Showing posts with label Hot Water. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hot Water. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 5, 2019

Two Mossy Bog books out now!

They're here! The Author editions of HOT WATER and ROUGH WATERS are now available across all digital platforms. These books have a mystery plot line and a romance plot line, with different sleuthing couples in each book. Each books is described below.

Hot-Water-web
In HOT WATER small town cop Laurie Ann Dinterman assists the state arson investigator, Wyatt North, who's tracking a serial arsonist turned killer. Wyatt needs to catch the guy that killed his partner, and Laurie Ann needs to keep Wyatt alive to ensure her promotion to investigator. All too soon clues put them at cross purposes. Can they catch the serial killer and arsonist before they go up in flames?

Order from  Nook     
                   Kindle     
                   Kobo
                   iBooks

"Exciting action scenes, sizzling romance, and a nail-biting climax."
- Nancy J, Cohen, author of Trimmed to Death



Rough-Waters-cover-web 2In ROUGH WATERS former Navy SEAL Rock Mackenzie believes pink-haired florist Jeanie Munro is the key to recovering his stolen sovereigns. A single mom who learned responsibility the hard way, Jeanie turns to Rock for protection when her shop and home are ransacked. After spiriting the kids off to safety, Jeanie and Rock hit the road to catch a thief and a stone cold killer.

Order from  Nook     
                   Kindle     
                   Kobo
                   iBooks

"A story about knowing what you want out of life and not letting the trials get in your way. I intend to read more of the Mossy Bog stories, you should too." - FRESH FICTION

If you like my cozies, you'll like these romantic suspense novels. I certainly hope you'll give them a try!

Also, I'm having a Facebook launch party on Thursday, May 7, from 6:30-8 pm EST over at https://www.facebook.com/NewReleaseParty   I hope you'll join in with the revelry! You're invited.

Happy Reading, y'all.

Maggie Toussaint

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Amazing Trifecta

I'm blown away, and I hardly know which event to report first. On any given day, I would have been thrilled with any one of these occurrences, but the tide surged and I got three goodies at once!

There is no equitable way to showcase my news, so I'm going in chronological order of my awareness of them. This in no way detracts from the importance of anything. As I say, I'm OVER THE MOON about all three of these things.

AMAZING EVENT #1

My romantic suspense, HOT WATER, won the EPIC eBoook Award for Romantic Suspense. I was up against stiff competition, and I'm honored that this book got the nod. Thanks to Sharon Buchbinder who graciously accepted the win for me in San Antonio. Her book OBSESSION was also a finalist in the same category and a darn good book. The Wild Rose Press rocks! Thanks also to my editor Laura Kelly for all her encouragement and nudging.

(It was very difficult to photograph this clear, reflective award. The best spot turned out to be on top of the hot water heater, so there's the pipe in the background...)

If you haven't picked up your copy of HOT WATER yet, its in ebook and print at most online book places. A cop and an arson investigator are hot on the trail of a serial arsonist!  Hot Water on Kindle  Hot Water on Nook


AMAZING EVENT #2

I have a cover reveal for my next romantic suspense, ROUGH WATERS. Cover artist Kim Mendoza did a great job of capturing the essence of the story with her artistic treatment.

ROUGH WATERS will release in the not too distant future through The Wild Rose Press. It's about a florist and an ex-SEAL searching for stolen treasure. This story is set in my fiction town of Mossy Bog, conveniently located on the Georgia coast. There's action. There's adventure. And the clock is running out...

AMAZING EVENT #3

Kirkus reviewed my upcoming paranormal mystery release, GONE AND DONE IT. Here's a snip of the review:

“A landscaper uses her psychic powers to solve murders old and new . . . the last thing she wants is to unearth an ancient skeleton right where she’s supposed to plant a weeping cherry tree. The unfortunate discovery brings her job to a grinding halt . . . as Baxley moves closer to taking over her father’s role as county dreamwalker, her waking life is threatened by a murderer who’d prefer not to be caught. Toussaint takes a break from her Cleopatra Jones series for a brisk plunge into the paranormal.”

GONE AND DONE IT will release on April 18 and is available for pre-order on Amazon and B&N. The price is right!
 

GONE AND DONE IT (Dreamwalker Series #1)
Baxley speaks to the dead in her dreams.
BUY NOW at Amazon or  B&N

And, as luck would have it, of the 42 authors vying for 23 spots at Malice-Go_Round, not only was I lucky enough to land a spot, my name was picked first. I should've bought a lottery ticket this weekend!

Thanks for sharing in my good fortune. Having family, friends, and fans like you make it all worthwhile!

Maggie Toussaint
who is quite literally walking on air

Monday, October 14, 2013

Contest News! And a new Cover!

Amidst the thrill of notifying winners for our First Coast Romance Writers unpublished Beacon contest, I got some great news myself.

Hot Water won the 2013 Show Me Your Cover Contest for Sunshine State Romance Authors in Romantic Suspense. I'm thrilled about the acknowledgement as I always thought I had a darn good cover.

