Northcoast Shakedown: Why Bring It Back?

Posted by eviljwinter on January 24, 2012
Posted in: Ebooks. Tagged: . 1 comment

BERJAYAI’ve been asked over the years if I’d ever bring Northcoast Shakedown back. The questions became more frequent when Kindle took off, and self-publishing lost most of its original stigma.

It took me a while to come to the decision. Part of it was I had no idea if this ebook thing would take off. Another part would be sales. The numbers for Road Rules and “A Walk in the Rain” aren’t exactly burning up the charts. But then ebooks require no cash up front to publish, and they have forever to find their audience. For that, I have nothing to lose.

But there’s more to it than that.

Northcoast very likely would have ended up at a major New York press if I had waited two weeks before signing my contract with a small press east of Baltimore. As it was, I was shocked someone wanted to take a chance on the story, so I signed. Too bad. I was faced with the prospect of having to create a new novel for an agent while fulfilling the contract I’d signed. In short, impatience and naivete got the better of me.

I was stoked. I’d published a novel. I had a second one in the can and in the process of editing. I had a draft of a third novel. Finish this contract, and I could probably move up the ladder to the next step.

Then the bottom dropped out. The publisher went out of business, and like a lot of small presses that fail, there was a lot of denial about the situation. I got my rights back but…

What?

Given the state of publishing then (2006), I couldn’t just turn around and resell the books to another publisher. And I had trouble finding the magic I found with the first three Kepler novels. A story called Devil’s Dance had a more unlikeable protag. Road Rules started making rounds about the time publishing started to get skittish about new authors. And several new projects fizzled on the pad.

Then I started on Holland Bay, what I called my “magnum opus.” That’s a book that’s going to take a long, long time to get right. I’m stoked when I work on that project, but it’s so big that I need time to make it work properly. The writing career that seemed so promising at the middle of the decade suddenly seemed like a waste of time.

About the time I moved in with Nita, I found the box of copies the publisher sent me as a “peace offering.” (I’d told him to destroy them.) I was so disgusted with the experience that I dumped them in the bins out back and sent them off to Mt. Rumpke. A couple months later, I blogged a request that anyone who owned a copy destroy it.

I might have been a tad bitter. Just a tad.

Then I put out Road Rules as an ebook. The six people who’ve read it generally liked it. So why not Northcoast? It’s edited. It’s already out of print. Redoing it as an ebook cost me nothing. I asked Erin O’Brien to get me some photos of the Cleveland skyline for the cover, and it’s her photo that provides the basis for Northcoast‘s new cover.

I plan to bring out the follow up, Second Hand Goods this spring. I also will write a new third Kepler novel, one that more logically follows on the consequences of the second book. But will I try print again?

I think it’s stupid not to try print. This term “legacy publishing” is really shit. I don’t have time for the rantings of some failed midlist writer who’s now complaining no one wants to buy his books anymore. (Really, dude? Try writing better books and telling us why we should read them. Thumbing your nose at New York isn’t a sellling point.) Yes, the ground is shifting beneath our feet in publishing. But last I checked, the only ones saying print is dead are those trying to hawk ebooks. And many of them are selling fewer copies than I am. I’m all for going indie now that it’s feasible. I’m doing it. But not going traditional? Why would you narrow your options?

It’s not either/or. Either/or is suicide. But Kepler will remain an independent endeavor. It’s wholly mine, and I want to control it end to end.

Three Awesome Writers

Posted by eviljwinter on January 23, 2012
Posted in: Ebooks, That's Pretty Cool, Writing. Tagged: , , . 3 comments

I have to give a shoutout to three guys who’ve shown me the love over the last decade. Oh, there’s more. There are even names I can drop. But these three have been going above and beyond for Northcoast and Road Rules lately, and I need to give them their props.

First up is Gerald So. I’ve known Gerald since about 2002 or so, when he first took over for Victoria Esposito-Shea as fiction editor of Thrilling Detective. Gerald and I became good friends over the years, kvetching about various foibles in the writing community, bouncing ideas off each other, and even critiquing each other’s work. Gerald’s moved on to doing a poetry site and put out the poetry mag The Lineup with various other editors for a few years. Gerald often retweets some of my inane promotional tweets for Northcoast. I can’t thank him enough.

