Alec Peche's Blog, page 3

Decision time - Amazon exclusivity and pre-orders

My next book 'A Taxing Death' is scheduled for publication on May 26, 2015. By the end of the week, I'll need to make the decision on whether to enroll in KDP and adhere to Amazon exclusivity for 90 days.

Amazon added its pre-order feature last summer for indie authors. At that time I had done a pre-order with Smashwords for my June release of 'Chocolate Diamonds', and it added the tiniest bump in sales. For book three, I saw a very nice bump in sales last September and October with my late September release of 'A Break Death'. It meant that 'A Break Death' was only be available for purchase at Amazon for the first 90 days of publication. I did the same with book four,' Death On A Green' published in January of 2015. Unless I see something to change my mind in the next two weeks, for book five, 'A Taxing Death', I'm leaning towards using Smashwords for pre-orders as that will reach iTunes and Barnes & Noble. My reasoning is that the people that plan to buy it on Amazon will do so anyway, and I am hurting my sales by remaining exclusive to Amazon. I also dislike the lack of flexibility in pricing on Amazon. As a KDP client if you want to do a 24 hour sale of your book, you're only allowed one of those in the U.S. market and one in the U.K. market over the 90 day enrollment period. KDP does allow sales of longer than twenty-four hours, but they only allow one sale regardless of the length of time of that sale. This makes marketing efforts on a newly released book limited to those guidelines.

As a KDP author, your book is enrolled in Kindle Unlimited (KU). KU gives the reader an unlimited ability to download books once the monthly fee is paid. Like many indie authors, I suspect that KU has hurt my sales for the long term. Over the life of my two exclusivity periods the sales to KU users has not made up for the loss of sales to iTunes, B&N, and Kobe. Furthermore, Amazon has so whittled down the royalty payment for their KU books that my royalty payment for those sales is around $1.4 rather than the $2.8-$3.2 royalty for the $3.99 purchase price. I simply don't get the exposure and volume to make up for exclusive to Amazon and low KU payments.

Kindle Unlimited has likely been a boon (I don't know Amazon's ROI on this program) to Amazon and certainly it has been a boon to readers. Readers that perhaps budgeted $25/month for books can now get all the ebooks they want for $9.99 - more books then they could possibly read each month. However, many bestselling authors - Lee Child, David Baldacci, and JD Robb do not have their books in KU and I always watch what the famous authors do to understand publishing options.

The KU price was also reasoned to lower the barrier costs to trying new authors such as myself. It would have felt like the book was free once the user paid their monthly fee. Again I haven't seen those projected waves of KU readers trying my books.

So I'll try having my latest book available for pre-order on Barnes & Noble, iTunes, Kobe, and Smashwords, but not on Amazon. The book will be available on Amazon (non-exclusive) on its date of publication; it just won't be available as a pre-order from Amazon. If I see a worsening of sales, I could always place it on KDP after the fact, and I'll just lose the pre-order bump in Amazon best sellers list. Wish me luck!

Finding readers, keywords, and discoverability

When I first entered the indie publishing world, one of the questions I was asked while uploading my first book (4 books and 18 months ago) was what keywords I wanted associated with it. To this day, I don't feel like I have the perfect answer to this question, but at least I understand the question.

When confronted with the keyword question for the first time, I did a google search on choosing keywords. A keyword is what a reader uses to find a new book to read. Amazon gives you seven keywords/phrases to use and like most newbies I selected my name "Alec Peche" and my title "Vials" to be 2 of my 7 keywords. After reading more articles, I learned that you shouldn't waste keywords on those two data elements. If a reader knows your name or knows the book's title, then they'll simply enter those words and your book will be found. So how else might a reader find my book?

