Hey there, lovely reader!
Ka-pow! Boom! Pshewy! That's the sound of my brain exploding.
I am spending part of this week attending an author conference (online.) I am particularly interested in new technological developments especially as they relate to book marketing, translations, and audio.
The speed at which artificial intelligence is changing the game is astounding. Every week, something changes and there is something new to learn. Which is great, because I love learning.
But it also makes me want to return to my book worlds where things are slower and the characters are mostly untouched by the latest technological developments. Can you imagine Inspector Graham giving up his trusted notebook?
I do a fair amount of training every year in various aspects of book production. Currently, I am attending an online class on custody and interviewing in the British police force. Humans still interact with other humans inside police stations at the moment, but will a change come about? Will suspects be interviewed by AI at some point in the future? It makes you wonder. And the possibilities blow my mind.
You Were Right
Last week I posted three images I was using to market the Roxy Reinhardt mysteries. (Don't forget you can get the first in the series, Mardi Gras Madness for free by downloading your starter library.) Thank you to everyone who has been commenting. I see you!
I mentioned that I had been surprised by the popularity of the images. The one I expected to be most popular turned out to be the least liked. Not at all popular, in fact.
And so it was with the readers of this newsletter. Most of those who replied agreed with the readers on the interwebs.
The one I thought would resonate most with readers was this one: ⬇️
I was completely wrong; this image was least popular. ⬆️ The one most popular with almost everyone else was this: ⬇️
This is a rendition of Evangeline's as Roxy first sees it when she arrives and before she renovates it into the Funky Cat. It just goes to show you never can tell and I should always ask my readers!
From Mardi Gras Madness:
“The sky above it was a deep, deep blue just as the website had promised, and Evangeline’s was indeed where it was supposed to be, nestled among a huddle of old wooden buildings. The narrow three-story structure was pink as the photographs had shown, but that was where reality collided with Roxy’s expectations. It was like a truck hitting a brick wall.
The pictures Roxy had seen must have been taken years and years ago. Now the paint was patchy—baby pink in some places, salmon in others, and almost white at the very top where it caught the most sun. Some of the wooden trim boards had black streaks running through them and were half rotted away. There was a little balcony on the third floor that looked like it would collapse at any minute, and while the windows were clean, one of them had a massive crack across it. Even the courtyard out front was a scrub of weeds. Roxy would have assumed it was abandoned if many of the windows hadn’t been open.
Roxy gulped. What on earth had she done?”
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Or order Mardi Gras Madness from Amazon here.
Right, back to the conference for me. I'll be back next week with more news, questions, maybe even some answers. Have a great one!
Happy reading.
