12 Bestselling Authors one Box Set!

12 complete works by 12 of today's hottest mystery and thriller writers, including USA Today and New York Times bestselling authors. Very special price for this special edition bundle!

If you like a good thriller this is great deal and we are only selling this set for a limited time. 

A $46.65 Value (if purchased separately) - Reg. Retail: $9.99

10 full-length novels + 2 long novellas
Over 680 5-star reviews across all 12 titles!

 1 - DON'T KNOW JACK (The Hunt For Reacher Series) - Diane Capri
 2 - CRY WOLF (A Laura Cardinal Novella) - J Carson Black
 3 - NIGHT WIDOW (The Night Series) - Carol Davis Luce
 4 - GUARANTEED JUSTICE (The Justice Series) - M A Comley
 5 - STRANGER IN TOWN - Cheryl Bradshaw
 6 - BREAKING STEELE (A Sarah Steele Thriller) - Aaron Patterson & Ellie Ann
 7 - MOONLIGHT SONATA (A Dick Moonlight Thriller) - Vincent Zandri
 8 - TERMINUS - Joshua Graham
 9 - ONE DAY IN BUDAPEST - J F Penn
10 - DEAD CELEB (The Dead Celeb Series) - Michele Scott
11 - FINAL VECTOR - Allan Leverone
12 - THE GIFTS (A Jacody Ives Mystery) - Linda S Prather

You can buy yours by clicking the links below: 

AMAZON

B&N

KOBO

iTUNES

TheTwelve’s Website: http://thetwelvexii.com

TheTwelve’s FaceBook Fan Page: https://www.facebook.com/thetwelvexii

TheTwelve on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/DianeCapri/lists/the-twelve

Thanks for reading and now I need a cup of coffee!

Author Aaron Patterson: Blog: The Worst Book Ever.

Guest Post by bestselling author, J. Carson Black. (Update)

I did a post with J. some time back and I wanted to do an update. She has been on fire and yesterday she was #1 on the Amazon Bestseller list for Kindle with her novel, "The Shop". She is a great lady and so without much more from me, here is the interview.

P.S. Here is her author page on Facebook, she has a cool app you should check out: HERE

J. Carson Black:


1. So, we all want to know and I could ask after some small talk, but what is the fun in that? What is with T&M? We want details, juicy and the behind the scenes!
How do I feel about T & M? What’s not to love? I kiss the hem of their garments.

They have been with me every step of the way, and involved me in everything. Maybe it’s because they’re new. But here’s an innovative idea: they actually listen to the author who wrote the book! For the first time in my writing life, I’m not at the bottom of the food chain.

They are responsive, organized, smart, and generous. They’d make a great husband. Here’s an example. My editor asked me to send ideas about the cover of my book, ICON. I went looking on Amazon at “Thrillers”, and saw the book cover/movie poster for ONE FOR THE MONEY by Janet Evanovich. And it hit me—hard—that when you’re talking about a man who is an icon, you have to put him on the cover. I could see it. I described him walking toward the camera on a desert road (a scene in the book) and he’s got to be both handsome and dirty. T-shirt, jeans, desert boots. And mad. Mad as hell. It’s got to come off him like testosterone. He’s holding a gun and he’s had enough. So they did that. And then they made it “one louder.” They made the words “ICON” huge! It looks like a movie poster.

T & M gave me a five-mile-long questionnaire, even asking me to describe my ideal reader (which I did, right down to the capri pants—middle-aged women love thrillers, they love Coben, Crais, Koontz, Child and Connelly. Which means they love the “k” sound, too). T & M asked me about my style and vernacular, so the copy editor wouldn’t try to change it.

They included me on everything, including the jacket copy and copy-editing and page proofs--a completely different experience than I’d had with a traditional publisher.

And, since they own the company, they know how to push the book.

They have been generous with me, too. We have the coolest app called Odyl on my J Carson Black author page. This allows me to incorporate a website Glenn and I built together called http://www.whokilledbriennecross. It’s the pre-story, of sorts, to the murders in the Aspen house at the beginning of the book. We can do giveaways, polls, quizzes, and provide additional “exclusive content” for the reader.


