Wrtiing the Private Eye

The Private Eye Novel has been a favorite of American reading audiences since back in the thirties. Its early popularity grew out of such characters as Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade, Ross Macdonald’s Lew Archer, and John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee. Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon has become an American fiction classic. There is no shortage of definitions for the detectives who populate these stories. Probably the most definitive is the one used by the Private Eye Writers of America in picking winners for its annual Shamus Awards.

They define a “private eye” as any mystery protagonist who is a professional investigator, but not a police officer or government agent.

I had no idea of creating a PI when I started writing about Greg McKenzie, a retired Air Force OSI agent, the protagonist of my first four mystery novels (plus a later fifth). In fact, I wasn’t even thinking series. The first book involved a hostage taking, and I wanted a character with investigative experience who would have all the tools he needed to compete with the bad guys and rescue his wife. While working on that story, I consulted with the Special Agent in Charge of the Office of Special Investigations at Arnold Air Force Base.

It wasn’t until the end of the second book that I realized Greg and his wife were perfectly suited to get into the private investigation business. The last three books have dealt with cases they took on with unexpected results. A few reviewers referred to the books as cozies, though I didn’t see them that way.

If you’ve never been in law enforcement, how do you learn the basics of writing about private investigators? It helps if you’ve been a newspaper reporter. They use some of the same techniques as detectives. Also you read a lot about PIs, both in fiction and fact. I have two books about private investigation written by two working pros I know personally.

I was surprised when I got a review of the third Greg McKenzie book that started out, “If you’re interested in seeing how a real private detective works try Chester Campbell’s Deadly Illusions.”

That was only topped by a review of the fourth book that began, "The Marathon Murders is a skillfully woven tale that shows detective fiction wannabes how it’s supposed to be done.”

Although I enjoyed penning the exploits of Greg and Jill McKenzie, I wanted to try my hand at a more gritty private eye story. So I conjured up Sidney Lanier (Sid) Chance, a Green Beret in Vietnam, a National Parks ranger for 19 years, and a small town police chief for another 10. He left the NPS after being shot and quit his police job over false accusations of bribery.

Sid is the protagonist in The Surest Poison and The Good, The Bad and The Murderous, the two books in the series. Apparently I succeeded in telling a more hard-boiled tale since one reviewer said I was channeling my love for the written word “into the kind of fiction writing that those with a penchant for Lawrence Block can enjoy.” If you don’t know Larry Block, he writes really hard-boiled stuff and is one of Mystery Writers of America’s Grand Masters.

So what’s the secret to writing believable private eyes? In my view it’s keeping your detective’s eyes and ears tuned to pick up any lead, whether it be a phone call, a scrap of paper found at a crime scene, a casual observation by a witness, and following it wherever the trail takes him. And you’d better obstruct the trail with plenty of boulders and booby traps.

The early PIs were strictly loners, but as the twentieth century wound down, it became popular to give private investigators sidekicks. Jasmine (Jaz) LeMieux fills the spot for Sid Chance, though she’s not like any sidekick I’ve encountered before. She’s rich, being majority owner and board chairman of a chain of truck stops, but followed a pretty weird path in getting there. After quitting college over a disagreement with her basketball coach, she served in the Air Force Security Police, was a professional boxer, and worked as a Metro Nashville policewoman.

Barbara Norville, in her book Writing the Modern Mystery, says “the primary attribute of the private eye is his unique sense of justice, and this is the theme of all private eye novels.” I agree, and it’s the raison d’etre for my PIs. As we learn about Sid Chance, “the possibility of taking a twisted situation and making things right was the lure that kept him in the business.”

Check out my books on the website HERE or on Amazon HERE.

Greg McKenzie Mysteries Boxed Set

Readers unfamiliar with the Greg McKenzie mystery series can get a jump start with the first four books now available for the Kindle in a boxed set. With ebooks, of course, it's a virtual box. The books—Secret of the Scroll, Designed to Kill, Deadly Illusions, and The Marathon Murders—are $2.99 each for the Kindle, but the four-book set is only $7.99, a one-third savings. You'll find it HERE.

The set follows the adventures of Greg and Jill McKenzie from their fateful trip to the Holy Land, through a trek about Perdido Key and the Gulf coast in search of a murderer, an agonizing venture around Nashville involving a missing client and an assassinated Washington bigwig, and a puzzling 90-year-old cold case that leads to more murders.

