going to attempt to manually target your promotions efforts on Amazon (or anywhere else), you’re going to have to get your head around these two dynamics.

Keywords are words or phrases that, when a potential customer types them into the search bar, takes them—hopefully—to your book. If you’ve written a book called Pole Vaulting for Dummies, then when someone types “pole vaulting” into the search bar, your book is going to be in the pool of books that Amazon pulls up.

But there’s more to it. Not only do good keywords make your book show up in search results, but if you’re running a Sponsored Products campaign (see the last two month’s columns on Amazon advertising), then your ad gets featured in pages for other books that pop up as a result of the search. If you include the keyword phrase “Mark Twain” in your metadata, then your book will not only show up in search results for Mark Twain, but as a Sponsored Product ad on every other book page that’s pulled up.

So you’re beginning to see how important this is, right? The right keywords will make your book pop up all over the Amazon place. But the wrong, or ineffective, keywords will consign you to obscurity.

It’s not just the keywords, though. You can also control how closely the customer’s search results match your keywords. There are three broad match types in the Amazon ad platform.

Exact matches are just what the name implies. You know exactly what search query you want to target. Exact matches include close variations like plural or singular versions of the phrase, but you need to be as specific as possible and you need to enter the words in the exact order you want them to appear in the search. If your keyword phrase is “private eye noir novels,” then “noir private eye books” isn’t going to give you a hit.

If you choose the phrase match option, that means you have a precise idea of what you’re trying to target, but you’re willing to be a little looser on the interpretation, like if your keyword phrase is part of a longer phrase. In other words, if your keyword phrase is “private eye noir novels” and someone types in “private eye noir novels set in New Orleans,” you’ll get a hit.

The third option is the broad match. This is the match type that will give you the largest number of hits, but you run a real risk that the some of the hits may be so far off base that they won’t give you any results. Ricardo Fayet in Amazon Ads For Authors goes so far as to recommend that you not choose broad match as an option in Sponsored Product ads.

So let’s look at Category targeting. What are categories on the Amazon platform?

Imagine that Amazon.com was a brick-and-mortar bookstore. If you were looking for a romance novel, you’d either go to the store directory and see which shelves housed romances or you’d just wander around until you found the right shelf. Same with mysteries, suspense/thrillers, or books on car repair or stock trading…

It’s vital that your book be assigned to the right categories. In a brick-and-mortar bookstore, when a book’s put in the wrong category, it’s misshelved. If someone looks long enough and hard enough, they may find it. In the vast online bookstore known as Amazon, though, when your book’s in the wrong category, it’s lost.

But it’s not just a matter of readers being able to find your book. Each category within Amazon (with the exception of some categories that we’ll touch on in a second) has its own best-seller list. The competition within each category varies tremendously. In some niche categories, you might need to sell only a dozen books to be an Amazon number one best-seller.

So what are the exceptions I mentioned? In a recent article on Amazon categories, Kindlepreneur guru Dave Chesson writes that 27% of the categories you can pick on the KDP dashboard are what he calls “ghost categories.” These are categories that don’t have a name, don’t have a category path on the Best Sellers page, and if you select it, your sales don’t count toward a bestseller tag. You almost always want to avoid putting your book in one of these.

It’s also important to understand that over half the categories on Amazon are duplicate categories. Which means if you select three of these categories (and three is all you’re allowed), then you’re really only picking one.

Here’s the other challenge when you’re determining which categories to place your book in: there are over 19,000 categories!

Yep, Amazon’s a dang big bookstore.

And Amazon’s constantly changing the rules. As I mentioned a few lines earlier, you can request that your book be placed in three categories. You used to be allowed ten, but the rules changed. Even then, there’s no guarantee your book will wind up in the categories you want. Amazon can deny you the ones you want or stick your book in other categories without even telling you. It’s important to understand how this complicated system works to get the best results. Embed keywords for a specific category in your book description, your book’s content, or even the title. That’ll help.

Do you have a sense now of how big a task this is? As I’ve mentioned in previous columns, if you’re going to embark on an indie pubbing journey, you’ve got to constantly be studying, learning, observing. This is bidness, folks, and ya’ gotta take it seriously.

How do we manage to get our heads around all this without spending forty hours a week studying how all this works. After all, most of us have lives of some kind and other demands on our time.

The best tool I’ve found, by far, is another offering from our friends at Kindlepreneur. Dave Chesson’s made a career out of mastering the indie publishing space and Kindlepreneur’s PublisherRocket is one of their best tools for mastering the keyword and category challenge (let me just jump in here, as I have before, and say with complete transparency that I’m not an affiliate with Kindlepreneur or anyone else; I’m not making a buck off this if you buy it; I’m just happy to share something that really works).

PublisherRocket enables you to discover categories and keywords, analyze your competition, and develop Amazon Ads—all in the same place. Let’s do a quick case study here, based on my earlier reference to the author who writes a book called Pole Vaulting For Dummies. You’re the author and you’ve written the book, copy-edited it, put together a great cover, and you’re ready to pull the trigger on KDP.

Fire up PublisherRocket and type in the “keyword search” bar the words pole vaulting.

Turns out there are a slew of books published on Amazon about pole vaulting (didn’t know it was such a hot area). Let’s click on the first one, Alexis Monroe Kiefer’s The Pole Vault Coaching Handbook.

PublisherRocket tells us that Ms. Kiefer’s book on pole vaulting was published 1647 days ago, its Amazon Best Seller Rank is 975,271—not great but I’ve seen worse—and it’s 78 pages long. This book does not have targeted keywords in its title, and it costs $20.00. PublisherRocket estimates its daily sales as $3.00 and its monthly sales at $20.00.

Okay, it’s not likely the author’s making a living off this book but, hey, she’s slinging a few copies here and there.

Then you hit the “See The Categories” button and the good stuff happens.

This book is only listed in two categories:

Books>Reference

Books>Sports & Outdoors>Other Team Sports>Track & Field

For each category, there’s a button to get Insights on that category (Sales to #1, Sales to #10, Average Publishers Price, and the Monthly Sales of Category’s Top 30 Bestsellers). Then there’s another button that gives you all the Keywords for that category.

Are you beginning to get a sense of how valuable that data is? I read an article about how date is the new oil—those that have got it control the market and a lot more. I believe that’s true.

Let’s wrap this one up. The last three installments of This Crazy Writing Life have been designed to just barely break the ice on Amazon advertising. I just wanted to give you a start, but if you really want to do a deep dive into making this all work, then you’re going to have to spend more time than we’ve had here. Ricardo Fayet’s Amazon Ads For Authors is the best and most complete resource out there. I recommend starting with that.