I also can’t thank this guy enough. Anthony Neil Smith published my first short story in 2001, “A Walk in the Rain,” in one of the early editions of Plots With Guns. He punished one of the later drafts of Northcoast Shakedown before it landed in bookstores. Neil is a good bud and a terrific writer, and it was Neil who convinced me to try the 99 cent route with Road Rules. I try to promote anything of his that comes out (I read it first, but it’s always a good risk.) and have yet to be disappointed. Neil’s taken a little ownership of Northcoast as he gave me some of the most detailed notes on the early manuscripts. I never asked. He just does it.

Joining him is his former partner in crime at PWG, Victor Gischler. Vic writes some strange, strange shit, starting with his debut novel, Gun Monkeys, the finest novel involving exploding pastries ever written. Vic was among those who looked over my early work and passed judgment upon it. He also gave Road Rules a blurb and has been tirelessly pimping Northcoast.

There are more, of course. Early on, Les Roberts and Steve Hamilton took an interest. Ken Bruen was probably my first die-hard fan. Laura Lippman has provided me with several much-needed reality checks over the years.  JD Rhoades not only wrote the intro to Road Rules, but he even tried to get me in with his agent at one point. And I can’t forget Li’l Sis, whose help and support go back long before I started writing seriously.

Still, Gerald, Neil, and Vic have been getting the word out about Northcoast, and I wanted to recognize them for their help. Thanks, guys. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.

The 2012 Writing Routine

Posted by eviljwinter on January 20, 2012
Posted in: Writing. Leave a Comment

At the start of this year, I made the same writing goals most writers make. I planned for a certain number of projects and promised myself that I would write everyday. That means getting at least one novel in the can, do another draft of Holland Bay, submit one crime short story a month and at least one science fiction story every other month. I have to do all that while trying to finish one degree, starting another, working a day job, networking within my chosen career, and of course, doing life in general. Oh, and did I mention I’m taking up running in the spring?

I am nothing if not ambitious.

So I began the year with a routine:

Weekdays are for writing, revising, and submitting short stories. As it is, I’ve subbed two so far and am working on a third.  Weekends are for the novel projects. I just finished one outline, and will revise the outline to another project this weekend. The advantage is that I have more time on the weekends, so why not devote it to longer work? One of the frustrations I had with Holland Bay, and the reason you aren’t downloading it or buying it off the shelf, is time. I frequently tried to write the novel and do homework at the same time. One term, I had four classes. I ended up repeating one of those classes.

Evenings are usually best for short fic. At least with crime, I tend to write under 3000 words. It’s a little harder for science fiction, but to get a short out in a week, week and a half, that’s ideal. The prose is fast and has energy. That’s the way it should be.

Of course, my schedule changes as the year goes on. I’ll have to take two classes in the spring and again starting in the fall. We plan to take a couple of vacations. I may or may not go to Bouchercon this year. (I need to justify the expense, and I just can’t seem to do it anymore.) AJ graduates and will be in drum corps this year before heading to college. I might get sick. Nita might get sick. AJ might get sick. The dog might get sick. The system I work on at ye olde day jobbe might get sick. You never know. When that happens, I’ll have to be able to adapt on the fly.

But I am realistic. I don’t promise myself I’m going to turn out the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy during NaNoWriMo. Not happening. But I’m not going to let production slack off. I’m a writer. Writers write.

Thursday Reviews: Stardoc By SL Viehl, Dead Money By Ray Banks

Posted by eviljwinter on January 19, 2012
Posted in: Books, Ebooks. Tagged: , , , . Leave a Comment

BERJAYABERJAYA

STARDOC

SL Viehl

Cherijo Grey Veil leaves Earth behind for a job as a trauma doctor on distant Kevarzanga 2. Why? In short, her father’s an overbearing control freak. Not just a control freak, but one angora cat away from being a James Bond villain, at least in personality. So when Cherijo arrives aboard an off-record interstellar shuttle, she is accused of incompetence by her new boss without having met him before, and thrown into an understaffed, underequipped free clinic. In the meantime, her father “orders” her back to Earth, to which Cherijo has to remind him he can’t do to an adult. In the meantime, she manages to deliver the babies of a killer alien species, become engaged to a man from a warrior race, pick up a telepathic stalker, and detect and cure a bizarre plague. So she’s found her new home, right?

Well, this is Book 1 of Viehl’s Stardoc series, so no. Stardoc, without giving too much away, ends with the start of an interstellar war over Cherijo. Of course, it’s her father’s fault. Told you he was an ass.

