M. Louisa Locke's Blog, page 3

Beatrice Bests the Burglars and 10th Year Anniversary

 

[image error]Ten Years ago this month, I wrote my first blog post and published my first novel, Maids of Misfortune. I was also anticipating the birth of my first grandchild and about to turn sixty. Over all, a season of new beginnings.

At the time, the self-publishing industry was in its infancy, and I had no idea whether or not anyone would ever read my blog or my book. But I had written the first draft of that book thirty years earlier, and just knowing that someone, other than my writers group and close friends, would finally get to meet Annie, the pretend clairvoyant, Nate Dawson, the handsome local lawyer, Dandy, the Boston Terrier, and all the other O’Farrell Street boardinghouse residents was enough. My plan, however, was to follow up that first book with a series of mysteries that would feature the occupations that women held in Victorian San Francisco.

Fast forward ten years, and I not only have written six books, three novellas, and five short stories in the Victorian San Francisco Mystery series, but I have also helped create a multi-author science fiction series, the Paradisi Chronicles, in which I have written three novels and a short story and co-written a novella with my daughter.

Counting both series, over a million and a half of these works are in the hands of readers––readers whose positive responses keep me motivated every day to keep telling those stories.

During these ten years, I have also made wonderful friends among the global indie author community, learned all sorts of new tech skills, and challenged my intellect as I continued to do research into late 19th century history for my mystery series and learned about wormholes, emdrive technology, space elevators, and interstellar travel for my science fiction series.

As a result, I get up every day, excited to hear from fans, read the facebook and blog posts of fellow writers, try out new marketing approaches, do a little research into such fun topics as how many homes in 1882 San Francisco already had telephone lines. Best of all, I get to spend my day writing down the stories in my head, knowing that there are people out there waiting to read or hear those stories.

And, I look forward to spending the next ten years doing more of the same. Right now, I have a novella in the science fiction universe half-written, and I am 63,000 words along in Lethal Remedies, the seventh full-length book in my Victorian San Francisco mystery series.

In short, this is a very happy anniversary, and I hope you will all enjoy the latest short story, which I just published this week. It is now available as an ebook everywhere, and it will soon come out as an audiobook.

 

[image error]Beatrice O’Rourke, the O’Farrell Street boardinghouse cook, has the afternoon off.  What could possibly go wrong?

This short story in the Victorian San Francisco Mystery series features one of the most beloved characters in the series, as well as giving the reader a tour of the boardinghouse itself. Chronologically, this story come soon after the events in Scholarly Pursuits, so if you don’t like spoilers, you might want to wait to read it until you have finished that book.

Now available at 99 cents on Kindle, Kobo, Nook, Apple Books

M. Louisa Locke, December 6, 2019

 

 

 

Taking Science Fiction Series out of Kindle Unlimited

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Just a quick announcement that this is the last day my Paradisi Chronicles science fiction series (Between Mountain and Sea, Under Two Moons, Through Ddaera’s Touch–and the Boxed Set) will be in Kindle Unlimited.

If you subscribe to KU, and think you might be interested in trying them, you will need to borrow them now because I’m not sure if or when I might put them in KU again.

For those of you who don’t have Kindles and use other eReaders, watch here for announcements when the books show up in other retailers–which should be in a week or less.

Thanks,

M. Louisa Locke, November 24, 2019

 

Experience the winter holidays, Victorian San Francisco Style

[image error]Pilfered Promises, the fifth book in my Victorian San Francisco Mystery series is set in the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and it is fun to promote it during this time of year. This year, it is the audiobook version of the book that is being discounted, only $1.99 at AppleBooks and Chirp throughout November.

In addition, here is a reprint of a post I did several years ago on the Indie Brag website.

A Victorian San Francisco Christmas

Because the most recent book in my Victorian San Francisco Mystery series, Pilfered Promises, is set during the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas, 1880, I spent a good deal of time researching how residents of that city were celebrating the holidays that year, including looking for articles in the San Francisco Chronicle. What I found was that many of the traditions that we are familiar with today started in the Nineteenth century…including the importance of advertising special holiday sales!

The Arcade: We are offering this week SPECIAL and EXTRAORDINARY INDUCEMENTS to buyers of HOLIDAY PRESENTS, especially in our SILK DEPARTMENT” ––San Francisco Chronicle, December 19, 1880

However, these traditions were actually relatively new. Before the mid-1880s, most native-born Americans, particularly Protestants from the Northeast, saw Thanksgiving and not Christmas as the key national holiday. In fact, throughout the 1800s, a number of Protestant denominations were very resistant to the celebration of the birth of Christ in any fashion beyond religious observances.

Not surprisingly, it was the Southern state of Louisiana, where there was a significant Catholic population, that first declared December 25th a holiday (in 1837), and Christmas wasn’t declared a national legal holiday until 1875. The huge influx of European immigrants to the United States, starting in the 1840s, many from Catholic countries, also played an important role in shaping the way Christmas began to be celebrated, especially in the larger cities.

This multi-cultural perspective certainly held true for San Francisco in 1880, which makes sense since at that date three-quarters of the city’s population of over 233,000 were immigrants or their native-born children.

