Be sure to check out what they have coming next for their readers. I try to pick authors who are interesting studies and ask them unique questions for our Q/A section.
Check out the Showcase feature of the HBS Author's Spotlight. I have included those authors in this class. Also, we have added the Author Bundles and Co-Authored writings we have posted this month.
Thanks to the following outstanding authors for a great month. Here is a summary of our July 2014 crew.
Rachel Abbott
Author Genre: Mystery & Thrillers, Literature & Fiction
Author's Blog: Rachel Abbott
Website: Rachel Abbott
Twitter: @_RachelAbbott
E-Mail: rachel@rachel-abbott.com
Google+: Check Out Google+
Facebook: Check Out Facebook
Next: Another Tom Douglas adventure - February 2015
Social media: My first Twitter account was developed as a result of my blog. Most posts early on were about the whole process of self-publishing, and so the followers came that way. But then I started a second stream that was more aimed towards content for readers – so I try to talk about other people’s books as well as my own – anything that might interest readers in general.
Free books: I’m afraid I’m the wrong person to ask this question as I have never given my books away for free on general sales sites, such as Amazon. I sometimes offer them for 99p, but never free.
Blog: My goal when I started the blog was to help other writers. It wasn’t easy to be self-published when I started, but I think it has become much easier, so the focus of the blog has changed to be more appropriate for readers who may be interested in the lives of writers, but are not necessarily trying to publish their own work.
Unique selling and marketing situation: Living on the island of Alderney… I don’t think that these days it matters at all where you live. My biggest audience is in the UK, but Sleep Tight also did extremely well in the US; at one point sales there were outstripping the UK – but the UK has just taken over again.
Reviews: I have a database of reviewers who I believe to be fair and honest. I submit a request to them as soon as I have a version of the book that I am happy for them to read, and if they are interested I send them a book – in whatever format they prefer. And then I just cross my fingers (and toes) and hope that they like it.
Author's Book List
Sleep Tight
The Back Road
Only The Innocent
For the rest of the story...View Rachel Abbott - HBS Author's Spotlight
JT Brannan
Author Genre: Political Thriller, Sci-Fi Action
Author's Blog: J.T. Brannan
Website: J.T. Brannan
Twitter: @JTBrannan_
Facebook: Check Out Facebook
Next: Mark Cole novel - BEYOND ALL LIMITS - should be out in the fall, and involves American white supremacist gangs, African terrorism, human trafficking and the modern-day slave trade; all tied together with the usual twists and turns and frenetic action scenes!
Social media: In terms of twitter, I just write the tweets and my amazing wife has done all the work building the audience, and she’s done a fantastic job. Great opportunities have come through the social media networks – like this interview, for instance – but in terms of directly helping to build an audience for my work, I’m not sure how useful it’s been.
Covers: For the novels published by Headline, I made some suggestions to my editor, and then the creative team came up with the finished products. For the Mark Cole series, self-published on Amazon, it’s all the work of my very talented wife! We discussed what we thought would hopefully be an eye-catching design, given the genre, and then she came up with really great covers.
Short story, Destructive Thoughts: I’ve always wanted to have a go at writing a short story, and my editor at Headline asked me to write one in the build-up to the release of EXTINCTION. I leapt at the chance…I’m not actually sure what effect it had on sales of my novels, but I definitely had fun writing it, and might well write more in the future.
Giveaways: The five days that STOP AT NOTHING was free on Amazon was incredible, there were literally thousands of downloads, and I think that helped to build up the initial audience. We’ve also done physical giveaways for both ORIGIN and EXTINCTION on Goodreads, which had a really good response.
Book launch: For my traditionally published novels, Headline deals with publicity and so on; that being said though, I pushed them hard myself via Twitter and other social media, book signings, etc. I’ve done the same for the self-published books too, but to be absolutely honest, Amazon do the bulk of the work themselves; they seem to effectively market it to the correct demographic, and whatever they’re doing seems to be working!
Reviews: My publicist at Headline dealt with getting reviews for ORIGIN, my debut novel, which I believe he did by distributing free copies to the Amazon Vine program, as well as to mainstream media channels in the UK. Otherwise, it’s just been readers who’ve submitted their own reviews. The 96 reviews I’ve got so far for STOP AT NOTHING, for instance, have been entirely unsolicited, which has been really pleasing.