My books are a part of a series with a female sleuth (Dr. Jill Quint, MD) who is a private forensic pathologist consultant. She provides second opinions on the cause of death. She also has a day job as a vintner growing grapes and making Moscato wine in a fictional city in the central valley of California. She is joined on her cases by a series of best friends that have their own unique investigative talents. She has a love interest, Nathan, who is a world renowned wine label designer (yes that is a real occupation). So back to the keywords story… I tried using the keywords of murder mystery, vineyard, wine, and amateur sleuths. I even tried Puerto Rico as that is where part of the story was set. However, I wasn't thinking like a reader and really I'm still not sure today that I have it right. While both Puerto Rico and wine did well when I looked them up on Google's keyword planner, they would get millions of hits from people who were looking for vacation information on Puerto Rico or perhaps a reference to the best Pinot Noir so they weren't specific enough to define my readers.

My current keywords are: female private investigator, political corruption, medical mystery, black ops, scuba diving, thriller murder mystery, forensic pathologist and my books sales improved when I went to these keywords, but I still don't think I have nailed it on the head yet.

I recently did another search on book keywords to see if any new advice had been published on this subject that I might use. Instead I found a 2014 free publication from BISC (Book Industry Study Group) which is setting standards for book publishing https://www.bisg.org/publications/bes... . They had some advice and examples that were great including the keywords used for George R. R. Martin's "A Dance with Dragons" which I found informative.

Some key pieces of advice from this organization's publication are: choose unique keywords, choose consumer-oriented keywords, and choose relevant keywords. If I had read the suggestion of unique keywords, I would never have picked Puerto Rico or wine. Neither word is unique enough to search for my books.

The publication makes the suggestion to find consumer oriented keywords by reading reviews about your book to see how consumers describe your book. The following is a review from a reader for "Vials":

This was a really nice fast moving great read that shows evil-doers having justice thrust on them! All in all this is great wild ride. I would recommend "Vials" to everyone! …
Uh-oh, I don't think I'll use 'great wild ride' as a keyword, but I might replace 'black-ops' with 'evil doers having justice thrust on them'. All 7 keywords must be no more than 500 characters so this phrase will come last in my keyword list in case it gets cut-off.

The final suggestion of 'choose relevant keywords' is a nod to don't put bestseller titles or authors in keywords as it is not an accurate reflection of your book even if it is a powerful keyword. Using words from pop culture like Hogwarts is only acceptable when it has great relevance to a book.

The publication also talks about technical specifications of order placement, commas, spaces, and semi-colons - again new information for me. It is a great and helpful publication for anyone wondering if they have the best keywords assigned to their book. In this world of an ever increasing quantity of books, it's hard to figure out the secret sauce to making a new book, discoverable within today's technology tools. Hopefully beyond technology, readers are discovering Jill Quint from one of the multiple avenues open to book lovers.

The Saga of the Outline

My experiment with outlining is not going very well. Of the twenty-five chapters I outlined at the start of my work-in-progress book, “A Taxing Death” less than three, have gone according to plan. The original order of story nuances has become re-ordered in my writing to fit the story evolving in my head. A concept that I thought would take a chapter to flesh out, may have only taken a few paragraphs. Worse still, is that my writing speed has suffered.

A Taxing Death was scheduled to come out on April 15, America’s Tax deadline. The timing would have been perfect for readers - the murder mystery violence directed as some truly wonderful employees of a state tax authority. However, with my slower speed, I am heading towards a May 15 completion date. I've been unable to figure out why this is going so slow. I've been a little suspicious that the outline has reduced my creativity and enjoyment in writing. I'm sure that creative writing instructors would see this as a cop-out, or that I put insufficient time into creating a quality outline at the beginning of the project.

The one positive note so far has been that I haven't written myself into a corner - run out of clues to solve the mystery. In my previous book, Death On A Green, I wrote myself into a big dead-end street and was stuck, unable to move forward in my writing. I ended up leaving it alone for a week, when a burst of creativity hit me and I was able to solve the mystery.

It may sound absurd that I can be hallway through a book and not know who done it, but truly that is how the story evolves in my head. In Death On A Green, I knew I needed to kill a darling, a likable character, but I wasn't sure how to kill that darling until the final ten pages of the book.