The Stocking:

But the presents would lose half their charm did they not come through the medium of the huge stocking, religiously pinned to the chimney side…” ––San Francisco Chronicle, December 25, 1880

On Christmas day, the San Francisco Chronicle detailed some of the different ways that the holiday had been observed around the city, mentioning that one of the key traditions practiced by native-born San Franciscans was hanging stockings on Christmas eve.

An article on the history of Christmas traditions suggests that the descendants of New England Puritans, many who still were uncomfortable with anything that smacked of a secular celebration of Christ’s birth, were particularly enthusiastic about this stocking tradition because it shifted the main celebration to Christmas Eve.

Hence, the enormous popularity of the now famous poem, T’was the Night Before Christmas, which was first published in 1823. By 1880, for many Americans, the key elements of this poem…the stockings hung on the fireplace, the severe Saint Nicholas transformed into Santa Claus––a jolly old elf with his sleigh and reindeer––and the emphasis on presents for children, had become the personification of Christmas.

As an interesting side-note, one source suggests that it was the Irish (the largest immigrant group in San Francisco in 1880) who introduced the American tradition of leaving out milk and cookies for Santa Claus. Evidently this was based on their homeland tradition of the “laden table” where on Christmas Eve the door was left open for Mary and Joseph to enter and find milk and a loaf of sweet bread to eat on their journey.

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The Tree:

Christmas eve, and the parted curtains of many a gayly-lighted San Francisco home revealed a fancifully decked Christmas tree and happy faces of children as they viewed the gifts it bore for them.”––San Francisco Chronicle, December 25, 1880

Germans are generally credited with the use of a decorated fir tree as an important part of Christmas celebrations, a tradition they introduced in England and the United States. For England, it was the marriage of Prince Albert to Queen Victoria (and the introduction of a tree at Windsor Castle by 1841) made this a popular Victorian custom in England.

However, in America, it was the successive waves of German immigrants (Germans were the second largest group of immigrants in San Francisco in 1880) that made the evergreen tree a central part of the American Christmas tradition. Germany was also the source of many of the ideas about what should be used to decorate the tree, and their tradition of filling the tree with candles (which makes me shudder over the fire hazard) and tying small gifts and bags of candied sweets on to the branches had become fairly universal in America by 1880. The hand-made silver wire and glass ornaments found in wealthier homes were often German imports, although by 1880, Woolworth sold inexpensive commercially produced ornaments as well.

I was delighted to discover that tinsel was another 19th century German tradition that was imported to America. Made first of silver, by the 1800s tinsel was mixed with other metals like lead and mass produced, which was supposed to cut back on how easily it tarnished. I had my protagonist, Annie, decide not to use tinsel on her tree to honor my late father, who hated the stuff! But they did string popcorn, which, along with cranberries, was an American addition to the German tradition of stringing other edibles like nuts, dates, and gingerbread cookies on the tree.

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Other Traditions:

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the English (third largest immigrant group in San Francisco in 1880) were the source of many of the games played in middle-class parlors. And supposedly it was the English residents in San Francisco who complained when they couldn’t find mistletoe to hang in doorways. The idea of kissing under mistletoe was initially a tradition among the English servant classes, but it was popularized, as many Victorian Christmas traditions were, in the mid 19th century fiction of Charles Dickens.

The singing of carols seem to have multiple origins and been around for more centuries, for example, Angels We Have Heard on Highwas composed in 13th century. However, a good number of classic carols like It Came Upon A Midnight Clear, We Three Kings of Orient Are, and O Little Town of Bethlehem, were composed in the United States in the mid 19th century.

The Department Store Windows

[image error] By 1875, Macy’s Company had started what would be come a widespread tradition of decorating its store windows with a series of tableaux for Christmas. (I certainly remember the yearly trip to “downtown” Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the 1950s to see the Gimbels’ and Horne’s Christmas store windows.) Since the mystery in Pilfered Promises is set in a fictional department store modeled on Macy’s (called the Silver Strike Bazaar), I decided to give this store a splendid window display. Here is a short section from the novel where Kathleen Hennessey, an Irish maid, gets her first glimpse of the Silver Strike windows, all decorated for the holidays.

Miss Blaine’s coachman had dropped them off right in front of the Silver Strike Bazaar. Made Kathleen feel like royalty. This gave them three hours to shop before going to lunch at the Silver Strike restaurant at eleven. Then the coachman would be back to pick the three of them up and bring them back to the boarding house. She would get back to work and Miss Dawson and Miss Blaine would meet Seth Timmons and Mr. Nate’s friend, Mitchell. The four of them were going down the peninsula to the San Bruno Mountains to cut down a tree. She’d never been in a house before that brought in a real tree for the holidays.

“Mrs. O’Rourke said that Mrs. Dawson’s aunt and uncle always had a large fir tree in the parlor and she was glad that the mistress was starting that tradition up again. Although she said it was a nuisance to keep everyone from tracking needles all through the house.

“The window in front of her looked like a tiny parlor itself, with a small tree covered all over with red bows, strings of tiny brightly colored balls, and silver strips that Miss Kitty called tinsel. Kathleen got goosebumps picturing what their own parlor would look like by the end of this evening.

“Miss Dawson, walking from one window to the next, told Kathleen how each scene was from a famous story about Santa Claus and a carriage pulled by reindeer.”––Pilfered Promises

Other Promotions

 

Between Mountain and Sea and Under Two Moons, the first two books in my Science Fiction trilogy, will be on sale on Kindle between November 1-7. Between Mountain and Sea will only be 99 cents, while Under Two Moons will be $1.99.