2. The Shop is making waves, again. How do you feel about the future of your books?

Honestly? I have no idea. I believe they’ll be a steady stream of income. But how much that will be? I don’t know. It’s a bit unpredictable. I’m feeling my way along like everybody else. I listen to people who have put in the time and learn from them. Vin taught me to raise the prices when the books started to go on. Smart stuff like that.

I think we’re all learning as we go.

3. Are you planning on doing some of your own books or will you do them all with T&M?

I kept my Laura Cardinal series, and plan to write a fourth when I get some time. I have one more book with T & M, tentatively titled THE SURVIVORS CLUB. I also have kept a bunch of books that were previously published to little or no acclaim, and I like them, although they won’t be burning down any barns. They’re a source of steady income. I plan to put up my two historicals next—I’m very proud of them. I think it’s good to have your own books, books you can always depend on to keep you going. I’d love to sell more books to T & M, but I think it’s good to diversify.

4. Can I publish one of your books? Hey, I had to ask!

Who knows? I may come crawling to you, and it might not even be too long from now. You’ve done a great job with your authors, that’s for sure.

5. Amazon, B&N, bookstores, what do you see in three years, is the future bright or dull?

I think Barnes & Noble is already stepping away from the Nook – as I recall, they are outsourcing that part of the business. Amazon is a monster, and right now it’s bigfooting everyone in sight. But Kobo may be the wave of the future—or not. I think it’s good to keep your ear to the ground and be flexible and willing to make judgments on the fly—and hope they’re for the best. Like this KDP Select thing. Is it good for the author or not? The jury is out. What might be great for us now could kill us later. I’m hoping that independent and specialty bookstores will start coming back. I’m seeing some growth there. For instance, Mysterious Galaxy http://www.mystgalaxy.com/ in San Diego just added a second store. And other bookstores are opening across the country as well. I read a news report that even Amazon’s opening a bookstore.

6. Freestyle, tell me something we may not know?

You probably already know this, but there are few overnight successes, even in this ebook craze. There are people who have been working on their careers for 20, 30 years. They may have been traditionally published, but some of them never had a publisher; they kept submitting and maybe they only came close. But one thing the majority of these folks have in common is mileage. They’ve put a lot of miles on their writing craft. They’ve developed themselves as writers whether they’ve actually sold books are not. (Selling books in NY is a crapshoot, and has been for some time.) Writing isn’t a static thing. You get better, but you also get worse. Sometimes you have to hit the dip before you start improving. Taking chances can really foul you up, but it can also make you better. And perhaps that actually hurts some writers, because the audience for ebooks is massive but somewhat amorphous. You can sell a lot of books, but a goodly number of those books may go to people who don’t like the kind of stuff you write. It’s great to get a huge audience, but it’s even better to reach a targeted audience who will get what they want. I try to aim my books toward the crime-fiction and thriller kind of crowd, and make “a concerted effort”, for lack of a better term, to brand my books with the covers and product descriptions. Tastes are different. The greatest urban fantasy book in the world will probably never reach me, because that’s just not my taste. Same for sci-fi. So I try to dance with them that brung me.

7. What is one thing you would say to a new writer and one thing you would say to a guy like James Patterson or Stephen King?

To a new writer I would say, find your bliss in the kinds of books you want to write, and study the best. Learn from them. Their lessons are there for anybody—all you have to do is open their books and open your mind.

I’d say to Stephen King, “Good on ya!” In my opinion, his latest book, 11/22/63, (based on the few books I managed to read this year) is the best damn book of the year. In that book, he taught me that I need to reward the reader more. It’s all about the internals of a book. He brings things full circle several times in that story-- puts the periods to the sentences--and that satisfies a reader and makes him smile. They’re gifts, pure and simple. Readers are smart, and they like to feel smart.

To James Patterson, I’d say, “congratulations on your franchise.”

8. With new stuff coming out and the potential for some green, cash, money! What is one thing you might buy or do that is kind of a splurge?

Oh, shoot. I don’t know. I would like to be a partner in a racehorse. But then if anything happened to the racehorse, I’d be a basket case.

I’d like to take a small ship tour into the Sea of Cortez. Yeah. I’d like that.

9. Biggest fear?

Being broke again. Or getting sick. One of the two. Or both at once. Ick.

