Blatant Self Promotion — It Was A Dark And Stormy Book

Good To The Last Kiss is a tougher, darker book than I ever intended to write. Before putting what I'd learned in my own words I read all I could on the subject of serial killers, listened to tapes of interviews with those who had committed such horrific crimes and read medical and psychological research.

The time I spent immersed in this kind of insanity was one of the most depressing periods of my life.  What struck me was not only the deep pain and suffering such crimes caused the victims, but the collateral damage as well. Without being dismissive of the crime, how could we come close to understanding why someone would engage in such nightmarish behavior?  Having questions like that is one reason people write — to discover, to try to understand. Seek and maybe you’ll find. I wrote the book quite some time ago.  I sent the manuscript to legendary editor Ruth Cavin who, at the time was with St. Martin’s Press.  She had published the first four of my Shanahan series books and an out-of-series book called Eclipse of the Heart.

Ruth wrote back a scathing rejection. In short, she found it offensive.  On one hand I understood.  Even the group of readers whom I had asked to read and comment on my drafts before submitting them to an editor fell quiet. Most had nothing to say other than pointing out a typo or an inconsistency. Quiet, in this case, was not a ringing endorsement. On the other hand, I believed I had written something other than a potboiler with a serial killer at the heart of the suspense. I attempted to write an atypical book about serial killers, investigating the subject in some depth and putting these thoughts in a work of fiction, where plot is important, but where thoughtful story and in-depth characters preside.

My publisher, and more importantly, my highly respected editor went thumbs down as had most of my very bright friends. This is where a writer faces a moment of truth. Are we writers just fooling ourselves in cases like these? Should we put the manuscripts way back on the shelf  (there are two sitting back there now) and move on, or do we persist?

I dodged the question. Instead I wrote a fifth Shanahan and sent it off to Ruth. We corresponded several times. She loved the book, but there was a hitch in the approval process.  In the end, after saying it was the best in the series, she (St. Martins) declined. I’m not sure the rejection was related to the serial killer book she hated. I think it was the bookselling environment that emerged at the time. Many of the midlist writers, a description I flatter myself with, were being tossed aside as they are again, now.

Meanwhile, the fifth Shanahan, Nickel-Plated Soul was a hit — not a best seller, but a hit nonetheless — with my new publisher. It was as light and as fun-filled as Good To The Last Kiss was dark and depressing. I wrote more in the Shanahan series for Severn House, but also sent a couple of manuscripts not in the series, one of them Good To The Last Kiss, which I still considered my best book. I guessed they would choose the other, the one I thought more mainstream.  They didn’t, and Good To The Last Kiss was suddenly printed, bound and ready to be delivered. Then I waited.  And waited. I had come to expect that The New York Times would ignore my books.  But Kirkus, Publisher’s Weekly, Library Journal and Booklist usually came through.

Nothing.  Deathly quiet. I asked my publisher, Severn House, why all the usual reviewers were silent.  The publisher said, “Perhaps they are being kind to you.”

Oh.

After a while, Kirkus published a review.  Here is a snippet:

Tierney (Bullet Beach, 2011, etc.) serves up a dark, twisty little gem in which a pair of embittered detectives and a not-quite-dead victim combine irresistibly… Every year the genre has its Goliaths, bigger and better ballyhooed than this modest entry. Come Edgar time, however, Tierney's well-written, tidily plotted, character-driven David of a book deserves to be remembered. — Kirkus Reviews, August 1, 2011 (starred)

Needless to say, though I’ll say it anyway, I cherish those words.

I bring all this up now because I noticed the e-book version is available at an extremely low price, and I never really give up on anything I believe in. 

Blatant Self Promotion: Killing Frost Available Now, The Blue Dragon Tuesday

Book Notes — Blatant Self-Promotion: Is Indianapolis PI Deets Shanahan Back For His Last Case?

Killing Frost, Shanahan's Last Case

I would have preferred to wait a bit for the announcement.  However the publisher has the news out there already.  So I wanted blog readers and Facebook friends to know. A new book in the “Deets” Shanahan series will soon be available.  

This is the description of Killing Frost:

At seventy-two Deets Shanahan is still reeling from brain surgery. He is ready to “check out.”  But fate has other plans. As he waits for the arrival of a mysterious, unwanted, yet insistent new client, he spies a car pull in his driveway.  From his window, he sees a lady head toward his front door. This is the first time he sees her and the last time he sees her alive.

Her death leaves too many questions. What did she want with Shanahan? Why was she killed? And what can he, in his condition, do about it? Shanahan’s obsessive search for answers will uncover a disturbing trail of greed, lies, ambition, sibling rivalry and police corruption.

Twenty-five years ago Shanahan embarked on his first case. This case is likely his last, a touching story of age, infirmity — and love.

My first book in the series, Stone Veil, was welcomed by The New York Times saying the elderly detective made a “good first impression.” The Private Eye Writers of America agreed, nominating the book for that year’s Shamus Award in the “best first P.I. novel category. Killing Frost is the 11th in the Shanahan series, all of them set in my hometown, Indianapolis.

Over the years, the critics have been generous in their praise.