And more good news came in my email today. Hot Water (the book, not the cover) is a finalist in the EPIC competition. Yay!


I had to blow the dust off my blog settings and kick the tires because it's been awhile since I've visited this place. I've been so busy writing and promoting my two summer releases that I haven't had much time to blog. This week marks the last stop on my blog tour for Dime If I Know. I don't know who is happier, me or the book's characters, who can finally stop getting gussied up and trotting out on command.

While I'm here, I want to acknowledge Laideebug Digital who brought my website into the new millenium by making it user friendly. I've made a mess of it a few times already, and Dee has graciously bailed me out, but I was able to post my contest win tonight, on the actual night I got the news. That's worth a lot to me! For readers and fans, the website should look very similar; it's the behind the curtains part that got rewired.

Good things come in threes. I want to show off my new cover for my first ever paranormal mystery, Gone and Done It, which will come out next May. I have a reading snip on my website it you'd like to have a peek. http://maggietoussaint.com/gone-and-done-it/

Every month from the 4 through the 18, Booklover's Bench, where I'm a founding member, holds a giveaway of a $25 gift card and various ebooks. Be sure to check the site frequently to enter. You have a few more days this month to add your name into the pot. http://bookloversbench.com/contest/

That's about it for today. Thanks for swinging by to share in my good news!

Catch you later,

Maggie Toussaint

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Is your marketing effective?

How effective are marketing campaigns? This is a question I grapple with daily as I try to decide what groups, sites, social media platforms, etc. to use to get the word out about my romantic suspense and cozy mystery books I write.

When I mentioned to a friend that I was evaluating my chapbook marketing campaign I use for my hardcover mysteries, she asked if I'd share the results. I decided to also post the information here at Mudpies as well. I hope it helps you in some small way to get a handle on your marketing strategies.

This summer I have 2 books releasing, Hot Water, a romantic suspense coming out on all platforms this Friday, July 12, and Dime If I Know, book 3 of my Cleopatra Jones mystery series, which releases Sept 12, 2013. This brings my totals to 5 romantic suspense titles and 5 mystery titles.

Until recently, my books contracted to Five Star were only available in hardcover and large print and the primary target market has always been libraries, though I thank every reader who buys hardcover books. God Bless You All. Anyway, to market these books to libraries, I decided to create chapbooks and send them to libraries in hopes they'd buy a copy or two or three.

My current campaign for Dime If I Know is the 4th chapbook mailing I've done for a hardcover mystery release. The chapbook consists of about the first ten pages of the book, great/name reviews of this or other books I've written, and a bio page.



I built this mailing list over time, beginning with my first mystery, In For a Penny. I started with libraries in cities that hosted PGA or LPGA golf events, since the scene of the crime was a golf course. As time went on, I added to the list, expanding to one or two big city libraries in each state. Then I won a National Readers Choice award with House of Lies, so I thought “Aha, Oklahoma must be my target demographic” so I added a bunch of OK libraries, along with my home state, Ga, and my neighboring state, FL, which has a boatload of libraries and readers. I also checked in World Cat to see what libraries were buying other Five Star books, and added them to my list. Then I expanded again, including libraries in cities with a certain population size. I ended up with 348 libraries in my mailing list.

One would think that would be a straightforward comparison, but the list of the 353 libraries that report owning at least one copy of Death, Island Style (the last mystery I promoted with a chapbook) doesn’t quite match my send list. Here’s why. Many libraries band together to form library systems. I may have sent material to library A in library system 12, but the title is listed as being held in library B or as in the system. See what I mean? To top this off, not all libraries report their holdings to World Cat, and my publisher actively markets to libraries as well.  Also, some libraries that I don’t market to and that didn’t show up as title holders after the On The Nickel campaign picked up Death, Island Style – was that because I got good ratings from 3 of the 4 top book review sites?

Or was it because I stepped up my social media presence in the last year or two? I blogged weekly during that time, posted on Facebook and Twitter, and joined countless reader/writer sites. I also became more active in another national writer's group Sisters In Crime, a group of like-minded mystery/suspense writers.

I have these confounding issues in rating the effectiveness of my advertising: my cross-promotion efforts, my publisher’s marketing efforts, the power of big reviews, libraries who don’t report their holdings to World Cat, and library collectives.Oh, and one more thing, the list I'm using of the 353 books contains libraries that hold either the hardcover version or the large print version. Some libraries have both formats, others, only one format.

The nearest I can tell, there is about a 35-60% purchase rate from my chapbook mailings. The lower number comes from the straight match ups of libraries I mailed that own the book. The upper number comes from a best guess estimate. I don’t have time to look up all those library systems to find out if any of the 5 to 50 libraries in their collectives holds this title - and I believe that due to my targeted marketing strategy, there are a lot more match ups than are immediately apparent.