10. Funniest thing that ever happened at a book signing?

I signed my first book, DARKSCOPE, at a B. Dalton in the local mall. I got my Masters Degree in vocal performance (opera singing) and the ladies of the local Opera Guild helped me out in a number of ways. I was young and thoughtless then. To be honest, they all kind of blurred together, lovely people though they were. And the signing was about five years later. So one of these ladies came up to me and I thought I knew her name, and I said, “Rita! How good to see you!” and hugged her. I signed the book to Rita and she left, smiling. (I think she was smiling.) Ten minutes later, the real Rita showed up. I’d gotten them mixed up. I still can’t believe the non-Rita let me sign the book to “Rita”. Now that’s polite!

Thanks for everything!

J. Carson Black
jcarsonblack@gmail.com
http://jcarsonblack.com
http://www.facebook.com/JCarsonBlack.authorpage

Author Aaron Patterson: Blog: The Worst Book Ever.

Guest Post by CJ Lyons: Jack be Kindle, Jack be Nook: What you need to succeed in E-pubbing

Unless you have been hiding under a rock, you have seen the name CJ Lyons in the eBook and publishing new feeds all over the internet. She has a book in the top 10 on Amazon right now and made it to #2 beating out Lee Child. This is no small thing and as a blogger and writer I want to not just talk all about eBooks and the new way to publish, but I want to give you real life examples of other authors doing it.

We have seen Amanda Hocking, john Locke, Vincent Zandri and others all hit the Amazon top 10 list and what happens after that is always fun to watch. CJ was kind enough to grace us with a post so here she is... Thanks again CJ.


Jack be Kindle, Jack be Nook: What you need to succeed in E-pubbing

Aaron asked me to tell you guys how I got my start as an Indy author/publisher. It's one of those a funny thing happened on the way…type of stories.
You see, I initially sold to a major NYC publisher. That book, my dream debut, was a nice hardcover deal, a pre-empt, and garnered cover quotes from a dozen NYC bestsellers, including Sandra Brown. The editor wanted the sequel and it was already in the production line when the first book, my debut, was pulled from publication.

Why? Cover art--something I had no control over. But it meant my dream debut had crashed and burned.

I'd already made a leap of faith and left my medical practice after 17 years to pursue my life-long dream of being a full-time writer. And suddenly I was unemployed with no contract.

So what did I do? I kept writing. A few months later another NYC publisher came to me and offered me even more money to create a new series for them, which led to the Angels of Mercy medical suspense books. With the first book, LIFELINES, I became a National Bestseller.

I was able to pay my bills with my writing but I had several manuscripts that had undergone revisions and edits with NYC editors but never made it to publication for a variety of reasons--including those first two books. It nagged at me that these were books that had passed muster with NYC but the reading public would never see.
Then came Kindle. And Smashwords. And Nook.

Being a total cyber-klutz, I wasn't sure I'd be able to learn how to format and submit manuscripts, but with the help of Mark Coker's Smashword Guide, I mastered it. And so, by January 2010, I had four books on Kindle.

(new to e-book formatting? I made a short video walking you through the basics. You can find it here: http://www.norulesjustwrite.com/break-free-from-the-slushpile/)
I'd done my homework and read folks like JA Konrath who were true pioneers with self e-pubbing, but I was skeptical about his advice on pricing books at $1.99. So I priced mine between $2.99 and $4.99.

Then the Haiti earthquake struck. I decided since this was all an experiment anyway, I'd have nothing to lose by giving away my proceeds to Doctors Without Borders' relief efforts. In one month I sold 1800 e-books and was feeling pretty good about myself.

Even better was when the reviews began coming in. Not just from readers but from some wonderful bloggers who'd discovered my e-books.

I had several more manuscripts finished, so I hired a freelance editor who'd worked with NYT bestsellers and an artist to create new covers for all my books. By the end of 2010 I had eight books up, with fans clamoring for more, and was poised to make more in a year from my indy e-books than from my NYC contracts.

All this without any advertising other than listing the books on my website and including them in my monthly newsletter.

I continued to experiment with a variety of price points and for the first time ever, actually was able to track sales to see what worked and what didn't--something NYC publishing could take a lesson from! After discovering that one of my books, SNAKE SKIN, had great reviews but lackluster sales, I decided to experiment with giving it away in an effort to help it find its readership.

