New Book Published: THE LOVELY WICKED RAIN

It’s been far too long, but The Lovely Wicked Rainthe third in my Garrison Gage mystery series, is finally out in the world.  It was a lot of fun to spend a little time with Gage again, and I’m hoping my readers agree.  A little more information about the book is below.  These are standalone mysteries, so you don’t necessarily need to read the first two before reading this one, but they are books heavy on character, with an extended cast that return from book to book, so if you want to start from the first book, check out the Garrison Gage page on this site for more information.

 

The-Lovely-Wicked-Rain---Ebook-Cover-finalEbook:
Amazon | B&N |Kobo | iBooks

Paperback:
Amazon
 | B&N | Indiebound

(More links to retailers coming soon.)

Genre: Fiction | Mystery

A troubled young man.
A murder that shocks the town.
Buried secrets exposed to the world.

*****

They find him on the beach, shooting bullets into the sand. 

His name? Jeremiah Cooper, the son of the bullheaded high school football coach. Slight of build, soft of voice, he’s got all kinds of torment lurking behind his eyes. But despite Garrison Gage’s best efforts, he can’t pull the kid out of his shell. Then someone turns up dead at the local community college, and Jeremiah’s fragile world shatters.

Add a crisis in Gage’s good friend’s life, an ongoing feud with his adopted daughter about her life choices, and a hauntingly beautiful FBI agent with secrets of her own, and it’s a lot more drama than a half-retired private investigator with a bum knee wanted. Whatever happened to quiet rainy nights sipping bourbon, watching the sun sink beneath the waves on the Oregon coast, and trying to think of a ten-letter word that means grumpy and glad about it?

But before Gage can even write the word curmudgeon, he’s pulled deeper into Jeremiah’s world–a world of sex, secrets, and a sadistic evil that preys on human weakness.

Read the First Chapter Online.

The Garrison Gage Mysteries (in chronological order):

  • The Gray and Guilty Sea
  • A Desperate Place for Dying
  • The Lovely Wicked Rain 

All The Ways to Find Success as a Writer Start With Thinking for Yourself

Over at The Passive Voice, there’s a great post titled, “Indie Authors Quitting Their Day Jobs” that’s worth a read:

If you care to contribute such anecdotal evidence in comments to this post, please do.

If you think it’s your private business, don’t be offended. Just don’t post anything.

Feel free to post anonymously or under an online pen name if you like. If someone points out a trollish comment, PG will probably delete the comment when he gets around to it.

If you’re a writer, or simply a reader who’s interested in the many ways writers have found success outside of traditional publishing, read all the comments. Very inspiring stuff.

choiceAnd I want to add something here, something I’ve been wanting to get off my chest for a while. As you can see from the comments, there are lots of ways to skin this cat.  We’re four or five years into this “indie publishing revolution” now, depending on how you measure it, long enough that some of things that I advocated to writers a couple years ago, both at workshops and online, I wouldn’t advocate today. I know of writers who have done well since then, and others who are bitter that things didn’t go as well as they’d hoped — and some of these bitter folks direct their anger at the people who were trying to help them. Why? Because whatever technique or method or approach that was advocated didn’t work for them. Therefore all of that advice is suspect.

Oh really? It’s not weakness to change your mind; it means you’re adaptable, capable of changing your approach to fit the reality on the ground. And reality can change.  One of the greatest dangers when you teach others, especially if you have a voice that leans toward the dogmatic (and sometimes you have to be dogmatic to break through people’s mental barriers), is that people will take what you say as gospel.  As rules to be followed to the letter, rather than suggestions to take into account.  As a formula to be copied, rather than a method to be studied to see if it might work for you.

Because here’s the only truth I know about this crazy business of stringing words together and selling them for money. All the ways to find success as a writer start with thinking for yourself.

There are people who have success in every genre—romance, fantasy, mystery, you name it. There are writers who are extremely prolific, following the “make a little on a lot” approach, the same approach that traditional publishing uses, and there are writers who make a lot on a little, using aggressive and frequent discounting and tested visibility techniques to boost their sales. To be dismissive of either approach is only an admission on your part that you are letting your biases get in the way of your learning.