I feel confined by my outline. It seemed pretty perfect when I wrote it and so I don't understand why it has been so unhelpful for the actual writing. Thinking that 'I wrote it, so I must use it' has seemed to stop some of my freelancing story-line from breaking out. Once I finish with this story, I'll return to my prior pantser ways. I have two thoughts on book 6 in my mind - it will be set in Dallas, Texas, and a murder will occur at a nursing convention. I have a friend who wanted to be written into one of my books and after a conversation with her friends on FB, I learned what her role would be in the story. Beyond that, I'll see where the words take me….

Exploring my pantser self...

If you have followed my Goodreads blog or Twitter posts or have spoken with me in person, than you know that one of my writing tenants is "writing by the seat of my pants" or "being a pantser" as it is called in the industry. I like the freedom and the excitement of a story that slowly unveils itself in my head. Unfortunately that process has caused me to have days when I couldn't write. Either I was unable to decide where the story was going next, or I wrote myself into a corner, or I ran out of clues to solve the mystery.

It's probably a good thing that I don't tell my stories out loud to children at bedtime as I would have to leave them hanging for days at a time. Of course, murder mysteries are likely inappropriate to the age of children that like bedtime stories, but I digress.

I am an avid reader of The Kill Zone blog. I've saved lots of excellent writing advice from that blog - it's an author focused blog not a reader focused blog. I ran into James Scott Bell, one of the site's bloggers, author of numerous mysteries and writing craft books, at Bouchercon 2014. It was a short conversation, but my take away was that there was a way to become a hybrid pantser that might make my writing better or at least easier. His suggestion was that an outline might prevent me from having miniature writer's blocks or inconsistencies in my story. I believe that by the time I publish my book, that I and my first readers, have cleared all of the inconsistencies out of the story, but I would be the first to admit that when I stumble upon them, it scares my writer's soul. I ask myself how I could have such an inconsistency? How did I not see while I wrote, this hole, the size of the Grand Canyon, in the story; or the fact that I said Trixie was a Chihuahua on page 12 and a Dalmatian on page 30 (if you've read my books you know that
Trixie has always been a Dalmatian).

So for book five, "A Taxing Death", I "outlined" the first 24 Chapters. I chose 24 randomly as that was how many squares fit on the piece of paper. My books have varied considerably on chapter numbers, prologues, and epilogues. I can tell that the book doesn't end in Chapter 24, so as I get closer to writing chapter 24, I'll have to take out a new sheet of paper and outline the final 2-5 chapters. Each chapter is described in a single sentence. That sentence will have to become about 3,000 words or the average size of each of my chapters. I also wrote this book without a prologue, but now I have a new problem. The first chapter feels too long to be a prologue, but I have to change the point of view of the story between chapter one and two which is considered a writing no-no. Again, I'll figure out this transition with some help from my editor before the book gets published

So far, my writing speed has not been any better. I keep a 2,000 word count progression goal on my calendar that I broke by the third day. However the jury is still out as to whether I will feature Trixie as a Dalmatian or a Chihuahua as the story progresses. I'll update my blog in a few months with my experience as a hybrid pantser!

Cheers, Alec

Where do ideas for murder mysteries come from?

I am presently writing a mystery series - 'the Jill Quint, MD, Forensic Pathologist series', and I often get asked where my ideas come from for book stories. You might be surprised by my writing process. I start with a location first. Yes, location. Picking a city, state, or country then allows my imagination to think of a reason for a murder mystery.

After a vacation in Belgium and the Netherlands, I knew I could reliably remember the cities of the region and the people. One of many memories of my vacation was visiting the diamond district of Antwerp, and the many chocolate stores in every city across both countries. How could I work diamonds and chocolate into a story? With a little creativity, I found my story line for CHOCOLATE DIAMONDS, my second book.

