June 2010 Blog Posts (153)

July's Mystery / Crime Releases

It All Began in Monte Carlo by Elizabeth Adler

The Darling Dahlias and the Cucumber Tree by Susan Wittig Albert…

Continue

Added by Murder Mystery Librarian on June 23, 2010 at 2:29pm — 1 Comment

The Call to Action at KdBlog

Just posted a blog about selling books at KdBlog.It's a thorny problem, trying to jump start sales without alienating people or coming of like a used car salesman. Would love to get a conversation going about how you feel about using social media to sell books. Drop in at, http://kdblog.kdwrites.com and let me know what you think.

Added by KD Easley on June 23, 2010 at 4:32am — No Comments

Where do book/movie/play titles come from?

I have no imagination when it comes to creating titles for the books I write. I titled my current one – out last year in hardback and now out as an e-book – Early’s Fall . . . Early, from the name of the principal character, James Early, and Fall, from the time of the year in which I had set the story.

The name Herman Melville gave the great white whale – Moby Dick – in his 1851 adventure novel became… Continue

Added by Jerry Peterson on June 23, 2010 at 3:10am — No Comments

No Mercy - A Great Thriller

This year I'm one of the judges for the Shamus Awards so I am reading thru a stack of private eye novels. That's good news for you because I can tell you about some great new books, like John Gilstrap's "No Mercy."…

Continue

Added by Austin S. Camacho on June 22, 2010 at 10:12pm — No Comments

Oops! I Did It Again!

Continue

Added by Lauren Carr on June 22, 2010 at 11:19am — No Comments

The Plot Chicken or the Crime Egg?

Someone at my last talk asked if the crime comes first to my mind when a book idea is born or whether some other thing comes first and the crime follows. The answer? I don't know.

It's a process a bit like childbirth (sorry, guys). Once I've finished the book, the conception and gestation part gets kind of blurry. I forget the pain, and all I see is that beautiful baby.

I know I wanted Elizabeth Tudor in a series, so I guess character was the seed in that one. And my newest,…

Continue

Added by Peg Herring on June 22, 2010 at 9:51am — No Comments

Fly-in season

In Wisconsin this is fly-in season. Probably in your state, too.

Every Saturday and Sunday during summer some airport somewhere holds a fly-in breakfast. Okay, it’s a drive-in breakfast if you don’t have an airplane. Fact is more people drive in than fly in for these events.

A couple weeks ago, my brother and I drove down to the Beloit Airport for the local EAA chapter’s annual fly-in pancake feed. We had our eyes on the sky . . .… Continue

Added by Jerry Peterson on June 22, 2010 at 5:13am — No Comments

We Can't Dance Together

Here's a suspenseful piece of neo noir based on that Steely Dan song you've had stuck in your head since 1980.

Check out We Can't Dance Together at A Twist of Noir!

Sing it with me ya'll:

The Cuervo gold... The fine Colombian...

Make… Continue

Added by Copper Smith on June 22, 2010 at 12:31am — No Comments

The Latest

Borders has four different bookstores in Washington Dulles International Airport. Friday I signed books at the brand new store in Terminal B, which is bright and very open. It's also right in the traffic flow and a perfect place for an author to stand beside a giant sign provided by manager Dennis Bryant. That day I signed books that went to every corner of the country, and a couple to Germany as well.

Added by Austin S. Camacho on June 21, 2010 at 10:44pm — No Comments

Review - Conspiracy 365 - January - Gabrielle Lord

Book Title: CONSPIRACY 365 - JANUARY

Author: Gabrielle Lord

Publisher: Scholastic Australia

Copyright: 2010

ISBN: 978-1-74169-033-0

No of Pages: 185

Book Synopsis:

On New Year's Eve Cal is chased down the street by a staggering sick man with a deadly warning.

They killed your father. They'll kill you. You must survive the next 365 days!"

Book Review:

Conspiracy 365 is a series of 12 novels, released one per month, following the… Continue

Added by Karen from AustCrime on June 21, 2010 at 9:31pm — No Comments

UK Government Cuts Affect Authors

I've written an entry on my personal blog www.paulinerowson.com but thought UK writers might not have read the latest news on the government cuts that affect authors.

