Matthew Hughes's Blog: barbarians of the beyond - Posts Tagged "matt-hughes"
Downshift Excerpt
I’ve posted on my web site the first chapter of
Downshift
, my 1997 crime novel that was reissued in 2012 by Five Rivers Press in POD paperback and ebook editions.
First chapter of Old Growth
The first chapter of Old Growth, a mystery novel, is now available for a free read.
It’s the sequel to Downshift, my 1997 mystery, published originally by Doubleday Canada and rereleased last year by Five Rivers Publishing. Both novels follow the trials and tribulation of Sid Rafferty, who is kind of an alter ego of mine — a freelance speechwriter living on Vancouver Island in the 1990s, though he gets into more trouble than I usually did.
Official publication date is March 1, but the ebook version is already available on Amazon.
It’s the sequel to Downshift, my 1997 mystery, published originally by Doubleday Canada and rereleased last year by Five Rivers Publishing. Both novels follow the trials and tribulation of Sid Rafferty, who is kind of an alter ego of mine — a freelance speechwriter living on Vancouver Island in the 1990s, though he gets into more trouble than I usually did.
Official publication date is March 1, but the ebook version is already available on Amazon.
Interview about old Growth
Lorina Stephens, proprietor of Five Rivers Publishing, has posted an interview we did last month in preparation for the release of
Old Growth
. I get to put on my old crime writer's hat (imagine a vintage 1940s fedora) and talk a little about my checkered past.
Downshift, my second novel, now in ebook, POD, and audio
A few people know the story of my debut novel, Fools Errant, first sold to a Canadian publisher that was taken over and dissolved the week my book came out.
Now here’s the story of the second . . .
My work came to the attention of L.R. (Bunny) Wright, one of Canada’s top mystery writers, who introduced me to her editor at Doubleday Canada. She read Downshift, the first in a projected series about a freelance speechwriter on Vancouver Island (which was what I was) who gets involved in situations that require him to solve a mystery or die.
The editor loved the book and wanted to sign me but the marketing department wanted to go more “literary” and not sign another genre author. A five-month argument was finally won by my editor, who put the book into the process and asked me to write a second in the series. Which I started to do.
Then, three months before Downshift came out, my editor departed for another publisher– a nonfiction house, so she couldn’t take me with her. Immediately my print run was cut, my tiny promotional budget went to another book, and the marketing effort, except for library sales, was a few mouse-sized squeaks. Months later, when I asked if there were remaindered copies I could buy, I was told, “Nope, as the returns came in we sent them straight to the pulper.”
A couple of years ago, I gave the rights to Five Rivers Publishing, a Canadian no-advance small press producing ebooks and POD paperbacks, but sales were skimpy. They did want the sequel, though, so I finished Old Growth, the second in the series, that had been sitting about three-quarters done on my hard drive since 1997. It didn’t burn up the track, either.
So I’ve got the rights back and I’m self-publishing Downshift as a $3.99 ebook and a $12.99 POD paperback. It will be on my website bookstore, on Amazon and Kobo, and any downstream booksellers that connect to their distribution channels. Old Growth will follow in a little while.
By sheer coincidence, as I was preparing to put the books out, I was approached by Bob Gonzalez, an excellent voice artist who narrated an audio-book version of Downshift for Five Rivers, though the title was withdrawn when the audio-book producer messed up. So Downshift is now available wherever audio books are sold, and Bob is preparing to record Old Growth. It will follow along at about the same time as I bring out the ebooks and PODs.
Here’s the thing: I think Downshift is a pretty skookum little mystery. It got some good reviews when it came out. Old Growth is even better, because the character has matured between the books, which are set five or six years apart and because I’ve become a more skillful writer over the past twenty years. But, as my Tor editor, the late (and much missed) David G. Hartwell once told me, “Publishing is a hard, hard business.” Some good books don’t get the chance they deserve, just as some baby sea turtles never make it down the sand and into the surf.
The opening of Downshift is on the Excerpts section of my web page with a link to where to buy it. The first chapter of Old Growth is also there, but it only links to the Five Rivers paperback, which was kind of pricey. I hope you’ll give both books an opportunity to catch your interest.
