Ohmigod: A Royalty Cheque?

Ring the bells and break out the bunting - yours truly received his very first royalties cheque yesterday, which isn’t bad going, considering I’ve been slogging away in the trenches for the best part of a decade now. Not that I’m going to be buying any Greek islands in the near future: the cheque, which arrived from Amazon Digital Services, was for royalties on the e-version of EIGHTBALL BOOGIE, and amounted to the princely sum of $111.97. Still, it’s better than a boot in the busters on a cold day.
  For those of you interested in the gory details, I published the e-version of EIGHTBALL in late February, at the rock-bottom price of $0.99c, upping the price a couple of months later, in an experiment-of-sorts, to $2.99. The new price affected sales, certainly, but not the royalties. To wit:

March: $8.05
April: $14.21
May: $23.27
June: $33.95
July: $32.49

  I should also point out that, with the publication of DOWN THESE GREEN STREETS and ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL in May and August, respectively, I wasn’t really in a position to cheerlead EIGHTBALL in the way I had been in the first couple of months. Still, sales have trundled on regardless, quietly ticking over. All of the above, by the way, relates to Amazon.com, and it’s worth pointing out that Irish e-users buy from Amazon.com rather than Amazon.uk, where the e-version of EIGHTBALL has sold very few copies.
  Meanwhile, the book has also been accruing some nice reader reviews. As of this morning, it has seven reviews, six of them five-star, one four-star. The most recent runs thusly:

“1940’s West Coast LA Chandler meets 21st Century West Coast Sligo Burke. The result is an explosive noir thriller with all the usual suspects: tarnished private eye, platinum blond, soft hearted dame, crooked cops, and more wisecracks than you could shake a stick at. Burke’s terse and pithy sentences conjure up the atmosphere with authenticity, style and wit. A convincingly brilliant read.” *****

  So there you have it: EIGHTBALL BOOGIE at $2.99. For all the details, including further reviews, and some encomiums from the likes of Charlie Stella, Val McDermid and Ken Bruen, feel free to clickety-click here …

Take The E-Train

Choo-choo! The Artist Formerly Known as Colin Bateman (right) steams into the digital age with a short e-collection of short stories, titled DUBLIN EXPRESS. Quoth the Batemeister:

“‘Dublin Express’ itself first appeared in Maxim Jakubowski’s SEX IN THE CITY anthology of erotic fiction, the Dublin edition, and is chiefly notable for having no erotic content whatsoever; ‘Unhappy Endings’ was selected for this year’s MAMMOTH BOOK OF BRITISH CRIME; ‘NIPD Blue’ was my first ever short story, and the basis for a short film I directed was back in the 90s; ‘The Case of Mrs Geary’s Leather Trousers’ was the short story that originally inspired my Mystery Man novels; and finally ‘The Prize’, about an ex-terrorist who applies his old methods to conquering the art world, was originally broadcast on BBC Radio Four live from the Belfast Festival.”

  So there you have it. But lo! There’s more! Bateman has also deigned to e-publish is debut play, which was shortlisted for Best New Play at the Irish Theatre Awards last year. Back to the Batemeister:

“I think [National Anthem] is probably the best writing I’ve done. The play was premiered at last year’s Belfast Festival and was completely sold out. It was shortlisted for Best New Play at the Irish Theatre Awards but was scandalously beaten by another play.”

  DUBLIN EXPRESS can be found here, and NATIONAL ANTHEM can be found here, both at the cheap-as-chips, recession-busting price of £2.10.

On Getting Plugged At Bouchercon

One of my highlights of the forthcoming Bouchercon in St Louis - had I been able to make it - would have been the panel hosted by Peter Rozovsky, ‘Cranky Streets: What’s So Funny About Murder?’, which will feature Colin Cotterill, Chris Ewan (who appears to be on an Uncle Travelling Matt-style walkabout across the length and breadth of the planet right now), Thomas Kaufman and Eoin Colfer.
  There’s a terrific buzz building around Colfer’s PLUGGED, the first adult crime novel from the man who turned teen megalomaniac Artemis Fowl into a literary superstar. There appears to be a growing awareness that, even if Colfer branded the Artemis novels ‘Die Hard with fairies’, there has always been a criminal instinct at play in his YA offerings, as suggested in last week’s interview with the LA Times. To wit:

Colfer, 46, might not have turned his talents to adult fare had it not been for Irish crime writer Ken Bruen, who, five years ago, asked Colfer to write a short story for the DUBLIN NOIR anthology he was editing.
  “I said, ‘I think you’ve got the wrong guy. I do fairy stories,’” Colfer told Bruen, but his colleague insisted that “when you take away the leprechauns, they’re all crime stories underneath.”
  Indeed, they are. In the seven Artemis Fowl books published so far, the crime stories are just populated with nefarious mud people and trolls and other fantasy creatures. What’s different about PLUGGED is the real-world setting, the subject matter — and Colfer’s voice, which, like the many books he’s written for children, is incomparably clever and witty. PLUGGED is just more profane and violent …

  Indeed it is. Meanwhile, there’s good and bad news for Artemis Fowl fans. The good news is, director Jim Sheridan has been confirmed to helm the first movie in the series, which will be produced by the Weinstein brothers; the bad news is, the next Artemis novel, THE LAST GUARDIAN, will be the last.
  For the rest, clickety-click here …
  As for the reviews, well, it’s fair to say they’ve been of the glowing variety. Quoth, for example, the Seattle Times:

“PLUGGED is that rare book that mixes terrific suspense with laugh-out-loud humour ... [Danny] McEvoy will appeal to fans of the crime novels of Elmore Leonard and the wacky characters prevalent in the novels of Carl Hiaasen.”

