J L Wilson's Blog (26)

Have not had time to blog

Oh, surprise.



I'm working on 2 books at once. It's going well but I need to finish them both by October 1 so I can move on to another project. So I am seriously under the gun (ha! a pun on a crime site!) to write, write, write. Of course, I also have to attend myriad family functions -- this is the year people are getting married, having babies, getting married, graduating, getting married -- busy!



So I'll be back in the fall with my usual verbosity. Until then that noise… Continue

Added by J L Wilson on July 23, 2009 at 9:49pm — No Comments

Writer's conferences can be murder

The second book in my Fatal Writers' Conference series is out, this one set at a Florida resort (link here for information http://tinyurl.com/aenm9m). I modeled the setting after a conference I attended a few years ago, and threw in some of the publishing people I met there (as well as at othe conferences).



In the course of this series I've been able to 'kill off' several best-selling authors, a publisher, a publisher's assitant and (in the… Continue

Added by J L Wilson on February 17, 2009 at 1:48am — No Comments

The black hole of promotion

As many of you may know, when promoting a book, there is no instant feedback. Usually we're promoting a book that we:

  • wrote years ago
  • sold a while ago
  • edited a few months ago
  • forgot about once it was turned in for final line edits
  • and now have to revisit to promote it
The entire time we're promoting it, we don't know if the promotion is effective because we won't get a royalty check for a few months, so it's hard to determine if the… Continue

Added by J L Wilson on August 21, 2008 at 9:27pm — No Comments

I think I'm getting the hang of this book release thing

Obligatory mention: a book of mine released on Tuesday. Brilliant Disguise is a fun book. I bill it as "Undercover FBI agent meets small town mom. Mom wins."



Here's the blurb:



BLURB START



Nick Baxter, an undercover FBI agent, thinks his BRILLIANT DISGUISE will fool the hicks in New Providence, Iowa. They won't suspect he's there investigating widow Shannon Delgardie, under suspicion of treason. What Nick doesn't know is that everybody in town is conspiring to… Continue

Added by J L Wilson on August 13, 2008 at 10:24pm — No Comments

A look back and ahead ... 8 books, 2 years

It was around this time two years ago that I signed my first publishing contract. I think that anniversary makes me pause, just like the anniversary of my father's death makes me pause, my birthday makes me pause, etc.



I had a brief moment of panic this weekend. Am I releasing too many books too often? Should I back off? Should I wait?



Here's the scenario: I had 4 books release last year, two of which are in print now. This year I will have 4 more new books out and 5 total… Continue

Added by J L Wilson on July 30, 2008 at 10:20pm — No Comments

Have I been in a time warp? Or just in a flood?

My hometown was flooded in June, and it's preoccupied a lot of my thoughts for the last few weeks. It's a little town halfway between Waterloo and Cedar Rapids in Iowa. I grew up there and my 89-year-old mother still lives there. Luckily she's on the south side of town and the flooding was on the north side. She was without power for several days, and several family friends had homes damaged, but overall, she and they emerged unscathed.



It really made me realize how much we take for… Continue

Added by J L Wilson on July 6, 2008 at 7:00am — 1 Comment

Killing people at a conference ...

My latest book, Autographs, Abductions, and A-List Authors, is out just in time for the conference season. It kicks off my "Fatal Writers' Conferences" series -- the heroine is an up-and-coming author who goes to a writing conference and WHAM, a best-selling author dies while autographing a book for the heroine.



I had a lot of fun writing this and having the heroine (and other characters) express opinions about agents, editors, publishing, and publishing houses. And to be… Continue

Added by J L Wilson on June 11, 2008 at 10:48pm — No Comments

Deciding on a murderer ... after the fact

I'm deep into my next WIP and I haven't figured out who the killer is yet. I'm on chapter 8 (I write in chapters) and am a consecutive writer meaning I start with chapter 1 and I'll end it at chapter 16 (I have the feeling this will be a 16-chapter book). I killed off somebody in chapter 2 (she was annoying anyway) but I'm not quite sure whodunnit.



I also killed somebody in chapter 6. It was too good an opportunity -- a writer's conference, an empty ballroom, so many murder weapons… Continue

Added by J L Wilson on May 29, 2008 at 12:05am — No Comments

Yep, once again: time warp

Well, between home construction (done now, thankfully) and travel, almost another month has passed. Not that anyone is hanging on my deathless prose here, but I do feel an obligation to keep my blog current. So here's my attempt.



In the past month I've: moved into my new home office, signed one or two new contracts (don't mean to be blase, but I don't remember), edited three books for submission, turned in final edits on two more books, finished my WIP, started research on another… Continue

Added by J L Wilson on April 24, 2008 at 9:48pm — No Comments

Time ... ZIP -- I missed it

Hard to believe almost a month has passed since I blogged here. I blog in a bunch of other places on a regular weekly basis, but I haven't been back here for a while.



Let's see ... Work in progress ... coming along. I'm starting my 3rd month on it, which is about my limit for a book. I need to wrap it up in a couple of weeks. 6 chapters to go, 2 weeks to do it. Should be doable.



