We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Mary Lu Scholl. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Mary Lu below.

Mary Lu, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. So, let’s start with trends – what are some of the largest or more impactful trends you are seeing in the industry?

Writing fiction has evolved. It has never been easy, the first step used to be find an agent and that could take years, the next was submissions and waiting – and THAT took years.

With the advent of the digital age, both those processes have become far more streamlined – and unnecessary.

While publishers used to take control of your creative process and walk you through what they wanted, in return, they sponsored you and your book. The cost of advertising as well as the process of launching you was taken care of. That is simply not done anymore unless YOU pay for it separately. There are people who di it for you, but not your publisher.

Third-party publishing was the next biggest frontier and fraught with all kinds of misunderstandings based on popular views of publishing businesses. They do as little or as much as you want – at your expense. A major issue there is that most people taking advantage of their services are first-time writers who have absolutely no idea what they want or are asking for. (Been there, done that)

About the time writers became conversant with that option, they discovered self-publishing. What’s not to like? You have control over your product. You can make changes nearly instantly. You can commmission a cover you like or design your own. You control how much or how little you spend on advertising. You hold your product in the palm of your hand.

Digital books were next. As we got used to control, people started reading first on tablets and now on their phones. It’s convenient. You always have your phone with you – in line, in waiting rooms, in bed or in the yard. Writers can now upload their books in digital format and have them instantly available to their readers. The same control over them is as you have over your paperbacks you just learned to self-publish. Advantages to the readers include a built in dictionary, portability, adjustible fonts.

Now, the newest trend – audible books. For a few years, people taught their kindles to read to them, but the results were often flat and uninviting. Audible presents trained voices, music, varied emotion and dialects. At the last venue I was selling books at, nearly a dozen people asked if my books were on Audible. That is a yes, I ‘read’ two or three books a week on audible books. I can now ‘read’ while I garden, while I cook, and while I drive! I’m not alone…

It is expensive, still to pay narrators and get a valuable product… That is a new frontier, but slowly being embraced. What’s next?

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I write cozy mysteries to make people laugh. My characters are fun, my situations are ones we can all relate to. After all, practically every conversation, situation or scrape my characters are invloved in come straight out of my life. If you read my Trailer Park Travails series, you know ME far too well. Cozy mysteries do not have foul language, there are not a lot of blood, guts and gore. S*x and violence are generally ‘off-screen.’

I also try very hard to present both sides. My perpertrators are not evil, they have a side to the story. My victims are not angels – life happens.

People enjoy the familiar, and these are the people all around us.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Never, never, never write about someone you have a continuing relationship with. Not directly or even obliquely.

Things you may find endearing are not necessarily things the person even realizes about themselves – much less things they want exposed in public.

The absolute horror I encountered when a family member read one of my first manuscripts cured me of that immediately.

Any fun sales or marketing stories?

With a series, you can sacrifice the first sale to make the rest. There are ten books in my first series, for example. I only advertise the first one. When I set up for in-person sales, I stress that one.

If someone is wavering, I ask for their email address and volunteer to send them a first story free in digital format. More often than not, they accept and then I have their email for my newsletter and also get to introduce them to my characters.

I am currently working on a way to do the same with the newest frontier – audible books.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://amazon.com/authors/maryluscholl
• Facebook: Mary Lu Author
• Other: [email protected]