Lloyd Lofthouse - An Author Interview at the HBS Author's Spotlight

Today our blog puts the Spotlight on Author Lloyd Lofthouse. Lloyd is the award-winning, historical fiction author of the short story, "A Night at the Well of Purity".

Author: Lloyd Lofthouse

Author Genre: Literature & Fiction, History, Romance

Website: Lloyd Lofthouse
Author's Blog: Lloyd Lofthouse
Twitter: @lflwriter
Goodreads: Check Out Goodreads
Facebook: Check Out Facebook

Amazon Author Profile



Author Description:
Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran, who worked as a maître d’ in a 15 million dollar nightclub for a few years. He also taught English literature in the public schools for most of 30 years where he explored Romeo and Juliet with thousands of high school students.

A romantic at heart, in his award winning novels, he tests true love in difficult situations and the challenges of keeping that love alive. My Splendid Concubine, his first novel, is an epic love story that teaches acceptance and respect for other people and their cultures. Running with the Enemy, his second novel, is a love story that will either cost the characters their lives or will complete each other’s hearts. The Redemption of Don Juan Casanova, his third novel, is the story of a man raised in a world of sin and seduction, who craves the love of one woman but fears, because of his infamous reputation as a libertine, that he’ll never find a woman to love who will trust him to be faithful.

Lloyd Lofthouse lives with his family in California’s San Francisco Bay area.


SPOTLIGHT Questions and Answers with the Author

Congratulations on your book: My Splendid Concubine. What do you have on the drawing board next? Can you tell us the timeline for its release and give us a little tease?

Thank you. My next book is the first in a planned series of five called “Becoming Merlin” (also the title of #1) and the first novel in the series is finished and going through revisions. In addition, the rough draft for number two, “Becoming Merlin, the Awakening” is almost completed. Hopefully, #1 will be out before the end of 2017. After revisions, the manuscript still has to go to the editor. I plan to release #2 a few months after #1 is out.

The series is a hybrid genre that includes science fiction, fantasy, supernatural creatures, time travel, some history, and more. There are two main characters, Merlin (yes, that Merlin), a shape-shifting alien, and his artificially intelligent multiverse interstellar ship A-Cappella. This is a story I’ve thought about for decades, and now I’m writing it.

Here’s a peak at the 1st paragraph of book one’s rough draft.

“I regretted my part in one of the greatest tragic love stories in human history. It was that look in her eyes that did it, and I felt no guilt when I let myself be seduced by my friend’s future wife. That is when I knew that Guinevere was going to be trouble. She was fourteen the day Arthur and I first saw her. She had enchanting eyes, and men of all ages fell under their spell. She hypnotized me too, and I’m not even human.”

You have a good following on twitter. How important have your social media relationships been? How did you build your following in your niche? Do you see a carry over to your writing success?

My first serious social media interaction was when I launched iLookChina.net back in 2010 after taking a workshop in late 2009 to learn how to blog and attract visitors. In 2010, following what I had learned, I wrote and posted more than one thousand posts, and sold an average of 180 books a month that year. Considering that I sold 341-books (28 a month) in 2009 without a blog, iLookChina.net made a huge difference in book sales, and that continued for several years as I posted daily. From 2011 through 2014, almost 18,000 copies were sold, but the pace slowed when I went from one new post a day to two a week. By the end of 2015, sales had dropped to 776 for the year.

The same thing worked with Twitter where I spent several hours a day building my following there and retweeting others and tweeting my stuff. When I started working twitter once a week or less, instead of several hours every day, sales of my work dropped again. While I was working twitter daily, I was selling three times as many books, but nothing compared to the sales when I was posting new stuff on my blogs every day.

If you are publishing posts and tweeting daily, there is little time to work on the next book.

Has the advent of ebooks changed anything in your writing, getting the book to your readers and the relationship with your readers and fans?

The advent of e-books made it possible for me to publish and reach readers without going through agents, editors, and publishers. Before I became an indie author and published “My Splendid Concubine” back in 2008, that same book had been turned down by agents and editors. Thanks to the e-book revolution, that novel has sold and been downloaded more than 60,000 times in addition to picking up a number of literary awards at book festivals around the world.

Do you do any book signings, interviews, speaking and personal appearances? If so, when and where is the next place where your readers can see you? Where can they keep up with your personal contacts online?

The last time I did book signings and personal appearances in brick-and-mortar book stores was in 2008. That was a very busy year. I was interviewed on more than 30-traditional, radio talk shows across the country and held a number of author events at several local bookstores. All the driving and late night or early morning radio interviews resulted in 221-sales that year. It wasn’t until after I became serious about social media by launching my blogs and becoming involved on Twitter that sales took off.

