An Update and What's Happening

It has been a long time since my last update on the status of my various projects, books, publications, and appearances. So sit back and enjoy—lots to talk about.

Books:

I have three books in production right now. Diamonds for Death is set to publish in December as both an e-book and a CreateSpace trade paperback. It will be published exclusively by Amazon through their KDP system for at least the first three months and then longer if sales are good (fingers crossed). Here is the blurb on the book:

Sharon O’Mara’s newest client doesn’t need her help for what he’s done, but rather for what he left behind. When baseball great, Toro Rodriquez, defected he had to leave his wife and child in Cuba. Now a ruthless government agent whose allegiance isn’t to Castro, but only to herself, holds them prisoner.

Since O’Mara’s friend, Kevin Bryan, is off on a security gig in London to prevent the theft of diamonds worth a quarter of billion euros, she turns to old friends and comrade-in-arms to help rescue Toto’s family. Her team’s failure may mean vanishing into a Cuban prison or . . . worse.

O’Mara and Bryan have no idea their client’s paths will not only merge but crash bloodily into each other on the night of baseball’s All-Star Game in San Francisco.

It is a great story in the O’Mara tradition. I’ll let you know when pre-orders are available. If you sign up for my newsletter you will be some of the first to know—see upper right column.

We are also looking for a mid-winter release of the first Detective Tony Alfano thriller, Chicago Swing. It too will be an e-book and CreateSpace trade paperback. Editing is done, InDesign production underway, and e-book is ready to send, and it may be under a pen name, Rex Baird. Here’s the blurb:

Chicago- 1933 For Chicago police detective Tony Alfano’s it was like most mornings - five bombings of businesses throughout the Loop, 200 pounds of missing dynamite, and one dead man in an alley off Washington Street. In the dark speakeasys and nightclubs of Chicago’s underworld, Alfano treads the sharp edge of sanity and delusion, praying that it’s mob vengeance and not just Chicago politics.

For the long awaited World War II spy novel This Face of Evil, you will just have to wait a little longer. Still in editing and final read, much to do. Be patient—you will not be disappointed.

For both forthcoming books there will be contests and prizes, I will let you know as we get closer to final publication dates.

Boucheron, Long Beach, California

In November, I’ll be attending my first Boucheron in Long Beach, Ca. This is like the gathering of the clans (including camp followers and agents), where for three days nothing but murder, suspense, weapons, poisons, and of course, characters of all kinds (writers and their own fictitious characters) are discussed and argued. I have garnered one of the coveted author spots to discuss my books, writing, and whatever else people want to know. There will be door prizes and giftees. I’m on Friday afternoon, at 5:00, November 14, again more on this in later posts.

Works in Progress:

Three manuscripts are in early stages of development. A new Sharon O’Mara that may take her to Istanbul and other exotic locations in Eastern Europe. The next Tony Alfano thriller is jelling—think of our detective meets the scourge of Europe in his own backyard. And the long awaited follow up to the Cherryland Trilogy, Cherry Summer. It’s ten years after Elk River and the Smith’s are caught in 1966 with the Vietnam War, the SDS, race riots, and trying desperately to save one of their own.

Never a dull moment under the key board and finger tips of yours truly, all the books are available through Amazon, just click on the book cover.

Thanks, and tell your friends,

More Later . . . . . . . .

How WIll You FInd Your Readers

 PROMOTION - PROMOTION - PROMOTION

This is the seventh question of seven that Bill Petrocelli of Book Passage in Corte Madera, California asked at a writers publishing workshop last month. During the past few weeks I've expanded on Bill's lecture. Here are the past six weeks:

1. Is the manuscript ready?

2. What's the book going to look like?

3. Who are your readers?

4. Do you want to be traditionally published?

5. How can you control the costs of publication?
6. How and Where Will Your Book Be Sold?

How Will You Find Readers?

