Why things have been quiet here

I just returned from a great vacation that explored the northeast of North America. My wife and I flew to Montreal to meet my sister and sister-in-law for a three-week trip. We spent three days sightseeing in Montreal and then boarded a sanely-sized ship to cruise the Saint Lawrence River around Nova Scotia and on to Boston. We stopped daily at Canadian and then American towns, with plenty of time to go ashore to explore and spend money. I used to live in Boston, so our four days there were nostalgic. We even took a day trip to Concord, my favorite New England town. Next, on to New York City for more sightseeing and a week with the grandkids. Just arrived home and tuckered out.

Did I get some writing done? I did. But not nearly as much as I thought I would. The ship moved at night from one interesting location to another, so down time on the cruse was limited. On occasion, I returned to the ship and let the women shop. When alone, I wrote while sipping whiskey in the Crow's Nest bar. Pretty cool environs.

Now I’m home and eager to write on a daily basis. That is, after I unpack, get the house winterized, go to a couple of my grandson’s soccer games, and pay a few bills. How in the world did I find time when I worked steady?

Don't forget to buy the latest Steve Dancy Tale

How many New York minutes can you cram into nine days?

We have three grandchildren in New York City and we try to visit them as often as we can muster up the energy and coin. Let’s see, we were there nine days. In that time, we saw a Yankee’s game, celebrated our son’s birthday, celebrated our granddaughter’s birthday, watched our two grandsons play collectively ten—count them, ten—lacrosse games, saw our youngest grandson play two baseball games, watched our granddaughter perform in a school production of Pirates of Penzance, attended our grandson’s First Communion, ate innumerable meals in restaurants, and rode in countless cabs, ubers, and car services. All this, while being entertained by a new bernedoodle puppy that made the energizer bunny look languid. We even snuck in some private time to tour Radio City Music Hall on tickets we bought two years ago.

I know I forgot tons. The entire week is a blur. We’re a couple of retirees who on most days lumber from room to room to get enough exercise to laze about some more. When my wife yells that we need to go to CVS tomorrow, I mutter that she ruined my entire day. If it’s CVS and the hardware store, I get out my iPhone and schedule the chockablock activities in my calendar app.

We love New York, and we really do love all the activity, especially when the weather doesn’t mug us. This was not one of those visits. My son never leaves a Yankee game early, but in the top of the eighth, the stadium turned into the biggest icebox on the planet. A near capacity crowd was thinned to a few guys hawking sodas before the Yankees came to bat. We left our hotel in fine weather to walk to Radio City Music Hall. Halfway there, it turned blustery, cold, and wet. Us, without an umbrella or decent coats. We even entered the restaurant after our grandson’s first communion drenched, with teeth chattering. Last Saturday, the weather for the lacrosse games was perfect. Perfect. It was a trick. On Sunday we were smart enough to wear layers, but twenty wouldn’t have been enough. It went down to forty with gusts of hurricane proportions that made me understand what chilled to the bone really meant. I’ve posted recently about the springtime snow in Omaha. New York likes to do the chill bit without the pretty white fluffy stuff.

In the end, it was all good. We hit the Big Apple at the perfect time to see all three grandchildren strut their stuff, and we got in on some nifty celebrations. But we were exhausted by our last day. 

As we drove back into the city from some farm that boasted plenty of lacrosse fields, my daughter called from Omaha. She wanted to know what time we flew in that night. What’s up, I asked. Our Omaha grandson wanted to know if we could make it back in time for his Sunday evening baseball game.

Indie Publishing Rewrites Promotion

Kim McDougall of Castelane, Inc. recently wrote to  ask for permission to re-publish on the new Castlelane website an article I wrote for Turning Point .  I agreed, but in rereading the article, I decided it could use an update. Here is the revised article.

There’s not much you can believe about indie-publishing.  Information from indie-publishing houses is suspect, and most of the other data comes from people who make their living off striving writers.  As someone who has published with a traditional house and indie-published, I’ll try to give you the straight scoop.

First, I Indie-publish by choice.  It didn't start out that way, but now I’m convinced that indie-publishing is the best route for me.

My first book was published by Wiley.  It was an agented, non-fiction book.  After I completed my first novel, Tempest at Dawn, I secured a different New York agent that specialized in fiction.  While the agent shopped my lengthy, historical novel, I wrote a genre Western titled The Shopkeeper.  Since the typical advance for a Western wouldn't make a decent down-payment on a Nissan Versa, my agent declined to represent it.  No problem, I’d indie-publish.

Currently, my novels are in print, large print, audio, and e-book formats.  My large print and audio contracts are traditional contracts with advances, so I still have a foot in each world. I’m making money, but what is more important, my platform continues to grow.  (My agent didn’t sell Tempest at Dawn, so I ended up indie-publishing it as well.)