Author's Book List
WHATEVER THE COST
Extinction
STOP AT NOTHING
Destructive Thoughts
Origin
For the rest of the story...View JT Brannan - HBS Author's Spotlight
Lindsay Buroker
Author Genre: Children's Books, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Young Adult, Steampunk
Website: Lindsay Buroker
Twitter: @GoblinWriter
E-Mail: BurokerL AT comcast DOT net
Google+: Check Out Google+
Facebook: Check Out Facebook
Next: I’m usually working on several projects, and I’ll have releases in my Dragon Blood (secondary world steampunk) and Rust & Relics (contemporary fantasy) series before heading back to the Flash Gold world.
Social media: I think the best use of social media is to be out there, posting regularly, and being available to readers who also use those services. I’ll occasionally tweet book links or post snippets on Facebook, but I don’t rely on those venues to sell books. I do maintain a newsletter, yes, and encourage readers who enjoy the books to signup.
Novellas: I’ve heard a lot about how readers supposedly have shorter attention spans these days and are consuming content on their phones, and I know Wattpad has acquired a large audience by serving up stories a chapter or chunk at a time, but my readers really seem to prefer the full-length novels, the longer the better, they say!
Bundles: There are a couple of reasons to do bundles. First off, a lot of the blogs and newsletters that offer sponsorships, letting you pay to have your work shared with their audiences, won’t consider shorter works, but they will consider a collection of shorter works that is novel-length. Secondly, doing a bundle lets me make more money at the same time as it gives the reader a better deal.
Free books: When I first made The Emperor’s Edge and Flash Gold free (these are the Book 1s in their respective series), the free ebooks were a little more visible at Amazon (The Top 100 paid and the Top 100 free would appear right next to each other in the category listings) and it tended to help more than it does today, but I still get a steady trickle of downloads of the freebie, and a lot of people have gone on to buy the other books in the series because they enjoyed the first one.
Blog: The original goal with the blog was to sell books, of course, and it does do that a little bit (I use affiliate links so I can see which sales originate on my blog), but mostly I just enjoy talking about the things I’m learning and helping other people out. Sometimes by being out there, too, not just as an author but as someone in the self-publishing community who shares useful information, it can open up opportunities.
Newsletter: Most of my newsletter is about announcing new releases, but sometimes I’ll have short stories or character interviews to share too. Because I write about marketing and self-publishing, I do get people signing up just to see what I’m doing, so it’s not as pure of a mailing list as most authors would have, but I really only target people who have already read my work and want to hear about more of it.
Author's Book List
Claimed
Deathmaker
Republic
Balanced on the Blade's Edge
Wounded
A Question of Honor
Encrypted
Dark Currents
Deadly Games
Torrent
Forged in Blood II
Forged in Blood I
Decrypted
Labyrinths of the Heart
Beneath the Surface
For the rest of the story...View Lindsay Buroker - HBS Author's Spotlight
Ellie Campbell
Author Genre: Contemporary Women's Fiction, Chick Lit, Romance
Author's Blog: Chicklit Sisters
Website: Ellie Campbell
Twitter: @ecampbellbooks
E-Mail: chicklitsisters@gmail.com
Google+: Check Out Google+
Facebook: Check Out Facebook
Social media: As indie authors our social media relationships have been crucial – we couldn’t survive without readers, bloggers, fellow authors and media people taking the time to post interviews, review our books, offer advice and generally spread the word.
Personal appearances: With our first two novels published by Arrow in the UK, we did several book signings, print and radio interviews and even two launch parties – all of which Lorraine flew over for. Now we’re self-publishing and most of our sales are ebooks, we’ve been doing mainly online interviews which we repost on our blog…
Covers: We have been lucky enough to find a great designer – Andrew Brown, Design for Writers who makes the process extremely easy. For each novel we fill in a very long questionnaire including our ideas and thoughts of what we want to achieve, then we have various discussions about what we like and don’t like.
Free books: There is a lot of debate about whether giving away books for free is counter-productive? We have participated in KDP free promotions and giveaways with Goodreads and through Facebook and our blog page. We’ve found it a great way of exposing our work to new readers and have actually reached No 1 in the free charts for two of our novels.
Book launch process: First we contact bloggers who have reviewed our previous novels, asking if they would like an advanced reading copy, which we send out with our fingers crossed.
We write to everyone who has posted about us in the past to inform them of the event and ask if they would like a feature or an interview, asking that everyone post it on launch day or at least the same week…We also informed our Facebook fans, sent out a lot of tweets on launch day and we held a Goodreads event, along with a giveaway of our other books. It’s hard to say which methods were the most successful – everything happened concurrently.
Blog: Our primary goal for our blog is to keep readers that are interested informed of offers, upcoming promotions and news of our latest novel, as well as providing more information about us for anyone interested.