Once again, thanks for playing along.

The Importance of Honest Feedback

By Judy Penz Sheluk

---

Writing is a solitary pursuit, one where we spend countless hours of our lives, often laboring over a single sentence or paragraph for more time than most of us care to admit. So, it’s only natural that we become protective of our words. After all, something that took hours to perfect must be, well, perfect, right?

If only that were so. Unfortunately, as writers, we are simply too close to our work to see the flaws. Oh, we may find the typo on page 75 on reread, the one where we’ve called a car a cat (though even that is iffy), but the overuse of a favorite trope, phrase, or gesture (my characters love to nod). Maybe not so much. And that’s why we need feedback.

Feedback comes in many forms and at various stages of the writing process. The most important thing to remember is that you are looking for an honest and unbiased evaluation of your work. You may not agree with every comment or suggestion, but you should at least consider each one without becoming defensive. Consider it “thick skin” training for the rejections you’re almost certain to face going forward. 

Let’s look at some options:

 Writing Critique Groups

While there are no hard and fast rules, these work best if the group is small—three to five people—allowing each member time to read and respond without becoming overwhelmed. It’s essential to establish parameters from the get-go, such as weekly word count limits and the type of feedback expected. 

While critique groups can be invaluable for some writers, they should never be the final step in the review process. As you become immersed in your work for months on end, you lose objectivity. Those intimately familiar with your work will too.

Alpha Readers

Readers who provide detailed and constructive feedback, both positive and tactfully critical, about your book’s premise, plot, characters, and other elements. This is the place to include readers who have knowledge of the technical elements in your manuscript. 

Whether you choose to hire a professional, or ask a trusted friend or relative, they should be aware that they are commenting on an unpolished (first) draft. They should also be avid readers of your book’s genre or sub-genre. Consider this the first test drive of your overall story from a reader’s perspective. 

Beta Readers

Beta readers (or betas) critique finished manuscripts before they are published. It’s advisable to have betas who are familiar with your genre/sub-genre. Betas can be friends, family members, teachers, members of online writing groups, or other writers willing to do a manuscript swap. This will help identify the finer points of your book that may need an adjustment. Ideally, you’ll have no fewer than two and no more than five, allowing for a comparison of opinions without the risk of opinion overload. If one beta reader doesn’t understand why your protagonist hates red, that might be a point worth clarifying. If two or more betas don’t get it, it’s a must-fix. 

While betas are an excellent way to obtain (often free) feedback, they do not replace the role of a professional editor. There is one school of thought that because traditional publishers pay for editing, there is no need for authors to incur this expense if their intention is to traditionally publish. 

Let’s look at that statement. Is it true that traditional publishers hire and pay for editing services? Yes. However, it’s equally true that agents and publishers receive thousands of submissions from aspiring authors every year. While there are no guarantees, a professionally edited manuscript may increase the odds of acceptance. 

Developmental Editing

Also known as substantive or content editing, developmental editing is the first step, focusing on big picture story elements. The developmental editor will also assess and shape draft material to improve flow and organization by revising or reordering content and clarifying plot, arc of action, characters, and/or thematic elements.

Line Editing

Also known as stylistic editing, the line editor focuses on coherence and flow, eliminating jargon, clichés, and euphemisms, while adjusting the length and structure of sentences and paragraphs, and establishing or maintaining the overall mood, style, or voice.

Copyediting

Ideally combined with line editing, the copy editor checks spelling, grammar, punctuation, and usage, and ensures consistency in character names, places, descriptions, and other details. Copy editing also covers fact checking and/or obtaining or listing permissions needed (e.g., use of song lyrics or trademarked products). The copy editor may create or work from a style sheet.

And there you have it, feedback in a nutshell. Now all you need to do is write that book. Hey, if it were easy, everyone would do it.

---

A former journalist and magazine editor, Judy Penz Sheluk is the bestselling author of two mystery series: The Glass Dolphin Mysteries and Marketville Mysteries. Her short crime fiction appears in several collections, including the Superior Shores Anthologies, which she also edited.

Judy has also written two how-to guides to publishing. Finding Your Path to Publication: A Step-by-Step Guide was the Winner of the 2024 Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Award for Best Nonfiction. The follow-up to that book, Self-publishing: The Ins & Outs of Going Indie, provides an insider’s insight into the world of self-publishing. 

Judy is a member of Sisters in Crime, International Thriller Writers, the Short Mystery Fiction Society, and Crime Writers of Canada, where she served on the Board of Directors, most recently as Chair.

Audiobooks

By Dale T Phillips

---

Since audiobooks are currently in the fastest growing book format right now, getting your novel out for sale as an audiobook is vital for success. If your book isn’t, you’re losing a lot, and leaving money on the table, as the expression goes. My audiobooks have sold hundreds and hundreds, and I love the continual income stream. Sadly, many writers from traditional publishers don’t have their backlists up as audios, so they’re missing out.

Reasons why you should have audio as part of your overall writing business strategy:

• Discoverability: Get a bigger audience and make it easier to find your work. Many potential fans like audio for a number of reasons, some just enjoying a good listen while walking, driving, running, or biking. You want all the fans you can get! These days, people have less time for reading print books, so audiobooks can be a saving grace. While To Be Read (TBR) piles are so big, chances are many readers won’t get to your print book for a long, long time, if ever, but if you’re on audio, they have a better chance of finding your work. If they like that one, they’ll come back for more. Having your book listed in audio format also gets more hits in internet searches, and is listed in more places, increasing your internet presence and the chances of someone finding your work. With over ten million books in print and electronic format, your book is a drop in the ocean. There are far fewer audiobooks: smaller ocean, bigger chance to make a splash! And it’ll get you into some extra markets. I was speaking with a person from a State Library about my books, and the first question was “Any of your books out on audio? Because we’re investing in those right now.” 

• Sales: As well as finding new fans and watching your sales numbers increase, you can make money. Once the book is produced, all you have to do is promote it whenever you want. But each title is another product in your writer store, and even little trickles of money add up to an income stream. It’s nice to have hundreds of sales in another venue.

• Reviews: While many print book reviewers are overwhelmed, there are many sites doing audio that can still accommodate a review. You have more chances of getting good notice for your work. It all adds up. Listeners can also post reviews and ratings, which help.

• It’ll make you a better writer: When someone else reads your words, it makes the clunky ones stand out, and the good ones sound better. Your ear will develop, especially for dialog.

• Freebies: With some audiobook production, you get free giveaway codes. You can gift these to reviewers, as contest prizes, or simply as rewards to readers. When someone buys a print book in person from me, I’ll offer them the free audiobook as a nice extra.