Giving away books has always been my main promotional effort. Before e-books, I would buy extra copies of my print books and mail them to my newsletter subscribers as special reader appreciation gifts. Now I routinely give away e-books and have built a Street Team of fans eager for a chance to read and review my new books.
(interested in how it works? You can find more info here: http://cjlyons.net/for-readers/join-cjs-street-team/)

Smashwords allows you to give a book away for free, but Kindle and Nook don't. So I set SNAKE SKIN for free on Smashwords and around three weeks later the free price finally propagated to Amazon. I woke up on Saturday morning to find 5,000 people had SNAKE SKIN on their Kindles.

Within 48 hours that number climbed to over 24,000 and at my agent's urging, I changed the price to 0.99. By the end of the month almost 40,000 people had downloaded SNAKE SKIN. Not only had SNAKE SKIN found its readership but sales of the rest of my books increased by 280%

I didn't like the 0.99 price as a full-time price because I thought it was "cheap" and under-valued my work. BUT as a special sale price it certainly was effective--gaining me new readers without losing me any money.

That was on a book that wasn't selling well. Could I risk reducing the price of my bestselling book, the one that paid the mortgage, from $4.99 to 0.99?

I decided it was worth a try. So for a limited time, my bestseller, BLIND FAITH, is on sale for 0.99. I don't know what will happen as far as long term sales, but in the first three weeks I've sold over 35, 000 copies, hit #1 on the Amazon Indie Bestseller list and #2 on the overall Kindle Bestseller list, so I'm pretty darned pleased.

What was the trick? I didn't do any big time promo for the BLIND FAITH sale. Just my normal newsletter and a few tweets and website/Facebook updates. So I can't take credit for this surge of sales.

I think it was a question of SNAKE SKIN already being on a roll, allowing everyone who viewed or bought it to see my name. Plus BLIND FAITH has a great cover and already had stellar reviews, so building on SNAKE SKIN's momentum was easier for it than an unknown book.

Could someone with only one book do this? Honestly, I think it would be very difficult. I'm learning that with online sales momentum builds more momentum until you reach a tipping point. You need plenty of books in your arsenal (I'd recommend at least 5-6) so that you can keep the momentum rolling from one book to the next.
No fancy tricks, no sleazy sales techniques, no expensive ads or trailers or sponsorships. Just readers who resonate with my brand of Thrillers with Heart and keeping an eye on my sales trends, ready to make those price adjustments when need be.

(in my mind, I imagine log rollers dancing across timber streaming down whitewater rapids—try that, NYC publishing conglomerates!)

Bottom line if you want to achieve success as an Indy: be nimble, be quick, be fearless. And never forget: it's ALL about the reader!

Thanks for reading!
CJ

About CJ:

As a pediatric ER doctor, CJ Lyons has lived the life she writes about in her cutting edge thrillers. In addition to being an award-winning, bestselling author, CJ is a nationally known presenter and keynote speaker.

CJ has been called a "master within the genre" (Pittsburgh Magazine) and her work has been praised as "breathtakingly fast-paced" and "riveting" (Publishers Weekly) with "characters with beating hearts and three dimensions" (Newsday).

Her newest project is as co-author of a new suspense series with Erin Brockovich. Learn more about her writing at http://www.cjlyons.net and find the tools you need to help you finish your novel and find your audience at http://www.norulesjustwrite.com


Author Aaron Patterson: Blog: The Worst Book Ever.

Her Story: J Carson Black, Guest Post

Aaron, thank you for inviting me to your blog today.

When I decided to write a new thriller, I had several ideas on the table. None of them made the final cut. Then the idea for THE SHOP came out of the blue.

One evening while eating dinner, my husband (and publisher) Glenn and I were watching cable news. John Mark Karr’s plane was coming into Boulder, Colorado, where he would face charges for killing JonBenet Ramsey. He’d been flown over from Europe, dining on shrimp cocktail and entertaining his captors—federal marshals—and generally having a great time of it. Now the press was lined up along the airstrip in Boulder to cover his arrival. Picture the private jet coming in for a landing with all the pomp and circumstance of the Space Shuttle. The reporters, the news vans, the cameras, the microphones, the breathless reporting on the ground and in the studio: an absolute frenzy!

