Peg Herring, Mystery Author

Since self-publishing has become popular, one might wonder why people still pay big bucks for books by known authors from big publishers. The answer, I believe, is quality. With a self-pubbed book, it's hard to know if you're getting junk or a gem. For example, I once bought an e-book that sounded interesting and found the whole thing center spaced. Using a segment from my latest book, I'll show you what that looked like. “Can you tell me what happened tonight?” Nettie’s gaze met hers. “I shot him.” The abruptness of the admission shocked her, but Belizek recovered quickly. “I need to know why you shot him.” The detective tried to wait out the silence that followed. In training, they were taught to let the witness, suspect, whoever, tell the story in their own way. Silence bothers people , the instructor had claimed. Because they can’t stop themselves from filling it, they reveal things they don’t intend to. In this case, the silence went on and on, and it fel

I suspect every writer looks back and wishes things done and undone, and I'm no exception. I write what pleases me, not what I think will make tons of money.  Often I don't know as I'm working on a book if it's a stand-alone or if I'll want to revisit the characters at some point in the future and write them a new adventure. The technology for book publishing has a steep learning curve and requires constant updating. I started my career with a traditional publisher, which meant I didn't have to worry about that end of things. Now that I'm independent, I decide at what point a book releases, how it's presented to the world, and how to make the internet assist. A while back I learned how to make a boxed set of some of my series, so binge readers can get all the books for one price. I think that's a nice bargain for them. Recently I learned that Amazon will let readers know about all  the books in a series IF the information is presented to them co