Paul Bishop's Blog, page 34

RUNNING A FREE BOOK PROMOTION ON AMAZON ~ PART 1

RUNNING A FREE BOOK PROMOTION ON AMAZON ~ PART 1

When Andrew Salmon told me he was preparing a three day free giveaway promotion for his book Sherlock Holmes: Work Capitol, I asked if he would document the process for an article and then later report on the results in a second article.  He has graciously complied…While this process has been in place for quite a while, and has been written about and explored by experts for whom book promotion comes naturally, there are always writers new to the field who look to kindred spirits who are bravely going where they themselves wish to tread and who are willint to act as a guide or mentor...
CASTING YOUR BOOK UPON THE WATERSPART 1ANDREW SALMON I've been reading for years about how giving away books leads to more sales. This made no sense to me, so I decided to dig a little deeper. Everybody knows people love free stuff. Because of this fact, the reasoning behind free e-book promotionis thousands of readers will download your book if it is free. These are people who wouldn't normally buy your novels because they have no idea who , or they would rather spend their reading dollars on works by other authors with whose work they are familiar. Once these readers have downloaded your book for free, the hope is they will read it and enjoy it enough to buy a copy for themselves or a friend, and/or buy another of your books, novellas, stories, or anthologies because they like how you bump one word up against another. The other side of this, of course, is they will download your book because it's free and you'll never hear from them again. It's a gamble, but unless your last name is King, Rowling, or Patterson, it's worth taking as you can do so without breaking the bank. This is how I went about it...  CHOOSE YOUR FREEBIE The first thing I did was decide which book to make free. I chose Sherlock Holmes: Work Capitol, because it is the first of my three Fight Card Sherlock Holmes books and the third—Sherlock Holmes: A Congression of Pallbearers—was just about to be released.   There's a common strategy of hooking readers on a series by letting them have the first book gratis. My third Fight Card Sherlock Holmes book incorporated characters from the previous volumes—plus, it's Sherlock Holmes! Also, Sherlock Holmes: Work Capitol had received many excellent reviews from Holmes fans, book review sites, news sites, and readers—so the material had been road tested successfully. This last bit is not necessary for a free promotion, but if you have a lot of titles available, with some receiving more positive responses than others, you can use those reader reactions to aid in your selection process. CHOOSE YOUR DAYS Even being part of Amazon KDP, I had no idea I had only 5 free days per month to utilize. Starting out, I’d imagined the title being offered free for three weeks, so this was disappointing. However, we work with the tools we're given. Seeing now how much work goes into promoting a free book (more below), my advice is to book those days weeks in advance, even a month in advance if you like to have a cushion. Amazon allows you to break up a book’s free days, so you can do as many as five separate promotions a month, use all five days at once, or use two or three day bursts of free book promotion. I chose a three-day stretch (March 31st—April 2nd), leaving two days in my back pocket to run a free promo again on a smaller scale. Once Amazon has confirmed your promotion days, then it's time to start getting the word out.  RESEARCHING THE FREE MARKET This is where it gets scary. There are a lot of sites that promote, link to, offer, and talk about free e-books. Let me stress the term, a lot! If you Google promote your free e-book be prepared for an avalanche of results. This is good and bad, but let's stick to actual promotion procedure.  Start by compiling a list of every site at your disposal. This means pouring over endless links looking for the sites that will work best for you. Next, you need to look at Facebook pages—there are dozens where you are allowed to post links to your free books. These are valuable supplements to your own sites and pages when advertising your promotion. There are also dozens of hashtags (#) to use on Twitter, so you'll need a ready list of those as well. You need to be aware some websites require a month's advance notice before they promote. Others one to two weeks. There are many, however, that operate on a couple of days’ notice, and even a few you can let know on the day. You'll want to break down these sites into three groups: Free, Paid, Lead Time—Longest to Shortest. There are free promotional sites, but far more charge expect considerable coin to get your free book promoted. Many will only guarantee your listing if you pay in advance. Even some free promotional sites will give you better coverage if you are willing to part with cold cash. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know paidplacement will get the lion's share of space on any given website or blog, so it's up to you to decide how much you want to spend to give away your book.  My decision was based on this being my first attempt at s promotion tied to giving away a free book. Since my last name is not King, Rowling, Patterson or Konrath, I decided to dip a toe into these waters rather than cannonball. In other words, I kept my wallet shut while working the free pages or taking advantage of the free option on pay promotion sites.  I actually did throw $20 into the effort (not exactly a big spender), but I wanted to see if anything worthwhile would happen for a small investment. If it worked, I’d consider spending more next time out. All of this research, set-up, and planning is time intensive, which is why deciding at the last minute to run a promotion is not a good idea. You're looking at potentially hundreds of sites, hashtags, and Facebook pages you need to hit if you want your free giveaway to reach as many readers as possible. THE PROCESS Now comes the even more time consuming procedure of going to each of the sites on your list and letting them know about your free e-book—in accordance to their lead time of course. They seem to all have a standard submission form for you fill in the details of your book—be prepared to copy and paste a lot—and the dates the book is going to be free. Many make it obligatory for you to sign up for their newsletter, create a site profile, and sign up for updates. Others won't place your promo unless you get friends to join the site, like and/or promote their Facebook page, etc. Each site is a mixed bag of these elements. Many freesites, of course, offer you the chance to pay to promote your book after submitting your book info. There is a price to pay for free promotion of your free book—even if it’s in aggravation. For your list of Facebook pages you want to use to announce your free promotion, consider creating an eye-catching ad. Just slapping on a link is not going to create any kind of buzz or interest. The link has to be there, obviously, but a great ad will get browsers to stop and look, see the word free, and hopefully respond by downloading the book. TWEET LIKE A CANARY IN A BLENDER There are most likely an infinite number of hashtags one can use to spread the word about your free book. Far too many to list here, but using #Kindlefreebook, #FreeKindleStuff, #FreeReadFeed, #freebookdeal would be a good start. However, there are an almost infinite number of hashtag combinations and variations that will help make folks aware of you free book. Tweet the ad, tinyurl (link), or whatever pitch you think will work and see if readers will take the plunge.  THE PROMOTION The day the promotion begins, you will begin tweeting (see above) and posting the news about your free book on every book promoting site and Facebook page you've collected, as well as your own walls. Urge your friends and associates to pass along the word to all their friends. The promotion will not run itself. Ideally, you'll be working the phones on the promo days, interacting with Facebook contacts who may get in touch with you after they've downloaded your book or send along encouragement. You can even host a virtual book promotion party on Facebook with everyone on the planet  invited.  Anything you can think of to spread the word, you should be doing, but beware of becoming annoying or repetitive every day of the promotion. Use you ad(s), the books Amazon link, the cover image, review quotes, sample passages—anything to pique enough curiosity for a reader to snag the book. Remember, it costs them nothing so you're halfway there from the outset. Thing is, there are tons of free e-books available these days so you have to showcase yours to get the attention of readers.  THE RESULTS...PENDING I wrote the above analytical breakdown of how to run a free book promotion as I went through the process the first time. My free book promo of Sherlock Holmes Work Capitol, was set to begin in a couple of days. As a result, I had to wait to see how everything shook out.   I was excited and curious to see how the work I'd put in would affect the number of downloads. Sure, I was hoping for 1000s of free downloads, but I didn't really know what to expect. If I was to get the book into the hands of new readers, I’d consider the effort a win as the book was well received by readers who paid for the experience when the book was first published. If the promotion of one book leads to the sale of others, then the effort would pay off even more. The next article was written after the results of the giveaway promotion of Sherlock Holmes Work Capitol  were in... FOR MORE ON SHERLOCK HOLMES: WORK CAPITOL CLICK HERE <iframe style="width:120px;height:240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" src="http://www.paulbishopbooks.com//ws-na... style="width:120px;height:240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" src="http://www.paulbishopbooks.com//ws-na...