L iving in England: Well, as we’ve said marketing online is essential for us – we couldn’t survive without the internet, it’s our major way of communicating, even between the two of us. We sell mainly through Kindle although all our books are available in paperback. We’ve had a lot of interest and publicity about the fact that we’re two sisters writing together, even though living thousands of miles apart – including an interview with on of the UK’s major national newspapers, which also involved a photo shoot.
Author's Book List
To Catch A Creeper
When Good Friends Go Bad
How To Survive Your Sisters
Looking for La La
For the rest of the story...View Ellie Campbell - HBS Author's Spotlight
Jeff Edwards
Author Genre: Adventure, Military
Author's Blog: The View From the Deck Plate
Website: Jeff Edwards
Twitter: @navythriller
E-Mail: info@navythriller.com
Google+: Check Out Google+
Facebook: Check Out Facebook
Next: Angel City Blues, which is the second David Stalin novel. It’s a sci-fi detective story, set about 50 years in the future, in a darkly dystopian version of Los Angeles.
Social media can be a powerful tool for reaching out to readers, but people don’t log on to Twitter, or Goodreads, or Facebook to have marketing pitches shoved in their faces. I’ve built my following by engaging with people (and groups) who interest me. I read what they have to say, react to it, and toss in a few ideas of my own. The result is a series of entertaining and thought-provoking dialogues, instead of a calculated advertising scheme.
Personal appearances: Between book signings and speaking engagements, I used to do as many as fifty author events a year. For a while, I also did a lot of radio interviews and a few television interviews. In my case, it turned out to be a lot of work for relatively little return. These days, I concentrate on blogging, social media, and writing new books.
Covers and branding: I take branding very seriously. I like for each series of books to have a signature look that links them all together, while maintaining enough latitude to let each book stand out as an individual creation. When I’m designing the covers myself (as I sometimes do), I start out with the signature elements first.
Writer support groups: American Author’s Association, International Thriller Writers and Military Writer’s Society of America
eBooks: I don’t believe that eBooks have affected my writing, but they’ve certainly impacted my relationship with readers. Several of the electronic formats allow readers to highlight text, share passages, and leave comments which can be seen by other readers. This gives me something of an inside view of what some of my readers like (and don’t like) about my work, and provides me with clues regarding where I should try to improve in the future.
Free books: At any given time, I’m usually offering one free eBook on my website as an enticement to new readers. So far, the results have been excellent. Based on reader feedback, it seems like most of people who download the free book go on to read other books from my lineup.
Software: I’m continually experimenting with strategies for managing story threads and timelines. I’ve used flowcharts, mind maps, spreadsheets, and everything else I could think of. My most successful tool to-date has been a series of linked tables that I created for myself in MS Word. They allow me to track times/dates, time zones, shifts in POV, plot points/critical actions, and key points of exposition.
Congratulations on Sea of Shadows and Dome City Blues being optioned by film producer Paul L. Sandberg.
Author's Book List
Sword of Shiva
Dome City Blues
Sea of Shadows
The Seventh Angel
For the rest of the story...View Jeff Edwards - HBS Author's Spotlight
Bob Moats
Author Genre: Mystery & Thrillers, Humor, Literature & Fiction
Author's Blog: Bob Moats
Website: Bob Moats
Twitter: @MurderNovels
E-Mail: bob@magic1online.com
Google+: Check Out Google+
Facebook: Check Out Facebook
Next: Toxic Murders, another book in the Jim Richards series.
Social media: In 2009, I started on Twitter and then got on Facebook. Both social media helped to find a lot of nice people who became readers of my books. I got to meet a good number of other writers and we shared ideas for promoting the books, but they didn’t become readers of my books. I just kept at promoting but I also became friends with a good number of people. They were kind enough to tell others about my books and it helped build a following.
Covers: I create all my own covers having a background in graphic and design. I start with a concept of the book’s plot, then search Fotosearch.com for just the right photo, add a few little things and put the text on it all. I have a great design program called PagePlus that I use to put it all together.
Trailers: I have no idea if they help the books or not. I have the one trailer for my book ‘Trick or Treat Murders’ and after I posted it on my website, Facebook and a few other places, there were many sales of that book. There still are, so I hope it helped. I used a program called ProShow to create the video.
Box sets: I started to put my first couple books in a box set at a good price to stimulate sales of the later books. I haven’t had lot of people telling me they got the set, so I can’t say if it’s helping. I now have three different box sets of 3 books, five books and six books available.
Book launch: When I complete a book and have it gone over again by my editor and my beta readers, then I send it to a free company called Draft2digital.com and they submit the book to retailers like Barnes & Noble, Apple iTunes, Kobo, Scribd, and Inktera. I submit the book to Amazon myself through my own account. Once I do that, I announce on Facebook, Twitter, my newsletter and my Website that it’s out there, as soon as the retailers release it. I don’t have a release party, I just announce it’s ready. Most people who follow my books can get information about a book release from where they buy the books from.