There are hard targets and soft targets in the world of book marketing. Hard targets are bookstores, on-line sellers such as Amazon, and face-to-face scheduled book signings and events at bookstores. Soft targets are blogs, book review sites, social media, and word-of-mouth. The primary difference between them is that hard targets offer the book for sale (this includes ebooks) and soft targets present the author and a hopeful sale through a hard target at a later date.

In almost every instance a book sale is the direct result of some form of promotional action: blog, book review, word-of-mouth, radio interview, cover shot on a promotion site, workshop participation, and social media such as Facebook and LinkedIn. There are probably a dozen other ways of putting the book in front of a potential buyer. New opportunities that have evolved over the last ten years include maintaining an email list of potential buyers gathered from fan mail, letters, and even publisher's private lists.

Promotional Actions To Consider

Blogs:

Every author must have a blog site and a web page, period, full stop. Think of it as a way to practice your writing and analytical thinking. Weekly posts are excellent ways of reaching readers; often you get direct feedback that is helpful. This requires discipline but the upside potentials are excellent. You can also direct the reader to a hard site for books and ebooks.

Book Reviewers

Outside of the ones you beg from friends and then hope they post them on Amazon or Barnes and Noble there are thousands of reader/blogger/reviewers out there that just love what they do. Most don’t charge a fee but appreciate a free book to read (they then pass them onto libraries, senior centers, and retirement communities – or schools if children's books). They are well respected with huge followings, they can be found by Googling something like romance book reviews blogs (I just did it and hundreds popped up). Chase your genre, ask the reviewers and get their rules and regs. For submittals – be patient most are running months behind – or anticipate and get them a galley proof months before the book's release.

Word-of-Mouth

Enough is never said about your book. The more books you can put before readers the greater the chance for a comment or two, nothing stronger than a book recommendation from a friend.

Radio Interview

Also a recent development, radio book reviews and author interviews. We would all kill or seriously maim someone for a thirty-minute spot on NPR or the Book Channel, but remember there are hundreds of self-produced Internet radio shows out there that need your voice to help fill the time. Like book reviewers just do a little surfing – they will pop up.

Cover Shot

As your sales increase you may acquire one of the coveted Amazon or B&N web page references that are called, "If you like that book, here are some others." People often buy books in bundles, to have your cover sitting there is pure gold – make it the best cover you can.

Workshop Promotion

As you gain a reputation you may be asked to participate in a workshop on writing, marketing, design, etc. Don't pass up the chance and even though you will not be shilling the book directly, they will be stacked out front with the other presenters and you will be given credibility. And after the workshop the participants will think they are buying the book from a friend – not some web site or URL.

Social Media

There are books on this subject coming out daily. They are ebooks, paper, etc., all contain helpful hints on using these social site, participate but be careful. I have seen writer's sites turn out to show that they are grumpy and bitchy people, they offer too much about their personal lives that just makes me wonder about them – some have even turned me off. There is a problem with being too revealing to your readers. Talk about writing and tangential bookish things, offer historic quotes, images of book signings, pass on great happenings and event from other writers, just keep what you had for lunch off the internet – unless it was lunch with Michael Connolly, then tell all with a picture.

Branding

This is a three-day seminar in and of itself. Take the time to brand yourself, you are the author of the book, you are the storyteller that a reader has invited into their lives, even if only for ten hours. You must think of yourself as the face of the story, in promotion it is not about the current book you are selling, but all the others you have written and the others yet to be written. We are always writing the next book in our heads even while we finish the current project. This is the same with promotion; you are always selling the next unwritten book.

More Later . . . . . . . . .

Are Writers Workshops Necessary?

Absolutely. Last Saturday, March 8^th, the best venue in the business for setting up workshops and author's event, Book Passage in Corte Madera, California, offered their first Publishing Workshop.  What restrained the crowd was the number of chairs, for many it was standing room in the back. I don't know the final count but there had to have at least sixty writers, published authors, editors and book designers all trying to figure what's going on in the publishing world. As Bill Petrocelli, the store's owner said, "I'm not even sure what it will be like next year, let alone what we are looking at now." He was referring to the publishing industry and the turmoil it's in.