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In addition, click HERE for a couple of cozy mystery suggestions you might enjoy as the night grow colder.

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Happy reading,

M. Louisa Locke, November 1, 2019

Girls Rule

I’ve joined a promotion with over 50 other authors who have books with strong young female protagonists. All of them are free on Kindle Unlimited and can be accessed Here.

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Speaking of strong young women, if you haven’t read Bloody Lessons, the third book in my Victorian San Francisco Mystery series that introduces Nate Dawson’s younger sister Laura, you might want to check out the audiobook version of this book, which is still on sale at the low price of $2.99 until October 31 on AppleBooks, Nook, and Chirp.

Uneasy Spirits Free and Bloody Lessons Discounts

[image error]I like to promote the second book in my Victorian San Francisco series, Uneasy Spirits, in October, because it is such a perfect read for those people who like a little taste of the supernatural with their mysteries. Even though in this novel, Annie is tasked with unmasking a fraudulent spiritualist, her encounters with the young girl, Evie May, are just a bit disconcerting. In addition, this book let me explore the ways that San Franciscans, especially the Irish, celebrated Halloween in the late 19th century.

So, until October 5, you can get the ebook version of Uneasy Spirits FREE on Kindle, Kobo, Nook, AppleBooks, and GooglePlay. For those of you outside of the US, this link will help you find a version on international retailers.  And for those of you who buy the Amazon ebook edition, the audiobook version is only $7.99

[image error]Speaking of audiobooks, the audiobook edition of Bloody Lessons, the third book in the series, is discounted to $2.99 through the month of October on AppleBooks, Nook, and the new audiobook site, Chirp.

And, I am pleased to announce that the audiobook edition of my newest novel, Scholarly Pursuits, is now available on AppleBooks, Kobo, GooglePlay, and Chirp.

In fact, all of my audiobooks, can now be found in the Chirp catalog if you just put my name in the search bar on the Chirp home page. All these audiobook editions are significantly discounted from the Audible editions.

A note to any author reading this, if you have books distributed through Findaway Voices, your books should now be in the Chirp catalog, so you might go look and let your fans know. In addition, I was just at the NINC writers convention where BookBub announced they were continuing their beta testing of Featured Deals for audiobooks through Chirp and they were also setting up a way to let authors with a BookBub profile target audiobook listeners with ads. This should significantly increase the opportunities for indie authors with audiobook editions (see this blog post for my thoughts on this.)

Anyway, as the nights get colder (or warmer for those of you down under), happy reading!

M. Louisa Locke, October 3, 2019

Beatrice Bests the Burglars

[image error]As I mentioned in my last post, as I do research for the next full-length novel, I am going to be writing four new short stories featuring minor characters from my Victorian San Francisco Mystery series. I am pleased to announce that I have finished the first story. On September 15, in celebration of International Cozy Mystery Day, I will be sending out an email to my newsletter subscribers with instructions on how to receive an ARC (Advanced Reader’s Copy) of this story—Beatrice Bests the Burglars––for Free.

So, if you are interested, and haven’t yet subscribed to my newsletter, you might want to do so right now by clicking HERE.

If you subscribe, you will get instructions on how to get the first volume of short stories (including Madam Sibyl’s First Client, Dandy Detects, The Misses Moffet Mend a Marriage, and Mr. Wong Rights a Wrong) as well, in case you haven’t read them yet.

Meanwhile, here is an excerpt from this newest short story.

BeatriceBests the Burglars

Noon, July 4, 1881

O’Farrell Street Boarding House, San Francisco

Beatrice O’Rourke gently kissed Abigail’s tiny fist and secured the baby more firmly against her shoulder as she watched her mistress, Annie Dawson, dig through a wicker basket sitting on the kitchen table.

“Bea, are you sure I packed the clean diapers?”

“Yes, I saw you put them in the basket. But Annie, you can change your mind about taking Abigail with you to the picnic. I’d be more than glad to keep her here with me for the next few hours. What if some wretched boy sets off a fire cracker and spooks the horses?”

Annie looked up, with several of the cotton squares she’d just unearthed in her hand. “Now, Bea, Jefferson Square isn’t but a five minute ride away, and you know the Eddy Street stables have the best trained carriage horses in town. You could set a canon off under their noses and they wouldn’t notice.”

The baby stirred at the sound of her mother’s voice and Beatrice patted her as she rocked from side-to-side. She knew how important this outing was to Annie, who hadn’t left the house since Abigail was born seven weeks ago. She sighed and said, “Don’t mind me, dearie. I’m being a silly old goose, worrying so.”

Closing the basket’s lid, Annie said with a chuckle, “No one would ever dare say you were silly or a goose. However, I promise we will be back by four at the latest, hours before sunset, which is when any pyrotechnics will start in earnest. Besides, Patrick told us yesterday that the hooligans getting drunk in the Barbary Coast saloons are the ones most likely to cause trouble today, and that’s way across town.”

Beatrice was proud that Patrick, her young nephew and one of San Francisco’s policemen, was following in the footsteps of her deceased husband. But sometimes her nephew could be too full of himself, showing off in front Kathleen. When she recommended that Annie hire Kathleen Hennessey to come work for the O’Farrell Street boardinghouse, Beatrice had never expected that her nephew would fall head over heels in love with the young servant. Or that Kathleen would return the sentiment, although––sensible girl that she was––she’d made it very clear to Patrick that she wouldn’t even consider an engagement, much less marriage, until she’d successfully shepherded her youngest brother, Ian, through school and into a decent profession.