Newsletter: I send out my newsletter when I have a book released. I also send one out when I have a new book coming so people know. I have a good size mailing list of people who have signed up on my website so it covers a lot of ground.
Reviews: I have used a company called Story Cartel that offers the book for free in return for a review on Amazon. It helped to get a few, but never brought in a lot of reviews. I’ve heard of authors paying for reviews, but I don’t agree with that. If someone likes (or hates) your book, they’ll take the time to tell others.
Author's Book List
Doyle's Quest
Trick or Treat Murders
Kennel Murders
Big Apple Murders
Reunion Murders
Fatal Abductions
Network Murders
Campground Murders
Classmate Murders
For the rest of the story...View Bob Moats - HBS Author's Spotlight
Wendy Corsi Staub
Author Genre: Mystery & Thrillers, Suspense, Contemporary
Author's Blog: Wendy Corsi Staub
Website: Wendy Corsi Staub
Twitter: @WendyCorsiStaub
Google+: Check Out Google+
Facebook: Check Out Facebook
Just Released: THE PERFECT STRANGER... It’s the second book in my social networking suspense trilogy from HarperCollins. All three of these thrillers stem from the premise that you never know who might be lurking behind a screen name—even a familiar one.
Social media proves that word of mouth is still the most effective marketing tool there is. I used to rely on my loyal readers spreading the word about my books to a few friends and family members. Now they share it with hundreds, even thousands, of their contacts with a few keystrokes. I tend to think of Twitter as more promotion/information driven, and I do visit forums, send newsletters, and maintain websites, but Facebook is the most personal and enjoyable social media outlet…
Personal appearances: I’ll be on the road just about every week for the rest of the summer beginning with Thrillerfest in early July, and I’m releasing a tour schedule any second now on my website at www.wendycorsistaub.com.
Trailers: My trailers are created by Stacey Sypko at Bugworks Productions, and she’s an avid reader and amazingly talented video producer. She reads the manuscript long after it’s written but before the book is published, and we discuss key images that are pivotal to the plot and theme. She runs the stills, music, and rough footage past me and we go back and forth until it looks right.
Free books: I’ve done book giveaways for years via my contests and charity auctions, etc., and of course my publisher provides review copies to reviewers, bloggers, and media outlets. It’s a great way to create word of mouth.
You are published under two names (Wendy Corsi Staub and Wendy Markham)…Using a pseudonym was a deliberate decision we made to avoid problems that would have been created in terms of muddying the successful brand I’d already built. Readers knew what to expect from a Wendy Corsi Staub novel—a suspenseful, twist-filled whodunit. I built a second brand and now readers know what to expect from Wendy Markham—a heartwarming, upbeat, often romantic/comedic novel.
Reviews: HarperCollins prints bound and electronic ARCs (Advance Reading Copies) and the publicists send them to their list of professional reviewers. They provided me with a dozen copies of THE PERFECT STRANGER, which I gave to a handful of “superfans” and as daily prizes in the weeklong literary scavenger hunt I hosted on my community website last month. My loyal readers know that online reviews improve discoverability and I’m grateful that they’ve been so terrific about posting them!
Author's Book List
The Perfect Stranger
Cold Hearted
The Good Sister
She Loves Me Not
Shadowkiller
Fade to Black
Lullaby and Goodnight
Sleepwalker
NIGHTWATCHER
Dearly Beloved
Mike, Mike & Me
Slightly Single
For the rest of the story...View Wendy Corsi Staub - HBS Author's Spotlight
Nicole Wolverton
Author Genre: Mystery,Thriller, Suspense
Website: Nicole Wolverton
Twitter: @nicolewolverton
E-Mail: nicole.wolverton@gmail.com
Google+: Check Out Google+
Facebook: Check Out Facebook
Next: The Lake is one of two novels I'm working on right now, and both are in the beginning stages of being drafted…
Social media: I started blogging long, long ago, and it was always a wonder to me that I could build relationships with new people and make friends across the world. I'm a big fan of Twitter for that reason. My Twitter following is mix of people--folks I've known online and offline for years and years and new friends who come from reading and writing circles, people local to me, or just people that I'm interested in. I've never used any sort of mechanism to attract new followers other than to engage with other Twitter-ers, Tweeps, or whatever. Social media works best when it's used as intended--interacting with people!
Book signings and appearances are one of the great things about having a book out. The calendar on my website lists all upcoming events.
