Michael Haskins's Blog - Posts Tagged "writing"
New book release and other thing . . .
Last Friday NOBODY WINS was released and is now available as a trade paperback on Amazon and my website and as an eBook at the Kindle Store.
I ran into a lot of delays in writing this one. The trip to Ireland for research, helping put together the inaugural Mystery Writers Key West Fest and my job writing for the Key West Weekly.
Now I am working on an idea for my next Mick Murphy Key West Mystery and it’s going to involve a week-long road trip to the Florida Panhandle or Panama City (still deciding) and New Orleans.
I can begin writing the book soon, because the opening chapters happen in Key West and with a gruesome event that, I hope, will make all readers really hate the bad guy. Doing that from the beginning will be a new twist for me. I hope it works and doesn’t come back and bite me in the ass.
I don’t usually have another book in mind when I finish one. I get to work on a short story and it’s kind of a vacation of the mind. But this story came to me while riding and listening to ole Waylon Jennings on a CD. I can’t remember the name of the song, but it had something to do with getting out of Tulsa before sunset. Find the song, listen to it and you might have an idea of where the story plot is going. Timely and gruesome, trust me. Anyway, like I often do, I take the idea in the song and wonder “What would Murphy do?” By the time I’d returned home I had the story kind of worked out in my head and have kept adjusting it, even while still writing NOBODY WINS.
I had another surprise too. Maybe I just have too much time on my hands. I have the book following the next one kind of thought out too. I guess any short stories I had hoped to work on will have to wait. All I can tell you on the 2nd book is this time Mick has to come to the aid of his black-bag friend Norm. It’s usually Norm coming to save Mick’s butt.
Other than that, I am busying working on the 2nd annual Mystery Writers Key West Fest for June of 2015. Wanna help? What Florida writer would you like to see as our Saturday guest author and luncheon speaker and why. Would he/she be reason enough for you to come to Key
West for the event?
I am looking forward to hearing from the dedicated three readers following my posts on this one!
Oh yeah, if you buy NOBODY WINS, please write a review on its Amazon page, it really helps.
Thanks and remember, a book a day keeps the mind busy and you out of trouble . . . live vicariously through mysteries!
I ran into a lot of delays in writing this one. The trip to Ireland for research, helping put together the inaugural Mystery Writers Key West Fest and my job writing for the Key West Weekly.
Now I am working on an idea for my next Mick Murphy Key West Mystery and it’s going to involve a week-long road trip to the Florida Panhandle or Panama City (still deciding) and New Orleans.
I can begin writing the book soon, because the opening chapters happen in Key West and with a gruesome event that, I hope, will make all readers really hate the bad guy. Doing that from the beginning will be a new twist for me. I hope it works and doesn’t come back and bite me in the ass.
I don’t usually have another book in mind when I finish one. I get to work on a short story and it’s kind of a vacation of the mind. But this story came to me while riding and listening to ole Waylon Jennings on a CD. I can’t remember the name of the song, but it had something to do with getting out of Tulsa before sunset. Find the song, listen to it and you might have an idea of where the story plot is going. Timely and gruesome, trust me. Anyway, like I often do, I take the idea in the song and wonder “What would Murphy do?” By the time I’d returned home I had the story kind of worked out in my head and have kept adjusting it, even while still writing NOBODY WINS.
I had another surprise too. Maybe I just have too much time on my hands. I have the book following the next one kind of thought out too. I guess any short stories I had hoped to work on will have to wait. All I can tell you on the 2nd book is this time Mick has to come to the aid of his black-bag friend Norm. It’s usually Norm coming to save Mick’s butt.
Other than that, I am busying working on the 2nd annual Mystery Writers Key West Fest for June of 2015. Wanna help? What Florida writer would you like to see as our Saturday guest author and luncheon speaker and why. Would he/she be reason enough for you to come to Key
West for the event?
I am looking forward to hearing from the dedicated three readers following my posts on this one!
Oh yeah, if you buy NOBODY WINS, please write a review on its Amazon page, it really helps.
Thanks and remember, a book a day keeps the mind busy and you out of trouble . . . live vicariously through mysteries!
Why I do a book as well as an eBook
Today’s publish world is changing faster than I can swill a Guinness. I, like many others, have benefited from it. My last three books have been independently publish. Each has gone through the editing and cover design once offered by my traditional publisher. Two differences, I pay for the editing and cover design and like the result much better.
