Being an author is no longer about simply writing a book. That is the job of the writer. But an author has at least six different hats that they must wear. I have been publishing three books a year for the last five years and have been wearing all six of these hats throughout the course of a normal day. On six different books.
 
The first step in the evolution of a book is coming up with an idea. Inspiration for my books have come in a variety of methods. Many of my ideas for books have come from the daily news. Current affairs and my love of Robin Hood are the combination of ideas that have spawned my release this month of The Not So Merry Adventures of Max Creed, in which a modern-day Robin Hood and his not so merry band fight for justice for those wronged by the ultra-wealthy. But I have also gotten ideas from college professors (I am Cuba), in a bar (Mainely Power), and because of proximity to my daughter (Velma Gone Awry).
 
The second step in the evolution of a book is research. One of my early books saw me scrounging around in the tombs of the Bowdoin College archives (At Every Hazard). Hands on research is the most fun, though, and following the revolutionary war trail of Fidel Castro across Cuba and digging into the history of New Orleans (Love in a Time of Hate) ranks up there as two of the best. For my Brooklyn 8 Ballo series, I have taken to reading the 1923 and 1924 Brooklyn Eagle online at a site called Newspapers.com. The articles can be dry, but the social commentary and advertisements are fantastic.
 
The third step in the evolution of a book, writing, is the meat of the meal. As writers, we often get asked, what is the secret? No secret, folks. Sit down and write. It is like anything else, the more you write, the better you get. I don’t like to take breaks, so I write seven days a week, probably 350 days a year. I’ve found that if I were to take a weekend off, or even a day, or heaven forbid, longer, that I lose my rhythm. The way it works for me is that I write in the morning and spend the rest of the day planning what I will write the next day. No magic bean here. Sit your ass down and work at the craft and hopefully you gather up enough beans to grind up and make a cup of coffee the next day and do it all over again.
 
The fourth step in the evolution of a book is editing. My books have been known to go through nine edits. The first three edits are me getting the manuscript ready for the housecleaner, a.k.a., my paid for editor. He has worked with me on sixteen of my books and we have developed a wonderful rapport. He does three more edits. The first is my favorite, the developmental or global edits. Here, he makes suggestions on how to build scenes, characters, as well as cut and delete other pieces. I usually read these suggestions while going through the three stages of anger, denial, and acceptance. First, I curse him, second, I move to less rage and more that he is just plain wrong this time, and finally acceptance and make the change. My wife, who can find fault with me where nobody else can, then does a spit shine edit before sending it off to the publisher for two more edits.
 
The fifth step in the evolution of a book is marketing. This is when the author does the work once held by the publisher. No more. Which is fine by me, as I enjoy this business aspect of the career of being an author. My marketing involves two distinctive branches, the first being reaching out to reviewers, podcasters, bloggers, and other media avenues to promote my work. With each book, I tend to send out over a hundred queries for review. Over time, I have established about fifteen regulars and am always looking to grow that number. The second branch of my marketing involves reaching out to venues for onsite promotion. These involve libraries, bookstores, rotary clubs, retirement communities, book clubs, and pretty much anybody who will have me. I strive to query 200 of these such venues for each book.
 
The sixth and final step in the evolution of a book is promoting. These involve blogs and podcasts that have been set up in the marketing phase but are more focused on live venues. Last year, I did fifty-one book engagements. The bulk of these (thirty-seven), were COST TALKS at libraries where I talked about my books and writing to an audience. I love this, especially when there is an interactive and lively crowd of patrons.  Even if the turnout is low, I still believe this is beneficial to the process, as the library has spent a month promoting me and my books. Bookstore signings and talks at other organizations can be an equal amount of fun and help expand the base of my readership.
 
Those are the six different hats I wear every day for the evolution of a book, or books. I write first thing in the morning every morning. Without writing, none of the rest matters. Ideas are always floating around. Just this morning I saw a post about the Lumbee Indians who disrupted and dispersed a Klan rally in North Carolina in 1958. Boom. Idea. The day’s research usually holds a combination of a book not yet started, a book being written, and a book being edited. Marketing involves reaching out to the old faithful reviewers, podcasters, venue contacts, and whatnot, but also the grind of countless cold query letters looking for new blood.
 
I do love the final step of promotion. This is where I get to talk to an interviewer, fellow panelists, or an audience of interested readers. If you are interested in an interview, want me to come speak, or have more specific questions concerning the six hats worn by an author during the evolution of a book, please contact me at [email protected].
 