BERJAYABERJAYA

DEAD MONEY

Ray Banks

This nasty piece of noir originally appeared a few years ago as The Big Blind by Blasted Heath‘s spiritual ancestor, Point Blank Press.  Ray Banks’ debut concerns Alan Slater, double glazing salesman and harmless douchebag. Really, his main sin is cheating on his wife with a college girl he met while pub crawling. His real problem is his best friend, Les Beale. Les is a hopeless drunk and gambler. Problems begin when Alan hits a dog on his way to see his girlfriend. The honest thing to do would be to tell the owner “Hey, your dog ran out in front of my car. Sorry, mate.” So naturally, Slater throws the dog in the drink and says nothing. Unfortunately, he’s dented the car, left his trunk stinking of dead dog, and kept a liquor store receipt from the wrong part of town. He’s able to blow all this off until Les calls him in the middle of the night. Seems a poker game did not go the way Les wanted, and now he has a corpse in his apartment.

Slater should have hung up the phone, but it’s only then he tries to do the decent thing and help Les out. Instead of making Les’s problem go away, it only draws Slater deeper into Les’s death spiral. He soon finds himself on the hook for a huge sum of money Les owes to a Pakistani gangster, and the gangster doesn’t care that Slater never consented to the deal. From there, Slater’s life (and stomach) disintegrate.

After eight years, the story still holds up well. There’s even an appearance by DS Donkin, the nemesis of Banks’s other creation, Cal Innes. Banks knows his stuff. And while the influence of Ken Bruen is evident in the storyline and the tone, Banks’s prose replaces Bruen’s Irish lyrical poetry with the harsh buzz saw of Manchester, England. Dark, unrelenting, and brutal, what Banks excels at.

A Quick Word About PIPA/SOPA

Posted by eviljwinter on January 18, 2012
Posted in: Politics. Tagged: , . Leave a Comment

It’s simple. The sledgehammer method combating piracy will not work. It stomps all over the First Amendment – and those first ten amendments have been used as toilet paper by the powers that be for a while now – and only serves to fuel the anger of an already righteously indignant citizenry even further.

Congress has, time and again, proven its inability to handle matters of technology. Witness the hearings into Microsoft’s practices in the late 1990′s, wherein Sun’s Scott McNealy told an ignorant subcommittee, “Why does it take thirty-two lines of code in Windows to sign your name?” Given how network authentication is done in most operating systems, including Sun’s, that’s actually pretty lean code. The Senator questioning McNealy did not know that, and even Bill Gates smirked when the Senator didn’t quite realize his leg had been seriously pulled.

Now these geniuses want to regulate the Internet.

No. The only possible outcome of PIPA/SOPA is the muffling of American citizens by corporate interests who will be given far too much power to quash whomever offends them in the name of “copyright infringement.” Copyright infringement is bad; suppression of free speech is treason. Do the math.

Tell your senators and representative to vote no on these ill-thought-out, poorly written bills. If they vote yes, let them know they need to update their resumes. Do not tolerate this attack on our rights.

Before We Get Too Far Into This Election Year…

Posted by eviljwinter on January 18, 2012
Posted in: Politics, WTF. Leave a Comment

It’s 2012. Which means we are in for about 10 months of the most obnoxious mud-slinging since… um… 2010. For the good of America, I am usurping authority to institute the following ban list for 2012. You are not allowed to use these terms for the rest of the year.

Presumptive nominee – Yes, I know. Mitt’s the only GOP candidate not in dire need of some sort of anti-psychotic medication, which pretty much makes him the safest bet to get the Republican nod this year. But until it’s glaringly obvious that the others have dropped out or have been mathematically eliminated from consideration, could we please stop using the term “presumptive nominee”? Four years ago, they had already been calling Hillary Clinton the presumptive nominee since 2004. How’d that work out for you? Yeah, that’s what I thought. Presumptive nominee means all the delegates are pledged, and all that remains is the dog-and-pony show we call the convention.

1% – If you make over $34,000 a year, you are the 1%. You have more money than 99% of the rest of the world. Oh, but you say, we’re speaking relatively. OK, let’s look at the 1% in America. Quite a few of you protesting are in that 1%. It’s not the 1% causing all the trouble. It’s a specific subset of them. Who are they? Bankers. Wall Street traders. Congressional lobbyists. The 1%? It’s less than the 1%. That’s the real crime.

Lies of the liberal media – Look, wingnuts, when your guy gets called out, it’s not a lie. It’s the truth. Sometimes, the truth hurts. Deal with it.

