Author Spotlight: Dale Mayer

Dale Mayer is a prolific author, creating twenty-nine new titles in 2017 alone, with over 150 ebook offerings at Amazon. Her books cover various genres. My particular favorites are her Psychic Visions series and her Broken Protocols series (set in the future) and her Broken but ... Mending series (a raw emotional read). Of course I adore any of her SEALs series. She has four: SEALs of Honor,  Heroes for Hire (former SEALs), Sleeper SEALs and her newest, SEALs of Steel.

Her Design trilogy and her Biker trilogy and her Time Thieves novel are on my Read Next list.

Dale Mayer's vampire series and her paranormal fantasy series I have yet to read. (So many books, so little time.) Plus she has various romance collections where you can read her contribution among many other authors. The paranormal fantasy romance anthology looks tempting too, entitled Ancient Blood of the Vampire & Wolf.

And there's more. Check out the witch anthology, entitled Every Witch Way but Wicked. And the Darlings of Urban Fantasy collection. There are several fantasy collections, BTW. See also the Vampires, Werewolves & Zombies collection too.

Here's the link to her Amazon Author page: https://www.amazon.com/Dale-Mayer/e/B001JPADOI/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1519314662&sr=1-1

This list of her books below is incomplete, as it doesn't show any of her four SEALs series, but it's enough to whet your appetite:



Books by Dale Mayer

Psychic Vision Series
Tuesday's Child
Hide'n Go Seek 
Maddy's Floor
Garden of Sorrow
Knock, Knock...
Rare Find 
Eyes to the Soul
Now You See Her ...
Shattered
Into the Abyss
Seeds of Malice
Eye of the Falcon
Itsy Bitsy Spider - Preorder for July 24, 2018 release

By Death Series
Touched by Death - Part 1 - Free
Touched by Death - Part 2
Touched by Death - Full book
Haunted by Death
Chilled by Death

Second Chances...at Love Series
Second Chances - Part 1
Second Chances - Part 2
Second Chances - Full book

Novellas
It's a Dog's Life- romantic comedy

Charmin Marvin Romantic Comedy
Broken Protocols #1
Broken Protocols #2
Broken Protocols #3
Broken Protocols #3.5

New adult/adult crossover books 
In Cassie's Corner
Gem Stone (a Gemma Stone mystery)

Design Series
Dangerous Designs 
Deadly Designs 
Darkest Designs

Family Blood Ties Series
Vampire in Denial
Vampire in Distress 
Vampire in Design
Vampire in Deceit
Vampire in Defiance

Enjoy!

Denise Barker

What Do Readers Choose to Read?

This is a related post from the one earlier today.  Something within that first blog stirred my need to know.  So I did more unscheduled research and came up with the following interesting info.  My apologies for any errors or math miscalculations.  Believe me, they were not intended.  However, with that caveat, here we go.

As authors we should consider this:  What are our potential readers reading?  What genres do these Kindle Million Club authors encompass?  Does offering a huge selection of books to the public help generate these one million books sold?  

Restricting this discussion to the Kindle Million Club authors, here is a thumbnail overview:

Line No.	Kindle Million Club Author	Novels Published to Date*	Genre
1.	D. Baldacci	22	Thriller**, Children's
2.	A. Hocking	9	YA Paranormal
3.	S. Meyer	8	YA Vampire Romance
4.	S. Larsson	3	Thriller
5.	J. Patterson	48	Thriller
6.	Nora Roberts	209	Romance
7.	Nora Roberts aka J.D. Robb	42	Thriller
8.	C. Harris	12	Vampire Thriller
9.	Lee Child	16	Thriller
10.	S. Collins	8	Children’s, Sci-Fi
11.	M. Connelly	25	Thriller
12.	John Locke	12	Humorous Thriller
13.	K. Stockett	1	Historical
14.	J. Evanovich	45***	Humorous Thriller, Humorous Romance
15.	G. R.R. Martin	14	Fantasy, Sci-Fi

