I am thrilled to announce that after my agent, Sandra Bond, spent over a year and a half diligently trying to sell my new mystery series to various publishers in this disastrous economy, she has finally succeeded in finding a home for it at Midnight Ink Books ( http://midnightinkbooks.com/ ), the mystery imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide ( http://www.llewellyn.com/ ). We were getting feedback like "the concept for this series is fabulous and I thoroughly enjoyed reading the manuscript" followed by…
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Added by Beth Groundwater on September 5, 2009 at 2:40am —
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I'm thrilled that Caryl Harvey, a reviewer at the I Love A Mystery website, gave my second Claire Hanover gift basket designer mystery, TO HELL IN A HANDBASKET, a great review and recommended it to the website's readers. I especially liked the last paragraph:
"TO HELL IN A HANDBASKET is Beth Groundwater's second gift-basket-designer mystery. Groundwater's familiarity with Colorado ski resorts adds realism that roots her readers into her mystery. Her heroine Claire is great fun as an aging mama…
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Added by Beth Groundwater on August 13, 2009 at 10:41am —
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At my blog (http://bethgroundwater.blogspot.com/) today I discussed books about writing that have been useful to me in my career and may be useful to other fiction writers. The list is below. To see why I recommended each one, check out my blog!
Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
How to Write a Damn Good Mystery by James Frey
The Writer's Journey by Christopher Vogler
Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight Swain
Writing the Fiction Synopsis by Pam McCutcheon
10 Steps to Creating Memorable Characte…
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Added by Beth Groundwater on July 14, 2009 at 1:49am —
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For a description of my 2-week northwest book signing tour, complete with photos, go to: http://bethgroundwater.blogspot.com/
I had a great time meeting readers who came in to chat with me!
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Added by Beth Groundwater on June 29, 2009 at 12:05pm —
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Today is the first day of my blog book tour. During the month of May, I will visit sixteen blogs, be interviewed twice on Internet radio shows, and visit the Barnes & Noble online mystery book club to promote the May 15 release of the second book in my Claire Hanover gift basket designer mystery series, To Hell in a Handbasket.
I’ll discuss the book, give behind-the-scenes glimpses of how it was written and my life as an author, and answer your questions about my blog posts. You may even ge…
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Added by Beth Groundwater on May 2, 2009 at 3:30am —
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My publisher just received a heads-up on the following review that appears in Kirkus Review (one of the big four review publications) in their 4-1-09 issue, and they forwarded it to me. I'm absolutely thrilled!
This title will publish in May 2009
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TO HELL IN A HANDBASKET
Author: Groundwater, Beth
Review Date: APRIL 01, 2009
Publisher:Five Star
Pages: 268
Price (hardback): $$25.95
Publication Date: 5/15/2009 0:00:00
ISBN: 978-1-59414-759-3
ISBN (hardback)…
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Added by Beth Groundwater on March 27, 2009 at 11:15am —
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I just discovered that my upcoming release,
To Hell in a Handbasket, is a star attraction in my publisher's spring catalog! Here's the scoop.
My publisher, Five Star, is part of the Gale/Cengage Learning corporation and puts out a catalog every three months listing its hardcover titles. These catalogs are mailed to library systems throughout the US and distributed at library conferences. The April-June, 2009 catalog features the covers of eight books on its front cover: 3 mysteries, 3 ro…
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Added by Beth Groundwater on March 5, 2009 at 2:41am —
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For quite some time now, I’ve been running a contest for subscribers to my email newsletter. Each time another 100 subscribers sign up, I draw a random number from all of the subscribers and award a prize of two books. These are the best contest odds you're going to find anywhere!
In the past, one of those prize books has been an autographed copy of A Real Basket Case and the other has been a book by another mystery author of my choice. For my next draw of a winner, I will replace the copy of A…
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Added by Beth Groundwater on February 18, 2009 at 3:03am —
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Yesterday I opened a box of Advanced Review Copies (ARCs) of my May, 09 release, To Hell in a Handbasket. Even though this is my second published novel, I was still thrilled to hold a professionally printed version of my words in my hands, complete with a beautiful cover, bio, cover blurb, acknowledgments, etc. Now comes the hard part of deciding which lucky reviewers I will send those very few copies to. :-) My publisher sends out a couple dozen ARCs to the big-name reviewers and my copies go t…
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Added by Beth Groundwater on January 17, 2009 at 2:53pm —
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Anita Miller is the new "Book Groupie" weekly columnist at the Colorado Springs Gazette daily newspaper. When her first column extolling Harlan Coben's books appeared in early December, I emailed her to tell how much I enjoyed it. I thought he might enjoy it, too, so I sent him a link to the article. My email initiated a conversation with Anita about possible future column topics, and one thing led to another. She put my book, A REAL BASKET CASE, on her reading pile, enjoyed it, and asked me if…
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Added by Beth Groundwater on January 10, 2009 at 3:37pm —
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A few months ago, the moderator of the Book Club at the John C. Fremont library in Florence, CO contacted me to arrange for me to speak to her group in January. Then the Writing Club at the library found out about the event and asked if they could come, too. Then the Assistant Director of the library found out about it and asked if other library patrons could attend if they wished. I'm always of the mindset "the more the merrier" so I ageed to all the changes.