Obamacare – Let’s look at this one in the cold light of day, shall we? Last I checked, we don’t have a Canadian style healthcare system (and I’ve yet to meet a Canadian who thinks it’s horrible. I asked. Think of that next time you want to give me a lecture.) We have a law that says the insurance companies have to spend more time insuring you and less time denying you your insulin because the CEO needs to buy a new fur-lined sink.

Socialist/Fascist – I’ve yet to meet an American who actually knows the definition of “socialist.” Certainly no one in the Tea Party. Likewise, the term “fascist” to describe political opponents of either stripe needs to go into cold storage. Let us be honest in our descriptions of those whose political opinions juxtapose with their lack of any sort of social grace. Let us use the politically correct term “asshole.”

Politically challenged – If you have to refer to people who disagree with you as “politically challenged,” you’re an idiot. No exceptions. Knock it off.

Rethuglican – OK, seriously? To criticize a wingnut, you sound like a wingnut? It doesn’t make your point. It makes you sound like a moron. It’s like when wingnuts refer to CNN as the “Communist News Network.” All that tells me is you don’t have a leg to stand on, even if you do.

Basically, what I’m asking is to quit sounding like a dumbass when you talk politics. We generously spend our tax dollars to pay other people to do that.

Northcoast Shakedown: Who’d Work At TTG

Posted by eviljwinter on January 17, 2012
Posted in: Books, Ebooks. Tagged: . 1 comment

BERJAYA

It’s no secret that Nick Kepler’s former employer and biggest client, TTG Insurance, is loosely based on the former employer I discreetly call BigHugeCo. But just how closely is it based? One former coworker told me there was no way someone could make up all those characters without basing them on real people.

I had to explain that basing a character on a real person becomes limiting because you start trying to force fit the real person into the imaginary character. Counterintuitively, the character becomes less believable. But the company?

TTG is a property/casualty insurance company, the people who insure your car, your house, your business. Like BigHugeCo, they have a life insurance division. Because BigHugeCo was large enough at the time to have the most common lines of business in insurance, it allowed me to pattern TTG’s structure after theirs. They had a personal lines (Home and auto), competing commercial and specialty insurance (Trust me. I worked there 11 years and that one still confuses me.), and, of course, life insurance, which is a whole ‘nother animal.

But what was the working environment like? Physically, very similar. BigHugeCo’s campus, before a major move last year, was scattered over several buildings in downtown Cincinnati. Likewise, I picked several buildings to house TTG’s various and sundry division and corporate units. The building where Nick works really does house the regional office of another insurance company. I altered the street address slightly to avoid implying that Nick worked for Chicago Title & Insurance, but still imply that TTG actually occupied the building.

As for the people there…

Well… No. My coworkers at BigHugeCo were pretty normal folks. The closest we ever came to a Ken Giamatti (the Commercial Lines exec who gives Nick a hard time in Northcoast Shakedown) was a middle manager who had some… um… interesting photos on his hard drive. Stupid, but not earth-shattering or even enough to put him on unemployment. Some of the more unpleasant characters in the book would not have lasted very long at BigHugeCo. Screaming was not considered a viable management technique. When it is, even in this economy, one generally updates their resume when it is.

But the resemblance also ends when you go back to what I said about basing characters on real people. I really dislike roman a clefs since inevitably, the story gets stilted trying to make fictional characters bend to the author’s perception of their real world counterparts. It’s one thing to write historical fiction and speculate on how real people behaved and acted. It’s entirely different when you write a novel that is, by definition, supposed to be fiction. I used BigHugeCo’s structure to design a fictional company, but every company has its own personality. I had to let TTG’s corporate personality evolve on its own.

Amazon | Nook

The Big Switch

Posted by eviljwinter on January 16, 2012
Posted in: Administrivia, Technical Stuff. Leave a Comment

If you clicked on jamesrwinter.net and ended up here instead, that’s not a mistake. As you can see from the recent redesign of the blog, Edged in Blue now contains all the same information as the old web site. It’s just easier to update everything in one place.

Plus, if jamesrwinter.com/.net all point here, and jamesrwinter.net becomes the most common address I give out, I can eventually move the blog to a private host or even WordPress Pro without confusing the hell out of everyone if and when that happens.

Of course, that might mean a few changes to how I generate content, but those changes are probably long overdue anyway.

So if you clicked one site and got this one, you’re in the right place. Welcome to my new cyberpad.