A retired Air Force Office of Special Investigations special agent in charge, Greg puts his experience to work in the first two books. By the end of book two, it is apparent that Jill possesses her own talents in the investigative field. After that, it's the adventures of a partnership known as McKenzie Investigations.

Those who finish the boxed set have more to read, namely book five with the title A Sporting Murder. This episode follows Greg and Jill on a tantalizing case that finds them narrowly escaping death in an explosion only to come face-to-face with an armed murderer on Christmas Day.

If you've finished the exploits of the McKenzies, you'll find more exciting reading in the two Sid Chance mysteries. And then there is the global sweep of action in the trilogy of Post Cold War political thrillers featuring former disgraced FBI Agent Burke Hill and a cast of unique characters that will transport you from one side of the world to the other.

You'll find them all HERE at my author page on Amazon.

You Can't Please Everybody

One of the advantages of doing a promotion with BookBub is the big boost in reader reviews that come after the promo. My first experience was with Designed to Kill, the second book in my Greg McKenzie Mysteries series. After it appeared for three days as a freebie for the Kindle, reviews tripled to 63. Happily they include 33 5-star and 17 4-star entries.

My second BookBub promo was for The Marathon Murders, book four in the series. It ran free for three days during the last week in October. In a little less than two weeks, reader reviews have climbed from 20 to 33. Again, favorable reviews predominate, with 20 5-stars and 9 4-stars. Checking through the list, though, I found an interesting phenomenon.

As you have probably noticed, Amazon includes a line at the bottom of each review that says "Was this review helpful to you?" It's followed by "yes" and "no" buttons. By far the majority of reviews have nothing checked in that department. Of the 4 and 5-star ratings, only a handful had anything checked, with one 5-star showing 9 of 10 people found it helpful and one 4-star showing 8 of 9 people found it helpful.

But for the 3-star ratings (2), one listed 35 of 39 people found it helpful and the other 13 of 16 the same. For the 2-star ratings (2), one listed 20 of 25 found it helpful, the other 18 of 25. It would appear that some people just look for low-ranking reviews as an excuse for not reading a book, regardless of the opinions of the vast majority. What I found really striking are the contrasts between reviews that run next to each other.

Here's the first 2-star review under the heading "mediocre":

"This started out well, but it went on too long. After a while, the author's style became annoying. I did finish it, but I won't pick this author again."

The review that followed is a 5-star under the heading "Great read!":

"Very well written story. Hard to put down. Excellent read. The story moved along at a fast pace that made it a pleasure to read."

Here's the other 2-star that appears in the midst of five 5-star reviews:

"Picked this up thinking it might be a good read and quality characters to follow in his other books. I'm an avid reader of suspense novels (military, police, espionage and so on)and enjoy repeat characters in an on-going series of novels. This book (and the characters) failed to deliver. Marginal at best. The writing style was amateurish compared to what I normally read. It's as if the book was written for high school students as reading material. The chapters were kept short. The story plodded along and never gained any traction. Basically a 'simple' book. Sorry, but I wont be spending any more time with Mr Campbell."

I find it quite interesting the way different people react to reading the same book. Just goes to prove the old saying that "you can't please everybody." But as long as I'm pleasing 29 out of 33 (almost 90 percent), I'm happiy.

Free Promo Does Well

That free promotion of Designed to Kill covered in my last post turned out well. It recorded more than 49,000 downloads, by far the best results of any such promotion over the last year. And while Designed to Kill hasn't set the world on fire as sales since the free deal went off, all of my other books have been doing well for the Kindle.

Secret of the Scroll (Greg McKenzie book 1) and Deadly Illusions (book 2) have been the best sellers. The other salutary effect of the promotion was a near doubling of reviews on Amazon for Designed. It now has 43 reviews, including 22 five-star and 12 four-star. So hopefully it will continue to do well in the days ahead.

I'm planning another freebie promotion in a few weeks and will announce the book shortly. Meanwhile, if you haven't read my new trilogy of post Cold War political thrillers, give 'em a try. The final book, Overture to Disaster, is a real tour de force, with parallel plot lines that take you around the world as one crisis after another piles up.

I've started work on the sixth Greg McKenzie mystery and hope to have it finished in the next few months. That is, provided I don't pull any more tricks like the one I did last week in Dothan, AL. If you haven't seen my Facebook post, I banged my head on a tile floor on the way to a vacation in Florida, resulting in seven staples pulling my scalp back together. We cancelled the vacation and came back home. I had the staples taken out today. I don't advise trying this trick.

Check my website occasionally to see what I'm doing. Saturday I'll be in a booth at Gallatin, TN Main Street Festival. Just click here: ChesterDCampbell.com.

Greg McKenzie Book 2 Free Oct. 1-3

When I wrote the book that became my first published mystery, Secret of the Scroll, I had no idea of turning it into a series. But I fell in love with Greg and Jill McKenzie and decided they were too interesting to consign to the scrap heap of discarded fictional characters. I started looking around for a plot to get them involved in a good whodunit.

My brother had a condo on Perdido Key, Florida in those days, and my wife and I spent a couple of weeks there each spring and fall. It was an ideal place to do some writing. I decided to set the new book there. The most obvious sight in those days was a bevy of cranes lifting construction materials above the beach. It was boom days for high-rise condos.

Designed to Kill developed from that start. I looked back to characters from the first book for the basic setup. Greg and Jill McKenzie owned a condo in the same spot as the one Sarah and I stayed at on Perdido Key. The McKenzies' best friends, Sam and Wilma Gannon, had a son named Tim who was architect/engineer for a new high-rise designed after a Spanish castle. At a party marking completion of the project, a fifteenth floor balcony collapses, sending two people to their deaths.

When Tim's body is found the next morning at the Gulf Islands National Seashore not far away, the sheriff's sergeant who investigates calls it an obvious suicide. Sam Gannon disagrees and asks his retired Air Force investigator friend, Greg, to look into it. Greg, with Jill's help, finds lots of inconsistencies. When he's warned to butt out by a couple of Mafia enforcers, he knows it's time to solve a murder.

A cover blurb by New York Times bestselling author Phillip Margolin calls the book "A thoroughly enjoyable mystery with an intelligent plot, clever clues and characters who are like people you know."

It has a twist at the end and you probably won't guess the identity of the murderer.

YOU CAN DOWNLOAD DESIGNED TO KILL FREE FOR THE KINDLE ON MONDAY-WEDNESDAY (OCTOBER 1-3) AT The Kindle Store.

Secret of the Scroll Free for the Kindle

PLEASE NOTE: The promo I had set up to start August 29 disappeared and I re-set it to start August 30 for three days. Sorry about the confusion.

Secret of the Scroll is the book that started my publishing career. It first appeared in the fall of 2002. I wrote it following a trip to the Holy Land with my brother's Sunday School class. The idea for the plot came from reading an inflight magazine on the way back to the States from Amman, Jordan. The article told about archeological digs in the area of Bethany, Jordan, where John the Baptist had lived and preached. Some caves had been found with evidence that Christian monks had occupied them in the first century.

Using the old mystery writer's "what if" query, I thought what if a an ancient scroll were found in a cave there? I did a lot of reading and thinking about what the document could tell that would make it quite valuable. I came up with the ten golden lampstands from Solomon's Temple. According to the Book of Jeremiah, they were among the gold and silver objects carted off to Babylon when King Nebuchadnezzar ravaged Jerusalem in 587 B.C. The ancient parchment told where the candlesticks, now known as the menorah, sacred symbol of the current Jewish state, were buried back in Jerusalem about the time the Romans destroyed the city in 70 A.D.

Secret of the Scroll is still available in paperback, but it is also available as an ebook for the Kindle. From today, Wednesday, August 29, through Thursday, August 31, you can download the book FREE at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00124KDQY.

The Plot's Boiling for Greg McKenzie

One question readers are forever asking is where do your ideas for books come from? I've tackled it a few times in blogs, where I discussed various novels from the past. But I thought I'd bring the subject up to date with a look at where my newest creation is coming from.

I've spent the past couple of months working on revisions of the first two manuscripts I turned out back in the early nineties with the intent of publishing them as ebooks if nothing else. Now it's time to get back to my bread-and-butter series starring that indefatigable former Air Force OSI agent, Greg McKenzie. I decided to hit a couple of new points about his background that hadn't been explored before.

We learned in earlier books that both of Greg's parents (his father was a native Scot, that's the McKenzie tartan at left) died in an airplane accident on the way to his graduation from the University of Michigan. After that he worked a few years as a deputy sheriff in St Louis County, Missouri. His uncle was Chef of Deputies. In the novel whose plot is currently stewing about in the soupy gray part of my brain, we meet the son of Greg's first cousin, a young man who lost a foot in Iraq and is at loose ends after coming out of rehab.

With all his wanderings about the world during and after his Air Force career, Greg had little contact with his uncle and cousins in St. Louis. Then the young man turns up in Nashville, charged with murder. As Greg frets over what to do, the case summons long-repressed memories of events from years ago. What happens and how it will turn out is your guess as much as mine. That's about all the background I need to get the old fingers tapping and see where the characters take the story.

A couple of other points I see through the fictional fog: a small cadre of militia characters and an involvement in drugs. That's all I can tell you for now. But keep watching these pages (bloggarly speaking) and I'll give some commentary as the project progresses.

Meanwhile, if you haven't read any of the books draped down the right side of the page, click on a cover to get more information, like plots, reviews, opening chapters, where to buy paperback or ebook. Enjoy!

How it all started in the Holy Land

About this time eleven years ago, I was in the midst of a trek through the Holy Land with about twenty people from my brother's Sunday School class at Brentwood (TN) United Methodist Church. What came out of the trip was the idea for a mystery plot that became the first book in my Greg McKenzie mystery series, Secret of the Scroll. Interestingly, Secret still sells well when I do a signing with all of my books available. Many Readers like to start a series with the first book.

Though the present does not seem like an auspicious time for Americans to travel in the Middle East, I would wager that a trip similar to the one our group took would enjoy pretty much the same reception we received then. Radical Muslims might cheerfully spit at us, but ordinary Jordanians and Palestinians would likely accept our devalued dollars just as eagerly as before.

The travel agent who set up our trip, and traveled with us, was a sharp guy who knew how to play the odds. He booked us through a tour company run by two Palestinian brothers (who, incidentally, attended the University of Tennessee). He said we wouldn’t have any trouble in the Palestinian territories as they knew the bus was owned by Arabs.

Traveling by Royal Jordanian Airlines, we flew into Amman and spent a day cruising by bus through the mostly desolate Jordanian desert to visit two interesting sites. We stood on Mount Nebo where Moses gazed across the Jordan River before his death. Then we toured the ancient city of Petra, made famous by one of its striking building fronts carved out of rose sandstone being used in the climax of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Our first taste of the dichotomy between Israel and its neighbors came as we approached the Allenby Bridge over the Jordan River. It’s called the King Hussein bridge on the east side. We had to leave the Jordanian bus and board an Israeli bus for the crossing.

Jericho provided our first look at the Promised Land, just as had been the case with Joshua in the Bible. Billed as the world’s oldest and lowest city (820 feet below sea level), its ancient tel, or archeological site, has been peeled back to reveal 26 layers of civilization dating back to 8000 B.C. Heading on to the Holy City, we checked into our hotel in East Jerusalem, the Arab district, which the Palestinians want to include in their new state..

For the next few days, we shuttled around various Jerusalem sites, plus Bethlehem, the Dead Sea Scroll caves at Qumran, the Dead Sea shoreline, and Masada. We were advised to steer clear of the West Bank hotbeds of Hebron and Ramallah. We visited such fascinating spots as Hezekiah’s Tunnel, dug 1,500 feet through the rock from both ends at once in 700 B.C. We also toured the Shrine of the Book, which houses the Dead Sea Scrolls; Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum; the Temple Mount with its striking Dome of the Rock; the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, built on several levels over the years and occupied by a variety of religious groups.

One of the more interesting stops was an Arab market filled with small but colorful shops. We had to stop and try the Israeli’s favorite fast food, a falafel (spiced chickpea fritter) tucked into pita bread.

During the next week, we traveled north through Samaria, with a stop at Jacob’s Well, heading into the fertile Yizreel Valley. We visited Mount Meggido, called Armageddon in Revelations, and walked among the ruins, including a trip down 183 steps to see the historic water tunnel. Then it was on to the Sea of Galilee, where we stayed in Nazareth. We sailed on the sea in a fishing boat allegedly like the one Jesus rode in. They dipped in a net, but it came up empty.

