New James D. Best Novel on June 4th!

In 1862, a sixty-five day downpour pummeled the western United States. California suffered the brunt of the storm. Almost a third of the state was under water, roads were impassible, telegraph lines down, rivers overflowed, hundreds of people died, and hundreds of thousands of animals drowned. Sacramento remained under water for six months, forcing the state government to move to San Francisco.

Geological evidence shows that a flood of this magnitude hits California every one to two hundred years.

What if it happens again?

I took a break from Steve and his friends to write a disaster story. This one's a corker. I didn't know I could imagine such mayhem.

For Steve Dancy fans, I have started Coronado, A Steve Dancy Tale and it should be available before the end of the year.

Back to Deluge. Greg Evarts and Patricia Baldwin are back from The Shut Mouth Society. The stories are unrelated, so Deluge is not a sequel. The novels just shares the same cast and locale. The characters have changed, of course. Greg is now chief of police in Santa Barbara. Patricia is still a history professor, but has transferred from UCLA to UCSB. When the sky falls on California, our two heroes must once again save the day. There's rain, inept and ept politicians, murading street gangs, cage fighters, spies, and collapsed dams that send mountains of rolling water toward everything we hold dear.

Deluge will be available in print and Kindle formats on June 4th. Happy reading.

Can a 150-year-old conspiracy be unraveled before it’s too late?

Examiner.Com reviews The Return

I had a pleasant surprise today when I received notice of a new book review for the Steve Dancy Tales. Diane Scearce at Examiner.com reviewed The Return.

Scearce writes, “The reader can be assured The Return is as fast-paced and entertaining as the books leading up to Dancy’s latest adventure … The Return is a lively, old-fashioned style Western—clever, entertaining, and full of period references to give it authenticity. Best paces his stories so well readers will find it difficult to put down.”

Book Cover ... by Design

Book cover design is an art ...and I am not an artist. At least, not a visual artist. Previously, I posted a mock-up of the book cover for The Return, A Steve Dancy Tale. The cover I chose was one of twenty-two different mock-ups. Here are a few of these rough prototypes.

The prototype we choose is on the left below, with the final cover to the right.

The cropping, typeface, and coloration were refined. This is a famous 1887 New York City photograph by Jacob Riis, titled Bandits Roost. I especially like Steve Dancy's shadow in the foreground.

Here are the covers for The Steve Dancy Tales. As with any series, there is a consistency in the design. Among other things, all of them use vintage photographs from the period. I'm a little disappointed in the size of my name, but I've been advised that when the author's name becomes larger than the book title, it's a signal that the writing is on a downward slide. We'll keep the name small for the time being. 

Honest westerns filled with dishonest characters

Get a Spine!

The spine is the most undervalued aspect of book design. This is especially true today, when so many indie-books only publish electronically. Writers are doing themselves a disservice by restricting the market for their books. Granted, the majority of my sales are eBooks, but I also sell a respectable number of print books. I do well with libraries, and despite not pursuing bookstores, I've found my novels carried in the big chains and independent stores. Additionally, some readers who prefer electronic books still look to see if there is a print version to strengthen their purchase decision. My recommendation is that authors insist on a printed version. 

If a print format is produced, then a book becomes a three-dimensional object and must have a back cover and spine. The spine is the most important.

Unless you’re a bestselling author, your books will not be stacked on tables at the front of the store, so only the spine will be seen when your book is on a shelf. The same is true for a library. If you want to sell your next book to a library, people must find and check-out your previous books. So pay attention to the spine. Getting sales is tough enough without your book disappearing in a maze of other books screaming for attention.

robertpeecher Reviews The Shopkeeper

Robert Peecher is a journalist and author of  the Jackson Speed Memoirs. He has posted a blog article about indie-publishing and included a review of The Shopkeeper. Peecher has said some very nice things about my book and I appreciate it. Here is a brief excerpt:

"The Shopkeeper is great on content. Best’s characters are well-developed, his plot is unique and engaging. At no time reading his book did it cross my mind that I was reading a book by an indie author. I found myself caught up in the story to the point that when I got to the last few chapters I abandoned all other plans for the day and just read until I finished the novel."

This link will take you to the full article.

Read some of his other postings. Peecher writes engaging articles with a generous dose of self-deprecating humor.

Buddies in the Saddle reviews The Shopkeeper

Ron Scheer at Buddies in the Saddle has reviewed The Shopkeeper and published a companion  interview with me.