FACING DOWN BEASTS, SAVAGES, SADISTIC NAZIS, AND WILD WOMEN

ROBERT F. DORR—FACING DOWN BEASTS, SAVAGES, SADISTIC NAZIS, AND WILD WOMEN...  Robert F. Dorr is a writer’s writer—A man who has consistently put words on paper and been paid for them since he was sixteen years old. He has been a roving wordslinger for over six decades. His prodigious output includes 80 books, over 6,000 magazine articles/stories, and 2,000 columns. Almost all of his writing has been non-fiction featuring wartime aviation or military history.  Last year, he completed and published two novels, Hitler’s Time Machine and Crime Scene: Fairfax County. These have been his first forays into the realm of fiction—if you don’t count the numerous "true stories" he wrote for the men’s adventure magazines.  Now 76 years old, Bob was diagnosed in the latter part of 2015 with Glioblastoma Multiforme—a fatal form of brain cancer. Successful surgery removed the tumor, but the procedure only gave him a little more time before the inevitable. Bob, however, has no time for self-pity. He is upbeat, positive, and determined, continuing to promote his latest novels, reaching out to support other writers, while fearlessly interacting with the social communities made possible by new technologies. He regularly talks on the phone with well-wishers and fans, but knowing his time in mortality is short, he spares his deteriorating typing skills for writing notes of gratitude and love to friends and family. I first became aware of Bob though my interest in the Men’s Adventure Magazine Blog website and the associate Men’s Adventure Magazine Facebook Group . With his history of writing for the men’s adventure magazines, Bob was an active presence and knowledgeable contributor to both the website and the Facebook group.  Moderated by Robert Deis, the Men’s Adventure Magazine Blog is the premier resource for collectors of the post-WWII men’s adventure magazines. The website presents an in-depth examination of the various aspects specific to the genre—the covers; the artists; the writers; the pulp-fiction style stories; the true (in the loosest sense) non-fiction articles; the vintage ads; and all other aspects of this style of magazine, which proliferated on America’s newsstands from the 1950s through the mid-1970s. On the allure of these publications, men’s adventure magazine guru Deis proclaims, “Grandpa didn't read Twilight…” With titles such as Men, All Man, Man’s Action, For Men Only, Male, Gusto, Untamed, an Man’s Life, the men’s adventure magazines left no male fantasy or interest unexplored. They are best remembered in pop culture for their vivid, lurid, and often titillating covers depicting bare-chested, all-American he-men, in close combat with sneering Nazis, savage island natives, wild beasts, and even wilder women.  As an offshoot of the website, Deis—along with his partner in crime and publishing, Wyatt Doyle—began publishing a series of beautifully produced anthologies of stories torn from the pages of the men’s adventure magazines. Under the umbrella of The Men’s Adventure Library, Deis and Doyle made these great stories accessible again in their three collections, Weasels Ripped My Flesh, He-men Bag Men And Nymphos, and Cryptozoology.  While two of Bob Dorr’s stories made it into Weasels Ripped My Flesh, Deis and Doyle decided a standalone collection of Dorr stories was a must. The resulting anthology, A Handful of Hell, was published in January. The stunning cover and beautifully reproduced illustrations from the original magazines make an inspiring canvas for the dynamite explosion of war action, valor, heroism, and down and dirty combat Dorr’s stories deliver. 
I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Bob about A Handful of Hell. Due to the cruel machinations of the brain cancer, he spoke slowly, but clearly on the phone from his home in Oakton, Virginia, where he lives with his wife, Young Soon, and keeps track of his two sons and their families. He can be blunt and irascible, not suffering fools gladly, but if he considers you a friend his generosity abounds. Since five years old, Bob was fascinated by the Air Force and military airplanes. When he was twelve, he bought a battered typewriter with money from his paper route, and began writing his first stories about planes. In 1962, after a four year tour with the Air Force where he became a Korean language expert, Bob began to pursue writing professionally.

"The men’s adventure magazines were very visible on the drugstore racks, so I felt they must need somebody to write this stuff. I used Writer’s Digest to track down the editors and what the magazines were interested in. I then read the magazines to learn their style..."  In 1965, he was attached to the Foreign Service arm of the U.S. State Department.

"When I started with the State Department in my frivolous youth, I wasn’t thinking about retirement. But I fortunately picked one of the two careers in the State Department where you could retire at age fifty."  His duties with the State Department included becoming President Carter’s top expert on North Korea. However, none of his real world responsibilities stopped the pages flowing from his typewriter.

"When there was nothing else demanding my time for either job or family, I was at my desk with cigarettes and booze writing stories."  Wherever his State Department duties took him, Bob’s typewriter and writing records went along.

"I had a file folder for every story I sold. That folder contained all the correspondence related to that particular article or story. I kept a file drawer filled with these folders. When I moved on, so did my files..." Bob also wrote for the confession and love magazines, cranking out true exposés of the intimate secrets of airline stewardesses and other salacious sounding subjects, their content tame by today’s standards. However, it was Bob’s action-based "true" war stories for the men’s adventure magazines that kept him in cigarettes and booze until the mid-seventies.

"I often made up characters and events, but always tried to be true to what the men who read these magazines (mostly combat veterans) experienced."  When the men’s adventure magazines disappeared from the newsstands, their hyper-action stories of combat, wild beasts, replaced by the "girly mags," which were more interested in nudes than words, Bob turned his skills to writing books about aviation.

"I would like to feel, if I was called upon, I could write about anything...But the Air force and military aviation became my specialization..." His first book was a history of the Swedish Vinneg fighter plane, a standard fighter of the era built by SAAB. He received an advance of three hundred British pounds (approx. $750).

"I didn’t realize there was a new book about the F-16 being published every two weeks. I thought I had to write about something original…" More aviation related books and articles followed until leaving the Foreign Service in 1989.

"The same day I retired from the State Department, I started writing full time. For a while, I had the idea I was going to achieve the goal of a million words a year. I never quite made that level, but I tried. I wanted to be the next Norman Mailer...the next Hemingway, or James Jones, but It was not to be. I still have pieces of the Great American Novel all over my house, but I could never pull them all together..."  In 2000, Bob found himself writing editorials for the Air Force Times. Known to be outspoken, he was a staunch defender of the military everyman. His op-ed pieces were never afraid to expose harsh truths senior military and Defense Department leadership might not want to hear.

