Give Small Businesses a Chance

Do you absolutely, positively have to have a brand-new book the day it is published?

Okay, for some, yes you do. I remember the Harry Potter years when folks would line up to buy a book at midnight. Ditto for many of the best-selling authors I’ve read over the decades.

But for many of us, our To Be Read pile is so huge that even if we did rush out to a bookstore on publication day, that new book might first find a place on the TBR stack vs. in our hands (even if its place is in the prime position of Next Book.

Note that so far in this example, I’ve been talking about going to a physical bookstore. What about ordering a book and having it delivered?

Well, there’s the obvious option: Amazon. If you really wanted to pre-order and book and have it delivered on publication day, Amazon would most likely make that happen for you. The other online book sellers could also fulfill your request and you’d have that brand-new book in your hands the day of release.

You can have whatever opinion you want on the omnivorous nature of Amazon. I think it’s a great service, and I use it as a writer and a consumer. But as an indie author, I’m aware that there are other options.

So when, Discipline is Destiny, the latest book from Ryan Holiday was announced, I was all in. Even though I’ve not read them all, I plan to read all of Holiday’s books. They are really good and chock full of great, thought-provoking advice.

In the days leading up to the book’s publication, Holiday went on social media and let folks know that if they per-ordered the book—from any vendor—you would receive some bonus content. It was in that moment I opted to order direct from Holiday’s website, The Daily Stoic. Why not? I would be supporting a small business. 

When I placed my order, I received a confirmation email with the following.

"PS: We appreciate your order and want to remind you that we're a small shop. We use local manufacturers and family-run businesses as our partners here in America. While this means we can feel good about everything we make, it sometimes means that products take a bit longer than expected and creates the occasional logistical issue. We don't have a massive supply chain or a massive team of people working 24/7. It's just us...doing our best...just like you. Thank you and enjoy!"

I have enjoyed the book. It’s the new book so there was high demand. Ultimately it took about ten days, but those days were spent finishing another book I was already reading (Back to School Murder) so I didn’t mind at all. And I helped a small business.

So, as our attention turns to Christmas shopping, I would like to encourage everyone to support as many small businesses as possible.

Extras for a Book?

I finally picked up a copy of Atomic Habits by James Clear this week. Well, my own copy, a hard back no less. I’ve been reading through it via my Kindle and my local library, but the book is in such a high demand, I only get 14 days to read it…and I’ve never finished. Now, I don’t have a countdown clock ticking and I’ll be able to finish the book.

Naturally for any new-to-me author, I check the website. JamesClear.com is laid out nicely, effortlessly guiding you through his introduction, the offer for his habit course, and a sampling of blogs and newsletters. You can sign up for his mailing list and get Chapter 1 for free. There’s a separate email list for a 30-day guide to building better habits.

In the footer, there is a link where you can see all the places you can buy the book and all the different formats and languages. What struck me was Step 2 of this process: Claim Your Free Bonuses. They don’t leave you in the dark as to your bonus content. You get a guide to how you can apply your atomic habits to business and parenting, a cheat sheet, a companion reading guide, and a habit tracker.

The only thing you had to do is buy the book and prove you bought the book. You do that via your purchase receipt.

I snapped a photo of the receipt on top of the book (to be doubly sure) and sent the photo to a unique email address. Within minutes, I received a confirmation email with links to the bonus content.

It was seamless and I felt I got more than I paid for when I bought the book at Target.

That got me to thinking about how to apply this concept of bonus material to fiction. I suspect there are a good number of authors who offer bonus content to readers, but up until now, I’ve only experienced it via Kickstarter.

The “How” of getting that bonus content is straightforward. I’ve done a version of it myself where I offered any reader on my mailing list a free copy of a book in exchange for an objective review. Done and done.

But what kind of content would a reader want from an author? Bookmarks? Shrug. Those are not always effective and you can’t spend $X.XX dollars to mail a bookmark to someone. Let me rephrase: what kind of digital content would a reader want from an author?

Some things jump to mind: A PDF of a particular chapter, an early draft all marked up with changes and edits. That would be interesting to see. Maybe a handful of chapters. What about research? Maybe a PDF of some research material an author used to write the book, especially if it’s an historical book. What about some peek into the internal process, like an early outline or a Beat Sheet a la Save the Cat.

As a reader, these would be interesting to see.

As a writer, would I want to divulge that kind of information? I don’t think I’d have an issue with it. The book’s done and published after all. But fellow writers, would you be willing to do something like that?

Alone on the Beach - Now Published

I have a new short story now available. It's a little bit different thing for me. I actively wrote a love scene...but with a twist. 

DESCRIPTION:

Bob Kirk is a federal agent, on desk duty and ordered to see a psychiatrist after he killed a man while protecting his team. Carol Marcus is his doctor, prescribing Bob some pills to help ease his pain.

They’ve been secretly seeing each other and want to take their relationship to the next level, more out in the open, as his department-mandated time with her comes to an end.

What better place to start than a crowded beach?

Excerpt:

Bob’s stomach flipped as he took in Carol’s beauty. She wore a green bikini, modest for the doctor’s forty-two years, but revealing enough to make Bob’s mind think about later. He wished there might be a later. Her blonde hair, always coiffed in a professional manner in the office, now hung loose around her shoulders. The sea breeze caught it and blew the strands around her face. She carried a beach bag over her shoulder. Dark sunglasses hid her eyes, but he knew from the angle of her head she was checking him out.


In a fit of self-consciousness that morning, Bob had done a hundred push-ups and sit-ups. He wanted all his muscles to stand out for her. He even purchased new swim trunks, not the oversized surfer kind yet not a speedo either. His light blue swimsuit hugged his hips and showed off his ass. When he had tried it on at the store, he had asked one of the attendants if the suit fit well. The narrowing of her eyes and the parting of her lips told him all he needed to know. She had lightly touched his arm as checked out. She also gave him her number. He had even groomed his body hair a bit. Brown hair still coated his chest and stomach, but in other places, it was cleaned and well groomed. He just didn’t know how the day would play out.


Carol stopped at the foot of Bob’s large beach blanket. A coy smile emerged. With delicate fingers, she lowered her sunglasses and looked at him over the top of them. “Mind if I join you?”


Bookstores

Here is the link to the story's main page on my website. It is widely available in all the usual places.

Writer’s New Year: 2022

It was now nine years ago today that I made a renewed decision to write more stories. I had an idea that began with an image—a man, wearing a fedora, knocking on a door, and bullets ripping through the wood—and that idea became my first published novel, WADING INTO WAR.

Every May First, I commemorate that decision and take stock of my writing life. Some years are good ones. Others not so much. But on 1 May, I allow myself a chance to reset and forge ahead.

In past years, I laid out my plans for the new Writer’s Year. Again, in re-reading those past entries, I cringe at missed opportunities and goals not fulfilled. Now, I used to really beat myself up about missing those milestones but I don’t do that anymore. It’s not constructive and obscures a more positive outlook on my writing life.

I have big plans for Writer’s Year 2022, and this time, taking a cue from Kristine Kathryn Rusch, I am actually scheduling my books and stories on a calendar. That is, in effect, making a business plan for my writing. I have to tell you, the amount of relief that washed over me as I actually mapped out the rest of the year—and especially the summer months leading to Labor Day 2022–made me smile and got me excited for my next projects.

