Now Available: Treason at Hanford: A Harry Truman Mystery

by
Scott D. Parker

Well, this is fun.

After a long gestation period, one of my favorite books has now been published.

What’s It About?

Here’s the short elevator pitch:

During an investigation to ferret out corruption on the home front in World War II, Senator Harry Truman not only finds himself embroiled in the top-secret world of the Manhattan Project, but must also confront the worst act of treason in American history since Benedict Arnold.

Here’s the longer book description:

As a U.S. Senator, Harry Truman led a congressional committee dedicated to ferreting out corruption during World War II with a simple credo: help the country win the war and bring our soldiers home.

In the spring of 1944, Truman receives a series of ominous letters from a lawyer out in Hanford, Washington. His client, a farmer who lost his land when the government confiscated it for a secret project, has been silenced and drafted into the Army.

Truman personally leads this investigation, bringing along former policeman Carl Hancock. Soon after they start looking into things, Truman and Hancock witness a pair of brutally murdered corpses, a town clouded in secrecy, and more than one person who’d prefer to be done with the pesky senator.

But the investigators are tenacious, and in no time, Truman and Hancock not only find themselves embroiled in the top-secret world of the Manhattan Project but also must confront the worst act of treason in American history since Benedict Arnold.
 

Where Can You Find It?

It is currently available as a ebook in all major online stores. For those of y’all who prefer paperbacks, those will be available soon.

 

Read an Excerpt

Monday
April 17, 1944
4:13 p.m., Pacific War Time

McLeod led Truman and Hancock out into the parking lot after the two travelers had refreshed themselves. As McLeod was getting his keys from his pocket, Truman said, “This is your car?”

“Yes, it is,” McLeod said, a hint of pride in his voice as he admired how the sun shone off the chrome grill and the midnight blue paint. “It’s a 1941 Lincoln Continental, the last major line produced before the war started.” He ran a hand along the roof on the driver’s side. “This baby really purrs, too. Smoothest riding car I’ve ever known.”

He opened the back door behind the driver’s seat and placed both suitcases on the seat. He leaned in and unlocked both passenger doors. The other two men climbed in, Truman in the front. McLeod slid behind the steering wheel and started the engine.

He paused with both hands on the wheel and looked over at Truman. “I deeply appreciate you both coming out here. I know you don’t know me from Adam and I’m not even a constituent. But it’s reached the point where I don’t trust anyone official over in Richland.”

“Well you can trust us,” Truman said, his finger idly tracing the curve of his hat, now on his lap. “Your letters, taken as a whole, amount to something we’ve not encountered. Usually, we get the company cheating the government and hampering the war effort with cheap products. Yours was, well, unnerving.” He glanced back at Hancock. “Carl?”

“It’s certainly unusual, I’ll give you that,” Hancock said. “But I’d like to hear some more details, if you don’t mind.”

“We have the time,” McLeod said, putting the car in gear and backing out of the parking space. “We have a little drive back up to Richland.”

Hancock said, “That reminds me. Why’d you have us meet you here in Oregon? Ain’t there a train station in Richland or some other town near there?”

McLeod looked at him in the rearview mirror. “I think I’m being watched. Those two hoods convinced me of that. I wanted to get out of the spotlight and meet somewhere where no one knows who I am.”

“You give your name to anyone here?” Hancock asked.

“No.” McLeod thought. “Yes, to the ticket man. I introduced myself and asked whether or not your train would be on time. Why, was that wrong?”

“Not necessarily, no, but it might’ve been better if you hadn’t.”

McLeod frowned. “But we’re more than an hour away from Richland. Why would it matter if I gave my name down here? Besides, I live in Seattle so Richland’s not even my hometown.”

“But you’ve been in Richland for a few weeks working for your client.” Truman said, seeing where Hancock was going. “You’re probably known around town, too. You aren’t just some worker. You’re the attorney for a man suing the federal government. Word spreads in small towns when out-of-towners come in. Back in Independence, the whole town would know if so-and-so’s uncle or aunt were visiting almost as soon as they arrived.”

Hancock said, “Mr. McLeod, I’ve come late to this party. I just read your letters this morning. And I don’t know what else you and Harry’ve talked about. Why don’t you fill in some details while we’re driving?”

