MTW - The Mysteries of Indy Publishing - Deadly Occupation

February 12 - 22 is Mystery Thriller Week. Readers and authors gather via social media to celebrate the genre! My contribution to this event is interviewing authors who have published novels independently.

Suzanne Adair is an award-winning multi-published author of historical fiction that also satisfies the mystery reader. I read Regulated for Murder when it was released, and enjoyed the action-packed, historically intriguing story. I need to catch up with Lietentant Stoddard!

Have you been traditionally published (novel, short story, or non-fiction)?

A regional press traditionally published my early trilogy. That press folded before I could offer them my Michael Stoddard American Revolution mysteries.

What type(s) of fiction do you most enjoy reading? Favorite recent read?

I enjoy mysteries, especially well-done historicals, plus science fiction. My favorite recent read was historical non-fiction. Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13.

Why did you choose to publish this book independently?

I've published Deadly Occupation and other titles in the Michael Stoddard series independently because publishers’ editors who read my manuscripts didn’t know enough history to make informed assessments of my stories. For example, one editor didn’t believe the historically accurate events at the beginning of Deadly Occupation and wanted Hollywood-style pyrotechnics instead. Many readers learn history from historical fiction, so this lack of basic knowledge on the part of editors—the gatekeepers—is frightening.

Have you enjoyed the experience / process? Would you recommend Indy publishing to others?

I enjoy writing and editing as well as marketing and promotion. However the mechanical tasks associated with publishing are so numerous and time consuming that they negatively impact my time available for writing. If you’re considering indie publishing because you want control of the process, think long and hard. The time commitment is enormous.

Tell us about Deadly Occupation.

A wayward wife, a weapons trafficker, and a woman with “second sight”—it’s a puzzle that would have daunted any investigator. But Michael Stoddard wasn’t just any investigator.

Late January 1781, in coastal North Carolina, patriots flee before the approach of the Eighty-Second Regiment, leaving behind defenseless civilians to surrender the town of Wilmington to the Crown. The regiment’s commander assigns Lieutenant Michael Stoddard the tasks of tracking down a missing woman and probing into the suspicious activities of an unusual church. But as soon as Michael starts sniffing around, he discovers that some of those not-so-defenseless civilians are desperately hiding a history of evil.

Universal buy link for Deadly Occupation: books2read.com/u/4N1lGx

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