Now the event is being publicized…
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Added by Beth Groundwater on January 4, 2009 at 3:56pm —
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Thursday evening, my hubby and I joined 28 other stalwart sleuths from the Rocky Mountain chapter of Mystery Writers of America for our holiday party at the Adams Mystery Playhouse, complete with dinner and a mystery play (http://www.adamsmysteryplayhouse.com/). The play was "Death for Dinner." It included a police detective who sounded like a cross between Borat and Inspector Clouseau and who had the audience in stitches with his impromptu asides. Our table was one of three who correctly identi…
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Added by Beth Groundwater on December 15, 2008 at 9:34am —
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I will be hosting my first guest on my author blog (bethgroundwater.blogspot.com) on Saturday, December 6th, and I hope folks will stop by and read the blog and comment on it. My guest will be Jean Henry Mead, who writes senior sleuth mysteries and western historical novels. She's a former award-winning photojournalist and magazine and small press editor as well as a news reporter/editor. The book that will be featured in this blog visit is A Village Shattered, the first novel in her Logan &…
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Added by Beth Groundwater on December 6, 2008 at 10:01am —
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My website guru, my handsome husband, has made quite a few tweaks to my author website (bethgroundwater.com) in preparation for promoting the release of To Hell in a Handbasket next year. The covers of both A Real Basket Case and To Hell in a Handbasket now appear on the Books page and you can click on either one to go to its individual book page complete with reviews, excerpts, etc. Also, we’ve updated my Frequently Asked Questions page and made some minor updates on just about every page of th…
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Added by Beth Groundwater on November 30, 2008 at 1:16pm —
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My holiday story, "Biscuit Connection," has just been posted on Sniplits.com and is available for download at a very cheap price of 88 cents. Here's the blurb: Samuel's been dragged from one of his wife's volunteer activities to another. Now it's Christmas, he's stuck dishing up mashed potatoes at the food kitchen, and he's hungrier then he realized. Winner of the Mom Writers' Literary Magazine Short Fiction Contest in 2006. Family friendly....
I've listened to the story myself and I'm very ple…
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Added by Beth Groundwater on November 20, 2008 at 3:03pm —
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Little did I know when I embarked on this new career as a writer how much of my time would be spent on tasks OTHER than writing. This past week I did the following:
- Contacted a bookstore to determine the status of my payment for consignment books, then deposited the check when it arrived,
- Mailed a copy of
A Real Basket Case to a Japanese publisher interested evaluating it for publication in Japan,
- Participated in a 20-author library signing event,
- Attended a meeting of the local…
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Added by Beth Groundwater on November 15, 2008 at 3:07pm —
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I am very pleased to announce that I recently sold audio rights to Sniplits.com for my holiday-themed short story "Biscuit Connection." This is the second story of mine that Sniplits has picked up. The first was "Covered Dish Casseroles." I was very happy with the female voice actor who read my story and the emotion she put into the dialogue.
Sniplits publishes audio short stories as DRM-free MP3 files - and offers a paying market for new and established authors. Stories range from under a minu…
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Added by Beth Groundwater on November 11, 2008 at 10:00am —
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Yesterday I received the cover art for my May, 2009 release, TO HELL IN A HANDBASKET. It's gorgeous and just what I envisioned when I sent directions to the art department. In the first scene of the book, there's an accident on a Breckenridge, CO ski slope, and Claire has to position her skis in an X on the slope to show the ski patrol where the victim is. The colors are breathtaking and give you a chill. I love how the artist "tied" it in with the gift bow theme of the first book, A REAL BASKET…
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Added by Beth Groundwater on October 31, 2008 at 10:00am —
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In early October, I looked up the Wikipedia article about the Agatha Awards (A REAL BASKET CASE was nominated for the 2007 Best First Novel Agatha Award) and noticed that I was the only author in my category who did not have my own Wikipedia page. So, I read up on how to create Wikipedia pages, thinking I would make one for myself, and was thoroughly flummoxed by the complicated directions. I did figure out how to submit a request asking that a page be written about me, however. Then, I sent an…
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Added by Beth Groundwater on October 24, 2008 at 4:13am —
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In another post from my "real blog", http://bethgroundwater.blogspot.com/ , here's some advice on additional types of promo an author can do besides bookstore signings:
During my chat stint in the EONS Book Gallery Meet The Authors event, a fellow author asked for book promotion suggestions other than signings. I realized that my reply might help other authors, so I decided to copy it here:
There are lots of ways to use the Internet to promote books, as evidenced by this EONS Meet the Authors…
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Added by Beth Groundwater on October 8, 2008 at 9:06am —
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