CREWEL INTENTIONS

by Lois Winston

I don’t like change. I much prefer the security and comfort of habit. So when I’m forced to make a change, the decision is one that takes much soul-searching and deliberation on my part. I’m not the kind of person who climbs a mountain just because it’s there. I need a really good reason to step out of my comfort zone, lace up my hiking boots, and ascend upwards into the unknown.

Unfortunately, the publishing industry is fraught with change lately. Gone are the days when an author had a home for life and the people she worked with at the publishing house became like a second family to her. These days there’s a lot of divorce going on in publishing. More and more authors are being dropped because their sales aren’t strong enough. Or authors decide for various reasons that they need to leave their publisher. Both situations are very scary for the author. No matter which party institutes the divorce proceedings, fear of the unknown can overwhelm an author.

Several months ago I realized I needed to institute a change in my life. I didn’t want to, but after countless weeks of soul-searching, I knew it was time to climb the mountain. So I laced up those hiking boots and decided not to sign another contract with Midnight Ink for more Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery books.

However, Revenge of the Crafty Corpse, which came out in January, will not be the last book in the series. Hopefully, Anastasia and I will find another home. We’re looking. Along with all the negative change in the publishing industry lately, there are also opportunities opening for authors that never existed prior to a few years ago. If all else fails, I’ll be able to publish more Anastasia books on my own. Anastasia has a lot more of her story yet to tell, and I fully plan to tell it.

To that end, I recently published Crewel Intentions, an Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mini-Mystery. Crewel Intentions is a 10,000 word short story that takes Anastasia on a side adventure.

Crewel Intentions sells for $1.99 and is available only as an ebook. I plan to write more mini-mysteries. I’m also working on Book 4, the next book in the main series. Time will tell if that book is published by a traditional publisher or in the brave new world of indie publishing. It all depends on what I find at the top of the mountain.

Crewel Intentions Blurb:

In this short story addition to the critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, crafts editor and reluctant amateur sleuth Anastasia Pollack receives a desperate phone call from former American Woman fashion editor Erica Milano. Erica is now in Witness Protection and living under a new identity in Western Pennsylvania. But someone is stalking her, and Erica has compelling reasons why she can’t go to the police or notify her Witsec handlers. Anastasia is the only person she can trust to help her, and she knows Anastasia won’t let her down. After all, Erica once saved Anastasia’s life. But will Anastasia be able to return the favor before the stalker strikes?

Crewel Intentions is available for Kindle, Nook, and Kobo.

Award-winning author Lois Winston writes the critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series featuring magazine crafts editor and reluctant amateur sleuth Anastasia Pollack. Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun, the first book in the series, received starred reviews from both Publishers Weekly and Booklist. Kirkus Reviews dubbed it, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” The series also includes Death By Killer Mop Doll, Revenge of the Crafty Corpse and Crewel Intentions, an Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mini-Mystery.

Lois is also published in women’s fiction, romance, romantic suspense, and non-fiction under her own name and her Emma Carlyle pen name. In addition, she’s an award-winning crafts and needlework designer and an agent with the Ashley Grayson Literary Agency. She’s also the author of the recently released Top Ten Reasons Your Novel is Rejected. Visit Lois at http://www.loiswinston.com, visit Emma at http://www.emmacarlyle.com, and visit Anastasia at the Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers blog. 

Mother + Mother-in-Law = Conflict

by Lois Winston

Mama here. Yesterday was the official release day of Revenge of the Crafty Corpse, the third book in author Lois Winston’s eponymous mystery series about my daughter – the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries. Lois left us all hanging at the end of Death By Killer Mop Doll. That nasty communist, otherwise known as my daughter’s mother-in-law Lucille, wound up having a stroke.

I was hoping we’d be rid of her at last. But apparently, Lois has no intention of relieving the Pollack household of that huge nuisance. She claims conflict is good for fiction. It might be good for fiction, but it’s wreaking havoc on my social life. After all, I’m the one who has to share a bedroom with the pinko prude. She may not have had sex since Eisenhower was in the White House, but I’m too young to give up such pleasures.

At least I’m rid of her for a month while she recuperates from her stroke and subsequent surgery. Good thing, too, because I’ve met someone special.

Things are looking up, though. Less than twenty-four hours after Lucille is settled into the Sunnyside of Westfield Assisted Living and Rehabilitation Center, someone does away with her roommate. And because someone overheard Lucille threatening to strangle the woman, she lands at the head of the suspects list.

Now if I could only convince my daughter to mind her own business and let the police handle the investigation...

