Category: Janis Patterson

The End Is Nigh

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by Janis Patterson

For every beginning there is an ending… and conversely, for every ending there is a beginning… and sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.


This year has been a landmark year for me – it’s been one of the lowest output years for me in well over a decade (only two books as opposed to the four or five I usually do) and yet I’ve been busier than I ever have.
In case you have been living under a rock and not heard about my republishing blitz I’m going to give you a quick précis…


During the covid crazies I got very lazy. The Husband was home – and even retired during this time – s0 we had things to do and my writing business came in a distant second to being with him. I knew that rights on previously published books were coming back to me, but being distracted by other things I just let the reversion letters pile up on my computer.


Until January of this year. Life was returning to a semblance of normal and I realized I wasn’t getting any younger (are any of us?) and if I wanted to get back into this writing thing I had to get busy, so a good start would be republishing those reverted books through my own company. A quick wander through my hard drive shocked me, because there were 26 (yes, TWENTY SIX) of the little beasties. Gulp.


A quick perusal decided me that for various reasons four of them were going permanently ‘under the bed,’ hopefully never to be seen again. That left 22 to be republished. As I am lazy, doing that could possibly take a couple of years, years which I might not have. As I was raised in advertising and journalism, the fact that deadlines are sacred is bred into my blood and bones. My father taught me that (to use his words) “There is only one excuse for you to miss a deadline, and that is death. Yours.”


So I set myself a deadline – I would release a book freshly edited, freshly formatted and most with new covers every other Wednesday until all were out, starting on January 15. MISTLETOE MAGIC, the last book, comes out October 25.
22 books released every other Wednesday, each on schedule, each reworked as promised and all without missing a single release day. (Actually, there were 24 released – one through one of my publishers and the other as an outlier which appeared suddenly through a set of circumstances too complex to go in to… neither of which I counted as part of the blitz.)


I’m exhausted. I would love to take a few weeks off away from the computer, but I have deadlines… one for a July 4th mystery anthology, one for my new Flora Melkiot book and one for a summer Regency romance anthology. Sigh. Even though we spend our days pretty much in the same room (the den) The Husband says I spend more time with the computer and my invisible friends than with him and lately he’s been right. I’ve taken my computer along on every trip we’ve made this year – and it saved my sometimes tenuous sanity the days we were holed up in a motel in Mississippi when he fell ill on our way home from NINC!


Anyway, the blitz is now over and the encroaching deadlines await. It doesn’t get any easier, people. It really doesn’t.

And now for some good news! EXERCISE IS MURDER is now available in audio from Audible! (The ebook is available from Amazon and will hopefully be available in paperback before too long… it is the first appearance of the redoubtable Flora Melkiot!)

Hobbies and Homicide

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by Janis Patterson

Hobbies (and crafts, though for brevity’s sake I will use ‘hobbies’ to cover both) serve several but very disparate purposes in cozy fiction, all in a kind of situational shorthand.

Although a surface read of the cozy genre seems to indicate that the protagonist/sleuth’s hobby is solving murders, there is more to the inclusion of a sleuth’s avocation. Often having a hobby gives the sleuth a sort of ‘leg-up’ on the modus operandi and eventual solution of the crime that the police do not necessarily have.

For example, a hobbyist needleworker might notice that the knots tying the victim are unique to a certain form of embroidery… or the same could be said of a model ship builder who sees the esoteric knots as being nautical.

A baker or cook or even a nurse or pharmacist might notice certain ingredients laid out that have no place in the recipe the decedent was baking at the time of death… or notice the distinctive scent of an obscure ingredient in a finished product that, combined with another ingredient, could cause an allergic reaction in some people, which of course the victim is one.

A hobbyist jeweler might notice that the garotte was made of a rare form of tiger tail (a coated wire often used in stringing heavy necklaces) instead of the common guitar string the police mistakenly believe it to be.

The use of this special, hobby-related know-how is a quick and believable way of giving the amateur sleuth a depth and breadth of knowledge that would be cumbersome and difficult to explain otherwise. However, this is a trope which can be easily overused. I mean, wouldn’t you quickly tire of mysteries where the same sleuth is always an expert regarding the widely varying ways and means of the way a murder was committed? Or that multiple murders by multiple murderers are serendipitously committed using the same unusual means?

To continue the above examples, it is unacceptable that bakers/cooks can solve only baking/cooking related mysteries or needleworkers needlework mysteries or… you get the idea. To say the least such narrow specialization would be pretty much unbelievable for an amateur sleuth cozy mystery, as well as totally destroying the idea of a series featuring the same sleuth. How many people can you believably expect to be murdered using needlework techniques? Excepting, of course, an obsessed serial killer, which is a totally different genre and therefore is another topic of discussion altogether.

