Update from Jude Pittman

I keep intending to get my Blog ready and posted, but there's always something getting in the way.  It seems for some reason my role as publisher for Books We Love is always getting in the way of my passion for writing mysteries.  Once again today finds me unprepared and playing catch up.

What's going on with Amazon?  Anyone have any ideas.  Seems like they've deserted the book world in favor of deploying drones, and of course who could miss Bezos' shining head and beaming smile as he basked in the attention of Hollywood.  Star struck I guess, no more time for those measly ebooks after he's already managed to force the price down so low that authors can barely afford to keep their software current.  Oh well, onward and upward.  Looks for our Books We Love books everywhere, no longer KDP exclusive you'll find us on Kobo, Apple, Smashwords, Overdrive, anywhere you find ebooks you'll find Books We Love.  So enough about the publisher side of things.

As you might have noticed Jamie and I struggled quite a bit with branding our new series that we're writing together.  Readers have been telling us that the story is so seamless they can't tell two authors are writing.  Probably as a result of Jamie and I struggling together with all the mysteries of publishing for the past 8 or 9 years.  In any event, we started with Kelly McWinter, who those of you that know my Deadly series will recognize as the lead character in all three of those books.  Both of us felt that Kelly would be easy to work with so we started out with the title "New Directions" for our new series, "McWinter Confidential" but after a couple of months we both realized that the title just didn't fit the book and we decided we needed to make a change.

That's s where the advantage of being a publisher came in, since we had to do the work ourselves we could change the title and re-release the book.  I won't mention what Michelle said about "once again" changing one of my covers.  She gets a bit touchy mid-week after dealing with hordes of teen students, but we did get the new cover, and of course we put a note in the description to warn readers who had already purchased New Directions that the new book was the same one only now called "To Kill A Songbird".  We tried it first  with a pseudonym (Jayme Lynn Robb) but decided it was too complicated to have yet another name, so we went back to using our own names.  It's not for sale right now, that's because we're waiting for Michelle to speak to us again and change the cover...LOL). 

Anyway, that's where we are with the new series.  Both of us love the "To Kill A Songbird" title and the theme for the series, now we're busy thinking about book 2, which is going to continue with "To Kill A Ghost", McWinter Confidentia, Book 2,

Now if I could just get myself focused and motivated on my Sisters of Prophecy series, I'd get the next book in that one written finished.  Book 1, Katherine, is available in all markets, so if you're interested in a book that's a mix of mystery and romance with a paranormal twist you might enjoy "Katherine" the first book in the Sisters of Prophecy series.  If you do and you like it, maybe you can give me some thoughts on what you'd like to see in Irene, which is half finished and just waiting for me to get back to visiting those characters

Any authors out there reading this.  What does it take to get you motivated to start writing again after you've let a manuscript sit for several months?  Any tips.

If you'd like to read Katherine, now is a perfect time.  It's on Sale at Smashwords for their Readers Week, and it's only $1.50 to purchase.  From now on you'll be seeing my links to Smashwords where you can purchase the book in any format you like, and I'm just a bit ticked off at Amazon so not too interested in promoting their links anymore.  However, if you prefer, it is available there, for $2.99, until they discover that it's on sale at Smashwords and they'll lower the price too. 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/702520

That's my ramblings for today.  Happy reading everyone.  Jude

Something Shiny

Natasha's Legacy - The conclusion to the Natasha Saga

Check out Heather Greenis' page on the Books We Love website

Listening to the news a short time ago, I heard a rather interesting statistic. Interesting may be the wrong word. I’ll leave that up to you. The statistic was on the average human attention span. My first thought was, seriously? Someone or a group of people are actually paid to monitor and record attention spans? 
It gets worse. 
Last year, the average attention span was 12 seconds. Yes, you read that correctly. So unless you’re a speed reader, I’ve already lost you. 
I’ll give my readers the benefit of the doubt. Readers are an intelligent bunch.
So, are you curious? Would you like to hear that we’ve improved? 
Drum roll please. 
I’m listening for the tap of your fingers to prove you’re still paying attention.
No-o-o, we’re flunking, and badly.The average attention span had actually decreased. It now sits at a dismal 8.5 seconds.
As if it can’t get any worse, a goldfish has an attention span of 9 seconds.

Yes, that is correct. We have a shorter attention span than a goldfish. 

Aren’t we proud!