“I didn’t leave much out of the letters. I had to make a compelling case to get some help out here. As I wrote in the last letter, I’ve gotten to where I don’t trust anyone official out here, even Ira, the local sheriff.” McLeod shook his head. “Ira. That one’s hard to explain. He’s such a straight arrow. Nothing bad ever happened to him except for the loss of his wife back in ’37. My wife and I were at Donald’s house for Christmas and he’d invited Ira over so he wouldn’t be alone on Christmas. He’d even…”

“Why were you at Mr. Bumble’s house for Christmas?” Hancock asked, his gaze never leaving the passing scenery outside his window. “I thought you were just his lawyer.”

McLeod’s face reddened at the question and Truman, half facing McLeod, leaned in closer. “Is there something you’ve left out of your letters, Mr. McLeod?”

“It’s not important, really,” McLeod said, “and it doesn’t have any bearing on my standing as Donald’s attorney.” He eased off the gas as he approached a slow-moving truck carrying crates of apples. “I didn’t think you’d come out here if I wrote it in a letter.”

“What is it, Mr. McLeod?” Truman asked, a bit more firmly.

“Donald, or Donnie, as my wife likes to call him, is my brother-in-law.”

Truman sat back and Hancock let out a little chuckle. “Let me guess. Your sister didn’t want to live on a farm for the rest of her life so she got outta there as fast as she could. ‘Cept that left Mr. Bumble as the only one to tend the farm when dear old mom and dad went to the great orchard in the sky. Then, when the government took the land, your wife got all guilty and ‘persuaded’ you to represent her brother.” The word “persuade” was said in such a way that each man, husbands all, exactly knew the meaning.

McLeod eyed the Texan sitting in his back seat. “That’s about eighty percent correct. How’d you know?”

“Because I was in a similar situation. Me and your wife played the same part and my sister and Mr. Bumble played the other part. ‘Course, in my case, it was the other war. Took me away from the farm and I never went back, despite what I told my sister. She hated me for a while, too. Spent the first Christmas after the war stuck at my podunk apartment in Austin.” Hancock turned from his window and looked at McLeod through the rearview mirror.

“What changed your sister’s mind to invite you back the next time,” McLeod said.

“Oh, she didn’t. After that, I met my future wife and she invited me to celebrate Christmas with her family.” Hancock’s voice sounded like it was far away. “Fact is, it wasn’t  until I went into law enforcement that Edna finally came around.”

McLeod had sat up straighter. “Did you say ‘law enforcement’? Are you a cop?”

Truman jumped in. “I recruited Carl straight out of the sheriff’s office in Texas.” He shifted in his seat so that he faced McLeod. “That’s beside the point, Mr. McLeod. Aside from the many details of dates, times, witnesses, et cetera, is there anything else you need to tell us before we proceed?”

McLeod shook his head then stopped. “Well, as Donald was feeling the heat, I took steps to get him to dictate and sign an affidavit. We actually drove all the way to Walla Walla to see one of my law school buddies we could trust. He’s a county judge out there. We got the affidavit four days before Donald was drafted.”

Truman noticed that Hancock was nodding. “Okay, that’s good,” he said. “Anything else? Anything at all?”

McLeod, finally realizing the fruit truck was not going to turn anytime soon, downshifted the Lincoln and sped past the truck. “No,” said McLeod, settling back into his casual driving position, the open highway before him.

“Tell us about the warehouse where Mr. Bumble worked.”

“Moore Shipping and Warehousing? They have branches all over the Columbia River, from Spokane to the Pacific, as well as Portland and Seattle. I didn’t know anything about them but my firm represented them once, before I was on board. The owner is Edward P. Moore, avid hunter and outdoorsman. Real Hemingway type, if you know what I mean.”

The conversation went on in this manner with Truman and Hancock asking questions about Richland, other people McLeod represented, and other theories the attorney had. Hancock, his eyes rarely leaving the view outside his window, caught the first glimpse of a river he assumed was the Columbia. He also was the first one to see the police lights.

McLeod slowed the car and stopped at the junction of two roads. Both he and Truman saw the police cars, now clearly visible about fifty yards away to their right.

“That the direction we’re going? Hancock asked.

“Yes.”

“Good. Let’s stop and say hello.”


***

There’s more to this excerpt but I didn’t want to make today’s post too long.

Click here to read the rest of the excerpt at the main page on my website.

Click here for a list of the stores where Treason at Hanford is now available.

