Mary Louisa Locke's Monthly Newsletter
April 2024
Dear Reader,
This past week my injured finger finally healed enough so I could start working again. Whew, longest stretch where I couldn’t write in…forever. At this point, I am in the editing stage of the last science fiction novel, given that we are the beginning of a remodel of all our bathrooms, will probably take me at least all of May.
However, in the interim, to get everyone excited about me starting back up in the Victorian San Francisco universe this summer, I put up my first short story, Dandy Detects, scene by scene in my daily newsletter, An Aging Author’s Daily Diversions. Today, the last scene has published, so if you haven’t read this story, or would like to reread it (and a post I did giving some background to the story), click HERE. If readers enjoyed this process, I may do the same with with the prequel short story I wrote, Madam Sibyl’s First Client.
Finally, I’ve discounted the audiobook version of the latest full-length novel, Entangled Threads, which is only 99 cents until April 28 on Chirp, Barnes and Noble, Spotify, and Applebooks.
Responses to last month’s questions:
There were 96 responses, and not surprisingly, 97% of them put historical mysteries as their favorite sub-category of mysteries, with 75% also choosing cozy mysteries. I thought that this second choice was especially interesting because I didn’t set out intending to reach that market in 2009.
Here is a quote from the blog I wrote about this in 2013:
When I first published Maids of Misfortune, book one in my Victorian San Francisco Mystery series, I placed it in the historical and women sleuth mystery categories on Amazon. Since the book was set in the Victorian era, and the main protagonist was a woman who acted as an amateur sleuth, this was perfectly appropriate. At the time there was no “cozy mystery” sub-category in the Kindle store, and I didn’t use this term as a key word because I tended to think of cozy mysteries as contemporary mysteries with some sort of theme: like baking, quilting, or cats. To a degree, I wasn’t wrong, since when Amazon created the cozy mystery sub-category a few months ago its three sub-divisions were: animals, crafts and hobbies, and culinary.
Nevertheless, as I began to understand my audience and discover what people liked most about my books (the upside to reading reviews), I realized that many of them saw the books as cozy mysteries––and that this element was as important as the Victorian setting in explaining the series’ growing popularity.
As I mentioned above, next to historical mysteries, I saw my Victorian San Francisco mysteries falling in the women/amateur sleuth categories, and according to the survey, slightly, over half of you also liked mysteries that featured either women (56%) or amateur sleuths (51%), so I wasn’t completely wrong.
The private detective sub-category came next with 43% choosing it, but the next categories (romantic suspense, thrillers, police procedurals, and noir or hard-boiled mysteries) all only garnered slightly less than a quarter of votes a piece. This makes sense because all four are really the furthest away from the style of my Victorian mystery series.
All of this helps me decide what other authors, series, or specific books I want to recommend in this newsletter, so thanks! In fact, here is a cozy, historical mystery with a female amateur detective, which is free for two more days.
Mystery Recommendation:
The Great Lovea Brown by Jolie Tunnell
Loveda Brown thinks she's running from her hot-tempered husband, but a hidden killer in the tiny town of Idyllwild has other plans for her.
When Loveda Brown arrives in the tiny mountainside town of Idyllwild, California, as yet the Wild West of 1912, she is running from her husband. But when a body turns up the next day, she realizes she might have worse things following her… That cold, clenched fist holds something that forces Loveda to stay in Idyllwild and use all of her wits to stop another murder from happening. Probably her own.
This book is currently free, as is the second book in the series. Check out how to download HERE.
A reminder of my Ebook Perma-free books:
Maids of Misfortune: A Victorian San Francisco Mystery (Book 1) This first book in the series permanently free and you can get it on Kindle and all other Retailers.
Between Mountain and Sea: Caelestis Series (Book 1) This first book in the series permanently free and you can get it on Kindle and all other Retailiers.
For more information about either my mystery or science fiction series, check out my website. For daily information on my journey as an indie author trying to age gracefully, check out my newsletter, An Aging Author’s Daily Diversions.