"I interviewed the big guys to convey to them what the little guys wanted. Base visits were orchestrated and rarely told the brass what real airmen wanted and needed. My columns were for the ones doing the work. They have always given us better than we deserve…we owe everything to them."  Bob is delighted and proud of A Handful of Hell making the best of his stories from the men’s adventure magazines available again.

"My favorite is Night Intruders, which appeared in Real Magazine. It was real wartime fiction. It wasn’t a blown-up exaggerated topic, or overly hokey like other men’s adventure magazine stories." In typically generous fashion, he has recently donated his archives—140,000 8x10 photos, 100,000 color slides, 6,000 books—to the Glenn L. Martin Maryland Aviation Museum (along with several other charities) in Maryland, making them  accessible to researchers. Bob says the secret to his writing success is easy.

"You have to put your bottom in the chair. It didn’t matter whether the sun was shining, whether I had the flu, or any other type of distraction, I sat at my desk and put words on paper. I tell young writers the same thing I tell my dog...Sit...Stay..." During the thirty-five years I spent as officer, detective, and detective supervisor in the trenches of the Los Angeles Police Department, there was a question we asked each other whenever a new lieutenant, captain, or deputy chief imposed themselves into our orbit—would you follow him or her up the hill? The question has its origins in military combat, but for all its simplicity, the answer is complex...Is this an individual who will lead from the front or sit behind the lines letting others face the bullets? Is this an individual whose actions will bring out the best in those for whom he or she is responsible? Is this an individual who will stand-up, or will they throw you under a tank at the first sign of trouble? Under pressure, when it all hits the fan, is this an individual you can trust to make hard decisions with lives on the line? Very few individuals met this criteria—the men and women you would follow up the hill into hell and beyond are diamonds amongst pyrite. I would follow Bob Dorr up the hill... FOR MORE ON A HANDFUL OF HELL CLICK HERE TO GET A SIGNED COPY FROM BOB CLICK HERE     

ARE FREE BOOK PROMOTIONS STILL RELEVANT?

ARE FREE BOOK PROMOTIONS STILL RELEVANT?

When Andrew Salmon told me he was preparing a three day free giveaway promotion for his book Sherlock Holmes: Work Capitol, I asked if he would document the process for an article and then later report on the results in a second article.  He has graciously complied…While this process has been in place for quite a while, and has been written about and explored by experts for whom book promotion comes naturally, there are always writers new to the field who look to kindred spirits who are bravely going where they themselves wish to tread and who are willint to act as a guide or mentor...
CASTING YOUR BOOK UPON THE WATERSPART 1ANDREW SALMON I've been reading for years about how giving away books leads to more sales. This made no sense to me, so I decided to dig a little deeper. Everybody knows people love free stuff. Because of this fact, the reasoning behind free e-book promotionis thousands of readers will download your book if it is free. These are people who wouldn't normally buy your novels because they have no idea who , or they would rather spend their reading dollars on works by other authors with whose work they are familiar. Once these readers have downloaded your book for free, the hope is they will read it and enjoy it enough to buy a copy for themselves or a friend, and/or buy another of your books, novellas, stories, or anthologies because they like how you bump one word up against another. The other side of this, of course, is they will download your book because it's free and you'll never hear from them again. It's a gamble, but unless your last name is King, Rowling, or Patterson, it's worth taking as you can do so without breaking the bank. This is how I went about it...  CHOOSE YOUR FREEBIE The first thing I did was decide which book to make free. I chose Sherlock Holmes: Work Capitol, because it is the first of my three Fight Card Sherlock Holmes books and the third—Sherlock Holmes: A Congression of Pallbearers—was just about to be released.   There's a common strategy of hooking readers on a series by letting them have the first book gratis. My third Fight Card Sherlock Holmes book incorporated characters from the previous volumes—plus, it's Sherlock Holmes! Also, Sherlock Holmes: Work Capitol had received many excellent reviews from Holmes fans, book review sites, news sites, and readers—so the material had been road tested successfully. This last bit is not necessary for a free promotion, but if you have a lot of titles available, with some receiving more positive responses than others, you can use those reader reactions to aid in your selection process. CHOOSE YOUR DAYS Even being part of Amazon KDP, I had no idea I had only 5 free days per month to utilize. Starting out, I’d imagined the title being offered free for three weeks, so this was disappointing. However, we work with the tools we're given. Seeing now how much work goes into promoting a free book (more below), my advice is to book those days weeks in advance, even a month in advance if you like to have a cushion. Amazon allows you to break up a book’s free days, so you can do as many as five separate promotions a month, use all five days at once, or use two or three day bursts of free book promotion. I chose a three-day stretch (March 31st—April 2nd), leaving two days in my back pocket to run a free promo again on a smaller scale. Once Amazon has confirmed your promotion days, then it's time to start getting the word out.  RESEARCHING THE FREE MARKET This is where it gets scary. There are a lot of sites that promote, link to, offer, and talk about free e-books. Let me stress the term, a lot! If you Google promote your free e-book be prepared for an avalanche of results. This is good and bad, but let's stick to actual promotion procedure.  Start by compiling a list of every site at your disposal. This means pouring over endless links looking for the sites that will work best for you. Next, you need to look at Facebook pages—there are dozens where you are allowed to post links to your free books. These are valuable supplements to your own sites and pages when advertising your promotion. There are also dozens of hashtags (#) to use on Twitter, so you'll need a ready list of those as well. You need to be aware some websites require a month's advance notice before they promote. Others one to two weeks. There are many, however, that operate on a couple of days’ notice, and even a few you can let know on the day. You'll want to break down these sites into three groups: Free, Paid, Lead Time—Longest to Shortest. There are free promotional sites, but far more charge expect considerable coin to get your free book promoted. Many will only guarantee your listing if you pay in advance. Even some free promotional sites will give you better coverage if you are willing to part with cold cash. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know paidplacement will get the lion's share of space on any given website or blog, so it's up to you to decide how much you want to spend to give away your book.  My decision was based on this being my first attempt at s promotion tied to giving away a free book. Since my last name is not King, Rowling, Patterson or Konrath, I decided to dip a toe into these waters rather than cannonball. In other words, I kept my wallet shut while working the free pages or taking advantage of the free option on pay promotion sites.  I actually did throw $20 into the effort (not exactly a big spender), but I wanted to see if anything worthwhile would happen for a small investment. If it worked, I’d consider spending more next time out. All of this research, set-up, and planning is time intensive, which is why deciding at the last minute to run a promotion is not a good idea. You're looking at potentially hundreds of sites, hashtags, and Facebook pages you need to hit if you want your free giveaway to reach as many readers as possible. THE PROCESS Now comes the even more time consuming procedure of going to each of the sites on your list and letting them know about your free e-book—in accordance to their lead time of course. They seem to all have a standard submission form for you fill in the details of your book—be prepared to copy and paste a lot—and the dates the book is going to be free. Many make it obligatory for you to sign up for their newsletter, create a site profile, and sign up for updates. Others won't place your promo unless you get friends to join the site, like and/or promote their Facebook page, etc. Each site is a mixed bag of these elements. Many freesites, of course, offer you the chance to pay to promote your book after submitting your book info. There is a price to pay for free promotion of your free book—even if it’s in aggravation. For your list of Facebook pages you want to use to announce your free promotion, consider creating an eye-catching ad. Just slapping on a link is not going to create any kind of buzz or interest. The link has to be there, obviously, but a great ad will get browsers to stop and look, see the word free, and hopefully respond by downloading the book. TWEET LIKE A CANARY IN A BLENDER There are most likely an infinite number of hashtags one can use to spread the word about your free book. Far too many to list here, but using #Kindlefreebook, #FreeKindleStuff, #FreeReadFeed, #freebookdeal would be a good start. However, there are an almost infinite number of hashtag combinations and variations that will help make folks aware of you free book. Tweet the ad, tinyurl (link), or whatever pitch you think will work and see if readers will take the plunge.  THE PROMOTION The day the promotion begins, you will begin tweeting (see above) and posting the news about your free book on every book promoting site and Facebook page you've collected, as well as your own walls. Urge your friends and associates to pass along the word to all their friends. The promotion will not run itself. Ideally, you'll be working the phones on the promo days, interacting with Facebook contacts who may get in touch with you after they've downloaded your book or send along encouragement. You can even host a virtual book promotion party on Facebook with everyone on the planet  invited.  Anything you can think of to spread the word, you should be doing, but beware of becoming annoying or repetitive every day of the promotion. Use you ad(s), the books Amazon link, the cover image, review quotes, sample passages—anything to pique enough curiosity for a reader to snag the book. Remember, it costs them nothing so you're halfway there from the outset. Thing is, there are tons of free e-books available these days so you have to showcase yours to get the attention of readers.  THE RESULTS...PENDING I wrote the above analytical breakdown of how to run a free book promotion as I went through the process the first time. My free book promo of Sherlock Holmes Work Capitol, was set to begin in a couple of days. As a result, I had to wait to see how everything shook out.   I was excited and curious to see how the work I'd put in would affect the number of downloads. Sure, I was hoping for 1000s of free downloads, but I didn't really know what to expect. If I was to get the book into the hands of new readers, I’d consider the effort a win as the book was well received by readers who paid for the experience when the book was first published. If the promotion of one book leads to the sale of others, then the effort would pay off even more. The next article was written after the results of the giveaway promotion of Sherlock Holmes Work Capitol  were in... FOR MORE ON SHERLOCK HOLMES: WORK CAPITOL CLICK HERE  