Audiobook Options

Historically, audiobooks were done by professional companies and were expensive to produce, costing thousands of dollars. So only better-selling books made it. Now there are options.

• Someone ELSE does all the work- (and takes most of the money). While it’s nice to have someone do all the work for you, as with traditional publishing, there’s a danger. They might stick you with a hideous cover, a bad version, a product priced wrong for the market, or take a long time to get it out- or never, while they hold the rights captive. In any case, it may not sell, and you’re stuck. And when someone does the work, they also take most of the profit. 

While you assume that a big publisher would do a professional version, there may be other factors. I got one from a BIG audiobook producer, but the narrator couldn’t pronounce ANY place name in Maine correctly- even easy ones like Bangor and Augusta! Letting someone else do it all means the quality control may not be there, and there’s little you can do about it. And you might tick off some fans. (I know I was!)

And that’s assuming you can get a publisher to produce it. Professional narrators run upwards of $100 an hour, and it takes hours to produce a book. Plus other production costs, and packaging, and distributing, they’re investing a few thousand dollars, at least. Since they expect a good return, they have to estimate the sales will exceed the output. So if you’re a typical mid-lister, with less than ten thousand print/ebook sales per book, they may not even do your book for audio. But they’ll likely still retain the rights, in case you hit it big. Then they can always do one later. But what happens is that you can go for years (or forever) without an audio version. 

So- check your contract to see what provisions there are for audio. Even if you signed them away, and they’re not doing anything with them, maybe you can re-negotiate. They may not give the rights back for free, but maybe you can offer them something for it that will make it worthwhile. 

• Do it all yourself, keep all the money. 

Two factors- Production and Distribution

It’s true you don’t need a studio anymore, so it’s become cost-effective. You can produce high-quality audio files in different formats with free software and inexpensive equipment. I recommend Audacity software for recording, because it’s free and simple to learn and use. 

Are you a professional narrator? If you’re charging money for the book, you want quality. Unless you’re famous, the listeners may not be forgiving of less-than-awesome narrating. Before you start this path, do some voice work (maybe some podcasts), and get comfortable with a microphone and sound editing.

Drawbacks- while this can be done, the main cost is time to record and edit. Most of us don’t have enough hours in a day now. And it may take hours of editing to get the sound to a professional level.

Distribution. Even if you do it yourself, how are you going to package, list, and sell the finished product? Tough to arrange this on your own. 

• Work with a Service, and split the money

While there are other services, my current favorite production option right now is ACX.com, which feeds into Audible.com, an Amazon company. They make it easy and profitable for independents to get their books produced, listed, and sold. Better yet, the finished product is on the Audible site, AND on your Amazon book listing, right beside the print and kindle versions. Huge showcase! And they can tie it into Whispersync, which lets you switch between devices and formats.

How to Produce Audiobooks

For ACX, you’ll need an account on the site (includes telling them where to send the money!). 

1. Check your publishing contract first, and beware of issues with anthologies, or other writers listed on your book as authors. 

2. READ YOUR CONTRACT TERMS! Audible gets an exclusive right for years, so make sure you’re comfortable with the terms.

3. Log in to ACX and search for your book, then claim it as yours, with the right to produce an audio.

Various ways to produce your book:

• Do all the narration yourself. ACX distributes the book for you, and you make 40% of the list price. 

• Pay a narrator up front for doing your book. Narrators are expensive. While you can still retain your 40%, consider the cost, and how long it might take to recoup that. You post your project with the offer to pay, and get bids. Decide on who you want. 

• Offer a royalty split, for no up-front money- This is my favorite way. You are hoping that narrators will do all the work on spec, in hopes of making money when the audio sells. You each get 20% of the sale price in this part. They’re putting in time, which to them equals hundreds, or even thousands of dollars, and you have no risk! But of course, you wrote the book, so your time is already invested. 

When you’ve claimed your book, and decided if you want a narrator, you post it up as a project, with a description and notes on what the ideal narrator should sound like- male or female, age, accents, humorous, serious, scary, etc. You post an audition piece, a short segment that will give a good indication if the narrator is right for the work (dialogue with different voices is a good indicator). Add any helpful hints on what the passage should sound like.

This posts the project up for people to audition for, and you wait for replies. You can also search on available narrators, and sample their voices to see if any fit, then send them a message to see if they’re interested in your project.

When auditions come in, listen if they’re right for your work. When you’ve found someone who has the right voice for the job, you then set a schedule and make an official Offer. There’s a date for a 15-minute milestone, which is a guide to see if they’re on the right track, and a date for the project completion. You may need some back-and-forth on pronunciation and tone, and you send messages via ACX. When they’re ready, they send ACX the files, and you give a listen. You can request changes if there’s something amiss, so you have complete quality control. 

When it’s done properly, you Approve the work, which then goes through ACX for their approval, and then gets posted to Audible for sale. You’ll need a cover image modified to their specs, a squared-off version of your book cover. Then it goes up on Amazon as well, linked with your print and Kindle versions. They will set the price of the finished book, based on length.

But there’s more! ACX sends you codes for free downloads of the work. You can use these for reviewers, friends, giveaways, and rewards for your fans- it’s an awesome way of promoting your work- for free! You send instructions and a download code, and someone gets the audio for free.

And the bonus program- if your work is the first someone selects when signing up for Audible, you get a bonus payment- it’s split with your narrator, but is a nice addition.

Keywords, Descriptions, Jacket Copy

By Dale T Phillips

---

This topic is critical to success, and there are whole books on these particular subjects with different schools of thought about the best ways to include everything. Browse the Resources Appendix for further information. 

You’re going to have to be very aware of where your book fits in the publishing world (category), because you’ll need to add keywords (descriptive book tags) when you publish it. Each distributor allows you a certain number of keywords to include for your book, and of course you’ll want the best ones. These keywords are critical for helping readers find your books, because that’s what the big search engines use to locate the type of book you’re selling. The more your book comes up in a search on certain keywords, the more chances you have of someone checking it out. To sell more copies, learn what you need to keep your book search-term relevant. Search engines work on optimization, or SEO, which is why it’s so important your book show up under a search on that keyword. One great tool that you’ll want to look into for finding these in depth is (KDP) Publisher Rocket. Some say you should use all the characters allowed, and fill every category. 

Descriptions and Jacket Copy are important as well, and they’re used to quickly tell a browser if it’s the type of book they’ll be interested in. More detail than the tagline, they are included as part of the book listing online, and for a print book, on the back cover (jacket) at the top. Some distributors use two descriptions: a short one, about three sentences long, and a slightly longer one.

Here’s the elements you should include:

• Hook the readers right away with a compelling first two lines. 

