AUTHOR AMY SHOJAI WRITES THRILLERS WITH BITE

Lefty and Tigger, Two of the Hero Pet Winners in Win or Lose

Amy Shojai is a nationally known authority on pet care and behavior, a certified animal behavior consultant, and the author of more than thirty-five nonfiction pet books. She’s now writing what she’s dubbed Thrillers with Bite, a series of pet-centric novels. Learn more about Amy and her books at her website or blog. 

Name That Pet Contests Connect with Readers 

Thank you, Lois, for allowing me to share a favorite part of my September Day & Shadow Thriller Series. The Name That Pet contest for each book now has rabid fans (pun intended), including my most recent book, Win or Lose.

 

My publishing career grew from prescriptive pet nonfiction (I’m a certified animal behavior consultant). While plotting my first novel, I drew from personal experience to create a dog trainer character, along with the service dog she trained. Shadow, the service dog, has his own viewpoint chapters (no, he doesn’t talk). The dog and cat behavior aspect adds a new dimension to the narrative my readers adore. Although I often place pet characters at risk, I don’t kill my animal heroes in the stories. No, it’s only the people who become victims, and usually the bad guys get what’s coming to them—with the cats and dogs lending a paw.

 

As a new fiction author, I wondered how to start building an audience from scratch. Could I engage my nonfiction audience while growing a fiction readership? With the first book, Lost and Found, I announced a “Name That Pet” contest, and invited potential readers to nominate their own pets to star as characters in the book. 

 

The contest struck a chord. I’d already written the story and planned to simply swap out the winners’ names with placeholder. Instead of a handful of suggestions, that first contest garnered more than 85 name suggestions. Based on cat and dog submissions and descriptions, I created a poll with my top 15-20 choices, and again invited readers to vote. More than 800 votes decided the dog and cat names in the book. Each of the winners received an autographed print copy of the book, with their names listed in the back.

 

After that, readers clamored to nominate their pets for future stories. Whoa! I didn’t even know I’d launched a series. For Book 2, Hide and Seek, I received 55 name suggestions, with 4100 votes for the winners. I had so many hotly contested nominations and doubled the initial number of pet characters. That meant writing new mini stories to incorporate these hero pets into the narrative, along with the individual pets’ descriptions and unique foibles. For instance, the Golden retriever Trixie in real life stole laundry from the neighbors. She became the therapy dog in the story’s Alzheimer’s unit and her thievery added to the plot.

 

The Name That Pet contest for Show and Tell, the third book, nearly became unmanageable. The contest resulted in 46 dog names and 81 cat names, with a total of 16,930 votes. I included six pets in the narrative and ended up writing a “bonus chapter” to also include runner up pets. All the winners shared about the books, so the contest helps promote the stories. It goes well beyond that, though.

The contest for the fourth book in the series, Fight or Flight, touched my heart. My dog had inspired the main dog character, and readers learned Magic had passed. That’s why it took me so long to write the next story. They voted to include his name…and legacy…in the story and future books. The contest connects me to readers in a way I never anticipated. We share our joys and sorrows (and stories) about our common love of furry wonders.

 

The contest for Hit and Run, Book 5, resulted in 158 cat names, 172 dog names, and 43,300 votes with a total of six “hero pets” added to the plot. My most recent thriller, Win or Lose, resulted in 104 cat name nominations, 150 dog name suggestions, and many thousands of votes. When the winning dog, a three-legged Great Pyrenees named Lefty won, I cried. My own three-legged dog had recently passed from cancer, and readers knew it and (I think) voted accordingly. Lefty is a medical alert dog in the story, while tabby cat Tigger thwarts an assassin.

 

I’ve created a beautiful monster. I love the eagerness of readers to become involved in the stories. And I love learning about them. I wouldn’t trade that connection for anything. 

 

Win or Lose

A September Day & Shadow Series, Book 6

 

September Day can't shake her mounting wedding-planning angst. Too overwhelmed to pick up a dropped-off shelter dog she once trained, she finally leaves the house to check in on a missing vet clinic employee. But when she gets there, she's terrified to find the girl's brother hanging on the edge of death and the poor young woman abducted.

Discovering the hound got dumped by the same vicious criminal, September and Shadow race out of town on a dangerous rescue mission. But when a body surfaces and the kidnapper seizes more victims, September fears she may be too late to prevent further bloodshed.

With the clock ticking against them, can September and Shadow deliver justice?

 

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BOOK CLUB FRIDAY--WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO AUDREY AUTHOR?

This blog has been around for nearly seven years. That’s over 1900 blog posts and counting, many of them from guest authors who have stopped by to tell our readers about their lives and their books. Many of you have discovered new authors from reading these guest posts, and we know our guest authors greatly appreciate your support.

Which is why we’re mystified when a guest fails to show up. Luckily this has happened very infrequently over the life of the blog, but when it does, we scramble to fill the slot. Sometimes we have enough time to do so; other times we don't. You, our loyal blog readers, have come to expect a new post each weekday, and we don’t like to disappoint you.

Authors who request a guest slot at Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers are asked to send their post at least a week in advance. Two weeks prior to their scheduled date they receive a reminder. Another reminder goes out a week later if we haven’t heard from them.