Recharging the Excitement by Talking Shop About Writing

by
Scott D. Parker

It is rare that we constantly sustain the excitement of what we do. We writers can love the writing process, but after, say, you hit 50,000 words, sometimes the work is more like work than magic.

The same thing applies to the publishing side of things. When we’ve finished a manuscript, now comes the more mundane aspects of our jobs: editing, copy editing, proofing, cover design, and uploading files for publication and distribution. After you’ve done it enough times, it becomes routine. A little rote. You know you need to do it, but you might look forward to it the least.

That is until you get to talk to someone who is a little behind you on the journey.

This week, I had lunch with a former day job co-worker. I hadn’t seen him since February 2020, pre-Covid. We had conversed off and on via emails and texts. We’re both writers and we talked about our day jobs and the kinds of things we do. But then the conversation shifted to the fun writing. Fiction writing.

He was keen to learn the ins and outs and processes I use to write, edit, publish, distribute, and market my books. I have internalized all this information and actively keep learning new ways to streamline processes.

I’ll admit something: I was a little tired on Thursday morning, so I kept downing green tea all morning at the office and made a point not to order a heavy lunch that would have made me sleepy. Seeing my friend was a nice jolt to the system, but the more powerful jolt was talking shop.

Literally, I could feel myself becoming more and more energized about the tools, the processes, and all the resources I used to get where I am today. I was able to talk about going to “Indie Publishing School” with podcasts. I pointed out authors like Joanna Penn, who are farther along the path than I am that he should study. Also veterans like Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch who have completely changed the way they get their stories to readers. I talked tools like Vellum and Draft2Digital.

It was so exciting.

I’m currently in the stages of readying my next book for publication next month so I’m in the thick of doing the mundane things. But you know what I told him? I said that I actually enjoy all the steps that takes a story from my brain to readers. It really is magic.

I was so jazzed that the rest of the day, I didn’t really need any more green tea. What I wanted was to get home and get back to fixing up my book.

It was good to have an unexpected recharge just by talking shop.

Y’all ever experience that kind of jolt?

Alone on the Beach - New Short Story Published

by

Scott D. Parker

I have a new short story now available. It's a little bit different thing for me. I actively wrote a love scene...but with a twist. 

DESCRIPTION:

Bob Kirk is a federal agent, on desk duty and ordered to see a psychiatrist after he killed a man while protecting his team. Carol Marcus is his doctor, prescribing Bob some pills to help ease his pain.

They’ve been secretly seeing each other and want to take their relationship to the next level, more out in the open, as his department-mandated time with her comes to an end.

What better place to start than a crowded beach?

Excerpt:

Bob’s stomach flipped as he took in Carol’s beauty. She wore a green bikini, modest for the doctor’s forty-two years, but revealing enough to make Bob’s mind think about later. He wished there might be a later. Her blonde hair, always coiffed in a professional manner in the office, now hung loose around her shoulders. The sea breeze caught it and blew the strands around her face. She carried a beach bag over her shoulder. Dark sunglasses hid her eyes, but he knew from the angle of her head she was checking him out.


In a fit of self-consciousness that morning, Bob had done a hundred push-ups and sit-ups. He wanted all his muscles to stand out for her. He even purchased new swim trunks, not the oversized surfer kind yet not a speedo either. His light blue swimsuit hugged his hips and showed off his ass. When he had tried it on at the store, he had asked one of the attendants if the suit fit well. The narrowing of her eyes and the parting of her lips told him all he needed to know. She had lightly touched his arm as checked out. She also gave him her number. He had even groomed his body hair a bit. Brown hair still coated his chest and stomach, but in other places, it was cleaned and well groomed. He just didn’t know how the day would play out.


Carol stopped at the foot of Bob’s large beach blanket. A coy smile emerged. With delicate fingers, she lowered her sunglasses and looked at him over the top of them. “Mind if I join you?”


Bookstores

Here is the link to the story's main page on my website. It is widely available in all the usual places.

NaNoWriMo 2021 - Post-Game: What’s Next?

by
Scott D. Parker

NaNoWriMo 2021 is now in the books. How did you do? Did you get to 50,000 words? Did those 50,000 words correspond to the end of your novel? Did you fall short? Don’t worry. I’ve done all those things and more.