But that seemed to have only encouraged Patrick to work harder to impress Kathleen––and Annie––whom he steadfastly believed was his ally in his campaign to get a ring on Kathleen’s finger. Patrick claimed that this part of town would remain untroubled today on account of the city canceling most of the festivities in response to the attempted assassination of President Garfield two days ago.

Beatrice did think it was a shame that the poor man had been shot––and if the papers were to be believed––was at death’s door. Seemed even more of a shame that the bigwigs had decided to deprive the poor San Francisco workingmen of this one summer holiday they could count on. Most of the other cities in the state hadn’t felt the need to cancel their celebrations––just add on prayers for the president in all the speechifying.

As for the kind of mischief the shiftless young men of the city might get into, she wouldn’t be surprised if, without the parade and sporting events for people to attend, there wouldn’t be more––rather than less––trouble. She’d lived through enough July Fourths to know that no part of the city was safe from how much men of every age and station loved devices that made loud noises and threw off dangerous sparks.

That’s the main reason she’d volunteered to stay home when her mistress declared they were going ahead with the picnic at Jefferson Square. Beatrice had already heard the distant clanging of a fire engine twice this morning and she wouldn’t be able to enjoy herself at the picnic, worrying the boardinghouse might burn down in her absence.

In any event, she’d not been terribly excited about spending the afternoon sitting outside on the ground. Especially in this heat, when she felt every one of her fifty-nine years. Picnics were for young people.

“Ma’am, Mr. Nate’s coming down the alley with the carriage.”

Tilly, the little Irish maid, skidded into the kitchen from the back yard, her cheeks pink with excitement. Then, noticing Abigail in Beatrice’s arms, she whispered, “Oh, I’m sorry, ma’am.”

Annie smiled warmly and said, “That’s quite all right, Tilly. You’ve seen how soundly Abigail sleeps right after a feeding. Do go back and tell my husband I will be out in a moment. But first, can you take this basket with you?”

Beatrice watched as the young girl bobbed a hasty curtsy and took the basket, leaving the kitchen at a more proper speed. No doubt she would break into a run as soon as she was out of sight of the kitchen window.

Although Tilly was about to turn fifteen, she wasn’t much more than four and a half feet tall, so she appeared considerably younger. Beatrice had been worried when Mrs. Dawson decided to hire the wee girl to help out Kathleen, fearing that Tilly’s life back in Ireland, chronically starved and beaten by a brutal father, made her too scrawny and timid to hold her own in such a large, boisterous household.

Luckily, what Tilly lacked in size she more than made up for in a fierce desire to better herself. And while the girl hadn’t grown but an inch in the past year and a half, her cheeks were now round, her eyes healthy and bright, and she could do a full day’s work without flagging. She still had a tendency to get tongue-tied when Mr. Nate, Annie’s husband, or any of the male boarders spoke directly to her, but she could be quite chatty in the safety of the boardinghouse kitchen, working with Beatrice and Kathleen.

Annie, who had moved to the small mirror that hung on the kitchen wall to adjust her hat, said, “Now Bea, I want you to take the opportunity to rest this afternoon. You’ve been on your feet cooking for days. When we get home, Tilly can finish up the last dishes that are soaking, and I asked Kathleen to be back by seven…in case any of the boarders get home that early and need something from the kitchen.”

Beatrice smiled at the idea she would ever leave dirty dishes in the sink, but she did appreciate Annie’s thoughtfulness in telling Kathleen to return early. Otherwise, Patrick would have tried to get her to wait at Jefferson Square until he got off work at nine. The boy never seemed to get it into his head that, for a live-in servant, a holiday or an afternoon off didn’t mean there weren’t still chores to be done. Most Tuesdays, Kathleen would have spent the day tackling the week’s ironing. The holiday today meant that tonight she would need to spend a couple of hours ironing sheets and table linens before she headed to bed––if she had any hope of getting through her normal chores over the next few days.

“Here, I’m ready to take Abigail now.”

Annie carefully placed one hand behind the baby’s head as she transferred her from Beatrice’s shoulder to her own, where she had draped one of the clean diapers. “With any luck, she’ll sleep through the trip to the park and won’t want to be fed again until we return. But that’s why Nate reserved a closed barouche for today, so I can sit in there if I need to feed her.”

Beatrice stood at the kitchen door and watched as Annie carefully crossed the back yard where Tilly stood holding the gate open for her. The bright sun touched off sparks of flame in both Abigail’s and her mother’s reddish blonde hair. There was a definite spring to Annie’s step.

She was glad her mistress had decided to join the rest of the boarders at the picnic. She did need to get out, and the fresh air wouldn’t do little Abigail any harm either. Beatrice could depend on Mr. Nate to whisk his wife and daughter home the first sign of a chilly wind or fireworks.

I am being a silly goose to worry.

If you already get my Victorian San Francisco Mystery Newsletter, be on the look out for the newsletter on September 15 telling you how to download the whole story for free. And if you haven’t subscribed yet, you can do so by clicking HERE.

