Announcing "The Lead Cloak!"
It took me more than two years of writing and editing, but I’m finally ready to announce my next novel. The Lead Cloak The Lead Cloak is a science fiction adventure set seventy years in the future. It will be available in three weeks, on October 15. Below is the short trailer I created for it, and there is a whole website with information about the book. I am so excited to share this novel. It is an adventure with a lot of action and the highest of stakes. It is a mystery, set in a world without secrets. And Read more…
Us at the #CatVidFest at the Minnesota State Fair
Today is not the day to talk about my new book (waiting on one key thing in order to announce it). So instead … here is a picture of Mary and I acting silly at the Cat Video Film Festival at the Minnesota State Fair.
After all that …
Way back in 2011, I was putting the finishing touches on The Marinara Murders and didn’t have a new project to work on. I had an idea for the next Beautyman mystery, but my head was full of a science fiction novel. I’ve never written science fiction, but I couldn’t get it out of my system. So I took a leap and started writing. It ended up going really really well. The book gathered dust during my election campaign that year, and then I picked it up again. Hannah’s arrival the next year actually helped me pick up the pace, Read more…
The Affordable Care Act and My Family
Insuring the Holste/Hanberg clan is expensive business. Since leaving her full-time job in 2007, Mary has been paying for her health care out-of-pocket (as I have since 2008). Mary’s plan was, until now, the only health plan in Washington that includes maternity (if you’re self-employed and buying insurance on your own) and the monthly premiums were very high. When we added Hannah to the plan last year, they got even higher. I’m on an HSA, which is basically the equivalent of a catastrophic health care plan that includes a couple doctor visits. It’s cheaper, but still not cheap, especially for Read more…
Hercule Poirot and the Case of Public Domain
So here’s the news: there will be a new Hercule Poirot novel commissioned by the estate of Agatha Christie coming in 2014. The first Poirot novel was published in 1920, and the last Poirot novel was published in 1975. So that’s a 39 year break between the last Poirot novel and this one. Why wait so long? Or better yet–why is this book coming out now? Well, to answer that question, let’s jump back a couple decades and investigate the case of the 1991 novel Scarlett, a sequel to Gone With the Wind that was authorized by the estate of Margaret Read more…
Every sale still amazes me …
The first day of every month is a hard one for an independent author. All your sales are wiped clean. However well you did the month before, all those sales disappear, and the counter resets to zero. This is what the sales report for Kindle looks like when you haven’t sold any books. No matter how good previous month sales were, this is the bar you see before you sell anything this month. Ugh. Back in 2010 and early 2011, there were some months when this bar wouldn’t go away until the end of the month. Now it usually goes away pretty Read more…
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