Back to specialization. If there is a series where the sleuth has a useful and universal-ish hobby, as the more general the hobby the more believable multiple solutions become. For example, if the sleuth is an expert in 15th century Swabian poetry, how many mysteries can logically (or even semi-logically) be created to fit in such a narrow framework? On the other hand, a sleuth whose hobby is making ship’s models, the world of potentially solvable crimes expands. There can be mysteries about full size ships, doll house miniatures, history of both (and more)… all of which are basically related and could be easily lumped into one general hobby-related knowledge base.

Aside from the story uses of hobbies, avocational pastimes are wonderful as character revealers. When creating a character writers have to be careful to make each one an individual, a person you should be able to recognize if you met them on the street. Nothing can kill a book (no pun intended) faster than a cast of characters with all the depth and believability of paper dolls.

Real people are not so easy to pigeonhole. That sweet gentle man down the street whose garden is a dream was also a bad-ass Army Ranger in his youth. The doting mama who makes glorious ceramics in her garage kiln used to sing grand opera in Europe. That cherubic young man who builds model airplanes and helps elderly neighbors carry their groceries inside also sets fires for amusement. Humans are not single-note creatures, and neither should our characters be. Hobbies – even those which do not help solve the mystery – are a useful tool in creating believable characters.

And not just sleuths/protagonists/sympathetic characters. Remember, villains need to be well-rounded people too, perhaps even more than heroes. The mustache-twirling villain who does evil for the pure sake of doing evil belongs in bad cartoons, not in cozy mystery fiction. Sleuth, victim or villain, everyone is the hero of their own story. Although it might make no sense to us that the villain cultivates a lovely garden of poisonous plants so he can wipe out those who want to make a parking lot where a field of wildflowers bloom, we have to be able to see why he believes his actions are necessary. Even though we don’t believe in what he is doing we have to be able to see why he is doing it in order for our sleuth to obtain enough proof to solve the case.

Just remember that the hobby-related clues – like all clues – should not be obvious from the first. If a victim is killed by a salad containing some of the nightshade grown by the grumpy old woman down the street and she is the actual poisoner, that is not much of a mystery. On the other hand, if the killer is the sweet grandmotherly lady at the other end of the block who is always baking treats for her neighbors is using the grumpy one’s nightshade to get rid of those whom she doesn’t think are worthy of living in her neighborhood while trying to cast suspicion on her grumpy arch-enemy, that is a mystery. Or perhaps there is a third player, the man who amuses himself by drawing pictures of plants and hopes to get rid of both old ladies so he can buy their houses and….

You see? The possibilities are endless. Just make sure that when you create your characters – both sleuths and villains – that their reasons are valid to them even if not to us, that they are believable and (this is important!) accurate. If your character has a hobby, it doesn’t have to be yours – you just have to know enough about it to get it right. Otherwise those who do know about it will descend on you with righteous criticism and both your book and your sales will suffer for it.

(P.S. – for those of you who are following my republishing blitz, I am happy to report that it is going perfectly according to schedule – a book, freshly edited, freshly edited and as often as not with a new cover – released every other Wednesday since the middle of January! TIMELESS INNOCENTS (#14) released the 5th of July, and THE EARL AND THE BLUESTOCKING (#15) will go live on 19 July. Plus – drum roll here – my second audio book A KILLING AT EL KAB and my third CURSE OF THE EXILE are now available at Amazon and Audible!)

Scams and Cheats and Crooks, Oh My!

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by Janis Patterson

Okay, I am officially livid. How long are people going to have to put up with such blatant criminality?

To explain – a couple of days ago I went to a meeting at one of my ladies’ clubs. It’s an old club, and most of the members are older. It’s very dignified, very much hats-and-gloves proper. I love it, though I do sometimes feel that – since I am a ‘creative’ type – I’m their token artist.

I digress. It’s no secret there that I’m a novelist, and some of the ladies just love to talk books with me. This time a very nice older member whom I know slightly brought a guest of approximate the same fairly advanced age, and asked if they could talk with me. Sure. I’m friendly…

Turns out that her guest (and dear friend) wanted to know how long it should take for a publisher to bring out a children’s book. Legitimate question. I told her honestly I didn’t know too much about the children’s market, having only done one myself, but that a general rule of thumb for traditional publishing from contract to release could be a long as two, two and a half years.

The writer began to cry, and said “But it’s been over four, and I don’t have any more money!”

Uh-oh.

Not wanting to have her embarrassed, I pulled her and her friend into a small parlor and closed the door so I could get the entire story, which is one that is all too familiar. She had written a children’s book which she wanted to get published, so she answered an ad in a popular magazine. You’re all seen them – “Publisher Seeking Manuscripts – 100 years in business.”

It should read Publisher Seeking Money – 100 years of stealing.