Where can readers keep up online?

I only post regularly at iLookChina.net. The other three blogs might see a post once or twice a month. For readers that want to keep up, follow me through one of my four blogs or all of them.

You have great covers. They carry a theme and your brand with them. How does your book cover creation process work? Do you hand over the basic theme or do you have more of a hands-on approach? Do you get your readers involved in its development?

Thank you. I’ve paid for a few of the book covers and produced the rest on my own using Adobe Elements. I tried getting readers involved in the production of one book cover I was working on. I read it was a good promotional tactic to use, but the results weren’t satisfying, and I probably won’t be doing that again. When I say the results weren’t satisfying, there wasn’t much reader involvement. I think this tactic works best if you have thousands of loyal fans eager for your next book in the same genre.

Between your book writing, blogging, marketing, family and all the other things that can get in your way, how do you manage your time? Do you have a set schedule or do you sort of play it by ear?

I’m a goal oriented writer, and I have a white board in my home office where I write them down. For instance, on that board, there is a goal that I finish writing the rough for chapter twenty-three in the second “Becoming Merlin” novel by August 13, 2017. I’ve already written more than one-thousand words in that chapter but have more work to do before moving on to the next chapter. I also have a goal to finish writing and prescheduling September’s posts for iLookChina.net before the end of August.

There are also marketing goals written on that white board. I have seldom if ever failed to complete a goal once I write one down. When I don’t have an active written goal, I tend to drift and procrastinate. The key to writing goals is to only write goals that you can achieve. Don’t write something like you will have thousands of readers by a certain date, because that means you are relying on other people to achieve your own goals. For instance, if I wrote a goal to submit an ad request to BookBub, I don’t write a goal that says I will get that ad and run it because BookBub has to say yes first and I don’t control what BookBub does. I can only control what I do.

I also have a rule that I can’t sit down and watch a DVD on my flat screen TV until after 8:00 PM. I do not subscribe to cable or satellite TV. However, I often slip during the day and take a break to watch a YouTube video or two or three. The YouTube videos I’ve been watching recently are of Grace VanderWaal singing her original songs. I didn’t know about Grace until I saw her singing one of her songs on YouTube. Here’s a link to a post I wrote and published on one of my blogs about being her fan. As a dedicated fan of her songs, I mention her every chance I get.
https://lloydlofthouse.org/2017/08/03/this-is-an-invitation-to-attend-my-favorite-youtube-concert/


What has been your experience in giving your books away free? Have you been involved in any other type of giveaways and how did that work out? What was your main goal in doing this? Did you run into any obstacles?

I have had three giveaways for three of my four books, and the one that worked best was the BookBub giveaway of “My Splendid Concubine” in 2015. About 40,000 copies were downloaded in 24-hours and that resulted in an explosion of Amazon reviews, tripling the number and burying the trolls’ reviews that had attacked the book in 2013 to bring down the average rating after I was sucked into a flame war by stepping into a flame trap defending another author I knew.

At the time, I didn’t know about flame traps and flame wars. Beware if you are an author. Learn what a flame trap and flame war is and avoid them, because if you get sucked into one, your work will suffer. Authors are easy targets for anonymous trolls and/or internet bullies. The trolls don’t need much of an excuse to come after your work and smear your name with false allegations and/or conspiracy theories.

What is your primary genre? What has been your best marketing approach to this group?

I have no primary genre. My first book, “My Splendid Concubine” is historical fiction set in 19th century China, and it was based on a true story.

The second one, “Running with the Enemy” is a love story that shows what happens when enemies fall in love. It’s set during the Vietnam War in Southeast Asia.

My third book was a teacher’s memoir set in my classroom in the mid-1990s, and it was based on a daily journal I kept for one full school year. Number four was a murder mystery called “The Redemption of Don Juan Casanova” based lightly on my years as a maître d’ in a nightclub-restaurant called the Red Onion (real name). I used a fictional name for the nightclub in the novel, and the murders that take place in the story did not happen in real life.

I have no best marketing approach that I can think of. Marketing seems to be an area where learning and experimenting never end. I did launch different blogs with different themes to support each book but that only worked once with iLookChina.net. I haven’t devoted the same amount of time to develop my other blogs for my other books. Marketing your work is a major time suck and how to do that and work on the next book is a challenge I have not mastered. If I’m working on my next book, I’m not marketing. If I’m marketing, I’m not writing the next book.