And those projects are not merely new stories to write. I have also planned on a publishing schedule as well. I’ll admit I’ve fallen behind on where I wanted to be in terms of publishing stories for the public to read. As such, my name has fallen by the wayside in the minds of future readers, including folks in my own newsletter group.

That’s on me. I have recently begun to realize, with a huge assist by Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art book, that I’ve been treating my fiction and publication more as a hobby than a business. I’ve had an amateur’s mindset. Which is weird because from Day One, back in 2015 when I published my first book, I created my own company.

But the amateur’s mindset kept being dominant. I’m not sure why, but if Pressfield were sitting across the table from me, he’d tell me it was Resistance. Veteran writer Dean Wesley Smith would concur and throw in fear. Smith would also toss in the variable of “fun.” He’d tell me I’m not having any fun with my writing.

Both of them are correct. I need to conquer Resistance and become more professional with my fiction and have fun along the way. After all, I’m the first reader of my stories and I’m supposed to have fun writing them for myself. That I get to share them with others is a bonus.

So that’s where my head is at on this Writer’s New Year’s Day 2022. Each day this year, I will strive to overcome Resistance and Fear in my writing. I will strive to have fun with the stories I tell. And I will strive to make them available on a more regular schedule.

NaNoWriMo 2021 - Post-Game: What’s Next?

NaNoWriMo 2021 is now in the books. How did you do? Did you get to 50,000 words? Did those 50,000 words correspond to the end of your novel? Did you fall short? Don’t worry. I’ve done all those things and more.

This year, I hit a new threshold: I got to 70,063 words in the thirty days of November. That came out to 40.2 hours. Irritatingly, those 70,000 words are not the end of the story, so I kept going. But I allowed myself a new daily goal for December: 1,000 words per day. It’s not quite the benchmark of 1,667 but it’s manageable. It’s helpful, too. I ran into a story wall on Thursday and I needed to brainstorm. It ate up the new words, but I cleared the pathway for the rest of the book (and might’ve even discovered a penultimate scene).

Like I said last week, whatever you did, please celebrate your accomplishment. I know that the physical part of writing is literally sitting in a chair and moving your fingers over the keyboard, but it can take a lot out of you. So no matter if you got to 50K or didn’t, celebrate.

What’s Next?

Well, as I wrote last week, if you want to be a writer, you have to keep writing. Find a new monthly challenge and get a story written. Write a short story per month in 2022. Just keep writing.

But what if you want to publish this NaNoWriMo 2021 book? Author J. Todd Scott on Twitter mentioned this week that his first book was written as part of NaNoWriMo.

What about the book you just completed? Well, do you want to publish it? If so, you can do what I did and publish it an an indie author. Yes, it means you do everything, but you also control everything. You rise or fall based on what you do. It can be daunting, but also rewarding.

First thing, get it edited. Ideally, you’d hire a professional editor, preferably one that doesn’t know you for a completely unbiased review of your book. When you get those changes back, make the changes. You don’t have to make them all. I mean if the editor is telling you the sub-plot needs a complete overhaul, consider why the editor said that, and then make your informed decision. There’s a reason the editor made the comment, but it doesn’t mean the editor is 100% correct. When you’ve made those change, re-read your book and then spot the things you missed.

Get a cover. Unless you know graphic design, hire someone. I used 99Designs to get some of my covers created.

Write a book description. Create your metadata. Determine the price point. Determine your marketing strategy. Format your file. (For this, the company Draft2Digital is recommended because they’ll basically do all the formatting you need for any of the digital marketplaces.) Upload the file to the world.

Then celebrate your accomplishment by throwing yourself a party.

And then? Well, do it all again.

The Value of a State-of-the-Business Examination

It all started with a question and it ended up with a complete evaluation of my writing and publishing life.

One of my longtime book club friends--we're going on our twelfth year together--has a side business and it is not going as well as he envisioned. He explained why and then turned his attention to me. "How's the publishing game?  It's been a few years now, are you encouraged by how it's proceeding?"

What began as a reply to his email turned into a 3,300-word (and counting) evaluation of my writing life, my publishing life, where I am now, and where I want to go. With the day job and the family stuff, I don't have a ton of free time on my hands so the exercise stretched out the entire week. Not coincidentally, 1 May is my Writer's New Year's Day, a commemoration of my decision back on 1 May 2013 to start writing with purpose.

What followed was a technique I've used for years: a written dialogue. This is one where I ask questions of myself and then I answer them. And, since I'm literally talking with myself, I get to be brutally honest. Who else is gonna read this, right? 

Am I encouraged? That is an interesting way to ask how it's going. I've been pondering it for a few days and I have a two-part response: No, not really, but, at the same time, I have not been giving it the attention it deserves if I want to see results.

The Analysis Begins

Thus, by answering with a qualified 'no,' I started analyzing the parts of the business I can control. It goes back to one of my favorite phrases about publishing: Control the Controllables. I can control my writing, how much time I devote to it, and what I write. This is absent all talk of sales. I truly cannot control that. Neither can you. No one can. But we can control what we write. For me, it boiled down to time and speed. I can write fast and I can start a writing session on-the-run (so I don't have to build up speed) so the words the flow out usually are not a problem. 

Time proved the key factor. Despite me working from home, I realized I began 'sleeping in' on weekdays. When I had a commute, I used to wake at 5am. I kept that routine at the start of the working-from-home phase, but over the past year, my wakeup time slid later and later. Throw in the morning Bible reading and the amount of time I have to write in the pre-day-job quiet of the house ended up being 30-45 minutes. Sure, those minutes and words add up, but they are not truly as productive as I used to be.

Thus, to rectify my writing time, to control the controllables, I started waking earlier. Consequently, I also went to bed earlier. Give and take, right? I’ll be continuing that next week and the week after.

What is the Roadmap?

That’s the simple part. The larger thing is publishing schedule. I examined my available manuscripts. Including my current WIP, I have a dozen books either completely finished or close enough for a thorough edit. Why are these books not already in the pipeline? To that question, I had no answer. Laziness? Chalk it up to ‘not enough time in the week’? Hogwash. If I’m an indie author, then I make the time to publish what I write. I haven’t been. But I will be. 

Thus, I made a publishing schedule for the next 2.5 years. I’m still fine tuning it and allowing for me to slip in newly written manuscripts—I’m pretty jazzed on the current WIP and its sequels—but I have a roadmap. It’s what traditional publishers do, right? Same should be for me. And you, if you’re an indie. The next book I’ll publish is my Harry Truman book this summer.

Fixing the Online Stuff

Armed with a new publishing schedule, I examined my online life, specifically the websites. I have my blogspot blog which dates back over fourteen years and I don’t want to ditch it. I have my author website that needs a refresh. And I have my new project that’ll I’ll tease here for a summer launch, probably around the time of the Truman book’s publication. I’ve already stopped updating one website and will disband it this month. No need mentioning it here. It’s for the dustbin. 

Another aspect of online life is engagement. While I’m decent at it, I’m not as engaged as I want to be. Expect to see a little bit more of myself online on Twitter and Facebook.

The biggest online challenge is to create an online store. It’’ll be a way to sell direct to readers that’ll be as seamless as other online stores, enable me to increase my outreach, and pocket a little extra cash. The tools for this are present, I just need to implement them.

So, after a week’s worth of reassessment and the creation of a new roadmap, I have a better handle on my writing and the business of writing. What began as an email response with a somewhat dour answer has turned into a happy exercise and a renewed sense of purpose. I’m now ready to reply to my friend, but I won’t be copying the entire 3,300-word piece. I’ll just tell him to read this post. 