Matt Cost was a history major at Trinity College. He owned a mystery bookstore, a video store, and a gym, before serving a ten-year sentence as a junior high school teacher. In 2014 he was released and began writing. And that’s what he does. He writes histories and mysteries.
 
Cost has published six books in the Mainely Mystery series, starting with Mainely Power. He has also published five books in the Clay Wolfe Trap series, starting with Wolfe Trap. And finally, there are two books in the Brooklyn 8 Ballo series, starting with Velma Gone Awry. For historical novels, Cost has published At Every Hazard and its sequel, Love in a Time of Hate, as well as I am Cuba. The Not So Merry Adventures of Max Creed is his 17th published book.
 
 

Ah, marketing. For many authors, myself included, marketing is the stickiest part of the publishing journey. Annoying as it is, it’s vital. As my book gets closer to publication, I find myself diving deeper and deeper into the uncharted waters of advertising, PR, and social media.
 
One piece of the marketing puzzle that I have surprisingly enjoyed is working with influencers. I’ve found this group to be hungry for content, keen on aesthetics, and open minded to collaboration even with debut authors like me. You may be asking yourself, “What should I be offering influencers? What do I put in an influencer box?” Let’s discuss.
 
What are influencer boxes?

Influencer boxes are curated marketing packages designed to showcase your book. The goal is for the influencer to unbox or feature the contents on their social media platforms, which hopefully translate into book sales and a boost to your own online following. There are a lot of other ways to engage with influencers besides book boxes, but for the purposes of this blog, we’re going to focus on this particular strategy.
 
Effective book boxes aren’t just a copy of your book in a box or envelope. They include themed gifts, printed marketing materials, and intentional packaging to get that “wow” moment when the box is opened.
 
How to get started

Start curating a list of online influencers that would be a good fit for your book. Maybe they’re genre-specific, or are aligned with other themes in your book. For example, my book takes place in a big state park, so I researched outdoorsy and hiking influencers. Once you have your list, begin engaging with their content. Like and comment on their posts, share their content to your own platforms, etc. Become authentically engaged in their online spaces. This doesn’t need to soak up a ton of time; start by dedicating 15 minutes a day to engagement.
 
How do I stand out?

While you’re building these relationships, start developing your boxes. These influencers get books sent to them all the time. Some post videos of them unboxing 20+ books they’ve been sent that week. In order to get the attention we want, we need to stand out. All of this is budget-dependent of course, but for an especially eye-catching box, I suggest including the following:
●      A gift box, not just the cardboard shipping box
●      A copy of your book
●      Information card (could be a bookmark)
●      An on-theme gift
●      2-3 smaller items (sticker, candy, etc.)
●      Short, personalized thank-you note
●      Colored packaging material, either tissue paper or shredded fill
 
As I mentioned, influencers care about aesthetics. We need to make our packages as visually interesting as possible to get screen time. Use intentional packing material to make sure items don’t get jumbled in transit, make sure everything is color-coordinated, and include a hand-written thank you note to show you appreciate them. This will go a long way!
 
Now that you have boxes and relationships, start sending out asks! Some influencers have guidelines on their profiles about how to send mail. If so, follow those to a tee. If not, send a nice DM offering to send them one of your boxes.
 
Hopefully this little how-to on influencer boxes helps you out! Do you have other ideas on influencer engagement? Lingering questions I didn’t answer here? Let’s keep the conversation going! Find me on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.
 
Eloise Corvo finds inspiration and peace of mind while skulking around her home library which her husband affectionately (?) says embodies an "Edgar Allan Poe meets Applebee's" aesthetic. Eloise has short fiction published in literary magazines like The Corner Bar, and her debut novel is set to release on April 29, 2025 through Level Best Books. The kindle version is available for preorder now. She loves mint chocolate chip ice cream, appreciates a good puzzle, and is terrified of clowns. To learn more, visit EloiseCorvo.com.

The Historical Novel Society of North America, our version of the original HNS in the UK, has announced its first-ever short story contest. Your submission must be no longer than 4,000-words and must be set in or around historical Las Vegas (i.e. before 1975). Sin City is the site of the 2025 HNSNA conference.

Those are easy parameters to digest and opens the contest to everything from Wild West gunfights to mobster influence in casinos to desert life to the tragedy of gambling addiction. It promises to be a popular contest, especially since HNS is a venerable organization. The winner gets $250 plus free registration at the conference (value: $550).

A couple of things about the announcement caught my attention. One, the rising date of a story considered historical. Most book publishers want to label any fiction setting in the 1960s or earlier as historical. As we get further into the 21st century, the date will continue to rise, but the HNS may be already moving the standard up by capping their eligible submissions setting at 1975. It was not unexpected.