We toured biblical sites around the Galilee, also known as Lake Kinneret, including the Mount of the Beatitudes, Capernaum, and churches dedicated to various incidents such as the multiplication of loaves and fishes. We visited the attractive Kibbutz Ein Gev and traveled up the steep slopes of the Golan Heights to an old artillery emplacement looking down over the kibbutz where Syrian gunners fired on the Israeli settlers.

Our tour began to wind down with a visit to Mount Carmel, where Elijah vanquished the priests of Baal. Then we headed for Israel’s third largest metropolitan area, Haifa. The hillside Baha’i Shrine and Gardens provided a striking panorama, as did a view of the Haifa port. Afterward, we headed south along the Mediterranean to the historic city of Caesarea, built by King Herod.

At the outdoor Roman Theater, our guide stood on the stage and showed how a normal voice could be heard all around the seating area. We also checked out the ruins of Herod’s hippodrome, which had seating for 20,000 people. Then we toured the remains of the king’s port, now part of the Crusader city. Just beyond this stood a Roman aqueduct built in the A.D. 100’s. It had steps leading up so we could walk along a section of the monstrous project.

After overnighting in a seaside hotel at Netanya, we headed into Tel Aviv, the country’s commercial center. Our final stop was the old port city of Jaffa on Tel Aviv’s south side. Old Jaffa had a special attraction for me, with its warren of stairstep streets through the reconstructed ruins of Turkish palaces, flanked by pastel colored artist’s studios, galleries, and outdoor cafes.

In fact, the experience led me to open the first chapter in Secret of the Scroll with an incident in Old Jaffa.

On our flight home from Amman, I read in the Royal Jordanian Airlines magazine about an archeological dig at Bethany in Jordan, the area where John the Baptist preached. It mentioned finding caves that had been occupied by monks in the early centuries. I thought what if someone found an ancient scroll in one of those caves. After I got home, the idea quickly developed into a plot. Happily, I had taken three hours of videos to refresh my memory.

I used much of my travel experience to tell the story, sending Greg and Jill McKenzie on an identical trip. Many of the locations appear just as they did to me. You can read the opening chapters at my Website. The above is a revised version of a story I told a year ago on the Mysterious Musings blog.

Making the news pays off

This article appeared in last week’s issue of the I-24 Examiner, a weekly tabloid newspaper in Cheatham County, Tennessee (the county seat is Ashland City):

Cheatham County
Public Library Hosts
Nashville Author
Chester Campbell
September 5

Years after a dangerous chemical is dumped behind a small plant outside Ashland City, its toxic effects ravage the small community below the hillside location. Placing the blame for what happens is the plot of The Surest Poison, a new mystery novel by Nashville author Chester Campbell.

The Cheatham County Public Library will host Campbell for a book signing on Saturday, September 5, from noon to 3 p.m.

The Surest Poison is the first book in the Sid Chance Mystery Series. Chance is a Nashville private investigator, formerly a Green Beret in Vietnam, a National Park ranger and a small town police chief. It was just voted best book and received the Falchion Award at the 2009 Killer Nashville Mystery Conference.

The state comes after the plant owner to pay the enormous cleanup cost, but the pollution occurred before he bought the property. Chance is hired to find who was responsible since the original company disappeared a dozen years ago. The guilty party doesn’t want to be found, however, and three murders occur, one of them an Ashland City man, as Chance pursues the investigation.

The book features many Ashland City locations. The main characters visit the newspaper office, and a news story leads to one of the main clues in solving the mystery.

The Surest Poison was published in April 2009 by Night Shadows Press. Campbell has also written four books in the Greg McKenzie Mystery Series, set mostly around Nashville. The books include The Marathon Murders, Deadly Illusions, Designed to Kill and Secret of the Scroll. They will also be available for purchase at the library signing.

Campbell is a former Nashville newspaper reporter, magazine editor, advertising and public relations writer. He retired as executive vice president of the Tennessee Association of Life Underwriters.

A portion of the day’s sales will be donated to the Friends of the Library. For further information, contact Library Director Brooke Mulligan.

