A New Book and a Great Resource for Writers fiction and non-fiction

I just bought a new book, well okay I bought it on June 5, but I've been going through it and I wish I had an affiliate link for this book because I'm going to recommend it every where to every one.  It's called Sell Your Book Like Wildfire The Writer's Guide to Marketing and Publicity, by Rob Eagar...what makes this one different is that he doesn't leave the fiction writer behind - He makes it useful for all of us-- 277 pages of awesome things...like - did you know what to do with Author Connect on Amazon - do you know how it can really help you sell your books for free?

Do you know how to effectively use twitter, facebook, linkedin and the rest?  I took copious notes--and I'm still trying to digest it all. It doesn't make you feel over whelmed but it does give you a head full of what's out there and how to use it.

And each chapter he has an online resource or two on his website you can download for free. I mean this guy gives so much!  I think I paid $16.99 for this book from Writers Digest but it was worth every penny. I am usually pretty skeptical because most times its all for non-fiction -- not this one. One chapter he interviews publishers, agents and others that know what we deal with when we seek publication. It's down to earth. It's a " here's how we see what you submit," kind of stuff straight from the horses mouth, so to speak. This guy just knows what we need.

His website is http://www.bookwildfire.comgo check him out.

I'll post stuff in a couple days that I've learned from here. And another resource that I just got called "Your Daily Success Plan,7-Steps To Starting Every Single Day With The Right Mindset, A Clear Direction, And Unstoppable Energy!" by Dennis Becker...talk about stoked - I'm ready. LOL

Monday's Child Contest Winner

Congratulations to Jenny P for her win in the Monday's Child contest. Thank you to all of you who played. The answer of 7 faces was correct and many of you had that right as well. The software program of random numbers actually drew the winning name from all the correct responses. Jenny has been notified via email.
Be on the lookout for Tuesday's Child Contest coming soon.

Also watch here for Friday's blog tour with Suzanne Lieurance and the Lucky Baseball.
See you Friday.

P.S. sign up for The Mystery Reader Connection to stay abreast of all that new in mystery - new columnists are added monthly - and they always have something mysterious to add to my pages.

Z Is For Zero, Zealot, Zip and...

Z is for Zero, Zealot, Zip in Cold Water and Zero Cemetery Lane

The grand finale of this A to Z Blog Challenge tour should end with a huge number, but instead it ends with the least number, zero. It could be Zero Cemetery Lane (A Cricket Sawyer paranormal Romantic Suspense) 

Or the address of The Bed and Breakfast Murders.

 Or, perhaps, our little friend Zip from Knapsack Secrets in his own young adult mystery suspense Cold Water.

All of these novels have one thing in common, the mystery element. Zero itself is a mysterious number, it holds the place of miniscule amounts or unfathomable mega amounts. 

The strangeness of the address number, Zero Cemetery Lane, is no accident. It is a real address in a tiny burg in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The address itself led to the creation of the mystery based on a piece of real estate not far from that address. Ask yourself who would feel safe having their address zero—no one—nothing could exist at zero—but it did— and the cemetery was close at hand with room for more to be planted.

Then whatever possessed a mystery novelist to name a character Zip, the character himself. Once profiled, an active African American teenager preferred the nick name to the moniker Ziegfeld. His nickname fit because of his restless, hurried manner of zipping from this to that and here to there. ADD, no, just super hyper activity of a busy mind and a need to move and the circumstances that wouldn't allow him the peace of home and mind.

All three novels play with Z. It may be the last letter of the alphabet, but when you are always last you try harder. And Z seriously delivers for a mystery suspense author.

P.S. Sign up for The Mystery Readers Connection today and get the free short short story "Black Roses." Recommend a friend sign up and when they do you will receive a copy of the short short "The Hanging Tree."    

Hurry sign up today you don't want to miss a single fact, and entertainment packed issue of The Mystery Readers Connection. Once a month, in your in box, several columnists, several new (to you) authors join us to present their unique look at mystery and story. 