I have to do my own publicity, but then publishers have cut much of the PR budgets, so writers who are not on the NY Times bestseller list probably have to do that too, if they’re traditionally published. It’s time consuming until you get the routine down and then many of the markets still are hard to break into. That will change as more and more bestselling authors become independently published. The upside of going independent is the money. From Kindle I receive 70 percent and the Kindle website gives me daily sales numbers and a 30-day graph of how my sales are doing. Something the NY publishing world says they can’t do.
I still do offer my books on Amazon as POD trade paperbacks. The sales are not worth mentioning.
So why do it?
I have books to give family and friends, books to use for PR purposes and for signings. While some independent bookstores will agree to hold signings for non-traditionally published writers, here in Key West I hold my book release party for NOBODY WINS at the Smokin’ Tuna Saloon in Old Town.
I don’t have to give the saloon a 40-percent cut of the sales and that's a big thing. More money for me!
I will also be at the Kilkenny House Irish Pub in Cranford, NJ on the 20th of the month, around 5 pm, and Barry, the owner let me use his pub for a few chapters in NOBODY WINS. It’s an unofficial book signing, but I’ll have a few copies so stop by if you’re in the neighborhood.in my pocket. I will be having a book release party on Saturday, Sept. 13, 2-4 pm at the Smokin’ Tuna, so if you’re in Key West, please stop by.
We’re a small community and everyone knows everyone. In this case, I know the local Budweiser man and he has donated a keg of Mich Ultra. Buy a book and get a free draft of beer. I’m not sure if anyone will be keep track of who gets the drafts, so the curious may also get a free draft. The local rep for Pilar Rum has donated a few bottles and there will be specially priced Pilar Run drinks. All this makes the book release event more of a party, Key West style.
Other than book release parties, I don’t really sell many traditional books. You would think that the big publishers would take notice. More and more writers, like me, are having good sales on Kindle. Writers that the NY publishers weren’t interested in.
While I love books, to hold it while reading, to see its spine on my bookshelf, times are changing and when my kids inherit my book collection, they will probably be inheriting antiques. The same with newspapers. I want to hold it, smell the ink and hear the rustling of pages as I turn them. Not to mention that when I spill my café con leche on the newspaper it’s still readable. Not sure what a Kindle or tablet would do with my coffee soaking it.
I have to do my own publicity, but then publishers have cut much of the PR budgets, so writers who are not on the NY Times bestseller list probably have to do that too, if they’re traditionally published. It’s time consuming until you get the routine down and then many of the markets still are hard to break into. That will change as more and more bestselling authors become independently published. The upside of going independent is the money. From Kindle I receive 70 percent and the Kindle website gives me daily sales numbers and a 30-day graph of how my sales are doing. Something the NY publishing world says they can’t do.
I still do offer my books on Amazon as POD trade paperbacks. The sales are not worth mentioning.
So why do it?
I have books to give family and friends, books to use for PR purposes and for signings. While some independent bookstores will agree to hold signings for non-traditionally published writers, here in Key West I hold my book release party for NOBODY WINS at the Smokin’ Tuna Saloon in Old Town.
I don’t have to give the saloon a 40-percent cut of the sales and that's a big thing. More money for me!
I will also be at the Kilkenny House Irish Pub in Cranford, NJ on the 20th of the month, around 5 pm, and Barry, the owner let me use his pub for a few chapters in NOBODY WINS. It’s an unofficial book signing, but I’ll have a few copies so stop by if you’re in the neighborhood.in my pocket. I will be having a book release party on Saturday, Sept. 13, 2-4 pm at the Smokin’ Tuna, so if you’re in Key West, please stop by.
We’re a small community and everyone knows everyone. In this case, I know the local Budweiser man and he has donated a keg of Mich Ultra. Buy a book and get a free draft of beer. I’m not sure if anyone will be keep track of who gets the drafts, so the curious may also get a free draft. The local rep for Pilar Rum has donated a few bottles and there will be specially priced Pilar Run drinks. All this makes the book release event more of a party, Key West style.
Other than book release parties, I don’t really sell many traditional books. You would think that the big publishers would take notice. More and more writers, like me, are having good sales on Kindle. Writers that the NY publishers weren’t interested in.
While I love books, to hold it while reading, to see its spine on my bookshelf, times are changing and when my kids inherit my book collection, they will probably be inheriting antiques. The same with newspapers. I want to hold it, smell the ink and hear the rustling of pages as I turn them. Not to mention that when I spill my café con leche on the newspaper it’s still readable. Not sure what a Kindle or tablet would do with my coffee soaking it.