I wrote short stories long before I tackled novel-writing. It's definitely a different kind of writing and plotting--my published shorts are all adult, either horror or literary, while my novels are primarily young adult horror and thrillers or adult thrillers. I think it's hard to tell if my published shorts have had an impact on novel sales. I'd like to think author discovery works that way, though!
Writer support groups: I am a member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators and the Horror Writers Association…I've met a lot of great writers through both groups! I'm also co-founder of This Dark Matter, a collective of writers interested in dark fiction, no matter the genre. It's a really vibrant group, full of curious people who love all things that go bump in the night.
Giveaways are always so much fun! The publisher did several during the virtual tour for the book release, as well as through Goodreads and LibraryThing, and through Free Book Friday. It's a great way for a debut author to gain name recognition, and I was so thrilled that many of the people who won copies left reviews at Goodreads and Amazon and recommended the book to friends.
Author's Book List
The Trajectory of Dreams
For the rest of the story...View Nicole Wolverton - HBS Author's Spotlight
HBS Author's Spotlight Showcase
Stacy Eaton
Featured Book: Six Days of Memories
Author Genre: Crime, Thriller and Mystery
Author's Blog: Stacy Eaton, Author
Website: Stacy Eaton
Twitter: @StacySEaton
E-Mail: Mybloodrunsblue@aol.com
Facebook: Check Out Facebook
Author Description:
Stacy is a full-time police officer who enjoys crime scene investigation above all else, taking a passion in putting the pieces together to figure out the crime. She is also a business owner where she helps people get the awareness out for the causes they care most about. She is a mother of two, a son proudly serving in the United States Navy and a young daughter. Her husband is also in law enforcement. Stacy is also currently serving on the board of directors for her local domestic violence center. She is very much into photography and carries her Nikon Digital SLR with her almost everywhere, just in case.
Author's Book List
Six Days of Memories
Distorted Loyalty
Second Shield
Liveon - No Evil
Garda – Welcome to The Realm
Blue Blood For Life
My Blood Runs Blue
Whether I'll Live or Die
For the rest of the story...View Stacy Eaton - HBS Author's Spotlight Showcase
J.A. Jance
Featured Book: Remains of Innocence
Author Genre: Mystery & Thrillers
Author's Blog: J.A. Jance - NYT Bestselling Author
Website: J.A. Jance
Twitter: @JAJance
E-Mail: jajance@jance.com
Facebook: Check Out Facebook
Author Description:
J.A. Jance is the top 10 New York Times bestselling author of the Joanna Brady series; the J. P. Beaumont series; four interrelated thrillers featuring the Walker family; and eight books featuring Ali Reynolds.
As a second-grader in Mrs. Spangler’s Greenway School class, I was introduced to Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz series. I read the first one and was hooked and knew, from that moment on, that I wanted to be a writer.
The third child in a large family, I was four years younger than my next older sister and four years older than the next younger sibling. Being both too young and too old left me alone in a crowd and helped turn me into an introspective reader and a top student. When I graduated from Bisbee High School in 1962, I received an academic scholarship that made me the first person in my family to attend a four year college. I graduated in 1966 with a degree in English and Secondary Education. In 1970 I received my M. Ed. In Library Science. I taught high school English at Tucson’s Pueblo High School for two years and was a K-12 librarian at Indian Oasis School District in Sells, Arizona for five years.
My ambitions to become a writer were frustrated in college and later, first because the professor who taught creative writing at the University of Arizona in those days thought girls "ought to be teachers or nurses" rather than writers. After he refused me admission to the program, I did the next best thing: I married a man who was allowed in the program that was closed to me. My first husband imitated Faulkner and Hemingway primarily by drinking too much and writing too little. Despite the fact that he was allowed in the creative writing program, he never had anything published either prior to or after his death from chronic alcoholism at age forty-two. That didn’t keep him from telling me, however, that there would be only one writer in our family, and he was it.
My husband made that statement in 1968 after I had received a favorable letter from an editor in New York who was interested in publishing a children’s story I had written. Because I was a newly wed wife who was interested in staying married, I put my writing ambitions on hold. Other than writing poetry in the dark of night when my husband was asleep (see After the Fire), I did nothing more about writing fiction until eleven years later when I was a single, divorced mother with two children and no child support as well as a full time job selling life insurance. My first three books were written between four a.m. and seven a.m.. At seven, I would wake my children and send them off to school. After that, I would get myself ready to go sell life insurance.
