Thinkingdog Publishing

Okay. So. Here's the thing. I sat down today with every intention of writing you the most brilliantly crafted, gloriously witty, perfectly cozy social media post about the Papillon series. You know the kind — the ones that make you laugh out loud, hit follow and then buy a slightly haunted cozy mystery involving a very small but extremely opinionated dog.  I had the vibe. I had the energy. I had the snacks. What I did not have, as it turns out, was a single solitary idea. I put my fingers on the keyboard. I stared at the screen. The screen stared back at me with the blank, unblinking patience of a particularly judgmental cat — except in my house, the judgy energy doesn't come from a cat. It comes from a five-pound Papillon named Blueberry who was, at that precise moment, watching me from her perch on the couch with an expression that said, very clearly, "Mom. What are you even doing." And honestly? Fair question, Blueberry. Fair question. Here's the thing nobody t...

There is a very specific expression Blueberry/ Pixie gets on her face whenever she sees me filming something important. Not when I am casually taking a picture of flowers. Not when I am trying to photograph tea beside a stack of books for the six hundredth “cozy author aesthetic” image of my career. No. She waits. Quietly. Patiently. Like a tiny fluffy theatre critic observing rehearsal from the back row. Then, the exact moment I begin recording a serious voiceover about writing, creativity, burnout, publishing, algorithms, reader connection, or “the emotional architecture of mystery fiction”... there she is. Trotting directly through the shot with the confidence of a retired silent film actress who knows perfectly well the audience came for her. Honestly, if she could smoke dramatically through a cigarette holder while murmuring, “I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille,” she absolutely would. And the truly irritating part is that it works. I can spend three hours designi...

There is a weird silence at book fairs before the doors open. If you've ever done a signing, a craft show, a library event, or one of those enormous convention halls that smell weird, you know the one I mean. It's the sound of folding tables being adjusted for the fifth time, bookmarks being straightened into perfect little fans, and someone two tables over whispering, "Do you think this tablecloth looks okay?" And underneath all of it, every single author in the room is having the same thought. What if nobody stops at my booth? Not just the new ones. Not just the shy ones. All of us. The cozy mystery author with her paperbacks arranged beside a ceramic teacup, the fantasy writer with dragons on his banner, the artist behind the watercolour postcards trying not to stare directly down the aisle like a hungry raccoon waiting for snacks. We're all worrying about the same thing, and almost nobody admits it out loud. Oh, there's always someone performing bravery li...

There is a very particular kind of magic that settles over a book expo in the early morning before the doors open. The folding tables still wobble  on the convention hall floor. Someone nearby is wrestling with a banner stand that absolutely refuses to cooperate. The scent of coffee drifts through the room in brave little waves while authors smooth tablecloths, arrange stacks of books, and quietly wonder whether they remembered to pack enough change for cash sales. And there I sit behind my table of cozy mysteries, smiling warmly at passersby while attempting, through sheer force of will alone, to psychically encourage them toward my books. Go on, little murder mysteries, I think lovingly. Be irresistible. Sometimes people pause. Sometimes they pick one up and read the back cover. Sometimes they glance at me with the tiniest bit of cautious curiosity. Then inevitably comes the question. “Oh! Are you the author?” Now, the official answer is, of course: “Why yes. Yes, I am.” Which is...

There are few sounds in the life of an author more emotionally loaded than the groan of an old printer waking from hibernation. Not the cheerful hum of a modern office machine, mind you. I mean the old one. The dusty beast squatting in the corner like a retired dragon guarding ancient toner cartridges and unresolved grudges from 2017. The printer you haven’t touched in so long that when you finally press the power button, it sounds personally offended. As a cozy mystery author, I spend most of my days happily tucked inside the digital world. My manuscripts float safely in cloud storage. My notes live in apps with color-coded tabs. My editor leaves comments in neat little bubbles instead of scribbling in red pen like an irritated schoolmaster from a Victorian boarding academy. And yet. Every now and then, despite all our noble intentions to save paper and become streamlined digital creatures of the future, an author needs a hard copy. Maybe it’s edits. Maybe it’s proofreading. Maybe you...

Here's what I'd noticed: when someone asks "how are you?", we mostly answer with a verbal shrug. Oh, you know. Tired. Busy. Surviving. And then we nod at each other, having successfully confirmed that being alive is a lot of work and neither of us wishes to elaborate. Because — and I say this with love — nobody actually wants the download. Answer that polite little question with a four-minute report on your car's mysterious new noise and your neighbour's judgmental dog, and you can watch the light leave a person's eyes in real time. They asked out of habit. You handed them a monologue. But. And it's a glorious, magnificent but. Walk around genuinely smiling — not the frozen caffeine grin, but a warm, I-know-something-you-don't smile — and suddenly everyone is desperately curious about you. Like you've strolled in holding a mysterious little box, and the whole room wants to know what's inside. So naturally, I ran an experiment....

 There is a moment — somewhere between hitting "publish" and refreshing your sales dashboard for the seventeenth time in a single afternoon — where you realize something: you can do everything right and still have absolutely no control over the outcome. You can write a great book, the kind where you sit back after the final sentence and think, well, that was mildly brilliant, someone alert the literary authorities. You can edit it within an inch of its life, polishing every comma, wrestling every sentence into submission, whispering sweet motivational speeches to your manuscript at 2AM while cradling a cup of tea that went cold hours ago.  You can position it and promote it and send it out into the world dressed in its very best metaphorical outfit. And still, none of it belongs to you once it leaves your hands.  You don't control the reviews. You don't control the rankings. You don't control whether people get it — and that last one, I'll admit, carries a...

You ever notice the meanness authors pour on other authors on social media just now? Like they are thinking - “But what if other authors are my competition?” Nope. Not today. Not in this cozy, coffee-fueled universe. ☕️ If you’re an author, and your friends are authors, congratulations—you’ve accidentally built yourself a dream team. They’re not your competition. They’re your brainstorming buddies when your plot goes sideways, your cheerleaders when you hit “publish” and immediately want to hide under a blanket, your reality checks when your villain starts sounding a little too reasonable, and your emergency chocolate providers (this one is non-negotiable) Here’s the thing: readers don’t read just one book. They’re not out there saying, “Well, I’ve read ONE mystery novel, that’s enough for my entire life.” No. Readers are glorious little book dragons, hoarding stories like treasure. 🐉📖 When you support another author, you’re not losing anything—you’re expanding the ent...