CALLAN UNCOVERED

CALLAN UNCOVERED In the 1967 British television drama A Magnum for Schneider, the terse talking, totally ruthless secret agent David Callan became an instant touchstone of British spy fiction. A hugely successful television series quickly followed—running from 1967 to 1972—along with films, five novels and at least forty short stories syndicated in newspapers around the world.   For those unfamiliar with the TV series or books, Callan is a spy and assassin working  for The Section, a very covert branch of the British Secret Service. Similar to the real life MI5, The Section is responsible for handling internal threats to the United Kingdom. Unlike MI5, The Section has carte blanche to use the most ruthless of methods.  Created by author James Mitchell, and portrayed with callous world-weariness by actor Edward Woodward, Callan is the anti-Bond—a man doing a blue collar job he often regrets, but keeps doing because he knows nothing else. Executioner, bodyguard, stone killer, Callan is a blunt instrument wielded by Hunter—the codename for his eventually despised agency control—constantly at odds with Meres—The Section’s other top agent—and aided by his one friend, the malodourous ex-con and petty thief known as Lonely. Hidden behind the façade of a scrap metal business, The Section’s penchant for interrogation by torture is well known to enemies of the Crown (in one episode, a KGB agent pleads with Callen to kill him rather than turn him over to the torturers), and extrajudicial killings are so routine they have a color-coded filing system.  Disillusioned and cynical, Callan is aware he is too good at his job, and knows too much, to be allowed to quit. Paranoid in the extreme, Callan revels in being insubordinate, anti-authoritarian, difficult, and constantly at odds with those attempting to control him. Yet, despite being a volatile, remorselessly efficient killer, quick to use violence as a first resort, Callan is sympathetic when compared to his sadistic upper class superiors and colleagues. As the series progresses, Callan struggles against blindly following orders—often at a high personal price. It is this conflict, combined with the stark portrayal of the dirty world of espionage, which make Callan an icon of the genre.  As companion pieces to the television series, Mitchell wrote five Callan novels: A Magnum for Schneider, Russian Roulette, Death and Bright Water, Smear Job, and Bonfire Night. Mitchell was also prolific enough to write weekly short stories—featuring Callan, Lonely, and the other regular members of the Section—for Britain’s Sunday Express and syndication in newspapers in Singapore and Australia. A Sunday Express advertisement heralding the start of the Callan stories publication clearly describes Callan’s world…   CALLAN BLASTS IN…  Three years ago a cold, hard, enigmatic character in a rumpled raincoat made his first appearance on Britain’s television screens. He was a special agent. He could if necessary be a killer. He had no pretty girls to decorate his activities. He did not go on his assignments in fast, expensive cars. He had no gimmicks. But he had authority and credibility. He quickly shot up in the viewing charts – and stayed there. His name is Callan. Like the Callan stories which have gripped television viewers, the Callan adventures written for the Sunday Express are packed with action and suspense—with many an unexpected twist at the end. A must for all who enjoy  tensely, tersely told stories of suspense and mystery.  In 2014, editor Mike Ripley gathered over twenty of these never before collected short Callan stories, which were published over forty years earlier. With these in hand, along with an early treatment for an episode of Callan the television series, the screenplay for an un-filmed episode, and an introduction by Peter Mitchell (James Mitchell’s son), Ripley published the collection under the title, Callan Uncovered as an unexpected prize for Callan fans.  Believing there were still more forgotten Callan stories, Ripley and several other dedicated Callan fans continued sifting through microfilm and moldering newsprint. Eventually, they uncovered twenty further short stories. They were also able to reconstruct two of James Mitchell’s scripts for early Callan television episodes (1967’s, Goodness Burns Too Bright, and 1969’s, Blackmailers Should Be Discouraged), for which no known recordings exist. All of this invariably led to the publication of Callan Uncovered 2, continuing the chronicling of the Callan short stories from the Sunday Express.  Despite the concurrent pressure of a writing weekly scripts for the Callan television series, Mitchell was amazingly able to avoid being formulaic in the short stories, yet still delivered emotional punches each week every bit as bleak and brutal as the TV episodes.   Always authentic, the stories were rarely longer than 3,500 words, but with their plot reversals, cynical double-dealing and sardonic, hardboiled dialogue, they are tight nuggets of reading gold. I had a great time with both of these collections and recommend them highly for both long time Callan devotes and new comers alike. British espionage fiction at its most clinical and brutal. FOR EDITOR MIKE RIPLEY’S ESSAY ON COLLECTING THE CALLAN SHORT STORIES CLICK HERE FOR FURTHER ON CALLEN UNCOVERED AND CALLAN UNCOVERED 2 CLICK HERE