Do you have any of these State of the Business type things in your writing business? 

Year 5 of an Indie Writer: Week 2 AKA You Know You've Integrated the Indie Writing Lessons When...

This proved an interesting week, evidence yet again that life is full of daily surprises.

When it comes to Christmas decorations, no matter when they go up, they always come down by New Year's Eve. The family has adopted my wife's idea that you don't start a new year cleaning up the mess from the old one.

Well, I didn't follow that advice in terms of my writing.

I've been reviewing my existing-yet-not-finished stories at the beginning of this year. The good thing is that all this reviewing is helping me see what each story needs and all the tweaks along the way. The irritating thing is that I didn't do this in December. Or finished them in 2019.

Be that as it may, I wanted to wrap up these outstanding stories before tackling a brand-new one here in January. But something else sidetracked my review.

The E-mail

I received an email from a relative on my wife's side. Turns out there are a couple of writers in the family working on various books and the relative was wondering if I'd have a chance to offer any advice on the publishing and writing business.

Happily I agreed. I'm always eager to help writers no matter if they are far ahead of me in the business or just starting out. I've made course corrections along the way based on advice from veteran writers.

Wins and Losses?

Here's the thing about the writing business: it's competitive, but not always against fellow writers. It's a competition for the eyes and attentions of readers. We don't rack up wins and losses against other writers. And if you have that mindset, well, there's a better way to look at the business.

Think of it as a learning experience.

Let's say you've written a thriller. You've done your research and you have a book with a good cover, decent blurb, and is available in all the channels. It goes on sale on New Year's Day. You advertise in whatever form you choose. Yet there's another (actually a lot more) thriller book that was released on the same day.

And that other book is the one that's most popular with readers.

You'll get frustrated. You might even get upset. But you can't control what happens when you release your book into the world. You can only control that which you have direct control: cover, blurbs, and the book itself.

If you think that other author "beat" you, do some research. Buy that other book. Read it. Figure out why it is resonating more with readers than yours. If you see something, feel free to learn from that other book and incorporate those learned lessons in your next book. Nothing wrong with that.

Just don't fixate on wins and losses. The only person who loses there is you. And your potential readers. Just continue to be yourself and readers who like your stuff will find you. It'll take longer, perhaps, but avid readers are the best.

Internalized Lessons Learned

Back to the e-mail. So my relative put me in contact with the other writers and we emailed back and forth. The writer (also a she) shared some details about where she is and a choice she's contemplating. It's whether or not to sign a contract for a publishing firm not based in New York. Not one of the Big Five.

Indie that I am, I started listing the reasons I went indie and continue to stay that way. I discussed all the things I've had to learn over the five or six years I've been doing this side hustle: how to make covers, where to find editors, how to make paperbacks, how to format ebooks, etc. My response back grew longer and longer.

And I didn't even have to reference anything. I realized I have internalized all the indie author/publisher lessons so thoroughly that I can just spout them off at will.

It was a nice feeling...and it really made me want to get started with my 2020 publication schedule. It also helped me realize I enjoy the challenges and the rewards of an indie writer life. Still would appreciate the opportunity to do fiction writing full time, but the life I've carved out for myself is pretty grand.

Article of the Week

So, all of what I've described occurred prior to Thursday's post by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. She has had a decades-long writing career, both in the traditional and indie world, and now preaches the good talk about the indie life. Every Thursday, she posts about the business of an indie writer.

This week is title "Fear and Publishing." It is very insightful and well worth the time to read.

Book of the Week

The first novel I'm reading in 2020 is now four years old. It's ORPHAN X by Gregg Hurwitz. This series, about Evan Smoak, a highly trained assassin, has been on my radar for a couple of years. I saw the fourth book at Barnes and Noble over the holidays (in paperback) with a fifth book coming out this year.

Why not start?

So I picked up the first book and have really enjoyed it. How much? Well, I'm reading an actual book (bought the paperback) and have carved out time specifically to read. I get most of my books via audio, but I aim to have 2020 be the year in which I read at least a book a month and listen to another book a month.

I'm only a hundred pages in, but I'm really digging this book. What's even more ironic is the timing: My NaNoWriMo 2019 book involves a character who is off the  grid like Smoak or Jack Reacher (also not read any of his books either). The sands of time and interests, every now and then, come together.

Day Job Writer and Multiple Income Streams

 I am a day job writer. You know what I mean: fiction writing is not how I pay my bills. The day job as a technical writer does that. Fiction writing is the thing I do on the side. But recent events have me very aware that the revenue I derive from fiction writing could, one day, become a lifeline.

In the past couple of weeks, my day job suddenly became shaky. Yes, I’m still employed, but the project on which I worked was cancelled for the remainder of the year. I have a fallback project that I’ll begin on Monday, but the news of the cancellation was a shock to the system. It broke apart the great team with whom I’ve worked since last October. It also put my personal finances into peril.

It was then, surprisingly, that I realized my fiction writing must act as a bulwark against the ever-changing nature of the day job. In many, many places—podcasts, blog articles, and interviews—independent authors talk about the necessity of multiple streams of income. Typically, this talk circles around the choice between going exclusive to Amazon or making our books available widely in as many different bookstores as possible. Amazon exclusivity has its place, especially for short-term discoverability. But long term? Going wide is the optimal way to ensure any disruptions can be weathered.

Imagine you are exclusive to Amazon and they decide to change a feature without notice. What might you do if you find yourself the victim of Amazon’s crackdown like these folks? You have little to no recourse. Unless you have other sources of income. The concept is so strikingly obvious in the fiction world. Why had I never truly considered it for my day job?

Not sure.

But as I plan my publishing and writing schedule for the rest of 2018 and into 2019, I have an achievable goal: amp up the success of the fiction writing so it can act as a second source of income in the event my day job falters. It only makes economic sense.

How many sources of income do you have?

Writer's New Year's Day 2018

 

A half decade.

That’s how long it’s been since I resolved to write and complete a story, a choice I’ve since named Writer’s New Year. We all make resolutions on 1 January every year. Often, I made writing resolutions on that date, but they faltered so I rarely counted them. But on 1 May 2013, I told myself that the scene I saw in my head—of a man, wearing a fedora, knocking on a door, being answered with bullets—was part of a story and I resolved to finish that story no matter what. I did, and it’s now called WADING INTO WAR: A BENJAMIN WADE MYSTERY.

The decision, back in 2013, was inspired by a quote whose origins I have forgotten: “A year from now, you may have wished you had started today.” By 2015, I had accomplished something else: I had formed my own company and published WADING INTO WAR. Since then, every 1 May, I take stock of things since the last Writer’s New Year. This is the 2018 edition.

The biggest change this year is that I have a plan, specifically a business plan. You see, Writer’s New Year is only focused on the writing part of things. In 2017, I learned I could produce a good quantity of words over multiple genres. As exciting as that was—and still is—I also have to focus on the business side of things. I may be a writer, but I am also a small business owner with products to sell. And one of the fundamental aspects of any company is to have a business plan. On various spreadsheets and yellow legal pads, I have composed various pie-in-the-sky ideas about publishing schedules. All were unsustainable. I needed something relatively concrete and ordered. And sustainable.

