I've been in blog-silence for months, finishing Rituals and doing family stuff, but I have a bunch of talks scheduled and I'm emerging from silence to let you all know about them. If you're within striking distance of the Florida peninsula, there's a good chance that I'll be speaking soon at a library or bookstore near you. I love it when my readers come out. I write for you, and I like to see your faces.
Here is the information on my upcoming talks. The Viva 500 appearances are part of the celebration of the 500th anniversary of Ponce de Leon's arrival in Florida, and the writing workshops focus on how to write fiction with the use of my book Your Novel, Day by Day. I'll be autographing books after all the talks, and there will be books for sale if you don't already have copies to be signed. There are links to the venues at the bottom of this page, with addresses and other useful information.
If you have any questions, drop me an email at maryannaevans@yahoo.com, and I hope to see you there!
Saturday, June 22, 10 am--Millhopper Branch Library, Gainesville, Florida.
VIVA 500 talk on the Florida Faye Longchamp mysteries
Saturday, June 22, 1 pm--High Springs Branch Library, High Springs, Florida.
VIVA 500 talk on the Florida Faye Longchamp mysteries
Tuesday, June 25, 10:30 am--Leesburg Public Library, Leesburg, Florida
Authors @ The Library Writing Workshop
Tuesday, June 25, 2 pm--Leesburg Public Library, Leesburg, Florida.
Groundbreaking Reads program, featuring the latest Faye Longchamp mystery, Plunder
Wednesday, June 26, 1 pm--WT Bland Public Library, Mount Dora, Florida
Authors @ The Library, featuring Florida-based mystery Strangers
Wednesday, June 26, 5:30 pm--Newberry Branch Library, Newberry, Florida
VIVA 500 talk on the Florida Faye Longchamp mysteries
Wednesday, June 26, 7 pm--Archer Branch Library, Archer, Florida
VIVA 500 talk on the Florida Faye Longchamp mysteries
Saturday, July 13, 10:00 am--Breaking Into Print: How To Self-Publish Your Print Book--Murder on the Beach, Delray Beach, Florida
Writing Workshop
Alachua County appearances:
http://www.aclib.us/archer/blog/award-winning-mystery-writer-mary-anna-evans-celebrates-history-four-appearances
Lake County appearances:
http://www.mylakelibrary.org/news/news_release.aspx?id=726
Florida Authors Academy site:
http://www.flauthorsacademy.com/Course-description
Author of the Faye Longchamp Archaeological Mysteries
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Monday, September 10, 2012
In praise of imagination and curiosity
Some time has gone by since the passing of Neil Armstrong and the media furor that reminded us of his remarkable life is dying down. Let's face it. As a species, we have a short attention span. The fact that most of the world still knew Neil Armstrong's name, when he had spent 43 years avoiding the limelight that he had duly earned, is a fair measure of what he did and what his accomplishment symbolized. When a thinking person considers the life of Neil Armstrong, he or she can only have one response: "My God. We sent people to the moon and bought them safely home."
We forget so easily. If you want a good face-full of NASA's accomplishments in the 1960s, take a trip to the Kennedy Space Center. Stick your head inside a claustrophobic command module and look at the controls. They look about as high-tech as the dashboard of a 1960s Ford. Then ponder the fact that this vehicle and the rockets that threw it to the moon were designed with slide rules. Those spacesuits? Were they molded from futuristic materials like the outfits worn by faux-heroes in today's comic book movies? No. They were made by human hands using sewing machines. Ladies and gentlemen, if Neil Armstrong and the team supporting him could do what they did in 1969, then we as a species can do anything. We simply have to want it badly enough. And, like Neil Armstrong, we have to possess the courage to risk everything in the pursuit of something worthwhile.
There are those who question our investment in space exploration, pointing out that the money could be used to take care of people who are in need. I do not question the value of helping people in need, and I vote accordingly. There are other expenditures I'd like to see cut in favor of funding science, but my intent here is not to talk politics. And, though I believe that NASA has paid back our investment in terms of technologies and materials that make all our lives better in ways so pervasive that we have ceased to notice them, I am not going to do a cost-benefit analysis in terms of dollars and cents. I would much rather balance the ledger that measures inspiration against the status quo.
If our president were to announce, "We choose to be free of nonsustainable fuels in this decade not because it is easy, but because it is hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone," I believe we could do it, and I believe our country is not the only one that would take up the challenge. (Picture me tipping my hat to President Kennedy as I type this.) If he or she were to say, "We choose to free humanity of hunger, because it is within our reach," I believe we could do that, too.
Cynics believe that we are fueled as individuals by the desire for money and things, but they underestimate the power of the human imagination. Money buys us the toys we use to distract ourselves when our lives are empty of dreams. Right now, I think our society needs a dream.
I cannot tell you how happy I am that a human-made thing named Curiosity is running around Mars right now.
Mary Anna
http://www.maryannaevans.com
We forget so easily. If you want a good face-full of NASA's accomplishments in the 1960s, take a trip to the Kennedy Space Center. Stick your head inside a claustrophobic command module and look at the controls. They look about as high-tech as the dashboard of a 1960s Ford. Then ponder the fact that this vehicle and the rockets that threw it to the moon were designed with slide rules. Those spacesuits? Were they molded from futuristic materials like the outfits worn by faux-heroes in today's comic book movies? No. They were made by human hands using sewing machines. Ladies and gentlemen, if Neil Armstrong and the team supporting him could do what they did in 1969, then we as a species can do anything. We simply have to want it badly enough. And, like Neil Armstrong, we have to possess the courage to risk everything in the pursuit of something worthwhile.