Now here’s the story of the second . . .
My work came to the attention of L.R. (Bunny) Wright, one of Canada’s top mystery writers, who introduced me to her editor at Doubleday Canada. She read Downshift, the first in a projected series about a freelance speechwriter on Vancouver Island (which was what I was) who gets involved in situations that require him to solve a mystery or die.
The editor loved the book and wanted to sign me but the marketing department wanted to go more “literary” and not sign another genre author. A five-month argument was finally won by my editor, who put the book into the process and asked me to write a second in the series. Which I started to do.
Then, three months before Downshift came out, my editor departed for another publisher– a nonfiction house, so she couldn’t take me with her. Immediately my print run was cut, my tiny promotional budget went to another book, and the marketing effort, except for library sales, was a few mouse-sized squeaks. Months later, when I asked if there were remaindered copies I could buy, I was told, “Nope, as the returns came in we sent them straight to the pulper.”
A couple of years ago, I gave the rights to Five Rivers Publishing, a Canadian no-advance small press producing ebooks and POD paperbacks, but sales were skimpy. They did want the sequel, though, so I finished Old Growth, the second in the series, that had been sitting about three-quarters done on my hard drive since 1997. It didn’t burn up the track, either.
So I’ve got the rights back and I’m self-publishing Downshift as a $3.99 ebook and a $12.99 POD paperback. It will be on my website bookstore, on Amazon and Kobo, and any downstream booksellers that connect to their distribution channels. Old Growth will follow in a little while.
By sheer coincidence, as I was preparing to put the books out, I was approached by Bob Gonzalez, an excellent voice artist who narrated an audio-book version of Downshift for Five Rivers, though the title was withdrawn when the audio-book producer messed up. So Downshift is now available wherever audio books are sold, and Bob is preparing to record Old Growth. It will follow along at about the same time as I bring out the ebooks and PODs.
Here’s the thing: I think Downshift is a pretty skookum little mystery. It got some good reviews when it came out. Old Growth is even better, because the character has matured between the books, which are set five or six years apart and because I’ve become a more skillful writer over the past twenty years. But, as my Tor editor, the late (and much missed) David G. Hartwell once told me, “Publishing is a hard, hard business.” Some good books don’t get the chance they deserve, just as some baby sea turtles never make it down the sand and into the surf.
The opening of Downshift is on the Excerpts section of my web page with a link to where to buy it. The first chapter of Old Growth is also there, but it only links to the Five Rivers paperback, which was kind of pricey. I hope you’ll give both books an opportunity to catch your interest.
Lost a friend
Nothing to do with my fiction writing, but I want to mark the passing of my old boss, Len Marchand, who died today. He was a trail-blazer, the first "status Indian" elected to the Canadian House of Commons who became a cabinet minister in the Pierre Trudeau government and then a senator. I was his speechwriter from 1976 to 1978 and later helped him prepare his memoirs: Breaking Trail.
The son of illiterate parents, raised on a small reserve in the BC Interior, Len managed to go to high school when it was illegal for First Nations people to attend public schools. He earned a BSc from UBC and a Masters from the University of Idaho and would have gone for his PhD if his friends hadn't persuaded him to spend a couple of years in Ottawa as a minister's assistant. When he'd done that, they urged him to run as a sacrificial-lamb candidate against the most powerful Conservative MP in BC, just to be the first of his kind to run for Parliament.
But it was 1968, the year of Trudeaumania, and Len found himself the new Liberal MP for Kamloops. He never did get the PhD, but he broke trail for all the other aboriginal people who followed his lead into politics.
He was a brave and intelligent man and I am proud to have known him.
The son of illiterate parents, raised on a small reserve in the BC Interior, Len managed to go to high school when it was illegal for First Nations people to attend public schools. He earned a BSc from UBC and a Masters from the University of Idaho and would have gone for his PhD if his friends hadn't persuaded him to spend a couple of years in Ottawa as a minister's assistant. When he'd done that, they urged him to run as a sacrificial-lamb candidate against the most powerful Conservative MP in BC, just to be the first of his kind to run for Parliament.
But it was 1968, the year of Trudeaumania, and Len found himself the new Liberal MP for Kamloops. He never did get the PhD, but he broke trail for all the other aboriginal people who followed his lead into politics.
