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 we have posted this month.
Thanks to the following outstanding authors for a great month. Here is a summary of our February 2015 crew.
Barbara Ellen Brink
Author Genre: Mystery & Thrillers, Suspense, Romance, Young Adult
Author's Blog: Barbara Ellen Brink
Website: Barbara Ellen Brink
Twitter: @BarbaraEBrink
Facebook: Check Out Facebook
Next: My next series, The Double Barrel Mysteries, is set in the Upper Peninsula in a tiny town along Lake Superior…The first book in the series will be coming out very soon.
Social media: I’ve been on twitter for quite some time and have slowly built up a following. Social media relationships are certainly important and I have met many interesting and loyal people along the way.
Great covers: I work very closely with my cover artist. She is my daughter and a graphic design major. Luckily, she is very talented and has amazing ideas. I usually have the book finished or nearly finished before I set her to work on a cover.
Book trailers: Truthfully, I have no idea whether book trailers help a new book to succeed. I have not seen any jump in sales because of them.
Book bundles: Bundling is a way to get readers to pick up the entire series by giving them a discounted price from what it would cost separately. I did that with the Amish Bloodsuckers because a lot of people want to read the series straight through. It doesn’t seem to impact separate book sales. It just gives readers another choice.
Support groups: I am a member of the Grace Awards Christian Writers group and The Clean Indie Reads group. They are always helpful to answer questions or support one another in any way they can. Some members are editors or cover designers or know people who are.
Free books: The first book in my Amish Bloodsuckers young adult series – CHOSEN – is permafree right now. Many people will take a chance on a book if it is free… I think giving away a free book works best if you have a series.
Book launch: I’m an Indie author, so I do most everything myself. I edit and reedit and then I send it to a real editor. Once the editing process is complete, I format the book for paperback and digital ebooks
Author's Book List
Reckoning
Shunned
Chosen
Alias Raven Black
Running Home
Split Sense
Savor
Crushed
Entangled
For the rest of the story...View Barbara Ellen Brink - HBS Author's Spotlight
Margo Bond Collins
Author Genre: Romance, Paranormal, Fantasy
Author's Blog: Margo Bond Collins - Aim for the Heart…
Website: Margo Bond Collins - Aim for the Heart…
Twitter: @MargoBondCollin
E-Mail: MargoBondCollins@gmail.com
Google+: Check Out Google+
Facebook: Check Out Facebook
Next: …my next pinned-down, definite release is of Siren's Kiss in August 2015.
Social media: I've tried to grow my following organically, as much as possible. I follow the kinds of people who interest me, as well as those I think might be interested in me. I do some giveaways that include "follow me on Twitter" and other social media as entry options…
Reader list: I don't keep a specific reader list, but I have both a newsletter and a street team. I send the newsletter out (roughly) monthly, and I try to interact with my street team several times a week. I talk about both of these options as often as possible on various social media!
Great covers: For Sanguinary, I took a poll of my street team for the title. Once I'd gotten their votes, I contacted one of my favorite cover artists (Liliana Sanches—she did the Waking Up Dead cover, too) and gave her the basic information, then let her run with it.
BookBuzzr: It's difficult to tell if any one thing has more impact on sales than any other thing. I consider all of these things simply tools in my kit—I do plan to put the other books up on BookBuzzr, too; I just don't have enough hours in the day!
Free books: I give away books all the time, and I love doing it. I give away a paperback in every newsletter. And I give away ebooks via contests, on my blog, in my street team, on Facebook. I've had free runs on Amazon of books...My main goal is creating readers. Word of mouth still sells more books than anything else.
Great blog: …I realized that the best way to get others to help me promote my books would be to help them, too. So I decided to make my blog about anything writing-related and to promote other authors.
Reviews: I do a combination of things. I recently hired a publicity assistant, and she spends several hours a week combing through book blogs and contacting the bloggers to request reviews or guest spots. I ask my street team to review any of my books they read…
Author's Book List
Sanguinary
Taming the Country Star
Legally Undead
Fairy, Texas
Waking Up Dead
For the rest of the story...View Margo Bond Collins - HBS Author's Spotlight
Nathan A. Goodman
Author Genre: Thriller, Christian, Crime
Website: Nathan A. Goodman Author
Twitter: @NathanAGoodman
E-Mail: Nathan at NathanAGoodman dot com
Next up is a sequel to The Fourteenth Protocol.
Social media: Twitter is a powerful outlet, if you use it correctly. Social outlets are only worthwhile if you engage with individuals directly. I reach out to individual people on Twitter and they respond. They appreciate me retweeting their tweets. They also engage in conversation with me.