I think I have that now. You see, all during 2016 and 2017 and into 2018, I didn’t stop writing. Sure, I may have not published much, but I’ve got a backlog, a warehouse if you will. What the warehouse is allowing me to do is this: have a rather permanent schedule of publishing books and stories while learning more about the business of selling. I am fairly competent in knowing how to craft stories. I’m now needing to hone my marketing and business skills.

A few NFL head coaches plan their game strategies with a set number of opening plays. It’s to learn what the other team is doing and how well his own team performs on the field. That’s what I’m doing as I start Year Six of writing (and Year Four of publishing). I have a schedule. I have a plan. The beauty of independent publishing is that I can adjust the plan if necessary, but I’m more inclined to run the series of opening plays and see how things turn out. What are those plays? Well, read on.

Publish Fast or Publish Slow

Lots of authors write and publish fast. It’s not unheard of to have 10-15 books published in a single year for some of these folks. I know the old pulp fiction writers like Lester Dent (Doc Savage) and Walter Gibson (The Shadow) among others produced a book a month, but writing was all they did and if they failed, they wouldn’t feed their families. I’m in a different situation. I have a day job. I do not have eight or more hours a day to write. I have one, usually at 4:30am. Moreover, publishing fast yields different results for different people and genres. I write westerns and mysteries and, to date, both have seen little benefit to publishing fast.  Martha Carr tried it in 2016 and 2017 and Kristi Belcamino tried it recently, too. Both talked with Stephen Campbell of The Author Biz podcast about their experiences. I had already determined a monthly, rapid release schedule was unsustainable for me and their two case studies gave me evidence.

So I’m publishing at a roughly 12-week schedule. The only exception will be the launch of my Calvin Carter: Railroad Detective series later this year. It’s a plan, a hypothesis on my part. I will experiment and see what happens. But if enough folks like the stories I tell, I’m guessing they would be willing to wait.

Going Wide

I mentioned this is my most recent DoSomeDamage column, but my stories will be available just about everywhere (Google Play is still out of play). So if you want to read on your Kobo, your Nook, your iPhone, or almost anything else, no barrier will exist for you.

Video Channel

Yes, I’ve made a YouTube channel. My goal is to have videos for every story I publish, talking about the writing process. In addition, I’ll likely have other videos about podcasts I like, movies I’ve seen, books I’ve read, and almost anything else. It’ll be a place to talk about this I love.

Social Media

I’ve consolidated my Facebook, Twitter, web page, and newsletter into one site each. I used to have two each, one for my mystery name (Scott Dennis Parker) and another for my westerns (S. D. Parker). Now, Scott D. Parker: Storyteller is it.

I think that about covers it for Writer’s New Year’s Day 2018. I’m really excited about all the things I’ve got planned. And, a year from now, we’ll see how it all fared.

The Gospel of Creativity with Kevin Smith

(The news of Kevin Smith's near fatal heart attack stunned me yesterday. He's a little under two years younger than I am. His heartfelt post about his near-death experience moved me to verify with my family if they knew how much they meant to me if I were to pass in an instant. I have grown to love and admire Smith's brand of optimistic fandom. The world needs more of what he's offering.

This is a piece I wrote in August 2015 after seeing Smith live. It was an event.

In his tweet, Smith wrote that he didn't want his life to end, but if it did, "I can't complain. It was a gift."

Kevin, your work has been a gift to us. Thank you, and get well soon.)

--------------------

I went to "church" on Wednesday night and the preacher was Kevin Smith.

Some of you will probably stop reading right now. Kevin Smith? The independent director of films like "Clerks," "Chasing Amy," and "Jersey Girl"? The guy who has a few dozen podcasts and fills them with talk of film and comics and humor all laced with profanities? Yup, that's the one.

I'm unique in the world of Kevin Smith fandom. I've never seen any of his films. I know him as a podcast personality. Three years ago, while listening to the podcast from SF Signal, there was mention of "...a Batman podcast by filmmaker Kevin Smith where he talks to Mark Hamill." All I heard was "Batman" and "Mark Hamill." The definitive voice of the Joker as far as I was concerned. I listened and fell in love with Fatman on Batman podcast. I've written about it more than once. (here, here, here, and here). Add in Hollywood Babble-On and  I have some great content for the week that includes the wonderfully talented Ralph Garman. 

Cut to a few weeks ago and word came down that Kevin Smith was going to be live in Houston. I knew I had to get tickets. A couple of friends and I met at the Improv Wednesday night. We got there at 7pm for the 8pm show. It started at 8:30...and didn't stop until 12:10am! No breaks. What followed in between was one part comedy show, one part great stories, and a huge, heaping helping of a motivational speaker who preached the gospel of creativity so well that if I hadn't already started my own company and published two books would've had me going home to write a business plan.

The format was Q&A and Smith joked that he might be able to get through five, maybe six questions. I thought he was joking. He wasn't. What is great about podcast--not just Smith's--is that there is no ticking clock or commercials butting up against the host to curtail discussion. There have been many times when an interview goes multiple parts. I love it because you can really dig deep and ask questions we listeners want to know. I assumed that in a live setting, some of that would actually be trimmed.

I assumed wrong. For each question asked, Smith gave the audience member his full attention. The answers were in depth and, dare I say it, reminiscent of Garrison Keillor in that whatever rabbit trail Smith traveled, he always came back around to the question asked. And the rabbit trails were so fun. A year or so younger than me, Smith basically loved the same things i loved as a kid: Batman, comics, and Star Wars. He has made a name for himself just being himself. He just has twenty something years in the film industry to bolster his heritage.

What really struck me was his passion for independent creativity. One of the questions involved a podcast. Smith paused to give an impassioned tangent about the power one individual can have in this world through podcasting. He used podcasting as a real-world example but basically said that any art can save lives. He talked so well and deeply that I wasn't the only one who picked up on his motivational style. Heck, there were so many good nuggets that I flipped over the comment cards and started taking notes. Yeah, I know: I’m odd, but when you hear words of wisdom from a guy who’s been in the fray, you take notice. Among the things I took away, in case you can’t read my scribble, are these:

• There’s too much ‘Why’ in the world. Go for “Why not?”
• Find something that’s yours.
• Don’t be afraid of your thing not working.
• Put some ‘secret sauce’ in your project, something that just for you.
• Ask yourself: What would make your bliss?
• Smith made “Clerks” because he kept looking for a movie like it and realized it was never going to be made unless he made it. (Of all the things I’ve heard Smith say, this one resonates most with me.)

There were others, but those are the highlights. Oh, and he talked extensively about “Tusk,” the movie he made last year. He told about its genesis (via a podcast), how his daughter had a part (as a convenience store clerk), and how Johnny Depp got involved merely by Smith taking a chance and asking a question.

I absolutely loved the show and the message of independent creativity. I’m already doing the independent publishing thing (new western short story and new Benjamin Wade novel coming next month). Now, I just have to go watch some Kevin Smith films.

The Man Who Invented Christmas by Les Standiford (2017)

(In honor of the new movie that is currently showing in theaters and in honor of my birthday  today, I'm posting the following review that first was published in 2012. I've updated the first sentence to account for this being 2017 and not 2012. And. to make matters even more topical, I'm taking the day off today...and seeing the movie!

But in the five years since I wrote this review, I, too, have become like Dickens: a self-published author. The leaps of faith he took are not unlike the ones we independent writers take in 2017. It makes Dickens' accomplishments even more remarkable.)

