Adventures in Createspace

If you're thinking of using Amazon's Createspace to publish your ebook in paperback, I can heartily recommend the service.

I've been setting up my new novel, The Rogue Gentleman, for paperback publication over the past few weeks, and it's been a great experience. A friend helped me out with the interior layout, and I was tempted to hire somebody to
design a new cover. I had already purchased a cover for the ebook but wasn't sure how to make it fit with the paper version. A little futzing around after work one night solved the problem, and I was able to do all of the cover art myself by dropping it into Amazon's pre-made template.

I ordered a proof once the initial layout was done, and it looks amazing. The glossy wraparound front stock not only brings out the colors in the cover, but also the lettering of the back copy. Inside, the content is in nice black ink on white paper, and not cheap paper, either. It's in the trade paperback format rather than mass market, and it's a quality presentation indeed. The product is well worth $12.99 (which I think is market standard currently), should you decide to take the plunge, but I'll be pricing mine around $7.99 (lucky #7 and all that).

Of course, reading the proof, I found not only errors but other things in the text that I wanted to adjust. Now the corrected file is back at Amazon awaiting their review; once done, I'll order another proof for yet another check. I think I'll have it on sale by summer.

James Bond Is NOT the Worst Spy Ever

I am often amused when noted authors, critics, literary scholars, et al, state with the kind of authority reserved only for God himself that James Bond is the worst spy ever. A simple Google search will reveal a lot of writing on that subject, and a lot of it very vitriolic, especially from authors who were contemporaries of Ian Fleming but did not then and do not now share his kind of success.

These critics procede to note with great enthusiasm all of the parts of the Bond movies and books that "just aren't realistic" and "not what a real spy would do."

For some reason, these guys and gals do not like James Bond.

Is it the success of Ian Fleming and the Bond films, which have done more to influence spy stories than Brian Freemantle ever will, and who the hell is Brian Freemantle anyway? John le Carre is a known Fleming-basher, but I'll dare say more people know Fleming's name than le Carre's, and I will bet that many more have been entertained by Fleming's work than le Carre's....um....well, it certainly isn't drivel. But it's not terribly entertaining.

Perhaps it's the influecne of the Bond Lifestyle, because most guys want to be Bond. Maybe that's what makes the critics angry. Guys want to have the clothes, the cars, the women, the guns, and the adventures, that James Bond has. Other writers and filmmakers have been able to tap that area of the imagination, but Fleming/Bond are tops in the category; we note that the Bond critics have not been able to achieve the same result.

Maybe Graham Greene and Len Deighton wish they had created a hero that influential.

The value of the Bond character goes beyond the millions of dollars the books and films generate. Ian Fleming and James Bond inspire the imagination. If you remember nothing else about the adventures, you know were you somehow transported into a world where a spy could indeed behave the way Bond does, and not only get away with it, but still accomplish his missions, get the girl, and, basically, stick it to the slug heads who say that's not the way it's supposed to be.

Nobody wants to read about a paper-pushing desk-jockey. (Sorry, Len--I tried but I couldn't get through The Ipcress File.) I don't want to know that the CIA and MI6 are bloated bureaucracies where it's a miracle anything ever gets done and how the hell did we survive the Cold War with such asinine egos working in those buildings?

That's why Bond is popular. He gets the job done. Oh, and he's fun. That's something the slug heads seem to forget. They also seem to forget the fact that James Bond isn't real, and that's important.  Fleming never claimed to be writing non-fiction. Why y'all so upset? Why cut down more trees just to write books that are "more realistic."

Nobody reads fiction for realism.

We read fiction to be entertained. Ian Fleming has been enteraining me since I was 13 years old, and I'm almost 40 now. There is no other author who has remained at the top of my reading list for so many years.

Refocusing

You may have noticed there are a few things missing from this blog. Like the links to my books that are not The Rogue Gentleman. While giving allowing Bullet for One, my private eye story, which received very nice reviews from pros like Paul Bishop and Wayne Dundee (thanks, guys), to be downloaded free was a huge success, for better or worse, I have decided to pull the old books for a variety of reasons, most of which are to do with the fact that those books suck.

Well, maybe suck is the wrong word. But they done got their problems, Horace.

I was learning when I wrote them, and they could be better, and maybe in the future they will be available again, slightly revised with the help of my awesome editor Elaine Ash. For now, they're gone. Not many people bought them anyway, and those who did have not come back for more (that tells you something, doesn't it?) so it's best to move on.

For now, my efforts will be on launching Steve Dane, the aforementioned rogue, in paperback (coming soon and priced to move), and keeping that series going. The Rogue Gentleman: Mine to Avenge is well on its way to completion; at least two other Dane adventures have been fully outlined and are ready to go.

There are other non-series surprises coming too.

Thank you for all of your support; let's raise a glass to Steve Dane and carry on.

The Sinister Activity of My Neighbor Part Two

You remember Mandy, right? The neighbor I think is spying on me. I returned home from an overnight visit to my father today and saw her collecting her mail. I went over and said hello, and we chatted for a spell.

