Iain Rowan's Blog, page 4

I'm interviewed over at Darren Sant's blog today. I talk ...

I'm interviewed over at Darren Sant's blog today. I talk about what my biggest weakness is (as a writer, the internet's not big enough for the rest), where inspiration comes from, and what the soundtrack to my novel would include.

Speaking of which...if you want to read the first chapter, Keith Brooke's posted it as an extract. If you read it and enjoy it, it just so happens that there's some links afterwards that will take you to where you can get the book. An uncanny coincidence.

 And to fit with tomorrow being Friday 13th, my collection of eight strange and chilling short stories, Ice Age, is going to be free on Amazon for two days. Tell your friends. Actually, feel free to tell complete strangers on public transport, too.

Easter round-up

This week's story is up over at 52 Songs, 52 Stories: this week, it's based on the Tom Waits song Way Down In The Hole. No-one throws a rock at a security camera in it, though.

The free promo for Nowhere To Go went well - towards the end of the promo period it sneaked into the top #100 Kindle fiction list, and was #1 in the Amazon US short stories list (for free books, both). In the UK it made it to #2 in the short stories list, but wouldn't quite take that last step. Over 3000 copies overall, but now to see if it has an impact in sales now that it has gone back to full price. First day has been promising.

For the rest of today, Ray Banks' Dead Money is free on Amazon, and because he and the Blasted Heathens crew are the warm-hearted bunnies that they are, they're throwing in his novella Gun too (which I reviewed, here, and very good it was too).. Find out how to get them both here.
Now, off to look for chocolate.

Google knows

When you type words into the google search box in my browser it gives you popular search phrases you can pick to save having to type out the full thing. I wanted to know something about setting up mail on my new toy, and I got as far as typing in "how know if" and the first suggestions from Google have a kind of sad poetry to them, particularly in the order they come in.

- how know if a girl likes you

- how know if a guy likes you

- how know if you are pregnant

- how know if you have HIV

- how know if your in love

Step Right Up

Gas lighters, three for a pahnd -- no, sorry, hang on.

What I meant to say, is that between now and Friday, you can get the bargain of a lifetime and pick up Nowhere To Go for absolutely nothing from Amazon (Amazon US here). Eleven quality crime stories for  free.

Not only does that save you money that you could then put on a lottery ticket which wins you millions making me directly responsible for changing your life, but if you are in the UK as it's free you will pay no VAT and so you will make George Osborne sad, and that will make lots of other people happy.

So, get rich, make people happy, pick up a copy today.

It's currently standing at #2 in the Amazon UK short story charts, and it would be very nice for it to get to #1.

Now, where was I. Santy hats, santy hats, pahnd for yer santy hats.

Let's Stop Here

Eva Dolan's running a series over at her blog in which assorted writers describe favourite literary crime fiction. My turn, this week. I outline a dark and noirish crime story about the lust for power, what it makes people do, and the inevitable descent into violence and tragedy. Plus it has witches and moving trees. Keith Brooke talks about Seven Things He Hates About E-Publishing, which he follows up by publishing an interview with me. Hmm.

I went off to one of my favourite buildings last night, to see Aidan Moffat and Bill Wells play the small Sage hall. Same venue I saw King Creosote and Jon Hopkins in back in January, and I really like the place. Is small, and intimate, perfect for this kind of gig.

The support act was RM Hubbert, who was new to me. It's one of the things I like about some gigs; finding someone I hadn't heard before, and I liked his percussive, sometimes flamenco, sometimes Celtic acoustic guitar mixed with diffident, amusing confessional interludes and an extended coughing solo. Most of the set was instrumental, but he ought to sing more, as when he did it was excellent. As a closer, Moffat came on to do the vocals on the terrific Car Song, from Hubbert's last album Thirteen Lost and Found (produced by Alex Kapranos, who also contributes to Car Song).

Everything's Getting Older was one of my three favourite albums in 2011. There simply isn't a better lyricist writing today than Aidan Moffat, and given the age I'm at, a lot of his preoccupations have real resonance. As well as insight though, he's scabrously funny.

They played as a four piece, Moffat singing and playing a couple of toms, a couple of cymbals, a harmonium and a transistor radio. Not all at once. Bill Wells stayed at the piano, Stevie James played double bass, and just about every track was lit up by Robert Henderson's muted trumpet. He added an additional hand to the piano on The Copper Top and held his trumpet in the other for a solo at the same time. Now that's multitasking.