"Tierney's 'Deets' Shanahan series, Stone Veil, offers characters of depth and sensuality, and well-placed swipes of razor-sharp humor." — Publishers Weekly

"A series packed with new angles and delights." — Booklist

Severn House, which has published the last seven Shanahan books, has announced Killing Frost, in hardback, will be available in the U.K. on January 1 and in the U.S. on May 1. If you’d like to pre-order at Amazon, click here. For Barnes & Noble, click here.  I’m not sure when the other formats will be available. Reviews — the good ones, anyway — will be posted as they arrive. And I’m sure more blatant promotions will follow as the official release dates get closer.

Observations — E-Books, Self Publishing And A Semi-Blatant Self Promotion

It’s been a few months since I advertently plugged my own books.   I intend to do so, but I will be subtle about it — partially burying my shamelessness through the clever mention of other authors.

I am often inspired by the posts on the lively and informative blog Murderati.  Some of the more recent posts center on e-books — the good, the bad and the ugly aspects of their increasing dominance.  An article in the most recent Mystery Scene Magazine by writer/blogger Kevin Burton Smith (also master of The Thrilling Detective web site and blog) talks about living writers whose early works are being reissued in electronic formats. I would add that in some cases even new books are being released only in digital formats — increasingly so by traditional publishers as well.

Life Death & Fog Books

It makes sense in both cases.  Why would a business create an expensive product, one that requires considerable upfront expense and then, if it works, redo it in a format that demands much, much less expense?  A traditional publisher might do it that way if they have a brand name author with predictable sales.  But, for the most part, it seems backward.  It is much smarter when the book is a bit risky, it seems to me, to see if the story works before buying the paper, turning on expensive presses, setting  the distribution channels in motion and preparing for significant returns of unsold copies. If the e-book soars, the publisher can always release it as a trade paperback.  And from my conversations with book store owners, new and used, it’s the hardback that is dying.

This, I believe, is also the attraction of e-books when reissuing the works of popular authors, but whose work has, one never appeared in electronic format, and two, though vetted and extremely worthwhile, might not find room on store bookshelves reserved for the branded best sellers.  The new technology provides at least three electronic approaches for the author:  One is do it yourself.  This is what I did. I set up Life Death and Fog Books and released the early Shanahans (1990-1995) and one never-before-published novella.  And this is what others have done.  Two, do some of publishing work yourself and work with a group of award-winning writers who share your interests and vision to promote each other’s books.  Top Suspense Group is a fine example of a band of talented writers getting together to offer mutual support for the reissue of previous books and, in some cases, to promote new ones.  The third way is to connect with an innovative traditional publisher who is willing to bring these writers into the stable and make these ebooks available in the ebook format.  Mysterious Press, with Open Road Integrated Media, has pioneered this method and is reissuing the work of some highly praised mystery writers never before available for Nook or Kindle readers.

Top Suspense Group

As readers, we have always had access to the legends.  Hammett, Chandler, Stout, Christie, MacDonald and many of the others, are always in print or, at worst, they are periodically reissued in new covers.  It hasn’t always been possible to get the not-quite-yet legendary writers that way.  Some of our best, and still-living crime fiction authors — Gar Anthony Haywood, Janet Dawson, Ed Gorman, Jeremiah Healy to name a very few — provide great reads.  Fortunately, ebooks can make their early novels available again and damn near forever.

The advantage for readers in this process is that it affords us a way to combat the unrelenting onslaught of self-published dreck, which in no way suggests that all self-published books are in that category.  And there is some adventure in the random sampling of books by unknown authors.  There are, no doubt, some diamonds among the glass. I expect they will rise in their own way.  But, for all those who might berate traditional publishers, they do some things most readers appreciate. First, they filter out work that has always given “vanity” press a bad name.  Second, and most important, they EDIT.  If novel passes through the hands and eyes of professionals, it’s not as likely to be a sloppy book.  The books listed by the Top Suspense Group and Mysterious Press are not just two avenues for writers, they help narrow the field to a more manageable size from which the reader can select.

I strongly suspect that the smart, new writers, including those who wish to self-publish in some fashion, will approach the e-book market this way as well.  In addition to their likely comfort with the “new media” in terms of marketing, they will find ways to make sure there are not only means by which their work can be discovered, but also processes that will insure the product is a good one, at least qualitatively.

From Mysterious Press

Meanwhile, I don’t believe there is a single, right approach to meet the changing marketplace and the demands of a wide variety of readers.  Just as innovative publishers will find a way to deal with technology, so too will innovative libraries and bookstores.

On the other hand, as writers, there is a craving for more freedom, some of us anyway.  We can now write longer or shorter works instead of being coerced into writing books based on publisher-imposed guidelines.  And in fact, the idea of varying lengths of fiction and the application of appropriate, variable pricing can make this approach more appealing to the readers.  If I want a book to get me from O’Hare to LaGuardia, I might want a novella, not a short story and not a 500-page blockbuster that I would consider for Maui beach reading.  On the other hand, if I’m commuting from San Francisco to Palo Alto on the train, a short story is just fine for 99 cents.

Personally, I want to be on the bookshelves of libraries and bookstores and on the e-book bestseller list.  I also want to work with publishers who know the process and the marketplace to extend my reach.  AND I want to be able to strike out on my own to take the book from the first sentence to something I can hold in my hand.  This can be good news for the reader as well as publishers, bookstores and libraries who adjust to the changing times.  We all have more options.