• Make it easy and exciting to read. Readers won’t spend much time; they’ll skim quickly to see if it’s what they want.

• Establish what’s at stake and make it important.

• Only a character or two, no more. 

• Don’t reveal everything. Leave them wanting to know what happens.

To determine whether your descriptions are good, look for book descriptions of successful books that make you want to check out the book. What picture do they paint in just a few words that make it sound compelling? You’ll want descriptions for your books that sound similar. Get help from your team, Beta readers, writing friends, etc. on what does well.

A disadvantage of Smashwords as a distributor is that the keywords and descriptions are the same for all distribution channels. Not a deal breaker, but important to realize.  And in Amazon, the title, subtitle, and description are all searchable.

Getting Started In Indie Pubbing — Part Two – The First Few Choices

By Steven Womack

---

So you’ve decided to take the leap. You’re sick of agents taking six months-to-never to get back to you. The rare legitimate publisher who is willing to read unagented submissions is so inundated with manuscripts that by the time they get around to reading your book, you’ll be deep into your dotage and will have long forgotten you wrote it.

So you’re going to self publish.

Oh, wait… If you read the first installment in this series of columns I’m calling This Crazy Writing Life, you’ll know I despise the term self-publishing. If you need a memory refresher, go back through the Killer Nashville Magazine archives and find that first column.

Then do a reset. You’re not self-publishing.

You’re independently publishing.

And the first step in independently publishing your book is to make a series of choices. The first and in many ways most important choice is what are you going to publish. You’re not only a writer, but you’re a book lover as well. So having a physical book that you can fondle and sniff and gaze at on a shelf is the most important thing to you.

Okay, that leads to some choices. What form will your book take? Every writer fantasizes seeing their book as a hardcover, a classy old-school hardcover with a dust cover and maybe even an embossed cover with gold foil. That speaks real class.

But it also speaks big bucks. Times are hard, and readers are reluctant to shell out north of thirty bucks for a hardcover, especially a hardcover by an author they may not have even heard of. Yo’ momma and Crazy Aunt Agnes may love you that much, but that ain’t exactly a target-rich environment.

So you punt and decide to go with a paperback. But that forces a series of choices. Do you want a mass market paperback to minimize costs and make it possible for your book to fit on those wire racks in stores of the grocery and drug kind? You can go that way if you want, but historically speaking, the days when mass market paperbacks ruled the retail book space were over about two decades ago. And the chances of an indie pubbed book getting picked up by a major distributor and winding up in a Kroger, Walmart or Costco are about as good as winning the Powerball.

Okay, you reason, let’s go with the trade paperback. But again, that incites a series of choices. What trim size do want for your trade paperback? What kind of paper do you want? In the early days of indie-pubbed books, your only option was the white paper that was similar to what came out of a Xerox machine. This kind of paper, combined with the early binding and production quality of a print-on-demand book screamed self-published. So you want to go with something a little classier than that. But you also want to hit that sweet spot between size and production costs, the number of pages and your word count. You also have to consider the genre. Science fiction fans and romance readers have different expectations. You might have to go to a bunch of bookstores with a measuring tape and start researching this.

Then you go on from there. Let’s consider eBooks. I realize that this may be opening up a real can o’ worms for some folks. Some people hate eBooks. I know people whose intelligence I admire and respect that absolutely cannot abide eBooks.

But let me interject a little bit of reality here.

The idea of a digital or electronic presentation of a book actually dates back to the 1930s. But it was in 2007, when Amazon launched the Kindle eBook reader, that eBooks came into their own.

And let me state this as bluntly as I can. The invention and launch of the Kindle was the most significant, game-changing, revolutionary event to hit book publishing since that fellow Gutenberg invented the first usable system of moveable type almost 500 years ago. This is not an overstatement. The eBook has made modern independent publishing both profitable and possible. It has created a whole new industry. It has enabled thousands (and on its way to being millions) of authors to bring their work to the public. And like throwing a rock into a still pond, the ripple effect keeps widening every day. There are multiple distribution channels for eBooks, up to and including you can now borrow eBooks from libraries just like physical books. And there are more being invented and created every day.

Millions of readers now gobble up eBooks by the gigabyte. For certain genres—especially popular ones like romances, mysteries, thrillers—eBooks are rapidly becoming one of the chief ways readers read.

So here’s the bottom line: if you’re going to independently publish your own work, then you’ll bypass eBooks at your own peril. There are extremely successful independently published authors out there who only publish eBook versions of their work, either that or they publish print versions solely as vanity or corollary editions.

Because eBooks are so much cheaper to produce and distribute than print books, you can price them lower and make more money (sometimes much more money) than you can with print. EBooks are also much easier and faster to produce. Next month, I’ll introduce you to an app that will have you formatting your first eBook in a matter of hours.

So that’s where we’ll go next month. We’ll explore how you format and produce eBooks and how you decide where and how to distribute eBooks. It’s a whole new world out there.

Jump in and hold on.

Agents- You Don’t Need Them

By Dale T. Phillips

---

In the past, literary agents were sometimes useful and necessary for selling a manuscript to a publisher, and as an author representative, negotiating a better deal for the author for the sale of the book rights. Unsolicited, un-agented manuscripts were often sent to the publishing house. These were called over the transom (the crossbar above a door), because in the olden days, some were literally pushed through the window portion over the transom in the hopes that someone would read them. They would be dumped into a slush pile, and good luck to anything that broke out of that oubliette. Once in a great while, somebody would scan some of the manuscripts in the pile and find a pearl in that mountain of clamshells (not even oyster), and a miracle occurred, and the book got published. Extremely low odds, but it didn’t stop the flow. Hope springs eternal in the hearts of writers. 

In the latter part of the twentieth century, the publishing houses churned in a frenzy of consolidation and mergers. The people taking them over were interested in profits more than literature, and things changed dramatically. Many people who had been in the business for the love of books went away (voluntarily or just cut), and the ones remaining had to do more with much less. One thing that got outsourced was the discovery of buyable manuscripts. Many publishers announced they would not accept unsolicited manuscripts. Some still did, even though they advertised the opposite. They just didn’t want to deal with what they considered were piles of junk. So they pushed the work of editors and screeners onto literary agents, who would take on the burden of sifting through submissions for the needle in the haystack, the sellable manuscript. Agents became the gatekeepers to the Big Leagues- if you didn’t have an agent, you couldn’t even get someone to read your work. Agents were convenient for traditional publishing, because they’d recommend manuscripts that had some merit. If an agent sent nothing but duds, they wouldn’t be around long.

