Writing Choices

 By Elaine L. Orr

This week's Cozy Crime Weeky newsletter (by Marian at CozyMystery.com) talked about authors moving from cozy mysteries to other genres, and said she would miss them but wished them well. Then she added: "Now, if you treat cozy mysteries like the minor leagues, just a place to hone your skills before you move onto bigger and better, we’re going to have a whole different conversation."

Several times through the years, someone has asked me when I planned to write tougher mysteries or more complex mysteries. I don't punch their lights out (not much violence in my books), but I do find it insulting. 

I  like amateur sleuths, though it can be hard to find a good reason for them to be involved in crime solving sometimes. Do they live in a crime capital? Are their lives so dull they look for trouble? Cozy mystery writers will sometimes joke about the Cabot Cove Effect, a reference to the long-running TV show with Angela Landsbury as Jessica Fletcher ("Murder She Wrote").

The show's writers would take her out of Cabot Cove sometimes. A segment took her to New York City where she taught a writing class for a season. Her immersion in other people's lives seemed almost seamless. And that is what it takes or watchers (and readers) would say she was a nosy biddy.

At some point, she became someone residents or the (bumbling) local sheriff turned to for help. That moved her closer to a professional investigator, but not quite.

I plan to stick with cozies and have been exploring different settings. I've learned it's hard to leave the characters I like, so I need to keep writing in the existing series. Plus, as an entrepreneur, it's important to give readers more of what they've liked.

As a reward as I wrote the second book in the Bay View Harbor Mystery Series, I've started the sixth in the Family History Mystery Series. Take a look, and feel free to send comments.

                                                        *                *                *                *

To learn more about Elaine's writing, visit her website or sign up for her newsletter.

Books as Barometers

By Elaine L. Orr

In 2007, I had a day job and continued to work on the first three books of the Jolie Gentil series. Like most readers, I liked to do anything with books and I had A TON OF BOOKS, so I started selling some online through Alibris. I kept a small stock of 200 books and they were mostly popular ones, so I made between one and two hundred per minth.

Then came the fall and orders fell off the proverbial cliff. One description of the situation was: Beginning in August 2007, pressures in the financial markets turned into a panic, freezing the global credit system when investors realized the extent of bad subprime mortgages. (AI generated) 

Everyday folks may not have been able to predict the decline that would become the 2008 recession (which officially started in December 2007), but they were pulling back spending bigtime. After a couple of months of almost no sales, I donated most of the books to the local library and Goodwill.

Here we are in 2026 and Barnes and Noble is opening new stores because reading is "in" again. Yay! 

But the economy has had some tremulous moments, housing prices are off the charts, and the U.S. is in another war we can't seem to get out of. Will that affect book sales?

I've now published nearly forty books, mostly genre fiction, and generally make enough each month to be happy. That meant a few hundred dollars and quite a bit more when I have a new book. This is June 9th. On Amazon, I have made $12.79 so far. 

Excuse me? I had a new book in May, so my expectation would be a steady stream of buyers for that book (and usually others) for a few months at least. I have not had a month this bad since early 2011 (when I had one book out).

I checked with a few friends I know well enough to ask if they are having similar experiences. Pretty much the same. I sell what the industry calls 'wide,' meaning at all online retailers. I also have my books with IngramSpark which gives bookstores and libraries a place to order. Those retailers seem to be about the same as Amazon.

Economic woes may not be the sole issue. Bowker (which issues ISBNs) reports an increase of 32.5% of books with ISBNs between 2024 and 2025. That's remarkable. Publisher's Weekly reports a rise in traditional and self-published books in the past three years.

So more books mean more competition -- even if some are AI-generated. But that would not lead to such a recent dramatic drop in sales for me. People say, "Amazon must have changed their algorithm." 

I looked it up. Google said: "The core of Amazon's search engine (often referred to as A10) has completely shifted. If you are a buyer, you are seeing search results curated by an AI that prioritizes profitability and off-platform engagement."

My reaction is not printable. I don't even know what off-platform engagement is. If it's book signings and such, mine are lower after two years with cancer (now seemingly cured) and several orthopedic surgeries. But still... It must mean that AI looks for authors who are visible in the news and on social media. Maybe?

It's ironic, because AI firms used published authors' work to teach themslves about books and writing. To see what it knew, I asked ChatGPT to write a short story similar to "Elaine L. Orr's Jolie Gentil cozy mysteries." In two seconds it described the series and its characters and in a few more seconds wrote a roughly 2,000 word story. It was not good, but still... Again, my reaction is not printable.

So, time to adjust. I have to figure out how, because the current situation is nuts. 

                                                        *                *                *                *

To learn more about Elaine's writing, visit her website or sign up for her newsletter.