What's Next for Thursday?

The Woman Who Died a Lot (Thursday Next #7) by Jasper Fforde (Viking hardcover, 20 October 2012).

Reviewed by Marlyn Beebe.

Thursday's had a rough time.  Injured in her last adventure, she[s been quietly recovering at home in Swindon, trying to ensure that her brilliant daughter Tuesday, now sixteen, has a somewhat normal life.  Her son Friday is dealing with the  dissolution of the Chronoguard and looking for a new direction for his life.  And then there's Jenny, the daughter who doesn't exist.

Now, hoping to get back into Bookworld SpecOps, she is instead offered the supposedly more prestigious position managing the All-You-Can-Eat-at-Fatso's Drink Not Included Library.  She's disappointed, but decides to make the best of it, when suddenly she realizes she's not herself but a temporary replacement created by the evil Goliath Corporation.

Running a library is difficult, especially when she has to explain to the board why she's not in favour of dawn raids for library fines and deal with militant Enid Blyton fans who want the books returned to their original non-politically-correct form.

Yes, the storyline is as confusing as it sounds.  That's one of the hallmarks of a Jasper Fforde novel.  Fforde plays fast and loose with time, existence, bureaucracy and religion, but he has a wonderful way with the English language and the many shades of meaning a single word can have.

It's probably best to read this series in order, beginning with The Eyre Affair (2001) in order to become accustomed to Fforde's unique writing style.


The Penguin Group has kindly offered  a hardcover copy of THE WOMAN WHO DIED A LOT for one of my readers.  Please comment below about Jasper Fforde and/or Thursday Next, and make sure to include contact information.  Entries from the US only, please.

Tweaking Titles and Covers to Improve Sales

by L.J. Sellers, author of provocative mysteries & thrillers

In December, I did Amazon-sponsored giveaways of The Suicide Effect and The Sex Club, and between the two, I gave away more than 55,000 ebooks, and they both have sold really well since.

So I thought I’d repeat the effort with The Arranger, a book with nearly all 5-star reviews that had never gained any traction. After two days, I only had about 2500 downloads. I couldn’t even give the book away!

Not everyone likes futuristic thrillers, but The Hunger Games is huge bestseller, so there is an audience for the genre. I decided that the problem was the name. The Arranger just didn’t have enough intrigue or power. It was one of two choices at the time, and my husband really liked it, and I let him talk me into using it—against my better judgment.

So I changed the title to The Gauntlet Assassin and did a two-day giveaway...with a terrific download response. The ebook has been selling steadily since at five times the rate of its previous sales. Yeah! But I think it has even more potential, so I’m having a new cover created, and I’m contracting with a new designer, one that specializes in thrillers. I can’t wait to see what he comes up with and how it affects sales.

I’ve also recently changed the cover of Secrets to Die For—for the third time!—and changed the font on all my Jackson books. They all instantly jumped up in the rankings on Amazon’s police procedural list.

This is one of the best things about digital publishing—the ability to quickly and inexpensively make changes. Sometimes I worry that it’s disturbing to readers but I hope they understand. I’m running a small business, and I have to ensure that my products are selling as well as they can.

Readers: What do you think?
Writers: Have you made cover or title changes and did it work for you?

The $2,400 Question

By CJ West author of The End of Marking Time 

Seems like an odd number right? Actually that’s my marketing budget for 2012 (well, most of it) and I’m giving it directly to readers to thank them for spreading the word about my work. This is something new for me, but I’ve been trying new things for years.

For those of you who can’t wait for the next 439 words to find out how to win your share of the $2,400, click here.

I’ve tried a lot of things over the years to reach out to readers. Some of them have worked. Some of them have been total flops.

Anyone remember The Million Dollar Home Page? Didn’t think so. Back in the days when I was focused on print books, I bought an ad there for about $250. If you click over, you can find the word SIN about two inches down from the Contact Me link. I’m scrunched in there between A free Xbox, a liquor add, and a dollhouse furniture gallery.

