On the Level, a mystery of suspense, romance, and home improvement

The picture below is the cover of the project that's slowed down my travel plans and efforts at home renovation for the past year. Click here  On the Level , to find the web page for my first novel. The book was originally planned as an endpoint on one of my bucket list items, (learn to write something a person would pay money to read for fun), but now seems like just the first step on a very different kind of journey. I'm already writing book two in the Long Island Sound Handyman series, and have an outline for book three.

Do you like the cover? I took the design I'd sketched below to a very talented art student and asked her to turn the concept into original cover art.  Marissa Stanton not only produced the painting upon which the cover is based, but painted the back cover of the paperback edition, superimposed the titles, and created the electronic files I uploaded to the book producer. I had also researched the colors of book covers that really stood out and asked Marissa if she could paint in green and gold. I continue to get compliments on her work.

My Cover Concept Drawn in Pen and Ink

After studying the chaotic world of agents, big publishing firms, small firms, and sharks providing "author services" for big bucks to aspiring authors, I selected CreateSpace, an Amazon company to print and distribute the paper version, and Kindle Direct Publishing to distribute the e-book.  These companies were excellent to work with, and required no up front cash from me, or onerous contracts.

Getting to the point where the photo above was taken, a book signing at the local library sponsored by The Write Stuff writers' group, required quite a lot of work.  Much of that was after the story was written.  So far the reviews are pretty good, sales fair. This is one journey that was worth the effort. If you want your own copy, just click on the book title at the beginning of this post to be taken to the Amazon.com page for the book.