A New Writing Project

                                                by Laura Crum

             After giving myself a couple of years of breathing space since turning out twelve mystery novels in my series featuring an equine vet, I’ve finally settled in to my new writing project. I felt pretty sure I was done with writing mysteries. I knew I wanted to write a memoir, but I wasn’t sure what the point would be. I didn’t want to waffle on about my memories, I wanted to target some unique aspect of life that I was fitted to convey. Uhmm, it took awhile to work this out.

            In the meantime I wrote a brief memoir in a series of blog posts here on Equestrian Ink, about my life with horses. This piece of work ties into my mystery series and essentially gives the background from whence the books sprang—forty years of owning, training, competing and just sharing my life with horses. It was lots of fun to write and it will be up on Kindle shortly (as soon as I get the cover worked out) as a 99 cent special.

            Since then, I read a book (The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman) that clarified for me the subjects that I really want to write about now. And that would be life, death, magic, old spirits and God. Not that I have the skill to write about these things. But I have the desire. I am quite sure that my memoir will fall far short of Neil Gaiman’s wonderful book, but that’s OK.

            So I’ve begun, and I am really enjoying writing the book I want to write, constrained by no one’s concepts but my own. To tell the truth, I have grown quite tired of concocting a crime and then a plot that contains just enough excitement…etc. I am interested in writing the truth as I see it, whether or not it pleases anyone else.

            One of my friends asked if I would try to sell this upcoming book. I laughed. Because one of the things I am done with is trying to sell a publisher on my work, and I’m also pretty sure that this book will not appeal to a publisher. It doesn’t fit any popular niche. But…

            Because of Amazon and Kindle, I can put my memoir up myself, and because my backlist has a steadily growing readership, there are probably readers who will buy my new work. So yes, in a sense, I will sell my book.

            I have heard of authors who deplore this new system, and I have to ask: What is it you don’t like? What is bad about getting a 70% royalty on every book sold? What is not to like about getting a check every month that pays for the groceries? I have never been anything other than a mid-list author, and I am still a mid-list author, but for the first time in my writing career, my books are bringing in a steady, useful income. What is bad about that?

           In a past post I've discussed the fact that authors whose work was chosen for publication by traditional publishing, as my books were, tend to feel a bit chagrined when self published authors want to claim the same bragging rights. It is sort of as if you went through the years of vet school and finally hung out your shingle, only to find a self-proclaimed vet next door, one who had never gone to vet school at all. However the discussion that resulted from that post clarified for me the basic fact that yes, anyone can publish a book on Kindle and call themselves an author. But in the end what counts is whether one can sell books on Kindle. Self published or traditionally published isn’t the bottom line. Does anyone want to buy/read your books is the bottom line. In my example of the self proclaimed vet, what really counts in the end is whether or not he/she is a good and effective vet. And if the years show that she is, well then, the traditionally schooled vet, if she isn’t too defensive, will just have to admit that her self-proclaimed comrade in medicine is all right. Which is exactly how I feel about all the self-published authors out there. Hey, if you are good to read, more power to you. And if you are not, well, I think the sales record will make this clear in time.  As for me, I am very grateful that sales of my books on Kindle have steadily continued to bring in useful money, and very happy to have a system that actually rewards authors for their work.

            So yes, my memoir will eventually be for sale on Kindle, and I hope that some of the fans of my mystery series will buy this book. And if many of you wish I would return to writing mysteries, rather than memoirs, well, I understand. I’m glad that you’ve enjoyed my mysteries, and those of you who have reviewed them on Amazon have my deepest gratitude. Because these same fans have rated most of my backlist between four and five stars, and been a big help in increasing my grocery money every month.

So today I’d like to say thank you to every reader who has reviewed my books on Amazon. I really appreciate you. If, just by chance, you have enjoyed my mysteries and haven’t yet posted a review, all I can say is that these reviews on Amazon are terribly important to authors nowadays. Every single positive review is appreciated…and I think that this is true for every author out there. If you can find time in your busy day to post a review (and I know it’s a pesky sort of chore), you have my gratitude.