Such was the case with today’s scheduled guest. What happened to her? Was she taken ill? Was she involved in an accident? Did she, heaven forbid, die suddenly? Or perhaps she lives in an area of the country that's been devastated by storms and floods over the last few weeks. She may be without power or have computer problems. Did she lose her home? Was she evacuated due to a pending flood or landslide? We have no idea since our emails have gone unanswered.

In today’s publishing climate where authors receive so little support from their publishers, our guest authors love the free publicity Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers offers them. So we can only assume the worst about today’s AWOL guest and wish her the best, no matter the circumstances. Hopefully, she'll get in touch with us when she can, and we'll reschedule her guest post.

BOOK CLUB FRIDAY -- GUEST AUTHOR SHELLY FROME

Our Book Club Friday guest today is Shelly Frome, a professor of dramatic arts emeritus at the University of Connecticut, a former professional actor, a writer of mysteries, books on theater and film, and articles on the performing arts. His latest mystery, Twilight of the Drifter, is a southern gothic crime-and-blues odyssey. Visit Shelly on Facebook and follow him on Twitter @shellyFrome. -- AP

  

                     What is the Story Here?

To keep up with the times, I thought I’d take out a subscription to a few writers’ magazines and add some more websites and twitter accounts. I was curious to know how far things had gone in terms of our new era in publishing.  

And lo and behold, within the pages of the magazines, I found this statement to be typical: “Readers of fiction are faced with saturated genres and a limited amount of time and money. Any title has to immediately grab their attention. The market doesn’t lie.”

In one issue, someone calling herself a literary change agent claimed that  reaching readers is a matter of blanketing social media, blogging anywhere and everywhere, and “passing out fliers on street corners” if need be.

To meet these demands, contributors billing themselves as successful pros offered sure-fire tips like these:

“Use plotting strategies that make the book a winner. Give readers a hook at the get-go. And be sure to leave them with a take-home thought.”

“Make them laugh and cry. When readers laugh and cry they’ll get that emotional high they’re looking for along with that walloping payoff.”

“Before you start, come up with a logline that make buyers sit up and say ‘gotta read it’.”

“Try this for a ploy. Redesign an old hit TV show for the texting, tweeting, Lady Gaga generation. It’s a great reminder how important it is to always have your readers in mind.”

Ah, yes. Oh, well.

The added blogs and tweets echoed the same mindset. In fact, the dozens of new daily e-mails snowballed into a promotional frenzy. Urging everyone to check out a free book, the fourth winner in a row; or take in a crime series and get really hooked; latch onto a P.I. story everyone loves because it’s an ultra rare extraordinary read; and/or get set for a page-turning thrill ride. One lady outdid herself shopping her hair-raising gypsy escapade by tossing in a war-horse. And she continued to push this angle with every post.

One of these networks was caught up in an ongoing harangue over eliminating all middle men. Agents weighed in claiming they alone can wade through the slush given their knowledge of what’s really trending.

As if this wasn’t enough, Linked-in offered me four more networks I could join.

Seeking a quieter approach to the topic, I began watching conversations with writers on Charlie Rose’s show. Arguably, there’s no more easygoing host than Charlie Rose and no more casual writer willing to share his secrets than John Grisham. Soon, however, it was back to more of the same. Grisham claimed that readers have an insatiable appetite for crime stories about lawyers and scandals. Once they pick up a book, the trick is to make sure they don’t put it down. Novels that don’t work use too many words. You have to keep it moving, said Grisham. And the generator is your big idea. To locate it, you steal something. “Everything is fair game when you’re writing fiction. We all steal, that’s what we do.”

He went on to say, you simply narrow it down to a half-dozen one-sentence pitches and run them by someone. He chooses his wife who never fails to pick the one with the best instant hook.

Not that there’s anything wrong with any of this if you want to write externally. It’s just that it smacks of this same vendor-on-the-street-corner mentality. 

Next, I came across the interview with Lee Child. He suggested that a key to his Jack Reacher series was the fact that his main character never changes. Readers always know who Reacher is and are reassured that he’ll always be taciturn, smart and ruthless, guaranteeing page-turning action.

Again, whatever works for someone is fine. I personally hate to think that readers nowadays are flipping through their touch screens while on the go looking for some way to pass a few extra minutes before boarding their plane or what-have-you. Along these same lines, I recalled yet another reference to Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code in The New York Time’s book review section—e.g., utilizing “a badly garbled version” of historian Elaine Pagels’ analysis of the early church, eliminating characterization as Robert Langdon and other stock figures keep running. The outcome of the mayhem formatted to quickly “blow the minds of many readers.”

To reassure myself, I went back to the book review and took solace in author Sylvia Brownrigg’s guidelines:  “Will I believe in these characters? How distracted will I be by implausible dialogue or forced plotlines? Hopefully after only a page or two there will be a sigh of relief. I don’t have to worry. She knows what she’s doing. She won’t let you down.”

From there it was only a few pages more to Marilyn Stasio’s Crime Reviews. There, as usual, I found myself drawn to stories designed for readers who were in no particular hurry. Who preferred events to unfold organically. 

I also found myself remembering something Raymond Chandler once wrote:

“A good story cannot be devised: it has to be distilled. You can never know till

you’ve written the first draft. What seems to be alive in it is what belongs.”

Perhaps Mr. Chandler also found himself contending with the hustle and bustle of his day and opted for something more genuine.

At any rate, I’ve cancelled the subscriptions and limited the e-mails. For now, at least, I’ve decided to just follow my own course.

Thanks for joining us today, Shelly! -- AP