Generalization follows. Agents screen by what they think will sell to the handful of editors they have contact with. And instead of reading actual manuscripts to start, they rely on the query letter from hopeful authors. A (usually) one-page letter is a summary of what the book is about. It can be scanned rapidly, and usually discarded. Their reasoning is that if a writer cannot write a good query, the manuscript isn’t likely to be good. So now New Author must spend a lot of time composing the Perfect Query, all to hunt for the elusive Great Agent, who will take them on, to find the Perfect Publisher. Trouble is, the Great Agents are all booked up, and few are taking on new clients. Guess where that leaves New Author? Going through listing of potential agents to query, studying what kind of book they prefer to represent, and firing off a batch of queries to the selected group. Why in batches? Because the agents then usually take their sweet time about responding, if they respond at all. It can be days, but is more often weeks or months before the author hears back. And the response is usually “Thanks, but it’s not for us.”

How does one find a good agent that will take them on? At this point, it’s a matter of rare good fortune. While there are excellent agents, there are some who are just awful, and a portion who are downright toxic or even criminal. Some famous authors have struck deals with well-bespoken top agents, only to discover horrendous abuses. See the horror stories of Laura Resnick and Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Sometimes the agents wouldn’t bother notifying the author of additional potential deals. A bad decision by an agent can be costly. And that’s just the honest ones! But new writers are so desperate to get an agent (a process that can often take years) that they’ll sign with the first one who indicates interest. It can be a catastrophic mistake. 

The problem is that anyone can say they’re an agent, hang out an agent shingle tomorrow, run an ad or two, and within a few weeks, probably have hundreds of submissions, because there are so many people hungry for traditional publishing that they’ll sign with anyone who’ll take them. They’ll be taken, all right, usually to the cleaners. 

Agents need no certification or education, no degree, no proof of ability, no license, no standards. It’s all voluntary. In many cases, they give legal advice on complex contracts (which benefit themselves)- in other words, practicing law without a law license, which is actually a crime. Thousands of authors hand over their careers and money to absolute strangers, with little or no vetting other than they saw a listing somewhere. And then a few emails and a phone call or two. “They seemed nice, and eager to work with me.”

The publishing houses mostly send the money due the author for advances and royalties to the agent/agency. When does the author get paid? At the whim of the person holding the money. Imagine if your employer sent your paycheck to your bank, who then decided when and how much to give you of the money you’d earned! 

It’s always a good practice to be in charge of your own finances. If you do decide to sign with an agent, try to work it so the payments from the publishing house go to you first, or to each their share. After all, the agent is supposed to be working for you. Then you pay the agent. Unusual, but not unheard of. 

Other problems with agents are that if you decide to part ways, you might still have to pay them forever for any of your books they represented, or even any you sold elsewhere while you were signed with them. Yup, you could wind up forking over your 15%, even twenty years after you got rid of them. Worse than alimony. And if they sold anything of a series, they may try to get a cut of any future things you sell from that series, even after you’re no longer working together. Dean Wesley Smith (with over 40 years of experience) says writers don’t need agents anymore. He says it’s like giving fifteen percent of your house value to the person who cuts your lawn. 

Many authors say they love their agent. Some authors don’t want to talk about bad experiences with agents, for fear they’ll be blacklisted, because the Manhattan book world is a tiny bubble. And it’s possible an author might not even know for a long time they’re being badmouthed in the industry, and why doors are closed in their face. But many more will tell of the hell they went through with agents. One well-known example had an author finding out only years later that their agent had died! 

If you want to work with an agent, be careful. Have any contract with the agent and with a publisher additionally vetted by qualified, licensed Intellectual Property attorneys, not just agents who say they know what they’re doing. In the new world of publishing, agents are far less useful than they used to be. With all the changes, it’s getting tougher for them to make a decent living as well. Not having an agent means not having to give up a good chunk of profits, which are slim enough. 

However, if you want to meet agents, writer conferences are the best places, because many agents go there to find new clients, and expect to get pitched. Some agents even schedule pitch sessions at these conferences, where a prospective writer has a few minutes to pitch the agent on a book proposal. Many writers get asked for part or all of a manuscript, based on those few minutes. At least the agent will give it a chance. 

If you do this, have a killer tagline to catch their interest. Follow with a few sentences similar to a description of other books the agent has done, or top-sellers. Think high-concept: for example, Gone Girl crossed with Silence of the Lambs, that sort of thing. Keep it simple, exciting, and show you know the marketplace and what type of book that agent represents. Most have their likes and dislikes available on their website, so do your homework first. Some give precise guidelines for how to pitch them. Don’t think your manuscript is so wonderful that a strictly children’s author representative will suddenly want your adult science fiction novel (yes, this kind of idiocy still happens). But if your book is like others the agent has represented, say so. 

Your pitch could go something like this: 

“Hello. I’m [author name], and my novel, A Time for Tea, is an eighty-thousand-word cozy mystery about a blind librarian who solves crimes in her small Welsh village. It’s similar in tone to Murder by the Sea, which I see from your website you represented. This is my first novel, although I’ve had mystery stories published in [credits].” 

This pitch shows the author has done their homework, and in many cases, the agent would want to hear more. The conversation might end with the agent asking for a partial manuscript, maybe the first fifty pages or so. I’ve seen this happen so many times at conferences, and the writer comes out of the session stunned, starry-eyed, and grinning from ear-to-ear. It’s wonderful to see dreams come true, so give them the moment and don’t harangue them with lectures about what other paths they might want to think about. If they’re happy, let them live their dreams. Of course, if someone asks for your advice, wait a bit and then give them the truth as you see it. Just don’t volunteer to be a buzzkill or dream-crusher, and remember that timing is everything. 

Remember that you don’t need anyone’s permission to publish, nor do you have to wait years to be chosen by gatekeepers. You can publish independently while you pursue a traditional path if you want, becoming a hybrid author, or any way that makes you happy. And if you achieve outstanding success as an independent, the traditional publishers will then want you even more.

---

Dale T. Phillips has published novels, story collections, non-fiction, and over 80 short stories. Stephen King was Dale's college writing teacher, and since then, Dale has found time to appear on stage, television, radio, in an independent feature film, and compete on Jeopardy (losing in a spectacular fashion). He's a member of the Mystery Writers of America and the Sisters in Crime. 

Punctuation is Power - Part 5: Are you in business or in hobby?

By Angela K Durden

---

Across the board in creative endeavors something interesting is happening. Folks are getting to be about 55 or so, thinking of or are retiring, and getting back into the thing they loved before the kids came along and the bills piled up and their time was not their own in that thing we call Life. 