I know many of you who read this blog are authors yourselves, and I would be interested to hear if any of you, like me, have reached a point where you are determined to write the book you want to write, rather than fitting your writing into a niche. Though I do understand that fitting a niche is, by and large, how you can bring in the grocery money, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Any thoughts?

Wild Life....and Free Books

by Laura Crum

No, my life is not really that wild. It may have been at one time, but now I am pretty sedate. But yeah, once upon a time I liked to go bar hopping and hang out with cowboys…not to mention I hauled my horses from cutting to cutting (and then roping to roping) all over the western United States. These days I prefer sitting on the porch with a margarita in hand, contemplating the horses grazing and the roses blooming. I have had my fair share of the wild life, thank you very much.

However, living in these brushy hills by the Monterey Bay, I am surrounded by wildlife of various kinds. My horses are so accustomed to these critters that they barely glance at them, whether said critters are strolling through the corrals, or we meet them on the trails. And this is really an advantage. No de-spooking needed.

I actually love seeing the wild animals, and consider them to be every bit as interesting and delightful as the plants in my garden, which is a good thing, as the deer eat the roses, the bobcats, coyotes, hawks..etc eat the chickens, the raccoons eat everything they can find, and, well, the list just goes on and on. So today I thought I’d share some of my “wild life” with you all.

Our commonest visitor is deer. Below you see a doe and her two fawns in my yard.

Here’s a buck behind my house. I see deer on the trails all the time; I frequently see them in the horse corrals. The horses are very used to them and barely react to their presence.

Horses don’t care at all about this critter below, either. But the chickens are very bothered by her. This is a female that I saw often—she eventually brought her kits out and I saw them, too—but I didn’t get any good photos of the babies. We call her a bobcat, but she’s really a lynx. They are very common in these hills.

I often see wild animals when I go down to feed the horses in the morning. Here’s a coyote by the driveway. Horses don’t react to him at all. But the cats and chickens are scared of him—for good reason.

Many of the wild critters are drawn here by a desire to eat our chickens. Here’s a Cooper’s Hawk actually sitting on the chicken coop observing the poor things (the chickens get locked up from time to time when the predators have been taking too many).

Some wild animals are more benign. The tree squirrels don’t do any damage.

My son took this photo of one of his favorite wild things.

A wren raised her babies in a nest above our back door. My husband is six foot seven and he could reach up and take photos of them in the nest. The picture below was taken the very morning that they fledged. I watched over them all day and they successfully made it up into the brush—the mother stayed with them and took care of them. Yay!

Some wild things are a little creepy. My husband let this tarantula crawl on him, trusting in the wisdom that they can’t actually bite you. Not me.

But I do love these little fence lizards. We have lots of them.

And here’s another critter in my garden—but this one isn’t wild.

OK—there’s my wild life today. Doesn’t much resemble the wild life I had in my twenties (!)

And on the subject of books—I have been a total slacker and failed to finish editing my eighth book, Forged, in time to have it up on Kindle this week. I’ll try to get it done by next week. In the meantime, for those who don’t know, the first seven books in my western horse-themed mystery series about equine veterinarian Gail McCarthy are now available on Kindle for 99 cents. If you’d like to try them, follow this link. The order is Cutter, Hoofprints, Roughstock, Roped, Slickrock, Breakaway and Hayburner. For more about these titles go to lauracrum.com Next week the 8^th book, Forged, should be available for 99 cents, too. And the first five titles are available for free as a "borrow", if you're part of Amazon Prime (until June). The last four titles in the series-- Moonblind, Chasing Cans, Going Gone, and Barnstorming-- are still in print and are controlled by the publisher. They are available on Kindle, too—for $9.99.

But…if you’d like FREE copies of the last four books in my mystery series, you can have them (or some of you can) by contacting Susan Daniel at susan@danielpublishing.com and requesting review copies. This offer is limited to the first six people who request the books. Your only obligation is to review the books on Amazon. Can be a three sentence review, but you need to review all four books. So, those of you who are reading the series in order, this is your chance to get the last four books for FREE. You must review the books on Amazon, though.

