Jeff Miller's Blog, page 10

The Bubble Gum Thief is currently ranked #8 in the UK kindle...

The Bubble Gum Thief is currently ranked #8 in the UK kindle bookstore.  It’s the number 1 Thriller.  I’m beyond thrilled and grateful. 

My FBI thriller, The Bubble Gum Thief, is the Kindle Daily Deal...

My FBI thriller, The Bubble Gum Thief, is the Kindle Daily Deal in the UK for the next 24 hours.  If you know people in the UK, please spread the word in exchange for a portion of my royalties my eternal gratitude.

Do you ever read more than one book at once? If so, do you get plots/ characters confused sometimes?

I’ll often read more than one non-fiction book at a time, but I can’t do this with fiction for exactly the reason you mention.  I enjoy fiction the most when I’m completely submerged in its world.  If I jump out of that world and into other worlds, I lose both my memory of the fine details of that world, and also the momentum that carries me along with the story. 

Momentum is important.  I’ve abandoned a ton of really good books over the years because life became too busy to give the book my proper attention.  That’s the funny thing about a book—sometimes you encounter it at the wrong time of your life, and it doesn’t draw you in, but later you find it again and it’s a revelation.  The book is the same, but your ability to enjoy it has changed.  Sometimes, instead of writing off a book, it makes sense to file it in the “try again later” slot.

I think that mysteries and thrillers are particularly hard to enjoy in tandem  When an author plants clues, he tries to make them difficult to spot for even a closest reader.  If you’re reading several other books at the same time, you almost have no chance.  I imagine that every new homicide case makes it harder for a detective to complete the cases he’s already working.  It’s no different for readers.

There are some incredible readers who can move effortlessly amongst a dozen worlds at the same time.  When I was younger, I was better at this.  I think it’s easier to do this with books from different genres.  If you’re reading a fantasy book while you also read a mystery, you’re unlikely to confuse a wizard for a special agent.  I wouldn’t read all of the Harry Bosch novels at the same time; if anyone could do that and keep all of the characters and plots straight, they should get to be President.

Every writer envisions the ideal reading scenario for his book; a quiet room with good lighting, devoured in long sessions over the course of two or three days.  Some people will read like that.  Other will read on airplanes, or buses, or trains; they’ll read five-minutes here, and another five there; they’ll read during commercial breaks; they’ll read in tandem with another book (or two, or five).  I may want someone to linger over every clever line I stuck in The Bubble Gum Thief, but that’s not the important thing.  The important thing is for the reader to enjoy the book.  (Frankly, if they stop to think about whether I’m clever, I’ve failed as I writer, because I’ve taken them out of the story and made them remember that they’re reading a book, and not just observing a world.)  And if they enjoy the book, it doesn’t really matter how they read it.

Like any good Cincinnatian, I loved WKRP in Cincinnati, and...

Like any good Cincinnatian, I loved WKRP in Cincinnati, and especially it’s well-crafted theme song.  You’ve probably heard it a hundred times, but never looked closely at just how neatly it was made.

It starts:

Baby, if you’ve ever wondered,
Wondered whatever became of me,

I like the W alliteration, but wait a minute … did he just repeat the word “wondered” in order to make the lyrics fit?  Seems pretty sloppy right?

I’m living on the air in Cincinnati,
Cincinnati, WKRP.

 … except that repetition is repeated with the double “Cincinnati,” turning lazy song-writing into pleasing parallelism.  Genius.  By the way … when he says he’s “living on the air,” that tell us a ton, doesn’t it?  This is a man who defines his life by his profession.  When is he alive?  When he’s talking into a mic.  That’s when he’s alive.  Think about that, for a moment.  Is he alive when he’s talking to friends, family, loved-ones?  No.  He’s alive when he’s sitting alone, in a booth, talking to strangers he can’t seen and doesn’t know.