He was a brave and intelligent man and I am proud to have known him.
Sold a suspense novel
I've sold One More Kill, a suspense novel that grew out of a story of the same name that won me the Canadian equivalent of an Edgar Award (it's called the Arthur Ellis Award) years ago. It will come out in limited and hardcover trade editions from PS Publishing, my favorite small press. There will probably be a paperback at some point and maybe an audio version. There will definitely be an ebook, though it's not yet decided who will produce it.
In other news, I've just reviewed the copy edit for "Ten Half-Pennies," a short story that will introduce my new serial character, Baldemar the wizard's henchman, to readers of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Editor Charlie Finlay says it will run in the November/December or January/February edition.
Charlie also says that the last Raffalon story, "The Vindicator," will run before then, so look for that in the fall.
In other news, I've just reviewed the copy edit for "Ten Half-Pennies," a short story that will introduce my new serial character, Baldemar the wizard's henchman, to readers of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Editor Charlie Finlay says it will run in the November/December or January/February edition.
Charlie also says that the last Raffalon story, "The Vindicator," will run before then, so look for that in the fall.
Downshift -- free audio-book sample
For the past little while I’ve been working with a very talented voice artist named Bob Gonzalez who has been converting some of my novels into audio books through a packager named Listen2abook. He’s already done my somewhat-comic suspense novel, Downshift, and it’s available on Amazon and other platforms.
In the next couple of weeks, the audio-book sequel to Downshift, Old Growth, will be on sale. I’ve got the ebook and POD paperback editions of OG ready to go, and I’ll time them to coincide with the audio-book release.
Bob’s next project will be my sff short-story collection, Devil or Angel and Other Stories. More on that as time goes by.
But, just as I’ve put up text excerpts of my novels as free-read teasers, we’re going to do the same with audio samples of the Listen2abook editions.
So as of today a free-to-listen sample of Downshift is on my excerpts page. If you listen to it, you’ll get a sense of what it was like to be me as a scrabbling freelance writer on Vancouver Island in the late 1980s, with some adjustment for hyperbole – I didn’t have all that much to do with mafia-financed real estate developments.
In the next couple of weeks, the audio-book sequel to Downshift, Old Growth, will be on sale. I’ve got the ebook and POD paperback editions of OG ready to go, and I’ll time them to coincide with the audio-book release.
Bob’s next project will be my sff short-story collection, Devil or Angel and Other Stories. More on that as time goes by.
But, just as I’ve put up text excerpts of my novels as free-read teasers, we’re going to do the same with audio samples of the Listen2abook editions.
So as of today a free-to-listen sample of Downshift is on my excerpts page. If you listen to it, you’ll get a sense of what it was like to be me as a scrabbling freelance writer on Vancouver Island in the late 1980s, with some adjustment for hyperbole – I didn’t have all that much to do with mafia-financed real estate developments.
OLD GROWTH - a Sid Rafferty Mystery
Here’s one for those who like my crime-writing side, especially those who have enjoyed my semi-autobiographical mystery, Downshift: I’m self-publishing the sequel, Old Growth, in ebook formats and as a POD paperback. You can buy it from my webstore or through Amazon and other online vendors.
If you like brick-and-mortar bookstores (and who here doesn’t?), you can get your friendly neighborhood bookseller to order in a copy for you. There’s even an audio book version, narrated by the excellent Bob Gonzalez, who narrated the audio version of Downshift.
Old Growth is set on Vancouver Island during the mid-1990s, when dope-growing was a burgeoning new industry and environmental activists were swarming in from all over the world to protest logging of old-growth forests in the Carmanah Valley and Clayoquot Sound. It’s a little less autobiographical than Downshift, but it deals with events I was tangentially involved in as a freelance speechwriter working for forest companies and politicians.
Here’s the blurb:
Freelance speechwriter Sid Rafferty signs on to help a neophyte candidate run for election as an alderman in Cumberland, once a booming coal-mining town on Vancouver Island that's now shrunk down to an out-of-the-way little village. But first another writing job makes Sid a witness to a violent death the Mounties are calling murder, then a pair of marijuana-growing brothers want to know what he's doing poking around near their grow-op.