With the passing of the Digital Economy Bill before Parliament closed for the general election Public Lending Rights (PLR) was to be extended to e books and audio books. Unfortunately, the…

Continue

Added by Pauline Rowson on June 21, 2010 at 8:07pm — 5 Comments

Today's Grammar Lesson: WIP - Acroynym or Initialism?

Ever since Penn and Teller delved into grammar on a recent episode of Bullshit (not being crude, that's the name of the show), I've been pondering this question.

WIP stands for "work-in-progress." Do you pronounce it like "whip?" Then it's an acronym. Or do you say the letters individually, such as "W...I...P?" Then it's an initialism.

Discuss.

Added by Benjamin Sobieck on June 21, 2010 at 3:30am — 3 Comments

Happy Father's Day

What Mark Twain said about his father was true for me too: "When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years." By then I had also learned that a father carries pictures where his money used to…

Continue

Added by Austin S. Camacho on June 21, 2010 at 2:33am — No Comments

How to keep up on the Middle East

JERUSALEM — Time was anyone with an interest in the Middle East could be guaranteed a couple of books a year would be brought out by U.S. journalists based in the region. Now many of those correspondents are history, with news bureaus closing and those that remain cutting back. The new books written by Americans tend to be by think-tank types or others whose agenda is hard to figure out.

But you know that already. It’s one reason you’re reading GlobalPost, which was founded… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on June 20, 2010 at 9:19pm — No Comments

Soon from BeWrite Books.

The ancient walled city of Canterbury has held many secrets over the centuries but none more mysterious than the death of Professor de Gray.

Called in to evaluate the contents of his Tudor Manor House, Belinda and Hazel are confronted with a number of suspects who would benefit from the book the Professor was about to publish; a book he promised would re-write the history of St Thomas Becket who was murdered in the Cathedral in 1170.

The unfriendly secretary Miss Mowbray, the live… Continue

Added by Brian Kavanagh on June 20, 2010 at 8:26pm — No Comments

another chapter of my book online/Fresno booksigning

There is a new chapter of my book Deadly Discrimination up on our

magazine website at

http://kingsriverlife.com/06/19/deadly-discrimination-4/

Also in this issue are details of a big booksigning event taking place in Fresno! Check it out-…

Continue

Added by Lorie Ham on June 20, 2010 at 10:41am — No Comments

Reading device "survey"

I just returned to San Diego from a week in MD. On the return flight, which held about 80 passengers, I walked up and down the aisle serveral times. I noticed 4 Kindles and 2 i-Pads. My lightning like math skills tell me that's 7.5% (I think!). Not very high, but better than when I made the trip last year and saw but one lonely Kindle (in a more crowded plane). E-books are a coming wave, I think, but for now they are still merely a ripple. Has anyone else out there noticed anything…

Continue

Added by Scott Prussing on June 20, 2010 at 4:30am — No Comments

Why you should buy this month's Smithsonian -- Allen Ginsberg

Beat poet Allen Ginsberg was a photographer. I didn’t know that.

He had an eye for what makes an interesting picture.

Now you and I may scribble a note on the backs of our pictures about when we took them and who we see, but Ginsberg wrote detailed narratives – captions – on the bottom margin on the front. He married image to text, claiming rightly each picture has a story to tell.

Seventy-two of Ginsberg’s photographs are… Continue

Added by Jerry Peterson on June 19, 2010 at 12:48am — No Comments

Why you should buy this month's Smithsonian -- the fake William Shakespeare

I’ve read Shakespeare, taught Shakespeare, even acted in and directed a number Shakespeare plays, but nobody ever told me there was a fake William Shakespeare out there, a forger so good he fooled just about everybody around.

I had to read it in Smithsonian Magazine.

Former book and magazine editor Doug Stewart wrote the book The Boy Who Would Be Shakespeare – it came out four months ago from… Continue

Added by Jerry Peterson on June 18, 2010 at 1:30am — No Comments

As Frank Would Say, "That's Life"

The week has been bad on the front lines of Personal Life. But last night I spoke at a small library to a small crowd of the nicest, most involved readers I've met in a while. It was a mixed audience: some aspiring writers, some mystery lovers, a writing teacher, and a couple of ladies who spoke mostly Polish but smiled a lot and loved the fact that they each won a book to take home with them. The group was lively and the questions were intelligent. Suddenly I'm pretty…

Continue

Added by Peg Herring on June 17, 2010 at 8:36pm — No Comments