The set was all of Everything's Getting Older, plus the Cruel Summer EP: yes, a cover of the Bananarama song of the same name, along with Box It Up and Man Of The Cloth, a typically Moffat story of dressing up as a priest for a fancy dress party, pulling Barbarella, and then flirting in Safeways with a shopper who thinks he's a real priest).

 Terrific stuff, and I hope the two of them are working on a second album.

Sample Sunday - One Of Us

One of Us is my debut crime novel, published by infinityplus. An excerpt here, for Sample Sunday. 
Anna's a former medical student who had to flee her own country when the police there murdered her brother and imprisoned her father.  Anna has been trying to get fake papers so she can stay in the UK, but she doesn't have the money. She's offered a deal - she is needed right now for her medical skills, and if she agrees to do the work, she will be provided with a legitimate identity. Her work turns out not to be a one off, and she is trapped into doing more in return for the papers she desperately needs. As she does, she starts to realise what kind of people she is working for.

ONE OF US

The next time was easy. Easy for me, not so easy for the big man with a dislocated arm.

"Fell off a horse," he said, and grinned. Then he tried to look down my t-shirt as I bent over.

"I am going to put your arm back into place," I told him.

"You can do what you like with me, love, I'm all yours. Does it hurt much then? Don't mind a bit of pain, know what I mean. What about you, love?" He laughed like a pig snorts, and sat with his fat legs wide open so I had to lean against them with mine to get close to him.

"No, it does not hurt," I said to him, and to his friends who were watching. "I did this once for a little girl. She had fallen off her bicycle. She was very brave, and I did it and she did not make a single sound. After I was finished, I gave her a lollipop for being so good. Do you think you can be as tough as a little girl?"

I put his shoulder back where it should be.

"No lollipop for you," I said.

The next time they sent me to see a girl who thought she had a venereal disease. She was small and blonde, and she did not stop drumming her fingers for a moment, even when I was examining her. Her cheek bore the mark of a fading bruise, but there was not anything that I could do for that. She told me that her name was Maja, and that she was from Slovenia.

"How did you end up here?" I asked.

The man sitting reading a newspaper and pretending not to watch my examination coughed. Maja glanced at him, and did not say anything more, she just drummed away on the bed frame, like she was tapping out a distress signal in morse code.

When I was finished I told her that she did not have a venereal disease that I could see, she had a very bad case of thrush, and what she should do about it. But I also told her that this did not mean that she did not have any diseases that I could not see.

"Have you been to a clinic?" I asked her.

She shook her head. "Not allowed. This is why I see you."

I shook my head. This was madness. "Tell Corgan," I told the man. "Tell him she needs to see a proper doctor. She can go to a clinic, it will be anonymous, she won't get reported to anyone if you need to keep this all so secret. Tell him."

He laughed. "I'm not going to tell Corgan anything. I'd wash your hands now love, if I were you."

"Why?" I said to him. "I haven't touched you."

Rather unexpectedly, Nowhere To Go has been nominated for...

Rather unexpectedly, Nowhere To Go has been nominated for the Best Short Story Collection in the 2012 awards run by Spinetingler magazine. This alone is great, but to see the company that I'm in is even better. It's an honour to be alongside the other authors shortlisted.

Voting's now opened here.

Lovely to see Luca, Chris and Nigel all in the running for best anthology (and best short story on the web and best cover for Nigel), and Blasted Heath for crime fiction publisher.

Print edition of Nowhere To Go will be out soon, with the gorgeous new cover designed by Keith at infinityplus.

One Of Us

It's been a long, strange trip.

One Of Us started as a short story, that came out of nowhere. There was just the voice, Anna's voice, and then the story of her and Corgan fell out of that. It got published in Hitchcock's, was destined for an anthology called Best New Noir until the publisher pulled the plug on that one, and then grew into a novel, which much to my surprise got shortlisted for the Crime Writers' Association Debut Dagger award.

It didn't win, but I got to go to a nice awards dinner at the Hilton, and meet some incredibly nice people, and listen to the world's most meandering speech from James Naughtie. I also ended up signing with an agent with an incredible reputation, although after nearly a year and some unexpected heartbreak, I ended up unsigning. Long story, with a pointed moral about not counting chickens, but also about writing what you want to write.

But now, One Of Us is published, in paperback (US, UK to follow in a couple of weeks) and ebook (US | UK), by infinityplus, and I'm happy, because I like it a lot, and hope that you do too. If you do, be a star and spread the word, please.