Whether it is music, writing, sculpture, painting, pottery, dance, and more, you will find many “of an age” mingling with young folks just getting into that creative endeavor. For some, writing a book or two is just a hobby. They don’t really intend to make it a business. Thinking about the bygone golden years of publishing when authors became stars. They dream of their book being:

• rep’d by an agent, 

• sold to one of the Big 4, 

• making the best seller lists, 

• selling like crazy domestically, 

• translated into multiple languages and selling internationally to wild acclaim, 

• made into a movie or two or three. 

Bring on the mailbox money! From your mouth to God’s ears, right?

Well, firstly, the business was never exactly like that. As we learned from the recent Hemingway documentary, his lavish lifestyle was mostly due to having a series of rich wives. Secondly, the old saying “make hay while the sun is shining” applies in this business. Much marketing of personalities went into the making of the myths. Hemingway used his marketing myth to get money for product endorsements. Nothing much has changed there.  

Still, much hard work by many people went into the writing, editing, printing, marketing, distribution, tracking of inventory, and sales of most books. Starting in the late 1980s, though, the book business began to change. Tired of being shut out and stolen from, the age of the Indie Author and Indie Publisher began and has not abated. Technology has made the publishing of a work easy; distribution via print-on-demand methods has made it within the affordable reach of millions. (Marketing of a book is a whole other subject. It is a bugaboo, a thorn in our paws, a never-ending challenge.)

Unfortunately, too many authors, having written a work, tire out and don’t do the necessary boring work of thorough and multiple edits and rewrites. Not only that, they are also unwilling to pay for it, too. Many will not take any advice when it comes to punctuation, sentence structure, flow of the material, etcetera. They see any question as an assault on their baby. 

I want to scream when I hear “Well, I [or my spouse, significant other, best friend, or sibling] have a degree in English and have already edited the book.” Or “My wife edited my book. She has a degree in English. She’ll get her feelings hurt if I let anybody else edit it.” 

Then these authors are not in business. They are in hobby. True, there are some creative outputs that are simply for making the creator happy. Enjoy the process! It is wonderful to have a hobby one enjoys. 

The business of book publishing, though, requires another mindset. Sorry to say, but one may still not see a profit from all that hard work. All business endeavors are a crapshoot. 

I have always had an allegiance to words in whatever form they take. I hate advertising language that reeks of the weasel. Since it has always been a moving target, I detest rigid rules of punctuation for rules’ sake. [See Part 1 of this series]. 

As a writer in many categories (business, children, non-fiction, memoir, humor, and fiction), my goal is to teach and/or entertain but always challenge the reader and tell it well.

As an editor my goal is to make a book the best it can be. One that, when a grandchild finds it on a shelf and reads Grandma’s or Grandpa’s book they will be proud of how good it is, not embarrassed about it. 

As a small publisher it is to bring to life high-quality books the Big 4 will not touch. Blue Room Books has published history, music business memoir, fiction, and more, some not easily categorized. We may or may not make a profit on these, but damn it all, when they go into the world they will be equal to or better than offerings from the big houses. 

So, as asked in Part 4, I ask again: 

Why do you write? 

---

Author, editor, publisher, and more: learn about Angela K. Durden here and here and here.

Twelve Steps to Writing the Cozy/Amateur Sleuth Mystery Series

By Lois Winston

---

I started my career writing romance and was first published in 2006 with Talk Gertie to Me, a humorous fish-out-of-water story about a young woman off to New York and the mother determined to bring her back home to Iowa. That was followed a year later with the romantic suspense, Love, Lies and Double Shot of Deception.

I wrote my first mystery after my agent had a conversation with an editor looking for a crafting mystery series. Since my day job consisted of designing craft projects for kit manufacturers, craft book publishers, and both craft and women’s magazines, my agent thought I’d be the perfect person to write such a series. Thus, was born my critically acclaimed and bestselling Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries, a humorous amateur sleuth series which sold in late 2009 and debuted in January 2011.

In addition, I’ve written two books in my Empty Nest Mystery Series, which is a modern-day twist on Nick and Nora Charles from the Thin Man movies, and one book so far in my Mom Squad Caper Series.

The following twelve steps are not a sure-fire guide to success, merely helpful suggestions for avoiding mistakes that could lead to a rejection letter instead of a contract offer.

STEP ONE: DECIDE ON THE TYPE OF MYSTERY SERIES YOU WANT TO WRITE

Before you begin to craft your series, you should decide on the sub-genre of mystery you want to write. Do you know the difference between a cozy mystery, an amateur sleuth mystery, a romantic suspense, a romantic mystery, a police procedural, a detective story, and a noir mystery? If not, you need to educate yourself prior to starting your series. Different sub-genres contain different conventions with different reader expectations. (For a complete list of sub-genres with definitions of each, click here.)

STEP TWO: DECIDE WHETHER YOU WANT TO WRITE A LIMITED OR AN ONGOING SERIES

In a limited series the story arc and characters’ goals, motivations, and conflicts develop over a set number of books, usually (but not restricted to) three, and are resolved at the end of the last book in the series.

An ongoing series, typical of most mystery series, features episodic stories that resolve at the end of each book but include the same main and secondary characters throughout the series.

Episodic series can be as few as two books or as many as dozens, depending on various factors—the story the author is telling, the desire to keep writing the series, publisher support, and a fan base clamoring for more stories in the series.

Episodic series books should be able to be read out of order without causing reader confusion (More on that later). Stories are independent of each other with new antagonists and additional secondary characters in each book but can be tied to previous stories. Characters introduced in one book may come back several books later.

In most cases, the main and some secondary characters will continue to grow throughout the series, often going through life-altering changes such as marriage, a job change, birth of a child, or death of a family member.

STEP THREE: DEVELOP A CHARACTER WHO CAN CARRY A SERIES OVER MULTIPLE BOOKS

Readers love to bond with characters and continue to read about them, but as a writer you need to make sure you don’t keep writing the same story book after book. You need to create a protagonist who won’t become stale. You can achieve this by setting long-term goals for your protagonist and placing her in different settings.

Even though you end each book resolving the main plot of that book and having your character solve the murder, you want to leave your reader wondering what happens next in the character’s life. One way I’ve done this is by introducing new characters. For example, in Revenge of the Crafty Corpse, the third book in my Anastasia series, I introduce Anastasia’s deceased husband’s previously unknown half-brother.

In Drop Dead Ornaments, the seventh book in the series, I give Anastasia’s older son, Alex, a girlfriend and created a murder plot that involved her and her father. And of course, there’s the mysterious Zack Barnes, a photojournalist who rents the apartment above Anastasia’s garage in Assault with a Deadly Glue Gun. Even though Anastasia suspects he’s really a government operative, a relationship begins to develop between them as the series progresses.