M. Louisa Locke, September 11, 2019

A Fall Update and some Discounts

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A Fall Update:

As summer comes to a close, I’ve become very aware of the fact that in December I will have been a published indie author for 10 years. This means I have seen self-publishing change dramatically from the early days when I felt the need to explain that publishing through Kindle Direct Publishing and CreateSpace was different from publishing through a vanity press, to the so-called gold rush years when my income from the sales of my books had visions of sugar plums dancing in my head, to now, when I have come to understand that I am not willing to spend the time and energy that it would take (in both writing and marketing) to recapture the income level I was making in those gold rush years.

I came to this realization this summer, when I encountered a series of minor domestic crises, including a broken water heater (requiring a major room remodel), a broken sewage pipe (don’t even go there), an elderly dog who went through two bouts of vertigo (imagine your dog not being able to stand up without help, or walk straight, or eat because of the nausea), and some minor medical ailments of my own. In addition, to be very frank, the current political climate in my country has seriously undermined my usual ability to bounce back from even minor set-backs.

The result? I stopped writing. I had been making excellent progress on a science fiction novel all spring, but suddenly, not a word got written. Yet the very reason I had chosen to work on this novel, a sequel to a novella I had written with my daughter, rather than start on my next historical mystery (which takes months of research) was because I thought I would be able to get it done and published by this fall.

What I didn’t foresee was that writing a story about the near future––focusing on the destruction of the earth and the inability of many of the characters to rise above their selfish individualism––wasn’t a good idea when I was already upset about the state of my house, my animals, my health, and the world in general.

It’s not that I stopped working. For example, I spent much of June and early July on two blog posts I had committed to write on audiobooks (if interested click here and here for the two blog posts). Mostly, however, I did a lot of recreational reading––of books I knew would transport me to other worlds, provide a little romance and humor into my day, and reaffirm my belief in the general goodness of the universe.

But none of this was getting me any closer to having a new book to publish this fall or doing the marketing that I should be doing to keep the books I have already published visible.

The result, of course, has been declining sales, which wasn’t doing much to counter my general grumpiness. Then, one day, when I was chastising myself for once again not working on the novel that was sitting there on my computer, I decided that I needed an attitude adjustment.

I reminded myself that getting an income from my writing has never been my primary goal. I was fortunate to come to indie publishing upon retirement, so every success I have with my books has been a lovely addendum to what had already been a very satisfying career. Instead, my primary goal has always been to write the kind of stories (about the past or the future) that I would enjoy reading, the kind of books that would do for others what my recreational reading this summer had been doing for me.

I do care about giving my books a fair chance to be discovered by readers, yet even the time I have spent developing marketing strategies has been more about entertaining myself (because I do enjoy reading about what other indie authors are doing and learning new skills) and less about increasing my income.

What this summer made me face, once and for all, is that the self-publishing industry had changed too much, become too competitive, for me to expect that I could just do what I enjoyed and still maximize sales. For example, when I first published Maids of Misfortune in December of 2009, there were only 82 books in Amazon’s historical mystery category, and with minimal marketing, Maids remained at the top of that category’s bestseller list for over a year. There are now over 10,000 books in this category, and while my books routinely hit that best-seller list when I discount and promote them…they usually disappear from sight as soon as the promotion is over.

That’s the reality of publishing today. A reality I needed to accept, just as I needed to accept that I wasn’t going to change to adapt to this new reality–and still remain happy. And so I made my peace with the fact that I am never going to be the kind of writer who can write, publish, and market multiple books a year–and have gratitude that I don’t have to do this to support my family. I also made peace with the fact that I wasn’t willing to put in the time it would take to maintain the kind of social media presence needed to build a rapidly expanding fan base, nor was I interested enough in tinkering with Amazon, BookBub, or Facebook ads (A/B testing of graphics, targeting, etc) to develop a successful and scaleable advertising strategy. And that was all right.

So here’s the new plan for this Fall.

First, I put away the science fiction novel. I know I will come back to it because it is a story I want to complete–just not now.

Second, I have started doing the research for the next full-length Victorian San Francisco mystery, which will focus on women in the medical profession in San Francisco and feature Annie and Nate Dawson (who had much smaller roles to play in my most recent work.)

Third, while I engage in that research (in this guest blog post I explore why my research comes before my plotting), I have decided to write four short, light, fun stories set in the Victorian San Francisco world. These stories will feature Beatrice O’Rourke, the boardinghouse cook, Tilly, the new young Irish maid, Mrs. Esther Stein, the grandmotherly boarder, and Dandy the Boston Terrier.

I hope these stories will satisfy those readers who told me they wished my last book, Scholarly Pursuits, had spent more time in the O’Farrell Street boardinghouse. But the primary reason I am writing these stories is that I missed these characters and I will enjoy writing about them. This probably explains why, despite a lovely visit from my daughter and grandsons, followed by a short trip out of town, and another minor ailment, I still have already written more than five thousand words in the first of these stories, tentatively entitled, Beatrice Bests the Burglars.

If you want to keep up with my progress with my research and short story writing, I would suggest following my Facebook author page, where I will begin to do frequent updates.

Meanwhile, I haven’t completely abandoned marketing, so currently here are a couple of discounts that are still available this month.

Discounts:

The Audio Book Edition of Maids of Misfortune is only $3.99 on Apple through August 31.