Will traditional publishing with its centralized New York view still be the dominant player? Will it be the growing voice of the independent, author driver, publisher? Will it be a co-operative setup started by agents who are losing their gatekeeper status and hope to find new money making markets? Will it be the Smashword model, or the Amazon juggernaut? Yes to all and maybe to the rest. As I noted last week in the Hugh Howey article, the ebook is starting to demand respect as well as changing attitudes. Just look on an airplane, it seems that every other seat has a Kindle, Galaxy, or iPad open. All that translates into ebooks sold.

This workshop focused on the broader aspects of the publishing world: the growth of the mentor, the changing bookstore, the demands of editing a great product, book design basics, alternative publishing and major changes in distribution channels, and lastly the critical issue of book promotion. A great program that could have taken two days; talk about a crash course.

Many in the audience were first timers with a manuscript in hand, everyone trying to understand the road ahead. And for many it was eye opening. The traditional publishing route with one of the big four (was six then five) is the toughest, mainly due to the limited number of books published. But you do get experience and support (kind of). According to Sam Barry, Book Passage's leader of this event, over 700,000 books were published last year, and there were hundreds of thousands more that didn't use an ISBN. The number is staggering, to be heard above the tumult and roaring is extremely difficult, for most it’s a matter of luck, perseverance and quality. And not necessarily in that order.

Bill Petrocelli's also called this workshop, The Alternative Publishing Workshop. In his introductory remarks he listed seven important questions every writer needs to ask as they ready their manuscript for publishing. During the next few weeks I'll be addressing and adding my own thoughts to these critical questions.

1. Is the manuscript ready?

2. What's the book going to look like?

3. Who are the readers for the book?

4. Do you want to try for a traditional publisher?

5. How can you control the costs of publication?

6. How and where will your book be sold?

7. How will the book reach the attention of readers?

Remember, if you take away one critical piece of information from a workshop that can make your book a success, it is worth the price.

I will also explore and report back on one of the most exciting new aspects of the industry that may help independent authors more than all the Amazons, Kobos, Smashwords, rolled into one: Ingram-Spark. 

More later  . . . . . . . . .

The Hugh Howey Kerfuffle – Must See Video

Hugh Howey

Hugh Howey is a writer of dystopian end-of-the-world-as-we-knew-it books that are quite good. He is self-published and he is incredibly successful at selling his books – primarily on Amazon. Here is the blog post I wrote last summer reviewing his book and the article in the Wall Street Journal WOOL - A Self-PublishingTriumph.  To many writers he is their hero and now their guide through the labyrinth that is the ebook and self-publishing.

And he is, like the little boy and the naked emperor, one who is not shy in pointing out what may be really happening in the world of independent publishing and ebooks.

On February 12, 2014, Howey published a lengthy manifesto that challenged the big New York publishing establishment and dearly held beliefs about where independent publishing and self-publishing, especially ebooks, stands and where it might be going.  He also challenges the large traditional ebook retailers to publish the facts and figures about what is really going on in the ebook world.  The 7K Report  is causing quite a kerfuffle in the independent and traditional world. Challenges to the data and its crunching by both sides is as much of the story as Howey's report is.

Much of what is causing all the angst is that no one from Amazon to Scrivener is willing to go public with real factual numbers regarding sales, especially ebooks. They point to Howey and repeat the famous line from the Wizard of Oz about not paying attention to the man behind the curtain.

There are two stories about Howey here. The first is the data and its acquisition and how Howey got it, and the second is what he did with it after it was complied. To hear him tell it no one wanted to touch the report. The excuses were the usual, "It's too long and who really cares." When Howey posted the 7K Report on its own website it had over 30,000 hits in a day. Yeah, no one really cares.

In a lengthy, interesting, and incredibly worth the time YouTube video, Howey discusses the report and its data with Self-publishing Roundtable, Episode 32.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gaey6a0zgA

Howey says that the top percentage of self-published authors are doing much better than the top percentage of traditionally published authors – makes you think for a minute about what's really going on out there.