But no. Anastasia decides Lucille might be a lot of things – none of which are remotely admirable – but she’s not violent and definitely not a killer. I suppose she’s forgotten about that time the Bolshevik attacked me with her cane.

Anyway, I’m hoping for a decidedly different outcome this time around. But even if Lucille doesn’t wind up behind bars for the rest of her life, I just might have found myself a new husband. You’ll have to read Revenge of the Crafty Corpse to find out.

Blurb:

Anastasia Pollack’s dead louse of a spouse has left her with more bills than you can shake a crochet hook at, and teaching craft classes at her mother-in-law’s assisted living center seems like a harmless way to supplement her meager income. But when Lyndella Wegner—a 98-year-old know-it-all with a penchant for ruffles and lace—turns up dead, Anastasia’s cantankerous mother-in-law becomes the prime suspect in her murder. Upon discovering that Lyndella’s scandalous craft projects—and her scandalous behavior—made her plenty of enemies, Anastasia sets out to find the real killer before her mother-in-law ends up behind bars.

Buy link

Award-winning author Lois Winston writes the critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries series featuring magazine crafts editor and reluctant amateur sleuth Anastasia Pollack. Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun, a 2011 release, was the first book in the series and received starred reviews from both Publishers Weekly and Booklist. Kirkus Reviews dubbed it, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum” Death By Killer Mop Doll and Crewel Intentions, an Anastasia Pollack Mini Crafting Mystery, were released in 2012. Revenge of the Crafty Corpse is a January 2013 release. Lois also writes romance, romantic suspense, humorous women's fiction, and non-fiction under her own name and as Emma Carlyle. Visit Lois at http://www.loiswinston.com, visit Emma at http://www.emmacarlyle.com, and visit Anastasia at the Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers character blog, www.anastasiapollack.blogspot.com.

KILLER FIRST LINES

by Lois Winston

I'm a firm believer in books needing killer first lines. No, I don't mean the killer should appear in the first line of a mystery, nor that the murder should occur at the very beginning of the book. I'm talking about first lines that grab hold of a reader and don't let go, the kind of first lines that pique a reader's curiosity and make him or her want to keep reading.

I learned the importance of killer first lines years ago when I attended a workshop given by a literary agent. He spoke about the importance of the first few pages of a book, how it's your one and only chance to impress editors and agents. Because if they're not impressed after a page or two, they're not going to keep reading.

From that day on, I decided that not only would my opening pages be free of back-story, unimportant details, filler, and boring descriptions, I'd make sure that I hooked the reader with my opening sentence. And I developed a philosophy about first chapters:

The first sentence of a novel should make the reader want to read the second sentence. And that second sentence should make the reader want to read the third. And so on, until you have a paragraph that becomes a hook that grabs the reader and won’t let go.  That first paragraph should do for the first page what the first sentence did for the first paragraph, and the first page should do for the subsequent pages in the chapter what the first paragraph did for the first page.

Of course, not all readers are going to be hooked by what I write. Taste is subjective, after all. However, once I went back and revised my first chapters, based on this agent's talk, I began receiving more requests for full manuscripts from editors and agents and less rejections. Eventually, those requests led to offers of publication.

I recently proofed the galleys for Revenge of the Crafty Corpse, the third book in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries. The first line is:

"If that damn woman doesn't shut up, I'm going to strangle her!"

Have I hooked you?  

Award-winning author Lois Winston writes the critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries series featuring magazine crafts editor and reluctant amateur sleuth Anastasia Pollack. Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun, a January 2011 release, is the first book in the series and received starred reviews from both Publishers Weekly and Booklist. Kirkus Reviews dubbed it, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum” Death By Killer Mop Doll was released this past January. Revenge of the Crafty Corpse will be a January 2013 release.

Lois has also recently embarked on an indie publishing career, releasing some of her earlier romance, romantic suspense, and chick lit books under the pen name Emma Carlyle. Now through the end of October, Lois is donating $500 to breast cancer research for every 1,000 Emma Carlyle books sold. Visit Lois at http://www.loiswinston.com , visit Emma at http://www.emmacarlyle.com , and visit Anastasia at the Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers character blog, www.anastasiapollack.blogspot.com.

WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM OUR WRITER FRIENDS

by Lois Winston

Recently a very dear friend received a crushing rejection. Several days earlier another close friend received a lousy review. I’ve suffered my share of both. I try not to let them get to me, but if I’m truly being honest? Of course, they sting.