Got kind of tired packing and unpacking,
Town to town and up and down the dial

Whoa, there’s a lot going on here.  “Packing and unpacking” is a pleasing repetition of words, and it’s followed by “town to town”—another repeating words.  Then you’ve got the town/down rhyme, and that’s just an internal rhyme.  We still have the word dial sitting out there.  Is that going to pay off with a rhyme?  You bet it will.

But before we move on, can we just admire the idea of movement by both city and dial position?  In two lines, the writer has perfectly captured the life of an itinerant DJ, right? 

Maybe you and me were never meant to be,
But baby think of me once in awhile.

I’m at WKRP in Cincinnati..

Hold on.  Is this a love song?  Because the writer had already perfectly captured the life of the wandering DJ, and you’d think that would be enough to be the theme of the song … but no, it’s not enough … it’s also a love song.  Or at least a song about lost love.  But that’s the only kind of love a wandering DJ can have, right?  And there you have the essence of the dilemma of the disc jockey’s life.

That’s all well and good, but what about the rhymes?  Dial pays off with “awhile,” but you know that was coming.  You didn’t, however, see the cascade of internal rhyme that comes before it.  Maybe/baby.  Yep.  But also “you and me” and “meant to be.”  Plus, we’ve got the word “me” in the middle of each line, serving as the fulcrum for this auditory teeter-totter.

There are not a lot of words in this song, but they are all awesome.  And while I sometimes hear people singing this song, I’ve never heard anyone sing the praises of this song.  To say it’s a great television theme song is to insult it; it’s a great song, period.

Another Goodreads Book Giveaway

I’m giving away two autographed copies of The Bubble Gum Thief on Goodreads.  Enter here:

Goodreads Book Giveaway


The Bubble Gum Thief
by Jeff Miller

Giveaway ends February 28, 2013.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Ask Me Anything

Someone sent me an anonymous question about what happens to Melissa after the party.  I don’t want to spoil anything for people who haven’t read the book, so I won’t repeat the question, but will note that the answer is ”yes.”

For anyone interested in asking questions:  If you have a tumblr account, you can ask me questions by hitting the “Ask Me Anything” button on this page, or the envelope in the top, right hand corner, and I can reply directly to you—without having to publish the answer on this blog.  If you don’t have an account, you can leave an anonymous question through either of those buttons, but I may be reluctant to repeat the question on the blog if it asks about specific plot details that I’d rather not give away.  So, if you have plot questions and don’t have a tumblr account, the best way to ask them might be to just email me directly at the address listed on the Contact Me tab above.  Or, if you have a Goodreads account, you can always create a thread on the Ask Jeff Miller page, and pose your question there.  If you do this, please note “Spoliers in the thread topic name.

My Bubble Gum Thief does worse things than this one.

My Bubble Gum Thief does worse things than this one.

How to Read The Bubble Gum Thief for Free

If you don’t want to shell out the $4.99 it costs to buy the Kindle version of The Bubble Gum Thief, here are two ways to read it for free:

1.  The book is part of the Kindle Owner’s Lending Library.  That means that Kindle owners who subscribe to Amazon Prime may borrow it for free.     

2.  Hundreds of libraries are carrying The Bubble Gum Thief.  You can find some of them here.

3.  If you’d rather listen to the book, you can always join Audible here, claim The Bubble Gum Thief audiobook as your one free book, and then cancel before your free month-long membership expires.

Why did your book stop selling at Barnes and Noble?

When the book came out, B&N was selling it at a cheaper price than Amazon.  Then it disappeared from their stock for a month or so—I guess they sold out of their stock.  But I just checked, and it looks like B&N is selling it again—both paperback and audio.  Now, while B&N had previously sold the book at $7.98, it’s currently selling it for $14.37, which is just barely under the cover price of $14.95.  I don’t expect them to sell many copies at this price.  Amazon is selling it for $8.97.

This is what people have been highlighting in The Bubble Gum...

This is what people have been highlighting in The Bubble Gum Thief.