This poor woman had signed a contract (which she didn’t remember what said or even if she had a copy of it) and every time they asked for money to cover editing, or an artist, or an artist to replace the first, or an artist to replace the artist that replaced the first, or copyright (which she never saw), or some other d*mn*d thing that made no sense to this poor woman. Of course, time and again they couldn’t go any further until they had more money. Four years and close to $70,000 (yes, SEVENTY THOUSAND, seven and four zeroes) later, they still hadn’t released the book.

By this time I was so red-eyed furious I was ready to do a violence. As gently as I could I told this woman a few truths about the publishing industry… you know – that money always flows TO the author and NOT away from, that authors should be appraised of every step in the process, that legitimate publishers get so many submissions they not only don’t have to advertise for manuscripts but instead are very picky about the submissions they receive even from agents and other industry professionals, that this company is making their money from charging authors instead of selling the author’s books, that before signing a contract with anyone you have to do your due diligence… If you don’t know about the publishing industry, find someone who does! I tried to be as gentle as possible, but by the time I was finished this poor lady was just howling.

So, you ask, why didn’t this woman do some of these things, like check the company? Well, the company really has been in business for over 100 years (which to my mind says something dreadful about their morals and the efficacy of law enforcement) and some people say it does provide a decent vanity press service. Vanity press, not a publisher presence. That difference is as big as the difference between a jobbing printer and a legitimate publisher. Or a Hot Wheels and a BMW.

Now this lady is in her late seventies or early eighties. Her husband is long dead. Her two children live at opposite ends of the country. She is pretty much on her own. She is also, her friend confided to me later, dancing on the edge of something Alzheimer’s-like.

In other words, prime picking for crooked, conscienceless vultures like this ‘publishing’ company.

I gave both ladies my phone number and said they could call me any time they had questions. I also stated firmly that she needed to let her children know what was going on, that she needed to request a copy of the contract she signed and she needed to contact her attorney. Now. In reality, there is not much else I can do, except beg everyone to spread the word –

1) legitimate publishers DO NOT advertise in magazines for submissions

2) money flows TO the author, not away from

3) do your due diligence and investigate before you sign anything – if you don’t know anything about publishing, talk to someone who does

4) contact an attorney before you sign anything

Somehow we have to stop these predators. They skirt the law and have a lot of experience in doing close-to-criminal things that if not exactly illegal are definitely immoral. The cost in human emotion and plain old money is enormous. Spread the word.

Accidents, Agents and Other Disasters

~ janispattersonmysteries ~ 6 Comments

by Janis Patterson

People always ask me why I self-publish. Isn’t it a lot more work?

Yes, it’s a lot more work, but the upside is that I am in control. No more the unholy circus of repeated rewrites and equally annoying ‘minor tweaks’ to fit the visions/prejudices of agents, first readers, secondary editors, senior editors, acquiring editors and God only knows who else. I do have a very good editor (I’m not a fool) but she edits the story I wrote, she doesn’t transform it into what she wants.

These days to sell to New York (to use common nomenclature for traditional publishing) you need an agent, mainly because traditional publishers have gotten too cheap to hire first readers any longer. Agents now serve that function almost everywhere. Getting a good agent is often more difficult than getting a good publisher. Thank goodness we now have choices!

Back when the dinosaurs were browsing outside the cave and I sold my first novel to New York there were still a few houses (and there were a LOT more houses/lines then) who read author-submitted manuscripts, but I was a traditionalist. (I was also very young and foolish…) Real authors had agents, so I set out to get an agent.

I have had surgery. I have had auto accidents. I have even been in a plane crash. I would rather do any of them again than deal with finding, getting or dealing with an agent.

My first agent was okay – not very good, but he was indeed An Agent, and he took me on, so in my rosy ignorance I was happy. He sold a couple of books for me… then he died. I guess I have to give him a pass on the bad agent thing… He was fairly decent and I mean, you can’t blame someone for dying can you?

So after a lot of querying and begging I got a second agent, one who for some reason seemed to be a little higher up the status pole than my first one had been. She was smart, she was connected – I thought I had it made. At least, until I couldn’t get in touch with her. I sent her letters (this was pre-internet days). I even imperiled my continually endangered budget by calling a couple of times, but all I got was an answering machine.

Finally I contacted a friend of mine who went to New York regularly on business and asked her to go by the office on her next trip and see if she could see what was happening. She did. The agent’s name was still on the door, but the door was locked. My friend is a forceful lady (that is what her friends call her – her enemies…!) so she found the super and talked him into unlocking the door.

The office was empty. No furniture. No manuscripts. No nothing, not even dust bunnies. Even the telephone was gone. And no one has heard of her since.

I went back to the search and after about a year signed with an up-and-comer who was supposed to be a firebrand. The third try, I reasoned, has to be lucky.