There are those who question our investment in space exploration, pointing out that the money could be used to take care of people who are in need. I do not question the value of helping people in need, and I vote accordingly. There are other expenditures I'd like to see cut in favor of funding science, but my intent here is not to talk politics. And, though I believe that NASA has paid back our investment in terms of technologies and materials that make all our lives better in ways so pervasive that we have ceased to notice them, I am not going to do a cost-benefit analysis in terms of dollars and cents. I would much rather balance the ledger that measures inspiration against the status quo.
If our president were to announce, "We choose to be free of nonsustainable fuels in this decade not because it is easy, but because it is hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone," I believe we could do it, and I believe our country is not the only one that would take up the challenge. (Picture me tipping my hat to President Kennedy as I type this.) If he or she were to say, "We choose to free humanity of hunger, because it is within our reach," I believe we could do that, too.
Cynics believe that we are fueled as individuals by the desire for money and things, but they underestimate the power of the human imagination. Money buys us the toys we use to distract ourselves when our lives are empty of dreams. Right now, I think our society needs a dream.
I cannot tell you how happy I am that a human-made thing named Curiosity is running around Mars right now.
Mary Anna
http://www.maryannaevans.com
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Existentialism? Yahtzee? Olga the Cavewoman? Really?
I've got a new post up at the Lady Killers and I managed to work in wooly mammoths, Yahtzee, Spiderman, virtual reality, and Jean-Paul Sartre. Sometimes I wonder where this stuff comes from...
Check it out:
http://theladykillers.typepad.com/the_lady_killers/2012/08/from-mary-anna-existentialism-on-a-monday-morning-really.html
Check it out:
http://theladykillers.typepad.com/the_lady_killers/2012/08/from-mary-anna-existentialism-on-a-monday-morning-really.html
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Grab ARTIFACTS while it's free
Artifacts is downloadable for free on Kindle and Apple. Go grab it quick, because I don't know how long it will last. As of right this minute, it's #143 on Kindle's bestseller list for free books. Much thanks to my gracious publisher for making this happen.
Monday, April 16, 2012
I'm today's blogger at The Lady Killers...
Come on over and see us Lady Killers. We're ladies and we don't kill people who don't need killing.
Click if you dare...
Click if you dare...
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Monday, December 26, 2011
My holiday wishes and a gift for you...
Yesterday was Christmas and it's still Hanukkah and Kwanzaa starts today, so I'm thinking that most of you have been spending time with your friends and family, just like I have. I hope these have been warm and happy times for you, as they have been for me. I'm looking forward to a 2012 in which the Mayans were wrong and the world does not end. I also look forward to a year in which all things tend toward more peace, happiness, and harmony. We live in an imperfect world and entropy works, so I do not expect us to achieve perfect peace this year, nor in my lifetime, but I am an optimistic sort and I do think that we can work toward those goals.
I'm wrapping up a lot of small personal writing projects, preparing to begin another Faye Longchamp mystery, so my professional "new year" coincides with the calendar, for once. Until then, I've got some holiday gifts for you. Some of them are on a short-burn schedule, so act quickly.
Through tomorrow, the Kindle edition of my short story, "A Singularly Unsuitable Word," is free on Amazon. If, like me, you don't have a Kindle, you can read it on your computer.
Through midnight tonight, I'm running a contest on my Facebook Author page. The prize is your choice of a Kindle or a $100 gift certificate to an independent bookseller, Amazon or Barnes and Noble. All you have to do is go to the page and hit the "like" button. And if you read this late and miss the deadline, hit the button anyway, because I'm going to be giving away more stuff.
My wonderful publisher, Poisoned Pen Press, has marked down the ebook editions of all my Faye Longchamp mysteries. Artifacts is only $0.99 and all the others are at $4.99, so this is a huge discount off the regular ebook price of $6.99 apiece or $14.95 apiece for paperbacks. I'm not sure how long this will last, maybe till the end of the month, so you might want to grab those now. They're available on the Poisoned Pen Press site, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble.
Because of all this cool stuff going on, I've got books on a couple of bestseller lists on Amazon, and indications are that sales are going well everywhere else. I'm blessed and grateful. Along with loving relationships with friends and family, there are few things in life more satisfying than having a profession that you love. I'm grateful to all my readers and I wish you the 2012 of your dreams.
Happy reading--
Mary Anna
I'm wrapping up a lot of small personal writing projects, preparing to begin another Faye Longchamp mystery, so my professional "new year" coincides with the calendar, for once. Until then, I've got some holiday gifts for you. Some of them are on a short-burn schedule, so act quickly.
Through tomorrow, the Kindle edition of my short story, "A Singularly Unsuitable Word," is free on Amazon. If, like me, you don't have a Kindle, you can read it on your computer.
Through midnight tonight, I'm running a contest on my Facebook Author page. The prize is your choice of a Kindle or a $100 gift certificate to an independent bookseller, Amazon or Barnes and Noble. All you have to do is go to the page and hit the "like" button. And if you read this late and miss the deadline, hit the button anyway, because I'm going to be giving away more stuff.
My wonderful publisher, Poisoned Pen Press, has marked down the ebook editions of all my Faye Longchamp mysteries. Artifacts is only $0.99 and all the others are at $4.99, so this is a huge discount off the regular ebook price of $6.99 apiece or $14.95 apiece for paperbacks. I'm not sure how long this will last, maybe till the end of the month, so you might want to grab those now. They're available on the Poisoned Pen Press site, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble.
Because of all this cool stuff going on, I've got books on a couple of bestseller lists on Amazon, and indications are that sales are going well everywhere else. I'm blessed and grateful. Along with loving relationships with friends and family, there are few things in life more satisfying than having a profession that you love. I'm grateful to all my readers and I wish you the 2012 of your dreams.
Happy reading--
Mary Anna
Monday, October 10, 2011
Sometimes you *can* go home again...