How do you manage your plots, characters and timelines to keep your stories going? Do you use any software to keep track of your books?

I manage my plots, characters, and timelines by keeping a few notes and then relying on my editor who seems to always catch what I missed and what I messed up. I don’t use any software programs to keep track of my books as I’m writing them. Once I start to write, my fingers blur across the keyboard, and to stop and fill in information in a software program like that would break my writing method’s rhythm.

Do you maintain a reader list? What are the methods you use to find your readers and create the list and the relationship? Do you use social media, forums, newsletters and/or support groups to build your list?

I put off for years building a readers list and it wasn’t until earlier this year that I finally launched a list through Mail Chimp that I have since been neglecting. Up until then, I relied on readers that follow my Blogs and posted news and poetry on Authors Den where my pages on that site have had more than a half million page views.
http://www.authorsden.com/lloydlofthouse




Author's Book List
My Splendid Concubine
Robert Hart (1835 - 1911) was the 'Godfather of China's modernism' and the only foreigner the emperor of China trusted. In fact, Hart played a crucial role in ending the bloodiest rebellion in history—the Taiping Rebellion—and he owes this success largely to Ayaou, his live-in dictionary and encyclopedia, his Chinese concubine.

About a year after arriving in China in 1854, Robert Hart falls in love with Ayaou, but his feelings for her sister go against the teachings of his Wesleyan-Christian upbringing and almost breaks him emotionally. To survive he must learn how to live and think like the Chinese and soon finds himself thrust into China’s Opium War, where he makes enemies of men such as the American soldier of fortune known as the Devil Soldier.


Order the Book From:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
KOBO Store
iTunes Store


The Redemption of Don Juan Casanova
Don Juan Casanova was raised by his grandparents to follow in the family tradition by becoming a Lothario, and as he approaches 40, he has successfully seduced hundreds of women. But now, this former U.S. Marine and combat veteran, who is the flirtatious maître d’ of his family’s infamous beachside nightclub in Southern California, is facing a crises. His grandfather and then younger brother, also infamous Lotharios, are viciously murdered, and Don is the prime suspect. He also wants to stop his serial seductions and find real love with one woman who understands him, but he is discovering it isn’t easy to kick an old habit that may be part of his DNA. There are so many women to love, and he’s confused.


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Amazon
Barnes and Noble
KOBO Store


Crazy is Normal - A Classroom Exposé
"Readers who envision eager students lapping up learning led by a Tiger Teacher will be disappointed. Lofthouse presents us with grungy classrooms, kids who don’t want to be in school, and the consequences of growing up in a hardscrabble world. While some parents support his efforts, many sabotage them—and isolated administrators make the work of Lofthouse and his peers even more difficult. Throughout this journal, though, Lofthouse seems able to keep the hope alive that there’s a future for each student that doesn’t include jail—thanks in large part to his sixth period journalism class and its incredible editor, Amanda." – Bruce Reeves


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Amazon
Barnes and Noble
KOBO Store
iTunes Store


Running with the Enemy
Blamed for a crime he did not commit while serving in Vietnam, his country considers him a traitor. In "Running with the Enemy", Ethan Card is a loyal US Marine desperate to prove his innocence or he will never go home again, and the women he loves and wants to save from two sociopaths was trained to kill Americans.


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Amazon
Barnes and Noble
KOBO Store
iTunes Store


Author Recommended by: HBSystems Publications
Publisher of ebooks, writing industry blogger and the sponsor of the following blogs:
HBS Author's Spotlight
eBook Author’s Corner
Top Shelf Author Advice
Mystery Reader’s Circle

Check out the index of other Spotlight authors. Spotlight Index.

Michael Pogach - An Author Interview at the HBS Author's Spotlight

Today our blog puts the Spotlight on Author Michael Pogach. He is the Author of the dystopian thriller THE SPIDER IN THE LAUREL. Michael writes Thrillers and Science Fiction novels. He is included in the CAM Horror and Science Fiction Charity Anthology.

Author: Michael Pogach

Author Genre: Literature & Fiction, Thriller, Science Fiction

Website: Michael Pogach
Twitter: @MichaelPogach
Goodreads: Check Out Goodreads
Facebook: Check Out Facebook

Amazon Author Profile



Author Description:
Michael Pogach is the author of the dystopian thriller Rafael Ward series, starting with THE SPIDER IN THE LAUREL.

He has also authored the "dirty and intense" chapbook Zero to Sixty, as well as stories in journals such as New Plains Review, Third Wednesday, and Workers Write.