An old colleague from his newspaper offers Sid a job spying on environmental activists, but he finds working undercover is no picnic. And he's about to find out that in Cumby, old currents run as dark and deep as the abandoned mine shafts. Dig down too far and the past can reach up with a deadly grip.
You can read the first chapter here.
If you like brick-and-mortar bookstores (and who here doesn’t?), you can get your friendly neighborhood bookseller to order in a copy for you. There’s even an audio book version, narrated by the excellent Bob Gonzalez, who narrated the audio version of Downshift.
Old Growth is set on Vancouver Island during the mid-1990s, when dope-growing was a burgeoning new industry and environmental activists were swarming in from all over the world to protest logging of old-growth forests in the Carmanah Valley and Clayoquot Sound. It’s a little less autobiographical than Downshift, but it deals with events I was tangentially involved in as a freelance speechwriter working for forest companies and politicians.
Here’s the blurb:
Freelance speechwriter Sid Rafferty signs on to help a neophyte candidate run for election as an alderman in Cumberland, once a booming coal-mining town on Vancouver Island that's now shrunk down to an out-of-the-way little village. But first another writing job makes Sid a witness to a violent death the Mounties are calling murder, then a pair of marijuana-growing brothers want to know what he's doing poking around near their grow-op.
An old colleague from his newspaper offers Sid a job spying on environmental activists, but he finds working undercover is no picnic. And he's about to find out that in Cumby, old currents run as dark and deep as the abandoned mine shafts. Dig down too far and the past can reach up with a deadly grip.
You can read the first chapter here.
New Instafreebie giveaway
I'm starting another Instafreebie giveaway, this time giving away up to a thousand copies of my thriller, PAROXYSM. Here's the blurb:
Mad as Hell – and Loving It!
Ruthless mercenaries, hired by an ex-Pentagon chemical-weapons designer turned rogue, take over a small town in Oregon. The plan: use the citizenry as guinea pigs in a test-run of a bootlegged bio-agent for an Islamist terror organization.
But something goes wrong and the mercs and their clients find themselves surrounded by townsfolk who have turned into hyper-coordinated killing machines.
PAROXYSM is an action-packed tale about the seductive power of righteous violence, about how ordinary people can explode when fate gives them the power to hit back.
For a free ebook in epub, mobi, or pdf format, go here.
The catch: you'll be automatically signed up for my monthly newsletter, but you can always cancel and keep the book.
Mad as Hell – and Loving It!
Ruthless mercenaries, hired by an ex-Pentagon chemical-weapons designer turned rogue, take over a small town in Oregon. The plan: use the citizenry as guinea pigs in a test-run of a bootlegged bio-agent for an Islamist terror organization.
But something goes wrong and the mercs and their clients find themselves surrounded by townsfolk who have turned into hyper-coordinated killing machines.
PAROXYSM is an action-packed tale about the seductive power of righteous violence, about how ordinary people can explode when fate gives them the power to hit back.
For a free ebook in epub, mobi, or pdf format, go here.
The catch: you'll be automatically signed up for my monthly newsletter, but you can always cancel and keep the book.
One More Kill ready for pre-order
My suspense novel One More Kill, is now available for pre-order from PS Publishing as a £20 hardcover. There is also a signed, limited (100 copies) edition for £35. An ebook will follow in the next few weeks.
The novel is an extrapolation of a short story by the same title that won me the Arthur Ellis Award (the "Canadian Edgar) from the Crime Writers of Canada several years ago. At the beginning of next month, I will put up the original story as a free read for those on the mailing list for my monthly newsletter. If you're not on the list and would like to read it, you can sign up from my web page.
I don't usually blow my own horn, but I think the novel is some pretty spiffy storytelling.
The novel is an extrapolation of a short story by the same title that won me the Arthur Ellis Award (the "Canadian Edgar) from the Crime Writers of Canada several years ago. At the beginning of next month, I will put up the original story as a free read for those on the mailing list for my monthly newsletter. If you're not on the list and would like to read it, you can sign up from my web page.
I don't usually blow my own horn, but I think the novel is some pretty spiffy storytelling.