I'm going home to Mississippi next week. I haven't lived there since 1984, but they still consider me one of their own, because they're giving me this year's Mississippi Author Award. (Actually, it's the Mississippi Library Association who's doing the award-giving, but they're Mississippians, so please forgive the semantic softness.) I've known about this for a month or two, but I'm still flattered, touched, and, frankly, flabbergasted. They're flying me in for an awards banquet and everything. Usually, I haul myself to personal appearances in my well-worn Toyota, so this feels rather like getting the royal treatment. I'm grateful.
I've lived in Florida since April 1987. How long is that? More than 24 years? It hardly seems possible. By contrast, I lived in Mississippi for nineteen-and-a-half years, moved away for the last two years of my undergrad degree, then returned for a little more than a year for graduate school. Let's be generous and call it twenty-one years. Since I ain't sixty, I guess it's safe to say that I've now lived in Florida for longer than I've lived anywhere else. Why don't I see myself as a Floridian?
Maybe it's the accent that I'll apparently never lose. (I sound like I've got a mouthful of magnolias.) More likely it's the six generations of my family that lived in the Magnolia State before I came along. We were there before Misssissippi became a state. We were there before it even became a territory. We were there before the steamboat that would eventually take cotton north and bring money south was even invented. We were there for the near-obliteration of the native peoples and for the Civil War and for Reconstruction and for the civil rights movement. I'm not saying we participated in those things, for good or ill. I have no idea. I just know that we were there. Since I'm pretty sure some of us were native peoples, I have a good idea that all of us weren't too keen on the Trail of Tears, but otherwise, I just don't know. As is true of most human history, I'd guess my people's feelings and actions were...complicated.
My own feelings about that history are complicated enough that it took me three books before I got up the nerve to write a book about the place. I was afraid I'd never be able to go home again.
Instead, that book, Effigies
, got a full-page feature article in Mississippi Magazine, and the magazine has covered every book I've written since. I should have known that my undeniably racially themed book would receive a far warmer welcome there than an outsider might have expected. My series character, Faye Longchamp, is multiracial, so there is some degree of racial theme to all of my books, but they've been warmly welcomed in my home state from the first. I have not heard the first discouraging word from the folks in Mississippi, not in the eight years since Artifacts
first came out. I would say that this renewed my faith in humankind, but I've never really doubted humankind, nor the good people at home.
And now they've given me this wonderful award, and I'm so deeply touched. It's one thing to get a nice review from somebody in New York City, but it's quite another thing to know that the people who live down the street from the house where you spent your childhood appreciate what you do. There will be an award banquet next week and I'll get to rub elbows with some of the nicest people in the world--librarians and Mississippians.
I can't wait.
I've lived in Florida since April 1987. How long is that? More than 24 years? It hardly seems possible. By contrast, I lived in Mississippi for nineteen-and-a-half years, moved away for the last two years of my undergrad degree, then returned for a little more than a year for graduate school. Let's be generous and call it twenty-one years. Since I ain't sixty, I guess it's safe to say that I've now lived in Florida for longer than I've lived anywhere else. Why don't I see myself as a Floridian?
Maybe it's the accent that I'll apparently never lose. (I sound like I've got a mouthful of magnolias.) More likely it's the six generations of my family that lived in the Magnolia State before I came along. We were there before Misssissippi became a state. We were there before it even became a territory. We were there before the steamboat that would eventually take cotton north and bring money south was even invented. We were there for the near-obliteration of the native peoples and for the Civil War and for Reconstruction and for the civil rights movement. I'm not saying we participated in those things, for good or ill. I have no idea. I just know that we were there. Since I'm pretty sure some of us were native peoples, I have a good idea that all of us weren't too keen on the Trail of Tears, but otherwise, I just don't know. As is true of most human history, I'd guess my people's feelings and actions were...complicated.
My own feelings about that history are complicated enough that it took me three books before I got up the nerve to write a book about the place. I was afraid I'd never be able to go home again.
Instead, that book, Effigies
, got a full-page feature article in Mississippi Magazine, and the magazine has covered every book I've written since. I should have known that my undeniably racially themed book would receive a far warmer welcome there than an outsider might have expected. My series character, Faye Longchamp, is multiracial, so there is some degree of racial theme to all of my books, but they've been warmly welcomed in my home state from the first. I have not heard the first discouraging word from the folks in Mississippi, not in the eight years since Artifacts first came out. I would say that this renewed my faith in humankind, but I've never really doubted humankind, nor the good people at home.And now they've given me this wonderful award, and I'm so deeply touched. It's one thing to get a nice review from somebody in New York City, but it's quite another thing to know that the people who live down the street from the house where you spent your childhood appreciate what you do. There will be an award banquet next week and I'll get to rub elbows with some of the nicest people in the world--librarians and Mississippians.
I can't wait.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Why mystery fiction matters
I'm on Day Two of my blog tour, guesting at John Hartness's blog and opining on why mystery fiction is important. Join me...
http://johnhartness.com/2011/07/26/guest-post-mary-anna-evans/
http://johnhartness.com/2011/07/26/guest-post-mary-anna-evans/
Monday, July 25, 2011
Look for me all over the internet this week...
I'm doing a blog tour this week, spreading wisdom hither and yon. Here's the schedule, but I will obviously keep reminding you of where I'll be.
Today is a two-fer, because Speak Without Interruption has posted an excerpt of WOUNDED EARTH (and isn't Speak without Interruption a glorious title for people who have things to say, but don't always feel like they get heard?), as well as my usual bi-weekly post at The LadyKillers, where I'm talking about technology in mysteries. Check them out!