I have been to every location in all of my stories, except the Sandslide reef in my first book VIALS. I have been snorkeling in Puerto Rico, but not scuba diving. I've taken boats to snorkel reefs in Florida, Puerto Rico, and the Bahamas. I've snorkeled many reefs in Hawaii, so while I don't have a sense of scuba diving, I have had the joy of the colors of the underwater world.

My third book, A BRECK DEATH, is the result of over thirty years of skiing. I have always loved James Bond movies, and especially 'The Spy Who Loved Me'. In this movie, Bond skies off a cliff and a parachute opens made from the Union Jack. For a couple years after that movie, I would listen to the James Bond theme and the song for that movie - "Nobody does it better" on the drive to the slopes. It was fun to design a story around my favorite winter sport - skiing.

DEATH ON A GREEN, book four, of the series, will be release January 27, and is available for pre-order now. The story of a murder during a charity golf outing was a suggestion from my editor. I lived in Green Bay for a decade and played in that golf outing several times. It wasn't hard to turn that into a story.

Book five, my work in progress, A TAXING DEATH, is set in Sacramento, California. I have probably been to that city 20-30 times. While we have the resource of Google Earth, I think you have to have been to these places to be able to accurately describe them and the mannerisms of the people that inhabit those cities.

Book six, to be published in the summer of 2015, as yet unnamed, will be set in Dallas, Texas. I'm visiting that city next month. I plan to study people and the town to gain the material for my book. In this book, I have a friend who wanted to be a character in one of my books - she said it was on her 'bucket list'. One of her friends, suggested I "off" her as a speaker at a convention for nurses. I responded that I never kill my friends in my books. So I will 'off' a co-speaker on her panel. Now I just need to figure out who wanted this speaker dead.

Book seven, to be published in late 2015, also unnamed, will be set in the United Kingdom. I have visited the UK close to ten times and I have many readers from the part of the world. I thought a story based somewhere in the UK would be a nice tribute to both those readers and the fact that my heritage traces itself to Birmingham, England.

I have had been lucky in my travels and they continue to provide me with endless fodder for murder mysteries!

Follow up to Bochercon 2014

The forty-fifth Bouchercon in Long Beach, California, was my first B-Con. I came away with new knowledge in so many different ways. The first thing I learned was the convention name is pronounced like voucher with a “B” rather than Boo-cher-con as I had been pronouncing it. I still have to pause and hear the word voucher in my head before saying it aloud.

I love the spirit of volunteerism that exists at the convention. It was a meeting of ‘pay-it -forward’ souls. As a volunteer at the registration table on the second day, I had looked at what author packets were remaining to be distributed. I had the enormous good luck to distribute Sue Grafton’s packet to her. I have met many famous people in my life and I can’t remember where in my past I uttered the most inane phase - “Oh, I love your books!”. Duh, that might be why she has sold millions. Gracious writer that she was, she just wanted directions to all the meeting rooms. Kudos to Ingrid, and her team for doing such a fabulous job with an all-volunteer workforce.

As I wrote in my pre-conference blog post, I had nearly every hour of every day filled in with some wonderful panel discussions. I loved author speed dating. I had two minutes to describe the four books of my series. I reached probably one-hundred readers face to face. What an opportunity!

I was happy to hear some recurring themes by several authors. I was amazed how many writers use characters from real life in their books. Most of the characters in my books are modeled after people that are or have been in my life. I also heard that my fellow authors don’t kill children or puppies. Nothing turns me off as a fan faster than the death of a child or a dog in a book.

Then there are the books….I have eighteen new books on my bookshelf, most of them signed by the author. I don’t need to buy another book for a year! I also wrote notes during the panels to get this or that author’s book, so add another eighteen to my reading list.

Despite the spirit de corps of the writers, Bouchercon is a real reality check. You see so many quality authors that you have to compete against for the reader’s attention. When you hear the very successful authors say that are worried about their next book being a success, you have a sense of the depth of desire to make one’s latest release as good or better than the previous forty books. As a new writer, I saw the mystery awards mountain in front of me that I’ll likely never climb.