End of story

The signing event turned out quite well. The newspaper story brought in several people, including one woman who had the clipping stuck in her pocket. The interesting part is that the newspaper printed the story word-for-word as I submitted it, right down to the headline (and the misspelling of the library director's name, which should have been Mullican). You may have heard this before and wondered, but here's living proof--small newspapers love to get ready-to-print copy. If you can write a decent news story, send it in. Note I began with the chemical pollution angle, a familiar subject these days.

If you're doing a small town signing, take advantage of the opportunity for a news story. It can pay off.

Tale of a Launch Party

Stealing ideas is what writers do best. You’ve heard the old adage, there are no new plots under the sun, only variations of ones that have been around since some cave dweller learned to draw pictures on the wall. Well, I pilfered an idea from old friend Marilyn Meredith, who recently wrote about launching a book at her church.

A week ago Sunday, I did my formal launch party for The Surest Poison at City Road Chapel United Methodist Church in Madison, TN. Formal sounds a little too . . . formal. I wore no top hat and tails, but I did have a party cake with the book cover screen-printed in icing. This was my step-granddaughter’s idea. She and her mother handled the catering.

The only problem with a fancy cake like that is nobody wanted to cut the cover. So we ate off both ends and wound up taking the cover part home intact. We got even, though, and took it back to our Sunday School class last Sunday. It is now no more.

A launch party is something I’ve only tried with the last two books. Neither has been a big sales event. I haven’t had much luck in getting media notice. The Nashville City Paper ran a nice review but never mentioned the party. The major daily remained totally silent. I did manage to get notices in some of the online event calendars, but the only people besides church members who showed up were two fellow Sisters in Crime.

We had a nice group of friends on hand and chatted about my books and writing. One happy buyer sat to the side and made a good start at reading the book while his wife conversed with some of the others.

We sold a decent number of books, more than enough to pay for the cake and punch and cookies. I’m following up with three consecutive Saturdays of Barnes & Noble signings, so hopefully it will all wind up as a successful extended launch.

Maybe I’m not thinking big enough. The new book I’ve started working on, a fifth Greg McKenzie mystery, involves pro basketball and hockey, NBA and NHL. I could do a book launch on the ice at the Sommet Center, invite thousands of fans who normally cheer the Predators. I dunno. Somehow I think that might cost a bit more than the cake.

P.S. My blog tour for The Surest Poison ends Friday at Julia Buckley’s Mysterious Musings. All those who have left comments during the tour will be eligible for a drawing for (1) an autographed copy of The Surest Poison, and (2) the Grand Prize of all five of my books, including four Greg McKenzie mysteries.

Win Books on The Surest Poison tour

I’ve been absent the past few days working on the dreaded Form 1040. I’m back now, and just in time for the launch of The Surest Poison. The official release date is this Friday, but it’s already available here. I’m doing a Blog Book Tour from April 15 to May 1, skipping Sundays. Like God, I rest on the Sabbath. Well, maybe an afternoon nap.

I’m giving away books in two drawings during the tour. If you make a comment on one (or all) of these blogs, you’ll get one chance for each comment you leave. The drawings will be held at the mid-point, April 23, and the last day, May 1. In the first drawing, two winners will get copies of The Surest Poison. The final dip into the hat will bring up another two winners, one for a copy of the new book and the grand prize of all five of my mysteries, which includes four Greg McKenzie books.

To pique your interest, here is the tour schedule with date, blog link, and subject:


Wednesday, April 15 – Book Roast – book excerpt
Thursday, April 16 – Joanna Campbell Slan – Coming Out with The Surest Poison
Friday, April 17 – The Stilleto Gang – The Surest Poison's Jaz LeMieux Talks
Saturday, April 18 – Bob Sanchez – Make the Setting Come Alive
Monday, April 20 – Murderati – Cultivate Your Writing Style
Tuesday, April 21 – Silver Rush Mysteries – Writing the Private Eye Novel
Wednesday, April 22 – Marilyn Meredith's Musings – A Look at Dialogue
Thursday, April 23 – Straight from Hel – Electronic Rights to Books
Friday, April 24 – There's a Dead Guy in the Living Room – Is It a Murder Mystery?
Saturday, April 25 – Writers Plot – Keep the Mystery Free of Sermons
Monday, April 27 – Murder by 4 – Using Subplots in Mysteries
Tuesday, April 28 – Poe's Deadly Daughters – An Interview with Chester Campbell
Wednesday, April 29 – Acme Authors – Miss Demeanor and Five Felons Poker Club
Thursday, April 30 – Write First, Clean Later – How Many POVs Do You Need?
Friday, May 1 – Mysterious Musings – An Interview with Sid Chance

Get ready to follow along and learn all about the book and its characters and my views on writing. But don’t wait to buy the book hoping you’ll win one. If you’re a winner and already have the book, let me know and I’ll substitute another (or you can give, your winner as a gift to a friend).