After all, Americans alive today who can reasonably be expected to remember 1975 in a first-hand manner would have to be at least 65 years old. That age would make them a mid-teen when the dismaying videos of the fall of Saigon showed up on our TV sets, or when Margaret Thatcher rose to political prominence in Britain. Folks who are at least 65 today probably recall the first breakfast burrito, Billy Jean King’s 6th Wimbledon title, Billy Martin’s move from punching other players to creating great havoc as a manager, or even the founding of Microsoft. Too bad hardly any of them will recall buying any Microsoft stock in those days, although their memory banks will contain many interesting tidbits about life back then.
If you writers want to mine those memories for your stories, you had better get a move on. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, only 55 million of those geezers are still alive. That’s 16.8% of the U.S. population. And they’re dying fast.

The second thing about the HNS announcement that interested me was the cost to enter the contest: $25. There will undoubtedly be hundreds of entries, so the organization will bring in thousands of dollars—and will award $800 in cash and attendance fees. They will also produce an anthology of the top stories and will award the writers of those published stories “a small honorarium.”

That honorarium could be your entry fee returned, or it could be 50 bucks. I could even be as much as $100. If it is $100, that would be a gratifying figure for a short story writer to earn on one story. The best mystery magazines pay twice that amount for a story, but the competition for sales in those few existing magazines is fierce. Most members of the Short Mystery Fiction Society sell their work for a wretched $25 or $50, hoping for recognition and/or evolving quality of sales in the future. It takes hours to write a 4,000-word short story, hours more to edit it and tighten the prose, hours more to rewrite portions of it and to submit it until it sells. Fiction writers don’t get paid on an hourly basis; we should know how much our work pays compared to other vocations.

But that’s the theme for another blog. What concerns me most about the HNS writing contest is that it’s a money machine for the conference; is it also a worthwhile investment for the writer?

The Historical Novel Society has many expenses, as do all writing organizations, and those organizations do a lot of good for the writers of our country. They support and defend novelists and short story writers, promote the work of their members, educate them, sometimes insure them, and offer them an opportunity for fame in their annual award presentations. Writers’ organizations are an integral part of a writer’s career path. They are supposed to support themselves by the annual dues paid by members.

Other writing conferences besides HNS make money by charging for award competitions. Crime con Killer Nashville, for instance, charges a writer $80 to enter a book for a Silver Falchion, although if he or she attends the conference itself, the award fee is included in the tuition charge. For his $80, the winning writer gets a plaque.
Promoters who organize and produce a conference deserve to make money for their efforts. That’s not the question, not for writers. The question for writers is: should I pay to have my work judged by someone?

Prestigious writing contests, such as the Edgars offered to members by the Mystery Writers of America, charge nothing to enter. Besides the Edgars, others that charge nothing include the Thriller awards from the Thriller Writers of America and the Hammett Prize from the International Association of Crime Writers (North America branch). Publishers who wish to enter their authors’ works send copies of novels to the judges of a contest category. That’s it. No fee. No money-making. It’s a service.

The value of a writer’s work is marked by the awards it wins, the reviews it receives, and the money it makes. It shouldn’t rely on the writer buying a chance to win a prize. Writing fiction is a gamble where you wage your time and effort and talent; it should not be a lottery where you pay to play.

 

paulbarra.com/Paul A. Barra’s novel, “Sgt. Ford’s Widow,” published by The Permanent Press, was called “an extraordinary story” by NPR.

Joan Baum wrote (NPR, 9/24), in part: “…compelling, suspenseful and moving novel, Sgt. Ford’s Widow – an unusual narrative that links the Mekong Delta in Vietnam and Casper, Wyoming in the late `60s, early 1970s, each place invoked with rhythmic sensual detail.”
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Barra has had seven other novels published, plus many short stories. He is a former naval officer who was awarded the Bronze Star with Valor "V" and the Combat Action Ribbon for his service on the rivers of the Mekong delta, was a reporter for local papers, and the senior staff writer for the diocese of Charleston. He and his wife, the former Joni Lee, have eight children and live in Columbia, SC.

His second children’s adventure novel (Samson and The Charleston Spy) will be released by Level Best Books in the spring, 2025.

The writing process is filled with stress. I don’t believe it matters if it’s a hundred-thousand-word manuscript, a short story, or a blog. No matter how easily words flow from your mind through your fingers to the page, second guessing is inherent. Will the reader understand your plot, or the emotion? Will they care? Are you true to the story line?
In my mind, the easy part is writing the story. The difficult stage is editing. Beta readers asking why? Copy editors slicing and dicing. Got an agent? Well, they have an opinion. Publishers are waiting, red pen in hand. As soon as you blink, they’re on you. What comes next are re-writes, adjustments, updates. Your precious creation. Your baby is about to undergo a healthy dose of Botox.