FROM THE MANOR TORN

My friend Stephen Mertz is a prolific word slinger who always delivers thrills and solid entertainment in every novel he writes. Like me, his early short stories were published in Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine—so we are brothers under the pen...Here in Steve's own words is the low down and dirty story of his first novel and the evil empire known as Manor Books... FROM THE MANOR TORNSTEPHEN MERTZ Manor Books was a low-end, New York, publishing house in the 1970s, operated by pack of thieving scuzzballs who published my first novel, Some Die Hard, many years ago. Happily, Some Die Hard is now available in a dandy e-book edition. Here, though, is the story of how Manor Books tried to screw me and how I screwed them right back, via long distance no less, without spending a penny.
I wrote Some Die Hardin 1975 while I was living in Denver. Private eye Rock Dugan's first and only case. I dedicated the book to my mentor and brother writer, the late Don Pendleton, who was generous and helpful in his critique of the novel in manuscript form.
Writing the book was fun. Finding a home for it with a publisher took another four years. During those four years, I sold a handful of stories to Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine while a New York agent circulated Some Die Hardfor publication consideration. It received a polite round of encouraging words, but no acceptance. 
After eventually quitting the agent and leaving Denver for the rural mountain life, I spotted a market report in Writers Digest. A mass market publisher in New York was looking for previously unpublished novelists who lived outside the New York area. The suggestion was the publisher—Manor Books by name—was reaching beyond the literary and pulp cliques of the Northeast, hunting for new talent in the heartland. Hey, that was me!
At the time, I owned a small second hand bookshop in Durango, Colorado—wall to wall unfinished wooden shelves packed with paperbacks. Actually had an entire room devoted to Harlequin romances. Until about five years earlier, Durango was strictly a cowboy and mining town. Then the hippies discovered it. The tourists came next and, by the time I arrived in the 1970s, Durango’s residents grew to include people drawn from everywhere. Writers. Artists. Musicians. Movie people (parts of Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid, among other films, were shot in the area). Everyone I hung out with was from somewhere else. We preferred the back roads and the pines and peace and quiet to the city life most of us had left behind. We were young, broke and happy. A bohemian, hedonistic, fun lifestyle. Durango was that kind of place.
So off went Some Die Hard. (The novel’s original title was The Flying Corpse, however it had been suggested a less, uh, spectacular title might stand a better chance of acceptance). Not only did I think Some Die Hard was a serviceable title, but so did writers Marvin H. Albert (under his Nick Quarry pseudonym) and Carroll John Daly—both of whom had used the same title in their day. I snail-mailed Some Die Hard over the transom (unsolicited) to Manor, and it took those slicks all of a New York minute to jump on a guy living way out in the Rockies, without a telephone.
They offered me $750.
Honestly, I was overjoyed. After four years, I felt finally vindicated as a writer. This being my first novel, though, and thinking $750 really wasn’t that much money, I trudged through the snow to a neighbor’s house. I asked to use their phone and called the only three published novelists I knew: Michael Avallone in New Jersey, Don Pendleton in Indiana, and Bill Pronzini in California. The unanimous advice from all three pros was to go for it. Get published. Start building a career—And ask for more money.
So I did, via a collect telephone call. Editor Larry Patterson was the soul of cordiality, promptly boosting the advance up to a thousand dollars without batting an eye. He was probably thinking, What the hell, we’re not going to pay the chump anyway.
I was aware Manor Books was a bottom line concern, so I decided to use a pseudonym to avoid getting boxed in as a low-rent writer. Hence, the original penname Stephen Brett—the surname being a tribute to Brett Halliday(aka: Davis Dresser), a favorite writer of the private eye stories I’d been reading since high school. Manor moved fast. There was money to be made. Within weeks I had a contract in hand for the astronomical sum of one thousand dollars, payment due upon publication.
ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS!
Dang. Where do I sign? My writing journal indicates I had fifty-four cents to my name the day that contract arrived.
The book was printed and bound (cheaply, with a recycled cover photo from an earlier Manor title, Tether’s End by Margery Allingham) and shipped. It was on sale within months, even in remote little ol’ Durango (the nearest cities being Albuquerque—4 hours away—and Denver—8 hours away). Since local friends were buying my book, supposedly so were readers from coast to coast. The book was reviewed in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. The reviewer thought it was okay.
However, I hadn’t gotten paid. Hmm. Okay. I’ll call Larry. Quoth Larry, “Sorry, Steve. We’re a little backed up, blah, blah, blah. The check will be in the mail by the end of the week.” Great…Except the check wasn’t in the mail, that week or any of the following weeks.
The months dragged on. I still didn’t have a phone. Sometimes I’d pester my neighbor. Other times, if I was in town, I’d used one of the old-fashioned wooden telephone booths then in the lobby of Durango’s Strater Hotel. I’d think of Louis L’Amour, a local celeb of sorts since he had a summer place three miles north of town. It was known L’Amour had written some of his 1950s pulp westerns while staying at the Strater between jobs working in the area as a wrangler for what were then called dude ranches. I wondered if L’Amour ever sat in the same booth in his hungry days, hustling up New York editors for overdue payment. I’ll bet he had. Now it was my turn. I was young and this was part of the adventure.
But the bastards still didn’t send me my check.
I was beginning to understand. In looking for new novelists outside the New York area, what Manor Books was really doing was trolling the boonies for writers who were good enough to be published, but who wouldn’t have the clout or the resources to collect the money owed them. Manor would essentially be taking on books for free and walking away with 100% of the profits—Like I said—thieving scuzzballs.
Among my customers at the book exchange was a nice guy with whom I’d become friends. His story was he’d been burned out while being a big city lawyer. At the time, he was on a soul search—holed up in a snowy mountain town in the middle of nowhere, honing his skills as a mime. He was an avid reader. And guess what? He still had his license to practice law in the state of New York.
“How’s about this?” I suggested over beer and pizza down at Farquart’s. “You get me that grand the sons of bitches owe me and you can waltz in and out of my shop anytime you want and take home as many books as you want for as long as the shop exists.” His eyes lit up. Some killer instincts do die hard, even in one who’d rather be a mime than a lawyer.
He said, “Here’s what we’ll do. Find out if your publisher has done this to anyone else. Then I’ll fire off a registered letter to them on my New York stationary. We’ll threaten to sue for the thousand and for damages. And if they’re doing this to other writers though the mail, we’ll threaten to charge them under Federal law with conspiracy to defraud using the US Postal System.”
Well, all right.
First thing I did was go down to the local book and magazine store (remember those) that was stocked with Manor titles. I wrote down the names of the authors of those books, and then went about searching for their addresses. My primary resource was the library reference work, Contemporary Authors. I made contact with two writers: Ralph Hayes, an active and not bad pulpist living in Florida (Manor had published his Check Force series) and James Holding, the author of a western.
Around this time, I received a letter from another new writer, James Reasoner, who’d soldhis first novel to Manor, but was having trouble getting paid and was hearing bad things about them. What did I know? I’d been reading and enjoying James’ stories in Mike Shayne, which by then had become a showcase for the emerging talent of my generation.
The following paragraph from my return letter to James (dated 4/4/80) pretty much captures the situation at that point.
All you have heard about Manor is only too true. They currently owe me a grand and the matter is now in the hands of my attorney. They were supposed to pay on publication and that was eight months ago. The lawyer gave them until April 10. But at least they sent me copies of my book! A guy named Jim Holding (not MWA’s James Holding, but his grandson) didn’t even know his book was out until I spotted it on the stands and wrote him about it. Manor has simply clammed up on him totally to keep from being hassled about on-publication payment. I also exchanged letters with Ralph Hayes. His feeling was Larry Patterson is an okay guy who unfortunately has editorial ambitions outstripping the company’s ability to pay promptly. Ralph’s advice (and my and Jim Holding’s experience bears this out) is to badger Patterson regularly (like every week) via collect phone calls, urging for payment.
The windup: Upon receipt of the mime’s registered letter, Manor Books promptly mailed me a check for one thousand dollars. 
Manor Books closed shop a few years later. Word gets around.
The mime? Every book he took out of the book exchange, he brought back after he’d read it so I could sell it again. So the whole deal didn’t really cost me a penny. I knew good people in Durango in those days.
Everyone got what they deserved, and what more can you ask for? Oh, and Some Die Hard remains—available as an e-book, which might just net me another thousand dollars…
FOR MORE ON SOME DIE HARD CLICK HERE