His fame beyond the written word extends to a duel with a rodeo bull, surviving a taste test of Loch Ness, and adding whiskey to everything he cooks.

Michael lives with his family, his motorcycle, and his delusions of grandeur in Pennsylvania.

Michael is an author and English professor. He began writing stories in grade school. He doesn't remember these early masterpieces, but his parents tell him everyone in them died. He's gained some humanity since then, even allowing characters to survive once in a while. He is a graduate of Penn State and Arcadia University.


SPOTLIGHT Questions and Answers with the Author

What do you have on the drawing board next? Rumor has it that you have another book on the horizon called The Long Oblivion. Can you tell us the timeline for its release and give us a little tease?

The Long Oblivion is the sequel to The Spider in the Laurel, the second book in the Rafael Ward series. It will be coming out in March, from Ragnarok Publications. It picks up about two years after the end of Book One, and finds Ward in hiding in the dangerous Western Districts of the Republic. When his presence puts an innocent girl's life in danger, he finds himself in a race through the ruins of Mexico's ancient pyramids to the mysterious remnant of the mythological Tartessos in Spain, never knowing if he's the one chasing or being chased.

The other project I'm working on is a thriller, kind of a mix of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl on the Train. I'm about to enter final revisions on that novel and I hope to begin shopping it around by the end of the year.

You have a good following on twitter. How important have your social media relationships been? How did you build your following in your niche? Do you see a carry over to your writing success?

Social media has definitely helped. I've met some great people, opened up dozens of doors, and learned a lot about the publishing business and marketing through social media. I was a bit of a late-comer to Twitter and to making a dedicated author page on Facebook. And the one thing I learned that might be most important for newer authors is that social media is a great resource, but it's not a giant collection of readers salivating to buy your book. It can help, but you can't just put up some posts and sit back and wait to become a best-seller. That said, I've been able to foster some wonderful relationships with fans I wouldn't otherwise have been able to do.

You do personal appearances. When and where is the next place where readers can see you? Where can we keep up with your personal contacts online?

Anyone can keep up with me on my Twitter and Facebook, and on my website where I list all my appearances, as well interviews I do and and blogs/articles that I write. I don't have any public appearances scheduled at the moment, as I'm focused mainly on prepping The Long Oblivion for publication, and working on my next thriller. But if an interesting appearance presents itself, I will definitely consider it. As of now, however, my next big event will be the book launch for The Long Oblivion in March or early April.

You have converted Spider in the Laurel into an audio book. What has been the impact on your regular sales? Has the audio books gained a new audience for you?

Having The Spider in the Laurel published as an audiobook has been one of the coolest experiences of this who authoring thing. I found my narrator, the great Terry F. Self, on ACX, which is Audible's portal for authors and narrators looking to make audiobooks. There's no doubt the audiobook has introduced my work to a whole new fan base, and so far the reviews have been quite good. Terry's narration is incredible, and I'm going to do my best to make sure he narrates the rest of the Rafael Ward series. My only regret about putting out the audiobook is that I didn't do it sooner.

You have written several short stories. Can you tell us if they had an impact on the sales of your novels? Are shorty’s one of your styles of writing or are they created to give readers a sample of your work?

Most of my short stories were published before my first novel came out. I was almost exclusively a short story writer before I decided to dedicate my time to my first novel (which took four years to write). So, the impact hasn't been so much of the stories on the my novels, but the other way around. The one exception is my scifi story "They Thought the Brain Would be the Hardest Part," which was published in June in the CAM Horror and Science Fiction Charity Anthology. While I don't have any hard evidence to prove anything, it seemed like was a bump in novel sales when that anthology came out, introducing my brand of scifi to other fans of the genre, and horror fans as well.

I like the idea of Author bundles. You are a part of the CAM Horror and Science Fiction Charity Anthology. What was the impact on your other sales? What was the main objective of bundling your works with other SciFi authors? How did you put something like that together? (What a great group of authors. Featured on HBS Author’s Spotlight)

It's tough to track sales in relation to specific dates or events. The best most authors can do is try to extrapolate from Amazon's cryptic rankings. I think the anthology has added a few sales for me, and it's definitely helped me make more contacts in publishing with the other authors in the collection and their fans too. Better yet, the anthology itself was such a great seller that for about a week I (and the rest of the authors in the anthology with me) were boosted into the top 50 selling authors on Amazon. Seeing that was amazing. I never thought my author pic would be on a page like with Stephen King and George RR Martin and the like.