STEP FOUR: GIVE YOUR PROTAGONIST A JOB CONDUCIVE TO DISCOVERING AND SOLVING MURDERS

If you’re writing about a professional investigator, this is a given. However, for cozy and amateur sleuth series, the sleuth needs a career where she isn’t chained to her desk in a cubicle forty hours a week, then spends her evenings watching TV with only a cat for company. Your sleuth needs a logical excuse for getting around to investigate the crime and interact with witnesses and suspects.

Giving her family, friends, neighbors, and coworkers to interact with will give you more opportunities for additional plots in future books. If she travels for her job, that’s a plus. You can locate your crimes in various locales, keeping the settings fresh and interesting from book to book. Some of the settings for my series have included the magazine where Anastasia works, the set of a morning TV show, at a convention center, in the town where she lives, on a cruise ship, at a conference center, and at a winery.

STEP FIVE: CREATE YOUR SLEUTH’S WORLD

Decide whether your books will take place in a real town or city, a fictional town or city, or a fictionalized version of a real town or city.

I’ve set my books in and around Westfield, NJ and New York City because I find it easier to keep track of locations familiar to me. Some authors will take a real town or city but change the name. Others will create a fictional location.

If you decide on a fictional location, make it a place your readers will want to continue reading about from book to book. Give the place some unique characteristics. Is it a tourist destination? A commuter town near a big city? A college town? A town with only one industry? A shore town or one nestled in the mountains? Your setting should become an integral part of your series.

For fictitious locations, create a map to use as a reference while writing your books. You don’t want to make a street one way in one direction, then have it going in the opposite direction two books later. Savvy readers often catch such errors and let you know about them.

If you want to set a story in a real town or city you don’t know or don’t know well, do extensive research regarding the location. Don’t just rely on Google Maps. You don’t want to make the mistake of writing about a massive accident involving half a dozen eighteen-wheelers on a roadway where trucks are forbidden.

It’s perfectly acceptable to have your characters visit actual businesses as long as you don’t write anything derogatory about the establishment. Your characters can meet for Frappuccinos at Starbucks, but if you want your victim dropping dead after one sip, give both the establishment and the beverage a fictitious name to avoid a possible lawsuit. 

STEP SIX: CUPCAKES, CRAFTS, & CATS

Three of the most popular sub-genres of cozy mysteries are culinary cozies, crafting cozies, and pet cozies. Culinary and crafting cozies generally include a recipe or craft project. In pet cozies, the pet becomes a secondary character in the series, one the sleuth will often view as almost human. In my Anastasia Pollack series, Anastasia’s mother owns a cat. Her mother-in-law owns a dog. Both animals mimic their owner’s personalities. Anastasia has inherited Ralph, a Shakespeare-quoting parrot who squawks situation-appropriate passages from The Bard. 

Sometimes the pet will even play a role in solving the mystery. This is often the case in paranormal mysteries, which are also quite popular and usually feature cats. Even non-pet cozies often feature a pet, especially cats and dogs. I’ve known several authors who were asked to add a cat or dog to a submission before a contract was offered.

When planning your series, you need to decide if you’ll follow a trend or buck trends by writing something outside the box. In a crowded market it’s often difficult to break in and find a fan base when you’re competing against well-established series. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible.

On the other hand, although publishers will always say they’re looking for something new and fresh, they’re often reticent to take a chance on something different from what they know sells. It’s a publishing conundrum.

When I began writing the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries, I did some research into crafting mysteries. All either featured a craft shop owner, a crafting club, or a crafter, and all concentrated on a single craft—knitting, crochet, scrapbooking, stained glass, etc. I decided to buck the single-craft trend by making Anastasia the crafts editor at a women’s magazine. That way I could feature a different craft in each book.

STEP SEVEN: BFFS AND SIDEKICKS

Most cozy and amateur sleuth series have a sidekick who becomes Watson to your protagonist’s Sherlock. This can be a coworker, a relative, a best friend, or a love interest. The sidekick often provides certain character traits that your sleuth might lack. She or he might be totally logical whereas your sleuth might appear flighty at times or be obsessively cautious when your sleuth has a tendency toward leaping before looking. 

For instance, in my Empty Nest Mystery Series, my sleuth’s college professor husband is forced to tag along to keep her out of trouble when she insists on sticking her nose into murder investigations. But in Anastasia’s world, depending on the book, her sidekicks alternate between several people in her life, including her best friend, magazine food editor Cloris McWerther, and her tenant-turned-love-interest, Zack Barnes. 

STEP EIGHT: SECONDARY AND TERTIARY CHARACTERS

Juggling the number of characters in your sleuth’s world can be a delicate balancing act. Too few characters won’t give you enough possibilities for plots to keep your series going, but too many can become confusing to the reader.

Remember, not every character you create needs to appear in each book. Some characters may play a major role in only one book or pop up sporadically from time to time. Resist the urge to force a character into a story because you introduced him or her in a previous book. Only bring the character back when it makes sense to the story.

Even characters you never expect to appear in another book might come back at some point. When I received a note from a reader wondering if I’d ever bring back Tino Martinelli, introduced in Decoupage Can Be Deadly, I was in the middle of writing Handmade Ho-Ho Homicide. I realized Tino was exactly the character I needed to round out that book’s plot.

STEP NINE: CREATE A SERIES BIBLE

If you plan to write a series over many years, it’s essential that you keep accurate track of all the character details. This includes a physical description of each character, their age, profession, back-story, relationship to the other characters in the series, their relatives, hobbies, and likes and dislikes in everything from books to music to fashion to the make, model, and color of the car they drive.

Don’t rely on your memory. Create a database. Each time you add a character or mention a characteristic of that character, add it to the database. Refer to the database routinely to make sure you haven’t changed a character’s eye color or given him a sibling when you mentioned in a previous book that he’s an only child.

STEP TEN: DECIDE ON HOW QUICKLY YOUR CHARACTERS WILL AGE

Most authors write a book a year. Will your characters age a year between each book, or will each book take place days, weeks, or months after the preceding one? This is something you need to decide before you begin writing the second book in your series.

If you choose to have your characters age a year with each book, how will aging affect their world? If your sleuth has teenagers, will they go off to college in book 4 or 5? Is she nearing retirement age? Will she have to deal with aging parents? What about technological advances? Will you incorporate new technologies into future stories?

I realized after I’d sold the first three books in my Anastasia Pollack series that I should have made her sons younger. As teenagers, they were too close to leaving for college. But the first book was already written. Making them younger wouldn’t have worked with the plot. I solved the problem by having each consecutive book start within a short period of time after the previous book had ended. I’ve even opened one book within hours of ending the previous book. 