Guest blog - Convictions, Heartbreaker and the power of 'free'

Time for a guest post here at More News From Nowhere. Long-time readers will know Julie Morrigan well, not least from her interview here a little while back. She's been having great success with both short stories and novels, and hit an amazing run when she made her first novel, Convictions, free for a little while on Amazon. Not only did it do incredibly well while the offer was on, that continued when it went back to its usual price, and it's still doing very well now. 
As of today, Julie's making her second novel, Heartbreaker, free for just this weekend. But I'll let her tell you about that.
Over to you, Julie.
You'd think the last way an author would go about boosting sales would be to give their books away. And yet, that's exactly what I did with my debut novel Convictions three weeks ago.
The book went from barely noticed to bestseller within days. (And when I say 'bestseller', that's after it stopped being free.)
If I'd known all I had to do to get a book into the top 100 on Amazon UK and to keep it there for a couple of weeks was give away several thousand copies, I'd have done it months ago!
Still, I catch on quickly, and so I'm trying it again. This weekend it's novel number two, Heartbreaker, that is free.
Unlike Convictions, it's not a straight crime novel. This one's about music. Loud, blues-based rock, to be precise, and it tells the tale of fictional band Heartbreaker all the way from the 60s to the present day. The deaths are tragic, the riffs are magic, and the party rolls on despite the drama, secrets and lies.
As much as I'm fond of Convictions and its characters (and I really am), it's probably fair to say that the Heartbreaker crew are closer to my heart. Even the band name (and book title) is driven by two of my favourite bands: both Led Zeppelin and Free have songs titled Heartbreaker. And the story gives me the chance to drop various little references and snippets in there for other people to spot and hopefully enjoy.
Don't think that if you aren't a devoted music fan that you won't 'get' it, though. At its heart, the book is about people: who they are, what makes them tick, and how they react when the chips are down.
But don't take my word for it. Here's what some other people have to say.
'Julie Morrigan's book explores probably the deepest desire of all music fans: spending time with your idol and getting to be their friends. It also explores the price to pay for fame and how prejudices and a touch of jealousy can twist even those you love the most. Morrigan's writing is fluent, filled with twists and humanity.' — Alessia Matteoli, AAA Music
'With Heartbreaker, Morrigan has taken a completely fictional band and brought them to life more realistically than many actual rock biographies I've read managed to do. Her obvious knowledge and love of rock and blues is infused throughout the book, adding little details, references and layers of realism that makes Heartbreaker a pleasure to read on several levels. You not only get a great story, you get a mini history of classic rock along the way. Heartbreaker is the best new band I've discovered in a while ... and a hell of a book.' — Book reviewer Elizabeth A. White
'Morrigan has taken a myth, a myth that applies to many rock bands, and made it her own. In her tight structured prose, her razor dialogue, her observed humour and her strong evocation of what the price of fame is, she has written a story full of human drama. The title fits the novel perfectly. I cannot recommend this highly enough.' — Richard Godwin, author of Apostle Rising and Mr Glamour
Heartbreaker is free on Amazon (UK | US) all weekend. If you grab a copy, thanks, and I hope you enjoy it. Let's see if we can make this one a bestseller, too!

Round-up

If you like short fiction, and you like music (and if you don't, don't click on the 52 Songs, 52 Stories link above or to the right, you'll hate it), then check out Neil Schiller's excellent 7" fiction project. Original post here, first B-side here, an update here, and a new A-side here.

Speaking of 52 Songs, the next story is going to be up tomorrow. This one's inspired by an old Tricky song.

Issue 21 of David Longhorn's excellent Supernatural Tales is out now. One of the stories in it is a sad little thing from me called The Edge Of The Map. I'm honoured to be in there alongside some very good stories from some very talented authors. Full line-up:

Stephen J. Clark - 'The Vigil'
Sam Dawson - 'The Last Fight'
Steve Duffy - 'The Purple Tinted Window'
Adam Golaski - 'Translation'
S.P. Miskowski - 'A.G.A.'
Bill Read - 'Virpus'
Iain Rowan - 'The Edge of the Map'
Steve Rasnic Tem - 'These Days When All is Silver and Bright'

I'm generally deeply cynical about much of what you see labelled as advice on 'how to be a writer', but I like what Gary McMahon has to say on it all, although it's not going to go down too well if you're a goat. If you are a goat that writes, I'd suggest you don't need any advice, just go straight for getting the best agent you can, and avoid bridges.

Sure I've mentioned it here before, but Fragments of Noir is a great blog that would always merit a second mention.

And I dunno who to give credit to for this, but it just about sums up this week in politics in the UK: