F.M., also known as Marilyn Meredith, is the author of the Deputy Tempe Crabtree series. She first became interested in writing about law enforcement when she lived in a neighborhood filled with police officers and their families. The interest was fanned when her daughter married a police officer and the tradition has continued with a grandson and grandson-in-law who are deputies. She’s also serves on the board of the Public Safety Writers Association, and has many friends in different law enforcement fields. For twenty plus years, she and her husband lived in a small beach community located in Southern California much like the fictional Rocky Bluff. She is a member of three chapters of Sisters in Crime, Epic, and Mystery Writers of America.
Webpage: http://fictionforyou.com/
And on Facebook and Twitter as MarilynMeredith
Marilyn's Shares Her Writing Journey With Us Today -
Looking
Back Over My Years as a Writer
by F.M. Meredith
Sometimes it’s a good idea to look back over your
accomplishments and disappointments in order to see how far you’ve come.
And A Contest!
The person who
comments on the most blog posts on this tour may have a character named after
him or her in the next Rocky Bluff P.D. crime novel or choose a book from the
previous titles in the Rocky Bluff P.D. series in either paper or for Kindle.
Rocky Bluff P.D.
Series: Though each book
in the Rocky Bluff P.D. series is written as a stand-alone, I know there are
people who like to read a series in order. From the beginning to the end:
Final Respects
Find F.M. (Marilyn) Meredith at:
My first book (an historical family saga) received nearly
thirty rejections before finding a publisher. (This was back in the days of
typewriters, carbon paper, submitting full manuscripts in a box with another
pre-addressed and stamped box inside.) I knew nothing at all about promotion
and expected the publisher to do it all. One thing I do know, the distribution
was good because people spotted it in markets and drugstores. The editor who
bought it left the publisher—a big setback.
The second book (also an historical family saga) was
accepted by a publisher that turned out to be a crook—and guess what, I
self-published with another company that also turned out to be dishonest. I
bought a lot of the books and managed to sell them myself, but never received a
single royalty.
I changed genres and wrote my first mystery, The
Astral Gift. This poor book found a home first with another crooked
publisher (back then, there were lots of them preying on writers), 50 books
were printed and the publisher disappeared. The Astral Gift had two
more publishers after that.
Somewhere in this time period, I found another publisher
who wanted me to make my submission camera-ready, long before print-on-demand
companies, I struggled but managed to complete the project only to learn the
publisher died.
When I wrote my first Rocky Bluff P.D. mystery, it was
accepted by an e-publisher before anyone had a clue what this meant, nor were
there any e-book readers. This was an unsuccessful venture. I’ve already
written about what happened next, the series went through two more publishers
until finally begin published by Oak Tree Press.
My other series about Deputy Tempe Crabtree has had a
similar rough path to publication and staying published. An agent told me she
wouldn’t represent me unless I changed Tempe’s name. She thought it too unusual.
I found another agent who loved the name but accomplished nothing in four
years. I struck out on my own and sold the book to a small independent Press,
Golden Eagle. Four books were published, and then the publisher who’d become a
friend, passed away unexpectedly. Hard Shell Word Factory republished the
series as e-books, including a prequel. The publisher sold the company and all
this series was picked up by Mundania Press both as e-books and trade
paperbacks.
None of it has been easy. Would I do it again? Only if it
were in this time period of computers and the Internet. Today, self-publishing
is much easier with far better results. There are many legitimate small presses
out there looking for good books to publish. It is easy to contact authors for
a recommendation of their publishers. You can find out about all the best ways
to promote through the Internet and get lots of advice and support from fellow
authors.
This is the briefest of histories, there were other books
and other mishaps along the way, but this is what I remember the most clearly. One thing that I mustn’t forget is I learned a lot along
the way, some from other agents I had, much from writers’ conferences, writing
magazines and books, but the very most from the members of the critique group
that I joined over thirty years ago.
Now a bit about Marilyn's latest, Dangerous
Impulses:
An attractive new-hire
captivates Officer Gordon Butler, Officer Felix Zachary’s wife Wendy is
befuddled by her new baby, Ryan and Barbara Strickland receive unsettling news
about her pregnancy, while the bloody murder of a mother and her son and an
unidentified drug that sickens teenaged partiers jolts the Rocky Bluff P.D.
Bad Tidings
Fringe Benefits
Smell of Death
No Sanctuary
An Axe to Grind
Angel Lost
No Bells
Dangerous
Impulses
On Facebook and Twitter as MarilynMeredith
Check Out F.M. (Marilyn) Meredith's last stop on the tour tomorrow, March 28, when she visits Chester Campbell at http://chestercampbell.blogspot.com/
Please leave a comment to welcome F.M. (Marilyn) Meredith to Acme Authors Link.