* -  no short stories or anthologies counted (at least not on purpose)

** - "Thriller" includes mysteries and police procedurals

*** - some of Janet Evanovich's novels counted here were co-authored

NOTE:  The children's genre is skewed as I was ignoring it at first, like I did the short stories and the anthologies--based on the fact they are probably not novel-length books, may not be necessarily offered via Amazon (such as articles, another category I overlooked, would most likely be published in magazines, periodicals, etc.) plus any anthology purchase could be deemed due to another contributor's name on the cover.  Hence, not part of why these authors made Amazon's Kindle Million Club.   However, it shows up for Collins as her bibliography has more books in that genre.  I plan to update this category with more research later (hopefully not today as I am already so off track--ha!).  At that time, I'll add the appropriate entries where needed and a confirming postscript at the end of this entry.

The million-sales-generating genres include crossovers so here's that tally per the authors referenced above, starting with the most desired/bought and working down to the other favorites:

     9 Thrillers/Mysteries/Police Procedurals, including the two mixed genres noted below

     3 Romance, including the two mixed genres noted below  /
3 Humorous, including the two mixed genres noted below

     2 Young Adults  /  2 Science Fiction  /  2 Humorous Thrillers  /  2 Children's

     1 Paranormal Romance   / 1 Historical  /  1 Fantasy / 1 Vampire Thriller  / 1 Humorous Romance

Remember, these numbers here indicate genres shared among these Kindle Million Club authors, not the number of books written.  If I have the genres wrong, then my math here is inherently erroneous, so take that into account.

Obviously Nora Roberts aka J.D. Robb has the greatest number of books written to date among this selection of novelists.  Even adding together all the other authors' publications from the chart above, I come up with roughly 223 novels compared to 251 just by Nora.  That is incredible.  As author Nora Roberts, she has written 209 romance books.  Under the J.D. Robb pen name for her In Death murder series, she's created another 42.

Still, you have a debut author making this list with her lone contribution (K. Stockett).

So just because you aren't as prolific as Nora or have a humongous backlist to convert to e-book format, you can still accomplish great things with one individual story.

The other single-digit-book-producing authors here have trilogies--or a quadrilogy--going for them (Hocking, Meyer, Larsson, Collins).

The beginning of the double-digit producers (covering 11-19 books) seem to be replete with authors doing a longer series.  Look at Harris with her book/TV series, Child's Reacher series, then Locke's two series with his start on a third, ending with Martin who has one series among his other standalone books.

For authors offering twenty-something books to choose from, we have the series theme popping up again, with Baldacci's four (counting the children's series) and Connolly's three.

Nobody considered here has thirty-ish books published.  They either have less or more.  So we jump into the forty-plus-books-published category:  Patterson and Evanovich.  They both have embraced the book series, too.

Also, per our Kindle Million Club author listing, you can be traditionally published or Indie-published, as Hocking and Locke attest to, and still make the cut.

To recap, here's what readers want based on my personal analysis of Kindle's Million Club authors. 

A great entertaining read, first and foremost would be my generic answer, whether (1) hundreds of books prolifically written throughout the decades (keep 'em coming) or (2) a standalone adult novel, your first even, in whatever category (every one of these extraordinary authors started with Book One).  (3) Both traditionally and Indie-published authors appear in this list.  Top-selling genres include (4) Thrillers, then (5) Romance and Humor genres.  (6)  Create a series, at least a trilogy, but longer is better.  (7)  It is okay to mix genres.  Plus, as you see fit, (8) add in these elements:  fantasy, paranormal, vampire and/or sci-fi; (9) feel free to write to these audiences: young adults and children; and (10) they want more serious reads first and lighthearted reads second.

One final point.  No matter what genre of book is selling big at the moment, no matter what genre of movie is drawing record numbers at the theaters, no matter what genre of TV show is a huge hit, write from your heart.  Write what you want.  Write what you are drawn to.  If it happens to be the current "thing," so much the better.