Now with results in hand what do I do with them? How do I measure if I got my money's worth?
I looked online and boy, there are a lot of rules of thumbs about ads. Many sites say that people have to see your marketing 3 times before it is effective. Others tout the magic number as 7 times.

Interestingly, Thomas Smith, a nineteenth century London businessman (1885) says it is the 20th time for someone to purchase your item. One blogger listed Smith's predictions of what happens at each of those 20 times, which I found fascinating. Here's the link if you'd like to see for yourself: http://www.abiederman.com/marketing/advertising-frequency-how-many-times-is-it-effective.html

If you'd like to share your thoughts on my results or your marketing analyses, I'd love to hear them.
And get ready for my blog tour of Hot Water which starts Friday, July 12, at Just One More Chapter blog and at USA Today's HEA blog. Lots of excitement headed your way!!!

Thanks for visiting! Maggie Toussaint

and if you haven't checked out my yoga blogpost of July 1 at Whole Life Yoga, here's the link for that guest post:  http://www.wholelifeyoga.com/blog/yoga-and-the-maggie/  

and I also did a spot of light cooking which showed up at Romance Cooks and Terry's Place: http://terryodell.com/terrysplace/?p=3114

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Hot Water is FREE at Amazon right now!

She chases bad guys. He chases fires.

Today through Saturday, May 18, Hot Water is FREE on Kindle. Here's the link: http://tinyurl.com/d9ly236


In my new romantic suspense, police officer Laurie Ann is hoping to move up the ranks in her chosen field. She can hardly believe her good luck when an accidental death that she's assigned to cover becomes a homicide case. She's assigned to work with an arson investigator to find answers.

Arson investigator Wyatt thinks he may finally have a lead on the arsonist who killed his firefighter partner. This guy's been a ghost, not following a standard profile, but the Mossy Bog homicide and fire is just the jump start he needs to get justice for his buddy.

Lots of cops and robbers stuff in this book, and all the heat isn't from the fires. Laurie Ann and Wyatt strike sparks off each other from the get-go. But they are also career-minded individuals who put their jobs ahead of their personal lives. But its a brave new world. Who's to say they can't have both?

Here's an excerpt from the book:


Her pocket chirped.
The phone.
Wyatt’s name flashed on the display. Her smile went bone-deep at the sound of his deep, rumbling voice.
“I’m headed your way,” Wyatt said.
She pressed the phone closer, hungry for his news. “Was it your arsonist?”
“Not hardly. An amateur started this fire. The burn was less complete. No structures were involved, and no one died.”
He sounded disappointed. “Those are good things,” she reminded him.
“I need to catch this guy.”
“You will. When one of my cases stalls, I go back to square one. There’s usually another line of inquiry buried somewhere in the information.”
“I’ve been over the files so many times I can practically recite them. If anything was there, I’d have found it by now.”
“I’ve been thinking about our case,” she began. “About tangential information.”
“Yeah?”
“James Brown wasn’t always the town drunk. He did odd jobs for a long time, and he was a good worker. Daddy occasionally brought him out to the house and gave him work, food, clothes, and some money.”
“Your father’s a good man.”
His observation was on point. She cleared her throat. “Just thinking out loud here. Somehow, he went from productive to shiftless. I want to know why. I’ve got a lead on his last known associates, Ray Spivey and Frankie Miles.”
“Go ahead and pick Spivey and Miles up. I’ve got questions for them, too.”
“They’re in the wind. I put out a BOLO on them. They’ll turn up soon. Not many hiding places floating in free booze in Tidewater County.”
“Good.”
He sounded weary, and that depressed the hell out of her. “How about dinner tonight?” she asked, hoping she didn’t sound desperate or needy.
In the time it took him to answer, she mentally kicked herself to the curb and back three times. Men didn’t like take-charge females. Men liked to think they were in charge. Men liked to do the asking.
“Dinner sounds great,” he said. “I’ll be in Mossy Bog by six. Where shall I pick you up?”
Might as well jump off the high dive, she thought to herself. “Come out to my place. I’ll cook dinner. Any food allergies or preferences?”
His voice deepened. “I eat anything that isn’t moving.”
She laughed as her mind veered off on a big bad wolf tangent. The better to eat you with, my dear. Would Wyatt North eat her up? “I promise not to serve you roof shingles or road kill. Come on out whenever you’re ready. Dinner’s at seven.”
“It’s a date.”
The phone clicked in her ear before she could tell him where she lived. This would be interesting. She gathered up her pile of weeds and carried them to her new compost pile behind the pump house. The entire edge of the adjacent woods was fronted by a bamboo thicket, courtesy of her great grandmother.
How resourceful was Wyatt? Would he wander the back roads of Tidewater County for hours? Would he call and admit he was lost?
++
Want more? Download your copy right now. http://tinyurl.com/d9ly236

Maggie Toussaint
www.maggietoussaint.com 

ps Hot Water will release across all digital platforms July 12, and will also come out in trade paperback on July 12. Sign up for my newsletter to be sure you stay in the loop!