(For those who are wondering why the reviews must be on Amazon, its because Amazon is now such a huge influence on book sales that having quite a few reviews for each book is very helpful. This is why the publisher is willing to give away six copies of each of the four titles. And any fan of the series who wants to do me a big favor—post a positive review of one—or more—of my books on Amazon. I don’t “expect” any one to do this—its an annoying little chore-- but if you happen to do it, I’ll be very grateful. And again, the first six people who request them can have the last four books in the series for FREE, in exchange for reviews on Amazon.)

News! (and a Free Book Offer)

by Laura Crum

My 12^th book has been published—in 2012, how appropriate. The cover is by the very talented Peter Thorpe, who has done most of my covers. I think he did a wonderful job on this one. My son actually came up with the concept of a barn being “struck by lightning” as a play on the title, and Pete did a fabulous job of painting this image and doing the lettering.

“Barnstorming” takes my protagonist, equine veterinarian Gail McCarthy, into some new territory, both as she solves the mystery and in her personal life. Those who have read the series know that Gail starts out in “Cutter” as an eager 31 year old vet who is one year into her career, with a new boyfriend and a new horse. In the first ten installments in the series she ages one year in each book and goes through some important life changes. By “Chasing Cans”, the 10^th book, she is 41 and the mother of a young child. (and still has to solve a dramatic mystery on the ranch next door—the woes of an amateur sleuth).

In my last two books Gail ages five years per book, as I wanted to bring her closer to my own age (I’m 54) and write about some themes that interest me now. “Barnstorming” has a lot to do with solitary trail riding and the challenges that come up. And since it is a mystery, Gail faces the challenge that I think all of us secretly wonder about. What if we met a truly nasty person out on the trail? What if that person had a gun?

All my books are very much based on things I’ve seen and done, and all the horses in my stories (and the other critters) are as true to life as I can make them. They behave like real horses (most of them are modeled on my own horses—and those who read this blog will recognize them); they don’t talk, or solve crimes, or defend their master from the bad guys (all of which I have seen and winced at in various novels). Sunny, my little palomino trail horse, has a starring role in “Barnstorming”, as he did in “Going, Gone”.

I will admit that I have been fortunate enough never to have met anyone truly nasty on my many solo trail rides, but I have met some odd/tough looking sorts and certainly had my moments of wondering “what if”, which gave me the seed of an idea for this story. I’m hoping you will enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

And, if the book sounds interesting to you, you may have a copy for FREE. My publisher has agreed to send a free copy of “Barnstorming” to anyone in the continental US who will review the book on her/his blog or on Amazon. No fancy or lengthy reviews are necessary. Just mention you’ve read the book and say what you think of it. If you would rather not do a book review on your blog, or you don’t have a blog, you can post a short review on Amazon. So those of you who would like a FREE review copy of “Barnstorming” please email Susan Daniel at susan@danielpublishing.com with your agreement to review and your snail mail address, and she will mail you a copy of my latest book.

I’m currently in the process of getting my older titles available on Kindle, which is taking me awhile, because I don’t have electronic copies of the first ones (written twenty years ago). So by April that job should be done. In the meantime, here’s a list of my published mysteries, with a short synopsis of each book. The first eight books (all out of print) will be available on Kindle for 99 cents each. The first three are up there now (Cutter, Hoofprints, and Roughstock) and I have every intention of getting the next five up there shortly.

I’m very excited at the thought that these books may become readily available again. I put so much of my life into writing them (twenty years), and the stories are not only good mysteries (or I think so, anyway), but also reflect a lot of my thoughts about life…and horses. I hope some of you will give them a try.

Here’s the list (I can hardly believe I’ve actually written this many books):

CUTTER: Veterinarian Gail McCarthy thought cutting horse trainer Casey Brooks was being paranoid with his stories of poisoned horses and sabotage, but when his blue roan mare returns riderless and Casey is found dead, she isn’t so sure.