I know some authors who never read their reviews. Me? I’m like a moth drawn to a flame. I click on every link Google Alerts sends me. I can’t get through a day without logging into NovelRank at least once or twice (or three or four or twelve times) to check my Amazon sales.

Death By Killer Mop Doll, the second book in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries, came out the beginning of January. Reviews have been dribbling in. At the same time, I’m still receiving reader reviews for Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun, the first book in the series. Midnight Ink did a month-long free Kindle download of the book in January, which is now resulting in lots of reviews being posted on Amazon, Goodreads, and elsewhere.

I’m not naïve enough to think everyone will love my books. Why should they? Taste is subjective. I’ve tossed aside books after a chapter or two that other people have raved about, that reviewers have given high praise to, that have made “the lists.” And I’ve loved other books that have received poor reviews and made no lists.

No matter how many people love a book, there are always others who don’t. As a writer I know that there will always be someone ready and willing to rain on my Happy Parade, rejecting my manuscript or proclaiming to the world via Amazon or cyber-review sites, or in the print media that my darling, that precious newborn I labored so hard to produce, is a butt-ugly spawn of the devil. All I can hope is that more people love my books than hate them. Yet no matter how pragmatic I try to be, it doesn’t make the rejection or the bad review any easier to take.

Which brings me back to my two friends because this is what I told them: Not every editor is going to fall in love with your next book, and you’re never going to please every reviewer. It didn’t make either of them feel any better. I didn’t expect it to, but still we say these words to each other because that’s what friends do at times like this. We also first rail about how unfair life is and how so-and-so wouldn’t know a good book if it bit her in the behind. Then we offer a shoulder, a never-ending stream of margaritas, and heaps of chocolate -- not necessarily in that order. We do this for each other because we’ve all been there and will undoubtedly be there again. We, more than anyone else, understand the pain of rejection and scathing reviews.

And that’s something that I’m very thankful for, today and every day. I’m thankful for a community of friends who understands the fragility of an author’s ego. No matter how supportive our spouses, non-writer friends, and relatives might be (for those lucky enough to have supportive spouses, non-writer friends, and relatives), they really don’t and never will ‘get it.’ Only another writer can understand the emotional roller coaster of being a writer.

So I’m declaring today, March 8th as Thankful Thursday, and in doing so, I raise my margarita class and pass the cyber-chocolates to my fellow writers.

Lois Winston writes the critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries series. The first book, Assault With A Deadly Glue Gun, was a January 2011 release and received starred reviews from both Publishers Weekly and Booklist. Death by Killer Mop Doll was a January release. Visit Lois at http://www.loiswinston.com and Anastasia at the Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers blog, http://anastasiapollack.blogspot.com.

Cozy Fare?

Okay, first we have to talk about FREE STUFF.

In celebration of the recent release of my fifth Home Crafting Mystery, Wined and Died, you can enter to win a FREE Author Website ($900 value!) from the creative folks at Bizango Websites for Writers until July 29, 2011. The winner will also receive 2 years of FREE hosting. For more details and information on how to enter, please visit my Hearth Cricket blog.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming…

My books are billed as cozies, but I get kind of squirmy every time I say that. Not because I have any problem with cozies – love ‘em, actually – but because mine aren’t. Not really.

But they’re crafting mysteries. I was on a panel at Left Coast Crime once that discussed exactly this issue. One of the questions was, “Do the subjects of your books make them cozy?” The idea was that if you’re writing mysteries about crafts (me), antiques (Jane Cleland), or gardening (Rosemary Harris) then they must be cozies. Two panelists were unable to attend, and Reed Farrell Coleman stepped in to balance out the panel (because of the wine connection in his Moe Prager mysteries, I assume). It turned out that despite our subject matter and the fact that we were all considered cozy writers (well, all except for Reed), none of us particularly related to the cozy label.

There’s outside evidence that I color slightly outside the cozy lines. There was that cozy author I asked to write a happy little blurb for one of my books who refused to be associated with it because it featured a stalker, a possible rapist, and an elderly woman was attacked. For a (very) brief moment there I felt like Hunter S.Thompson or Harry Crews. Another blurber was somewhat taken aback by the untraditionally fast pacing.

By the way, that thing about the pacing will make my writing buddies crazy, because they’re always telling me to speed things up. “But it’s a cozy, “ I say. Even if I only kinda, sorta mean it.

“What does it mean to know someone in the biblical sense?” is the opening line of Wined and Died, and it comes from an eleven-year-old girl. Throughout the series, serious issues like alcoholism, clinical depression, cancer, suicide, abuse – oh, and murder, helllooo – keep cropping up. In Wined and Died we’ve got us a little problem with some backwoods marywanna growers, drug dealing, and addiction.