When I made the transition to e-books, Kindleboards was the place to be. Everyone was excited about e-books and after a few months in the discussion forums, I learned they were going to start selling ads. I quickly bought a week’s worth. By the time my ads ran it seemed that only authors were on Kindleboards anymore. It is still a great place to visit, but advertising there didn’t help me reach new readers.

In January of 2011, I made friends with Christian, the owner of eReaderIQ. This is a fantastic site that lets readers track the price changes in e-books they are interested in. Christian has developed some fantastic technology that works with amazing speed.

I was the first advertiser on eReaderIQ and I sold a boatload of e-books this January. It takes a lot of electrons to fill a boat! Seriously, I was delighted. EReaderIQ has been the brightest spot in my e-book marketing struggle.

Next I found the Amazon Kindle Page on Facebook. I gave away a few hundred copies of The End of Marking Time there and I made some great friends, but unfortunately as the page grew from 30,000 friends when I joined to over 1.4 million now, there is no longer room for conversation. E-book authors continually blast the page with promotions and the people who used to visit the page several times a day no longer visit. 

This is one of the sad realities of indie publishing. There are so many authors and it is so hard to reach readers that the marketing noise often spoils some of the best places to get to know other humans who happen to read fiction. The Amazon Customer Discussions forums is a prime example of this. The hostility to authors there has grown and Amazon has imposed restriction after restriction to keep authors from monopolizing the conversation.

So, if the forums are jam packed, and the venues that accept indie advertising are hit or miss, what is an author to do?

This year I’m giving my marketing dollars to the people who market my work best: readers. Each month I’ll hold a drawing for a Kindle Fire. Winners who already own an e-reader or would prefer something else can choose a $200 gift certificate to Amazon, BN, or an independent bookseller. My hope is that $200 is enough incentive to get people excited about the contest. At the very least I hope to make one new friend each month.

Anyone can enter by tweeting, posting on Facebook, or emailing their friends. Register here.

Do you have e-book marketing woes or triumphs to share? I’d love to hear them.

And we have a winner!

The winner of Clare O'Donohue's Missing Persons is Theresa de Valence.

Congratulations, Theresa! I'll be emailing you for your snail-mail address.

Welcome back, Irene!

Disturbance by Jan Burke.*

Reviewed by Marlyn Beebe.

We last saw Irene Kelly in 2006's Kidnapped. She's finally back, and facing an old nemesis, Nick Parrish (to whom we were introduced eleven years ago in Bones). In the earlier novel, serial killer Parrish developed an obsession with Irene when he was temporarily allowed out of prison to lead a search for one of his victims. In this book, Parrish has recovered from the paralyzing injuries he sustained during his earlier escape attempt, thanks to an enterprising surgeon.

Although he's still incarcerated in a maximum security facility, Irene worries that Parrish will seek revenge. Despite friends' assurances of her safety, she's still afraid of the Moths, Parrish's rejuvenated online "fan club". She is certain they are the ones behind the terrifying "pranks" that occur when she's at home alone. But when the corpse of a young woman is found in the trunk of a car parked outside her house, the body painted with images of moths, Irene's suspicions are confirmed.

Meanwhile, the Las Piernas News Express is folding, and Irene has to find a way to keep from sitting around the house worrying about Parrish and the Moths.

Jan Burke's skill continues to increase with each novel she writes. Her characters are well-described and the plot is so gripping and suspenseful that this reviewer was forced to read through the night to finish the book.

One caveat: it does help to read the Irene Kelly books in sequence; the impact will be so much less otherwise.

Hop on over to Stuff and Nonsense, where I have a Q & A with Jan Burke! One lucky reader of Crime Fiction Collective and Stuff and Nonsense will receive a copy of Disturbance courtesy of the publisher. Please comment on any or all of the blogs by midnight on Saturday, June 18th to be entered in the contest.


*Many thanks to Simon & Schuster's Galley Grab program for the opportunity to review this book before publication.