Howey is pro-writer and is challenging the publishing industry to better respect and better pay the authors who are their only reason for being. His goal is to push the writer to the front of the publishing queue not the back where we have been placed by the traditional publishing industry. I have seen this in the arts world and other allied industries – most especially in the art publishing industry. The artist is the last to make the big bucks. Look how music was changed by iTunes – suddenly even the lowliest garage band can now make money and get exposure. Same is true for writers.

More Later . . . . . . . . . .

Starting A New Book

Well here we are again, at the beginning of a new manuscript. So many options, so little time. These two constraints are both, of course, self-imposed. Idea and story options – I'm never short on those. And time frame is important; a quick, but well told, story shows in the writing. If I lose interest so will my reader. Two little secrets: write fast and furiously on something you are interested in. If you become bored so will the reader. Your reader will forgive much – except boredom.

I have to my immediate right (as I pound away) more than thirty books on writing (not including six dictionaries – some abridged - some not, three thesauruses, an aged atlas, two books on quotations, one with "last words of the great" on its spine, and a few on grammar and punctuation. They expound on style, the art, the pain, the loneliness, and the failures of writing. Don’t do this, don’t do that. Follow the leaden prose and thick orders of John Gardner in The Art of Fiction and On Becoming a Novelist and you will soon turn to drink. Structure your stories like they were ancient prophesies and you will have to swallow every word of James Frey and his The Key. Hell, there are no "keys," only good stories. I get testy over all this. And to muddle the waters I'm reading Elizabeth George's Write Away, a well-crafted book on one novelist's approach to fiction. I keep them near. As in: Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.

They are all troubling, vexing, and confusing.

I start with an idea, and put it all in one sentence. Then rework it until it sounds interesting; maybe twice the length of a tweet. This new book will be the second in a series (first is in post production) so I have at least the setting, the protagonist, his "Dr. Watson," and an idea. I've found that a thriller/detective story needs to be economical – especially in time frame, too long and the threads become strained, so be quick from start to finish. Maybe a few weeks, maybe a month, longer gets tougher: too many days to fill.

Then a quick outline begins, today on a large sheet of butcher paper – I actually have a role of white paper 24" wide and 300 feet long, I mercifully don’t use the whole thing, just three or four feet; one roll will last a lifetime. Thirty days (thirty columns in black marker) control the pacing. This story will have its denouement around a specific date in time – everything must be done by October 26, 1933, I post it on the right then push left across the paper to the start. I drop in ideas along the timeline (some will be used, others discarded), make notes, change colors of pens, never scratch out an idea – maybe put a one line through it but leave it legible. I note wants and needs – characters, information, places, threats, and especially highs and lows of the story. It is chaos but a good kind of chaos.

After this exercise (which I may do again and again) I, like a supreme being, create my characters that will populate this story. I look for cool things that can be used, such as the name of the antagonist in this pre-WWII thriller set in Chicago; it's Jager which is German for hunter – cool?

Other characters are formed, given histories, back-story, they become real so when they die I will feel a loss – really and truly.

I don't do a lot of detail outlining, the day-to-day, hour-to-hour stuff as Dan Brown must surly do. But I do write from beginning to end (with occasional notes about the future). My research continues as I write the manuscript from histories, photo books, and the Internet (which is getting better and better for this sort of data mining). I keep notes in OneNote and in Word. I print out what I need or copy out the text from a book; they all go into a binder.

By this time my mind is whirling Dervish – actually more like a blender on meth. I begin.

Here are the first 400 words of Chicago Jazz:

The limestone steps and porch supported the front door’s frame and by way of the door the whole faded street façade of the narrow wooden edifice of the near Westside Chicago speakeasy. Every window had its shades pulled. Grotesque shadows of men and women danced across the thin covering fabric, yet from the street their sex indistinguishable. Their ghostlike forms flickered and jerked, alit within from old cranberry glass oil lamps, on the thin translucent paper. A measured reedy tenor saxophone moaned through a second floor window cracked an inch to let in fresh winter air, all that escaped was a jazz laden thick, sweet, cigarette and opiate fog.

