Cushing — Local author Jen Blood has launched a campaign on the crowd-funding website kickstarter.com to raise funds toward the production and promotion of “Southern Cross,” the third novel in her Amazon-bestselling, Maine-based mystery series featuring investigative reporter Erin Solomon. The campaign runs to Sunday, Oct. 7.

The first novel in Blood’s series, “All the Blue-Eyed Angels,” was released as an e-book and in print form in February and in June reached No. 5 in Mystery/Women Sleuths and No. 11 in Mystery/Suspense on Amazon’s Kindle Bestsellers List, with more than 40,000 downloads for the e-book version. “Sins of the Father,” the second novel in the series, was released at the end of July to excellent reviews and has been showing strong sales and continued critical acclaim.

Blood grew up in Thomaston, graduating from Georges Valley High School in 1991. After several years in Portland, where she earned a graduate degree in creative writing/popular fiction from the University of Southern Maine, and a few years traveling the country, she returned to the Midcoast in 2007 and now lives in Cushing.

“Maine has always been a huge inspiration for me — the people, the places and the history are just fascinating,” said Blood.

That fascination is evident in the Erin Solomon series, which has strong Maine ties itself. The first novel takes place in a fictional town in the Midcoast and the second in northern Maine. Blood said the third book finds the characters in Kentucky, “but Maine still makes a strong showing.”

As the author prepares for the launch of her third novel in March, she has turned to Kickstarter to help raise $2,500 toward the production and promotion of that novel. For the first two books in the series, Blood — who independently publishes her work through her own publishing imprint, Adian Press — did the typesetting, interior book design, e-book formatting, website design, marketing and promotion on her own. The only outsourced job was for cover design, which was done by Travis Pennington of probookcovers.com.

“It’s been a great learning experience, but I feel as though I’ve kind of hit the ceiling in terms of what can be achieved with no budget behind me. I would love to see what the series could do with a little bit of funding,” she said.

Funds raised in the Kickstarter campaign will go toward a larger up-front print run for the novels than Blood has been able to afford thus far; money to hire a professional editor; and advertising and promotion. To check out Blood’s campaign, visit kickstarter.com and search for Southern Cross Erin Solomon.

Courier Publications’ A&E Editor Dagney C. Ernest can be reached at (207) 594-4401 or dernest@courierpublicationsllc.com.