Reader list: I offer readers the opportunity to sign up for my email list (http://eepurl.com/9ZumX). I tell them about it on Twitter after we’ve engaged with one another, it’s listed at the back of my novels, it’s on my website, on my Amazon author profile, and anywhere else that writers congregate.
Book signings: I’ve done speaking engagements at bookstores and other venues. I even do talks to bookclubs. If your bookclub would like to have me speak, reach out using my email address (on this page), and we can even set it up via Skype if necessary.
Book trailer: The trailer takes time to craft. I started by free-form writing the script. Then, I re-wrote and re-wrote it until it fit into a concise span of time. Your trailer needs to be concise because readers don’t want to sit and watch for more than 2-3 minutes maximum. In all honesty, it can be hard to judge how much it lends to the success of a novel.
Free books: Aside from giving away print copies to professional novel reviewers, we ran one giveaway for The Fourteenth Protocol in e-book format on Amazon. Since the novel is in a thriller category, a huge number of people are exposed to it. And, since the novel had already obtained so many positive reviews, by the time the free promotion hit, it was a runaway success.
Writing Management: I write with Scrivner which is a nice tool. It allows me to rearrange sections as needed with ease. Once I’m ready, I can output to MS Word and work on the novel’s final format from there. I keep track of all the details inside of Scrivner. My biggest piece of advice is to write every day.
Reviews: Lots of reviews have come from the reader audience. Some have come from reaching out to members of the press in cities that are used in the novels.
Author's Book List
Twinkle
The Fourteenth Protocol
For the rest of the story...View Nathan A. Goodman - HBS Author's Spotlight
Libby Fischer Hellmann
Author Genre: Mystery & Thrillers, Literature & Fiction
Author's Blog: Libby Fischer Hellmann
Website: Libby Fischer Hellmann
Twitter: @libbyhellmann
Facebook: Check Out Facebook
Next: I’m about 80 pages into my fifth Ellie Foreman mystery. It’s been YEARS since I caught up with her properly (she’s popped up here and there in my Georgia books over the years), but this is her story, and it’s all about espionage in the post-Snowden era.
Social media: Using social media has changed pretty much everything I do since I started to self-publish. It’s how I promote, advertise, and launch my books. Physical signings and book tours are, with the exception of libraries and book fairs, a thing of the past.
Reader list: Yes, I have an email list, which I’m always trying to build. In fact, I just started a new promotion where I’m actually giving away An Image of Death…That was a tough decision – prior to that, I’d been giving away short stories. But readers are getting more savvy, and they really need to see the value in what you’re giving away in exchange for keeping in touch with you.
Personal appearances: My Facebook author page or my website are the places to keep up with me. Click here for Libby's Facebook Account and Website Link.
And I’ve just started hosting a radio show called Second Sunday Crime.
Audio books: All of my books have been recorded and released on audio – I made sure of that. Audio has definitely expanded my readership. I listen to a lot of books on audio myself.
Short stories: I write short stories for a lot of reasons. In fact, I wrote about why here (Six Reasons To Write Short Stories). I’m now writing more novellas as well.
Author bundle - Killer Femmes Set: It’s done exceptionally well. I think we were in the right place in the right time. Just before bundles became overkill. Plus, we limited the novels to five. I think bundles of 9, 10, or more, are excessive. I actually put the Bundle together, and I knew I only wanted 5 authors, all of whom I knew could write a dang good story. And they did. I can’t speak for the others, but I did notice an uptick in my other sales when the bundle was flying off the shelves.
Other languages: My foreign language books are just starting to take off, especially the German version of A Bitter Veil. I also have 2 Spanish books, and an Italian collection of short stories. Next to Germany, the Italian version is doing well, but the Spanish ones haven’t really sold well so far, except in audio. There, the Spanish translation has done quite well.
A Street Team is a group of “enthusiastic” fans who are willing to spread the word about an author, her books, events, and news. In return, the team gets access to early editions of a novel, special stories, and other goodies. I started one about 3 years ago but couldn’t manage it on my own. Now I have some help and its better.