One hundred and seventy-four years ago this month, Charles Dickens published A Christmas Carol. A few years ago (2008), Les Standiford published The Man Who Invented Christmas: How Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol Rescued His Career and Revived Our Holiday Spirits. Standiford, a novelist and popular historian, fully acknowledges that much of what he has compiled in The Man Who Invented Christmas is available in other works and biographies. The beauty of this little book is the prism with which Standiford examines Dickens. It’s only about the Carol and how Dickens came to write it, the influences, where Dickens was in his life when the inspiration for Scrooge, Marley, and Tiny Tim struck his imagination, the immediate aftermath of the book’s publication, and its influence on western culture.

The book opens on 5 October 1843. Dickens, aged thirty-one, is on a Manchester stage, part of a fundraiser for the Manchester Athenaeum. He is to speak but he is distracted. His current novel, Martin Chuzzlewit, was not finding the dazzling sales figures of earlier novels like The Pickwick Papers or The Old Curiosity Shop. Not a Dickens scholar I, this fact surprised me. I just assumed Dickens’s stardom, once attained, didn’t wane during his lifetime. It was up and down for Dickens and in October 1843, Dickens was down. With sales figures dropping, his own debt rising—including his parents’ debt which he took pains to absolve—and a new child, his fifth, due early in 1844, Dickens needed to do something extraordinary in order to get back on the financial horse.

After he gave his part of the fundraiser, Dickens walked the dark streets of Manchester and the germ of an idea planted itself in his mind. With the memories of a recent trip to a “ragged school”—a school for poor kids—fresh in his mind, Dickens did something fascinating: he examined himself, as an artist, a man, a husband, and found that he could improve his position. According to Standiford, “Perhaps he [Dickens] had let his disappointment with America in particular and with human nature in general overwhelm his powers of storytelling and characterization in his recent work—perhaps he had simply taken it for granted that an adoring public would sit still for whatever he offered it.” The Chuzzlewit sales and themes proved this to be true. He tried to beat his readers over the head with his earnestness and the readers let him know they didn’t like it. He needed a different method to convey what he wanted to convey. And he needed it to be entertaining.

A Christmas Carol was the result. We all know the story so I don’t need to retell it here. But what is utterly compelling when you stop to think about it is that Dickens went through a transformation not unlike Scrooge, just without the ghosts. At a time when he could have moved to Europe, contented himself with travel writing, and cleared his debts, he chose to challenge himself. To do so, he needed to change. So he changed how he approached this book and its publication. I wonder how many of us have the courage to do that in our own lives to say nothing of something as public as a novel.

With numerous quotes from Dickens’ own writings and those of his contemporaries, Standiford shows us how excited Dickens became at his “little Carol,” how it cheered him, made his cry, and, presumably, warmed his heart as the book has done these past 174 years for the rest of us. The haggling, the negotiations, the business of writing, producing, securing the artwork, and all the other minutia needed to publish a book in 1843 is captivating. You realize that, in many ways, it’s the same then as it is now. The most paradoxical thing I learned was Dickens’ decision to publish A Christmas Carol on his own. You what that means, don’t you? A Christmas Carol was a vanity book. A self-published book.

As far as the claim that Dickens “invented” Christmas (Prince Albert also had a hand with his Christmas trees), Standiford goes into some good detail on how the celebration of Christmas had devolved to a holiday that was barely celebrated. He needs to do this and lay out for the reader where Christmas was in 1843 in order for the reader to understand the profound impact the Carol had on society. Christmas, for Dickens had the same enchanting power over him that his story has over us. That’s ironic considering the humiliation of his childhood—of having a father in debtors’ prison and being forced to leave school and work in a factory to help the family—made Christmas for Dickens not the overabundant thing it is today. The season of Christmas “accounts in large part for his development as an artist.” As Dickens himself wrote, “Any iron ring let into stone is the entrance to a cave which only waits for the magician, and the little fire, and the necromancy, that will make the earth shake.” There is a certain magic during this time of year and Dickens captured it between pages. It’s no wonder the story has thrived.

The Man Who Invented Christmas is a charming book, uncluttered with footnotes so it’s easy to read. (Standiford cites his sources at the back of the book.) The book contains just over 200 pages so it won’t take you many hours to read it. I recommend it for anyone with a little curiosity about how a great work of literature came about. It’ll remove the gauzy trappings that can sometimes surround a book—you know, the awe we writers and readers impose on great works of literature, how the author must’ve been touched by a literary god and the work just fell from the pen—and reveal a real man who experienced real worries but also created something special by means of his own imagination, sweat, determination, and perseverance. It’s a good lesson for all of us.

For all you writers out there, think about this. Where we you this year on 5 October? Imagine not having a word written in a new work. Imagine, now, getting that idea and you burn the midnight oil—you still have a day job, don’t forget—and finish a manuscript by the end of November and the book you just wrote is published today. Think you could do it?

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@Barrie Summy

Erle Stanley Gardner Acted Like An Independent Author

According to my Half Price Books calendar, today marks the 128th birthday of Erle Stanley Gardner. I noticed that fact yesterday while sipping coffee and thought I would commemorate the birthday with a little thought experiment.

Erle Stanley Gardner acted like an independent author even though he was traditionally published.

Let me explain, but first a bit of background.

We writers all have our list of go-to books that helped us hone our skills and learn how to be a writer. One of those books rarely shows up on when we discuss famous writing books. It’s called The Secrets of the World’s Best–Selling Writer: The Storytelling Techniques of Erle Stanley Gardner by Francis L and Roberta B Fugate. The book was published in 1980. It’s the story of how Gardner went from being merely a lawyer to, at the time of his death in 1970, the world’s best-selling writer. It is a fascinating book. When I first discovered it a few years ago, I checked it out from the Houston Public Library and read through it very quickly. I took copious notes. I mean a lot of notes. I ended up reading it a second time and then a third time. There is little about Gardner’s personal life; instead, this is a “biography” of how writer practiced, honed his skills, and ultimately, was successful.

The Erle Stanley Gardner papers are housed at the University of Texas at Austin at the Harry Ransom Center. When I attended school there, I never knew it and, let’s be honest, I had never read any of Gardner’s books. The two Fugates scoured through all of Gardner’s papers and pulled out a wonderful history — complete with many of Gardner’s own notes — of the steps he took to become the writer he became. The appendices are wonderful and there are even a few photographs of Gardner’s own handwritten notebooks complete with descriptions, timelines, and all the other things he needed to craft his mystery books. A particularly neat thing is the transcription of a lecture he gave to the writers of the Perry Mason TV show back in 1959. And when I say transcription, I’m talking about an 8 to 10 page block quote. He basically summed up everything you needed to know about how he wrote all his books in this single transcription.

So how do the writings of Gardner and independent authors collide?

As independent authors in 2017, we are urged to publish regularly and frequently. This helps us build up an audience as quick as possible and, if one can maintain a certain writing production, it will give our readers a constant flow of our work. There are many different definitions of “publish regularly and frequently.” Current thought is readers prefer 3-4 books a year. If you think about it, even a moderately paced writing schedule of 1000 words a day (30 minutes or less) can yield, more or less, four books a year that you can then publish.

The reason I bring up Erle Stanley Gardner when talking about independent publishing is his publishing schedule. Now, for the purposes of this discussion, I’m only talking about his novels. He honed his skill as a pulp writer in the 20s and early 30s, writing short stories, novelettes, and novellas. At one point in his early writing career, he set a goal of 1.2 million words a year. That comes out to a 10,000-word novelette every three days. I know some modern-day writers who can achieve this feat — James Reasoner being one of them — but the mere fact of writing a million words a year is incredibly staggering. That's 2740 words a day. But with the writing and publication of Gardner’s first Perry Mason novel, The Case of the Velvet Claws, Gardner turned toward writing more books and fewer short stories.