Wrong. Oh, she was a go-getter. I kept getting reports from her that although my book had been turned down So-And-So had simply loved it. Or Thus-And-Such had thought it spectacular, but they had just spent a lot of money on a similar story. On and on – everyone always loved it, but there was never any specific criticism or reason. This went on for a few months and I was getting suspicious when this ‘agent’ sent me another glowing rejection from an editor whom I knew. I had never sold to her, but as we had both been bouncing around the writing world for a long time we had become reasonably close acquaintances.

So I called her, looking for elucidation on what was wrong with that book.

She had never seen the book, had never even heard of this ‘agent’ and neither had anyone in her office. She got justifiably angry that someone was using her name like that, so she requested the names of my books and the names of the editors involved and went off on her own investigation.

None of them had ever heard of her, me or my books. The whole thing had been nothing but smoke and mirrors. I don’t know why the ‘agent’ did this – this was not a ‘pay upfront for representation’ scheme, so she wasn’t making any money. Maybe all she wanted was the feeling of power and importance. Anyway, she quickly vanished from the scene and was never heard from again.

I must not be very bright, because I tried again, this time with a bright, canny young man I met at a writers’ conference. I was more knowledgeable then, and he said all the right things, so I signed with him. Now this is third hand gossip, so take it for what it’s worth, but the last time I heard anything about him he was serving time in Federal prison for mail fraud. And he never sold anything for me either.

So that’s why I’m self-publishing now. It’s true that there is no one who is as interested in your career as you are, and if you want something done right do it yourself. It’s a lot of work, yes, and my sales are less than they were in traditional pubbing (you can help by buying my books!) but to be honest my income has stayed just about the same because I get to keep more of my money. 60-70% of cover price beats the heck out of 20-50% of net…

To all of you who have good agents, I wish you joy and lots of sales, but while you pretty much have to have an agent to thrive or even enter traditional publishing, you can have a great career as a writer/publisher all by yourself. Like most of life, it’s a matter of choices. Good luck to you, whichever path you choose.

If Wishes Were Horses…

~ janispattersonmysteries ~ 4 Comments

by Janis Patterson

Hello. My name is Janis and I am a word nerd.


I love old words, convoluted words, obscure words… Unfortunately, it is definitely genetic. My father was the same way, and one of the delights of my early youth was playing esoteric word games with him. Which, I might add, gave me an everyday (to me, at least) vocabulary that did not endear me to the educational system. In grade school I learned quickly to accept that my automatic use of what were to me perfectly ordinary words would upset and draw the derision of my classmates; what I did not expect was that it would have a similar effect on the teachers, who had to have it proven that the words I used were not made up nonsense syllables but perfectly good – if not really common – English words. For several years I had to make it a practice to always carry a large dictionary with me. That was only one of the things about public education which earned my (well-deserved) contempt. I have never suffered fools gladly.


Anyway, that is an overly long explanation for why I’m on several word-a-day type daily emails. About half the time the words are too common to be much noticed, but every so often there is a really good one. Today I received the word velleity, which means “a wish or inclination not strong enough to lead to action.”


Wow! Who hasn’t felt like that at least once if not many times?


We all know those people who say “I want to write a novel” but never actually do anything toward it. Then there are those of us who do write who say “I would like to do a book about … (whatever subject is currently teasing our mind)” but the project never goes beyond a vague wish. There are millions of possibilities, and everyone indulges occasionally. My grandmother would have called it daydreaming.


And that’s okay. We all work on many levels at all times, and not all ideas/wishes/concepts are destined to bear fruit. Sometimes it’s little more than ‘play-time’ for our minds, which probably need it more than the rest of us. Nothing can do work all the time, and play time is essential.


It also goes beyond writing. Multiple times I personally have expressed a wish for some unknown reason to learn how to crochet, once even going so far as to buy a hook and some yarn. Both of them are now gathering metaphoric dust at the bottom of some drawer or other, as that is as far as I have ever gone. Velleity in action. The same goes for reorganizing my kitchen (where I usually spend as little time as possible), or creating an herb bed in the back yard (when I sadly possess a black thumb invariably deadly to all living plants), or any number of momentarily alluring but basically low/no priority daydreams.


However, I am a true believer that energy is never wasted, even the ephemeral energy of a transitory daydream. It merely changes form. Case in point, the herb garden. I actually did some reading on herb gardens and while a real herb garden never appeared in my life, it did in one of my books, enhancing it greatly. See? Energy really is never wasted.
So, dream your dreams – just don’t let them take over your life. You might never bring them to the fruition of reality, but someday somewhere somehow they might be just the thing you need to complete some other venue.


Now I must go, because I’m thinking about how nice it would be to paint our guest bathroom…