Author's Book List
Nobody's Child
ToxiCity
Doubleback
Easy Innocence
The Last Page
A Shot To Die For
An Image of Death
A Picture of Guilt
An Eye For Murder
The Day Miriam Hirsch Disappeared
Havana Lost
A Bitter Veil
Set the Night on Fire
The Murder of Katie Boyle
For the rest of the story...View Libby Fischer Hellmann - HBS Author's Spotlight
Pauline Baird Jones
Author Genre: Romance, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Mystery & Thriller,Steampunk
Author's Blog: Life Happens. a Lot. - The Perils of Pauline
Website: Pauline Baird Jones
Twitter: @paulinebjones
Google+: Check Out Google+
Facebook: Check Out Facebook
Next: I actually have two books scheduled to release this year: Dead Spaces and yes, Sucker Punch. Dead Spaces is the next installment in my Big Uneasy series (set in present day New Orleans) and Sucker Punch is next installment in Uneasy Future (set in future New Orleans).
Social media: It rather surprises me when I look at my Twitter following. I was an early adopter, but my following didn’t really start to grow until I read a post about funny Twitter bios at {grow}. I was so impressed with how creative people can be in those short bios, that I changed mine.
A reader list is something I’m working hard on building. I’m a great believer in learning from others and getting/giving support to my peers. Apparently you CAN teach an old dog new tricks, cuz I’m still learning how to do things.
Audio books: While audio listeners are sometimes a different type of “reader,” having the books in audio definitely helps push the digital books. Most of my books are Whispersynched, which means that if someone buys the digital book, they can get a hugely discounted audio book.
Nebula Nights and Love on the Edge Bundles: The author bundles have been GREAT. From both of them, I’ve seen good follow-on sales of the other books in the series. I’ve also met and worked with some amazing authors and some of us are involved in other cross-promotional activities
Free books: I will admit to being resistant to free for a long time. When you look at spending a year or more writing a novel, it is hard to give it away. But…from the readers point of view, why should they risk their money and time on an unknown-to-them author? So I had to think like a reader, not a writer, to do it. I tried it for a short time first and it was so successful I was sold on it as a marketing tool. I now have four books perma-free (three are the first parts of longer novels).
Serial books: Other than the boxed sets, breaking my novels into parts has been one of the best sales tools I’ve tried recently. I decided to do it for two reasons. First, making a first book in a series free is a great marketing tool. But…The Key is a very big novel. 142K long. I think I mentioned how hard it is to give away a novel? Well, it’s even harder when that novel is BIG. The Key naturally broke into four parts and I thought, well, why not? I could give the first part away for free and people can still buy the full novel if they’d rather. But for readers who like shorter reads, there are the parts.
Author's Book List
Core Punch
Dangerous Dance
Kicking Ashe
Steamrolled
Tangled in Time
Girl Gone Nova
Relatively Risky
Out of Time
The Key
Do Wah Diddy Die
The Spy Who Kissed Me
Missing You
Byte Me
The Last Enemy
Managing Your Book Writing Business
For the rest of the story...View Pauline Baird Jones - HBS Author's Spotlight
Katia Lief
Author Genre: Mystery & Thrillers, Literature & Fiction
Website: Katia Lief
Twitter: @KatiaLief
E-Mail: katia@katialief.com
Google+: Check Out Google+
Facebook: Check Out Facebook
Next: I do have a new book in the works (two, actually), but no publication date yet to report. Stay tuned.
Reader list: Yes, I do keep a mailing list. I love being able to get in touch with readers directly when there’s something new or interesting to report. I’m also on Facebook and Twitter, and love connecting with readers there.
Personal appearances: I love getting out to meet and greet readers or anyone else who likes to listen to writers read their work and talk about the writing process. To find out what I’ve got going on, you can always check my web site: http://katialief.com/events.php
Book trailers: Making the book trailers was a lot of fun. My husband Oliver, who is an Emmy-award winning television editor, jumped in to make me two fabulous trailers. I have no idea if they had an impact on my books’ sales, but I do know that people love them.
Short stories: I love writing short stories, which I do for fun when the spirit strikes, though I don’t have a clue as to whether they bring readers to my novels (though I hope they do).
Ebooks are a great new venue for bringing authors and readers together. I love that we have a new way to read now in addition to print books, which are irreplaceable. My writing hasn’t changed because of ebooks, but the format has brought my work to new readers, for which I’m grateful.
Author's Book List
The Money Kill
Vanishing Girls
Next Time You See Me
You Are Next
Soul Catcher
The Rise and Fall of Rocky Love
Love, Sex & the Wrong Bride
Five Days in Summer
Names of the Dead
Waterbury
Seven Minutes to Noon
One Cold Night
Here She Lies
For the rest of the story...View Katia Lief - HBS Author's Spotlight
Jennings Wright
Author Genre: Mystery & Thrillers, Romance, Young Adult
Author's Blog: Jennings Wright
Website: Jennings Wright
Twitter: @JenningsWright
Google+: Check Out Google+
Facebook: Check Out Facebook
Next: My next novel will be a 3rd book in the Quinn adventure, with a little switch: it will be more about Mac than Rae and Gideon Quinn.