The yellow taxi slid to a stop in the slush at the foot of the steps to the grey tenement washed with the pale light from a cracked streetlight. The first to leave the cab was a tall angular man, formally dressed in a long black cashmere coat and black patent leather shoes; his black fedora, with a wide black satin band, was pulled low and hid his eyes in a shadow. His complexion had faded to a winter white and his dark hair was cut tight behind his ears. His crisp and pencil thin mustache was, like his nose, clipped sharp. His look favored a poor relation of the actor William Powell. He reached, with a black kid gloved hand, through the open car door and helped a lanky young woman exit who could have, under other circumstances such as a cotillion, been mistaken for his daughter. Her long silk stocking covered legs, the color of translucent alabaster, probed tentatively toward the snowy sidewalk. Extracted, she pulled the borrowed mink fur close to her chin; her faux diamond earrings and fitted jeweled cap sparkled in the broken streetlight as the man helped her to the sidewalk. Only the briefest black wisps of her stylishly cut black hair escaped. He paid the driver through the window, took the girl firmly by the arm and escorted her up the limestone steps to the paneled oak front door framed by two gas fired red glass sconces. She nervously looked back at the street and the escaping taxi and then turned and watched as he pushed a black button. A series of buzzes could be heard through the open transom high over the door. More billows of the sweet smog spilled from the tilted window like fog escaping over a mountain.

“You will love it my dear,” the gentleman offered as he whispered in the girl's ear. “This is where the good times are, all the jazz folks and finer people come here. You’ll see.”

More later . . . . . . .

Monuments Men, Clooney, and Me

Synchronicity, for a writer this isn't just a big word you use to show how smart you are, sometimes it is a real and exciting coincidence of events. In February The Monuments Men, will be released. This movie, starring George Clooney, is based on Robert M. Edsel's excellent book on those men tasked with finding and protecting Europe's art and history. They also hunted for lost troves of antiquities that the Nazis picked up as they plundered Europe over seventy years ago. The book also tells the story of the greatest robbery in the history of the world.

In early April, 1945, in western Germany, a jeep with a couple of American MP's stopped two women who they discovered were displaced French. This casual encounter lead to the discovery of gold and silver bars, coins, artwork, and paper money, almost the entire Reich's treasury, hidden in caves under the German countryside one half mile beneath their feet. Within days the Americans stole liberated all of it. Later it was used to pay off Germany's war debt. And it also the inspiration and beginning of my Sharon O'Mara thriller Toulouse For Death.

BUY IT HERE IN EITHER PAPERBACK OR KINDLE

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The Nazis are still good for at least two or three Hollywood movies every year. Valkyrie, Inglourious Basterds, The Pacific, Saving Private Ryan, Red Tails, The King's Speech, Pathfinders: In the Company of Strangers, and numerous other movies on the war's affect on the children and even grandchildren of the soldiers. There have been hundreds if not thousands of movies made in almost every country around the world and hundreds more will be made. The era between 1930 and 1950 changed the world far more than any age before.

I've published at least four books, fiction and non-fiction, that have that war as its background or basis for the story. All are available left and right. And I will have out a sweeping thriller of Americans in Italy, trapped by the war, later this year. World War II is an era of tragedy, terror, unspeakable horror, heroes, villains, comedy, human folly and duplicity. It will be the grist for the writer's mill for centuries.

Clooney and Damon

But back to my story. Toulouse For Death is about three soldiers who were in the detail that was tasked to bring up from the caves the gold and art. During that chaos of thousands of soldiers also assigned to the work these three managed to steal about a half ton of gold and a bundle of paintings that they would later retrieve and hopefully return to America. Flash forward to today in San Francisco; Sharon O'Mara is hired by the lone surviving soldier to return four fabulous paintings to their rightful owners in Los Angeles. But there is a twist, a few Nazis are still holding out in Argentina and know there is a "key" hidden with the recovered art, and most especially a Toulouse Lautrec masterpiece. A key that will unlock the greatest horde of gold never found, the WWII plunder of the Nazi SS.

