Searching ...

A quick thank you to anyone who's come here as part of my Facebook Search Engine Optimization experiment. The Facebook Like button is to the right.

You could always stick around and take a look at some of the posts below. They're mostly to do with crime novels, so if that's your bag, dive in.

Thanks again.

An interesting site

For those of you who like reading about how crime writers work (and I guess you wouldn't be reading this site if you weren't), then can I point you to an interesting blog by Scottish writer Tony Black. He's just published a collection of interviews with other crime writers, including Ian Rankin and William McIlvanney, and one of my favourites, Andrew Vachss, than whom they don't come any harder boiled.

You can see the blog here, from which you can buy the book.

Opening up to the market ...

Well, a post about me and not other writers today.

I've done well out of Amazon's Select programme for publishers, which allows you to nominate your books for 'free' download every 90 days. The free downloads attract a lot of people and the idea is that once the free days have finished, readers will continue to download that particular book or any others of yours that are available to buy. The catch is that your books have to be available exclusively on Amazon during that 90 day period in order to 'earn' those free days.

This has worked well for me and enabled me to build up a bit of a head of steam - I'm getting reviews and the recent re-launch of the books with added Search Engine Optimisation means that they're showing up higher in searches on Amazon, too.

But now it's time to move on. I have a new book coming out shortly - Actress - and I want to hit as many markets as possible. So I've added my books to the Smashwords site, which is a site that acts as a distributor of your book to locations like Barnes & Noble, Apple and Sony. I could do all that myself as an independent, but each site has their own requirements for formatting, so in the end it's easier to submit one edition to Smashwords and let them take care of the formatting and all the associated paperwork. They only pay every quarter, but as this is the same (or slightly better) than traditional publishers I don't feel I'm getting a rough deal. We've all been spoiled by Amazon's more-or-less instant reporting of sales on your dashboard, but they still only pay about six-to-eight weeks after your sale anyway, so it's not that different.

So if you don't like Amazon, or want to pay for a book via Paypal rather than credit card (which you can do from the Smashwords site itself) then hurry along to this page where you can buy the books now! In a few days' time they should be available on the iBooks Apple store and WH Smith store too.

Keith Dixon's Smashwords page.

Dan Brown's Inferno ... putting us all through Hell

I'm not going to write much about this because I don't want to give him the publicity he doesn't need (as if MY critique is going to have any impact!)

Put simply, this is a terrible book. The Da Vinci Code was badly-written but at least the plot was propulsive. The Lost Symbol was in the same vein and made you want to know what happened in the end. Inferno is just ... boring. I've been reading it for a week now and I'm only half-way through. There's no compulsion to finish it at all. I will, just to find out how it ends. But the 'big reveal' that Brown specialises in is already becoming clear, so there's no expectancy there. The main assassin is dead (like the albino monk in TDVC, but not as hardy). And to be honest I JUST DON'T CARE.

That freebie time again ...

Yes, it's time for my very first book to come around again for its free Kindle download session on Amazon. Last time out Altered Life made number 1 in the Hard Boiled category, so it would be good if it could make it again! The link is on the right hand side of the page.

Also, I'm pleased to say that I was made a 'featured author' on Indie Book Bargains, as the badge below left shows. Click on it and it takes you to my 'featured' profile on Indie Book Bargains. I thank you ...

Joe R. Lansdale's East Texas adventures

[I wrote this in June 2007. I'm reposting it on this blog in honour of the publication of the new Hap and Leonard book, and on the news that a series called Hap and Leonard is in pre-production. Let's hope it gets the green light!]

Do you ever have sudden enthusiasms for writers?

Robert Littell - The Company he keeps

There seems to me to be three titans in the world of espionage thrillers - John le Carre, Charles McCarry and Robert Littell. The first two of these were involved in the world of espionage in some form (though le Carre plays down his active involvement) while Littell was a close observer of the cold war as a journalist for Newsweek for many years.

After the early books le Carre went off the boil, for me, but McCarry and Littell have improved over time. McCarry has a poetic tone together with an allusive, indirect style that is reminiscent of Martin Cruz Smith. Littell, though not so poetic, can be equally indirect - almost misleading - in the way he constructs his intricate stories of failed belief and betrayal.