Social media: I am so appreciative of my Twitter followers! I built a good, quality base with the help of JustUnfollow and (now) ManageFlitter. Those types of websites help weed out spam accounts and the like, allowing you to grow your following with real accounts. I don’t Tweet overly much about writing – I try to include my nonprofit, blog posts, and writing updates, along with “life” stuff.
Covers: I love my covers! I am very involved conceptually – in fact, the original IXEOS cover came from a friends photo, posted on Facebook, of her daughter in a playground tunnel. I saw it and just knew it was exactly the concept I wanted for IXEOS
Book trailers: I did the trailers using Animoto, which is a great video creation website. I’m a very visual person (when I had more spare time, I was an artist, too), and really enjoy making videos. I’ve done some for other people, too.
Free books: This is a moving target. When I first started, the free book giveaway was really help to get follow up sales. I have had some great success with it – I’ve had over 100,000 downloads. Those downloads definitely led to sales, either after the giveaway when the book was still on best seller lists, or from people who read the book and then wanted more of my writing.
Book launch process: Before the book is ready, I start talking about it on my blog, and on social media. I do a cover reveal a couple of weeks before release across those platforms. It’s always exciting to get your first print copy, so I post a picture holding the new book, too – I don’t care if it’s your first or seventh, it’s exciting, and people like to see that you’re a real person. One thing I DON’T do is a ton of sales type posts on Facebook or Twitter – that’s a guaranteed turn off to people.
Author's Book List
IXEOS Trilogy
IXEOS: Darian's War
IXEOS: Rebellion
BUT GOD: Two Words to Freedom
IXEOS
The Hoard of the Doges
Undaunted Love
Solomon's Throne
For the rest of the story...View Jennings Wright - HBS Author's Spotlight
Dave Zeltserman
Author Genre: Mystery & Thrillers, Horror, Crime
Author's Blog: Small Crimes
Website: Dark Crime Fiction from Dave Zeltserman
Twitter: @DaveZeltserman
E-Mail: dave.zeltserman@gmail.com
Google+: Check Out Google+
Facebook: Check Out Facebook
Next: Overlook Press recently published The Boy Who Killed Demons. This is written as a journal being kept by a very resourceful 15 year-old boy named Henry Dudlow who sees certain people as demons.
I look at social media as something to do to have fun and connect with readers as opposed to trying to market your books.
Personal appearances: I’ve done book signings and interviews for all my published books. I’ve also in the past done library events and conferences, which is a great way to connect with readers.
Book trailer: I like the trailer for Killer—the publicist Serpent’s Tail hired for it, Meryl Zegarek, put it together, and I think she did an outstanding job. I love the way the cover blends into live action, and it’s almost like a short movie. But I think book trailers—no matter how good—only rarely help sell books.
THE JULIUS KATZ COLLECTION: With The Julius Katz collection I took the first 6 Julius Katz stories that Ellery Queen published, and added a new Julius Katz novella to it. The stories have been favorites among Ellery Queen readers, with two of them being voted as favorite stories of the year by their readers.
Small Crimes blog: What I’m trying to do with the blog is connect with my readers, provide some interesting articles, and keep readers apprised to new stuff of mine coming out.
Author's Book List
The Julius Katz Collection
The Boy Who Killed Demons
Small Crimes
The Interloper
Bad Thoughts
Monster
A Killer's Essence
Julius Katz and Archie
Blood Crimes
Killer
Fast Lane
The Caretaker of Lorne Field
Outsourced
21 Tales
For the rest of the story...View Dave Zeltserman - HBS Author's Spotlight
HBS Author's Spotlight Showcase
Arleen Alleman
Featured Book: A Current Deception
Author Genre: Mystery & Thrillers
Author's Blog: Arleen Alleman
Website: Author Arleen Alleman
Twitter: @aallemanwrites
Facebook: Check Out Facebook
Author Description:
The Darcy Farthing Adventures: Exciting suspense-filled mysteries--Download to your Kindle now or buy a book to discover this unique thought-provoking series for yourself.
Winner of Books and Authors 2012 Best Trilogy Award for "Currents Deep and Deadly" "Currents of Vengeance" and "Current Assets".
