The Trigger: It's Finally Launched!

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

After a long six-month wait, The Trigger is finally available!

Even better news: The ebook is $.99 for a few days—as a thank to readers who have supported my work.

Better yet: If you buy a copy of The Trigger on January 1 and email the receipt to lj@ljsellers.com, you'll be entered to win a trip to Left Coast Crime 2015 (airfare, hotel, registration)!

And on top of that: I'm also drawing winners for 10 gift certificates of $50 each. More details here. (Just click one of The Trigger links to get started.)

But if you're still reading this and would like to know more, here's the book description:
 

Agent Jamie Dallas loves undercover assignments that get her out of the Phoenix Bureau. But when a woman and her baby disappear from an isolated community of preppers in Northern California, she knows the risk of infiltrating the armed group is dangerously high.

Once inside the compound, she discovers that the brothers who founded Destiny are scheming something far more devious than kidnapping or murder. Meanwhile, her local FBI contact, Agent McCullen, is pulled from her team and assigned to investigate the murder of a woman with phony ID, found at the bottom of a motel pool.

Soon Dallas finds herself in deeper trouble than she's ever encountered—with no way to reach her contacts. Can she break free of the bunker and stop their bizarre end-of-world plans? Will Agent McCullen identify the killer in time to help?

The Trigger is a gripping story that highlights our greatest fear—how a megalomaniac and a hacker-for-hire can threaten civilization as we know it.

Early readers have given it 5 stars, calling it a "“An exciting mystery with a kick-ass heroine. Great fun!”

Grab an ebook now. And maybe one for a friend. At $.99, it's a steal.

Thanks for your support—and Happy New Year!

Giving Readers a Bonus with Maps and Lists

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

After a lively discussion on the DorothyL mystery list-serve, I decided to add a map and a list of characters to my Detective Jackson books. One person in the discussion said she would “never read a book” that included a list of characters, but so many others supported the idea that I knew I wanted to provide the information. Fortunately, my new publisher (Thomas & Mercer) was willing.

In today’s world of content marketing, interactive media, and bonus features, giving readers a little something extra seems like a good idea.

We placed the character list in the back of the books, so it’s there for people who want the reference, but it’s not up front where the connections might possibly spoil some of the surprises. And I was careful not to include descriptive phrases such as “sister of the killer” so the list shouldn’t be a spoiler even if readers see it first.

The map is just a bonus for people who like a visual orientation. We placed it in front, and it only includes a small portion of central Eugene. But at least readers will be able see where the police department is in relationship to the jail and the university, for example.

But including the map created a few questions and issues.

• Do you differentiate between real places and fictional places? What if your fictional hospital is located in the same place as a real hospital? (I told the proofreader to let it go, it’s a fictional map, not a real one.)
• What if the police department relocates, as ours has? Do you include both locations or just make a new map for later books when you finally start writing about the new address? I haven’t dealt with this issue yet, but in the next book I have to.
• What if the important places in each story—such as where the crime happened or the body was found—don’t show up on the map at all? A small map can only include so much information, and often the crimes occur outside central Eugene so I decided to leave these off. We’re using the same map for each book, so it has to be fairly generic.

The character lists, however, are unique to each novel and include both recurring characters and new characters that appear in that story only. Some character descriptions may change over the course of eight novels, but noting those changes will only help readers follow the character development.

What do you think? Are maps and character lists helpful? And does the medium—print or ebook—make a difference? What else should I include?

PS: If you haven't tried the series, I'm giving away the first book, The Sex Club, on Amazon today and tomorrow.