With your busy schedule, how do you have time to keep up with your followers? Between your writing, teaching, marketing, family and all the other things that can get in your way, how do you manage your time? Do you have a set schedule or do you sort of play it by ear?

Writing, family, an almost three-year-old, and I'm an English professor, so time and scheduling are haphazard at best. If I'm lucky I end up with an hour or so a do to devote to the business of writing, which could be answering emails or managing social media or figuring out a marketing plan. And then I try to make sure I two to three hours of writing a day two or three days a week during the fall and spring semesters. Over summer and winter breaks I do a good deal more writing, but it's never enough. I'm always itching to get back on the laptop and finish that chapter or revise that paragraph. 

The one thing that has helped is setting goals. I do my best to complete a chapter a week when writing, and two chapters a week when revising. It's not a fast pace but so far it's working for me. And Starbucks and Barnes and Noble help immensely. Even with a home office, it's difficult to concentrate with a toddler smashing about the house. but a couple hours at Starbucks, with the help of a white mocha, I can produce twice as much material as at home in the same time frame.

What is your primary genre? What has been your best marketing approach to this group?

My short stories have primarily been literary fiction, while my novels tend towards scifi and thrillers. I love dystopias too, and plan to revisit that genre when the Rafael Ward series is complete by creating another near-future world gone wrong. No spoilers yet, but it has some Richard Matheson-ness to it and will lead more towards a post-apocalyptic dystopia than the kind of Orwellian dystopia I created for The Spider in the Laurel.

How do you manage your plots, characters and timelines to keep your stories going? Do you use any software to keep track of your books?

I keep it pretty basic. Microsoft Word, a note taking app on my phone, and an actual full-of-real-paper notebook and pencil. My process tends to begin with outlining. Then writing a few chapters. Then revising the outline based on how those few chapters skewed things off plan, usually because the characters decided that my original plan was crap. By the time I'm done my first draft, I've probably gone through close to twenty outlines. And the whole time I'm filling pages in my notebook with characters, backgrounds, maps, flow charts, and anything else I need to keep track of what's going on. Then I'll do it all again for each revision I thought, which is at least three. One on the computer, one on hard copy, then at least one more on the computer. Throughout this whole process I workshop select chapters with my writes group and consult them regularly on my overall vision and outline.

Do you maintain a reader list? What are the methods you use to find your readers and create the list and the relationship? Do you use social media, forums, newsletters and/or support groups to build your list?

So, I have an email list that I've cultivated mostly at appearances, but I haven't actually put together any emails for it yet. One of those things that never seems to be at the top of the list when I sit down for my one hour of author-business each night. But I swear I will have a way to sign up to my email list directly on my website, and will send out my first mailing list email, in advance of the release of The Long Oblivion. How? When? What will be in that first email? I have no idea. Hopefully we'll all find out together in the next few months.



Author's Book List
CAM Horror and Science Fiction Book 1 - The C.A.M. Charity Anthology
All of the CAM Charity Anthologies are made up of donated short fiction stories. Some of these tales are written by well-known authors, others by ordinary people who just want to try and make a difference. 100% of the profits from these collections will go to charity as explained below.

Michael Robb Mathias Jr. aka M. R. Mathias, owner of Mathias Publishing, is producing the C.A.M anthologies in honor of his mother, Carol Ann Mathias, who passed away in 2017 after a grueling five year battle with cancer. The profits of these collections will be divided equally, each year, between three of her favorite charities.

https://www.smiletrain.org/
https://www.stjude.org/
https://www.petsmartcharities.org/

(Each of these three organizations has an A or A+ rating with www.charitywatch.org/charities
a "watch dog" group that rates these non-profits based on several criteria, the most important being percentage of donations that reach the intended ones in need.)

A collection of Fantasy stories is also available and we hope there are more volumes to come.

This Kindle download is: Horror & Science Fiction, Vol. 1

Featuring (In Order of Appearance)
Brian Barr
Ani Fox
Michael Robb
J.T. Arralle
Jeremy Hicks
Gary W. Olson
Michael Ender
Michael Pogach
Ed Faunce
Matt Broadway

With Interior Artwork by Gideon Deschain
Cover art by Jack Hoyle. See more of his fantastic artwork at http://www.t-rexstudios.com/


Order the Book From:
Amazon


The Spider in the Laurel - Rafael Ward series
In Tomorrow's America, Belief is the New Enemy.
Even a Silent Prayer can get you Black-Bagged.
In the Citizens' Republic of America, religion is outlawed. Historian Rafael Ward is a good citizen, teaching students the government approved narrative of the nation's history. But when he is tasked by Relic Enforcement Command with destroying the artifacts he cherishes, he begins to question the regime's motives and soon finds himself caught up in a secret revolution. It will take the uncompromising faith of an outlaw Believer as an ally, and the acceptance of his guilt for his mother's death, to help Ward break free of the government's yoke. If he's lucky, he might also prevent an apocalyptic future for which his secular world is completely unprepared.