The most recent Darcy Farthing adventure "Alternate Currents" was a finalist in Foreword Reviews Magazine's 2013 Indie Book of the Year Awards. This is a timely topical story of mystery, child abduction, and murder set in Seattle, WA. Darcy rushes to the aid of good friend, Don Freeburg, when his partner, Charlie Scott, disappears. She is soon immersed in a murder investigation and the shocking abduction of Penelope, Don and Charlie's daughter by surrogacy.
The first two novels in the series are based on crime and mystery aboard cruise ships. The third in series "Current Assets" is set in South Florida and involves local corruption, terrorism, and the U.S. Marshals asset forfeiture program.
Alleman says that publishing novels has been a life-long dream. She is working on a fifth book, "A Current Deception", which continues the story of Darcy Farthing and Mick Clayton as they face personal and professional challenges as unlikely crime fighters.
The series is unique in that it addresses social issues along with the murder-mystery elements of the stories. Themes addressed in the first four installments include, family issues and adoption, PTSD, alternative lifestyles, religion, government corruption, and cruise ship safety.
Alleman is a former analyst with the Government Accountabililty Office, where she wrote extensively on many topics ranging from satellite systems to endangered species. She has also worked as a fashion model, insurance adjuster, jewelry designer, and owner of a home decor shop. Her interests include health and fitness, world religions, travel, and she is an avid reader.
She says that traveling is not only fun but the various world locations supply backdrops and narration for her fictional stories. Born in England and raised in New Hampshire and Nevada, she lived in Colorado for many years. She and her husband Tim recently moved to Southwest Florida.
Author's Book List
A Current Deception
Alternate Currents
Current Assets
Currents of Vengeance
Currents Deep and Deadly
For the rest of the story...View Arleen Alleman - HBS Author's Spotlight Showcase
Dianne Harman
Featured Book: Marriage and Murder
Author Genre: Romance and Literary Fiction
Author's Blog: Dianne Harman Author
Website: Dianne Harman Author
Twitter: @DianneDHarman
Facebook: Check Out Facebook
Author Description:
Dianne Harman draws her stories and characters from a diverse business and personal background. She owned a national antique and art appraisal business for many years, left that industry, and opened two yoga centers where she taught yoga and certified yoga instructors. She's traveled extensively throughout the world, most recently dividing her time between Huntington Beach, California and Sacramento, California, where her husband was a Senator. An avid reader, Dianne brings the richness of her life experiences to her novels, Blue Coyote Motel, Coyote in Provence, and Cornered Coyote - all of which are available now in the Coyote Series.
Being a dog lover and having attended numerous cooking schools, she couldn't resist writing about food and dogs, thus the Cedar Bay Cozy Mystery series, which includes family recipes! Kelly's Koffee Shop and Murder at Jade Cove have been on the top of the culinary, cozy, and animal charts within a week of being published and the third in the series, White Cloud Retreat, will be published very soon. Kelly's Koffee Shop was recently voted as one of the top 30 Best Self-Published Books of 2014.
Author's Book List
Marriage and Murder
White Cloud Retreat
Murder at Jade Cove
Kelly's Koffee Shop
COYOTE SERIES
CORNERED COYOTE
Tea Party Teddy's Legacy
Coyote in Provence
Tea Party Teddy
Blue Coyote Motel
For the rest of the story...View Dianne Harman - HBS Author's Spotlight Showcase
Wendy Corsi Staub
Featured Book: The Black Widow
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-second suspense thriller, THE BLACK WIDOW (2/24/15; HarperCollins), 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 BLACK WIDOW, THE PERFECT STRANGER, THE GOOD SISTER, NIGHTWATCHER, SLEEPWALKER, and SHADOWKILLER, on this author page.
Wendy is also a bestselling novelist with the chick lit and romantic comedy published under the pseudonym "Wendy Markham," with such titles as IF ONLY IN MY DREAMS, THE BEST GIFT, the innovative "SLIGHTLY" series and many more.
For Young Adults, Wendy has authored the beloved four book LILY DALE series - AWAKENING, BELIEVING, CONNECTING, and DISCOVERING.
Author's Book List
The Black Widow
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: A Crime Collection
Available at Amazon: A Crime Collection
Betta Ferrendelli
Title: THE FRIDAY EDITION
Author Genre: Mystery & Thrillers, Suspense, Fiction
Website: Betta Ferrendelli Books
Author's Blog:
Twitter: @BettaWriter
E-Mail: BettaFerrendelliBooks@gmail.com
Goodreads: Check Out Goodreads
Google+: Check Out Google+
Facebook: Check Out Facebook
Author Description:
I have been an award-winning journalist since 1989, having worked at newspapers in Denver, Seattle and Albuquerque. I continue to write professionally today for magazines.
