Posted on 11/16/2017 11:20:18 PM PST by Jeff Chandler
Combine a hitman, a suspicious federal agent, a world-famous graphic novelist and a daredevil journalist and you get a Molotov cocktail of mishaps in Phoenix native and former truck driver Jeffrey Yochim’s pulp thriller. Collateral Crimes (West Wave Publishing, $14.99) chronicles the adventures of novelist and murder witness Jonathan Starker, who hitches a ride to a comic book convention and finds himself on the run from an ATF agent and a ruthless hitman. The story, a slow burner at the start but fast-paced enough to keep readers flipping pages – think murder, truck hijackings and pesky witnesses – grows more complex when a massive gun-laundering operation is thrown into the mix. There’s plenty of suspense to satisfy thriller enthusiasts, with some romance in between to keep the story spicy until the end.
Jeff, after 15 years at this game, here is what I’ve learned that is most helpful. Paradoxically, free content drives up paid book sales. Putting my books on Kindle free runs, giving them away a few days out of every 90 (that’s the max under the program) results in much higher paid sales. Just getting the exposure helps a ton. When you schedule a Kindle free run, use all channels of social media starting weeks in advance to increase awareness of the free offer. There are plenty of book lovers on Free Republic who will help bump any threads you post. Sorry for the thread hijack, but I had just gone over 3K reviews and felt like tooting my horn on a book thread. It was rude, but I knew it would help sustain your thread as well, at least, I thought it would.
Next tip: making long excerpts available on your website is also a no-lose proposition, and by long excerpts I mean like the first 1/4 of your book. If somebody takes the time to read the excerpt, they are hooked, and will purchase the book. If they don’t finish the long excerpt, they would not have been a happy book buyer.
I’m not sure how much it costs you to produce a book, but the rule of thumb is that your cost to produce a book should be no more than 25% of the listed retail cover price. If you are paying more than that, I might be able to help you figure out how to lower your cost.
The fastest-growing part of the industry is audiobooks, so put your book out for auditions via the Amazon ACX audible method ASAP. If you can, narrate it yourself, this will double your audiobook royalties, since you will capture both parts of the equation as rights holder and narrator. You can learn everything you need to know about producing professional level audiobooks at Amazon ACX and by watching tutorials on Youtube.
And get your next title out as soon as you can, each book helps the others. Anybody who enjoys one of them will buy the others. It’s a beautiful synergy.
They have changed over time. Many go downhill after they get whipsawed between 1. A contract that calls for a book a year and 2. Running out of fresh idea.
Off the top of my head, I’d say the first half dozen by the British suspense author Gerald Seymour. And even he has gone downhill under the pressure to produce books with or without new ideas.
Yes, I understand the importance of reaching critical mass in readership. I spent a long time learning the craft and producing the first novel. Now I'm 10,000 words into the sequel, but that should accelerate after the New Year as I won't have all my time tied up putting food on the table.
My goal is to make every book better than the last.
My favorite author was Michael Crichton. I read everything he published. Then he died.
My next favorite author was Vince Flynn. I read everything he published. Then he died.
My next favorite author was Elmore Leonard. I read everything he published. Then he died.
I no longer have a favorite author. It’s too dangerous.
At least Leonard died an old man. But the problem with Leonard is he spoils you for any other author.
Question: If you’re running free book promotions on KDP Select, how do you get away with offering large excerpts? I thought KDP had a rule against that.
John D. MacDonald, author of the Travis Mcgee series and about 50 other books, had been trying to gain traction as a pulp fiction writer in the 1950s. He waited until he had the first three Travis McGee books ready before releasing the first, so that he could roll them out about six months apart in order to build a snowball effect. I think that was a great plan, but these novels were only about 200 pages. But for sure, new titles help keep momentum going. OTOH, if you force them and sacrifice quality, you risk disappointing your readers.
There is no accounting for taste when it comes to writing styles. I never cared for Elmore Leonard’s clippy all-dialogue method. When it works, it’s great, but it can get tedious.
I would strongly recommend reading some early Gerald Seymour: Harry’s Game, Archangel, The Contract. His later work is uneven, this happens with “book a year” contracts.
I never thought of Leonard’s writing as “clippy,” although it certainly is dialog-heavy. I try to emulate that part of his style, which works for me since dialog is my forte.
What I like about Leonard’s writing is how I immediately become immersed in the story. His sparse description and masterful use of indirect speech creates an intimacy with the reader, even in the third person.
Another aspect of Leonard’s writing which I have learned is to make the antagonists complex. I have had readers tell me how attached they became to the bad guy in Collateral Crimes. And I’m glad about that because I never set out to make him as mean as I did. It’s just that the story demanded it.
I’m not concerned about contracts. My goal is to write each story better than the last, and I have built into Collateral Crimes enough continuing character arcs, interesting back stories, and sequel possibilities to keep me busy the rest of my life.
After looking up “clippy”, I take that back. Elmore Leonard, who learned from the works of Hemingway, did indeed write in a style that some people call clippy.
I’m not knocking his style at all, obviously he has millions of diehard fans. My point is that there is a wide range of techniques, and fans (and critics) of each one.
One thing I found helpful before my first novel was to get paperback copies of a few of my favorite novels by a variety of authors. Then I used different colored markers to mark them up in the margins, bracketing dialogue, narrative, POV shifts etc. Then, by flipping through the marked up books, I could get a feel for the different technical styles. Once this was done, I found a solid mid-range that would not put me too far out in any direction, but in a sweet-spot where most successful novelists find their voice.
On average, a couple pages of narrative at most, and a bit more dialogue. Dialogue is easiest to write, it writes itself, so I don’t limit how long it goes if it’s effective.
In my multi POV novels, I only have one voice per scene, with a clear shift in POV indicated by a triple line break. Even in my 500+ page novels (250K words) I only have 6 or 7 POV characters. If there are two or more POV characters in a scene, I never jump between POVs rapidly. They can share, but the shifts in POV must be very clear.
I agree with all of this. Also, in the paperback if the POV shift occurs at a page break, I add three asterisks to make sure it is clear.
I am meticulous about each character only having knowledge particular to that character. If the POV is that of character A and character A does not know character B, I do not refer to character B by name, etc.
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