So here we are on April Fool’s Day, but I’m not kidding at all. Honest.

I’ve posted about my plans for a collection of essays before, (here and here). A big thank you goes out to everyone who took the time to comment and offer suggestions.

Since I was still pretty much stuck at home until we got our second Covid vaccination, I got right to work on that project. In addition to selecting the blogs to use and turning them into “essays” (mostly just tweaking here and there), there was a lot of proofreading to be done. Every time I’d think I’d caught all the typos and repetitious words, another would pop up. I won’t be so egotistical as to claim I found them all even now.

The fun part came in working with my cover designer and incorporating photographs I took into what you see here. Despite the title of the book, I didn’t want to give the impression that this was going to be a “dark” read, so you’ll notice, in particular, the man in the barrel and the cats.

Cover and manuscript ready, I headed over to Draft2Digital.com, the outfit I used for my other independently published titles, to start the process of launching an e-book edition of I Kill People for a Living into the world.

Here’s the official description of the book:

In this unique compilation of 115 essays written between 2011 and 2021, Kathy Lynn Emerson, author of over sixty traditionally-published books in a variety of genres and under several names, writes about everything from how to conquer the sagging middle of a work-in-progress to the adoption of  her current cat-in-residence. Other topics highlight eccentricities—her own, a few from her family tree, and those to be found in the rural Western Maine mountains where she lives. Best known for her cozy mysteries, written as Kaitlyn Dunnett, and for historical mysteries written under her own name, Kathy Lynn Emerson has also been published in non-fiction, including the award-winning How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries.

There will be a print-on-demand edition eventually, but those take longer. In fact, the POD edition of my YA novel, Someday (mentioned in the last group blog) has been delayed because of computer communication problems between Draft2Digital and the printer/distributor. All I can tell you is that they’re working on it. Patience is not one of my virtues, but I hope the wait will be worth it.

In the meantime, as of yesterday, I Kill People for a Living is available as an e-book at all the usual online booksellers. Here’s a link that should work: https://books2read.com/u/47NlRj. The ISBN is 978-1-393-33251-0 and it’s priced at $5.99, which I hope folks will find reasonable. There was a slight delay with Amazon because the original (free) blogs here at Maine Crime Writers were still accessible. I had to delete them from “Kaitlyn’s Posts” before the Kindle edition could be published.

One more thing before you go. If you do buy the book, an online review would be much appreciated. More reviews equate to higher placement on searches. Every little bit helps!

Kathy Lynn Emerson/Kaitlyn Dunnett has had sixty-three books traditionally published and has self published several children’s books and two works of nonfiction. She won the Agatha Award and was an Anthony and Macavity finalist for best mystery nonfiction of 2008 for How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries and was an Agatha Award finalist in 2015 in the best mystery short story category. She was the Malice Domestic Guest of Honor in 2014. Her next publication (as Kaitlyn) is the fourth book in the contemporary “Deadly Edits” series (Murder, She Edited), in stores in August 2021. As Kathy, her most recent book is a standalone historical mystery, The Finder of Lost Things. She maintains websites at www.KaitlynDunnett.com and www.KathyLynnEmerson.com. A third, at A Who’s Who of Tudor Women, is the gateway to over 2300 mini-biographies of sixteenth-century Englishwomen, now available in e-book format.