Turns out she's involved in Wicca, which Wikipedia says, "is a pagan, witchcraft religion...developed in England during the first half of the 20th century and...introduced to the public in 1952 by Gerald Gardner, a retired British civil servant. It draws upon a diverse set of ancient pagan and 20th century hermetic motifs for its theological structure and ritual practice."

I guess Christianity is boring.

Anyway....

Mandy is now considering becoming a "high priestess" or whatever Wicca's version of that rank is, but she's in a pickle. Apparently such a position would require her to give up smoking, drinking, and sex.

"I would die," I told her.

She thought that was funny, but only a little. She had one of those thousand-yard looks in her eyes that made me realize she was genuinely serious and genuinely concerned about the decision. I guess one of the Warlocks, the male version of the high priest, asked her about it at the last meeting. One can only imagine what such a meeting might be like.

To each his own, the lady said, as she kissed the cow. I'm not here to pass judgement, but, like Han Solo, I think hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side.

You will be proud of me, though. I refrained from from suggesting I could be her last fling. Somehow it didn't seem appropriate.

At least now she'll be busy thinking of other things and not spying on me when I leave for work in the morning. Cherish small victories.

Another Super7even Adventure!

Call me crazy but I've been thoroughly enjoying an ongoing web series called The Adventures of Super7even. Here's one episode:

Produced by stuntman Scott Rhodes and a variety of other Hollywood folks who, apparnently, do this on the side, the series features our costumed hero, Super7even, as he battles the evil forces of Worldwide Evil in their attempts to...oh, you get the idea. This show doesn't require any brain work. Good guys vs. bad guys, lots of style, some humorous quirks and tongue-in-cheek moments; it's just plain fun. It shows that there is plenty of talent in Hollywood and maybe even a few original ideas but unfortunately the Hollywood culture is such that alternative methods of production and distribution are required to get that talent in front of viewers. Thank goodness for YouTube.

Anyway there are a lot of episodes to watch. Check out the website for more.

The Sinister Activity of My Neighbor

I'm not afraid of a nuclear, biological, or chemical attack. I'm not afraid of getting killed in a car wreck. I'm not afraid of pianos falling from the sky. But I am paranoid about spending time in my bedroom, leaving the house, or doing anything that might make me visible to the people who are watching me.

Well, person.

My neighbor. She's spying on me.

It all started last Friday night at a cozy, intimate dinner with the neighbor to the left of my apartment. Her name is Kathleen, a plump brunette who invited me, my roommate, and another neighbor named Mandy over for pork chops (which were very good, by the way, served with steamed potatoes and a mix of veggies). Kathleen is the quiet type while Mandy is a vocal fireball blonde who is 27 but looks 35 because that's what 15 years of smoking and drinking will do to you. Not that there's anything wrong with smoking and drinking, of course, as I've been known to puff a cigar and drink a bottle of Crown now and then. If by "now and then" you mean "nightly". But anyway....

The "before dinner" conversation was pretty light. I told a recent story of narrowly missing a deer along the road passing our complex; in my attempt to swerve and avoid the stupid animal that jumped in front of my vehicle, my passenger side mirror took a hit from the deer's head and went flying.

Mandy said in response: "How did it damage the mirror on a Saturn?"

That's key, my friends. I didn't tell her what kind of car I drive. Now, in fairness, she drives a Saturn, too. Its gold, like mine; a few years older, with two doors compared to my four. I've certainly seen Mandy driving hers so it's not impossible that she has seen me in mine as well. (We Saturn owners like to look out for each other, you see. We're a tight-knit group.)

But then we talked about work. She said to me: "I see you coming and going at odd hours. What do you do?"

Now, when she says odd hours, we're talking up at 3 a.m., back around seven or eight; then I'm home all afternoon. She works at home, too, selling some kind of software for a local computer company.

So what it boils down to is, she's home all day except for when she goes on sales calls and probably gets bored, so she'll look out the window when there's activity outside.

Of course that begs the question, what the heck is she doing awake at 3 a.m. when I'm leaving for work????

I was somewhat comforted by the fact that she was aware of another neighbor's moving away (this individual had these two annoying wiener dogs I think everybody wanted to strangle), and the activities of the college boys who live in the so-called "party house" at the front of the complex.

But I think it's more sinister than that. Mandy is obviously a CIA agent sent to spy on me because of my, uh, subversive opinions and the general up-to-no-goodness that I just naturally ooze. Plus she has probably seen my Facebook posts. Gotta fight the power any way you can, you know.

But how can she be spying when she was there before I moved in, you ask? Simple: She heard ahead of time that my roommate was going to tell me about his open room (she may even have the place bugged).

I'm not as dumb as I look, however, and Mandy has another thing coming if she thinks her mission will be that easy. As Bogart once said, this could be the start of a beautiful friendship. It’s the only way that I can find out who she's working for. I can only stop the surveillance by tracking down the man who ordered it.....

Boy, this is starting to sound like the plot of a Robert Ludlum novel.

If I suddenly vanish from the face of the earth, you know what happened.

If I suddenly make an appearance in "Letters to Penthouse"....well, that's another post.

It's a Rogue Christmas!

From now until the end of the year, you can snatch up THE ROGUE GENTLEMAN, my new ebook, for only .99 cents. Hurry. Won't last.

Click here.