THE LAST SECOND CHANCE

THE LAST SECOND CHANCE For more than three decades, Jim Nesbitt roved the American outback as a correspondent based in Texas, Florida and Washington, D.C. He chased hurricanes, earthquakes, plane wrecks, presidential candidates, wildfires, rodeo cowboys, ranchers, migrant field hands, neo-Nazis and nuns—always with an eye for the telling detail and an ear for the voices that give life to a story. Nesbitt is a natural storyteller with a taste for hard-bitten noir, which he serves up with chicken-fried flare in in his debut noir, The Last Second Chance: An Ed Earl Burch novel. Recently, Nesbit was put on a hard chair under the bright lights and questioned… WHAT LED AN EX-JOURNALIST TO WRITE A DETECTIVE NOVEL? I've always thought of hard-boiled detective novels an American art form. At their best, they're more than who-dun-its or thrillers, they're vehicles for a writer's observations about culture, politics, philosophy, music, history, and a time or a place. Or life, it’s ownself. When you read James Ellroy, Dashiell Hammett or James Lee Burke, their stories are always about far more than good guys chasing bad guys. That’s the kind of book I wanted to write.  WHERE DID YOU GET THE IDEA FOR YOUR MOST RECENT BOOK? When you write, you start with what you know. I knew a little something about the violent crevices between Texas and Mexico from my journalism days. I also knew some cops and redneck outlaws. I knew I wanted to mashup those elements in a noir drenched detective novel. When I mixed those elements together, out  popped Ed Earl Burch, Carla Sue Cantrell, and The Last Second Chance. GIVE ME THE SCOOP ON ED EARL BURCH... He’s a cashiered vice and homicide cop, working as a private investigator in Dallas in the 1980s—the time of the oil bust and the savings and loan crash. He’s got his life narrowed down to the bare essentials—work, whiskey, a ratty apartment, and the occasional fling with women who drink in the same bars. He’s a burnout with three ex-wives and a dead partner. He mostly wants to forget and be left alone. But when fate comes calling, he finds out he’s still got enough fire for one last ride.  WHAT INSPIRES YOU AS A WRITER?  Reading good writers. It doesn't always inspires me—sometimes, the writing is so good I get depressed I'll never reach those heights. Then I get prideful and a bit angry and take the challenge to up my game. WHAT ARE YOU CURRENTLY WORKING ON? When not figuring out this new game of promotion for The Last Second Chance, I’m editing the second Ed Earl Burch novel, The Right Wrong Number. When I can catch my breath, I’m starting to do research for my third novel—another Ed Earl yarn. Sense a pattern there? 
I’m always on the scout for new writers with a distinctive voice, especially if they can handle a noir tale with a different flare. The Last Second Chance fit my requirements perfectly with a distinctive drawl elevating it above the pack of wannabes, and its noir flavor is as tangy as smoky Tex-Mex barbecue. This one has settled high on my list of best newcomers for 2016…
THE LAST SECOND CHANCE:
AN ED EARL BURCH NOVEL A violent waltz across Texas, The Last Second Chance, is a taut, fast-paced slice of noir about to rain down on cashiered vice and homicide detective Ed Earl Burch—now living a stripped-down life as a Dallas private investigator in the mid-1980s. Burch is an ex-jock with a hollowed-out soul weighed down by the violent mistakes that got him booted off the force—including a dead partner and a killer who got snuffed before Burch could track him down.  Now he plays it smart and cautious. Keep the lines straight. Don’t take a risk. Don’t give a damn. It’s the creed of the terminal burnout living a day at a time, drink by drink, with a boot on the rail of any saloon. But then Carla Sue Cantrell, a short blonde with ice-blue eyes and a taste for muscle cars, crystal meth and the high-wire double-cross, changes everything. Pointing a Colt 1911 at his head, Carla Sue tells Burch his partner’s killer—a narco named Teddy Roy Bonafacio—is still alive. Framed for murder and chased by cops and gunmen, Burch takes Cantrell on the run through the scrubby Texas Hill Country—home of the sixth largest bat cave in the world, and the high desert of El Paso and northern Mexico. They're gunning for the same man who they both want dead—the narco, known as El Rojo Loco. Final destination—kill or be killed…It’s going to be a helluva dance. FOR MORE CLICK HERE 

SHAFT, CAN YOU DIG IT?

