January 17, 2025 at 9:22 AM

Celebrating Dale Mayer: A Creative Force in Indie Publishing

This month, we’re thrilled to spotlight Dale Mayer, a powerhouse in the indie publishing world. With 15 years in the industry, Dale is an expert in her craft and a fantastic example for any aspiring indie author to follow!

Dale’s journey has been full of bold leaps, creative risks, and an unwavering commitment to following her muse. As readers, we’re fortunate to enjoy the incredible stories she brings to life, and we can’t wait to see what’s next. For now, let’s step behind the scenes as Dale shares her journey, her inspiration, and the adventures that led her to where she is today.

A Guest Post By Dale Mayer

Hi, everyone,

Thanks for the invitation to share about my writing and my books—something I can always get excited about. 😊

Coveted

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I started writing almost fifteen years ago, focusing on paranormal thrillers (my Psychic Visions series), but quickly added YA books and followed up within a few years with military romance. Why the military books? Well, for a start, I’m an army brat. A Canadian one though, so my experiences are similar but different from my American counterparts. I do get some questions and comments about those differences, but, once I explain, everyone seems to understand.

I stayed with writing thrillers as they were my first love, then added a second even-darker series. But my psyche insisted on also writing something light to counteract the dips into the shadow world of ugly crimes. I didn’t know what to write but was open to trying anything. However, I always go with the strongest voices in my head. And believe me that I have a lot of voices in there. I’m never short on ideas or characters and have never experienced writer’s block. In fact, I often liken my muse to being high on sugar, as she just doesn’t know how to be quiet.

I’ve followed her into many a story, some that have been very popular and some less so, but I love them anyway, as they touched me on a level that’s hard to explain. If the idea—the voice in my head—was strong enough, I knew that the story had to be written down, regardless of whether I thought it would sell or not.

As I’m a very fast writer, I had (and still have) the ability to write stories that differ from my various main series and not worry about whether these other tales will be big sellers or not. As long as I feel the story needs to be told, then I tell it.

So, when my psyche insisted on something light to counter the new darker series, I told her to fly at it. I, of course, turned to my muse and told her to sort this out. And she did in the most spectacular of ways. She sent me Doreen and her grandmother, Nan. But they weren’t alone. My muse insisted on Mugs, Thaddeus, and Goliath—Doreen’s basset hound, plus adopting Nan’s African gray parrot and her ginger Maine coon cat.

Zonked in the Zucchinis

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And they all came together in what became a new cozy series called the Lovely Lethal Garden series. I’d never written a cozy mystery before, and I dove in with enthusiasm. At the time, I was working on a naming convention for the series. So, while enjoying myself when writing these books, I ended up doing the titles alphabetically. Now that would mean writing twenty-six books, if it all went well—both in sales and in ideas. That was a big commitment for a genre I’d never written in. But then that’s me. I heard Doreen in my head. I saw the animals, and I imagined all that interaction easily. And thankfully the series struck a chord with my readers, and, before long, they were as eager to come on this crazy ride as I was.

When I came to the last letter of the alphabet, … I had no idea what to do next. My readers were asking for more and more and more, but I wasn’t sure how to do that. Was I ready for another big commitment?

I ended up deciding yes …

Then I had to find a way to make that make sense. So I ended up writing Merry Mistletoe Madness as a Christmas novella to bridge the two related series—the existing Lovely Lethal Gardens series and now the new Lovely Lethal Gardens Rewind series. As Lovely Lethal Gardens books went from A to Z, the follow-up Lovely Lethal Gardens Rewind books needed to go from Z to A. So that’s what I’ve started. 😊

One of the greatest pleasures was seeing how my readers reacted. Now, as an author who is not in KU, I publish wide – meaning that my books are on as many vendors as possible and within my own online store. Having a presence and a great relationship with all the other companies is important, as sometimes it’s a lonely world out there. When publishing wide and nurturing these relationships, my readers on the different platforms are everything.

It can take time to build up fans on these platforms, and each platform seems to have a different type of reader. Yet the joy of Barnes and Noble for me is that those readers love my cozy series. In fact, they made Merry Mistletoe Madness #2 on the B&N Press Top 10 list!

About Dale

is a USA Today bestselling author who writes for the young, the old and those in-between – no matter what the age. Some of her books are hot, some are sweet. Some will keep you up at night with a light on to keep the boogie man away and some you’ll want to cuddle close.