This year, I hit a new threshold: I got to 70,063 words in the thirty days of November. That came out to 40.2 hours. Irritatingly, those 70,000 words are not the end of the story, so I kept going. But I allowed myself a new daily goal for December: 1,000 words per day. It’s not quite the benchmark of 1,667 but it’s manageable. It’s helpful, too. I ran into a story wall on Thursday and I needed to brainstorm. It ate up the new words, but I cleared the pathway for the rest of the book (and might’ve even discovered a penultimate scene).

Like I said last week, whatever you did, please celebrate your accomplishment. I know that the physical part of writing is literally sitting in a chair and moving your fingers over the keyboard, but it can take a lot out of you. So no matter if you got to 50K or didn’t, celebrate.

What’s Next?

Well, as I wrote last week, if you want to be a writer, you have to keep writing. Find a new monthly challenge and get a story written. Write a short story per month in 2022. Just keep writing.

But what if you want to publish this NaNoWriMo 2021 book? Author J. Todd Scott on Twitter mentioned this week that his first book was written as part of NaNoWriMo.

What about the book you just completed? Well, do you want to publish it? If so, you can do what I did and publish it an an indie author. Yes, it means you do everything, but you also control everything. You rise or fall based on what you do. It can be daunting, but also rewarding.

First thing, get it edited. Ideally, you’d hire a professional editor, preferably one that doesn’t know you for a completely unbiased review of your book. When you get those changes back, make the changes. You don’t have to make them all. I mean if the editor is telling you the sub-plot needs a complete overhaul, consider why the editor said that, and then make your informed decision. There’s a reason the editor made the comment, but it doesn’t mean the editor is 100% correct. When you’ve made those change, re-read your book and then spot the things you missed.

Get a cover. Unless you know graphic design, hire someone. I used 99Designs to get some of my covers created.

Write a book description. Create your metadata. Determine the price point. Determine your marketing strategy. Format your file. (For this, the company Draft2Digital is recommended because they’ll basically do all the formatting you need for any of the digital marketplaces.) Upload the file to the world.

Then celebrate your accomplishment by throwing yourself a party.

And then? Well, do it all again.

Year 5 of an Indie Writer: Week 2 AKA You Know You've Integrated the Indie Writing Lessons When...

by
Scott D. Parker

This proved an interesting week, evidence yet again that life is full of daily surprises.

When it comes to Christmas decorations, no matter when they go up, they always come down by New Year's Eve. The family has adopted my wife's idea that you don't start a new year cleaning up the mess from the old one.

Well, I didn't follow that advice in terms of my writing.

I've been reviewing my existing-yet-not-finished stories at the beginning of this year. The good thing is that all this reviewing is helping me see what each story needs and all the tweaks along the way. The irritating thing is that I didn't do this in December. Or finished them in 2019.

Be that as it may, I wanted to wrap up these outstanding stories before tackling a brand-new one here in January. But something else sidetracked my review.

The E-mail

I received an email from a relative on my wife's side. Turns out there are a couple of writers in the family working on various books and the relative was wondering if I'd have a chance to offer any advice on the publishing and writing business.

Happily I agreed. I'm always eager to help writers no matter if they are far ahead of me in the business or just starting out. I've made course corrections along the way based on advice from veteran writers.

Wins and Losses?

Here's the thing about the writing business: it's competitive, but not always against fellow writers. It's a competition for the eyes and attentions of readers. We don't rack up wins and losses against other writers. And if you have that mindset, well, there's a better way to look at the business.

Think of it as a learning experience.

Let's say you've written a thriller. You've done your research and you have a book with a good cover, decent blurb, and is available in all the channels. It goes on sale on New Year's Day. You advertise in whatever form you choose. Yet there's another (actually a lot more) thriller book that was released on the same day.

And that other book is the one that's most popular with readers.

You'll get frustrated. You might even get upset. But you can't control what happens when you release your book into the world. You can only control that which you have direct control: cover, blurbs, and the book itself.

If you think that other author "beat" you, do some research. Buy that other book. Read it. Figure out why it is resonating more with readers than yours. If you see something, feel free to learn from that other book and incorporate those learned lessons in your next book. Nothing wrong with that.

Just don't fixate on wins and losses. The only person who loses there is you. And your potential readers. Just continue to be yourself and readers who like your stuff will find you. It'll take longer, perhaps, but avid readers are the best.