There is a safe unsubscribe link in every newsletter so you never have to stay (though we hope you will) if you don't want to. Hurry – get your name in quickly! You won't want to miss a single episode.

X is For Xray, Xylophone, Xena-Transplant Labs and...

X is For X-ray, Xylophone, Xeno Transplant lab, Xhosa Tribe and Skull Music or Diamonds, Death and Deceit.

Skull Music, the mystery suspense novel began as a writing prompt including an x-ray of a skull, a tape cassette with a weird sound, and a dolphin. The x-ray became the key that unlocked the story for me…I have no idea how I found or concocted the xeno-transplant lab.

Any word could be a trigger. Who would think a xylophone might be?  Orchestrated Murders, [A Works In Progress] a whole, life-sized orchestra suspended from a real museum ceiling with life sized mannequins—or are they mannequins? The sight sparked an amazing story for me that is still unraveling.

An old Piano, an even older theatre, a piano man and his cast came from a man's face in a piece of wood-grain wall paneling where I lived one cold lonely winter, his image haunted me until he became a character in Ghost Music of Vaudeville and I changed his name to Piano Man.

Give me a word or three and I'll give you a mystery, because that is what I do, that is my livelihood and my life.

My mother's penchant for a quote or saying to fit every occasion created many stories for me. When she told me her grandfather, who I never knew, always began his story telling with "Back when Tag was a pup and turkeys chewed tobacco..." That became the thread that created Watch ForThe Raven  in a practically non-stop writing marathon.
She died before I got it finished. Matter of fact she died before I finished any of my thirty some books, having never read a one or even knowing I was writing for publication.

If you want to be a writer watch for a phrase, a word, a picture that strikes a note. Jot it down and at your next opportunity examine it with x-ray vision. What can it say to you? Write that story, write it now!

Read with a writer's eye. Take that first sentence, make it yours and write its story. X-ray, Xylophone, Zanadu.

P.S. Sign up for The Mystery Readers Connection today and get the free flash fiction story "Black Roses."
Recommend a friend sign up and when they do you will receive a copy of the flash fiction mystery "The Hanging Tree."   Hurry sign up today you don't want to miss a single fact, and entertainment packed issue of The Mystery Readers Connection. Once a month, in your in box, several columnists, several new (to you) authors join us to present their unique look at mystery and story.
There is a safe unsubscribe link in every newsletter so you never have to stay (though we hope you will) if you don't want to. Hurry – get your name in quickly! You won't want to miss a single issue.

W Is For Way-out, Whodunit? And ...

W Is For Way-out, Whodunit? And Writing Wide, or Watch For The Raven

 

A way-out is crucial for your sleuth, and at times it will seem the antagonist whodunit, will be the only lucky one—the antagonist is always the one with a way-out, always-- until the end that is.

When you are writing a mystery, your sleuth must always have a way out. Even when he doesn't know whodunit, and the future looks its bleakest—that is when your protagonist will shine and her true strengths will come through.

As a writer of any genre when the dreaded writers block threatens you – you could crack open a copy of Writing Wide, or Writing Wider to find writing prompts, writing tips, writing exercises and a way out. You are the protagonist of all you write. The forward thinking answer to the way out. Whodunit? Yoududnit, when you hear a reader rave (not to be confused with Watch For The Raven) about your latest creation.

Pick up that pen writer soldier. March to the front line, and write like the wind in whatever strength and direction it blows you.

Sure paint yourself (your protagonist) into a corner but always have a target so you know instinctively where to find the way out. Good Luck!

P.S. Sign up for The Mystery Readers Connection today and get your copy of the story "Black Roses." Recommend a friend sign up and when they do you will receive a copy of the flash fiction mystery "The Hanging Tree."    The next issue is due out April 26, 2012 - that's today = )

Hurry sign up today you don't want to miss a single fact, and entertainment packed issue of The Mystery Readers Connection. Once a month, in your in box, several columnists, several new (to you) authors join us to present their unique look at mystery and story. There is a safe unsubscribe link in every newsletter so you never have to stay (though we hope you will) if you don't want to. Hurry – get your name in quickly! You won't want to miss a single issue.