Home construction: remodeling. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I may have an… Continue

Added by J L Wilson on April 1, 2008 at 10:46pm — No Comments

A new print release of an old book

My second Cerridwen book (Your Saving Grace) came out in print this week -- just in time for the RT convention, in April. It's available right now at the Cerridwen web site then will be available more widely (Borders, Amazon, etc.) in early April.

This was the book I wrote when I was briefly unemployed a few years ago and it stars Hannah Paxton and Jude Brenner. Hannah was a witness at a murder trial 30 years ago, and in the present day she's a juror…

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Added by J L Wilson on March 9, 2008 at 12:05am — No Comments

Saturday spotlight: (early) Jack the Ripper meets Southern Lady. The result is ... L.M. Thomas

I'm posting early because I'll be out of town, but I wanted you to meet this entertaining author. I think we're all intrigued by Jack -- and she's got a new spin on the Jack story.

Here's a bio about this unique blend of Victoriana and Old South:

L.M. Thomas writes as Miss Mae, Pure Southern Genteel author. She lives in Georgia with her wonderfully patient husband (who helps give her the proper perspective on how to make her heroes 'manly'), and two mixed-breed adopted ogs.…

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Added by J L Wilson on February 15, 2008 at 8:02am — No Comments

Saturday spotlight: Shelley Munro: a Nancy Drew fan realizes her dream ....

This Saturday I'm 'chatting' with Shelley Munro, another Cerridwen RS author.

From the time she was a little girl living in New Zealand, Shelley Munro wanted to be a detective. She read all the Secret Seven and Famous Five mysteries by Enid Blyton before graduating to Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. Her favorite television viewing was Scooby Doo where she, in her invisible guise, helped Scooby and the gang solve the crime.



As happens with children,…

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Added by J L Wilson on February 9, 2008 at 10:53pm — No Comments

Gearing up for conference season ...

the first conference of year is looming on the horizon. Love is Murder is this weekend, and this year I'm a published author. Last year, I was soon-to-be-pubbed, but this year it'll be subtly different.

I'm curious to see what the experience is like now that I have a bit of knowledge under my belt. I know I should use it as a HUGE marketing opportunity and pimp my product like crazy, but I'm always leery about doing that (and so dislike others who do that). So this will give me a…

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Added by J L Wilson on January 30, 2008 at 10:06am — No Comments

It's all a balancing act ...

... and sometimes I wonder if I'll be able to keep all the plates spinning in the air.

A bunch of stuff is ganging up on me. I can't believe I had a day off -- where did the time go?

I'm trying to help some writers organize a contest, I want to prep a book for submission, I'd like to review 4 other books I wrote and get those prepped, and of course there's about 3 books I'd like to write. This doesn't take into account things I HAVE to do: get my cover art request in, work on…

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Added by J L Wilson on January 23, 2008 at 9:33am — No Comments

The Viagra chronicles are done!

Yea! Finished another book today.

This one was very interesting. I tried to pay attention to the process as I was writing the book. That is, I tried to get a sense for what obstacles I felt while I was writing, what ideas I considered and discarded, etc. In short, I did a sort of 'metadata' about the book as I wrote the book.

I started on Nov. 26 and ended on January 15. I write a very clean first draft, and I don't anticipate major rewrites. Figure I'll need maybe…

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Added by J L Wilson on January 16, 2008 at 8:20am — No Comments

Saturday Spotlight: a woman with a split personality

One of the things I love about this Saturday Spotlight is that I learn a lot about my fellow authors. Take today's author. I had no idea N.D. had so many books out with so many publishers. Or that she was an accomplished painter. Or working on an archaelogy degree. She makes me feel like a slouch!

Here's her brief bio and you'll see what I mean:

N. D. Hansen-Hill was the author of 25 fantasy, science fiction, and horror novels until a year ago. That's when she began writing…

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Added by J L Wilson on January 12, 2008 at 11:53pm — No Comments

How to get the word out

What do you think is the best way to get the word out about a release?

I'm tussling with this topic (it's at the top of my "Things to consider in 2008" List). I don't think there's a magic bullet, excuse the crime pun. I think it's going to be a matter of creating some interest in me, my topics, etc., and then launching assorted books out there and see what strikes a chord.

I suspect once I have a few books out, that might generate interest in my backlist and since I'm…

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Added by J L Wilson on January 9, 2008 at 8:07am — 2 Comments

Saturday Spotlight: Jenyfer Matthews -- an American in Egypt

As I mentioned earlier, I'm going to have a Saturday Spotlight for authors I've come to know and whose work I've come to enjoy along my recent journey as a newly published author.

Thanks to the Internet and assorted Yahoo groups, I feel like I've come to know Jenyfer pretty well in the last year even though she's an American currently living in Cairo, Egypt with her husband and two children. In addition to being a mother, domestic goddess, and author, she also quilts and drinks a lot…

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Added by J L Wilson on January 6, 2008 at 1:48am — No Comments

Gearing up for the new year

Don't you just love fresh starts?

I'm teaming up with some fellow authors and we're putting our heads together, trying to figure out how to get the word out about our books. To that end, I'm going to start doing a "Saturday Spotlight" here on my blog. I've asked some fellow authors to give me information about themselves and their books, and I'll post it here. Most of them write romantic suspense (heavy on the romance) not really 'crime fiction', which is why they aren't coming onto…

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Added by J L Wilson on January 1, 2008 at 9:58pm — No Comments

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