I have my first book signing coming up in 3 months and I was happy to hear of the book signing stories of Jeffrey Deaver, JA Jance, and Simon Wood. Another author bemoaned being placed next to Sara Paretsky for a signing. Her line was out the door and he had no one in front of him. One author told me he was happy when he had to sign fifteen books at a book store. This is all helpful for setting my expectations when my book signing day arrives.

On the social media front, I learned a lot about Twitter, and advertising on Facebook, Goodreads, and Google Ads. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of all of these methods to get the word out on your book. On Sunday it was refreshing to hear the agents and Editors panel talk about how they select books, how you need to track analytics, and advice on the buying behavior of Barnes and Noble.

My favorite quote that I walked away with was from Michaela Hamilton of Kensington Books. Her comment was that “Their books are about escape”. They want to provide the reader with an escape into the story. That fits so well with my own personal perspective of I simply aspire to entertain the reader with the story I have invented.

Thanks to all the volunteers and organizers that made this meeting fabulous!

My Bouchercon Schedule

I’m attending my first Bouchercon this year. I have put a lot of preparation into the conference to ensure that I am getting the maximum return on my registration fee and time away from writing. I live in Northern California and thus will have a five to six hour drive to the conference. I’ve found a cheaper, high quality hotel in the city of Long Beach, but it’s a good three miles from the convention center.

I have three goals. I want to enjoy myself and meet authors, bloggers, and readers. As a writer, there is very little face to face contact with anyone. As many people have said before me, writing is a solitary occupation. Most book marketing is solitary as well: writing FB, Twitter, and blog posts; looking at sales charts; reviewing ads; and keeping all social media about oneself up to date. At Bouchercon, from all the other blog posts, I understand that I need to spend time at the bar in casual conversation. I don’t know another soul attending and starting new conversations with strangers will never be on my bucket list. I think the other blogs I have read from people attending and making friends are from self-deprecating extroverts. I’ll be that short, quiet person looking uncomfortable, holding a glass of wine, examining my green iPhone for anything to distract me from the discomfort of making new friends! One other piece of fun is Long Beach itself. It is a beautiful beach to walk on. You can choose to walk close to the waves or on the concrete sidewalk where you’ll find walkers, runners, bicyclists, and roller bladders. I try to make 12,000 steps a day, so a daily beach walk will be included in that.

My second goal is to learn about being a better writer. I have l studied the program and planned all of my sessions. In some cases there were two choices that appealed to me and so I may cut out of one to join the other. I’m attending Murder in a Locked Room. In my WIP, I wrote myself into a corner with a lack of clues to follow. I am a pantser writer and I think that if you’re not careful you can get stuck with your story. I like solving the perfect crime as a reader and as a writer. So I am hoping for “clues” on writing the perfect murder.

I’m also attending Cops around the World. My second book Chocolate Diamonds, is set in Belgium and the Netherlands. I did a lot of research to understand cops, Interpol, and gun laws in those two countries. Despite my research I know there is much I don’t know about international law enforcement. If you watch enough American-made spy movies, you have this impression that Interpol is this large overarching crime detecting group. Then I studied their areas of focus and their total staff worldwide (650 people) and I knew they couldn’t be this omnipresent force globally. I had to change the interactions between the Belgian and Dutch Police forces as being the lead investigators rather than Interpol.

One other among the fourteen or so sessions that I think I want to attend is Kick Ass Woman. My books feature a female protagonist with three female friends solving crimes (yes, they do get a little help from men along the way). Unfortunately I am also doing an Author Focus Session from 11:30 to 11:50, so I may miss the first thirty minutes of the session.

Being a type A personality, more comfortable learning than conversing, I’ll see how much I can pack into four days of wonderful writer opportunity.
My third goal is to find new readers and fans. Toward this goal, I have boxes in my car filled with paperback copies of my books which you will find at Scene of the Crime book store in the Book Room at the convention. I also have business cards, a few bookmarks, and stands to hold either books or book covers depending on where I am.

