Jonathan Dyer's Blog: The Nick Temple Files, page 4

The Process and Timing of Publishing a True Crime Biography

The True Crime Publication Process to Date

Phase I of the editing process of my Greg Scarpa biography manuscript is complete. I turned the manuscript around today by responding to my editor’s solid substantive suggestions and keen, professional eye for minutia. We’ll soon see what phase II at WildBlue Press looks like. So far, so good.

The timing for the book feels about right. As it turns out, is working on a movie about a brief period of Scarpa’s life, one that I cover in chapter...

Greg Scarpa Biography to be Published!

Re-entering the Publication Process The Author on D.T. Fleming Beach, Maui

It has been more than a year since I completed the first draft of my Greg Scarpa biography. I received an offer of publication a couple of months later. I declined the offer for reasons of my own, reasons that had nothing to do with the prospective publisher. Two weeks ago, WildBlue Press reached out to me inquiring about the book’s status. I was surprised and delighted to hear from them. I let them know the book was stil...

Back to Square One+

Overcoming Obstacles, Self-Created and OtherwiseD.T. Fleming Beach, Maui

It’s been a year of ups and downs on the writing front. On the up side, I finished the biography I was working on and started searching for an agent and/or a publisher for the book. I was offered a publication contract but ultimately decided to decline it due to my own misgivings about some of the contract’s terms. For the next several months I dealt with a steady stream of rejections and nonresponses, so much so that I to...

Publication Agreement!

From the Solitary Task of Writing to the Teamwork of Publication

 

Many different models of writing exist. For me, the model depends on the task. When I write a book, I do so in solitude. When I write a script, I often do so in partnership. My most recent book is my first book-length work of nonfiction. After nearly two years of research and writing I had a manuscript ready for marketing to publishers and agents. That process is, in my approach, when the judgments I made each day as I created so...

SEARCHING FOR A PUBLISHER FOR A TRUE CRIME BIOGRAPHY

THE PUBLISHING NEEDLE IN THE INTERNET HAYSTACK

I decided to forego the use of an agent for the time being and search for a publisher for my new true crime biography on my own. That may be a mistake. Only time will tell. So far I have identified four potential publishers whose online materials indicate they are interested in biographies in the organized crime/true crime genre. Each of the four, of course, has its own submission requirements. Of the four, I selected the one that appears to focus o...

A WORK OF NONFICTION FOR BOOK NO. 12

When the Writing is DoneWriting Poolside at a Villa in Mauna Kea

Yesterday I completed a process that began in August of 2022. I finished the draft of my first work of nonfiction and my twelfth book overall. After nine months of research, I was ready to start writing in May of last year. I happened to be on the Big Island at the time and I took advantage of some quiet moments at a villa in Mauna Kea to craft the book’s first four pages. When I returned to the lower 48, as they say, I outlined t...

A KINDLE MARKETING EXPERIMENT FOR THE NICK TEMPLE FILES

Ten Titles for $0.00 Each for Five Days

Every so often I take advantage of a promotion that allows me to make the Kindle version of my books available for free for five days. I have never made ten titles available, including all six Nick Temple Files, for free all at once . . . until now. On Wednesday, February 28th, that promotion went live. I noted it on LinkedIn, but I’m not on any other social media, so there wasn’t a lot in the way of pre-promotion publicity. To no one’s surprise, the promo...

Grinding Through to the Half-Way Mark

The Key to Writing? WORK!Fisherman’s Wharf, Monterey, California

Chapter five of the biography I’m working on turned into a challenge I hadn’t expected. After chapter four, I felt like I was on autopilot, like I’d solved my approach to nonfiction and would be able to apply it to production of the rest of the book. Wrong. The chapter proved to be maddeningly opaque. The harder I tried, the worse it got. And the story lines themselves (violence, murder, treachery, deceit, the usual) weren’t helpi...

Back Writing after a Nice Northern California Break

First NorCal Visit Since Moving to Texas during the PandemicView of the Napa River and Napa’s Eastern Hills

We recently took a little more than a week to visit Monterey, Napa, and Sonoma on our first trip back to Northern California since moving to Texas in January of 2021. It was great to reconnect with a number of friends, and equally great to be able to enjoy so much that makes that part of the country special.

As those in-the-know are aware, October is a generally spectacular month along th...

Supporting Independent Filmmaking

“Knead” – A Comedic Short Film’s Kickstarter Campaign

A former student of mine is involved as a producer for a comedic short film entitled “Knead.” The caption for the image to the left is the film’s logline. They’re running a Kickstarter campaign to get the funds they need to produce. I took a look, watched their promo video, and sent them a modest contribution. The reality is that making films isn’t cheap, and unless you’ve got very deep pockets, it’s a financial struggle to get your work pro...