Order the Book From:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
KOBO Store
iTunes Store
Audible


Author Recommended by: HBSystems Publications
Publisher of ebooks, writing industry blogger and the sponsor of the following blogs:
HBS Author's Spotlight
eBook Author’s Corner
Top Shelf Author Advice
Mystery Reader’s Circle

Check out the index of other Spotlight authors. Spotlight Index.

Jinx Schwartz - Just Follow The Money is featured in the HBS Author's Spotlight Showcase

The Showcase is a special feature of the Author's Spotlight. It is designed to highlight Spotlight author's NEW releases and their soon to be released novels.

The HBS Author's Spotlight SHOWCASES Jinx Schwartz's New Book: Just Follow The Money.

Jinx Schwartz writes Mystery & Thrillers, Young Adult/tweens, Historical/Western, Humor, and Chicklit novels. She is the author of the award-winning Hetta Coffey series.

Just Follow The Money

Hetta Coffey Series Book 9

Author: Jinx Schwartz


AVAILABLE
Amazon


Hetta Coffey is a sassy Texan with a snazzy yacht, and she’s not afraid to use it!

She’s been visiting France for a couple of months, barging on the Canal du Midi with her boyfriend, Jenks Jenkins, hitting the hot spots in the South of France, eating great food, drinking fine wine, and foiling a terrorist plot: all the usual stuff.

Now, she’s ready to leave for Mexico and back to her yacht in the Sea of Cortez, but not so fast. At the last minute she’s offered a mysterious and lucrative assignment by persons unknown, and jumps at it. After all, Jenks is back at work in Dubai, so why not stay in France a little longer and make some bucks, to boot? Never mind that she doesn’t know where she’ll be working, or for whom.

Ending up aboard a mega-yacht in the Mediterranean—with a surprising crew—she quickly finds herself embroiled in a kidnapping, and up to her neck in bad guys; the problem is, just who are the good guys?

Excerpt from Just Follow The Money

Jan slapped a newspaper in my hand. “Here, Hetta Coffey! Read it and weep.”

I gave the evening copy of Le Parisien a look and was dismayed to see a photo of Po Thang front and center, caught red-pawed in the act of pulling a white tablecloth laden with china, cutlery, crystal, wine, and obviously gourmet fare, from a dining table. The background made it clear the setting was in a first-class restaurant.

“Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes. I got the gist, but you translate it, okay?”

I sighed and began to read aloud. “Faits divers. That means the news, but also means various things. Kinda like this and that. It’s a social page featuring local happenings.”

Jan circled her hand. “Get on with it, Hetta.”

“Alright, alright. Hold your horses.”

“American dog faces deportation for theft!” I gave the perpetrator the evil eye and then read on, translating as I went.

“Several incidents of vandalism and thievery at some of Paris’s beloved premier dining establishments have gone mostly unreported, and it is rumored that the crimes were hushed-up by persons in high authority. However, once a YouTube video taken by an assaulted diner was posted on the internet, reports by other eyewitnesses quickly emerged. As one victim, who asked not to be identified said, “Before I could shout au voleur! (Stop, thief!) my magret de canard (duck breast) had disappeared down the beast’s gullet.”

While the restaurateurs, chefs and staff remain discreetly silent on the issue, it has come to our attention that this is possibly the same dog that made headlines in the South of France last month while in the company of three American females boating on the Canal du Midi. These women are bruited to have ties to an alleged domestic terrorist taken into custody at the Port of Lauragais on the same night Charles de Gaulle airport was evacuated. The abandoned luggage that sparked the incident in the airport was traced back to this unidentified Frenchman (who was somehow associated with the three aforementioned American women) and we suspect a cover-up of epic proportions.

We have also learned through unimpeachable sources that this diner-terrorizing dog, and his mysterious entourage of women, will leave France tomorrow on a privately chartered Air France flight.

We may never know the extent of the havoc unleashed by these four, but at least Parisian diners will now be safe from this foreign canine with questionable table manners.

Author: Jinx Schwartz

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
Goodreads: Check Out Goodreads
Google+: Check Out Google+
Facebook: Check Out Facebook

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Amazon Author Profile



Author Description: Jinx Schwartz is the author of eleven books, including eight in the award-winning Hetta Coffey series. Hetta is a sassy Texan with a snazzy yacht, and she's 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 PARDON MY FRENCH - Hetta Coffey Series, Book 8
Hetta Coffey is a sassy Texan with a snazzy yacht, and she’s not afraid to use it!

She’s living aboard her forty-five foot boat in Mexico’s spectacular Sea of Cortez, taking work where she can get it, and, characteristically, she isn’t all that concerned about any pesky legalities involved.

Docked at a pricey marina in La Paz, her cruising kitty is taking a hit, so when she’s offered a dream job, she jumps on it. All she has to do is act as a courier, babysitting equipment and sensitive documentation for her former employer to their new offices in France.

Not only does she get to revisit a country she once lived in and loved, she’ll meet with her significant other, Jenks Jenkins, in Paris. Oh là là! An easy job and a romantic vacation, all paid for; what could possibly go wrong?

With Hetta? Just about everything.


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Just Different Devils - Hetta Coffey Series Book 7
Hetta Coffey is a sassy Texan with a snazzy yacht, and she's not afraid to use it—most of the time. She's an intrepid cruiser, but wild rumors of marauding gangs of flesh-shredding giant Humboldt squid on a rampage in the Sea of Cortez could keep even Hetta tied to an expensive dock. However, when the opportunity for an intriguing and highly lucrative charter arises she talks her best friend, Jan, into signing on for a mysterious cruise. Damn the calamari! Full bank account ahead!


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Just Needs Killin' - Hetta Coffey Series Book 6
Hetta Coffey is a sassy Texan with a snazzy yacht and she's not afraid to use it!

After several months of cruising Mexico's hauntingly beautiful Sea of Cortez, Hetta's in Puerto Escondido, a place once described by author John Steinbeck as "a magic harbor." Anchored out, swaying on the hook at the whim of breeze and tide, surrounded by magnificent views and turquoise water can be magical. Stuck at anchor alone? Not so much.

So when her best friend, Jan, gets them an invite to a party at a nearby luxury resort hosted by a Japanese businessman—all expenses paid—Hetta figures, why not? Why turn down an evening of free food and booze? And besides, what could possibly go wrong?

With Hetta involved? Plenty.

Not only are she and Jan soon up to their necks in hot sake, a succession of unsavory intruders sends Hetta scurrying for a safe harbor, but not before she reaches the conclusion that some folks just need killin'.


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Just The Pits - Hetta Coffey Series (Book 5)
Hetta Coffey is a sassy Texan with a snazzy yacht, and she's not afraid to use it!

As a self-employed engineering consultant with a penchant for oddball—read: shady—projects, Hetta Coffey has a history of inviting trouble. But now that she's been hired for a legitimate mining project in Mexico's Baja, it looks like smooth sailing ahead...until she discovers that people and pesos are disappearing faster than you can say, "This job is the pits!" And Hetta Coffey as sleuth? Goodness knows she's nosy enough, but her detective skills leave a lot to be desired. Luckily for her she gets help from her best friend, Jan, and a mysterious Velveeta thief.


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Just Deserts - Hetta Coffey Series (Book 4)
Hetta Coffey is a woman with a yacht, and she's not afraid to use it. As a self employed engineering consultant with a penchant of oddball-read: shady- projects, she has a way of attracting trouble.

With her floating home drydocked for repairs in Mexico, Hetta needs a place to live and a job to pay the boatyard. Landing a project at a mining operation not far from her boat, Hetta finds herself on the tumultuous Arizona/Mexico border, where all hell is breaking loose even before she gets there.


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Just Add Trouble - Hetta Coffey Series (Book 3)
Hetta Coffey is a woman with a yacht and she's not afraid to use it.

A globe-trotting engineer with adventure in her soul, Hetta is determined to solidify her relationship with her long-distance boyfriend, Jenks jenkins. What better place for a romantic interlude than aboard a yacht in Mexico's hauntingly beautiful and solitary Sea of Cortez?

But where Hetta goes, trouble follows, and chaos is sure to ensue. After a run-in with a couple of sea serpents that threaten to rock the boat, she nevertheless decides to take on a project in the port city of Guaymas. After all, Jenks is headed back to Kuwait, so why not cash in on the best of both worlds by making some dough while living aboard her boat in Mexico?

Once again Hetta's indomitablespirit, stubborn independence and penchant for deceit will keep the reader in stitches as she launches herself and her best friend, Jan, into a sea of trouble. A pesky parrot, a drunken aunt, and a shadowy figure who is handsome in a "criminal sort of way" lead to murder, mayhem, kidnapping, and run-ins with several federal agencies on both sides of the border.