Consider these statistics. In 1933, he published two Perry Mason novels. In 1934, he published three. In 1935 and 1936, he published two each. So that’s nine books and four years. Starting in 1937, things get more interesting. In 1937, he published three novels, two Perry Mason’s and one of his Doug Selby, DA, series. In 1938, same thing: two Perry Mason books and one DA book. Now comes 1939. We get two Perry Mason books, one DA book, and the debut of the Cool and Lam series. That’s four books in one year! He tops himself in 1940: two Cool and Lam books published*, two Perry Mason books, and one DA book. So, if you do the math, in the first eight years of his novel writing career, Erle Stanley Gardner published 24 books in three different series.

*The Fugates' book was published well before the discovery of the manuscript that became THE KNIFE SLIPPED, the 30th Cool and Lam novel but the second one written. It turned out that the publisher thought the content of THE KNIFE SLIPPED too much for readers in 1939. Instead of revising the novel, Gardner simply wrote another book altogether (TURN ON THE HEAT).

And he kept writing and selling stories to the pulps, although at a slower pace than before. Just for curiosity’s sake, I extracted all the material Gardner published in 1939. Here it is and I'll leave it up to you to factor in the writing time. NOTE: I left in the January 1940 publication of TURN ON THE HEAT knowing he wrote two Cool and Lam novels in 1939. The novels are in capitals.

Published Bibliography 1939

• THE BIGGER THEY COME (Cool and Lam #1 written and published) January 1939
• "The Monkey Murder" Detective Story January 1939 Lester Leith novelette
• "Without Gloves"–Clues–January 1939–Barney Killigen novelette
• "It's the McCoy"–Dime Detective–January 1939–Paul Pry novelette
• THE CASE OF THE PERJURED PARROT (Perry Mason #14) – February 1939
• "Unstuffing One Shirt"–Clues–February 1939–Barney Killigen novelette
• "The Seven Sinister Sombreros"–Detective Story–February 1939–Lester Leith novelette
• "The Joss of Tai Wong"–Adventure–March 1939
• "The Fourth Musketeer"–Detective Story–March 1939–Lester Leith novelette
• "Take It or Leave It"–Black Mask–March 1939–Pete Wennick novelette
• "The Rhyme and Reason"–Detective Story–April 1939–Lester Leith novelette
• "The Queen of Shanghai Night"–Detective Story–May 1939–Lester Leith novelette
• "Dogs of Death"–Clues–May 1939–Barney Killigen novelette
• "The Eyebrow Moon"–Toronto Star Weekly–May 13, 1939
• "The Ring of Fiery Eyes"–Detective Story–August 1939–Lester Leith novelette
• THE D.A. DRAWS A CIRCLE (Selby #3) –September 1939
• "Dark Alleys"–Black Mask–September 1939–Ed Jenkins novelette
• "Lester Leith, Magician"–Detective Fiction Weekly–September 16, 1939–Lester Leith novelette
• "A Thousand to One"–Detective Fiction Weekly–October 28, 1939–Lester Leith novelette
• "Mystery by Inches"–Toronto Star Weekly–October 28–December 23, 1939
• THE CASE OF THE ROLLING BONES (Perry Mason #15) –November 1939
• "A Hearse for Hollywood"–Double Detective–November 1939–Jax Keen novelette
• "Fair Exchange"–Detective Fiction Weekly–November 18, 1939–Lester Leith novelette
• "A Headache for Butch"–Double Detective–December 1939–Ed Migrane, the Headache, novelette
• "At Arm's Length"–Detective Fiction Weekly–December 9, 1939–Jerry Marr, P. I.
• "Where Angels Fear to Tread"–Detective Fiction Weekly–December 30, 1939

1940–TURN ON THE HEAT (Cool and Lam #2 published; #3 written) – Morrow – January 1940



So yeah, Erle Stanley Gardner pretty much published like an independent author. The only difference between him and what we do in 2017 is that he had a traditional publisher who, frankly, did the marketing for him. And it was the 1930s, so things were different. And he was able to devote all his time to writing. And he dictated everything. Famously, he dictated the first Perry Mason book in three days. He said it took him a half a day to come up with the plot and 2 1/2 days to dictate the entire book. Wow. I’m majorly impressed.

And if you want one more little tidbit from the mind of Erle Stanley Gardner regarding how he thought about his readers and the editors of the pulp magazines in the 1920s, there is this: “My own approach to the question is different from that of the critic. I am a writer. I serve the reading public. The reading public is my master.” And, according to the Fugates, “After that, he became an outspoken exponent of the idea the publisher of the magazine was simply acting as a middleman in purveying merchandise — story supplied by writers — to readers, the ultimate consumers.”

Erle Stanley Gardner. He acted like an independent author when such a thing rarely existed. Now it does. I wonder how many authors can replicate his success over the nearly 40 years of his novel-writing career? I have my own answer. I aim to try.

Happy Writer’s New Year’s Day

Four years ago today, 1 May, I made the decision to start writing again. I had the germ of a story—a man wearing a fedora who was likely a private detective, knocking on a door and being answered by bullets. That idea became WADING INTO WAR: A BENJAMIN WADE MYSTERY, my first published novel.

Part of this idea was derived from a quote: A year from now, you will have wished you started today.

Every 1 May, I commemorate that first book and examine what I’ve done in the past year.

• I earned my first nomination for “The Box Maker: A Triple Action Western.” That would be the 2016 Peacemaker Award for Short Fiction from the Western Fictioneers, a group of which I’m a founding member. I was thrilled and very much had the realization that it truly is an honor to be nominated.
• I published ULTERIOR OBJECTIVES: A LILLIAN SAXTON THRILLER. I love all the books I’ve written but, to date, this is my favorite. Lillian is a kick-ass heroine and the story was so much fun to write.
• I now show my novels at the Sugar Land Arts Center and Gallery and it’s a blast to see things I’ve written on display.
• Recently, I made the decision to publish westerns under the “S. D. Parker” pen name. It’s not a secret by any stretch, but a way to differentiate my stories. Not coincidentally, I have republished all four western short stories today, complete with re-branded covers. I have also made the decision to put them in Kindle Unlimited, so if you want to read them, that’s where they are. And if you’re a Kindle Unlimited subscriber, they are all free to read.

Looking ahead for this fifth year since I started writing, I’m only into my second year as a published author, but there are big things on the horizon. Let me give you a preview.

• Two more Junction City Westerns are on the immediate horizon with publication dates between now and mid June.
• Railroad Detective Calvin Carter will have his big debut with three short stories also in the next couple of months. Later on, his novel-length adventures will begin.
• John Denton, the Rouge Gambler, will make his debut in ALWAYS BET ON RED this summer.
• The third Benjamin Wade novel, tentatively titled THE MISSING WIFE, will be published this year.
• The second Gordon Gardner novel will also be published this year.

And these are only the items I’ve completed. There will be many more coming your way.

Along with separating the author name, I’ve also separated the mailing lists. I now have one focusing on mysteries and a second, new one specifically focusing on westerns. Don’t worry: you can be on both, but I’ll also let everyone know what’s going on in the other mailing list. I also have two separate Facebook pages, one for mysteries, and a second for westerns.