Glenn and I looked at each other. This was a farce worthy of commentary. What we were seeing was the new American way: celebrity conjured out of nothing. It turned out later that John Mark Karr was playing everybody. He didn’t kill JonBenet Ramsey. But he’d fulfilled his purpose—he’d fed the hungry maw of the media for a short time.

Something could be done with this—the distraction of celebrity. That was the seed for my story, THE SHOP.

In the opening scene of THE SHOP, celebrity Brienne Cross is killed in her Aspen chalet, along with the four finalists of her reality show, SOUL MATE, and the producer of the show.

I knew right away who killed them. But why? Even the killer wants to know why. And so he sets out to find the truth.

Sometimes stories come from strange places, and sometimes they come from cable news.

I’ve been writing most of my life, and sold my first book, a ghost story, in 1990. My career went like this: I would sell a book or two for very little money, get kicked off the carousel, and then write something much better, get on again, get thrown off, go back to the woodshed and improve my craft, and sell again. I think the important thing here is the “getting better” part.

I ran into a buzz saw when my agent tried to sell my new thriller, THE SHOP. She absolutely believed in the book and thought it would sell very quickly at the highest level. Two miserable years ensued, ending with a whimper, not a bang. She said, “There’s just no other place I can try.” And so, with her blessing, I put the book up on Kindle at the end of March.

At the beginning of April, THE SHOP spiked. By the end of April I’d sold almost nine thousand copies of THE SHOP alone---and I had other books up as well.
My idea in March had been simple: I wanted a Big Six deal. I would go the Boyd Morrison route and rack up a ton of sales, which would parlay into a six-figure deal with Random House or Penguin. But my thinking changed as I learned how much fun it was to design covers, write cover copy, market a book my way, and, yes, count the money rolling in. It made me feel smart and savvy. And I remembered a road trip two years before, a conversation with my husband all the way from Ruidoso, New Mexico to Lordsburg (that’s a good piece of distance) about our strategy for selling THE SHOP. 1) We needed a powerful, top-flight agent. 2) She had to get the book in front of the best editors at the best houses. And we agreed then: we wanted as much money up front as possible, because we knew that by the second book the publisher would be disillusioned and would kick us to the curb. Not the best model for a career, is it?

And so my attitude changed. I no longer wanted to sell to a Big Six publisher. I did sign with Thomas & Mercer (THE SHOP and two other thrillers), but I kept my Laura Cardinal series and plan to keep one foot firmly planted in the indie camp.
You ask me what I did for marketing. I didn’t buy any ads. I didn’t guest blog a lot. We did Tweet and Facebook the successes as they came, like getting on to the Top 100 list. I spent a lot of time on Kindle Boards Writer’s Café, sharing experiences. I truly believe that Writer’s Café taught me what was possible. When you see so many people reach 1000 sales, 5000 sales, 10,000 sales and more, you begin to think you can do it. Your own Vince Zandri inspired me. He said he was selling 1000 books a day for a week. So I thought: I’ll sell 1000 books a day for one week. And I did. I know it sounds crazy, but just knowing you can do it really helps.

It also has helped tremendously that I have great quotes from John Lescroart, T. Jefferson Parker, Gayle Lynds, and David Morrell.

I think marketing comes down to Joe Konrath’s creed: good books, good product descriptions, good covers. I would add that we emulated the look of Big Six covers, because we wanted to capitalize on the familiarity factor. So we studied the Edgar Award book covers, paying particular attention to fonts. We wanted a unified look for our books, but knew they should stand out from one another so no one would be confused and buy a book twice. Hence the colors and different themes: THE SHOP has a thriller look with menace and a silhouetted protagonist. THE DEVIL’S HOUR is blue, DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN is red, and DARK SIDE OF THE MOON is mostly yellow, navy and white. We didn’t consciously come up with these colors—they just happened. But the art, which I always feel is secondary to the font, fits each book. I see the art as behind the font, which is super-imposed over it. I think books need to have a uniform look. If they’re thrillers, they have to look like thrillers. You can be creative, but you have to maintain the brand.
When we were really broke last fall and were coming to the end of the line with publishers, I was within sight of a deal with a real bottom-feeder of a publisher. I figured we’d get $2500, and at that point I was willing to take it.

They turned me down.

Favorite song: Garth Brooks’ “Unanswered Prayers.”

http://jcarsonblack.com



Author Aaron Patterson: Blog: The Worst Book Ever.