Zero Hour: An Invitation To The Launch Of ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL

Zero hour approaches, folks. The date for the official launch of ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL (Liberties Press) has been set, and it’s August 10th, at the award-winning Gutter Bookshop, Temple Bar, Dublin. The Dark Lord, aka John Connolly, has been good enough to agree to crack a metaphorical bottle of champagne against AZC’s bows, although given the extent of the Dark Lord’s dominions, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if he didn’t have to rush off somewhere in the meantime to suppress an uprising by disaffected minions, and thus miss out on the dubious honour of being personally associated with yours truly’s humble tome.
  Anyway, August 10th at the Gutter Bookshop, with John Connolly sprinkling his inimitable brand of fairy dust, is the plan for now, and here’s hoping it all comes off.
  It should go without saying, of course - although I’ll say it anyway - that you are all invited along. If you can make it, I’d be delighted and humbled in equal measure.
  For those of you new to these pages, the back-page blurb of ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL runs thusly:

Who in their right mind would want to blow up a hospital?
  “Close it down, blow it up – what’s the difference?”
  Billy Karlsson needs to get real. Literally. A hospital porter with a sideline in euthanasia, Billy is a character trapped in the purgatory of an abandoned novel. Deranged by logic, driven beyond sanity, Billy makes his final stand: if killing old people won’t cut the mustard, the whole hospital will have to go up in flames.
  Only his creator can stop him now, the author who abandoned Billy to his half-life limbo, in which Billy schemes to do whatever it takes to get himself published, or be damned . . .

  “ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL is unlike anything else you’ll read this year … Laugh-out-loud funny … This is writing at its dazzling, cleverest zenith. Think John Fowles, via Paul Auster and Rolling Stone … a feat of extraordinary alchemy.” – Ken Bruen, author of AMERICAN SKIN

  For a variety of other writers’ opinions on ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL, including those of John Banville, Reed Farrel Coleman, Melissa Hill, Colin Bateman, Deborah Lawrenson, Adrian McKinty, John McFetridge, Scott Philips and Donna Moore, clickety-click on the AZC cover to your left.
  And there you have it. Here’s hoping I’ll see you all on August 10th …

The Baby Killers: Good Times For A Change

“Good times for a change / See, the luck I’ve had / Can make a good man turn bad …” I don’t invoke those mopey depressmeisters The Smiths very often on these pages, but believe it or not, it is, and for once, good times and good news at Crime Always Pays. As all Three Regular Readers will be aware, I’ve been struggling for quite a while now to get my latest opus, THE BABY KILLERS, aka BAD FOR GOOD, published. There have been ups and downs along the way, and many pleasant rejection letters to peruse, and much by way of support from those of you who wander by here once in a while; indeed, there was much love last year for my proposal to self-publish the book via ‘crowd-sourcing’, with all (any) profits being donated to charity.
  But lo! It has come to pass that a small but perfectly formed Irish publisher has made an offer to publish THE BABY KILLERS. The deal proposed is also small but perfectly formed, to the extent that it’s fair to say that my plan of buying a Greek island will have to be deferred until the publication of my next book, at the very least. I do like the publishing model, though. It’s based on small print runs, firm sales (i.e., no sale-or-return), and a commitment to no-frills publishing of quality, quirky books for readers with an appetite for books that don’t necessarily conform to mainstream publishing’s idea of a commercial prospect. All of which is music to my ears.
  Now, the deal wouldn’t necessarily appeal to every writer. For one, there’s no advance involved, which effectively means that I’m giving away my book for free. Given that I was planning to self-publish it anyway, that’s not an issue for me; far better that the book, which was gathering dust on the shelf, be published without earning an advance than not published at all, or cost me to publish, particularly in these straitened times. It also removes the pressure of earning out the advance, and / or feeling indebted to a publisher.
  In effect, the deal will accomplish everything I wanted to achieve through self-publishing, with many added benefits, the most important of which are that the publisher already has a good reputation for publishing interesting books, and that the publisher also absorbs the cost of publication, and provides the distribution and - crucially - the experience.
  For my own part, I get to see a beautifully produced (if the publisher’s previous offerings are anything to go by) book of mine on the shelf, and to feel a little less of a charlatan when I mumble that I’m a writer in my spare time. Equally important, I get to fulfil that commitment I made to the Three Regular Readers last year, of donating all royalties from the book’s publication to charity. Given the content of the book, and the fact that the story revolves around a sociopathic hospital porter’s plot to blow up the hospital where he works, the charity to benefit will mostly likely be that of a children’s wing of a local hospital.
  So that’s it in a nutshell. Contracts have yet to be issued and details formalised, so it’s only fair that I mention no names as of yet. I have to say, though, that I’m hugely energised right now, enthusiastic and upbeat. Suddenly, naively, everything seems possible again.
  The early word, in terms of blurbs at least, has been good. To wit:

“A genuinely original take on noir, inventive and funny. Imagine, if you can, a cross between Flann O’Brien and Raymond Chandler.” – John Banville, author of THE SEA

“If you want to find something new and challenging, comic crime fiction is now the place to go … Declan Burke [is] at the vanguard of a new wave of young writers kicking against the clichés and producing ambitious, challenging, genre-bending works.” Colin Bateman, author of THE DAY OF THE JACK RUSSELL

“THE BABY KILLERS is unlike anything else you’ll read this year … Laugh-out-loud funny … This is writing at its dazzling, cleverest zenith. Think John Fowles, via Paul Auster and Rolling Stone … a feat of extraordinary alchemy.” – Ken Bruen, author of AMERICAN SKIN

“Burke has written a deep, lyrical and moving crime novel … an intoxicating and exciting novel of which the master himself, Flann O’Brien, would be proud.” – Adrian McKinty, author FIFTY GRAND

“Stop waiting for Godot – he’s here. Declan Burke takes the existential dilemma of characters writing themselves and turns it on its ear, and then some. He gives it body and soul … an Irish soul.” – Reed Farrel Coleman, author of EMPTY EVER AFTER

“THE BABY KILLERS is shockingly original and completely entertaining. Post-modern crime fiction at its very best.” – John McFetridge, author of EVERYBODY KNOWS THIS IS NOWHERE

“A harrowing and yet hilarious examination of the gradual disintegration of a writer’s personality, as well as a damned fine noir novel … Burke has outdone himself this time; it’s a hell of a read.” – Scott Philips, author of THE ICE HARVEST

  So there you have it. The plan is to publish THE BABY KILLERS later this year, with attendant trumpet blasts and the strewing of garlands. In the meantime, and if the spirit so moves you, feel free to pre-order a copy by leaving your name and a contact email address (using (at) rather than @ to confound the spam monkeys) in the comment box below.
  Finally, and at the risk of sounding mawkish, I’d like to thank everyone who has ever expressed an interest in this book. It’s people like you who make all the difference, who give writers like me that most elusive and precious of all commodities in this writing game - hope. God bless you, every one.

Show Me The Money; Or, Putting The ‘Fun’ Into Crowdfunding

As all three regular readers of this blog will know, I’ve been banging on about a writers’ co-op recently, this despite (or because of) the fact I don’t have two brass farthings to rub together. You’ll also know that I’ve written a novel called A GONZO NOIR (aka BAD FOR GOOD), the gist of which runneth thusly:

A GONZO NOIR is a story about how a struggling writer – one Declan Burke, coincidentally enough – is approached by a character called Karlsson, the latter being a character from an m/s Burke wrote some years ago, but which got shelved for its lack of commercial appeal, principally because Karlsson is a hospital porter and something of a psychopath, given to alleviating the pain of old patients in a terminal fashion. Trapped in the half-life limbo peopled by fictional characters who never see publication, Karlsson has a suggestion for Burke: make him a nicer psychopath to give the novel more commercial appeal, and give the story more oomph. To this end, Karlsson will collaborate on a rewrite of the m/s, which will involve him blowing up the hospital where he works. If Burke doesn’t play ball, then Karlsson will turn his psychopathic tendencies on Burke’s wife and baby daughter …