Internalized Lessons Learned

Back to the e-mail. So my relative put me in contact with the other writers and we emailed back and forth. The writer (also a she) shared some details about where she is and a choice she's contemplating. It's whether or not to sign a contract for a publishing firm not based in New York. Not one of the Big Five.

Indie that I am, I started listing the reasons I went indie and continue to stay that way. I discussed all the things I've had to learn over the five or six years I've been doing this side hustle: how to make covers, where to find editors, how to make paperbacks, how to format ebooks, etc. My response back grew longer and longer.

And I didn't even have to reference anything. I realized I have internalized all the indie author/publisher lessons so thoroughly that I can just spout them off at will.

It was a nice feeling...and it really made me want to get started with my 2020 publication schedule. It also helped me realize I enjoy the challenges and the rewards of an indie writer life. Still would appreciate the opportunity to do fiction writing full time, but the life I've carved out for myself is pretty grand.

Article of the Week

So, all of what I've described occurred prior to Thursday's post by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. She has had a decades-long writing career, both in the traditional and indie world, and now preaches the good talk about the indie life. Every Thursday, she posts about the business of an indie writer.

This week is title "Fear and Publishing." It is very insightful and well worth the time to read.

Book of the Week

The first novel I'm reading in 2020 is now four years old. It's ORPHAN X by Gregg Hurwitz. This series, about Evan Smoak, a highly trained assassin, has been on my radar for a couple of years. I saw the fourth book at Barnes and Noble over the holidays (in paperback) with a fifth book coming out this year.

Why not start?

So I picked up the first book and have really enjoyed it. How much? Well, I'm reading an actual book (bought the paperback) and have carved out time specifically to read. I get most of my books via audio, but I aim to have 2020 be the year in which I read at least a book a month and listen to another book a month.

I'm only a hundred pages in, but I'm really digging this book. What's even more ironic is the timing: My NaNoWriMo 2019 book involves a character who is off the  grid like Smoak or Jack Reacher (also not read any of his books either). The sands of time and interests, every now and then, come together.

Year of an Indie Writer: Week 2

by
Scott D. Parker


The first full week of 2019 saw two interesting things. One was business related, the other involved writing.

PROOFING THE HARDCOPY

The big news this week was the arrival of the paperback proof of EMPTY COFFINS. On sale in ebook form since 1 Jan, the paperback lagged behind, largely because of the holiday schedules of both me and the POD companies. But Ingram Spark did a great job at getting me the hard copy proof and it arrived Thursday.

First of all, as a writer, there are few things better than getting a paperback of your book in the mail. It never gets old. But as soon as the pride beamed through me, I inspected the book.

And found flaws. The text on the spine is not precisely centered. The text on the back cover is a tad too large. The cover, on the other hand, looks great and exactly as I planned it. Inside, I scanned the intro pages, then the back. Sure enough: I found a few errors. One of them was in the “Also by” section where I switched two covers. I also read through my “Origins of Calvin Carter” essay and found a few tweaks I needed to make. Oddly, on my “About the Author” page, I noted the actual links to my Facebook and Twitter feed were missing.

It’s all the little things.

As an indie writer and publisher, you are responsible for every aspect of your business. Sure, you can outsource some parts of your business, but you’d still have to QA whatever the third party did. Or not. You can trust the third party completely, but would you really do that? Wouldn’t you just want to make sure on your own?

I’ll be making the cover changes today. I made the interior changes on Thursday night in the Vellum program.

UPDATING EBOOKS

I noted the Call to Action in the paperback had my request to join mailing list and receive WADING INTO WAR as a free gift. Well, if you read my post from last week, you’ll know I’ve changed that. So I need to update all my ebooks. All of them. Four mysteries, six westerns, and EMPTY COFFINS. Eleven files in Kobo; eleven files for Amazon, and eleven files for Draft2Digital. Yes, this makes the case for having a service like D2D be the sole source, but as I wrote last week, there are reasons I want to keep a direct line open to Kobo and Amazon.

But this time, I’ll have my Call to Action be more generic, and direct all traffic to my webpage. Then, if I change what I offer, it’ll only be at the website, and not 33 different ebook files.

WRITING THE NEXT BOOK

I am having great success writing this new book. Until late this week, I’ve been using my old draft as a jumping off point and using vast swaths of that content in the new draft. It works well…until it didn’t.