I started writing in the middle of March of 1982. The first book I wrote, a slightly fictionalized version of a series of murders that happened in Tucson in 1970, was never published. For one thing, it was twelve hundred pages long. Since I was never allowed in the creative writing classes, no one had ever told me there were some things I needed to leave out. For another, the editors who turned it down said that the parts that were real were totally unbelievable, and the parts that were fiction were fine. My agent finally sat me down and told me that she thought I was a better writer of fiction than I was of non-fiction. Why, she suggested, didn’t I try my hand at a novel?
The result of that conversation was the first Detective Beaumont book, Until Proven Guilty. Since 1985 when that was published, there have been 21 more Beau books. My work also includes 14 Joanna Brady books set in southeastern Arizona where I grew up, and seven Ali Reynolds books, set in Sedona, AZ. In addition there are four thrillers, starting with Hour of the Hunter and Kiss of the Bees, that reflect what I learned during the years when I was teaching on the Tohono O’Odham reservation west of Tucson, Arizona.
The week before Until Proven Guilty was published, I did a poetry reading of After the Fire at a widowed retreat sponsored by a group called WICS (Widowed Information Consultation Services) of King County. By June of 1985, it was five years after my divorce in 1980 and two years after my former husband’s death. I went to the retreat feeling as though I hadn’t quite had my ticket punched and didn’t deserve to be there. After all, the other people there were all still married when their spouses died. I was divorced. At the retreat I met a man whose wife had died of breast cancer two years to the day and within a matter of minutes of the time my husband died. We struck up a conversation based on that coincidence. Six months later, to the dismay of our five children, we told the kids they weren’t the Brady Bunch, but they'd do, and we got married. We now have four new in-laws as well as six grandchildren.
When my second husband and I first married, he supported all of us–his kids and mine as well as the two of us. It was a long time before my income from writing was anything more than fun money–the Improbable Cause trip to Walt Disney World; the Minor in Possession memorial powder room; the Payment in Kind memorial hot tub. Eventually, however, the worm turned. My husband was able to retire at age 54 and took up golf and oil painting.
One of the wonderful things about being a writer is that everything–even the bad stuff–is usable. The eighteen years I spent while married to an alcoholic have helped shape the experience and character of Detective J. P. Beaumont. My experiences as a single parent have gone into the background for Joanna Brady–including her first tentative steps toward a new life after the devastation of losing her husband in Desert Heat. And then there’s the evil creative writing professor in Hour of the Hunter and Kiss of the Bees, but that’s another story.
Another wonderful part of being a writer is hearing from fans. I learned on the reservation that the ancient, sacred charge of the storyteller is to beguile the time. I’m thrilled when I hear that someone has used my books to get through some particularly difficult illness either as a patient or as they sit on the sidelines while someone they love is terribly ill. It gratifies me to know that by immersing themselves in my stories, people are able to set their own lives aside and live and walk in someone else’s shoes. It tells me I’m doing a good job at the best job in the world.
Author's Book List
Remains of Innocence
The Old Blue Line
Moving Target
After the Fire
Second Watch
Judgment Call
Deadly Stakes: A Novel
Left for Dead
Edge of Evil
Breach of Duty
Birds of Prey
Exit Wounds
Paradise Lost
Betrayal of Trust
Fatal Error: A Novel
Payment in Kind
A More Perfect Union
Minor in Possession
Improbable Cause
Dismissed with Prejudice
Justice Denied
For the rest of the story...View J.A. Jance - HBS Author's Spotlight Showcase
Jinx Schwartz
Featured Book: Just Needs Killin'
Author Genre: Mystery & Thrillers, Young Adult/tweens, Historical/Western, Humor, Chicklit
Author's Blog: Jinx Schwartz's Water Writes
Website: Jinx Schwartz
Twitter: @jinxschwartz
E-Mail: jinxschwartz@yahoo.com
Google+: Check Out Google+
Facebook: Check Out Facebook
Author Description:
Award-winning author, Jinx Schwartz, spends time between Arizona and Mexico. Her Hetta Coffey mystery series won the EPPIE award for Best Mystery (Just Add Water) and was a finalist for Best Mystery (Just Add Trouble).
Jinx Schwartz is the author of eight books, including the award-winning Hetta Coffey series. Hetta is a sassy Texan with a snazzy yacht and not afraid to use it!
A ninth-generation Texan, Jinx has lived and worked all over the globe, and much like the protagonist in her Hetta Coffey mystery series, she's a woman with a yacht and not afraid to use it.
Author's Book List
Just Needs Killin'
Just The Pits
Hetta Coffey Collection
Troubled Sea
Just Deserts
Just Add Trouble
Just Add Salt
Just Add Water
Land Of Mountains
The Texicans
For the rest of the story...View Jinx Schwartz - HBS Author's Spotlight Showcase
Wendy Corsi Staub
Featured Book: The Perfect Stranger
Author Genre: Mystery & Thrillers, Suspense, Contemporary
Author's Blog: Wendy Corsi Staub
Website: Wendy Corsi Staub
Twitter: @WendyCorsiStaub
Google+: Check Out Google+
Facebook: Check Out Facebook
Author Description:
With the upcoming release of her twenty-first thriller, THE PERFECT STRANGER, New York Times bestselling suspense novelist Wendy Corsi Staub will have published more than eighty novels over the course of her distinguished career. Wendy has twice (2011 and 2013) been nominated for the Simon and Schuster Mary Higgins Clark award and is the recipient of the RWA Rita Award, the RT Bookreviews Award for Career Achievement in Suspense, the RWA/NYC Golden Apple for Lifetime Achievement, four WLA Washington Irving Awards for Fiction, and numerous other honors. All of her adult thrillers and in-print backlist are available on Amazon and most are--or will soon be--available as e-books and audio books as well. Check out the book trailers for THE GOOD SISTER, NIGHTWATCHER, SLEEPWALKER, and SHADOWKILLER, her latest Harpercollins Suspense trilogy, on this author page. Wendy is also a bestselling novelist with the chick lit and romantic comedy published under the pseudonym "Wendy Markham."
Author's Book List
The Perfect Stranger
Cold Hearted
The Good Sister
She Loves Me Not
Shadowkiller
Fade to Black
Lullaby and Goodnight
Sleepwalker
NIGHTWATCHER
Dearly Beloved
Mike, Mike & Me
Slightly Single
For the rest of the story...View Wendy Corsi Staub - HBS Author's Spotlight Showcase
HBS Bundles and Co-Authored Showcase
Featured Set: HBS Author's Spotlight Summer Fun 2014
Title: Habits Kick Back
Author Genre: Fiction, Thriller, Science Fiction
Website: M. R. Cornelius
Author's Blog: M. R. Cornelius
Twitter: @marshacornelius
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Author Description:
After working for fifteen years as a cafeteria manager in an elementary school, I turned in my non-skid shoes for a bathrobe and slippers. Now I work at home, writing novels, ranting on Facebook and Twitter, and occasionally whisking a Swiffer across dusty surfaces. Like thousands of others, I thought I could write romance, but soon discovered I was a dismal failure. I did increase my repertoire of adjectives such as throbbing, pulsing, thrumming, vibrating, hammering, pumping . . .
I live in the country north of Atlanta with my husband, and two molly-coddled cats. My two grown sons occasionally visit for clean laundry and a hot cooked meal.
Title: Henry Wood: Edge of Understanding
Author Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Suspense, Historical
Website: Author Brian D. Meeks
Author's Blog: Author Brian D. Meeks
Twitter: @ExtremelyAvg
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Author Description:
I am driven by the power of words to move thoughts and hearts. I like how some words, which don't belong together, when mixed, produce a delightful result. That is why I chose the moniker Extremely Average. A clever passage in a book makes me stop, reflect, and then I want to write.
It is later in life that I've discovered the joy of word smithing. I've been writing since Jan 2, 2010. It was my first blog piece and I've used the blog to complete 5 novels in the Henry Wood Detective series. I've also written the bulk of my new book, Two Decades and Counting, during the first three weeks in January.
In addition, I'll be releasing a thriller, "Touched", and a satire, "Underwood Scotch and Wry", plus the first in the "Secret Doors" series, called "The Challenge".
Title: A Very English Affair
Author Genre: Mystery, Romance, Thriller
Website: Faith Mortimer-author of crime, suspense, romance & action
Author's Blog: Faith Mortimer
Twitter: @FaithMortimer
E-Mail: faith@vouni.sent
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Author Description:
Faith Mortimer is a wife & mother, dividing her time between Hampshire, UK & Cyprus. Since childhood, she dreamt of writing novels which readers would love, & spent many hours writing short stories which she read to her sisters.
Later her dreams were put on hold while she focused upon her family & careers as a Registered nurse & later overseeing a string of travel & sport related companies.
Born in Manchester & educated in Singapore, Malaya & Hampshire, England.
Title: For the Love of Parvati
Author Genre: Mystery & Thrillers
Website: Susan Oleksiw
Author's Blog: Susan Oleksiw - One Writer's World
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Author Description:
Susan Oleksiw is the author of two mystery series. The first features Chief of Police Joe Silva in the Mellingham series, set in a coastal New England town. The second is the Anita Ray series, featuring Anita Ray solving crimes in South India. Anita Ray first appeared in a number of short stories published in national publications and anthologies. Oleksiw has lived and traveled extensively in India, and written other stories and articles about India before introducing Anita Ray in crime fiction. Oleksiw is also well known for her nonfiction work on crime and mystery fiction. She is the compiler of A Reader's Guide to the Classic British Mystery (1988) and co-editor of The Oxford Companion to Crime and Mystery Writing (1999). Her essays and reviews have appeared in numerous anthologies and publications.
