Hello everyone and a BIG welcome to everyone who joined My Favorite Suspects after the first of the year! And a very warm and grateful THANK YOU to those who have MFS on their list of referrals! If I haven’t done so already, just know that I’m working to identify who you are and return the favor!
Readership Update
The MFS readership has been growing slowly and steadily, which is fantastic. Here is an update on subscribers that I want to share (graphic generated from Substack):
I saw this chart yesterday and was really floored by the number of countries. Sure, given the overall number of subscribers, there’s probably one person in each of those countries, but who cares about that? When I started MFS last year, I had zero subscribers and zero readers! And now, to think that someone as far away from my home as India may have read a post or two, well, that’s really awesome—and inspiring!
Project Update
My progress on the Terry Perez story “My Favorite Suspects” has been slower than I anticipated. Here’s why: First, it’s been a busy start to the year. We had some trees fall in our yard and damage our property and some family members have been in hospital. Second, I think you all know that MFS is a side project and I work in I.T. (if not, surprise! and have you seen my nonfiction book?) and I had new projects launch in January that have required my full attention. And lastly, the story has evolved as I’ve been updating it. I’ve been integrating plot & character elements that I want to use to kick off a series. Chapter 8, for example, is new, and didn't appear in the most recent version that I’d sent out to magazines. The upcoming Chapter 9 is also completely new. The final chapter will be a revision of the original ending.
In summary, I have 2-3 more chapters of “My Favorite Suspects” before that’s wrapped and I launch the next series on MFS. I’m not sure what I’ll serialize next. I have several Terry stories and a new Ben Rossi novel planned.
Thanks for hanging out with MFS. I hope you’ve found at least one story and character that you like. Going forward, stories on MFS will gravitate toward the Terry Perez amateur sleuth stories and the Ben Rossi thrillers, with an occasional break for mystery-adjacent projects, such as an upcoming SF-based mystery that has been nagging at me to write.