I am scheduled to do Author Speed Dating with a chance to reach up to 500 attendees with a 2.5 minute speech about my books. I have my speech written and practiced to make sure I stay within the time limit. This should be fun but exhausting to tell your book’s story to so many people in so little time while trying to stay fresh and friendly. Fortunately, I’m a morning person, so I am already halfway there.

I am volunteering at the registration table on Friday. I did attend West Coast Crime this past March and noted that this was a great way to meet people and again I’m a morning person and inclined to be friendly and energetic at 7am.

Finally, I am doing an Author Focus Session on Saturday. I have an outline of my talk prepared, but I am also planning to secret shop other Author Focus sessions on Thursday and Friday to see what last minute adjustments I need to make for my Author Focus Session.

Hopefully, by the end of Bouchercon, I’ll have a little more visibility in the world of murder mysteries!

It is strange that through my first four books, I have been unable to tame my pantser ways, but when it comes to making the most of Bouchercon, I am as organized as a person can be.

Alec Peche

Bouchercon 2014 Author Focus Session

I am one of many authors honored to be given twenty minutes on the agenda at the Bouchercon conference in Long Beach. I’ll be in Harbor B on Saturday November 15, 2014. The instructions say that the twenty minutes is ours to do what we want - we can discuss writing, demonstrate a craft, or do a Q & A. As I am a more a sports playing newbie author than one with crafting talents, the vision of demonstrating a craft I barely have skill at is a scary proposition. So I gave more thought as to what I can bring to the table for fans or fellow authors. I have decided to talk about the joy of being a pantser since it seems very counter-culture to most of the writing world.

When I began the journey of writing rather later in life, I approached it from the traditional angle. I downloaded an app to my iPad. I dutifully tried to fill out all the questions - what was the point of the story, who were the characters, what was the plot, what would happen in each chapter, etc. I must have spent a week trying to fill it in, but mostly I drew a blank. I knew I wanted a political corruption story, set in California, and the title of the book would be Vials. Literally, where do you start for that first word you place on paper with the intent of having a murder mystery at the end of it? In the end I thought, let me figure out the first paragraph and I did. Then I had enough of a story in my head for a second and a third paragraph then a full page, and then a 1,000 words. I went back to the outline even after 1,000 words and I still couldn’t complete the book outline. I wouldn’t even admit to being an author, as I felt in my head that without the story board, or story outline on some writer’s software package that I must not be a real author. I would see other blog posts from writers with a picture taken of the author standing to the side with sticky notes all over it proudly showing this as the foundation of their latest story.

I was about three quarters of the way finished with writing my first book’s draft, when I had the infinite pleasure of listening to an audiobook written and read by Stephen King - On Writing. He managed to describe and give me a fabulous picture of his approach to writing which had for the most part mirrored my own approach. Hallelujah!

While I have collected a total of four college degrees, not one of them was awarded for anything remotely connected to English, Writing, or Literature. I have never taught English or grammar and consider myself a novice at both unlike Mr. King who is an expert and has taught English. I don’t remember any of the classics, although I do have favorites in the more recent novels of Pride and Prejudice and Lord of the Flies. As a mystery writer, it is likely that the heavy (I don’t know what else to call it) writing of centuries past would put the reader to sleep before they solved the crime.

Still, having diagnosed myself as a pantser (def: a writer who flies by the seat of their pants), I have still tried to reform my style. For book three - A Breck Death ,I downloaded a sample of the most popular writer’s software that you can use for any thirty days for free. I have managed to use it one of my thirty days so far. Again I threw in the towel and reverted to my pantser ways. In book four, I’m not even trying to eliminate the pantser side of my personality.

So what are the downsides to be a pantser? With each story, I have a range of characters in my head each acting and behaving according to their personalities. I have on occasion let the character behave in an inconsistent manner. My female protagonist is a very strong willed character and occasionally I have written something more suited to a general commanding an army than to her showing her love for her main man in the story. Fortunately, my beta readers pick up on those inconsistences and I have the opportunity to fix them.