T is for Trap, Tiptoe and ...

T Is For Trap, Tiptoe and Tracker that is what a detective does, but in the case of Tracker it's also a career. The protagonist raises and trains bloodhounds for her search and rescue operation, Shadow and Tail Kennels.

"The Tender Trap," a sixties movie, was a romantic comedy. The trap in a mystery is very often, where the sleuth finds herself, if not at the very beginning of the story, quickly afterward.

April Shauers, in the novel Tracker is trapped physically (though sometimes in mystery the trap could be mentally rendered)and she must tiptoe to the tune played by the antagonist, serial killer, Jeddah Close, if she is to save her severely injured bloodhound and herself from certain death.

Very often by trapping our sleuth, giving the antagonist his goal early on—the mystery writer can plot a course that propels the reader along wishing she could see around the twists and turns ahead for the protagonist.

Engage your reader quickly. Paint your protagonist into the corner with no way out—except his or her wits and your reader will be searching the scenes to signal a way out, dreaming avenues, and tunnels, sky hooks and ropes as your protagonist ferrets a way out from the traps that keep our hero jumping to escape their jaws, until the very end.

Smile at your reader. Give her thumbs up and a thank you for her help. Good job, well-done, mystery solved, protagonist saved, and antagonist receiving his just desserts. You reader will sigh and search the bookstore for your next book. (we hope).

P.S. 

Sign up for The Mystery Readers Connection today and get the free flash fiction story "Black Roses." Recommend a friend sign up and when they do you will receive a copy of the flash fiction mystery "The Hanging Tree."   Hurry sign up today you don't want to miss a single fact, and entertainment packed issue of The Mystery Readers Connection. 

Once a month, in your in box, several columnists, several new (to you) authors join us to present their unique look at mystery and story. There is a safe unsubscribe link in every newsletter so you never have to stay (though we hope you will) if you don't want to. Hurry – get your name in quickly! You won't want to miss a single issue.

P.P.S Tracker is out of print. Order your copy today from the author while she still has a few print copies left.

F is for Frame up, or Facts or...

F is For Frame up or Facts or Fin, Fur and Fatal

Frame up is an interesting term. You frame up a picture to compliment what is contained inside the four walls of that frame—a painting or a portrait, a picture or a collage of keepsakes. But in mystery fiction when someone is framed, the frame up is to point clues, evidence, fingers and detectives to a fall guy [a person to take the hit or who the crime falls on as the perpetrator]. The fall guy is someone who is drummed up to take the heat, the persecution for whatever crime is being perpetrated.

Fin, Fur and Fatal

In Fin, Fur and Fatal, innocent animals are used to deliver a drug cartel's contraband, but that is merely the tip of the proverbial iceberg.  Things are not as they seem. Abandoned puppies, mistreated animals destined for the slaughter house, does it matter? It does to our sleuth, but does it cover up—or—frame up something that isn't truth?

Frame ups usually deal with crime families, Mafia types, because every day people don't have the capabilities or the necessary muscle and resources to carry a frame up out realistically—perhaps—but not always.

Be on the lookout for misdirection at the hands of a clever artist who may be adept at creating the perfect frame (up) for her mystery. 

Frame up, an interesting term: Casing, structure, framework, support, agenda. Each word has its own subtle nuances or implications; all could lead you to uncover a frame up if you are alert and a true mystery buff. Do you sense a challenge here? Are you up to it?

Sign up for the Mystery Reader Connection Newsletter and stay abreast of what's going on in mystery as well as meeting new (to you) authors, columnists with a different slant on mystery who also write in other genres, contests, freebies and more. See the signup box on the website at www.billiewilliams.com