"This is an old-fashioned western in a way that goes back to the western’s roots. For the closest comparison, I’d offer Francis Lynde’s first novel, The Grafters, which was published in 1905. Both novels tell of a newcomer to the West who gets involved in a political intrigue, where influence is bought and sold, and greed rules the workings of government."

Read the review and interview.

How do you pick your next book to read?

I'm a compulsive reader. I read everything and I read all the time. I suspect it started when I was in the fifth grade and I spent my breakfast reading the shredded wheat box. I even read the dividers that separated the rows of three biscuits. Nabisco sponsored the television program Sargent Preston of the Yukon and my hero was all over the box and dividers. That's how I ended up owning one square inch in the Klondike. Darn, I wish I still had my deed.

You'll be pleased to know I've graduated from cereal boxes to books. First the Hardy Boys, and then mass paperbacks. I was a junior in high school when I discover nonfiction with Theodore White's The Making of the President 1960. College introduced me to classics.

In adulthood, I wandered books stores and paperback racks looking for my next read. Bestsellers lists had already down-selected which books got prominent display, and I usually picked by author or back cover copy.


The publishing world has changed. Bookstores are becoming rarer, yet there are tens of thousands of more books available. The shelf-life of a book has been extended well beyond presence on a bestseller list. Electronic books are increasingly taking over fiction and narrative prose. Old book selection tools like magazines and newspapers are withering. Literary reviews are being displaced by reader reviews.

So how does a person pick their next book to read? For me, it's easy. I carry my Kindle with me almost everywhere. Writing has crowded out my reading time, so I read in line at the airport, in my doctor's lobby, in the car as my wife runs into a store, or while eating breakfast or lunch. I also have my Kindle with me when I watch television. It's always around when I use my computer. Why? It has to do with how I pick my next book to read. Whenever I hear or read about a book that sounds interesting, I immediately download a sample onto my kindle. I do this while talking to friends, watching television, surfing the Internet, attending book events, or when reading a periodical. After I finish a book, I metaphorically thumb through my samples, usually reading a chapter or two, then select my next book. At any point in time, I probably have twenty books queued up.

Electronic reading devices have changed the publishing industry and reading habits. It has also changed the way we chose books.

1. Back copy is less important than the opening of the book 
2. Bestseller lists mean less than frequent mention on broadcast and cable outlets
3. Social media builds name recognition
4. Word-of-mouth is even more powerful

This means emerging authors have tools to compete with famous authors. More important  sales can occur a considerable time after a promotional event. Book sales are now a long-haul business. Someone might download a book sample weeks, or even months before they make a purchase decision.

In fact, you might consider downloading samples for these books.

Happy reading.

Click to download samples.

Vintage Photograph to Western Book Cover

I have been asked by several readers if the image on the cover of The Shopkeeper is authentic. 

It is. 

L. A. Huffman was a famous frontier photographer in Miles City, Montana. The photograph below is marked, "L. A. Huffman, Miles City, MT" which stands for Montana Territory. This means that this photograph was taken prior to Montana becoming a state in November of 1889.

To add a sense of mystery, the photograph was cropped for cover of The Shopkeeper. Add professional typesetting some color adjustment, and you have a distinct cover.

The intent was to identify the book as a Western, but signal that it was a fresh take on the genre. I think the designer did an excellent job.

The eReader revolution is accelerating

I've been tracking print versus eBook sales for years. In 2008, my print sales were four times my eBook sales. In 2009, three times. By 2010, sales were almost even between the two formats. As you may have guessed, 2011 was the year sales flipped upside down--with a vengeance. In 2011 my Kindle sales alone were three times my print sales. To my surprise, the shift in format continues to accelerate. This month my eBook sales were eight times my print sales.

Is this good or bad? Let me see. I earn a higher royalty on eBooks, I can monitor my sales in near real time, and I'm paid monthly with only a sixty day delay. That's the good side. The bad side is that I've participated in a couple of recent book signings at Barnes and Noble. Both were duds. Book signings used to be fun ... and educational. Now I drive home wondering if they're worthwhile. Probably. I see eBook sales go up after an event. I'm not sure what this tells me except that my signature is not worth six dollars--the difference between the print cost and an eBook version.

There's an old saying in investing: Don't fight the tape. It means don't buck the trend. I'm personally on my fifth Kindle. When I took my first model on an airplane, people would ask what it was. Now, every reading passenger seems to have an eReader. I used to see a book cover I recognized and asked my fellow passenger how they liked it. Now what we read  is a big dark secret. In a way I like it because I imagine they’re all reading one of my books.

