Daily Archives: November 15, 2019

Q: What Do You Say To Pushy Readers?

A: Thank you .

Lost Witness is in preorder. It will publish December 1 and I am stunned that this book is a reality. To explain why we need to rewind five years.

In October 2014 Dark Witness, the seventh – and I thought last – book in The Witness Series was published. Originally the first book, Hostile Witness, was presented to publishers as a stand alone novel. When an editor at Penguin/Putnam offered a three-book contract I accepted even though I had never written a series.

Silent Witness and Privileged Witness followed. In the three years it took the publisher to bring those books to market editorial direction changed hands, the marketplace started shrinking and the series progressed no further. My rights to the three books were reverted and, after writing for twenty-five years, I thought that perhaps it was time for me to kick back and retire. That was when my husband said: “Have you heard of this thing called Kindle.”

Fast forward to a career second wind as an indie author. I republished the first three books of The Witness Series and they spent over two years on Amazon’s thriller bestseller lists in the U.S. and UK. Over 2 million copies of the series have been downloaded to date. I continued to add books and finally penned Dark Witness. Not one for bow endings, I left one character walking into the sunset assuming my readers would imagine an ending for him to finish the story.

For five years while I wrote two more series – The Bailey Devlin Trilogy and Finn O’Brien Crime Thrillers – I got emails from readers demanding to know when the next Josie Bates book would be published. They wanted me to write the ending or the next chapter in these characters’ lives. They wanted the adventure to come from my head, not theirs.

I wasn’t ignoring these pleas; I simply had a horrible case of writer’s block. I loved Josie and Hannah, Billy and Archer, but I was terrified of making a big decision about their lives. I was also afraid that I didn’t have the skill to reclaim their unique voices.

At the beginning of this year I received one more email about Josie and the reader convinced me that it was time to meet the challenge of the next book head on. At first the dialogue was creaky, and the plot meandered.  One day inspiration hit. I suddenly knew how to begin the book. I knew the end of the story. I knew the last words that had to be spoken. I had been ‘lost’ and because of the readers insistence I found my voice.  In doing so I reclaimed Josie’s wisdom, I heard Hannah’s compassion, Billy’s unwavering devotion, and Archer’s steady guidance. I was home again and it felt darn good.

I want to thank the readers who pushed, prodded and cajoled. I didn’t know that I was missing Josie Bates, but the readers did. This Thanksgiving I am thankful to them for making Lost Witness possible.

PREORDER LOST WITNESS now ($.99) and join over 2 million fans of The Witness Series.

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