Today's posts, with links:
July 25th: Speak Without Interruption
The LadyKillers
I'll post links as these blogs go live:
July 26th: John Hartness.com
July 27th: Bards and Sages Group
July 28th: Word Pursuit
July 29th: No Trees Harmed
Today is a two-fer, because Speak Without Interruption has posted an excerpt of WOUNDED EARTH (and isn't Speak without Interruption a glorious title for people who have things to say, but don't always feel like they get heard?), as well as my usual bi-weekly post at The LadyKillers, where I'm talking about technology in mysteries. Check them out!
Today's posts, with links:
July 25th: Speak Without Interruption
The LadyKillers
I'll post links as these blogs go live:
July 26th: John Hartness.com
July 27th: Bards and Sages Group
July 28th: Word Pursuit
July 29th: No Trees Harmed
Monday, July 18, 2011
A guest post from Camille Minichino--DO THE MATH
Here's a guest post from my friend and fellow physics-and-math person Camille Minichino. She's starting a brand-new mystery series featuring Sophie Knowles, a college math teacher, and you know I'm gonna love that one. Even better, she's talking about a relic--her old slide rule--and I love relics so much that I wrote a book called Relics
. Listen as Camille tells us why doing the math is so important...
Do the Math
By Camille Minichino, aka Ada Madison
Here I am with a relic—the slide rule I bought at the MIT store. It cost me a week's pay—$35—sometime in the middle of the last century. It got me through a mathematics major and a few graduate physics classes before an enormous, clunky IBM 1620 came in and took over.
My newest protagonist, Professor Sophie Knowles, math teacher at a small New England college, probably wouldn't know which end is up on the foot long slide rule, nor would she have the patience to sit for hours entering her data on error-prone punch cards.
Math education has changed since my college days. Whew. Welcome, technology!
We've also come a long way since Sophie's namesake, eighteenth-century mathematician Sophie St. Germain, had to hide behind a man's name to get the math community to pay attention to her. Or since nineteenth-century German university policy allowed Emmy Noether only to audit classes in mathematics and then, once she passed doctoral exams anyway, allowed her to teach only without pay.
The real Ada, Countess Ada Lovelace, was another story entirely. To keep her from going the creatively manic route of her father, Lord Byron, Ada's mother encouraged her to study mathematics. Ada went a little too far, trying to use her math skills to win at gambling, and . . . didn't.
So we've made some progress along gender lines, but women are still underrepresented in engineering, science, and math.
And not much has changed as far as the perception of math. It still gets bad press, from both genders. Math is thought of as a difficult subject, requiring a special brain typically belonging to boring people. Even in educated circles, math illiteracy is often worn as a badge.
The same person who would never say, "I hate reading," or "I can't do words," doesn't hesitate to say, "I can't do math," and sound proud of it.
Where does this attitude start? Maybe with dolls that say, "I don't like math." Or with celebrities like Angelina Jolie, who tells a little girl struggling with her homework, "I hate math" ("Salt," 2010). Or with the Michigan teacher I heard about who told her middle school class, "If you behave yourselves this morning, you won't have to do math this afternoon." (AAARRGH, if I knew her name; I'd make her a slimy villain in my next book.)
What can we do?
Enter Professor Sophie Knowles. I can't fix everything that's wrong with the levels of science and math literacy among our citizens, but I can certainly use my writing skills to present another option: a smart female mathematician who loves puzzles, beads, has a hot boyfriend who's an EMT pilot and an ice climber, and who applies her flair for logic to solving murders.
Here's my hope: that readers who would otherwise shun a book with math in the title will be attracted to Sophie and enjoy her stories.
Another title aimed at reaching non-math-lovers and helping them see the beauty of the subject is Mathematical Literacy in the Middle and Secondary Grades by my gracious blog host, Mary Anna Evans, coming in Spring 2012. Mary Anna and her co-author Dr. Faith Wallace have teamed to create a book that brings into the math classroom things kids love to read and do--things like computer games, social media, and popular fiction like Mary Anna's and mine--so that their teachers can help them relate mathematics to their own world. Tell all your math teacher friends to give it a look.
If you need more prompting to go all John Lennon and Give Math a Chance, consider this endorsement, uttered by no less a figure (so to speak) than Agatha Christie, in her An Autobiography:
"I continued to do arithmetic with my father, passing proudly through fractions to decimals. I eventually arrived at the point where so many cows ate so much grass, and tanks filled with water in so many hours. I found it quite enthralling."
If it's good enough to enthrall Dame Agatha, it's good enough for me.
Camille Minichino is the author of three mystery series. Her akas are Margaret Grace (The Miniature Mysteries) and Ada Madison (The Professor Sophie Knowles Mysteries). The first chapter of ‘The Square Root of Murder,” debuting July 5, is on her website: http://www.minichino.com
. Listen as Camille tells us why doing the math is so important...
Do the Math
By Camille Minichino, aka Ada Madison
Here I am with a relic—the slide rule I bought at the MIT store. It cost me a week's pay—$35—sometime in the middle of the last century. It got me through a mathematics major and a few graduate physics classes before an enormous, clunky IBM 1620 came in and took over.
My newest protagonist, Professor Sophie Knowles, math teacher at a small New England college, probably wouldn't know which end is up on the foot long slide rule, nor would she have the patience to sit for hours entering her data on error-prone punch cards.
Math education has changed since my college days. Whew. Welcome, technology!
We've also come a long way since Sophie's namesake, eighteenth-century mathematician Sophie St. Germain, had to hide behind a man's name to get the math community to pay attention to her. Or since nineteenth-century German university policy allowed Emmy Noether only to audit classes in mathematics and then, once she passed doctoral exams anyway, allowed her to teach only without pay.
The real Ada, Countess Ada Lovelace, was another story entirely. To keep her from going the creatively manic route of her father, Lord Byron, Ada's mother encouraged her to study mathematics. Ada went a little too far, trying to use her math skills to win at gambling, and . . . didn't.
So we've made some progress along gender lines, but women are still underrepresented in engineering, science, and math.
