There is nothing sweeter than setting up an author table at a holiday craft fair, then waiting for the browsers to wander past, stopping to chat about my characters, the setting, the storyline. If the two of us connect over my mystery series, another reader will walk away with one of my books, anxious to meet my amateur sleith Gwen Andrews.
Such was the case when I purchased a table for the 4th Annual Craft Fair in Mansfield, MA, this past Saturday. Although my spot in the second room placed me away from the entrance, many shoppers made their way into my section. Young and old, male and female, mystery lovers come in all shapes and sizes.
The first story in the series ‘The Uninvited Guest’ outsold the second ‘Where There’s Smoke, There’s Trouble’, simply because readers were new to the series. Several purchased one of each as a Christmas gift set. Several accepted my bookmark as a reminder to link to my Amazon page and download the eBook version.
At the end of the day, I was pleased to realize I had placed more books in the hands of mystery lovers than in any previous single event… yea!
There is nothing more satisfying than to walk into a bookstore and see both of my mysteries displayed on the shelf in the local author section.
As I’ve been penning the third story in my four-book mystery series, it occured to me that the first two stories were told strictly from the viewpoint of my amature sleuth Gwen Andrews. I wondered if transforming certain scenes to the viewpoint of another major character might add texture and depth to the story-telling.
A few months ago, I was contacted by the host of “Be My Guest”, an interview show on the Upton local cable station and scheduled for May.
After two years of sharing my writing journey with audiences in New England, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Florida, I received a return invitation from the friends group of my local senior center to speak to them again about the current status of my writing life.
For the past two years, I’ve been presenting my Author Talk centered around how I learned to write a mystery. I was thrilled recently to receive an invitation from the Friends group for my local senior center to speak to them again this April with an update on my writing career and my work in progress.
for your GPS: 10900 Walsingham Road, Largo, FL.
Because my first two published mysteries are set in a fictitious Massachusetts town, I’ve had no resistance from New England library directors or senior complex program organizers to schedule my Author Talk about the writing process. I’ve even had success in Pennsylvania and Delaware because I have siblings living in both states.