It appears the print format for narrative books may go the way of the 8-track. Some will lament the good ‘ol days, but what really counts is that people read. And it certainly appears from my personal sales that the Kindle and like-devices are causing people to read more. Hurrah for that!

Coming soon to a bookstore or website near you

Prior to 1776, world history was primarily written about kings and emperors. The American experiment shook the world. Not only did the colonies break away from the biggest and most powerful empire in history, they took the musings of the brightest thinkers of the Enlightenment and implemented them. The Founding of the United States was simultaneously an armed rebellion against tyranny and a revolution of ideas—ideas that changed the course of world history. 

Steve Dancy Tales Promoted in True West Magazine

The Steve Dancy Tales are being promoted in True West magazine with a full page advertisement. The collector issue celebrates the Arizona Centennial, and also recognizes Prescott, Arizona the Top Western Town for 2012. This is a great connection with a great magazine because the latest Steve Dancy adventure, Murder at Thumb Butte, occurs in 1880 in Prescott. Pick up a copy. It's filled with little known facts about Arizona's road to statehood, the gunfight at the OK corral, the 12 guns that tamed Arizona, and the Top Ten True Western Towns of the year.

Murder at Thumb Butte reviewed at Bookviews

Alan Caruba at Bookviews writes: 

"When it comes to westerns, novels that evoke a fabled period, few do it better than Jim Best. His latest is Murder at Thumb Butte ($12.95, Wheatmark, Tucson, AZ, softcover) and I guarantee that you will also want to read The Shopkeeper and Leadville. These are part of a “Steve Dancy” series and, in the case of Murder at Thumb Butte, it is the spring of 1880 and Dancy has traveled to Prescott, Arizona to gain control of a remarkable invention. He has barely unpacked when he learns that his friend, Jeff Sharp, has been arrested for a midnight murder and Dancy launches an investigation to find who really did it. The problem is, the whole town of Prescott wanted him dead! He turns to another old friend, Captain Joseph McAllen of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency to sort out the suspects and find the real killer before Sharp ends up swinging from the gallows. Best is best at dialogue and his novels move along at a swift pace with some of the best dialogue you’ll find. Nothing fancy, but it reflects real people in real situations. Treat yourself to one or all three of the series."

Link to Review

Here comes 2012, ready or not!

Mostly not. We returned to our home in Arizona late last night, and have been lazing about trying to recover from a week with all of our grandchildren. Right after Christmas, we flew to Florida to meet up with our son and daughter's families in Orlando. We had six adults to handle six kids, so we figured we had an even chance. Wrong. Nothing energizes a young child more than waking to the promise of another trip to Disney World or one of the other fun parks in Orlando. What ensued for the rest of the day would unduly age any grandparent ... especially one used to quiet days of writing. My back hurts, I'm tired, and my wallet's thinner, but I don't regret a single second.


In quiet moments, mostly in air terminals, I read Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson. My favorite part so far is the chapter on the development of Toy Story. It's a perfect case study in characterization and storytelling. Every writer should read it.


Anyway, lots to get done, including a few New Year's resolutions. I won't share these because they are too revealing of my flaws.


First up for 2012 is publication of Principled Action, Lessons From the Origins of the American Republic. This non-fiction history book should be available in February.

I'm also starting work on the next Steve Dancy Tale. No title yet, but I've worked out the broad plot line and a suitable title will pop to mind as I continue the research.


Another big, immediate task is recovering my Macintosh computer. The disc drive went belly-up with 25,000 photos, and lots of iMovie files. I suspect I won't get a full day of writing for a week or so.


Here's wishing you and yours a magnificent 2012. We all deserve it.

Rejected Books that Became Bestsellers

Jill Harness reports at Flavorwire that these are ten huge bestsellers that were originally rejected numerous times. She writes, "Anyone who has ever wanted to work in a creative field, be it writing, painting or playing music has been told they better develop thick skin. After all, it doesn't matter how good you are, someone will always be there to tear you down. It's hard to think of a better example of this than to look at some rejected books that would later become some of the best-selling titles in the world."

Read her complete article

New Cover for The Shut Mouth Society

For a long time, I've wanted to change the cover of The Shut Mouth Society. Although the story has strong historical elements, it's a contemporary thriller. The old cover looked like a historical novel, or even a non-fiction book on Lincoln. With the completion of Murder at Thumb Butte, I was able to dedicate some time to work with a designer on a new cover.