And not much has changed as far as the perception of math. It still gets bad press, from both genders. Math is thought of as a difficult subject, requiring a special brain typically belonging to boring people. Even in educated circles, math illiteracy is often worn as a badge.
The same person who would never say, "I hate reading," or "I can't do words," doesn't hesitate to say, "I can't do math," and sound proud of it.
Where does this attitude start? Maybe with dolls that say, "I don't like math." Or with celebrities like Angelina Jolie, who tells a little girl struggling with her homework, "I hate math" ("Salt," 2010). Or with the Michigan teacher I heard about who told her middle school class, "If you behave yourselves this morning, you won't have to do math this afternoon." (AAARRGH, if I knew her name; I'd make her a slimy villain in my next book.)
What can we do?
Enter Professor Sophie Knowles. I can't fix everything that's wrong with the levels of science and math literacy among our citizens, but I can certainly use my writing skills to present another option: a smart female mathematician who loves puzzles, beads, has a hot boyfriend who's an EMT pilot and an ice climber, and who applies her flair for logic to solving murders.
Here's my hope: that readers who would otherwise shun a book with math in the title will be attracted to Sophie and enjoy her stories.
Another title aimed at reaching non-math-lovers and helping them see the beauty of the subject is Mathematical Literacy in the Middle and Secondary Grades by my gracious blog host, Mary Anna Evans, coming in Spring 2012. Mary Anna and her co-author Dr. Faith Wallace have teamed to create a book that brings into the math classroom things kids love to read and do--things like computer games, social media, and popular fiction like Mary Anna's and mine--so that their teachers can help them relate mathematics to their own world. Tell all your math teacher friends to give it a look.
If you need more prompting to go all John Lennon and Give Math a Chance, consider this endorsement, uttered by no less a figure (so to speak) than Agatha Christie, in her An Autobiography:
"I continued to do arithmetic with my father, passing proudly through fractions to decimals. I eventually arrived at the point where so many cows ate so much grass, and tanks filled with water in so many hours. I found it quite enthralling."
If it's good enough to enthrall Dame Agatha, it's good enough for me.
Camille Minichino is the author of three mystery series. Her akas are Margaret Grace (The Miniature Mysteries) and Ada Madison (The Professor Sophie Knowles Mysteries). The first chapter of ‘The Square Root of Murder,” debuting July 5, is on her website: http://www.minichino.com
Monday, July 11, 2011
Don't ask me about writer's block...
The topic today at The LadyKillers blog is one that I generally avoid at all costs, but I've made an exception today. See what I have to say about writer's block:
http://theladykillers.typepad.com/the_lady_killers/2011/07/from-mary-anna-dont-get-in-your-own-way.html
http://theladykillers.typepad.com/the_lady_killers/2011/07/from-mary-anna-dont-get-in-your-own-way.html
Friday, July 8, 2011
Guest blogger Tracey Alley tells us what it's like to be a writer...and gets it right
Listen to my friend Tracey Alley, author of many books, including The Witchcraft Wars series and the Kaynos History tales, as she gives you the scoop on what a writer's life is like. And isn't that what we're all about here at "It's Like Making Sausage...?"
Check out Tracey's books here:
Books by Tracey Alley
There are usually three things most people assume when you tell them you’re an author. One, that you must be rich – sorry, see J.K. Rowling and co for that, most writers consider themselves lucky to make a living out of writing and the rest of us work for less than peanuts.
Two, that you must know a lot of celebrities – well again, see the big names for that. Your average writer is a solitary creature, rather like a spider, who weaves their webs inside the confines of their own little nests and rarely venture out to meet any real people let alone celebrities.
Three, that it’s an easy profession. Whoa! You could not be more wrong. Yes there are those who are born with a creative imagination – that’s only the start, not, by any means, the whole story. I can come up with thousands of ideas, that’s never been a problem, but can I craft them into something that is readable? Do I know enough of the mechanics to make a decent story into something that is not only entertaining but well written, well edited, well put together? Most of us use beta readers, editors and critique groups because the simple fact is that very, very few of us are capable of doing the entire thing from word one to the end without some help along the way.
Quite simply writing is not the simple task that many people assume it to be and it is becoming ever more complex as so many writers choose to go the independent route rather than stick with a traditional publishing house. It’s not enough to just have talent, assuming that you even have any, but you also have to have hard work, determination, perseverance and humility. You have to be able to craft a story well and take criticism with class and dignity when you’re failing in that task. And let’s not forget – just because you’ve had a great idea that doesn’t necessarily mean it will translate into a great book. I would estimate that for most writers probably 95% of their ideas end up as nothing more than that, an idea.
Then once you’ve had the great idea and managed to craft it into a well-written book now you have to try and sell it. This may mean querying agents or publishing houses directly or, if like me, you’ve chosen to take your book to the marketplace independently, you have to sell it directly to the public. That’s the hardest job of all.
Very few, if any, writers that I know are, by nature, natural salespeople. Thus the task of marketing and promoting your book is not an easy one but essential if you ever want to sell even a single copy. You have to learn the intricacies of social media and how to use that effectively without alienating potential readers but still letting them know about your product. You have to find reviewers who are willing to look at your work, and cross your fingers each time that you’ll actually get a good review. All in all it’s a tough business. Simply promoting and marketing your book can take up an enormous amount of time in your day and of course, by now, you should also be working on the next book.
At any rate you get the idea. Writers aren’t automatically rich or famous, we don’t necessarily know any celebrities and it’s not easy. However, having said all that, if you are a writer, and I truly believe that some of us are just born that way, then you love every single minute of it. All the hard work, all the editing and reworking of your novels, all the criticisms and praise and even all the marketing and promotion. As a writer I love all of it, well, maybe not the marketing and promotion side, but I love to be able to do what I love and have people actually read my work – no matter how much hard work that might take. So to every reader – thank you. To every reader who actually liked the book – thank you even more.