In July 2012, I published The Friday Edition, the first in a mystery series featuring newspaper reporter Samantha Church. The second book in the series, Revenge is Sweet, published in November 2013.
Dead Wrong, the third book in the series, published January 8, 2015. The Friday Edition has enjoyed early commercial success: It was named to Kirkus Reviews' Best Books of 2013, and was a 2014 Readers' Favorite Gold Medal Winner in the Fiction, Mystery, Sleuth category.
R.S. Guthrie
Title: BLOOD LAND
Author Genre: Mystery & Thrillers, Literature & Fiction, Nonfiction
Website: R.S. Guthrie - Rob on Writing
Twitter: @rsguthrie
E-Mail: rsguthrie@gmail.com
Goodreads: Check Out Goodreads
Google+: Check Out Google+
Facebook: Check Out Facebook
Author Description:
R.S. Guthrie grew up in Iowa and Wyoming. He has been writing fiction, essays, short stories, and lyrics since college.
"Black Beast: A Clan of MacAulay Novel" marked Guthrie's first major release and it heralded the first in a series of Detective Bobby Macaulay (Bobby Mac) books. The second in the series (Lost) hit the Kindle shelves December of 2011. Reckoning closes out the trilogy. For now...
Guthrie's "Blood Land" is the first in the Sheriff James Pruett Mystery/Thriller series and represents a project that is close to his heart: it is set in a fictional town in the same county where he spent much of his childhood and still visits. The sequel, Money Land, hit the shelves Christmas Day, 2012. Honor Land, the third in the bestselling James Pruett Mystery/Thriller series was released in May of 2013.
Guthrie lives in Colorado with his wife, Amy, three young Australian Shepherds, and a Chihuahua who thinks she is a 40-pound Aussie!
Simon Jenner
Title: ETHAN JUSTICE: ORIGINS
Author Genre: Thriller, Suspense
Website: SimonJenner.com
Author's Blog: Personal Crap
Twitter: @simonrjenner
Goodreads: Check Out Goodreads
Google+: Check Out Google+
Facebook: Check Out Facebook
Author Description:
I am a man whose goal in life is to discover my goal in life. I live with my wife, who keeps my dream alive and my stomach tight against my trousers; my son, a dreamer just like me; and a dog who receives fuss like he's the one doing the favour.
Emily Kimelman
Title: UNLEASHED
Author Genre: Mystery & Thrillers, Literature & Fiction
Website: Emily Kimelman
Twitter: @ejkimelman
E-Mail: emily@emilykimelman.com
Goodreads: Check Out Goodreads
Google+: Check Out Google+
Facebook: Check Out Facebook
Author Description:
Emily Kimelman is the author of the Sydney Rye Series including UNLEASHED, DEATH IN THE DARK, INSATIABLE, STRINGS OF GLASS, THE DEVIL'S BREATH, and INVITING FIRE. This series feature a strong female protagonist and her canine best friend, Blue. It is recommended for the 18+ who enjoy some violence, don't mind dirty language, and are up for a dash of sex. Not to mention an awesome, rollicking good mystery!
Emily splits her time between the Hudson Valley and traveling the world with her husband and dog, Kinsey (named after Sue Grafton's Kinsey Milhone), researching exciting locations for the Sydney Rye Series. You can follow along on their adventures through Instagram, Facebook, and on Emily's blog.
The first book in the Sydney Rye series, UNLEASHED, is available as a free download on all major ebook retailers.
Renee Pawlish
Title: THIS DOESN'T HAPPEN IN THE MOVIES
Author Genre: Mystery & Thrillers, Horror, Young Adult
Website: RENÉE PAWLISH
Author's Blog: To Become A Writer
Twitter: @ReneePawlish
Goodreads: Check Out Goodreads
Facebook: Check Out Facebook
Author Description:
Master wordsmith Renée Pawlish is the award-winning author of the bestselling horror book Nephilim Genesis of Evil, the first novel in the Nephilim trilogy, the Reed Ferguson mystery series (This Doesn't Happen In The Movies, Reel Estate Rip-off, The Maltese Felon) and the short story Elvis And The Sports Card Cheat, Take Five, a short story collection, the Noah Winters kids adventure series (The Emerald Quest), and The Sallie House: Exposing the Beast Within, a non-fiction account of a haunted house investigation in Kansas.
