It’s been a while since you’ve had a new book come out. There are multiple comments here asking about another Thomas Black as well as another Mac Fontana. What’s up?
As we speak I have a Thomas Black with a copy editor, which is the penultimate step in publishing it. It’s called Monica’s Sister. We’ve got a cover for it and we’re planning to self-publish this summer, electronically only at first. I’m not a publishing conglomerate, and I haven’t done this before so I can only give a best approximation of the time frame. I’m shooting for mid July.
Mac Fontana’s another thing entirely. I would love to write more and if I could turn out a book in a couple of weeks, I would. Unfortunately, it takes the better part of a year for me to scribble out a book. The good news is I have another Black about 90% completed and if this self-publishing venture works out, I’ll bring it out next.
Now that you’re retired from the fire department, your former day job, it seems like you should be able to write faster? Any luck with that?
Some. I think once I start publishing myself I’ll feel more impetus to set deadlines and so forth. I’ve lost a lot of time putting my backlist on e-book. I probably shouldn’t have done it in my spare time, should have set aside a few weeks and worked on the backlist exclusively. I’m not very good at juggling a lot of small projects. That’s one reason I like writing novels. One big ongoing project at all times.
You say Monica’s Sister will be coming out electronically? Will there be a paper version?
That has yet to be determined. I would love to follow in the footsteps of other mid-list authors and just simply do what they’ve done, but there are very few other writers to follow at this point. I’m looking for a process to follow but it seems I’m forced to figure out my own process. My thinking is if we put out a paper version it will be trade paperback and will come out several months, if not six months, after the electronic version.
That’s a little bit like the hardcover release and paperback release used to work?
Right. In the old days a hardcover would come out and then maybe a year later, the paperback would be published. The expensive, $25 hardcover would come out and the publisher would make their money, then a year later the paperback version would come out for maybe $4.99, or in later years $7.99. This was the version the great majority of buyers ended up with. Now, anybody with an electronic reader, a notepad, or a computer can read my latest as soon as it comes out for less than $10.
But nobody wants to read a book on a computer, surely? Read the rest of this entry »
Monica’s Sister, the latest Thomas Black mystery, is now available in trade paperback. This is not a mass market paperback, but a larger volume the size of a hardcover. Because of some of the printer’s restrictions, it will not be available in many bookstores.