Check out Tracey's books here:
Books by Tracey Alley
There are usually three things most people assume when you tell them you’re an author. One, that you must be rich – sorry, see J.K. Rowling and co for that, most writers consider themselves lucky to make a living out of writing and the rest of us work for less than peanuts.
Two, that you must know a lot of celebrities – well again, see the big names for that. Your average writer is a solitary creature, rather like a spider, who weaves their webs inside the confines of their own little nests and rarely venture out to meet any real people let alone celebrities.
Three, that it’s an easy profession. Whoa! You could not be more wrong. Yes there are those who are born with a creative imagination – that’s only the start, not, by any means, the whole story. I can come up with thousands of ideas, that’s never been a problem, but can I craft them into something that is readable? Do I know enough of the mechanics to make a decent story into something that is not only entertaining but well written, well edited, well put together? Most of us use beta readers, editors and critique groups because the simple fact is that very, very few of us are capable of doing the entire thing from word one to the end without some help along the way.
Quite simply writing is not the simple task that many people assume it to be and it is becoming ever more complex as so many writers choose to go the independent route rather than stick with a traditional publishing house. It’s not enough to just have talent, assuming that you even have any, but you also have to have hard work, determination, perseverance and humility. You have to be able to craft a story well and take criticism with class and dignity when you’re failing in that task. And let’s not forget – just because you’ve had a great idea that doesn’t necessarily mean it will translate into a great book. I would estimate that for most writers probably 95% of their ideas end up as nothing more than that, an idea.
Then once you’ve had the great idea and managed to craft it into a well-written book now you have to try and sell it. This may mean querying agents or publishing houses directly or, if like me, you’ve chosen to take your book to the marketplace independently, you have to sell it directly to the public. That’s the hardest job of all.
Very few, if any, writers that I know are, by nature, natural salespeople. Thus the task of marketing and promoting your book is not an easy one but essential if you ever want to sell even a single copy. You have to learn the intricacies of social media and how to use that effectively without alienating potential readers but still letting them know about your product. You have to find reviewers who are willing to look at your work, and cross your fingers each time that you’ll actually get a good review. All in all it’s a tough business. Simply promoting and marketing your book can take up an enormous amount of time in your day and of course, by now, you should also be working on the next book.
At any rate you get the idea. Writers aren’t automatically rich or famous, we don’t necessarily know any celebrities and it’s not easy. However, having said all that, if you are a writer, and I truly believe that some of us are just born that way, then you love every single minute of it. All the hard work, all the editing and reworking of your novels, all the criticisms and praise and even all the marketing and promotion. As a writer I love all of it, well, maybe not the marketing and promotion side, but I love to be able to do what I love and have people actually read my work – no matter how much hard work that might take. So to every reader – thank you. To every reader who actually liked the book – thank you even more.
Monday, July 4, 2011
American history, walking around on two legs...
As luck would have it, I am the Independence Day blogger over at Poisoned Pen Press's website. How fitting, considering that I write about a woman of European, African, and Native American descent who I have described as "American history, walking around on two legs."
Come see what I have to say about Faye and the Fourth of July and the pursuit of happiness:
Come see what I have to say about Faye and the Fourth of July and the pursuit of happiness:
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Back to the salt mines soon, but not yet...
As I continue my little series of posts on the things we writers do after we turn in our manuscripts, I see a little blot of work approaching on my calendar. I got an email from my editor with some overview-type comments on Saturday. She said that the edited manuscript was in the mail to me. This means that there's some work winging its way in my direction, but it ain't here yet.
So what did I do today? I took my daughter swimming. I've lived in this town since 1987 and I've never been to the big public pool at Westside Park. So we pulled on our bathing suits and drove over there. (No, there will be no photodocumentation.) I swam a few laps. (Very few.) We laid out in the sun, which is a pointless endeavor in these cancer-sensitive times when even the weakest tanning oil is SPF 8, but we did it anyway. It was fabulous.
I've been too busy luxuriating in the feeling of finishing two books to actually blog about how wonderful it is, so maybe I'll stretch this series out through next week, when I'll be working on those edits. Maybe it will assuage the pain if I take occasional breaks to reminisce with you people about time spent frolicking and carefree.
Since I elected not to burn your retinas with photos from our pool jaunt, I'll close with photos of something else pleasant with which I've occupied my time: my little granddaughter. :) In the meantime, I think I'll do something pointless like organize the sheet music that I've been accumulating since I was eight...
Mary Anna
So what did I do today? I took my daughter swimming. I've lived in this town since 1987 and I've never been to the big public pool at Westside Park. So we pulled on our bathing suits and drove over there. (No, there will be no photodocumentation.) I swam a few laps. (Very few.) We laid out in the sun, which is a pointless endeavor in these cancer-sensitive times when even the weakest tanning oil is SPF 8, but we did it anyway. It was fabulous.
I've been too busy luxuriating in the feeling of finishing two books to actually blog about how wonderful it is, so maybe I'll stretch this series out through next week, when I'll be working on those edits. Maybe it will assuage the pain if I take occasional breaks to reminisce with you people about time spent frolicking and carefree.
Since I elected not to burn your retinas with photos from our pool jaunt, I'll close with photos of something else pleasant with which I've occupied my time: my little granddaughter. :) In the meantime, I think I'll do something pointless like organize the sheet music that I've been accumulating since I was eight...
Mary Anna
Monday, June 13, 2011
I'm still not working! This is great!
Gardening is one fun activity that I didn't set aside in order to finish Plunder. I have a suburban back yard that's small but sunny, and this is my fourth summer to have a garden. Every March, I get cocky and make it bigger. Every July, Mother Nature expresses her amusement by sending me pickleworms and weeds and powdery mildew and bacterial wilt and just enough tasty vegetables to make me want to keep trying.