Renée has been called a "promising new voice in the comic/murder mystery genre" and "a powerful storyteller". Nephilim Genesis of Evil has been favorably compared to the early works of Stephen King and also Frank Peretti.
Renée was born in California, but has lived most of her life in Colorado. She attended the University of Colorado Boulder, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in History. A few years later, she graduated from Denver Seminary with a Master of Arts in Counseling.
Renée loves to travel and has visited numerous countries around the world. She has also spent many summer days at her parents' cabin in the hills outside of Boulder, which was the inspiration for the setting of Taylor Crossing in her novel Nephilim: Genesis of Evil.
Renée's other interests include collecting sports memorabilia, cycling, hiking, reading, and playing guitar.
Featured Set: Killer Femmes
Available at Amazon: Killer Femmes
Libby Fischer Hellmann
Title: Easy Innocence
Author Genre: Mystery & Thrillers, Literature & Fiction
Website: Libby Fischer Hellmann
Author's Blog: Libby Fischer Hellmann
Twitter: @libbyhellmann
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Author Description:
Libby Fischer Hellmann is a critically acclaimed crime writer loved by readers the world over for her compulsively readable thrillers and strong female characters. Her fast-paced crime fiction spans 10 novels and 20 short stories, and she has also edited a popular crime fiction anthology called Chicago Blues.
With critics describing her work as "masterful" and "meticulously researched", it's not hard to see why Libby's thrilling and richly varied crime novels have won numerous awards. Libby is exceptionally committed to her work, and in 2005-2006 she was the National President of Sisters in Crime, a 3,400+ member organization dedicated to strengthening the voice of female mystery writers.
You can keep up to date with all Libby's news and views over at her blog, http://libbyhellmann.com/blog.
Libby started out in broadcast news, beginning her career as an assistant film editor for NBC News in New York before moving back to DC to work with Robin MacNeil and Jim Lehrer at N-PACT, the public affairs production arm of PBS. Retrained as an assistant director when Watergate broke, Libby helped produce PBS's night-time broadcast of the hearings. She went on to work for public relations firm Burson-Marsteller in Chicago in 1978, where she stayed until she left to found Fischer Hellmann Communications in 1985.
Christine Kling
Title: Cross Current
Author Genre: Mystery & Thrillers
Website: inKlings
Twitter: @christinekling
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Author Description:
I have spent more than thirty years living on and around boats and cruising the waters of the North and South Pacific, the Atlantic, and the Caribbean. I've written articles and stories for many boating publications including Sailing, Cruising World, Motor Boating & Sailing, and The Tiller and the Pen.
It was that sailing experience that led me to set my first nautical suspense novels on the waterfront in Fort Lauderdale. Featuring Florida female tug and salvage captain, Seychelle Sullivan, there are four books in the series, SURFACE TENSION, CROSS CURRENT, BITTER END, and WRECKERS' KEY. I'm now retired from my day job as an English professor at Broward College, and I am living the dream of full-time cruising on board my 33-foot Caliber sailboat Talespinner. My latest book set in the Leeward Islands is titled CIRCLE OF BONES: a Caribbean thriller, and features a female solo sailor, Maggie Riley, and a maritime archeologist (and conspiracy nut) Cole Thatcher, who are racing against an elite inner circle of Skull and Bones to recover the secrets found in the wreck of a World War II submarine.
I have spent more than thirty years living on and around boats and cruising the waters of the North and South Pacific, the Atlantic, and the Caribbean. I've written articles and stories for many boating publications including Sailing, Cruising World, Motor Boating & Sailing, and The Tiller and the Pen.
It was that sailing experience that led me to set my first nautical suspense novels on the waterfront in Fort Lauderdale. Featuring Florida female tug and salvage captain, Seychelle Sullivan, there are four books in the series, SURFACE TENSION, CROSS CURRENT, BITTER END, and WRECKERS' KEY. I'm now retired from my day job as an English professor at Broward College, and I am living the dream of full-time cruising on board my 33-foot Caliber sailboat Talespinner. My latest book set in the Leeward Islands is titled CIRCLE OF BONES: a Caribbean thriller, and features a female solo sailor, Maggie Riley, and a maritime archeologist (and conspiracy nut) Cole Thatcher, who are racing against an elite inner circle of Skull and Bones to recover the secrets found in the wreck of a World War II submarine.