I understand from doing more research into the pantser style that about 25% of writers are pantsers, and 75% are outliners. I haven’t yet attended a writer’s workshop, so I don’t know if there is a “test” that a new writer could take to figure out their style. I see if I can find the answer to that question before November’s meeting. It sure would have been a confidence builder for me if I had known early in my writing journey that I was a pantser.

I like complexity in my stories and I need to write about 15,000 words before that complexity begins to appear in my head. My imagination builds on itself, so while I can’t envision the twists and turns that the plot is going to take at the very start of the story, I know that in time those twists will reveal themselves. With my current WIP, I have just over 16,000 words written, and I have laid the groundwork for two of the characters that wanted my victim dead and their motives, but I know as the story goes along that I will dream up additional plots. I rarely experience writer’s block. If I do, I stay away from writing for a few days, come back to the story, re-read a part of it, and then get a new idea for the direction of the story.

Along the way in all of my novels, I perform internet searches on topics in my books. In Chocolate Diamonds I studied the diamond industry extensively and wrote that into my story. Often, doing a little more research on a particular piece of the story gives me a direction to go next with my writing that I can’t imagine at the start.

At Bouchercon, I plan to share my journey as a writer with the hope of giving back to that attendee that has tried to start their writing journey but is not getting anywhere. Maybe their style is in conflict with their present approach. Perhaps that person is a pantser and hasn’t figured it out yet and I can offer a little help.

Cheers and see you in Long Beach,
Alec Peche

Ten most influential books

I was recently asked by a FB friend to name my ten most memorable books so here goes.

1. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin. No better character development than Elizabeth Bennett and Lord Darcy
2. The Prince by Machiavelli - He has many great quotes and the book provides an interesting view of Italy at the time.
3. The Art of War by Sun Tsu - "have your subordinates at war with each other rather than with you the leader" - terrible idea from the ninth century
4. Lord of the Flies by William Golding - another book on leadership
5. Naked in Death by JD Robb - because it was the beginning of this 39 book series that I adore.
6. On Writing by Stephen King - where I learned I was pantser and it's ok.
7. Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. His stories are so rich and on point.
8. Any Jack Reacher book by Lee Child because Reacher is such an interesting character.
9. The Elements of Style by Strunk and White because someone has to teach me grammar.
10. Doris Force at Barry Manor by Julia Duncan -1931 teen sleuth that created a love of mysteries in my youth.

Take a few moments to compose your own top ten book lists and see what ends up there...

Edit, Edit, Edit

I just finished my third book, A Break Death and I am amazed at how I can continue to miss typos or poor grammar. It is also proof of what Word misses. There are sections of my books that I use Dragon dictation to speed up my keyboard efforts. I can speak so much faster than I can type. Despite the hours I have spent at the keyboard I have never developed confidence in my typing such that I can look away from the keyboard as I type.

The trouble with dictation software is that no matter how sophisticated it is, it just doesn't always pick up the right words. To be fair the words are similar sounding - "while vs well", "we're vs were". The words are spelled correctly so Word's spell checker correctly judges the spelling.

When you read your own writing you see the words that you expect to be in the sentence rather than the words that may actually be on the page. I correct paragraphs often shortly after I have typed them. I also print the entire draft and make corrections to paper. Then I read on-line two additional times. Then the book goes to my first reader who sadly discovers additional errors. I guess that is par for the course when each book has been over 80,000 words.

Perhaps is also connected to being a severe pantser. With each book in my series so far, I have started with a murder in a location in the world and that is it. I build the story one paragraph at a time, not even knowing myself what is going to happen along the way. I wonder if it is easier to avoid typos and grammar problems if you're a writer who completely outlines your story? Can you concentrate more on typing and less on what is going to happen in the next fifteen minutes of the story?

Alas, I'll never know. I have tried to reform my writing behavior. With each book at the beginning I try to plot out chapters and sadly sit there with complete writer's block.

Aaarrggghhh!