Now the big question. How the heck do they measure what’s going on in the mind of a goldfish. Do they put the little orange critter on a plastic bed and give it a PET (brain) scan? 

I admit, I’m impatient, but to prove my attention span is longer than a goldfish, I will put my cell phone down and allow my computer to have a nap. I will play with the dog. Afterwards  I will initiate a conversation with my husband. Just like the good old days before cell phones invades our lives.

I guarantee, my dog has a longer attention span than a goldfish. She will sit and stare at me while I make my breakfast. Two big brown eyes with this, 'I haven’t been fed in forever' look while waiting for a piece of toast in the morning.

My husband's attention span is above average as well. But then again, oh, look, something shiny. 

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Are you still with me? 
Oh good. I'm thrilled to announce I have a new book coming out. A stand-alone mystery. You can be the first to see my new cover. Thanks to my cover artist, Michelle. I love it.

DONE  - coming soon

Constrained by the justice system, the judge voiced her regret as she pronounced sentence on the accused. Though relieved by the ‘guilty’ verdict, the prosecution was not in a mood to celebrate. Neither was the arresting officer. 

Corvin served his time, was released, and the legal system rubbed the slate clean. But knowing this abuser doesn’t feel remorse for his actions leaves Jenn furious. She has seen her fair share of criminals. She prosecutes them. 

Still, Jenn can’t accept that this sad excuse for a human walks the streets of her town. And she is not alone.

Will a desire for real justice create a vigilante?

Any Canadians out there - The Saga is on sale at Kobo. Check it out.

Life’s Little Inspirations: by June Gadsby

 Check out June Gadsby's books by 

visiting her Books We Love author page

There’s no getting away from it. As we get older we slow down, physically if not mentally. It’s worse when one has had a long dry period, whatever that is due to. Writing has been put on hold while you struggle with other more important life events. The ideas keep coming, pouring into your brain like the glistening veils of a waterfall in full flood. You take copious notes and hope you will have sufficient years in which to turn them into novels, though you know that there are far too many storylines, even if you live to be a hundred and are still capable of sitting at a laptop with your fingers flying over the keys – hopefully writing stuff that makes sense.

Then there are the important ‘obligations’ – the stories you said [not promised – I don’t do ‘promise’] you would write for people who you had loved and admired and who would like their stories to be known. I have two of them. A surprise request from a fellow-writer and good friend of some thirty years, who sent me a beautiful short love story he had written and asked me to write it up as a novel. He wasn’t normally a fiction writer – wrote articles on naval subjects and historic places. He had been a marine during the war, serving his time in a submarine. The story was about a marine falling in love with a young woman while serving abroad. The couple lost touch when the war came to an end and he married someone else, but he never forgot his one great love. Then one day, attending a wedding, he recognised her across the church aisle…

Another wartime story I was told and asked to write came from an old French lady whose cousin had been a prisoner of war and escaped. He married and spent many years caring for his mentally sick wife. When she eventually died, he moved away from the family down to the south-west of France and asked his cousin, my friend, to visit him with his sister. Until then my friend had only memories of him as something of a mother’s boy. The visit was a happy success and the cousins fell in love, much to the horror of the family back in Normandy and a cold war was then declared between them….

These two stories have been at the top of my inspiration list for years, and I hope to write them up one day, but I have so many of my own inspired stories that are difficult to ignore. And it’s very often the new storylines that get written. It’s too easy to push the old storylines to the back of the filing cabinet in your brain and go with the flow of new material which is fresh and exciting. Now, I’m working on the edits of an old unpublished saga and hoping, soon, to get back to the thriller I had started before joining BWL. I’m trying to ignore the inspiration elves that are working overtime in my head, doing their best to distract me with new ideas that will take me sideways rather than onward. I can tell you, it’s not easy. Gone are the days when I could write creatively for 10 – 12 hours 7/7. My writing time now is a couple or three hours in the afternoon, but even in that short time I can get a lot done – if I don’t get distracted by my elderly husband and my even more elderly Yorkshire Terrier and her much younger brother who is missing his walks since I fractured my spine a few months ago.

I hope I will never lose my inspiration, my enthusiasm and my love of writing. It has seen me through so many dark passages in my life, allowing me to lose myself and my problems in the pages of my novels and the characters I create like true friends. And going back to those dark passages in my life – now there’s a story that my friends who know me well enough tell me that it’s so incredible nobody would believe it to be true. I’ve made a start on it, so maybe one day…one never knows.