Southwest Crime Ink

Authors are supposed to promote themselves.  That's so we sell enough copies of our books to keep our publishers happy and, with luck, avoid living in dumpsters during our golden years.  My most recent effort is Southwest Crime Ink.

Southwest Crime Ink is a group of four Tucson mystery writers: Elizabeth Gunn, Susan Cummins Miller, J. Carson Black and myself.  We've been friends for years.  We critique for each other.  If you put us together in front of a crowd, we're a ready-made event.

We debuted at one of Tucson's libraries.  We drew well, had a swell time, and no one got bored enough to walk out.  Next up, bookstores.  Our first mistake was probably taking our act so far on the road.  We went to Sedona, where the four of us drew a crowd of three.  These are not good odds for profitable book marketing.  More readers turned out for our next try, a Tucson Borders.  Unfortunately, the store only ordered paperbacks for one of us.  Guess how many of us sold any books?

In spite of our spectacular start, we're determined to keep trying.  Watch this space for future outings.

Oh, and if you don't like our name, don't tell us.  Imagine only if you can, how hard it is to get four creative writers to agree on a name.  As soon as one of us found a good one, someone topped it.  And, of course, we all liked our own ideas best.

Finally, we developed a complicated voting system that didn't let us pick our own suggestions, and we promised to stick with it.  I'll keep you posted if that changes. 

Regardless, I'd like you to meet my partners in Southwest Crime Ink.  To find out more about them, just click here or go to their individual web sites.

Elizabeth, Susan and J. are all terrific writers and wonderful people and I recommend them all highly. And I'm proud to be associated with them.