The year 2017 should be an exciting one here at the offices of Quadrant Fiction Studio. I’d love to have y’all join in the fun.

ULTERIOR OBJECTIVES: A Lillian Saxton Thriller - Chapter 1

ULTERIOR OBJECTIVES: A Lillian Saxton Thriller will be published in November 2016. What follows is Chapter 1.

Chapter 1
Tuesday, 23 April 1940

“Sergeant Saxton, what do you think of when you hear the word ‘treason’?”
Lillian Saxton stood at attention and frowned. She wore her assigned brown uniform, belted at the waist, tie neatly knotted, with a skirt that hung just at the knees. Since she was inside Houston’s Rice Hotel, her garrison cap was folded over the belt. Her red hair was pulled up behind her ears.
“I’m sorry, sir, I don’t I understand what you mean.” Her voice was curious but deferential.
“Treason, Sergeant. It’s a simple concept. What does it mean to you?”
The man who snapped at her she didn’t know, but his brown uniform displayed the rank of colonel. He stood to the side of a table in one of the upper suites of the famous Rice Hotel. The man who sat at the table, littered with stacks of paper and a typewriter, she knew. He was Captain Ernest Donnelly, her commanding officer. She looked at him for clarification.
“I’m the one speaking to you, Sergeant,” the colonel spat. “If there’s ever a situation where you think you need to look elsewhere for help, then we’ve got a bigger problem than I imagined.”
Donnelly, dressed in his brown uniform but with the tie loosened around his collar, leaned back in his chair. “Honeywell, why don’t you just…”
“Don’t tell me what I should do, Captain,” Honeywell blurted. “I’ve asked the sergeant a question. I expect an answer directly from her and not from her superior officer or anyone else she thinks can help her.”
A little fire burst into existence deep within Lillian’s gut. She hated what many of the men in the United States Army thought of her: weak, not as good as a man, only good for typing up reports. She was none of that, and she strove every day to prove wrong that kind of thinking.
“Treason,” Lillian began, speaking evenly but with force, “is the active betrayal of one’s country. In most cases, especially in war time, it is punishable by death.”
Honeywell regarded her for a moment. His short-cropped hair was receding across the top of his head. The gray flecks caught the lamp light and seemed to glow.
“That is pretty much the letter of the law, Sergeant. Now, even though we’re not at war, what do you think should be done about someone who may commit treason?”
“May commit, colonel?”
A small twitch along the corner of his mouth might have grown into a smile, but Honeywell didn’t give it the chance. “Yes, Sergeant. Would you trust anyone whom you suspect of committing treason?”
Lillian pondered the question for a few heartbeats. “It would depend on the circumstances, Colonel. If the person was only suspected, I would seek out additional information, either to clear the individual or convict him.”
Another twitch, this time along Honeywell’s eyebrows. Lillian had to admire a person like the colonel who could so easily contain his outward emotions. She made a note never to play the colonel in poker although that likelihood would probably never come to pass.
“So you would investigate?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Undercover?”
“If necessary, yes.”
“What if you knew the person? Would that cloud your judgement?”
Another few heartbeats. “No, sir. This is the United States of America. All citizens, military or civilian, are assumed innocent until proven guilty. Same goes with someone suspected of treason. You investigate, gather evidence, and, if the evidence points to treason, you arrest the individual. You bring him to trial and, if he is found guilty, you inflict punishment.”
“Back to my second question: what if you knew the person? Would you hide evidence, alter testimony, or do anything to sway the arresting officer or jury?”
“No, sir. Treason is treason, and if the evidence indicates that, there is no other recourse.” She glanced to Donnelly, then back up to Honeywell. “I would, of course, be upset, but that’s a personal matter, not a military one.”
In the intervening silence, Donnelly spoke. “Well, Colonel, I think that should satisfy you.”
Honeywell narrowed his eyes. “I’ll let you know when I’m satisfied.”
“Of course.” To Lillian, Donnelly asked, “Have you contacted Wade to get his report on your brother?”
Donnelly was referring to the assignment recently completed. Samuel Saxton, Lillian’s brother, was lost in Europe. She feared the worst, especially with the Nazi army threatening to strike. A reporter, Wendell Rosenblatt, had information about Samuel. He was due to land in Houston, but vanished. Lillian hired private investigator Benjamin Wade to locate Rosenblatt. He did, but it was too late. Rosenblatt was dead, but Wade found the reporter’s notes complete with all the details about Samuel’s whereabouts.
Lillian had been waiting for Wade to deliver his report when Donnelly summoned her to his room in the Rice Hotel.
“No, sir.”
Donnelly gestured with his head to the next room. “Why don’t you give him a call?”
Lillian nodded once and left the room.

***

“I think she passes your muster, Colonel,” Donnelly said.
“You’re just too close to her and the rest of your little squad.” Honeywell walked over to a bureau where a single bottle of Jack Daniels whiskey rested. He poured himself a couple of fingers and downed half in one gulp. He held the glass in his hands and mulled over something in his head. “But the communique was to her personally. Do you think Monroe is trying to recruit her?”
“Don’t be silly,” Donnelly blurted. He realized he was addressing a senior officer and stood. He poured his own glass of whiskey. “As far as I know, Frank Monroe is only an investment banker. His job takes him all over the U.S. and Europe. He has contacts everywhere. Sure, he’s been over to Germany since they invaded Poland last year, but there’s no cause to think he’s turned traitor.”
“Why else would he insist on seeing her? You think he knows she works for the Army?”
“Lillian Saxton’s job is no secret. What she does for the Army is. Look, they’re old friends from back when they attended college in Europe in the ‘30s. He says he has vital information about the war, but will only talk to her. And the meet’s in D.C. They’re not even leaving American soil. What’s to lose?”
“I don’t trust anyone who has business dealings with the Nazis and then turns around and asks to meet with one of my soldiers.”
Donnelly did not have time to respond. The adjoining door opened and Lillian Saxton walked in the room. She must have tried to mask her emotions, but Donnelly noticed the red rimming her eyes.
“Is everything okay, Sergeant?” Donnelly asked.
Saxton merely nodded.
“You find out about your brother?”
“He’s dead.”
The two senior officers gave the revelation a few moments of silence. “I’m sorry,” Donnelly said. He reached into his pocket and held out a handkerchief. She walked over and took it.
“Thank you, sir.” She dabbed at her eyes. She stood straighter and pulled herself together. She handed the handkerchief back to the captain. “What’s the next assignment? It’s why you brought me here, isn’t it?”
Donnelly said, “Sergeant, this is Colonel Clive Honeywell. He will explain the situation.”
Honeywell stepped forward. “Sergeant, do you know a Frank Monroe?”
Donnelly watched the emotions cross Saxton’s face. He prided himself on not just being a commanding officer to his squad, but to know his officers as real people. Saxton had a circuitous route to the United States Army, but she had acquitted herself beyond even his expectations. The name “Frank Monroe” hit a nerve.
After a moment, Saxton said, “Yes, sir. He’s from a prominent family in Boston. He and I went to the university back in 1934. He’s some sort of banker now, I think.”
Honeywell narrowed his eyes. “You hesitated. Why?”
“The name came out of left field, Colonel. We haven’t even seen each other in years. It just wasn’t a name I expected you to say.”
Pursing his lips, Honeywell said, “He’s asked to meet you.”
For the second time, Donnelly noted Saxton’s surprise.
“Me?”
“Yes. Personally.”
“Where?”
“Washington.”
Saxton frowned. “Why?”
Honeywell raised his glass and pointed a finger at her. “That’s what you’re going to find out.”