The Victorian San Francisco Novellas (the collection of the novellas––Violet Vanquishes a Villain, Kathleen Catches a Killer, and Dandy Delivers) is only 99 cents on all retailers through September 1.

Here’s to a fun and productive autumn for you all.

Mary Louisa Locke, August 29, 2019

BookSweeps Giveaway

One of the pleasures of being an indie author has been having the freedom to write what I want–without being concerned if an agent or a publishing house will back my decisions. My Caelestis Trilogy, the three works set in the open source, multi-author, science fiction Paradisi Chronicles universe, is the result of this freedom, and I have watched as the audience for this work has slowly grown. However, while the feedback from people who are already fans of my Victorian San Francisco mysteries and have tried these books has been very positive, it has been a struggle to reach new readers in the very crowded science fiction field. One of the ways I have done this is to participate with other authors in various giveaway contests.

Therefore, this month I have joined a Book Sweeps Giveaway. The two winners will get copies of all 18 books, including the first book in my trilogy, Between Mountain and Sea, plus the Grand Prize winner will get a brand new eReader. To participate, all you need to do is follow some of us on BookBub.

You can enter the Giveaway by clicking here. https://booksweeps.com/book-giveaway/teen-ya-fiction-bookbub-july-2019/

M. Louisa Locke

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Findaway Voices and Chirp: Are we entering into a new era for audiobook sales for indies?

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“The phonograph at home reading out a novel.” Daily Graphic (New York), April 2, 1878, Ohio.

“Half of Americans over the age of 14 have listened to an audiobook in the past year…” ––Publishers WeeklyApril 25, 2019, from a survey conducted for the Audio Publishers Association.

Audiobook revenues rose 36% in the past year—AAP report February, 2019

As I have posted earlier this week, the first book in my Victorian San Francisco Mystery series, Maids of Misfortune, is on sale for 99 cents on Chirp, an audiobook promotion site that, in partnership with Findaway Voices, has the potential to expand the audiobook market for indie authors such as myself.

I haven’t done one of these long posts about the publishing industry and indie authors in a long time because, frankly, there seem to be so many other great sources of information out there (see my blog roll at the bottom of the page.) However, this Chirp promotion seemed a good time for me to put my thoughts about audiobooks down, so authors, hang in there with me. I have also discovered that some readers enjoy getting a glimpse at what goes on behind the scenes in the world of self-publishing. If you are one of those readers—I hope you enjoy the ride.

If you are an indie author, and you have been paying attention to trends in the publishing industry, I imagine you have at least thought about whether or not you should publish an audiobook edition of your work. If you have hesitated, it was no doubt because there are several issues that indie authors face if they want to produce and sell audiobooks that traditionally published authors are less likely to encounter. Like:

How to find a narrator that will bring their characters to life?
How to cover the up-front cost of getting their book narrated?
Once the audiobook is done, how to get listeners to discover it?
How to get listeners to try their audiobooks when they are relatively unknown authors?

The creation of ACX (Audiobook Creation Exchange) in 2011 was a game changer for many indie authors because it offered some answers to the questions above. Today, looking at my own experience with audiobooks, I am going to explain why I think the rise of alternatives to ACX, especially Findaway Voices, and the creation of Chirp by BookBub could provide the next big leap forward for indie authors who wish to sell audiobooks.

A little history (because…that’s what I do.)

With the acquisition of CreateSpace in 2005 and the launch of KDP in 2007, Amazon completely changed the landscape for authors who wanted to publish their books outside of the traditional publishing industry. With CreateSpace and KDP, indie authors could now publish their books in print and ebook form, for virtually no upfront costs if they were able to create a cover and format their books themselves.

This lowered the risk of publishing in print (no more stacks of unsold books in the garage) and made it possible for indie authors to price their ebooks low enough to get readers to take a chance on their books. That, added to the fact that indie books would show up in Amazon’s expanding on-line store, where indie authors could use competitive pricing strategies, meant that many indie authors began to attract a fan base and make money.

For example, at the end of 2009, I decided to self-publish Maids of Misfortune, the first book in my Victorian San Francisco mystery series because I was only risking the $250 I paid my cover designer for both the ebook and print editions. Given that I made over $25,000 on that book the first two years it was out, the gamble was more than worth it. As KDP provided more tools for promotional opportunities and other eretailers like Kobo, Nook, and Apple came on the scene, more and more writers started taking the plunge into self-publishing.

However, in these first few years of self-publishing, most indie authors did not produce audiobook versions of their books because of the up-front costs of paying for a professional narrator or paying for the necessary equipment/studio time if they were going to narrate their own books. In addition, there wasn’t a good way to distribute independently-produced audiobooks on either Audible or iTunes—the major markets.

The launch of ACX:

As with KDP and CreateSpace (now KDP Print), the creation of ACX (by Audible, which is a subsidiary of Amazon) offered indie authors a number of solutions to the problems they faced.

ACX provided a way for authors to find professional narrators.
With the development of the royalty share option, authors had a way of getting their books narrated with no up-front money. (With ACX’s royalty share option, for seven years the author splits their royalties 50/50 with the narrator.)
Completed audiobooks are sold on Amazon, Audible, and iTunes. (Until 2017, ACX had the exclusive contract to sell audiobooks on iTunes–now called Apple Books.)
One way ACX helped indie authors sell books was occasionally to include them in short-term promotions and to issue codes that authors could use to give away copies of their audiobooks as a promotional tool. (This is still true, if the book is exclusive with ACX.)

