Matthew Hughes's Blog: barbarians of the beyond - Posts Tagged "mystery"
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.
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.
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.