How do you start a book?

I’m in the process of working on the plot for my fifth Greg McKenzie mystery. So far it has been mostly ideas stirring around in my brain. That’s been going slowly, I suppose, since the brain deteriorates with age. Doesn’t it? To paraphrase an old folk song, "the old gray matter, she ain't what she used to be."

Oddly enough, the first idea out of the box did not deal with character or setting or plot action. Well, setting, in one of its narrow aspects. We're talking about time. The series has been moving at a leisurely pace through the calendar. Designed to Kill took place at the first of November, Deadly Illusions followed with the first blush of spring (does spring really blush?), and The Marathon Murders sweated out the steamy days of August. So, I reasoned, the next adventure should occur at Christmastime.

Wouldn’t you know, in Greg years, it’s still 2004. If I could do that, I wouldn’t be quite 80 yet.

Okay, back to the plot. As all my fans (both of them) know, I am a seat-of-the-pants plotter. I don’t outline the whole story in advance. I take a basic idea, brief my characters on it, and shove them out the door. Heck, why should I do all the work?

The problem is I have to come up with more characters than Greg and Jill McKenzie, my indefatigable pair of senior sleuths. That’s where the fun begins.

With a one-paragraph plot summary on paper, I quickly came up with job descriptions for four possible bad guys. And just as quickly I spotted the one who really “did it.” I started out by giving him an age, then began to delve into his background. What about his early life would make him an interesting character? How did he become what he is today?

Okay, this is a mystery, and I’m not giving you any clues. I did a lot of Googling and bounced around the Internet quite a bit to track him down. I even used one site to pick his name. Hmmm, come to think of it, when I first began searching stuff online, Yahoo was the big thing. But you don’t hear of people Yahooing. They’ve been sort of left in the dust, haven’t they?

The subject of the plot is not one in which I’m particularly well versed, so I also searched about for some basic information on the business. I’ll give you a little hint there. It concerns professional sports. I decided my best bet to start my research in that field would be with a TV sportscaster. Interviewing one of the local guys will be my next step in the process.

I haven’t decided how Christmas will fit into the plot, but I’m sure Greg and Jill will be able to handle that. They’ve carried the day through four books so far. I have unlimited faith in them.

Sometimes I start a book before I’m ready with a full-blown plot by sitting at the computer and writing a first page. It may not be the same first page I end up with, but it gets the window open and the curtains blowing. I’m close to that point now. I’d better wrap this up and get me a cup of hot coffee. I think I here the Muse plodding up the stairs.

With book sales slowing, look for new outlets

There’s been quite a bit of talk lately in the newspapers, on TV, and across the web about the deteriorating state of the publishing industry. Publishers are cutting staffs and accepting fewer manuscripts, booksellers are selling less, many are folding their tents. A Waldenbooks in the mall where I walk is closing in a week or two.

Sounds bleak for writers, doesn’t it? But there are still lots of mystery fans out there, buying books and reading them. And one area that continues to buck the trend is the ebook market.

I now have all four of my Greg McKenzie mysteries in the Kindle Store, where they can be downloaded for reading with Amazon.com’s Kindle device. I haven’t done any promotion yet to encourage purchases, but I sold 30 books last year.

I priced the Kindle versions at $8.94. Amazon sells them for $7.15. I get $3.13 per sale. I’m obviously not getting rich with it, but the $93.90 I made last year buys a lot of postage stamps.

I don’t have my mysteries with any of the ebook publishers, but I am looking into that as another alternative. I’ve heard Fictionwise is one of the top ebook publishers, but they want you to have at least ten titles before they will take you on.

Meanwhile, I’m looking to ways to promote sales of the Kindle version. If you have come across any good schemes to do the job, I’d like to hear from you. I’ll pass along via these pages whatever I find.

These days an author must use every available resource to get his or her book out there. If you own the ebook rights, exploit them.