Twice this week, I felt my new creative voice stymied by the urge to go in a different direction. Usually, these little nudges consisted of adding a sentence here or there. Very low key. But what was pulling me this time was a new direction for the story, a direction my newer, more seasoned creative voice was telling me I needed.

Turns out, the creative voice was correct. One thing it said was the story needed a prologue. That thought drifted into my head when I was writing chapter 7 and it went on for way too long. Something in the back of my head whispered a prologue could solve lots of problems.

So I wrote a prologue. Boy, did those words spill out. Almost in an entire session at lunch this week. And they were pretty good. I read the prologue to my wife—a fantastic first reader because she’ll call out anything that takes her out of the story. She liked it.

I learned to trust the creative voice and, from this point forward in writing this newly re-written novel, don’t be such a slave to the existing original draft. Let the story flow.

BLOG OF THE WEEK

When it comes to writing, you can get a degree from a traditional college. For writing and selling fiction, however, there are tons of resources out there. Like I mentioned last week, I created my own curriculum in fiction writing by reading lots of blogs and listening to tons of podcasts by writers who are ahead of me on the writing journey.

Dean Wesley Smith is one of the best. A veteran of the writing business for over forty years, Smith has likely seen it all and written it all. In just the last decade, he has made the jump to independent publishing.

And he’s never going back. He lays out what he’s learned and how we writers can navigate this new landscape. He’s great for blowing up the myths surrounding the writing business—note the second word—and encouraging us writers to take ownership of our careers. His daily posts are almost the first things I read every day *after my writing is complete.* He had some great posts today, one of which I sparked. Smith’s blog is literally a graduate-level course. You could learn so much just from reading and studying what he himself practices.

Give him a read. https://www.deanwesleysmith.com/ 


How has your week gone?

Year of an Indie Writer: Week 1

By Scott D. Parker

Happy New Year! I hope your holidays were safe and fun. 

For readers of this particular blog, I hope to provide something new.

I’ll admit: there are days in which I ponder what I’m going to write every Saturday. Sometimes, I’ll scour old posts and re-post them...which isn’t horrible because we’re always getting new readers. But I think I have something special for 2019.

I’m an independent writer and publisher. I enjoy it that way, accepting all the challenges that come my way as learning experiences. I’ve mapped out a rather interesting plan for 2019 when it dawned on me that I have a perfect medium for new, engaging series of blog posts every week: write specifically about my experiences as an independent author over the course of one year.

Ambitious? Yes. Doable? Also yes. Exciting? For me, yes, and, I hope, educational for those fellow writers in the publishing world. Over the past four years, I have learned a lot from those writers ahead of me on the writing/publishing journey. I’m thinking of Dean Wesley Smith, Kristine Katheryn Rusch, Joanna Penn, the guys at Sterling and Stone, the interviewees at Kobo Writing Life, and dozens more. I’ve learned a lot--and I keep learning--but I thought it might be interesting to catalog what goes on here at the home offices of Quadrant Fiction Studio for a calendar year. At the very least, it’ll give me a record of everything I do. And, in the future, I can collect these essays and publish them in a book.

So...let’s start.

THE PLAN FOR 2019

I have a rather ambitious publishing schedule for 2019. I am introducing railroad detective Calvin Carter over six books this year. The first, EMPTY COFFINS, was published on New Year’s Day. Here’s the link to the main book page where you can see the cool cover, read the description, and have a look at all of Chapter 1. I have to admit: it’s one of my favorite chapters I’ve written. You get a good sense of who Carter and his partner, Thomas Jackson, are and how Carter conducts his investigations...with flair.

I have five-and-a-half books written, and they’ll be published every other month starting in January. 

In addition, I have other books complete and ready to go. I’m still making decisions on when they’ll be published, but there’s a good chance I’ll be publishing them on the even-numbered months. 

Busy, busy year.

And I’m still writing. Just started a new book on New Year’s Day. My goal is to publish it in August. 



DISTRIBUTION

I use the following three methods for ebooks:

Kobo Writing Life for Kobo ebooks
KDP for Amazon ebooks
Draft2Digital for everything else, including Apple and Barnes and Noble

Why not just use Draft2Digital for everything? Ease of use. Kobo and Amazon are really straightforward when it comes to preparing files for publication. Plus, I’m a part of Kobo’s promotional program, and the KWL folks are wonderful with any questions I have. D2D is also straightforward--maybe even the simplest out there--but I’m comfortable with the systems so I’ll just keep on this way unless circumstances necessitate a change.