Why I Stay with Indie-Publishing

That’s how I started indie-publishing, but why do I stay with it after building a respectable platform? Three reasons:  speed, income, and control.

The Wild West—an Escape from Despair

Jacob Riis was a late nineteenth century social reformer who used his camera to expose parts of New York City avoided by the smart set. He ventured into the poor districts ruled by gangs. Daily life for the unfortunate inhabitants was dismal and violent … far more violent than the infamous Wild West. The film, Gangs of New York, focused on a small time frame covered by the 1928 book by Herbert Asbury.

Jabob Riis

In The Return, I wanted to show New York’s explosive progress in technology and wealth creation, while a few blocks away gangs and lawlessness dominated neighborhoods. A common misconception is that the Wild West was ignorant, lawless and lacking in basic comforts, while eastern cities were cultured and ordered, with the basic amenities close at hand. Eastern city slums couldn’t hold a candle to safety and opportunity on the frontier. For many, the West was a chance for a new start in life, one with more promise than a bleak future in the East. Hope drove the mass migrations to the frontier. People endured hardship on the chance of securing a better future for themselves and their families. In truth, that is the great story of the Wild West.

Jacob Riis

Jacob Riis

Jacob Riis

The Return, A Steve Dancy Tale

These guys will kick your butt!

Bandits' Roost, Photograph by Jacob Riis, 1887

New York City gangs were notorious. This historic photograph appealed to me because in The Return, Dancy must defeat a street-gang to save himself and his friends. The feud starts in Leadville, Colorado and follows our hero east. I liked the photo so much, I suggested that it be used for the cover.

Final cover for The Return, A Steve Dancy Tale.

This is the full cover. I especially like the cowboy shadow the designer added.

The designers did a great job. As I mentioned in Get a Spine, the spine is crucially important because it is all a browser will probably see in a bookstore. Here are the six spines for the Steve Dancy Tales.

Do people judge a book by it's cover? Do book covers sell books? Yes and yes. Need evidence? Here you go.

You might also enjoy Vintage Photograph to Western Book Cover.

Coming Soon ... The Return, A Steve Dancy Tale

Friday, I signed the final approval forms for The Return, A Steve Dancy Tale. Whew!

The Return by James D. Best

I wish that meant the book was done and the novel would be available next week. Lots yet to do for the print version and formatting remains for ebooks. Turnaround for ebook formatting is generally quick, so I expect both formats to be available within the next four weeks. Perhaps a little sooner. Center Point's Large Print version will come out the first quarter of 2014. The movie has been green-lighted for 2024, or thereabouts.

Authors Acting Badly Toward Other Authors

Jack Kerouac

Truman Capote

Writing as contact sport.

"That's not writing, that's typing."—Truman Capote to Jack Kerouac

"The world is rid of him, but the deadly slime of his touch remains."—John Constable about the death of Lord Byron

"Every word she writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the.'"—Mary McCarthy about Lillian Hellman

"If he really meant what he writes, he would not write at all."—Gore Vidal about Henry Miller

"I am fairly unrepentant about her poetry. I really think that three quarters of it is gibberish. However, I must crush down these thoughts, otherwise the dove of peace will shit on me."—Noel Coward about Dame Edith Sitwell

"He had a mind so fine that no idea could violate it."—T. S. Eliot about Henry James

"She was a master at making nothing happen very slowly."—Clifton Fadiman about Gertrude Stein

"The stupid person's idea of the clever person."—Elizabeth Bowen about Aldous Huxley

"To those she did not like she was a stiletto made of sugar."—John Mason Brown about Dorothy Parker

"To me Pound remains the exquisite showman without the show."—Ben Hecht about Ezra Pound

"His verse is the beads without the string."—Gerard Manley Hopkins about Robert Browning

"He is mad, bad and dangerous to know."—Lady Caroline Lamb about Lord Byron

"Nothing but old fags and cabbage-stumps of quotations from the Bible and the rest, stewed in the juice of deliberate, journalistic dirty-mindedness."—D. H. Lawrence about James Joyce

"He writes his plays for the ages - the ages between five and twelve."—George Nathan about George Bernard Shaw

"Virginia Woolf's writing is no more than glamorous knitting. I believe she must have a pattern somewhere."—Dame Edith Sitwell about Virginia Woolf

"A great zircon in the diadem of American literature."—Gore Vidal about Truman Capote

"The only genius with an IQ of 60."—Gore Vidal about Andy Warhol

"He is able to turn an unplotted, unworkable manuscript into an unplotted and unworkable manuscript with a lot of sex."—Tom Volpe about Harold Robbins