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Just Add Salt - Hetta Coffey Mystery Series (Book 2)
Hetta Coffey is a woman with a yacht, and she's not afraid to use it!

Hetta, a globe-trotting engineer with attitude, a penchant for trouble, and a yacht, is back, and this time she s steering us into hot Mexican waters.

Miffed that vacation plans with her chronically absent boyfriend Jenks Jenkins have gone awry, she accepts a job in Baja. So what if she and her friend Jan are spectacularly unqualified to take her yacht on a thousand mile cruise in the eastern Pacific Ocean in the middle of hurricane season? Hiring a handsome, if somewhat fishy captain for the trip might keep them off the rocks, but probably won t do the same for her future with Jenks. Meanwhile, a little eye candy on board can t be all bad.

Hetta s unmanageable independence impels her to tackle the very profitable, if environmentally and politically incorrect project south of the border. True to form, her irreverent nature and disregard for danger soon swamps her in a sea of inconvenient bodies, illegal aliens, a pesky whale, and a menacing Mexican machinator. And without her usual arsenal of firepower.

Set sail for Baja Mexico s Magdalena Bay as Hetta Coffey leads us once more into a morass of intrigue that will keep you laughing, breathless, and wanting more.

To quote Lord Byron, Hetta would "much rather sink beneath the shock than moulder piecemeal on the rock."


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Just Add Water - Hetta Coffey Series (Book 1)
Winner: International EPPIE Award for Best Mystery.

Hetta Coffey is a sassy Texan with a snazzy yacht and and she's not afraid to use it.

She's a globe-trotting civil engineer with swath of failed multi-national affairs in her jet stream.

Plying the San Francisco waterfront, trolling for triceps, her attention is snagged by a parade of passing yachts--especially their predominantly male skippers--and experiences a champagne-induced epiphany: If she had a boat, she could get a man.

In spite of a spectacular ignorance of all things nautical, Hetta buys her dream boat, but shadowy stalker, an inconvenient body, and Hetta's own self-destructive foibles, give a whole new meaning to the phrase "sink or swim!"


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Troubled Sea
Hetta and Jenks Jenkins live a life many only dream of aboard their 42-foot boat in Mexico's hauntingly beautiful Sea of Cortez. But their chosen sea has a serpent: Mexico's out-of-control drug trade.

After witnessing a drug-deal gone wrong, they set off a deadly chain of events that lands them in a sea of intrigue involving a best friend, the Mexican Federal Police, the DEA, US Coast Guard, the INS, and a nasty drug cartel.

This fast-paced adventure is a must-read for anyone who has ever dreamed of cutting the lines and shoving off to adventure.


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The Texicans
NOT another story about Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, Sam Houston and the boys.

Decades before Crockett, Bowie or Houston even set foot in Texas, Frederick Stockman was already there. Author Jinx Schwartz, a ninth-generation Texan, has delved deep into her ancestral roots to create this moving story of the Frederick Stockman familys' courageous determination to make Texas their home during the turbulent period between 1806 and 1836.

The Texicans was inspired by a Texas history book calling her ancestral clan a "congenial society for evil"--rogues "skilled in many forms of villainy" for their role in the tumultuous years of first Spanish, the Mexican rule. Frederick Stockman and his family immigrate to Spanish Texas in 1806 to ranch, but soon find themselves inexorably drawn into the bitter conflict between Mexico and Spain. They join forces with a dashing young Spanish deserter, Miguel Gonzales, in his successful campaign to liberate Mexico and Texas from Spanish rule. Their ties are further cemented when Gonzales marries into the family.

As Heroes of Mexico, the Texicans--staunch supporters of Mexican rule for Texas--find themselves vilified by North American settlers illegally flocking across the unprotected border. These newcomers, calling themselves Texians, view Mexico, Mexicans and Texicans as the enemy. Targets of bigotry, the Texicans themselves are torn along cultural lines as their hero-turned-despot, General Santa Anna, propels them towards a deadly showdown.


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Land Of Mountains
A ten-year-old's new home on an exotic Caribbean island proves so fascinating she quickly forgets she didn't want to leave Texas. After all, where better than a jungle world teeming with voodoo, mystery, and a really pesky zombie, to indulge her favorite pastime: snooping.

In this humorous mystery, award-winning author Jinx Schwartz transports the reader to another time and place where rivers, and little girls, ran wild and free.


Book Trailer: Land Of Mountains



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