Not terribly cozy fare, though it’s generously sprinkled with soap making, herb craft, gardening, how to make dandelion wine and ginger ale, information on mead, cooking, plenty of recipes, and, I hope, a bit of humor. There isn’t any explicit sex but two main characters are recently married, so there’s reference to their sex life. There was before the wedding, too. Wined and Died doesn’t have a lot of gore, but others in the series have had their share. Now that I think about it, the then acquisitions editor asked me to tone down the first page of the first Home Crafting Mystery because the description of the dead body was too graphic. (She was right, too – I totally went overboard on the ick factor.)

Yet middle school librarians stock my books. I rate them as PG 13 on Authors Den. At nearly all of my signings, at least one teenager buys a book, and I always tell the parents that there’s some mildly bad language and references to adult behavior. “Worse than television?” And I have to shake my head and offer them another molasses-oatmeal signing cookie.

So now I call my books contemporary cozies, because I guess that’s what they really are – a little faster, a teensy bit more edgy, not – as Robin put it in her recent post – “pink.” But they’re still about colonial home crafts, and that is cozy fare. Kinda sorta. Pretty much.

There are a lot of books out there that I’d call contemporary cozies. Or do you think “cozy” has been redefined over the last decade and that modifier is unnecessary?

MY FIRST INKSPOT BLOG POST

Hello, readers of the InkSpot blog! My name is Lois Winston, and I’m one of the newest Midnight Ink authors. Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun, the first book in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, will debut in January, but I’m not a debut author. I’ve previously published two other novels, and although one is a humorous women’s fiction and the other a romantic suspense, all of my books have a common thread -- crafts.

This wasn’t a conscious effort on my part to "brand" myself but stemmed from that old adage, write what you know. I know crafts. So when the writing bug bit and I needed to give my characters professions, it was a lot easier to give them professions I knew inside-out than do a ton of research about rocket scientists, belly dancers, or entomologists.

After I sold my first book, I started hearing about platform. It’s a buzz word that’s been around in non-fiction forever but has also crept into fiction over the last few years. Authors are told they need a platform for marketing purposes. Kind of reminds me of that song from the musical Gypsy where the strippers sing about how you’ve got to have a gimmick. We all need some platform or gimmick to make our books stand out from all the other books vying for shelf space and sales. So I thought quite a bit about platform -- or gimmick -- after I sold Talk Gertie To Me.

My background is in design -- crafts design to be specific. You know those needlework and craft projects you see in magazines and in kit form at chain stores such as Wal-Mart, Michael’s and Hobby Lobby? I’ve designed many of them. My books often draw upon my design experience. In Talk Gertie To Me one of the two main characters is a kinder, gentler version of Martha Stewart. In Love, Lies and a Double Shot of Deception my heroine is a needle artist and doll maker.

So when I was thinking in terms of publicity for my books, I thought about my connections in the crafts industry. Was there some way I could use those connections to promote my books? So as each book came out, I sent press releases and copies of the books to industry people I’ve worked with over the years.

The response was overwhelming. My books have been profiled in an industry newsletter that goes out to thousands of retailers, manufacturers, and buyers. One magazine ran a review, along with the cover of Talk Gertie To Me, in their New Products column. My books were used as props at an international trade show and in a manufacturer’s catalog distributed to tens of thousands of retailers, buyers, and consumers worldwide. That catalog page resulted in one book going into a second printing.

Few of us will ever have a book that becomes an Oprah pick or winds up featured in People or excerpted in Cosmo. However, through niche marketing we can generate a good deal of publicity and sales if we learn to think outside the box.

And that brings me back to the series I’ve sold to Midnight Ink. I stuck with what I know best. Anastasia, my amateur sleuth, is the crafts editor at a women’s magazine. As you can imagine from the title, a glue gun -- Anastasia’s glue gun, to be exact -- plays a pivotal role in the first book.

Later this spring, I’ll be ramping up my crafts platform by launching a blog, but it won’t be “my” blog; it will be Anastasia’s blog. Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers will feature “posts” by Anastasia and the other “editors” at American Woman magazine, as well as guest mystery authors every Friday. I’ll have simple craft and decorating projects, travel and fashion tips, recipes, and much more. Anastasia, the other “editors,” and I are all very excited about this blog. I hope it will be a fun place where you’ll enjoy hanging out. Look for the launch announcement here at InkSpot later this spring.