I planted a lot of tomatoes, because they're my favorite, but I'm just getting a small but steady stream of them. The zucchini and yellow squash plants look horrible and disease-ridden, but they're managing to make a few fruits a week and I just can't bear to yank them out of the ground when they're trying so hard. For the third year in a row, I've got a beautiful crop of peppers, both sweet and hot. The pole beans and okra are producing so little that I've got a bag of both kinds of pods in the refrigerator. I'm hoping to collect enough of them to cook before the oldest things in the bags die of old age. The black-eyed peas and eggplant are starting to come in, and they're delicious. But the surprise has been the cucumbers. I've got two measly little cucumber plants, but they're making more than my tiny household can eat.
So I made pickles! Bread-and-butter pickles, to be exact. I'm not buried in cucumbers, so I didn't have enough to make a great big pile of pickles. Just six jars. But they're good! I used the standard recipe that shows up in all the southern cookbooks, but I threw in some sweet and hot peppers, because I had some in the garden. And nobody at our house likes celery, so I left out the celery seed and increased the mustard seed instead.
I learned that making pickles at midnight is way more fun than editing your own manuscript for the fifth time at midnight. Here's the photographic proof. (Minus the jar that's in the refrigerator, because we already opened it and started eating...)
I planted a lot of tomatoes, because they're my favorite, but I'm just getting a small but steady stream of them. The zucchini and yellow squash plants look horrible and disease-ridden, but they're managing to make a few fruits a week and I just can't bear to yank them out of the ground when they're trying so hard. For the third year in a row, I've got a beautiful crop of peppers, both sweet and hot. The pole beans and okra are producing so little that I've got a bag of both kinds of pods in the refrigerator. I'm hoping to collect enough of them to cook before the oldest things in the bags die of old age. The black-eyed peas and eggplant are starting to come in, and they're delicious. But the surprise has been the cucumbers. I've got two measly little cucumber plants, but they're making more than my tiny household can eat.
So I made pickles! Bread-and-butter pickles, to be exact. I'm not buried in cucumbers, so I didn't have enough to make a great big pile of pickles. Just six jars. But they're good! I used the standard recipe that shows up in all the southern cookbooks, but I threw in some sweet and hot peppers, because I had some in the garden. And nobody at our house likes celery, so I left out the celery seed and increased the mustard seed instead.
I learned that making pickles at midnight is way more fun than editing your own manuscript for the fifth time at midnight. Here's the photographic proof. (Minus the jar that's in the refrigerator, because we already opened it and started eating...)
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Back from the great beyond...though perhaps temporarily...
I submitted the manuscript for Plunder late Wednesday night. Yay!
I've either been working on that book or thinking about working on that book or feeling guilty about working on that book since...well, I'm not sure how long. Stress and terror tend to make one lose one's sense of time, so I can't tell you exactly. I signed the contract over a year ago...I think...and kablooie. Daily crises erupted for the entirety of 2010, and all of a sudden it was June 2011 and I was looking at a deadline that was pushed back twice. I'm obsessive about deadlines and asking for extensions made me absolutely nuts.
Compounding the problem was that I signed another contract more than a year ago, to co-write a book on math literacy. We turned in the manuscript in April but, you guessed it, that deadline had already been shoved back when we did so. I cannot tell you how happy it makes me to know that I have two completed manuscripts, and that they're both on their editors' desks. And not mine.
They'll both be coming back for final edits. And again, for me to review the copyedits. Still it's easier to fix something than to create it from scratch. For good or ill, those books are written. Until they come back, my time is my own.
So what did I do to celebrate? Well, I spent all of Thursday cleaning off my desk and filing the paperwork that had accumulated in a towering mound on top of it. The fact that this felt fantastic, kinda like scratching an itch, is a symptom of my mental state for the past year.
What? You were expecting drunkenness and debauchery. Clearly, you're reading the wrong blog. But if you can do without drunkenness and debauchery, I'll keep you posted on what I'm doing to enjoy my brief window of freedom.
In that spirit, would you take a look at this desk???
I've either been working on that book or thinking about working on that book or feeling guilty about working on that book since...well, I'm not sure how long. Stress and terror tend to make one lose one's sense of time, so I can't tell you exactly. I signed the contract over a year ago...I think...and kablooie. Daily crises erupted for the entirety of 2010, and all of a sudden it was June 2011 and I was looking at a deadline that was pushed back twice. I'm obsessive about deadlines and asking for extensions made me absolutely nuts.
Compounding the problem was that I signed another contract more than a year ago, to co-write a book on math literacy. We turned in the manuscript in April but, you guessed it, that deadline had already been shoved back when we did so. I cannot tell you how happy it makes me to know that I have two completed manuscripts, and that they're both on their editors' desks. And not mine.
They'll both be coming back for final edits. And again, for me to review the copyedits. Still it's easier to fix something than to create it from scratch. For good or ill, those books are written. Until they come back, my time is my own.
So what did I do to celebrate? Well, I spent all of Thursday cleaning off my desk and filing the paperwork that had accumulated in a towering mound on top of it. The fact that this felt fantastic, kinda like scratching an itch, is a symptom of my mental state for the past year.
What? You were expecting drunkenness and debauchery. Clearly, you're reading the wrong blog. But if you can do without drunkenness and debauchery, I'll keep you posted on what I'm doing to enjoy my brief window of freedom.
In that spirit, would you take a look at this desk???
Saturday, April 16, 2011
For Apple...
This is a special post for a special person. I have a friend called Apple who has managed to work and take care of a family and make music and make a home, all while battling serious illness. She has had a bad week.
