My First 5,000 Sales
So sometime in the last two days, I passed an incredible milestone: 5,000 total sales between my three books. I can’t even tell you how floored I am by that number. Two and a half years ago, when I uploaded The Saints Go Dying to the Kindle, I sold fifty copies in that first month. I would have been happy with just that, when it really comes down to it. 50 people reading a novel I’d written was already more readers than I’d ever had before. I dreamed about publishing more, but at that point The Marinara Murders was just Read more…
Movies About Writing
I enjoyed this article by Michael McGrath on The Millions about how movies so poorly depict writers. Mostly by ignoring the writing and focusing on the rest: The darker elements of creation are excellent fodder for thrillers and effective platforms for comedies. These films take the work itself less seriously (often a lack of literary merit is part of the joke) and instead focus on the pitfalls of the creative life. They ignore the words for the work and all that can inspire and disrupt it: psycho fans, ex-wives, portals to the Underworld. This is partly true, but honestly, I Read more…
Pay Whatever Your Want For The Marinara Murders! Really.
There’s been so much going on these past few months (a baby, a new job with Mary) that I haven’t written as much about writing as I would have liked. I’ve got three projects in the works, all of which I’m very excited about. Mystery, sci-fi, and another book for small nonprofits. But right now I want to talk about books that are already out. Maybe you haven’t gotten around to checking out The Marinara Murders or The Saints Go Dying. That’s totally ok! Because now you can do it totally risk free. It’s part of a very special “bundle” Read more…
XOXO
I’m in Portland this weekend for the first ever XOXO Festival, The festival describes itself as an “arts and technology festival celebrating disruptive creativity.” That was enough right there to get me interested. But then they continue: “We’re bringing independent artists who use the Internet to make a living doing what they love together with the technologists building the tools that make it possible.” I couldn’t resist. I bought a ticket within minutes of them selling out, and now we’re finally here. I’ll be at the festival for the next two days while Mary and Hannah explore Portland. Already we’ve had Read more…
The Audacious Charles Dickens
See the full gallery on Posterous I spent some quality time last weekend finishing A Tale of Two Cities. The last time I read it was my freshman year of high school. I’m not sure how much I actually understood of it back then. 18 years later, I remember the ending. Madame Defarge knitting. And the literary symbolism that wine = blood. Which wasn’t exactly an insight, because Dickens pretty much beats you over the head with that: Those who had been greedy with the staves of the cask, had acquired a tigerish smear about the mouth; and one tall Read more…
I can’t say enough nice things about Tana French’s Irish mystery novels
Tana French is a fabulous mystery author. Her books are moody, atmospheric, and page-turners. In order, they are: In the Woods, The Likeness, Faithful Place, and Broken Harbor, which came out last week. They all stand alone, but they probably should be read in order, due to her shifting narrators. A character that first appears in the first book narrates the next book; a character in the second book narrates the third book, etc. So there is a nice progression of character development as you get to know the Dublin Murder Squad: Rob, Cassie, Frank, and Scorcher. French clearly loves Read more…
Put on your Fundraising Hat
I participate in a few online forums around the web where I share information about a variety of different interests and topics. But for the life of me, I couldn’t find any that are active that deal with fundraising (unless they are fundraising for specific groups, like frats/sororities, soccer teams, and schools). Why wasn’t there a place for leaders of small nonprofits to get together online and talk about fundraising? (Let alone leaders of nonprofits in general!) There are so many of us! We need a resource, a place to meet and talk about what worked, what didn’t, and exchange Read more…
This was really really fun
I sold some books too!
Book signing at the Carleton reunion
From what I can tell, I’m the only Carleton author with any fiction titles here today. I’ll have my first book signing ever in about 90 minutes! Really excited for it!
Big year.
Today's my birthday! It's been a very chill day. A little excursion to Pacific Grill (thanks to my sister for watching Hannah while we went!) and some hanging about the place. I spent some time on a new side project I'm working on (more on that later). I watched some good TV. I played with Hannah. All in all, a pretty nice day. And really, a pretty nice last year. What a year between May 22, 2011, and today. I ran for office, got elected (ahem, retained), published The Marinara Murders, wrote 62,000 words in a sci-fi novel (that is Read more…
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