Nepean This Week
Friday June 10, 2005

Mystery simulates Baseline Road, murder of Louise Ellis

by Christie Mailey

We often read about New York City and other high profile locations in the world of fiction. Alternately, we read about simple American towns and the interesting characters that reside there. But Sigrid Macdonald, author of D'Amour Road, is a resident of Nepean and she wanted to write about what she knew.

"How often do you pick up a book and read about Baseline Road?" asked Macdonald. "Reading about Ottawa is new information to readers."

In addition to Baseline, Macdonald also mentions downtown locations such as the ByTowne Theatre and Nate's Deli, and also Le Skratch Billiard Hall on Merivale Road.

D'Amour Road is Macdonald's first novel, but second book. Her first book entitled Getting Hip: Recovery from a Total Hip Replacement, came out in November 2004 and has sold over 350 copies in just six short months.

"It was really great to write a novel. I loved it," said Macdonald of her transition from non-fiction to fiction.

"I found that I had to become a real observer. I had to really pay attention to things that had been in front of my nose all the time like people's accents and inflections. And how each person is different from one to the next whether it's a teenager, an elderly person, a Christian, or a fundamentalist."

D'Amour Road is the story of two female friends about to turn 40, Lisa and Tara.

Lisa goes missing and Tara is on a mission to find her. Lisa's boyfriend has a history of battery and Tara fingers him as the prime suspect.

The story is loosely based on Louise Ellis' murder, an Ottawa area writer who was murdered by her boyfriend who had previously served time for manslaughter, but Macdonald's novel and characters are completely fictional.

"I knew Louise Ellis and I was involved in the search for her. I met her murderer and had coffee with him because he was involved in the search too," said Macdonald.

"When women go missing it's not usually a happy outcome and I found it so hard not to blame Louise for picking someone with a criminal past."

Macdonald is a part of the Milgaard group against wrongful convictions and somewhat of an advocate for women.

"Women can sometimes choose unsavory characters and the subject matter of the book sends the message to be careful," said Macdonald.

Macdonald finds pieces of herself in the characters in D'Amour Road. Tara is a frumpy, straight and narrow-minded woman who has fallen for a younger man and is very insecure because of her age.

"The main character is much straighter than I am, but I dealt with her same issues of growing older," said Macdonald. "There's a panic reaction to turning 40. Before 40 it feels like there is so much left for you and after 40 is something else."

Because Macdonald's books were published so close together she has spent much of her time marketing the first book, which can be found in Chapters, Coles and online at Amazon.com.

D'Amour Road is currently available as an online download from Lulu.com.

[ June 18, 2005, 09:03 PM: Message edited by: Sigrid Macdonald ]

CONGRATULATIONS!!!

This is great news. I know that you are thrilled.

Dannye

Dannye,

Thanks! I was very excited about it. There are some misquotes but I always find that with the press. I think they were very excited that it has a local flavor yet the themes are universal.

Love, S.

GREAT article Sigrid....lots of good information on your book - should mean even MORE sales for you. Congratulations - press coverage is always a BIG BONUS.

Congratulations Sigrid. From non-fiction to fiction, and one helping to promote the other, thats pretty good huh. I wonder what you'll be up to next. Keep us posted.
chick

Good coverage, Sigrid. Getting press is sometimes a difficult thing for authors.

I hope it leads to many sales for you.

Pam,

Thanks so much for your enthusiasm! I was happy with the article although there were a few mistakes in it. In my 26 years of dealing with the media, I have never -- not one time -- been quoted properly. Even on television, producers often edit things so that they are out of context.

Nonetheless, I was pleased with the coverage. The newspaper has a circulation of about 150,000. Not bad but it hasn't translated into any sales yet. In fact, sales for my hip book went way up after that article but not one person bought D'Amour Road!

I think marketing fiction is much harder than nonfiction. Moreover, one of the mistakes that the reporter made was saying that the book was available as an online download, when in fact it's available in print. But when people hear the word Lulu as opposed to Amazon, they think
e-book. And they don't buy.

Anyway, I just need more time and patience for this book.

Thanks for supporting me :-) Sigrid

Chickadee and Vicki -

Great of you both to take the time to encourage me. It means everything to hear from other writers. Yes, it is tough to get coverage and I'm always happy when I manage to get any :-)

Love, Sigrid

Sigrid, that's a great article and gives me hope for local press coverage since my first novel is located where I live. In fact my main character lives across the street, and works at the University I live near. First of a trilogy, I have the second in my head and part of an outline. Great!! Keep up the good work, it's hard marketing, but it is something I enjoy doing.

Sherri,

Thanks so much. When you expect to be finished with your first book? You might consider contacting the paper beforehand.

What I have always found about my marketing efforts is that sometimes I have to contact a particular paper several times before I find the RIGHT person. For my first book, I landed an article in the major paper in town but I had to contact about six people at the paper to find the right one. By that time they were all pretty sick of me! So don't give up if the first person that you talk to doesn't respond.

Good luck with it :-) Sounds like a great story.