Just as I am compelled to do this research and these two blogs today no matter what my To Do list may dictate, sometimes you gotta go with your gut.  Trust your instincts.  If they are nudging you now, then now is the right time to do it.

Like Kathryn Stockett's "differences" stand out among the other authors within Amazon's Kindle Million Club on so many levels (it's her debut novel, it's the only historical on the list, she made her one million in sales from one single book--that's a big following), she could be deemed the anomaly.  So could one of us someday.

And that's it.

For now.

Target Audience / Reader Demographic

As a follow-up to my previous post regarding how my age does not determine what I read, I would like to further discuss the anomalies of “target audience” and “reader demographic.”  I happen to enjoy teen paranormal books/movies, and I am neither teen nor paranormal (much).  Yet if my age and human status are limiting factors, then booksellers would never realize they have a market in fifty-something females of the non-vampire, non-werewolf variety.

Anyway, I don’t believe the old writer’s adage to “write to your audience” as if only people of the same approximate age of my main characters will read that book.  My personal reading habits alone defy that model.  It is too much like "write what you know."  Which sounds logical, until you apply it to the fantasy writers out there, or the SciFi genre or the paranormal crowd.

I recently read in the Kindle Direct Publishing newsletter about the top twenty most well-read cities in America.  It’s an interesting collection of not only cities, but what was the bestselling genre sold for some of them (nonfiction, cooking, children’s books, etc.).  Now this is information an author can use.

To begin with, you could choose a city you know and love from that list of topmost-book-reading devotees and make that place a central theme to your next book, a character of its own.  Think of Tara Plantation in Gone with the Wind.  Or for a more timely example, Lisa Turner’s Memphis in A Little Death in Dixie.

Follow your genre and market heavily (local newspaper articles, TV station spots, radio ads, billboards) in those cities which devour your kind of books.  Amazon’s Author Center states “Nielsen BookScan does not aggregate sales data for Kindle or ebooks, or for books available only through third party sellers.”  HOWEVER, Amazon compiled these figures and included Kindle e-book sales.

I predict Nielsen BookScan and the like will incorporate e-books sales.  Just like Bestseller Lists will incorporate e-books.  And contests will allow e-book submissions.  All that will have to change to accommodate the jinormous elephant in the room.  Because e-books are big sellers.  

In the meantime, write what moves you. 

 

My Age Should Not Determine My Reading Demographic

I am an author, a freelance copy editor, an Indie publisher of my own works with a never-want-to-be-cured-from addiction to movies and books.  I am also female and a Baby Boomer.  Yet I love James Bond stories (whether on film or on paper), the TV show Burn Notice, the Twilight saga, Jane Austen books and J.D. Robb’s In Death series.  I also never miss an episode of House, M.D. or Lie to Me.

To reiterate:

I am not a man or a spy regardless of the timeframe.

I am not a teenager or a vampire or a werewolf.

I am not a woman living in the early 1800s whose highest vocation is to marry.  And marry rich.

I am not a female detective living in the future world of the 2050s and beyond.

I am not a doctor, male or otherwise, with a crass bedside manner—if you can get him by your bedside.

I am not a human lie detector disguised as an adult male with an adorable teenaged daughter who is truly the parent.

What do all these things share? 

ESCAPISM.

I like to escape when I read or watch movies.  I also like to learn something, whether from fiction, nonfiction or film.  I hope all my soon-to-published novels accomplish both for my readers.

Maybe that erroneous “reader demographic” model is why J.K. Rowland received her initial rejection letters for her Harry Potter books, supposedly written for boys aged nine to twelve (or that’s what I remember from a bio on her).

Therefore, all you authors out there, don’t worry that your “target audience” is small, say for boys aged nine to twelve.  If the story is universal, it will appeal to all age groups.