  For those of you attending Bouchercon, Eoin Colfer is as funny in person as the characters he creates on the page, even if he doesn’t have any (immediate) plans for world domination, and his hair is all his own. Miss ‘Cranky Streets’ at your peril …

The Gospel According To Marklund

I had an interview with Liza Marklund (right) published in the Sunday Business Post last weekend, and a very enjoyable interview it was to do, too. Marklund, who is a journalist and filmmaker, and goodwill ambassador for UNICEF, as well as being a novelist, is a very savvy media operator, and knows how to spin a very quotable story, and she was very personable company to boot. Anyway, the opening runs thusly:

It’s becoming a bad joke. Virtually every Scandinavian writer who emerges onto the international stage is immediately branded the new Stieg Larsson, with cover stickers on their books to prove it. Liza Marklund, author of the Annika Bengtzon series of novels, is delighted by the comparison.
  “I love Stieg’s books,” Marklund says. “I didn’t know him, but we’re both from the north of Sweden, and we covered the same topics and our heroines are quite similar: larger-than-life, obnoxious women. But I’m so grateful that he wrote those books, and the success they’ve had is phenomenal.” She glances skywards. “So thank you, Stieg.”
  Marklund, at least, has earned the comparison. Bengtzon is a blend of Larsson’s most famous characters, the feisty heroine Lisbeth Salander and the crusading journalist Mikael Blomqvist, and Marklund’s persistent theme is also violence against women (the original Swedish title of Larsson’s THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO was MEN WHO HATE WOMEN).
  However, her Bengtzon novels represent neither homage nor copycat cash-in. The first story, THE BOMBER, was first published in 1998, and four more Bengtzon novels arrived before Larsson’s debut appeared in 2005 …

  For the rest, clickety-click here …

“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?”: Val McDermid

Yep, it’s rubber-hose time, folks: a rapid-fire Q&A for those shifty-looking usual suspects ...

What crime novel would you most like to have written?
If I was a mercenary bitch, I’d say THE DA VINCI CODE. But I’m not, so I’ll go with Reginald Hill’s ON BEULAH HEIGHT. Tender, savage, clever, funny and moving. Beautifully written and immaculately plotted. What’s not to envy?

What fictional character would you most like to have been?
Jim Hawkins. So I could play inside the perfect novel.

Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
I go back to childhood and read the Chalet School books by Elinor M Brent Dyer, and Agatha Christie.

Most satisfying writing moment?
When I figured out a structure that would allow me to tell the story of A PLACE OF EXECUTION. That was a beautiful moment in itself, but it also made me trust myself and not worry that sometimes it takes years to find the right way to tell the story.

The best Irish crime novel is …?
Oh yeah, right. Like I’m going to stick my neck out like that just before I visit Ireland ... That wouldn’t have been too tough a call ten years ago. But now? Seriously, there’s been so much quality crime fiction coming out of Ireland in the past few years it would be invidious to single out any one book. I love youse all. Well, most of youse.

What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
If you’d just let my throat go ... Thank you. I think Adrian McKinty’s Dead trilogy would make a great sequence of films. But so would many others. What’s more important is that Irish writers keep on writing great books.

Worst / best thing about being a writer?
Working alone. I love my own company but I’m also a very social animal. Sometimes I spend so long with characters I can push around that I forget how to interact properly with real people ...

The pitch for your next book is …?
A woman is going through US airport security with her kid. She sets off the metal detector and while she’s waiting in the perspex box to be patted down and wanded, someone walks up to her kid by the X-ray belt and walks off with him. As she attempts pursuit, she’s thrown to the ground and tasered. When she comes round, the kid is long gone. That’s next year’s book.

Who are you reading right now?
It’s the time of year when I read mostly debut novels so I can put together my wish-list for next year’s Harrogate Festival new blood panel. So I’ve just started the proof of a first novel called TIDELINE by Penny Hancock which is not out till January. I’ve just finished a proof of Stuart Neville’s third novel, STOLEN SOULS, which somehow sneaked into the pile. And I can exclusively reveal that it’s nail-biting, gut-wrenching and nearly made me miss my stop on the train. Next up will be something called ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL by some Irish guy who claims he’s holding my wife, my kid and my dog hostage.

God appears and says you can only write OR read. Which would it be?
I’m not as arrogant as people might think I am; I’d read.

The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
I’d rather leave that to other people. Preferably those to whom I have already slipped a £20 note.

Val McDermid’s THE RETRIBUTION is published by Little, Brown. Val will be appearing at the Mountains to Sea Festival, in conversation with Declan Hughes, on Saturday, September 10th. For all the details, clickety-click here …