  The novel has been out under consideration with a number of publishers for some months now, and – ooh, the irony – it appears that, despite the largely positive reaction from commissioning editors, the story lacks for mass commercial appeal.
  As a result, I’m thinking strongly of self-publishing the novel, albeit self-publishing with a twist, as a kind of dry run for the co-op idea mentioned elsewhere on this blog. But before I get into the hard sell, let me offer you first a sample of the reactions I received when I sent the m/s to a number of writers in the hope of a blurb or two:

“A genuinely original take on noir, inventive and funny. Imagine, if you can, a cross between Flann O’Brien and Raymond Chandler.” – John Banville, Booker Prize-winning author of THE SEA

“A GONZO NOIR is unlike anything else you’ll read this year … Laugh-out-loud funny … This is writing at its dazzling, cleverest zenith. Think John Fowles, via Paul Auster and Rolling Stone … a feat of extraordinary alchemy.” – Ken Bruen, author of AMERICAN SKIN

“Burke has written a deep, lyrical and moving crime novel … an intoxicating and exciting novel of which the master himself, Flann O’Brien, would be proud.” – Adrian McKinty, author FIFTY GRAND

“Stop waiting for Godot – he’s here. Declan Burke takes the existential dilemma of characters writing themselves and turns it on its ear, and then some. He gives it body and soul … an Irish soul.” – Reed Farrel Coleman, three-time Shamus Award-winning author of EMPTY EVER AFTER

“A GONZO NOIR is shockingly original and completely entertaining. Post-modern crime fiction at its very best.” – John McFetridge, author of EVERYBODY KNOWS THIS IS NOWHERE

“A harrowing and yet hilarious examination of the gradual disintegration of a writer’s personality, as well as a damned fine noir novel … Burke has outdone himself this time; it’s a hell of a read.” – Scott Philips, author of THE ICE HARVEST

  Okay, now for the hard sell.
  Generally speaking, self-publishing involves a writer investing his or her own hard-earned money in having a book published, and then hoping that enough readers will buy the book to make it worth his or her while. Generally speaking, I tend to go about things backasswards, so I’m going to invert the conventional model and ask the readers to put their money where my mouth is. It’s a variation on crowdfunding, in which a reader pledges a certain amount of money to see the book published, and in return receives a copy of the book when it sees the light of day.
  Now, I know we’re living through straitened times, and that no one has money to toss around willy-nilly. That said, and these straitened times notwithstanding, people are still spending money and reading books; the crucial issue these days, at least in my own experience, is value for money.
  So: how much am I asking readers to pledge? Well, I reckon that €7 lies somewhere between what you might pay for a conventionally published book brand new off the shelves, and what you might pay for a decent book in a second-hand store. €7 converts (as of today’s conversion rates, February 17th) to roughly $9.60 (US), $10.60 (Aus), $10 (Can), and £6 (UK).
  The cost of self-publishing, going the print-on-demand (POD) route, is roughly €1,500. At €7 per book, that means I need to sell 214 books to break even, which seems to me eminently do-able. Of course, if everyone who pledges is receive a copy, then I need to build in post-and-packing at €5 per book, which bumps up the cost-per-book to me to €12. Were I to ask for a pledge of €12 per book, that would mean I’d need to sell 125 copies to break even. Sticking with the original pledge of €7, however, which I’d prefer to do, means I need to sell 367 books to break even, which still seems do-able to me. In total, then, I need to raise €2,570 to print, publish and post 367 books; if such can be done, I will receive a profit of almost exactly nil, but I’ll have a new book on the shelf, and – hopefully, if a tad optimistically – 367 readers given good value for their €7 investment.
  How to raise that amount in a fashion that is clear, transparent, and leaves the reader reassured that he or she isn’t going to be bilked for their €7? Well, there’s a site called Kickstarter, which offers a platform for the raising of capital for such projects as this. The basic idea is that I set up a project with a total amount that needs to be raised (€2,570). I let people know where and how they can pledge their €7, and hopefully 367 people buy into the idea. If the amount is raised within a specific time period (three months, say), then your pledge is accepted and transferred to my bank account, and shortly afterwards you receive your copy of A GONZO NOIR; if the total amount isn’t reached in a specified period, all pledges are cancelled and it costs nobody anything, except possibly yours truly’s pride. For more information on the Kickstarter project, clickety-click here.
  So there you have it. Any takers?