Title: The Price to Love
Author Genre: Romance, Mystery & Thrillers, Young Adult
Website: Lorhainne Eckhart
Twitter: @Leckhart
E-Mail: Lorhainne@LorhainneEckhart.com
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Author Description:
Lorhainne Eckhart is a USA Today bestselling author and a 2013 Readers Favorite Award winner, frequently a top 100 bestselling author on Amazon in Romance, Westerns and Mystery/Suspense. She is the Author of The Outsider Series, Walk the Right Road Series, The Wilde Brothers, The Saved Series and The Friessens: A New Beginning, and with over 30 titles published, which includes novels, collections, and short stories. She writes three genres, western romance, romantic suspense and military romance and has sold more than 300,000 eBooks since her bestseller The Forgotten Child landed on the Amazon #1 Bestseller list for Westerns and Western Romance.
The German Foreign rights for The Forgotten Child have since been acquired by a major publisher, retitled The Forgotten Boy and released March 18, 2014, now a top 100 overall bestseller on Amazon. Lorhainne lives on sunny Salt Spring Island with her family where she is working on her next book.
Title: Just Needs Killin'
Author Genre: Mystery & Thrillers, Young Adult/tweens, Historical/Western, Humor, Chicklit
Website: Jinx Schwartz
Author's Blog: Jinx Schwartz's Water Writes
Twitter: @jinxschwartz
E-Mail: jinxschwartz@yahoo.com
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Author Description:
Award-winning author, Jinx Schwartz, spends time between Arizona and Mexico. Her Hetta Coffey mystery series won the EPPIE award for Best Mystery (Just Add Water) and was a finalist for Best Mystery (Just Add Trouble).
Jinx Schwartz is the author of eight books, including the award-winning Hetta Coffey series. Hetta is a sassy Texan with a snazzy yacht and not afraid to use it!
A ninth-generation Texan, Jinx has lived and worked all over the globe, and much like the protagonist in her Hetta Coffey mystery series, she's a woman with a yacht and not afraid to use it.
Featured Set: A Purse to Die For
Available at Amazon: A Purse to Die For
Title:
Author Genre: Humor, Fantasy, Mystery
Website: Melodie Campbell
Twitter: @MelodieCampbell
E-Mail: mcampbell50@cogeco.ca
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Author Description:
THE GODDAUGHTER'S REVENGE has won the 2014 DERRINGER AWARD for crime novella and the 2014 ARTHUR ELLIS AWARD in Canada!
ROWENA AND THE VIKING WARLORD coming July 2!
THE ARTFUL GODDAUGHTER coming Sept. 1!
Billed as Canada's "Queen of Comedy" by the Toronto Sun (Jan. 5 2014,) Melodie Campbell achieved a personal best when Library Digest compared her to Janet Evanovich.
Winner of nine awards, including the Derringer (US) and Arthur Ellis (Canada) for THE GODDAUGHTER'S REVENGE, Melodie got her start writing comedy. In 1999, she opened the Canadian Humour Conference. So it's no surprise her fiction has been described by editors and reviewers as "wacky" and "laugh-out-loud funny."
Melodie has over 200 publications, 100 comedy credits, 40 short stories, and seven novels.
The Goddaughter, a comic crime caper, received the following review from Library Journal: "Campbell's comic caper is just right for Janet Evanovich fans. Wacky family connections and snappy dialogue make it impossible not to laugh." Library Journal, Sept. 2012
Warning: The Rowena time travel fantasy series is not sweet romance; it is a sexy, funny, rollicking adventure series.
Title:
Author Genre: Mystery
Author's Blog: Fashionation With Mystery
Twitter: @stpierrecynthia
E-Mail: cynthiast-pierre@rogers.com
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Author Description:
In marketing Cynthia wrote promotional, packaging and communications materials; penned articles for business periodicals; and a chapter of "How to Successfully Do Business in Canada". Currently a member of Crime Writers of Canada, she has one award for fiction and has been a writing contest judge. Best of all for a mystery writer, Cynthia has received a York Regional Police Citizens Awareness Program certificate, presented and signed by Julian Fantino, former Commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police.
Cynthia grows vegetables in her backyard, makes recipes with tofu, and speaks English-accented French with husband Yves. Visit Cynthia's blog (in the voice of character Becki Green) at vegetariandetective.blogspot.com.
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