‘Now is the month of maying,  When merry lads are playing,  Fa la la la la la la la la la la  Fa la la la la la la.’ *  English madrigal, Thomas Morley (1595)  There are many similarities between learning to be a successful gardener and learning to be a successful writer. Here are a few of the lessons I’ve learned:  Sunshine = Praise. Both are necessary and make your garden or your writing ‘bloom’. Too much, however, can lead to sunburned leaves or dangerously over-inflated egos. Stones. Most gardens suffer from some degree of rocky soil, so work is necessary before anything decent will grow. Removing pebbles from soil takes time and so does decent writing. No one becomes an expert in a day. Or a week. Or ever. However, you can never get rid of all the rocks and carrots will grow around them. Your writing will adapt too - twists are a good thing. The necessity of fertilizer. Remember a little goes a long way. And... remember...

Morgan Mandel I had a great time participating in the Power Marketing Panel at the Love is Murder Conference in early February. One item we discussed was niche markets. Joanna Campbell Slan's is scrapbooking. She rattled off some pretty impressive figures about the surprising number of people involved in scrapbooking, as she is. Being a clever marketer as well as a great author, she capitalizes by writing a mystery series featuring scrapbooking and follows up by making appearances at scrapbooking venues. From all accounts, there are quite a few. Another panelist, Rosemary Harris , specializes in gardening, as does her series book character. I heard she used seed packets to advertise one of her books. In my first book, Two Wrongs , since I went to DePaul University , that became the college my main character attended. By including Depaul, I obtained a booksigning at Barnes & Noble DePaul Center . Also, the climax of Two Wrongs occurs at what was then called Marshall Field's...