Sujata Massey
Title: The Flower Master
Author Genre: Historical Fiction, Mystery & Thrillers
Website: Sujata Massey
Author's Blog: Sujata Massey
Twitter: @sujatamassey
E-Mail: sujatamassey@mac.com
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Author Description:
Sujata Massey was born in England to parents from India and Germany. She grew up mostly in the United States (California, Pennsylvania and Minnesota) and earned her BA from the Johns Hopkins University's Writing Seminars program. After that she worked as a reporter at the Baltimore Evening Sun newspaper before marrying and moving to Japan. The area where Sujata once lived, an hour south of Tokyo, forms most of the settings of her Rei Shimura mysteries. The series has collected many mystery award nominations, including the Edgar, Anthony, and Mary Higgins Clark awards, and has won the Agatha and Macavity prizes for traditional mystery fiction. The Rei Shimura mysteries are published in 18 countries, and an audiobook of one of these books, The Typhoon Lover, is also available. The first book in the series is The Salaryman's Wife, and the tenth is Shimura Trouble.
In 2013, Sujata began a new series of a novels set in India. This series, Daughters of Bengal, kicks off with The Sleeping Dictionary, to be published as a trade paperback Aug 20, 2013 by Simon and Schuster. It's a historic espionage novel set in 1930s-40s Calcutta told from a young Bengali woman's point of view. Dreamworks is producing an audiobook of the novel, and the book will be released by different publishers in India, Italy and Turkey.
Sujata lives with her family near Washington DC, where she continues to write more Rei Shimura and Daughters of Bengal books.
Zoë Sharp
Title: Killer Instinct
Author Genre: Mystery & Thrillers
Website: At the Sharp End . . .The World of Zoë Sharp
Twitter: @authorzoesharp
E-Mail: AuthorZoeSharp@gmail.com
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Author Description:
Zoë Sharp opted out of mainstream education at the age of twelve and wrote her first novel when she was fifteen. She created the no-nonsense heroine of her highly acclaimed Charlotte 'Charlie' Fox crime thriller series after receiving death-threat letters as a photojournalist.
If you haven't met Charlie Fox, the Chicago Tribune described her as: "Ill-tempered, aggressive and borderline psychotic, Fox is also compassionate, introspective and highly principled: arguably one of the most enigmatic -- and coolest -- heroines in contemporary genre fiction."
In his introduction to the VENGEANCE anthology, Lee Child said: "If I were a woman, I'd be Zoë. If Jack Reacher were a woman, he'd be Zoë's main character, Charlie Fox."
Zoë's work has been used in school textbooks in Denmark, made into a short film, optioned Twentieth Century Fox TV, inspired an original song and been nominated for numerous awards including the Edgar, Anthony, Barry (twice), Benjamin Franklin and Macavity Awards in the United States, as well as twice for a CWA Dagger Award in the UK.
So far there are ten books in the Charlie Fox series, plus a short story anthology, two e-boxed sets, and numerous short stories, with more coming soon!
Julie Smith
Title: Louisiana Hotshot
Author Genre: Mystery & Thrillers, Young Adult
Website: booksBnimble
Twitter: @booksbnimble
E-Mail: julieorleans@cox.net
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Author Description:
I first knew I wanted to be a writer at seven, knew it was mysteries I'd write at 12, was desperate to win the Edgar at 13, but became a journalist to...well...keep from starving till I had the courage to actually try it. I had a great time and learned more than ten colleges could have taught as a reporter for first the New Orleans Times-Picayune and later the San Francisco Chronicle. Finally, I wrote six or seven mysteries (I've lost count!) over a period of eight years, to absolutely no avail, and was about to give up when I made my first sale. DEATH TURNS A TRICK was my first published book, and the Rebecca Schwartz series was born. I later added a second San Francisco series, plus two in New Orleans, and guess what? My first New Orleans book, NEW ORLEANS MOURNING, won the Edgar for Best Novel.
So some dreams come true! Boy, it was hard, and it took forever, but mine actually did. I'm still pinching myself. After wanting something so much and finally getting it, who would have thought I'd turn to something else after twenty-one books? (That's right, twenty-one not counting a non-fiction one on writing itself. So, twenty-two, really.) My whole identity was writing. But along came ebooks! Suddenly a gigantic opportunity opened up. I realized I could be a publisher myself---I could help other people achieve their own dreams. I couldn't help it, I got the publishing bug. Bad.
In 2010, I founded www.booksBnimble.com, a digital publishing company that focused at first on video-enhanced ebooks, but now not so much enhanced as just great quality---and, as you might imagine, with an emphasis on mysteries. So far, we've published eight authors (including me). It's been a treat to learn to function in another whole world and it's been incredibly rewarding to be able to help other writers, to bring back people's backlists, and to discover new, exciting talent.
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