SHAFT, CAN YOU DIG IT? The opening funk of Isaac Hayes’ Theme From Shaft can set off an earworm with the persistence to stick in your head for days. You also can’t hear the theme without immediately picturing the long black, leather-coated, figure of Richard Rountree strutting down the streets of Harlem, and the unquestionable self-assurance of the bullet-blazing hell he can summon down at any given moment. The theme…The figure…There is not one without the other…That’s Shaft… As a cultural icon, the character of private detective John Shaft has endured through novels, films, a television series, a terrible cinematic reboot, and—most recently, and more successfully—a comic series and new novel by writer David F. Walker. The originally 1970 novel Shaft, by the then little known author Ernest Tidyman, features the angry, no nonsense, private detective of the title rampaging through Harlem and the neighborhoods of the Italian mob pursuing the missing daughter of a black mobster. In 1971, the film adaptation—by Tidyman and John D. F. Black—became the touchstone of the blaxploitation genre that would dominate B-movies for the next decade.  The casting of Shaftwas near perfect—Richard Roundtree as Shaft, Moses Gunn as Bumpy Jonas, and Charles Cioffi as Lt. Vic Androzzi. The soundtrack, composed by Isaac Hayes, was lightning in a bottle. The tough, smart, well-dressed, black private eye who never backed down, made such an impact that the NAACP presented Tidyman with its Image Award—a very unusual honor since Tidyman was white. At the suggestion of Macmillan’s mystery editor, Alan Rinzler, Tidyman originally conceived Shaft as a sort of African American James Bond (the paperback cover of Shaft sports the blurb, Hotter than Bond, cooler than Bullitt). In quick order, Tidyman turned the novel into a screenplay and found a home for the low budget production. At the same time, Tidyman’s script for The French Connection (which would win an Academy Award) was also making its way to the big screen.   Tidyman went on to write several other novels featuring John Shaft (Shaft Among the Jews, Shaft's Big Score) along with providing the outline for several more written by other hands (Shaft Has a Ball, Goodbye, Mr. Shaft, Shaft's Carnival of Killers, The Last Shaft). Two more films followed (Shaft’s Big Scoreand Shaft In Africa) both starring the redoubtable Richard Roundtree, who would also go on to star in seven 90-minute made for TV movies between 1973 and 1974. Despite the presence of Rountree, the television series watered down Shaft’s more aggressive tendencies, softening the character into a pale imitation of the original.   Eventually, disillusioned with the film and television treatment of his character, Tidyman tried to crash the series into a wall by depicting Shaft’s demise in The Last Shaft. But like Doyle with Holmes, David Morrell with Rambo, and O’Donnell with Modesty Blaise, popular demand has kept the character vital and alive—even to the extent of giving Rountree a cameo asking his nephew—Samuel L. Jackson—to partner in the private eye business in the (terrible) reboot of the movie franchise in 2000.
All of this brings me to the latest and much more successful incarnation of the black private dick that’s a sex machine to all the chicks. December 2014, saw the debut of Shaft as a six part comic book mini-series—Shaft: A Complicated Man. Written by David F. Walker (illustrated by Bilquis Evely) and published by Dynamite Entertainment, the series follows young John Shaft's earliest adventures and is adapted closely from the Ernest Tidyman novels. Due to the success of the first series (and Walker’s obvious affection for and knowledge of the character), a second mini-series—Shaft: Imitation of Life—has recently hit the comic store shelves. 
Dynamite also commissioned Walker to write the first new Shaft novel in 40 years…When the Godfather of crime in Harlem reaches out to Shaft for a favor, the hardboiled detective finds himself caught in a web of violence and murder. No one is safe as the bullets start to fly and the bodies start to drop, leaving Shaft with only two options: kill or be killed… Walker’s effort, Shaft’s Revenge, was published in February.  Dynamite has promised more original comics, graphic novels, and prose novels, and will also be issuing re-prints of all the existing Shaft novels, which have been out of print for far too long. FOR AN INTERVIEW WITH WALKER CLICK HERE FOR MORE ON SHAFT’S REVENGE CLICK HERE  Shaft is also the focus of a wonderful reference work by Steve Aldous. The World of Shaft, was published by McFarland Press in the latter part of 2015. Eminently readable, this complete guide to the novels, comic strip, films and television series draws extensive on Aldous’ access to Tidyman's personal papers. Covering the history of John Shaft from the original novels, the film franchise, the first-ever coverage of the forgotten Shaft newspaper comic strip (including previously unseen artwork), and Shaft's recent reappearance on the printed page, in both comic book and prose form.   FOR MORE ON THE WORLD OF SHAFT CLICK HERE FOR INTERVIEWS WITH STEVE ALDOUS CLICK HERE AND HERE Shaft remains an seminal character of the private eye genre, deserving of this renewed attention to both Shaft’s history and future…Can you dig it?
 

RISEN

RISEN

Recently saw 'Risen'...An unexpectedly amazing film telling the tale of experienced Roman military tribune Clavius tasked to investigate the mystery of Christ's disappearance from the tomb, quickly recover the body and arrest those responsible, and harshly squelch dangerous rumors of a risen Messiah... The screenplay, acting (especially Joseph Fiennes as Clavius, Tom Felton as his trusted aide Lucius, and Cliff Curtis as the Messiah), directing, sets, are all excellent with the major plus of a subtle but powerful story. I'm not a fan of too many independently produced faith-based films because so many entries are poorly made, filled with overwrought acting, and stilted dialogue, all continuously hitting you over the head with their unsubtle, simplistic message...'Risen' was none of these things...From the first battle scene through Clavius' realistic, slowly dawning revelation, it doesn't get much better...

HOT READS: SPY COMICS

HOT READS: SPY COMICS

It’s been a long time since the first installment in 2001 of my favorite espionage themed graphic novels, Greg Ruka’s Queen and Country. Inspired by The Sandbaggers—A British TV series from the late ‘70s—Queen and Country detailed the missions of minder Tara Chace, an operative of the Special Operations Section of SIS, along with those of her fellow agents. Like The Sandbaggers(if you are an espionage fan and haven’t seen this seminal series, waste no more time), Queen and Countryfocused not just on the action in the field, but to also realistically believable dangers to the agents from the bureaucracy and politics of their organization.

A couple of years ago, I reread the entire Queen and Country series when it became available in digital form via Comixology. I still enjoy holding physical comics in my hands, but unlike many, I have no issues reading them on an electronic screen. Having refreshed my enjoyment of Queen and Country, I began to cast around for other espionage related tales in the current crop of comics, and found several noteworthy entries. 

The first issue of the retro-soy series Velvet, written by Ed Brubaker with art by Steve Epting, had just been released and I immediately requested a monthly pull via my local comic shop. Since discovering him through his work on the brutal/noir crime comic series Criminal(art by Sean Phillips), I will read the back of a cereal box if it is written by Ed Brubaker. If you haven’t read Brubaker’s other current series, The Fade Out—set in McCarthy era Hollywood—you are missing out on a great noir tale. But, back to spies…

Velvet begins when the world's greatest secret agent is killed. All evidence points to Velvet Templeton, the personal secretary to the Director of the Agency. But Velvet's got a dark secret buried in her past—because she's also the most dangerous woman alive.

The character of Velvet Templeton is Modesty Blaise garnished by Emma Peel—with a white streak in her long hair that channels Elvira… Set in the early ‘70s, Velvetis chock full of everything that made the world of Bond, U.N.C.L.E., Secret Agent, Mission Impossible, and I Spyso vibrant for many of us as we were growing up. Easily my favorite monthly comic, Velvet doesn’t simply mimic the ethos of those great spy shows, but adds new layers and twists all its own. 

Recently, I wandered into the world of Black Bag, written by Chris Roberson with art by JB Bastos. After blowing through the first issue, I immediately downloaded issues 2-4 to catch up with this espionage tale reminiscent of the underrated 1996 movie, The Long Kiss Goodnight starring Geena Davis and Samuel L. Jackson—only without the amnesia angle.

Black Bag introduces Renear a suburban housewife with a criminal past and a thirst for adrenaline. When her actions thwarting a coffee bar robbery she catches the eye of an intelligence agency director and quickly finds herself with a top-secret side job: carrying out the government's most dangerous missions.

Renear is tired of playing by the rules. A valedictorian and top athlete in her younger years, she's sacrificed a promising career to tie the knot and play house. Now she’s wondering if there isn't more to life? And there is—if she’s willing to take the shot and find out what she is truly capable of doing. Black Bag isn’t quite on par with Velvet, but it has a different vibe and is worth checking out.

For a very different vibe, and a hell of a lot of fun, there is Scarlett Couture—created, written, and illustrated by Des Taylor. Beautiful. Intelligent. Deadly. Scarlett Couture is all of these things, and much more…Using her cover as Head of Security for her mother's internationally renowned fashion house, she gathers intelligence for the CIA. However, gathering intelligence, is way too tame for Scarlett who follows her instincts right into the middle of the action, needing all her wits and high-end skills to stay alive.

