Today, please help me welcome mystery author, Jackie Griffey! We’re so happy to have her with us here on The Editing Essentials!
Jackie Griffey’s family live in Arkansas on five acres that require keeping all the John Deere equipment (and their muscles) in good shape. Outside their home sharing the seed and feed but not the muscle strain, are wild bunnies, birds and other extremely independent beings. Inside, Jackie and her family are owned by two cats and a four inch high Chihuahua who thinks she’s a watch dog, has to keep the cats in line, and has a long list of things to bark at. Griffey writes in several fiction genres, her favorite being cozy mysteries. Mardi Gras Murder and The Devil in Maryvale audio books will be out Dec. 15, 2012. Visit her website: http://jackiegriffey.com/ or the links for her books here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005FM7XGC and http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004E3XH50
This is a great time to be a writer, and being an optimist, I hope it’s going to get even better. With all the opportunities now open to us, we have all kinds of opportunities to publish ourselves. These of course include in print but also digital books and audio books as well. Right now, it’s easy to get discouraged about the number of ebooks being published because there are so many free ones on the market and well, you know what shape the economy’s in. No wonder people are looking for free ones, and of course we authors are trying to get name recognition as well. I think my best sales tools are the books that people have read and liked so they bought others in the series of the novel they liked. (There’s a tip: to get your work out and keep in touch with other writers and groups, too. )
The first thing you need to write is the desire to write. So sit down and get started. If you don’t already have a basically optimistic attitude and the hide of a Rhino, you soon will have. I don’t think it’s a written requirement anywhere that you have to have enough form letter refusals to paper a room, but everyone I know has them–don’t give up.
Right now I’ve managed to get nearly all my rights back and I’m still writing ebooks, still have some in print, and have had one audio for quite a while, plus there are three (yes, 3) audio books coming out Dec. 15 just in time for Christmas.
One of the brightest things in my days this week came from a fellow writer and reader. She was glad to hear about my audios coming out in December because she gets audios from the library and plays them as she does her housework. So know this, and rejoice–people like them and libraries do, too. Bless her heart for sharing that and making me feel good. Fellow readers and writers, audios are not only here to stay, people like them and listen to them. They are good improvements in publishing–so feel good, have fun, and write on. Good luck, good reading, and listening to all of us.
Thank you, Jackie, for being with us today. She’ll be with us all day if you have questions or comments for her. Thank you!
