Bookpleasures.com welcomes as our guest, Mark Pryor. Mark is the author of The Bookseller: The First Hugo Marston Novel, the true-crime book As She Lay Sleeping and The French Widow.

A former newspaper reporter from England and now an assistant district attorney with the Travis County District Attorney's Office, in Austin, Texas, he is the creator of the true-crime blog DAConfidential. 

He has appeared on CBS News's 48 Hours and Discovery Channel's Discovery ID: Cold Blood. 

Norm: Good day Mark and thanks for participating in our interview.

How did you get started in writing mystery novels and what keeps you going?

Mark: Thanks for having me! As a child I was an avid reader and mysteries were my favorite – Agatha Christie, Hardy Boys, and my very favorites, the Sherlock Holmes stories. I always wanted to be a writer, so it made sense that I’d write mysteries. I started a little later in life than some, but better late than never!

Norm: How do you deal with criticism? 

Mark: Fortunately, every word I write is perfection so I don’t really encounter criticism…. Obviously kidding – I try not to read reviews, to be honest – the book is already out in the world at that point and there’s nothing I can do to change it, so why subject myself to that? I also remind myself that even Shakespeare gets bad reviews from readers, not every reader will like every book and that’s OK. My favorite book in the world, Catch 22, has more than 25,000 one-star reviews on Goodreads.

Norm; How many times in your writing career have you experienced rejection? How did they shape you? 

Mark:  Like most writers I’ve had my fair share. I wrote three complete novels before The Bookseller was published, and each of those three books was rejected by about 70 agents (and quite rightly, I suspect). I think they pushed me to be better – certainly: by having to write a new book each time I ran out of agents to approach, the practice made me better.

Norm: Where/How do you recommend mystery writers try to break into the market?  

Mark: All I can really recommend is that you take the time to write the best book you can. Find a writing group that will give you honest feedback and listen to them. It’s important to have people cheering for you unreservedly but I think writers also need people who can be more objective critics. I also recommend attending events and conferences. Get to know other writers, meet agents. Obviously that’s not possible in person right now, but I would definitely advise trying to do so once this danged virus departs.

Norm: Do you ever dream about your characters?

Mark:  I haven’t yet, which is surprising because I have very vivid (and weird) dreams covering a multitude of subjects. Maybe that’s to come…

Norm: What has been your greatest challenge (professionally) that you’ve overcome in getting to where you’re at today? 

Mark: Finding a balance, finding the time to write while being a dad, a husband, and while having a full-time job. It’s hard sometimes to make myself switch on the computer and write a few hundred words, just because I have a lot of things pulling me in other directions. That said, I’m lucky in that once I get going, I write pretty quickly.

Norm: Many people have the skills and drive to write a book, but failure to market and sell the book the right way is probably what keep a lot of people from finding success. Can you give us 2-3 strategies that have been effective for you in promoting your book? 

Norm: In your opinion, what is the most difficult part of the writing process? 

Mark: The waiting. Waiting to hear back from agents, from editors, from cover artists. Waiting for the royalty statement, for the release date, for the first industry review. So. Much. Waiting.

Norm:  Does your writing career ever conflict with your career as an attorney?  

Mark: Only in the sense that both take up a lot of time. In fact, I’d say it’s more helpful than not -- as a prosecutor I’m pretty well versed in the process of solving a murder—how a crime scene is worked, how long things take to happen and in what order they’re carried out.

Norm: Please tell us about your latest novel, The French Widow?

Mark: The book is set, as I like to do, in a different part of Paris from the others. Most of the story takes place in a large house on the edge of Parc Monceau, near the center of the city. The house is owned by a dysfunctional, mistrustful, and thoroughly suspicious family. One night, an American girl who works there is attacked, so Hugo is assisting the police in their attempts to solve the crime. There’s a second story line, too, in which Hugo is thrust into the public spotlight (which he hates) and portrayed by some as a hero, and by others as a villain.

Norm: How much of the novel is realistic?  

Mark:  The house is my mental recreation of the Musee Nissim de Camondo, a real house beside Parc Monceau. It’s not well known as a tourist destination but is a wonderfully preserved chateau with a fascinating family story behind it (some of which I may have pilfered for the book!).

Norm: What was the most difficult part of writing The French Widow?

Mark: As with the other books, it’s finding time to focus on it. Nowadays, of course, that’s less of an issue…!

Norm;  Where do you get your information or ideas for the novel?

Mark:  This was just a chance visit to a museum that sparked the idea. I wanted to use the house, its history, and ladle in one of my most popular themes: that history is never really left in the past, the ghosts of your bad deeds will always come back to haunt you.

Norm: Did you write the novel more by logic or intuition, or some combination of the two? Please summarize your writing process. 

Mark: I write every book the same way: I figure out who is killed, who killed them, and why. Then I find a setting for the murder(s) and just sit down to write. I don’t plot carefully in advance, but I do keep a notebook of ideas and I keep track, just a sentence or two, of what happens in each chapter for easy reference.

Norm: Where can our readers find out more about you and The French Widow?

Mark: They can follow me on Twitter  on Facebook and I have a WEBSITE:

I’m also easy to find on Goodreads and BookBub.

Norm: What projects are you working on at the present? 

Mark: I’ve recently finished a historical mystery, set in Paris (of course!) during the start of World War 2. I’m hoping it will become a series, and am already working on book two.

Norm: As this interview comes to an end, what advice can you give aspiring writers that you wished you had received, or that you wished you would have listened to?  

Mark: A couple of things, I think. First, study and learn the craft of writing. When I think back at my first books I was flummoxed by why no agents were offering to rep me. The concepts were solid, for sure, but I was slow to recognize that my writing wasn’t good enough. Second, and maybe this relates to the first, be patient. So often I see new authors get five or six agent rejections, and then dash off to self-publish and then wonder why their book disappears into obscurity. My advice is to recognize that publication takes a while, and while you’re waiting for that to happen, work on your next book.

Norm: Thanks once again and good luck with all of your future endeavors

    

        
        

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