Getting it out there

Marketing and advertising is probably the hardest thing about being an author. Most of us are happiest on our own behind the computer monitor, pounding away on the keyboard. Okay, so that’s me. I admit it, I’m a dyed-in-the-wool introvert. Doesn’t mean I’m unfriendly, I’m just better in writing. But I digress...
In the past, authors published by one of the Big Boys got multi-city book tours, advertisements in newspapers and magazines, etc. Today, whether traditionally or independently published—I do both—we are expected to do our own marketing campaign. If you don’t let readers know they’re there, you might as well hang up your pen.

The good news is, the Internet makes it possible to do a lot of marketing free through social networking. If you build up a fan base through Facebook and ask all of your friends to spread the word, adding a link to your website (because you have to have a good website), and joining LinkedIn groups for mystery writers, as well as groups pertaining to your platform, you’ll be well on your way to selling books. In my case, because my character is a forensic handwriting expert, I’m a member of private investigator and forensics groups. When I have a new book coming out, an article, or am making an appearance, etc., I post it to those lists. The results may not be huge, but supposedly, every new reader represents five more.

You want bigger? If you’re ready to spend a few bucks and have an e-book to promote, BookBub seems to be the way to go. If you aren’t yet familiar with BB (or similar services like Riffle, or Pixel of Ink), check them out. Once you sign up as a reader with BookBub and tell them which genre(s) you enjoy, they will send you an email every day with four or five listings of free or very low cost e-books in that category. You can also be one of the advertisers.

BB charges for advertising according to genre. They decide where your book fits and they write up your blurb. As an author, you pay according to how many subscribers they have in your category. Mystery has the largest number of subscribers—nearly 1 million now. The fee increases according to what you are going to charge for your book. The fee is the lowest if you’re offering your book free--currently $300 for mystery. If you’re advertising your book at .99 - $1.99, the advertising cost doubles, and it keeps rising according to what you are going to charge. These latest numbers were interesting to me because I just advertised a giveaway through BookBub on February 21st. The number of Mystery subscribers at that time was around 750,000 and I paid $260 for my advertisement. Here’s the link to their pricing page: https://www.bookbub.com/partners/pricing.

What’s the benefit? According to their site, the average number of downloads for a campaign in Mystery is 18,700, with an average of 1920 books sold. Over the five days that I offered Poison Pen for free, I had 56,000 downloads! I’ve been tracking my Amazon rankings and even now, more than a week later, I have seen a big bump in sales of all my books. In addition, there have been more than 30 new reviews (mostly good, a couple of crappy ones—why do they do that when they got it for free?!). The rights to my other e-books are owned by Penguin, so I won’t know about those sales until they send me royalty statements, but I have to assume from the rankings that they're doing pretty well.
I should note, BookBub doesn't accept every applicant, and they don't seem to take brand new books. Your book has to have a track record with at least a few good reviews first.

Will I do it again? Oh, yeah. The next book in my series, Inkslingers Ball, is scheduled for release in May, and I will make my standalone available. That is, assuming BookBub hasn’t priced themselves out of the market by then.
What do you do to get your books seen?

A Writer Walks Into a Strip Bar. . .

Joining us on Thursdays is Teresa Burrell: author, attorney, and child advocate. We all know her from a previous publisher, crime fiction conferences, or geographical proximity. She's smart, funny, charming, and one of the hardest working authors we know. And her passion is evident in the mysteries she writes. Here's Teresa in her own words:

Do you ever get irritated when you're reading a novel and something strikes you as just plain wrong? It could be a fact, or a scene, or a behavior. I don't know about you, but it throws me right out of the book. While my mind is struggling with what the scene should really be, I lose track of the story line.

I recently read two different books by very good writers and the legal scenarios were incorrect. One was a courtroom scene that wasn't at all like real life. The other, even more painful, was where the legal premise was incorrect. That's just unfair to the reader because the recipient of this information will often walk away thinking what he or she read is "the law." Sure, we're writing fiction, but I believe we have a responsibility to make our facts, our scenes, our characters both realistic and accurate.

This is not to say you have to know everything there is to know about what you write. You do not need to be a lawyer to write legal fiction, a doctor to write medical fiction, or in law enforcement to write a police procedural. But if something is crucial to your story, you do need to have an expert consultant.

I believe this to be true of every part of your novel. For example, my latest manuscript has a scene in a strip bar with a lap dance. It's not meant to be graphic, so I don't need a lot of detail, but I feel like I need to set the scene correctly. Now, I've never had a lap dance but I did go to a male strip bar once for a bachelorette party so I have some knowledge beyond what I've seen on television. I started calling my male friends, the ones I knew had received lap dances, and I've gained a whole lot of insight--much more than I cared to know. Research can be a lot of fun.

As a reader, what happens to you when you come across something in a novel that you know to be incorrect? Does it ruin the story for you? Do you ignore it and go on? Do you think the author has a responsibility to be accurate? Does it keep you from reading books by that author again?

As a writer, you often hear, "Write what you know." This is the reason I write legal suspense and not romance novels. . .

Inside the Nick

By Jenny Hilborne
Author of mysteries & psychological thrillers

Definition: The nick is British slang for a prison or police station.

In this case it's the Thames Valley Police station in Abingdon, Oxfordshire. I recently spent a couple of hours inside the nick here, with a bit of it inside a cell. To date, it's the longest amount of time I've ever been inside.

While writing STONE COLD, my first thriller set in the UK, I wanted to know what it's like inside. Apart from accuracy with the procedural stuff, I wanted to get a feel for the sights, sounds, and smells. I also wanted to understand it from a prisoner perspective and know how they might feel after arrest and while they await their fate, so on a sunny Thursday in March, Sgt. Antony Maddison met me at the police station and escorted me in to find out.

First, we did the civvy bit where I went through the smart reception area to sign in at the front desk as a visitor. With a focus on murder suspects, he took through to the communal rest area and explained the booking procedure, the circumstances and requirements surrounding custody without charge, and the process for extending a detention. We discussed legal representation, the court process, bail and the numerous conditions upon which it might be granted. Regarding a murder suspect, I learned only the judge has the power to grant bail after the prisoner has appeared in court.

Sgt. Maddison and his colleague, Nick, explained in detail the system for booking a suspect. They showed me the process and equipment for fingerprinting, photographing the suspect and taking DNA, and ran through the police national computer database used to store arrest records. There was so much valuable information, I couldn't make my notes fast enough.

Sgt. Maddison then led me round the back of the station and gave me the treatment reserved for prisoners. A stark difference.

As I re-entered the station, this time via the custody entrance used for suspects, the day suddenly felt a lot colder. I was not in handcuffs and I knew I would not be searched, yet I could imagine the sense of panic for a prisoner who would face this in a real situation.

As we went "into custody"the outer door clanged shut behind me and sealed off my "freedom." I found myself first in a holding area, where a SmartWater security search was discussed, then I was led into a search room. In a real situation, depending on the offense, a prisoner might be asked to undress in here, given a custody suit to wear while their clothes are seized for analysis. It started to feel a bit more real.

Prisoners are booked into the system and go through a documentation process, whereby prints, DNA and name are entered into the computer and sent off for a match. Results take minutes. In the custody block, the circumstances of the arrest are noted and a risk assessment for each prisoner is conducted. Prisoners are made aware of their rights and entitlements. If necessary, drug testing may be carried out.

After the booking, the prisoner is taken to the cells. What a grim place. I stepped inside one of them and Sgt. Maddison clanged the door shut behind me. The sound reverberated and the immediate sense of isolation set in. I pictured images from Escape From Alcatraz, except there was no way of tunneling out of this cell. With a window I couldn't reach or see out of even if I could reach it, I had nothing but four blank walls, a stone "bed", and a flat plastic mattress for company. I was locked inside the cell for less than a minute. It was enough.

After Sgt. Maddison let me out, he showed me the dry cells, which are cells without a toilet or a sink, used for murder suspects, giving them no chance to wash away any evidence. Once the samples are taken, these prisoners would then be moved to a proper cell...it's not much of an improvement.

Prisoners charged of a crime are remanded in custody by the Sgt. until they can appear in court, after which, unless granted bail, they are transfered to a prison cell to await trial. I couldn't help wondering how much worse that might be and decided I'll have to visit a prison next to find out.

As my 2 hour tour of the police station and cell block concluded, we covered the complete process from receiving an emergency call to dispatching officers to the scene of the crime, and how prisoners communicate with legal representation while in custody. I sat inside an interview room, and got to see inside the CCTV room, which covers far more than the average person would think. If you knew how much of a town and the surrounding area the police can see...it should deter you from committing a crime.

I got more out of this visit than I ever expected. As much of the research for my books is conducted online, it was a real treat to get out in the field and talk to those who deal with crime and criminals every day, get a feel for what they deal with and see what the prisoner endures. My huge thanks to Sgt. Antony Maddison for giving up your time and arranging such a valuable tour.

Police Procedurals—The Process

By Peg Brantley

From a reader:


I'd like to see how/what you have to do to write so prolifically on police procedures.


That's a great question, without an easy, concise answer. Avoiding the fact that I'm not exactly prolific (yet), let me try and give this a shot.

Remember, these are from my perspective only. I'm hoping that a lot of talented crime writers will add their thoughts and tools in the comment section.



Reference Books

Police Procedure & Investigation by Lee Lofland

Scene of the Crime, a writers guide to crime scene investigation by Anne Wingate, PhD

The Investigation of Crime by William T. Forbes

FBI Handbook of Crime Scene Forensics by Federal Bureau of Investigation

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Criminal Investigation by Alan Axelrod and Guy Antinozzi


Courses

Writers' Police Academy (Lee Lofland and crew put this on annually in Greensboro, North Carolina. If you write crime fiction, this is a great place to get details… and contacts.)

Citizen Police Academy (I completed the 14-week course through Aurora Citizen Police Academy)


Courses through local colleges (I attended a multi-night presentation on Sexual Homicide at Regis University)


Online Resources

Obviously Google is a writer's best friend when it comes to research, but I'm careful to confirm information obtained from just any old website.

Crime Scene Writers is a Yahoo group with a lot of experts answering a lot of questions.


Contacts

Over time, writers pull together a group of people who are willing to share time and knowledge. In addition to those I've sought out, or met at obvious places (like the Writers Police Academy or the Aurora Citizen Police Academy), I've "lucked" into meeting some generous professionals. One that comes to mind is the chief of police in Aspen. My husband and I had gone to one of our favorite in-state getaways to celebrate our anniversary, and the dates happened to coincide with a major bicycle race coming through town. The police department was out in force and we happened to meet the chief. He was very helpful with a tricky plot line in The Missings.


Television

We've all heard of the CSI Effect where jurors expect a lot of scientific sizzle and the general public expect quick and accurate resolutions to complex crimes. A lot of bad information wrapped up in an hour long show. I don't bother, except for some fun.

But believe it or not, I've been told that there are some very accurate portrayals of police procedure on television. Most are documentary type shows (the ID Channel comes to mind), but at least the first season or two of Southland is reported to be fairly faithful to reality. I confess to not being a regular viewer of any of these options.




And finally, I read books by writers I admire who write police procedurals. One is our very own L.J. Sellers. I know she does her homework and if there's detail, it's right. And she's prolific.

Working Crimes with Detective Jackson

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

Rules of Crime, Detective Jackson's 7th novel, released this week. For those who haven't met him yet, here's a post in Jackson's perspective. (Originally published by Dru's Book Musings.)

Actor Hugh Jackman

"Detective Jackson, Eugene Police Department." That's how I introduce myself to witnesses and suspects, so that's why this series is called the Detective Jackson series and not the Wade Jackson series. No one calls me Wade, except my girlfriend Kera, and she doesn't do it often.

I wake up most mornings at 5:30, even on weekends if I’m working the first few days of a homicide, which often go round-the-clock. Most days, I’m home long enough to have breakfast with my daughter, Katie, then drive her to high school. I was a single parent even before I divorced, because my ex-wife is an alcoholic and not someone Katie can depend on.

And I'm a workaholic, so my daughter is rather self-sufficient. That's my greatest struggle every day: How do I be a good father to the person I love most in the world and keep my hometown of Eugene, Oregon safe from violent offenders?

At the department, I check my emails and phone messages like any other public servant, but that after that my day gets interesting. My boss, a big gruff woman named Sergeant Lammers, often assigns me a new case or wants an update on the case I'm working. Those are the easy ones. More typically, I get called out to homicide scenes during a date with Kera or on a weekend spent building a trike with my daughter. Murder has no boundaries or patterns, but I seem to catch the toughest cases at the strangest times.

Whenever I get the call, I drop what I'm doing and get out to the crime scene. I like to arrive before the medical examiner does so I have chance to look at the body and the scene up close. On television, the detective often takes a long look around and announces something like "The intruder came in through the window, grabbed the trophy from the fireplace and conked the victim on the head."

It's never like that for me. I get cases where a young girl is found dead in a dumpster without a mark on her—and no leads or witnesses. Or a whole family has been assaulted and killed and the evidence is too messy to make sense of. In my last homicide case, a young veteran was found dead in his car with his throat slit.

Solving murders is often tedious work. Hours spent looking at phone or bank records and days spent tracking down family members, boyfriends, and co-workers to interview. The case often breaks because the killer, in desperation, commits another crime or makes a fatal mistake.

Actor Viggo Mortensen

Or often, it's one of my task force members who sees the connections that lead us to the guilty party. Or a crime lab technician who discovers a key piece of forensic evidence. We're all part of a team, and we've worked together for years. My detective partners are also my best friends, because they're the only people I really trust. Chasing criminals will do that to you.

The case I'm working now (Rules of Crime) is personal—my ex-wife has been kidnapped, and the FBI is leading the task force. My partner, Detective Lara Evans, is investigating the assault of a young woman who was beaten and dumped at the hospital. Any minute now, we'll compare notes and discover how these crimes are connected. I hope you'll be there for the revelation.

And what do you think? Should Hugh Jackman play my part when I make it to the big screen? Or maybe Viggo Mortensen?

Interview With Crime Novelist Mar Preston

Jodie Renner: Today’s guest is crime fiction writer Mar Preston, a Canadian who been on vacation in California for more than 40 years.

Mar has written three suspense-mysteries and is just putting the finishing touches on a fourth one. The first two, No Dice and Rip-Off, are both Detective Dave Mason mysteries set in Santa Monica, California. I was fortunate to edit Mar’s last two novels: Rip-Off and Payback, a suspense-mystery set in the mountains of California.

Rip-Off was recently released, and, since I read it and loved it, I wanted to ask Mar a few background questions about the making of this fast-paced page-turner full of suspense, quirky and nasty characters, and international intrigue.

JR: How did you choose to write about something so foreign to you and your Santa Monica locale as Chechen organized crime?

Mar P: For decades, I was an academic researcher at the University of Southern California. All that time I was slowly veering towards the dark side to contrast my rather dry academic life. I lived in Santa Monica, and my first mystery, No Dice, explored its lively political landscape. Dave Mason, my cop, works homicide with the Santa Monica PD.

JR: Where exactly is Santa Monica, and is it really a hotbed of crime?

Mar P: Santa Monica is an eight-square-mile upscale beach city on the balmy shores of Los Angeles. In fact, it’s the place Raymond Chandler called Bay City so many years ago. No, there aren’t a lot of gun battles or gang shoot-outs here. I can't remember where the idea came from to write about Chechen organized crime in my second mystery, Rip-Off. But for the purposes of the story, I needed to raise the stakes.

JR: Before editing Rip-Off, I had barely heard about Chechnya. Where is it, anyway?

Mar P: Chechnya is small country located in the mountains of southeastern Europe. A breakaway republic of Russia, Chechnya has been at the mercy of every invader throughout history that swept across the mountains to devastate its people. It struggles to build the infrastructure of government, law and order, but often loses out to organized crime because crime offers jobs. Those who can, leave. And, of course, not all Chechens are criminals.

JR: How did you prepare to write about this?

Mar P: I’m not sure I prepared. I did the research on a need-to-know basis. Yet once I started burrowing down internet rat holes, it was difficult to stop. Like all writers, I was curious. Do a search for Chechen news sites and you'll see what I mean.

JR: How did you get the speech of the characters to sound so authentic?

Mar P: I set up a Google Alert, read cultural histories, and what novels and accounts I could find in English. For years I read regional newspaper accounts about Chechnya, its wars with Russia, and its increasing fundamentalism. Gradually, individual characters came forward and I began to hear them talk in my mind. No, I am not schizophrenic. Most writers do this.

I heard their stories and the way they speak in the comments they post following pieces in many of the Chechen news sites. The kinds of errors people make writing in English are the kinds of errors they make in speech as well. For example, I saw they commonly left out the definite article “the”

before a noun. I notice this is common to Farsi speakers as well—and probably many other non-native English speakers.

JR: How did you manage to give the reader the necessary background to follow the story without a lot of info dumps?

Mar P: Here are some tricks I used to work in background: Mason reads police reports and he strikes up conversation with a visiting Moscow police official. He meets with an academic at UCLA. I tried to integrate the expository pieces with Mason's need to know as well.

JR: The stakes were high in Rip-Off, with several levels of law enforcement involved, at times almost coming to blows with each other!

Mar P: Yes, Mason isn’t the only law enforcement official who’s interested in the international criminals strolling Santa Monica’s “mean streets.” SMPD butts up against the FBI, whose cases are often trumped by the authority of the Homeland Security. Everybody wants a grab at the credit when Mason solves the case.

Fortunately, these entities only intersect in a couple of scenes at the end of the book. That meant hundreds more hours burrowing down into websites looking for up-to-the minute glimpses into how the FBI and Homeland Security relate.

JR: Was it depressing or tedious doing all that research for the book?

Mar P: No, I loved every minute.

JR: So do you think all those hours of research were necessary to make your book realistic?

Mar P: I'll let the readers decide on reading Rip-Off.

JR: It was a pleasure working on this great story with you, Mar! And the most recent one, Payback, too!

Mar P: Thanks for the interview, Jodie. And I want to thank you for catching the many glitches, times out of sequence, and point of view shifts in both Rip-Off and Payback. Neither would have been as good a book without your clever eye.

To find out more about the amazing Mar Preston and her crime fiction novels, visit her website at www.MarPreston.com, and her blog at http://marpreston.com/blog/.

To order Rip-Off from Amazon, click here.