Late in November 2018 (barely six weeks ago), I got word from Draft2Digital and Kobo that, due to the holiday season, if writers wanted books published in early 2019, final files needed to be submitted by early December. That took me by surprise, so I quickly stopped writing the sixth Carter novel and jumped on prepping EMPTY COFFINS. It took a few days, but I got all the files in on time.

But what about the paperback? Well, I’m trying IngramSpark for 2019. I’ve never used them before, but for extended distribution reasons, I thought why not give them a go. I used CreateSpace for my existing four paperbacks over at Amazon. I’m slowly converting them over to KDP Print.  

So far, I’ve been very pleased with IngramSpark. One great thing is being able to purchase an ISBN number via their system. Not only is it cheaper, but it avoids the issues that came up in 2018 with the existing provider of US-based ISBNs. All I had to do was create a print-ready PDF, get the proper page count, submit all the metadata, and create a title in their system. What you get back in a template you can use to create your paperback cover. 

Here is where Ingram shines. The template is easy to use. I just insert it into Affinity Designer and created my cover with little headaches. I submitted the files to Ingram...and it got rejected. It seemed some of my text ran into the no-fly zone. I fixed and resubmitted. Viola! Accepted. Unlike with CreateSpace, there is a $49 charge to set everything up at Ingram, but I think that’s a small price to pay for greater visibility. I’ve approved the e-proof and am awaiting the paper proof. When I see it and see how everything lays out, I’ll be more likely to simply approve the e-proof in the future. 

WEBSITE

On 31 December, I updated my website to include Calvin Carter. I’ve posted the covers of all six novels. Between you and me, there’s a chance a couple of them might change. That’s the beauty of being independent: change at will.

I use Houston’s Host Gator to host my website and WordPress to run it. I’ve also purchased the Divi theme because of its WYSIWYG nature. Thought everything was good…

...until I checked the links New Year’s Day. All were wrong. So I spent an hour that morning fixing everything. Again, not difficult, but time consuming.

That’s the theme for much of what I do as an independent. Most of the tasks are not difficult--or just a Google search away for the answer to most questions--just time consuming. As a person with a day job and a family, time is precious. But every now and then, you just have to knuckle down and fix links.

NEWSLETTER and INCENTIVES

I have not been as diligent with my mailing list as I should be, but that changes in 2019. I plan on being quite active with my newsletters, building up the list, and interacting with readers along the way. 

I have a specific goal of discovering 100 new subscribers this year. It’s a discrete, doable goal with specific metrics: 8-10 new subscribers per month. 

Most authors give away a free book as a thank-you gift for joining a mailing list. I did that, too, but I had two lists, one for mysteries and one for westerns. With Calvin Carter--a character who can bridge both these genres--I decided to merge the lists into one. But if I have potentially two audiences coming into the one list, what kind of incentive could I offer? Mystery readers might not like a western, and vice versa. 

So I created a catalog sampler. In this ebook, I have my four mysteries, the opening chapters of my six Carter novels, and excerpts of my existing western stories. It is my hope that readers will read through the samples, find a few things they like, and read more.

And I threw in a couple of incentives. If a reader buys a book of mine, let me know and I’ll provide them with a free book. Buy one, get one free. In addition, if an existing subscriber gets another person to subscribe to the list, the existing subscriber earns a free story. So, potentially, for the price of one book, a person can get three stories.

Is that a good idea? Not sure, but that’s the best thing about being independent: I can experiment and figure out what works, what doesn’t, and adjust. I see few downsides to this equation. 

Want to join? Head on over to my website.

To distribute the free catalog sampler, I use BookFunnel. I upgraded to mid-list plan so I can have multiple pen names and numerous books on file. From there, I can create various landing pages with various giveaways all the while collecting emails for my newsletter. Win-win. 

SUMMARY

So that’s how I’m starting 2019. It’ll be interesting to see how it all pans out, but I’m excited. I know there will be slumps of enthusiasm along with mountaintop highs, but that’s all part of the marathon that is writing and publishing in 2019. 

Each week, I plan on updating everyone with my weekly accomplishments. If y’all’ve got questions, leave them in the comments and I’ll address them. Or you can always head over to my author Facebook page and interact there.

Here’s to a fanTAStic 2019!

What are your goals for the year?