Now Available: Wading Into War

It is with great excitement that I can announce the official publication of WADING INTO WAR, the first Benjamin Wade novella and my first published book.

Houston, 1940

Benjamin Wade is a laid back private investigator whose jobs are so mundane that he doesn't even carry a gun. He thought his latest job was going to be easy.

He thought wrong.

Hired by beguiling Lillian Saxton to find a missing reporter with knowledge of her brother’s whereabouts in war-torn Europe, Wade follows a lead and knocks on a door. He gets two answers: bullets and a corpse.

Now Wade must unravel the truth about the reporter’s death, Lillian’s brother, and the whereabouts of a cache of documents that reveal a shocking story from Nazi-controlled Europe and an even more sinister secret here at home.

The book is available in electronic format from Amazon, Kobo, and Nook. iBooks will debut shortly as well as Overdrive.

For those of y'all who might want a paperback, that's in process and will be along soon.

As a bonus, the ebook includes the first chapter of the next book I'll be publishing later this spring as well as a little enticement. There will also be some bonus material in the monthly newsletter. You can find the link along the menu.

Come back to this blog in the coming weeks for what I'm calling "DVD Extras," or some behind-the-scenes peeks at how this book came about and previews of upcoming titles.

I hope you enjoy WADING INTO WAR. I enjoyed writing it and now, like a grown child, it is time for the book to see the world.

Adjusting One’s Expectations

First off: have you read Alex’s post from Thursday? You should. My response boils down to this: I am a writer. End of story.

Two phrases have been going through my mind this week. The first is a tag line from the Self-Publishing Podcast: "If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself." The other is the more internal voice: when you're just starting out, you have to understand your limitations and adjust your expectations.

The do-it-yourself mantra is pretty obvious. I’m on the final touches of readying WADING INTO WAR for publication this month. For all of you who have already done this, I’m now in the decidedly unsexy part of the process: reviewing, tweaking, checking the spelling and punctuation, and all the other stuff like that. I spent my off-day yesterday tinkering with Scrivener. I’ve used the program for years--and highly recommend it--but I have never had the reason to use all the compile features. It took me all morning yesterday but I finally, FINALLY!, figured out all the buttons and boxes to check and uncheck in order to produce the desired type of ebook. I ended up writing my own procedures that I am now able to follow with few headaches. I count that as a win.

Experience. The more you do something, the better at it you get. I had to remember that as I kept updating and building the website. It was in this arena where my second phrase really took hold.

There’s a website I see in my head. I know that I’ll ultimately get there. I’m not there yet. I very much want it to be where it’ll ultimately be in a few months’ time, but I simply don’t have the experience in HTML to do it right now. Moreover, I don’t have the time to learn right now. Day job. Home life. Reading some. Watching something. Writing new book. Editing next book. There’s a lot to do and only 24 hours in a day.

So I have had to adjust my expectations on how to structure the website. I’ve got it to a place where I’m okay with it, at least as a beta release. But it’s a tad frustrating to know where you want to go, know that you’ll eventually get there, but that the road will be long. At least, however, I’m on the road.

For that, I’m quite content.


Best Podcast of the Week

Simon Whistler’s Rocking Self-Publishing, Episode 81 with Chris Fox. This interview can make the dreams swell up big in your heart. Lots and lots of great material in this episode, especially on how you can apply the startup mentality to independent publishing.

Announcing Quadrant Fiction Studio

Today is the day the world learns what I’ve been doing for the past few months and I find it wholly appropriate to remove the curtain here at Do Some Damage.

Quadrant Fiction Studio is my new publishing company through which I will release the novels and other tales I write. I’m planning on releasing the first book next month. I'll announce the title and display the cover image in the coming weeks.

I've got a landing page at the new website: www.quadrantfictionstudio.com. I'll redesign it to its normal view when Book 01 launches. But you can see my vision for this endeavor.

Picking the Name

I like the letter Q and decided to use it as the logo. So I started there. Next came the name. “Quadrant” was the first word that came to mind, Quadrant Press, that is. Well, that’s already taken. Quiver Press was another. I thought “thing that holds arrows” but the existing Quiver Press is rather more adult. Quill, of course, where I could have been cute and made the tail of the Q be the end of a feathered quill. Yeah, not good. And I even drew a picture of that one. Quire was one of my favorites--think of the in-person options of giving away quires of printed work--but it was suggested that more folks would think of the singing group.

All this time I was using the word "press" or "publisher.” Then, I started thinking of other terms. I kind of like the word “practice” as in “law practice,” but didn’t think “writing practice” sounded good. Artists, like my wife, work in a studio and that sounded better: Quadrant Studio. But, as you can imagine, that brings up visions of artists and not necessarily writing. So I threw the word “fiction” in there and viola.

The name also stood in for my vision of what I wanted to do. While this is a mystery blog, I read and watch more genres than just mysteries. I like westerns and science fiction and pulp and romances and historicals and...well, you can see how that might spiral out of control. My original idea was to have a “publishing house” (i.e., Quadrant) with four imprints, each with a specific genre and an associated ‘house name’ as authors, one of which was to be my own. I solicited the opinions of trusted folks and they steered me away from that. In the age of independent publishing, it’s really not necessary.

But the Quadrant idea held. So I plan on keeping the three main genres--mystery, western, science fiction--and leave the ‘fourth quadrant’ for whatever strikes my fancy. We’ll just see how close my fancy is to the buying/reading public.

Designing the Logo

When I had the four-genre thing going, I imagined I’d tie each genre with a color. Thus, I’d have a logo that represented that. It was a colorful logo, too. Much like the existing one, but with each ‘square’ a different color. Again, I got the opinion of trusted folks, including friends who are graphic designers. They liked it, but thought it looked like the logo of a kid’s book. Oops. Not the vibe I was going for.

So, I developed the logo you see now. It’s clean, two-colored, and relatively simple. Plus it has the benefit of fitting into the little squares on Facebook and Twitter. And, in the future, it’ll fit nicely on the spines of printed books.

Where Does the Road Lead Next?

I am busily working on the text of Book #1 and cleaning it up. I have a graphic designer who is creating my first book cover. If the stars align correctly, this first novella will be released next month. It’ll be electronic first with a print run coming later in the year. I’ll be using all available sources: Amazon, Kobo, Nook, iBooks, and CreateSpace.

From there, I have six other completed manuscripts. I’m writing a new one these first two months of 2015. I plan on maintaining a consistent output in the coming months and years.

It’s amazing just how much goes into getting a new company off the ground. It’s a challenge. It’s a ton of work. It’s a little scary. But most of all, it’s fun. So far, I’m enjoying every minute of it.

I will certainly make mistakes and they’ll all be in the public eye. C’est la vie. That’s the risk I take by doing this. But that means I’ll get the rewards, too.

It’s an exciting time here at the offices of Quadrant Fiction Studio. If you've got a moment today, head on over to the landing page and let me know what you think. Comments are welcome, good ones as well as constructive ones. It’s the only way I’ll learn what I’m doing right and what I can improve on.

I’ll leave you with the question that might end up being my theme: What Quadrant Are You?

(originally published at Do Some Damage, 31 January 2015)