In 2012, a year after ACX was launched, I published an audiobook edition of Maids of Misfortune, using the royalty share option with a narrator I had found on ACX and choosing the option that gives an author a higher royalty rate for agreeing to sell that audiobook exclusively through ACX. I was certainly not the only indie to start producing audiobooks at this time. And I have had moderate success, primarily as spill-over from promotions of my ebooks through BookBub.

Then, in 2014, ACX changed its terms, lowering the royalty rates it gave out for both exclusive and non-exclusive contracts, causing a number of problems for some indie authors.

It became harder to find successful professional narrators who were willing to risk a royalty share agreement—since they shouldered all the up-front costs, and these new terms meant it would be even harder for them to make back these costs—much less make a profit.
In addition, the seven-year contract under the royalty share option became a problem for some authors, such as myself, when we discovered fans didn’t like a narrator we had chosen. This is why it took so long for me to have Alexandra Haag, who has narrated all the rest of my books, narrate a new edition of Maids of Misfortune. (Here is a good post on some of the elements that go into choosing an audiobook narrator.)
Also, new markets for audiobooks were opening up, providing a better royalty rate, but under ACX’s royalty share option an indie author couldn’t shift to making the book non-exclusive so they could take advantage of these new markets. (Here is a good blog post on some of the issues surrounding the royalty share option.)

As a result of ACX’s changes, my new narrator, like many other professional narrators, decided she could no longer afford to narrate books under the royalty share option. So, except for my second book in my mystery series, Uneasy Spirits, I have paid her up-front for all the rest my books.

While this meant I have had to plow some of the income I make on ebooks into subsidizing my audiobook production—it did mean I was getting the full 40% royalty rate on my sales—since I continued with the exclusive option. Until recently, I wasn’t convinced I would sell enough outside of Audible or Apple Books to warrant cutting my ACX royalty rate to 25% under the non-exclusive option. On the other hand, this also meant that, except for Uneasy Spirits, I have been in the position with the rest of my books to shift to a non-exclusive contact if I changed my mind about this.

FindawayVoices:

By 2017, more and more stores were starting to sell audiobooks online, and I had started to consider whether or not I should start looking beyond ACX as my only distributor. This is an excellent post laying out the argument for “going wide.

But it was a talk I heard at a conference about the newly launched Findaway Voices that forced me seriously to reconsider staying exclusively with ACX. Findaway Voices not only provides similar opportunities to ACX, it has improved on what ACX offers in ways that made it particularly indie-friendly.

Like ACX, Findaway Voices helps an author find a narrator. Currently they do not offer a royalty share option (which really can be the best option for a newly published author with limited resources) but they are developing a modified royalty share option that will lower the costs of paying a narrator upfront, while making this a more attractive alternative for narrators. See this post.
Unlike ACX, Findaway Voices does not require you to sign an exclusive, long term contract. You can take your book out of distribution with them at any time. This is useful to indies who might discover, as I did, that they wanted to replace the audiobook version of a book.
Unlike ACX (which just distributes to Amazon, Audible, and Apple Books), Findaway Voices distributes to 32 different marketplaces, including Audible and Apple Books, and this list includes numerous international eretailers like Storytel, and libraries. Again, for indies, in the long-run, a wider market might mean more potential sales, as the audiobook market expands, and less dependence on one retailer.
Unlike ACX, Findaway Voices lets you set the price of your audiobook (except if you distribute to Audible–which still insists on setting the price even if you distribute through Findaway Voices.) This is even true for audiobooks on Apple Books if you distribute to them through Findaways. In fact, Apple Books now gives authors 45% of the royalty on books distributed through Findaway Voices (versus the 25% that authors get through ACX with a non-exclusive contract.)

This last point—being able to set my prices–– is what convinced me to choose the non-exclusive option when I uploaded my new science fiction series to ACX last year so that I could then upload to Findaway Voices.

As an indie author, I know that being able to sell my work at a lower price than traditionally published authors is one of the best tools I have to convince buyers to take a chance on my work. Now I can do this with my audiobooks as well.

This did mean that, in the short run, I would lose potential revenue on Audible, because my royalty rate on these books on is  25% versus 40%. But to me it was worth the risk to see if the wider distribution I was getting through Findaway Voices would, over time, make up for the difference. So far my sales of these books–mostly to libraries–has made me about the same revenue as I have been getting on ACX. And I confess, I really like being able to distribute to libraries!

However, having a competitively lower price on an ebook or an audiobook isn’t enough to sell a book, since a reader or a listener needs to discover that book first.

If you have a huge mailing list, or are good at using FaceBook ads for books, you might be able to use these strategies to get the word out about your competitive prices.

When it comes to marketing my ebooks, not having either a large mailing list or a particularly effective FaceBook ad strategy, I have generally relied on doing periodic discounts of my ebooks and using ebook promotion sites to alert consumers to those discounts. BookBub is the premier site for this, but there are lots of alternatives, for example the 68 different places listed by Reedsy.

For audiobooks, however, there haven’t been similar sites—probably because an author has no control over pricing for the books they distribute through ACX.  And even with Findaway Voices, because there are so many places it distributes to, a price change might take at least a month to propagate through the list—making it hard to schedule a promotion for a specific, limited time.