Des Taylor’s writing keeps the atmosphere of Scarlett Couture light and lightning fast, while his excellent art is stylized  and vibrant—a pop art explosion of primary colors, gloss, and sharp edges. His covers in particular stand out from everything else of the comic store shelves.

If Baywatch had spun off a television series about beautiful female lifeguards who double as spies (Baywatch: Spies), you would have some idea of what Scarlett Coutureis all about—a fun romp with big guns and beautiful women kicking butt in haute couture gowns and high heels. 

With Mission Impossible, James Bond, and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. gracing the big screens this past year—along with Melissa McCarthy’s espionage parody Spy  and the over the top Kingsmen (closely based on the comic book series, Secret Service, which is also worth tracking down)—Velvet, Black Bag, and Scarlett Couture also capture all the elements that made spying fun before John le Carré put a damper on the party by creating the deadly somber, Spy Who Came In From The Cold.

THE RETURN OF THE GUNSMITH

THE RETURN OF THE GUNSMITH

Ignited by the success of Don Pendleton’s Executioner series, the 1970s saw an explosion of similar paperback original men’s adventure series. With names like The Penetrator, The Death Merchant, and The Marksman, these lurid offspring of the once wildly popular pulp magazines filled spinner racks in drugstores and supermarkets everywhere. The blood-splattered pages of these violent, action at all costs stories became a recognizable genre, sending shockwaves into other more staid genres, such as the western. 

The demise of westerns has been regularly predicted by doom and gloom publishing soothsayers. However, the blaze of six-guns in a west more of the imagination than reality has always adapted and survived. Following the success of the modern men’s adventure genre, the western genre responded with a mutation of their own—the adult western.

What qualifies as an adult western you ask…Having broken into the writing world via the adult western series Diamondback (written under the publishing house owned pseudonym Pike Bishop—how fortuitous), I will paraphrase what the publisher told me: “You can write whatever you want as long as there are two graphic sex scenes somewhere in the manuscript…” Despite this throwaway edict, the adult western has produced an amazing array of six-gun action in the pulp western tradition, with a bit of saucy action thrown in to spice things up. 

The adult western became a publishing golden goose…New series popped up monthly and faded rapidly, but there were more than a few series which tenaciously held on for literally hundreds of monthly entries—most often written by a rotating team of authors writing under the same pseudonym. Buckskin ( 40 titles); Spur (42 titles); Longarm (400 titles); Slocum(397 titles), Trailsman (358 titles), and the most successful adult western series and the last man left standing from the old guard, The Gunsmith (400 titles). 

The amazing thing about The Gunsmith series is the pseudonym J.R. Roberts is not a team of writers, but one man—Robert J. Randisi.

I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Bob for many years and have always been amazed not just by his prolific abilities (250 titles above and beyond The Gunsmith series), but by his consistent level of quality. Bob Randisi is a writers writer, a man who is a pure storyteller—a yarn spinner of inordinate ability and skill.

Killer Nashville—a high profile annual writers convention—recently awarded the 2016 John Seigenthaler Legends Award stating:

We are honored to announce Robert J. Randisi as the recipient of the 2016 Killer Nashville John Seigenthaler Legends Award. An exceptionally prolific author—he has written over 650 novels in the western, mystery, sci-fi, horror, and spy genres, under different pseudonyms—Randisi’s dedication to the craft is rivaled only by his passion for advocating, encouraging, and featuring other genre writers.

He has edited over 30 short-story anthologies, collections in which numerous authors found their first breaks. His willingness to share professional insights led him to serve as co-founder and editor of Mystery Scene magazine, a publication that has influenced and guided aspiring writers since 1985. His desire to highlight new talent birthed another of his brainchildren, the now-coveted Shamus Award. And in founding The Private Eye Writers of America, and co-founding the American Crime Writers League, he not only raised the bar for multiple genres, but also demonstrated the legitimacy of crime writers by showing that they were not sensationalists, but real writers addressing real problems.

Sometimes referred to as “last of the pulp greats”, which we view as a high compliment, Robert Randisi is a living legend, and a quintessentially American author: a true writer, not a brand or a celebrity. He shares the vision of Killer Nashville, and has exemplified it consistently throughout his life. We are truly thankful to have him joining us this year.

The kudos are well deserved. Starting in 1982, The Gunsmith series has survived not only enough sexy entanglements to make Wilt Chamberlin blush, but bullet after bullet—not just on the page, but from the publishing world itself. Repeatedly finding new publishing homes and new fans, the character of Clint Adams—The Gunsmith, has proven to be as durable, adaptable, and reliable as Bob Randisi himself.

Under various other pseudonyms, Bob has created and written the Tracker, Mountain Jack Pike, Angel Eyes, Ryder, Talbot Roper, The Sons of Daniel Shaye, and The Gamblers western series. In the mystery genre, he is the author of the Miles Jacoby, Nick Delvecchio, Gil & Claire Hunt, Dennis McQueen, Joe Keough series among others. Praise has also poured in for Bob’s Rat Pack series of swingin’ mysteries, featuring titles such as Everybody Kills Somebody Sometime and When Somebody Kills You.

Having written more than 500 western novels and many others in the mystery, sci-fi, horror, and espionage genres, Bob has also edited over 30 anthologies. All told he is the author of over 650 novels—and he shows no sign of slowing down… 

With the continuing e-book publication (via Piccadilly Publishing) of The Gunsmith titles approaching #415, print publication of The Gunsmith series—starting with The Gunsmith #400 The Lincoln Ransom—is making its premiere from a leading independent publisher on the cutting edge of genre fiction, Pro Se Productions.

Commenting on acquiring the print publication rights to new novels in The Gunsmith series, Pro Se Publications editor-in-chief Tommy Handcock state, “To say Pro Se Productions is proud to be a part of the continuing adventures of The Gunsmithis a huge understatement. I’ve been a fan of Bob Randisi’s work—and The Gunsmith series—for many years…long before I came to Pro Se. To be able to work with an author of Bob’s caliber and to be publishing the adventures of such an iconic adult western hero as The Gunsmith, is one of the crowning achievement for Pro Se.”

Continuing to be published under the pseudonym J. R. Roberts, The Gunsmith #400 The Lincoln Ransom features a typically clever Randisi plot: Clint Adams, the legendary figure known as The Gunsmith, rides once more as he charges head on into danger and death seeking the stolen body of President Abraham Lincoln. Extremists loyal to the now dead Confederacy have stolen the corpse of Lincoln and the Government wants The Gunsmith to get it back…With ransom in hand, Clint Adams sets out to discover who was behind the snatching of his friend, President Abraham Lincoln. With private detective Talbot Roper, The Gunsmith encounters soldiers not yet ready to give up the fight and who are still prepared to die for the Confederacy! Two men against a potential army—an army that doesn’t stand a chance when one of those men is The Gunsmith!

TO CHECK OUT THE GUNSMITH #400 THE LINCOLN RANSOM CLICK HERE