DCF 1.0There are writers who publish only with Amazon, taking advantage of the promotional tools available to people who publish exclusively with them, and writers who think it’s better to cast a wider net, publishing everywhere and in every format.  There are writers who only work with traditional publishers, writers who are indie-only, and hybrid writers who do a little of both. There are writers who say never write to market, just write what’s in your heart and don’t chase trends.  And yet I just read about a guy who hit 1000 sales in one day by repeatedly targeting the market, specializing in 15-20K word serials; he does three, and if it takes off, he does more, and if not, he moves onto something else.

And it’s working for him, because he’s thinking for himself.

There are writers who hit a goldmine with one of their first books. There are writers who still scrape out a subsistence existence after a 100 titles— but would rather do that than even take on a part-time job. There are writers who bag groceries, bar tend, or other dead end gigs, to preserve their creative energy for what they love most, and other writers, like me, who made the decision to commit fully to two careers because I get tremendous value from both. That’s another thing I changed my mind on, by the way.  Because I had to change my goals to fit both my evolving needs and the circumstances of my life.

I’ve received a lot of great advice over the years.  Some I followed.  Much of it I thought about, then discarded—even if it came from people I admired.  I’m guessing that just about all the writers in that comment section at The Passive Voice have done the same.  They didn’t copy anyone. They didn’t blame anyone when things were going poorly any more than they would give someone else all the credit when things were going well.

This truth doesn’t just apply to writing, of course. It applies to achieving success in anything in life. Learn from everything and everyone—but in the end, think for yourself and find your own way.

The irony, of course, is that it is the only way.

Scott’s Surefire Formula for Achieving Artistic Commercial Success

Last year, Bookwhirl.com put out an infographic that’s been making the rounds again: Ways to Publish and Sell Your eBook.”  Or maybe it’s never stopped making the rounds.  Hard to say.  In any case, I saw it pop up on a couple of sites. What’s funny about this one is that it reads as if it were written by someone who learned English as a second language, and it’s festooned with errors (see the descriptions for #4 and #6).  The fact that it’s making the rounds again is indicative to me that people often post this sort of thing because it looks impressive when scanned, but they’re not really reading it carefully.  It’s just something to post so they “advertise and use social media” (#7) and “create platforms” (#8).

So I decided to create my own impressive-looking infographic: “Scott’s Totally Surefire Formula for Achieving Commercial Success! in any Artistic Endeavor.”  In one snazzy and appropriately colored infographic, it shares what I believe is the ultimate key to making money not only as a writer, but in any artistic pursuit.  Feel free to copy and paste it far and wide.  If you wouldn’t mind linking back to this post, it’s appreciated, but truly, my greatest reward will come from knowing that I have passed along my special secret to other up and coming writers.

swc-formula-for-success
(click for larger, even more awesome infographic)

Sure, it’s a joke (what, the exclamation point after SUCCESS! didn’t clue you in?), but here’s the thing.  It’s also true.  If we’re talking about writing, then creating something awesome involves not just writing a great book (which means learning the craft of storytelling), but it also means packaging it well — an engaging book description, a professional copy edit, a snappy cover.  The whole thing has to make potential readers sit up a little straighter in their chairs and say, “Wow, that looks awesome.”

It’s not enough to create something awesome, though.  You’ve also got to put it in front of people who can pay you money for it.  Yes, this means publishing it in as many formats (paperback, ebook, audio) and markets (Amazon, B&N, iTunes) as possible, but it also means experimenting with different types of book discovery tactics to get more eyeballs looking at your awesome thing (advertising, bundles, loss leaders).  And of course, following the arrows, you repeat this as often as possible (in other words, practice).

Beyond that?  Well, you can certainly get more specific in your advice, but truthfully, everything else that has any value in achieving commercial success in any art should fit into one of those two areas.

I mean, it has to be true, right?  There’s an infographic and everything.