HOOFPRINTS: Gail McCarthy is a horse vet with a hectic schedule, not to mention a horse, a new boyfriend, and a house payment, and her life is more than a little disrupted when she finds two dead bodies in the course of a routine call to a well known reined cowhorse barn.

ROUGHSTOCK: While attending the annual Winter Equine Seminar at Lake Tahoe, Gail finds one of her fellow horse vets dead, and another accused of his murder. The trail leads back to Gail’s hometown, and through the twists and turns of the team roping world, plunging Gail into a confrontation with an unlikely killer.

ROPED: A stalker haunting the ranch of an old friend creates a harrowing personal drama for Gail as she struggles to sort out a mystery involving animal rights and a bitter feud—and win a team roping event at the same time.

SLICKROCK: Gail embarks on a solitary pack trip in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, with just her two horses and her dog for company. All too soon she stumbles upon a soon-to-be-dead man, and is drawn into the whirlwind of nefarious events that precipitated the tragedy.

BREAKAWAY: Faced with a depression and some big life changes, Gail struggles to find the right path as she is confronted with the strangest mystery she has ever heard of.

HAYBURNER: Gail is called out to treat injured horses when the biggest boarding stable in the county catches fire. When a second barn fire occurs nearby, Gail finds herself in the middle of the search to catch the arsonist—before any more horses or people die.

FORGED: Gail’s horseshoer is shot in her barnyard, while shoeing her horse, embroiling Gail in a dangerous attempt to capture an elusive killer.

MOONBLIND: Gail’s cousin Jenny, who runs a Thoroughbred layup farm, complains of mysterious villains who are out to destroy her business—and harm her horses. While trying to support Jenny, Gail discovers this threat is all too real.

CHASING CANS: Legendary barrel racing trainer Lindee Stone is killed when a horse flips over backwards with her. The cops are calling it an accident, but Gail witnessed the wreck and thinks there is something fishy about it.

GOING, GONE: While on a vacation in the Sierra foothills, Gail finds that her old boyfriend, Lonny Peterson, is accused of murdering a local auctioneer. In an attempt to save Lonny, Gail ends up in a harrowing horseback race with a ruthless killer.

And just released-- BARNSTORMING: In which Gail, on a solitary trail ride, discovers a fellow equestrian shot through the heart, and embarks on an intense hunt to discover why violence is haunting her local trails.

Readers sometimes ask me which books are my favorites, or which I think are the best. In a way, this is like asking a mom which child is her favorite—it’s a hard question to answer. I can tell you that Slickrock (5^th book) is the overall reader favorite, and that readers either love Breakaway (6^th book) or they hate it—its my “darkest” book. I really like both of these books. I can also say-- after working on my early books to get them up on Kindle-- that I get steadily better book by book through the first four novels. I am very partial to my last four books because they reflect on my current life of being a mom, but I have noticed that those who are not mothers themselves often don’t like these books as well as the early books. So those are my insights, for what they are worth.

Anyway, it is my intention that Barnstorming will be the last in the series. I always planned to write a dozen books in this series, and now that goal has been achieved. The novels took me twenty years to write, and cover twenty years in the life of one particular horsewoman (30-50), chronicling her many adventures. If you like mysteries and horses, I think you’ll like these books. And I would be very happy to get your feedback on them, and thrilled if you’d review them.

By the way, if any of you who like my books want to do me a real favor, post a positive review on Amazon. This may have quite a bit of influence on how many books I sell. I realize it’s a fussy sort of chore, and I never post reviews on Amazon myself, so I’ve got no expectations. If you happen to do it, I’ll be very appreciative.

And…I have a Facebook page now, believe it or not. I always said I wouldn’t do Facebook—guess I have to eat my words. We can be “friends”.

One more time (can you tell I’m excited about this?)-- Cutter, Hoofprints, and Roughstock—the first three books in the series -- are now available on Kindle for 99 cents. Click on the titles to go to the Kindle page for each book. This is one of my favorite covers—again by the very talented Peter Thorpe.