STEP ELEVEN: KEEP A TIMELINE OF EVENTS

It’s far too easy to lose track of the time elapsing in your story as you work on it, especially if you’re a writer who often goes back and tweaks scenes. You can’t always rely on critique partners or editors catching every mistake you make. The easiest way to avoid such errors is to keep a scene calendar for each book in your series. Print out blank calendar pages. Decide on the month and day your story will start. Record the scenes that occur on each day to keep your timeline accurate.

STEP TWELVE: DON’T LEAVE NEW READERS SCRATCHING THEIR HEADS

It’s important that each book in your series can be read as a standalone. Most bookstores will not carry all the previous titles in your series. If a reader picks up a book from the middle of the series, you don’t want her to feel confused about the characters in your story. You want readers to have an enjoyable reading experience, enough so that they’ll search out your prior titles and purchase future ones. 

Avoid the urge to info-dump, though. It’s not necessary to provide each character’s complete biography the first time you introduce him or her in each book. A few carefully worded phrases or sentences at appropriate times will give the reader enough back-story to avoid having her feel frustrated and lost.

---

LOIS WINSTON is a USA Today and Amazon bestselling and award-winning author of mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” In addition, Lois is a former literary agent and an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry. 

10 Tips for Submitting to an Anthology

By Judy Penz Sheluk

---

I’ve been on all sides of the anthology fence, as a story submitter, a publisher, editor, and judge. I’ve felt the thrill of acceptance and the sting of rejection (as the intake coordinator for Passport to Murder, the Bouchercon Toronto anthology, I had the dubious distinction of sending a rejection letter to myself). As the Chair of Crime Writers of Canada, I’m currently co-coordinator for the association’s 40th Anniversary anthology: Cold Case Crime.

For the past three years, my indie imprint, Superior Shores Press, has published a multi-author anthology of mystery and suspense on June 18th. Each time, the process has been the same: Come up with a theme, post a Call for Submissions in October (with a deadline of mid-January) on my website, share it on social media and in various writing groups, and wait for the stories to roll in. To date, I’ve received close to 300 submissions from multiple countries and accepted 60 stories.

So how does one make the cut from 300 to 60? The truth is, reading is subjective. I’ve yet to read an anthology where I’ve liked every story in the collection (my own anthologies excluded, of course). The best you can do is even your odds. Here are 10 tips to help you do just that:

1. The theme matters, but...

Most anthologies have an underlying theme. That means no matter how good a story is, if it doesn’t meet the theme, it probably won’t be accepted. That said, there’s usually some flexibility. The way I word my Call for Submissions is that the theme “must be an integral part of the plot, not necessarily the central theme but not merely incidental.” Which brings me to my second point.

2. Don't be obvious

Let’s say the theme is Halloween. Rather than ghosts, goblins, black cats, carved pumpkins, or trick or treating, think of something that fits but is still unique. And no, I’m not here to give you that unique idea, that’s on you. The bottom line is you want to stand out from the crowd. In other words, your first idea (and maybe even your second or third) is probably someone else’s, too.

3. Does it meet the word count guidelines?

Some anthologies are very strict about word counts; one word over and you’re out. For my anthologies, I request stories from 1,500 to 5,500 words, though a few less or a few more words wouldn’t mean an automatic rejection. I do, however, draw the line at submissions several hundred (and in one case, several thousand) words over. There’s somewhat flexible and then there’s being an Olympic gymnast. 

4. Does it meet the criteria?

In my anthology callouts I say that “Traditional, locked room, noir, historical and suspense will be considered; however, do not submit stories with overt sex, violence, or excessive bad language.” And yet, you guessed it, I receive all of that and more. Submit to a market that suits your brand of storytelling and give yourself a chance.

5. Did you format accoding to the publisher's specifications?

I always request Times New Roman 12, double spaced, 1” margins, .5” indent (no tabs), no header or footer. Word .doc or .docx only. About 50% of authors pay attention to this (headers/footers being the one thing no one seems to want to give up). Will you be rejected for submitting in Calibri 11, single-spaced, with headers and footers? Probably not, at least not if your story is good. But why not show the editor that you can read as well as write? And if they’re on the fence, they might think, “Hey, this author will be easy to work with.”

6. Don't wait until the last minute to submit

You don’t have to be first out of the gate. In fact, if you submit on day one, I’m pretty sure you’re sending me something out of your slush pile that’s been rejected countless times. That doesn’t mean send it in on the last day, or in some cases, in the last hour. Because (and again, I can’t speak for other publishers/editors/judges), I read each story as it comes in, and I’ve already started my long list. And no one wants a long list that’s, well, too long. 

7. Keep those submissions going

There’s no magic number, but some authors like to have at least five short stories on submission at any given time. When one gets rejected, they can tweak it to send somewhere else. In other words, don’t put all your story eggs in one anthology basket. And don’t stop writing while you wait.

8. Rejection doesn't mean your story isn't good

Let me reiterate: a rejection doesn’t mean your story isn’t good. Sometimes it boils down to having two stories with a similar premise and only one can make it in. Other times it might be word count (anthologies need a mix of short, medium, and long). If I’ve got a bunch of “long and mediums” in my “yes” pile, I’m looking for a shorter story. Sometimes, all I need is one more long story. But don’t give up. I once accepted a story where the author told me it had been rejected ten times over several years. He kept refining it, and finally…success! It’s still one of my favorite stories.  

9. Membership has its privileges

I’m a member of Sisters in Crime, International Thriller Writers, the Short Mystery Fiction Society, the South Simcoe Arts Council, and Crime Writers of Canada, where I’m currently Chair on the Board of Directors. Each of these groups has been instrumental in my development as an author, editor, and publisher. Authors helping authors. That’s what it’s all about. Or at least, that’s what it should be all about. Get involved. Pay it forward. There’s that whole karma thing, you know?

10. Read Short Stories

Short stories and novels are not the same thing. Read as many as you can. You’ll hone your craft and support fellow short story authors and their publishers. That’s a win-win-win. Last, but not least, read past anthologies by the publisher you want to submit to. We all have our likes and dislikes, and those will become more obvious as you study (yes, study) past collections. Oh, and for the record, I really, really, don’t get werewolves.

---

A former journalist and magazine editor, Judy Penz Sheluk is the bestselling author of two mystery series: The Glass Dolphin Mysteries and the Marketville Mysteries. Her short crime fiction appears in several collections, including The Best Laid Plans, Heartbreaks & Half-truths and Moonlight & Misadventure, which she also edited.  Judy is a member of Sisters in Crime, International Thriller Writers, the Short Mystery Fiction Society, and Crime Writers of Canada, where she serves as Chair on the Board of Directors. Find her at www.judypenzsheluk.com.