Apple's friends are pooling their funds to help her family with housekeeping or food or whatever else will make this tough time easier. Some of this blogs followers know Apple and this just seemed to be a convenient place for them to donate to this effort. If you know her and would like to forward this link to some of her friends, please do. All our hopes and prayers go out to Apple and to those who care about her. Thank you for your donations.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
If only ebook pricing were an intuitively obvious task...
I've been doing a little mid-month accounting. I'm on track to sell fewer books than I did last month, but I have already made more money, and there are still eight days left in March. I think I'll make significantly more money than I did in February. When it comes to keeping score, I'll go with money every time. This is a business, after all. If I wanted to give my work away, I'd post it here.
It's not a slam-dunk that I'll make this month's goal: to gross enough money through sales of my self-published e-books to pay my cell phone bill with its obscenely priced data plan, but it's very possible. So how did I accomplish this marked improvement? By doing...um...not very much.
That's not true. I've posted on message boards and offered some free books on sites frequented by readers. A friend is letting me run a banner ad on her site. All of these things were free. All of them might be expected to generate a few impulse buys, but not all that many.
I didn't place any ads. I offered no special prices this month. This last thing is significant, because lowering the price of my biggest seller, Wounded Earth
, costs me big-time. Its regular price, $2.99, is the minimum price that qualifies me for Amazon's 70% royalty. Lowering it to $2.98 would drop me to a 35% royalty, decreasing my income per book by half. Lowering it to the price that popular wisdom says will attract attention, $0.99, decreases my income per book by a factor of six. This bargain price had better generate some serious sales, or it is very expensive for me. I tried it last month, and I can't say that the results were worthwhile.
People say that you have to drop the price and leave it there for a while to get results. I'm not saying that I won't try that at some point, but it will be part of a carefully considered plan, and it won't be soon. I want to try some other marketing strategies first, because I'm concerned that bargain-basement prices devalue my professional work. And I am a professional, with six books in print that people routinely pay more than $0.99 for the pleasure of reading. The improvement in my income this month, which occurred while maintaining my prices at a level that seems to be becoming established as a professional rate, encourages me to think that I can build a bigger following without slashing prices.
Yes, I know cutting prices can increase sales and improve that coveted Amazon ranking, driving yet more sales in that very desirable upward spiral. Therefore, I am not saying that I won't give it another try. My short-term plan, though, is centered around two things--buying ads and getting more reviews. I've been giving away review copies in selected venues. (See, I'm not against free books when there is a business-related reason for giving them away. I just don't want to devalue my work unnecessarily.)
I have also bought some ads, most of which will hit in April. I'm lucky enough to have several books already out there earning money, so that I can afford to do this. I've decided to take advantage of that opportunity. I saw marked results from ads purchased last month, but they hit while my price was at $0.99, so the income was low. I guess I'll see whether those ads will attract readers at a $2.99 price point. It's a gamble, but so is any business venture.
How will this all work out? I guess I'll find out soon enough.
It's not a slam-dunk that I'll make this month's goal: to gross enough money through sales of my self-published e-books to pay my cell phone bill with its obscenely priced data plan, but it's very possible. So how did I accomplish this marked improvement? By doing...um...not very much.
That's not true. I've posted on message boards and offered some free books on sites frequented by readers. A friend is letting me run a banner ad on her site. All of these things were free. All of them might be expected to generate a few impulse buys, but not all that many.
I didn't place any ads. I offered no special prices this month. This last thing is significant, because lowering the price of my biggest seller, Wounded Earth
, costs me big-time. Its regular price, $2.99, is the minimum price that qualifies me for Amazon's 70% royalty. Lowering it to $2.98 would drop me to a 35% royalty, decreasing my income per book by half. Lowering it to the price that popular wisdom says will attract attention, $0.99, decreases my income per book by a factor of six. This bargain price had better generate some serious sales, or it is very expensive for me. I tried it last month, and I can't say that the results were worthwhile.People say that you have to drop the price and leave it there for a while to get results. I'm not saying that I won't try that at some point, but it will be part of a carefully considered plan, and it won't be soon. I want to try some other marketing strategies first, because I'm concerned that bargain-basement prices devalue my professional work. And I am a professional, with six books in print that people routinely pay more than $0.99 for the pleasure of reading. The improvement in my income this month, which occurred while maintaining my prices at a level that seems to be becoming established as a professional rate, encourages me to think that I can build a bigger following without slashing prices.
Yes, I know cutting prices can increase sales and improve that coveted Amazon ranking, driving yet more sales in that very desirable upward spiral. Therefore, I am not saying that I won't give it another try. My short-term plan, though, is centered around two things--buying ads and getting more reviews. I've been giving away review copies in selected venues. (See, I'm not against free books when there is a business-related reason for giving them away. I just don't want to devalue my work unnecessarily.)
I have also bought some ads, most of which will hit in April. I'm lucky enough to have several books already out there earning money, so that I can afford to do this. I've decided to take advantage of that opportunity. I saw marked results from ads purchased last month, but they hit while my price was at $0.99, so the income was low. I guess I'll see whether those ads will attract readers at a $2.99 price point. It's a gamble, but so is any business venture.
How will this all work out? I guess I'll find out soon enough.
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About Me
- Mary Anna Evans
- Mary Anna Evans has degrees in physics and engineering, but her heart is in the past. Her series character, Faye Longchamp, lives the exciting life of an archaeologist, and Mary Anna envies her a little. Faye Longchamp's growing list of adventures include Artifacts, Relics, Effigies, Findings, Floodgates and, coming in October, Strangers. Mary Anna is a co-founder and board member of the Anhinga Writers' Studio. The Studio presents an annual summer workshop in Gainesville, Florida, providing writing instruction and networking for fiction and nonfiction authors of all levels of experience. For information on this year's summer workshop, visit www.anhingawriters.org.