What this had meant for most indies, is that the only marketing tool for audiobooks has been to use the free coupons that distributors like ACX and Findaway Voices hand out to authors.  While these are nice to use for newsletter giveaways, raffles, etc, they don’t have the impact that being able to put a book on sale—particularly a book in a series—can have when the information goes out to a large mailing list—particularly to the kind of list that BookBub has developed for ebooks.

Needless to say, I have often heard indie authors say they wished that someone would do for audiobook promotion what Bookbub did for ebooks.

Findaway Voices, Chirp, and Discoverability.

Then in March, 2019, BookBub made the announcementthat they had launched a beta program for the promotion of audiobooks, called Chirp, and that they were partnering with Findaway Voices for this this service. I immediately signed up to be on the waiting list to be notified when they were ready to take submissions from authors who wanted to participate.

The next day, I put in my first request to ACX to shift the status of my Victorian San Francisco mystery books from exclusive distribution to non-exclusive, so that I could start uploading those books to Findaway Voices.

My goal was to be ready to take advantage of this new promotional opportunity as soon as Chirp opened up for submissions. By the end of April, this process of shifting my books to non-exclusive status was complete. As you might imagine, I was then both surprised and pleased when I was asked by Chirp to let them promote Maids of Misfortune at 99 cents when they were still in this beta testing process. (See my earlier blog post on this promotion.)

On May 19, Maids of Misfortune was in the email that Chirp sent out to their subscribers who had signed up to see audiobooks in the Mystery & Thrillers category. The unofficial count of sales for that day was 417. I have no idea how good that is, comparatively. But today, when I looked at the Mystery & Thrillers list on their website, ranked by popularity, Maids of Misfortune was the sixth book out of 21 books. This put it right above McCall Smith’s The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency and M. C. Beaton’s Agatha Raisin and the Potted Garner.  Needless to say, I was happy that Maids of Misfortune is holding its own against two other very popular cozy mysteries (smile.)

In addition, the book will stay available at 99 cents and visible on Chirp’s website for another two weeks, and of course I hope it continues to sell—and that all the people who have given the audiobook version of Maids of Misfortune a try, will go on to buy the other audiobooks in the series.

What does this this all mean?

Simply, the opportunities are opening up for indie authors who want to have more control over where their audiobooks are available and how to market them.

With these opportunities also come choices.

Do you go exclusive with ACX, not wanting to forgo on the higher royalty rate? Or do you go non-exclusive, and hope to make up the loss of royalties on Audible by “going wide,” through a distributor like Findaway Voices?

If you do go wide, what price do you want to give your books? Most of my novels are $24.95 on Audible (or $14.95 if you are an Audible member), so I have generally priced those books through Findaway Voices at $14.95—to make them competitive with Audible memberships. But I did price Maids of Misfortune, as the first book in a series, at $9.99.  We will see how this works. But of course, unlike with ACX, if I want to lower or raise I price, I can do so.

Do I want to try one of the discount opportunities, dropping the price on a book for a limited amount of time and promoting it through things like my newsletter or a facebook ad, or apply for the promotions that Findaway Voices does monthly with selected stores, or apply for Chirp promotions in the future?

One of the main reasons I became an indie author was so that I would have choices, so that I could experiment, so that I could shift strategies quickly in a publishing and marketing environment that changes rapidly. (See my post on changing strategies about KDP Select and going wide for an example of what I mean.)

As a result, I am very excited about the changes Findaway Voices and Chirp are bringing to the audiobook industry.

What about you?

M. Lousia Locke, May 22, 2019

Introducing Chirp–A new way to find great deals on Audiobooks

[image error]Starting today, the new audiobook version of Maids of Misfortune will be only 99 cents on Chirpbooks.com–-an audiobook promotion website that has recently been started by the folks who run BookBub.com, the premier ebook promotion company.

This sale will last for just a few weeks.

For those of you who like to listen to audio books, I highly recommend that you take a look at how Chirp works. Unlike Audible or some other companies, there are no membership or subscription fees. The discounts on audiobooks range from 99 cents to $4.99, and once you have bought the audiobook, it remains in your library (you have bought it not borrowed it.)

You can ask Chirp to email you daily or weekly with the new deals within the categories you have chosen, or you can just go to the site and see what is available.

It looks to me like the deals last from about one week to a month. Currently, the books are an interesting mix of classics, traditionally published books, and books by a few independent authors such as myself.

Needless to say, I was honored that they chose one of my books to promote at this early stage (before they opened up to all authors), and I hope lots of you will go out and buy Maids of Misfortune. 99 cents for a book that has over a thousand 5 star reviews on Kindle, and is over ten hours long of listening pleasure, is simply a steal.

And spread the word to your friends, about Chirp and about Maids of Misfortune. I want to make sure that my indie-authored book is doing a good job competing with the big names like Dashiell Hammett’s The Thin Man or Alexander McCall Smith’s No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, which are also on sale at this time.

And for those of you who are authors, I will be posting a piece in the next few days providing a little background history on audiobook publishing for independently published authors, changes in the audiobook distribution systems, and how you as an author can be prepared to take advantage of using Chirp as a method of promoting your audiobooks when it opens up to all authors.

Meanwhile, please go and check out Chirp and come back here to tell me what you think about the site and what audio books you were tempted to buy.

M. Louisa Locke, May 19, 2019