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I have been reading books for as long as I can remember, but I’ve never heard the term ‘Cozy Mystery’ until very recently. Whilst trying to promote my up-coming ebook I kept seeing this phrase everywhere. What is it? I asked myself; so I Googled it. Well, would you believe it…….a Cozy Mystery seems to apply to the very book I have written.

The thing is I’m not sure I like the term; I mean a Cozy Mystery just sounds so…..cozy. The word ‘cozy’ to describe a book sounds so twee and, dare I say it, boring. To be honest it sounds like a contradiction in terms. The definition of ‘cozy’ as an adjective means: comfort, warmth, friendly, snug, relaxation. Personally, I don’t think any of those words apply to a good mystery, especially one of the murder variety.

Anyway, it looks like I’ll have to grow to accept it. So, get ready for a new Cozy Mystery, “Wild Pursuit” coming your way soon. And I can promise that it’s certainly not twee and boring……..

(For a definition of what a ‘Cozy Mystery’ is, follow this link to Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cozy_mystery)

Advice to all aspiring writers out there: don’t subscribe to Netflix. Bad, bad, bad idea. I have come under its spell. One episode of a series just isn’t enough. I try to tell myself that watching a good murder mystery is research, but who am I kidding?

At lease I’ve been distracted by quality. How good is ‘Sherlock’?! Missed it on TV and so I’ve had the pleasure of discovering it now. Such fun. Fast pace, brilliant dialogue, great characters. Actually, perhaps it is good book research afterall; now, where’s that TV remote……

Right, the time has come. No more dithering. No more allowing myself to be distracted by silly little projects that seem to be more important. No, the time has come to get my novel published. I will allow no excuses.

Pep talk over. Do you think I sounded convincing? Well, I guess time will tell. I am setting myself a target of 16th March to have my book loaded onto Amazon. My birthday is the next day and I would love to wake up that morning and see my book for sale. That could be my gift to myself. There, it’s in writing; 16th March. The pressure is on.

I have made some progress. I have upped my social media activity and am determined to make this website better. I have also scheduled an appointment with a graphic designer to get my book cover under way. I am especially excited about that.

I am also looking for guinea pigs. I would like to offer 100 people a free copy of my book in exchange for an honest review (try to be kind….). If you are interested, go to the ‘Contact’ page and send me your email address. I will let you know how and when you can get your copy.

Well, that’s all for the moment. I’ll keep you posted, but for now, I have some procrastination, I mean work, to do…..

I pretty much finished writing my book months ago; so, why haven’t I published yet? When I first thought of self-publishing I thought it would be as simple as write the book, publish to Amazon and wait for people to hopefully buy it.  How naive was I?!

Writing the book is actually the easy part. Since then I’ve been bogged down in a whole host of issues. The problem is that there is so much information and advice that after a while your head can start to spin. There is also the issue of the financial costs.

Perhaps if I didn’t care about doing everything properly it would be easier, but I want my book to be professional and I want as many people as possible to buy it. I want to do it right. So, where does this leave me? It leaves me going around in circles.

One thing became clear early on in my research. That was that it is very important to build my author platform and try to get an audience for my book before publishing. This makes sense; afterall, who is going to buy your book if nobody knows about it or you? I have gone as far as creating facebook and twitter pages, and have started this blog/ web site. The only thing is that until now none of them actually had any content.

So, the time has come for me to knuckle down, make some decisions and get started. That is what has brought me here to my blog today. I am going to make a commitment to start building my author platform. Once this is going well, then, and only then, will I finish editing my book and get it ready for publication.

Of course I will then face a whole new batch of issues, like; how much should I charge for the book, what should my outlets be, and what should the cover look like. Whilst it can be a little overwhelming it is also tremendous fun and I look forward to the challenges ahead.