X is for X the Unknown

 

It’s what all mysteries have in common. Where is the treasure? X marks the spot. Whodunit? Mr (or Ms) X. What is the answer to AxB÷C? X.

Every piece I write has an X. The unknown quantity/entity which the reader will learn as he goes along.

The remarkable thing is, that when I set out on a novel, I don’t always know the answer to X. I think I do, but frequently it changes as I go along, and very often, the job is finished before I finally learn the truth.

But there is another X the unknown for all authors, no matter how successful or otherwise. How will the great reading public greet the new book?

It’s a testing time, putting out a new work and watching the sales figures and chart positions, and you can never second-guess it. I believed A Halloween Homicide would be a winner; it wasn’t. I wasn’t so happy that A Murder for Christmas would succeed beyond the Yuletide period, but it carries on selling even in these warmer days of spring. I was absolutely certain when I self-published Voices that it would be a rampant success, but it was not, although I have hopes for the rewrite and reprint with Crooked Cat Publishing.

There again, if it was all that easy, it wouldn’t be worth doing.

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The Filey Connection, first of the Sanford 3rd Age Club Mysteries, from Crooked {Cat} Books is available for the Kindle from Amazon UK and Amazon Worldwide and in all other formats from Smashwords