It's a story of people, soldiers, honor, duty, cheating, murder, and Paris. What more could you ask for.

So on the long coattails of George Clooney, Matt Damon, Cate Blanchett, Jean Djardin, and Bill Murray I recommend both the movie and my well-reviewed thriller, Toulouse For Death.

More Later . . . . . . . . .

Looking Forward and Looking Back

As an independent publisher we must publish, period, full stop. If not, you are just a writer with another job. The past year has been just that, a lot of writing, maybe 400,000 words, three books, two major rewrites, over a hundred blogs – and not one book published. And I feel pretty good about it.

The indie publishing world is like the universe, expanding in every direction without any control or governor (ancient term for a mechanical regulator). It's a country without boundaries, rules, managers, and police. It's the classic example of a business model under the absolute and total control of the marketplace. Sure there are those who bitch about Amazon's rules and/or it's processes or Mark Coker's Smashwords, or those few others who try to be some type of a gatekeeper, but the reality is more complicated and bizarre. There is no one throwing life preservers to those who have jumped ship and are waving for help. It is every man and or woman for him or her selves.

But sometime its necessary to pull back and reassess the process and what are the expected results. And that's what the next year will be all about, better management of the product and its exposure. There are some very bright people out there writing some very good things about how to get it done, I'll try to put some of them before you in this blog over the next year – we can attack this problem together.

My goal is simple; sell 10,000 books from the list of nine titles I will have listed by March 31^st. (six available now – 3 under final editing and development). Pretty heavy goal but that's why there's a fence in a ballpark, something to swing for.

Reading List:

The past year hasn't been just writing, there has been a serious amount of reading as well. In no particular order here's a partial list:

Daniel Silva, The English Girl – great read and story, one of Silva's better works.

Sheldon Siegel, The Terrorist Next Door – fast paced contemporary cop story in Chicago, I recommend Sheldon's books every chance I get

J.K. Rowling (Robert Gailbraith), The Cuckoo's Calling – loved it, but much too long and with much Elmore Leonard would have suggested leaving out, since no one wanted to read those parts anyway.

Dan Brown , Inferno – Brown needs to punch his way out of the box he's built for himself, all and all a less than satisfying read and story. He could take lessons from Ms. Rowling on shifting career paths.

Amanda Coplin, The Orchardist – highly recommend this writer's wonderful story of Washington State in the late 1800s, in the Willa Cather vein.

Brad Thor, Full Black and Hidden Order – as always Thor tells a great story with his usual cast of tough guys and girls – all battling the evil empires of government (ours and theirs).

James Mallahan Cain, The Postman Always Rings Twice – a classic from 1934, as scary today as when it was banned in Boston.

George V. Higgins, The Friends of Eddie Coyle – another classic from 1970 – no one can write dialog like Higgins – no one.

Stephen Coonts, Pirate Alley – Always have loved Stephen's books, good to great characters and stories.

Leon Uris, Battle Cry – this is the first novel I read when I was in grade school, just had to reread – Mr. Uris was an exceptional storyteller, he also wrote Exodus.

Vince Flynn, The Last Man – we lost a great writer this year, The Last Man is just a great read, Rapp will be missed.

Dashiell Hammett, The Thin Man, The Maltese Falcon, The Glass Key – It's good to reimmerse yourself in the classics, language, style, pacing. Hammett was very, very good.

Jacqueline Winspear, Leaving Everything Most Loved – as always Ms. Winspear tells a tale of people, events, and the inter-war period of England. You can taste the tea.

John Hersey's, A Bell for Adano – one of the finest books on World War II and its after affects on a small Sicilian village. Great writing and characters.

And a good bit of non-fiction for research for the books I'm writing.

Have a great New Years and I look forward to hearing from you.

More later . . . . . . .