My writing style is behind curtain #3. I am a plodder. I get started, put down everything regardless of order, and when I’m finished, I get busy. Each segment is its own small, stapled bit. I lay it out on the table, shuffle the cards to create order, and then look at the book. Do I like it? Yes. No. Why? Reshuffle, new read. Now, I’m talking to my pre-beta people. There’s a lot of nodding, a couple of what are you talking about, and then I’m ready for production.

Finally, I’m face-to-face with the finished piece, complete with cover, and a marketing plan. Pardon me if I giggle hysterically. Where was I? Oh, yes, marketing. When working with a publishing house, they have a plan, but be aware, a lot of it is still in the writer’s lap. Self-publishing? Developing a marketing plan is as stressful as writing the book. Is there another option? Why, yes, there is! I call it seat-of-my-pants.

Somewhere during the writing process, I’m already keyed up and telling people about the book. I’ve been told not to do this, but it happens. When I have the first copy in hand, the fun part begins. I’m telling everybody, anyway that I can think of. I love talking about the stories. It’s not so much bragging, as wanting people to read and enjoy. I’ve just never figured out that my joy might not be theirs. I love doing cold calls. I’ll talk to anybody, go to any group that will have me.

Case in point. Local church group wanted a woman entrepreneur. They might have been surprised I wasn’t writing Christian, but they were polite. During my spiel, I got invited to a neighborhood book club. Tiny, but engaging. Lovely home, husband walked in, we chatted, he laughed at my energy, asked me if I’d like to do a couple of minutes on local access TV. Wonderland, right? I showed up for the segment, found out it was going to be thirty minutes, not the ten I expected, and, are you ready? It was going to be me and the camera. Also, not expected. I explained I wasn’t good with that and was nervous. He pointed; I sat behind the desk. He sat off to the side and asked, ‘So, when you do a cold call, how does it go?’
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Twenty-eight minutes later, the lights came on, the guy held up his hand, and said, “Okay, that’s a wrap!”

Bingo, we were done, and his part ended up on the floor, so to speak.

DonnaRae Menard began writing in junior high school and has been scribbling since. She is the author of the An It's Never Too Late Mystery series. A 1970's suspense featuring Katelyn Took and 17 cats. The Woman Warrior's series, historical fiction, The Waif and The Warlord, fantasy, Detective Carmine Mansuer series, set in Boston, Mass. Dropped from the Sky, It takes Guts, Willa the Wisp, and several short stories. She splits her time between Vermont and New Hampshire, has an affinity for odd jobs, and rescued cats. Check out her website donnaraemenardbooks.com. Find her on Facebook.


 

Writing is a business. You, as a writer, need to treat your work that way. Also, writers need to understand that publishing is a business.

Book stores get hundreds of requests for signings. They have to outlay time and money for events for staffing, stocking books, and promotion. Many are choosy or reluctant to host unknown authors. Some will not host authors whose unsold books are not returnable. Find ways to sell your proposed signing (e.g. book talk on a subject that their shoppers would be interested in, providing a group of authors who can bring readers to the store, a marketing campaign for publicizing the event). Find out if they will let you provide the books on consignment.

Agents, editors, and publishers sign authors that they think they can sell their work. Sometimes, it’s not your writing. It could be that the topic/subject has been done before, and it will be hard to sell in your genre. Do your research of what is out there before you write the next bookshop or knitting mystery.

Publishers are looking several years ahead to fill their slots, and there are not a lot of openings on the dockets. It takes months/years sometimes for a book to be published traditionally. Make your manuscript the best it can be before you start querying.

Always be professional. It sounds like a no-brainer, but you want to be easy to work with. People tend to avoid the whiners, divas, and complainers.

Make sure that you are polished and that your marketing materials look professional.

• You need a professional headshot (not a selfie).
• Your social media sites, websites, newsletter, and business cards should have the same look and feel. (One shouldn’t be red while the others are pink and mint green.) The similar look and photo let people know that it’s your site.
• Make sure you have business cards with you at all times. You never know when a networking opportunity will appear.
• Have a press kit on your website with short and long biographies, headshots, your book credits, and a way to contact you.

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Writing is a tough business. Everyone has feedback, and there are a lot of rejections. But there are things you can do to be prepared. Professionalism is key.