Author Interview: Featured on The Cult of Me

Hey everyone, wanted to make those who follow the blog aware of an author interview posted about me on a UK blog called "The Cult of Me." While the blog owner promotes his own material, he also works really hard to help other authors out and have the chance to talk a little bit about themselves. Well, I did just that, and the result is posted here! -> Send me to the interview!

I hope you all are having a wonderful Spring season, and you should definitely stay tuned for a new book hopefully coming out this summer!

Prologue Excerpt

For those of you who regularly follow my tweets or Facebook, you'll know that I have a new novel I'm working on. While it is not finished, I am including the prologue to the book here to keep you all updated. Enjoy!

**Please note that any and all words here are my own. Copyright infringement will not be tolerated**

Prologue after the jump.

My Days With Brother Jukebox

There are those who know me personally - if anyone does - know before I began writing books, I spent a lot of years - actually what I call "years of night", meaning I didn't have a lot of days, in the music business. Nights were when you made your living. I was a singer, singin' all kinds of music: doo-wop, progressive jazz (remember The Four Freshmen, the Hi-los? Prob'ly not.), rock and roll, blues. Finally, I sang songs that were about heartbreakin', womanizin', cheatin', hard-drinkin' and fightin'. Did they all end in "in"? Songs like "Brother Jukebox" and "Hank Williams You Wrote My Life" and others. Those two and more were written by my friend, Paul Craft, who also wrote for the Eagles, Linda Ronstad and Dolly Parton. There were also lesser songs in this genre that I didn't sing (one has to have standards), songs like "If I'da Killed You Then I'd Be Gettin' Out Now" or "Ain't No Trash in My Trailer Since You Left."

It was those latter clubs, some with chicken wire in front of the bandstand to ward off beer bottles, in places like War, West Virginia and Penns Grove, NJ, that introduced me to a number of things the other music scenes hadn't provided, such as going to sleep on Monday and waking up on Wednesday on a bus, somewhere, with people, some of whom I knew and others who had just joined the fray while I was sleeping. It was a "Brother Jukebox, Sister Wine" kind of existence.

I was thinkin' about some of those experiences late last night when I realized my blog had been pretty much ignored while my brain was searching for the next novel. I then asked myself was music or writin' the most fun. Ever do that? Ever ask yourself what the best time, the best period of your life, the one with the most fun was? Just for you. Don't think about anybody else.

Looking back, I would have to say music was the most fun time without question. Musicians have no responsibilities except for the music. Musicians have no responsibilities except for the music. But, I also have to admit writin' is a good time, too, and less damaging and safer. I would also have to admit that the life experiences I got through music gave me things to write about. (Nothin' Left to Lose). We will talk more about this later. I'm off to Virginia, but I'm not invitin' Brother Jukebox or Sister Wine.

Louisiana Burn Voiceover Teaser

So you're thinking about purchasing Louisiana Burn, but that $2.99 is just a little bit too hard to part with. I understand! And this is why I'm here to help. It's pretty easy to go on Amazon or other sites that sell books and read a small sample of them to see if you might enjoy it. But I decided to take it to the next level, and had the talented Lynne Darlington, a voiceover professional from New York, record an excerpt for me. At this point, I'm happy to share that very voiceover with you:

If anyone is looking for a voiceover professional for any sort of work, I'd highly recommend Lynne; she was a pleasure to work with and obviously did a wonderful job. Her email is lynnevoiceover@gmail.com for any inquiries. If you'd like to check out her site, the link is www.lynnedarlington.com.

Also, I'd just like to mention that all of my books, including the others in the Sam Larkin Trilogy, are now available as eBooks... They can be found on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, the Apple bookstore and more, all for just $2.99.

Happy listening and happy reading!!

What Am I Going to Write Next? Part Deux

In my last post I was at a critical point. I had the settings -- Nashville, Philadelphia and New York with various stops in between. I selected a group of characters from my experiences (I think most writers do that) -- a singer/songwriter, a producer, a group of organized crime personalities and a woman. Maybe two or three. Easy pickins, I thought. (no pun intended).

The next step was the most worrisome: putting words circulating in my mind on paper. The first line is critical. A writer can win or lose the reader with a good or bad first line. Often when I am in bookstores, I open numerous books to read the first line. Most of the good ones have been taken: "It was a dark and stormy night." (Weather is used a lot.) "It was the best of times. It was the worst of times." (Social commentary has also been done.) "I felt..." (I am not going to write a romance novel.) I decided on "It's gonna be a good day." That leaves the option for interpretation to the reader. Positive? Ironic? Negative? Disappointing? Good or bad, that's where I was determined to start.

I don't outline (I would feel like I was playing "Fill in the Blanks" or doing a research paper) or look ahead. I let the characters tell me where the story must go. I seldom know what's going to happen on the next page. This is insane according to some of my writing friends, but the technique has carried me through five published novels. With this book I was lucky; the story created itself as I wrote, part of that being because I was so familiar with the material. Once it was completed, I was fairly well pleased, but, as anyone who writes knows, this is where the real difficulty begins. Finding a publisher.

First, let me say I respect agents and I respect publishers. I just don't understand them. I did a bit of agenting in the music business and, when an act auditioned for me, I either liked them or I didn't like them and gave my true reasons in hopes that it might help them improve. When I began submitting this book, Nothin' Left to Lose, (yes, the title came from "Me and Bobbie MaGee") the response was more amusing than devastating. "Love country music, love Nashville, love your characters. We're going to pass." "The book obviously has commercial appeal, but I'm not sure I will be able to sell it because I'm not sure it will make any money." What's commercial appeal? This one I loved: "Your book has too much depth to appeal to a country music crowd." Really.

Finally, I met a small publisher at a literary conference (The "country music crowd" was not there) and after some negotiation, she agreed to publish the book. She was very optimistic. Was going to do an initial run of eight thousand books, which she did. I was going to be published. I didn't expect to be John Grisham, but I couldn't have predicted what was going to happen.

Advanced reader's copies were sent to reviewers. I did my part getting newspaper coverage in any town I had stopped in overnight. "I was originally from here and I wonder if..." Small town newspapers are a sucker for home-growns who have become famous or might become famous and know where their town is. I was shocked when the book got a very favorable review in "Publisher's Weekly" and also in "ForeWord" magazine. I was floating. The publisher scheduled a few appearances, but I handled most of that and had a pretty good schedule arranged by the time the book came out. The launch for the book would be at Bay Street Trading Company in Beaufort, SC, Pat Conroy's home bookstore and a diamond among independents nation-wide.

Three weeks before the launch, I started getting responses from the stores I had contacted in my marketing plan that they had buyers and couldn't get books. My first act was to call the publisher. No one answered the phones. Finally, two weeks later, I managed to contact her and she advised me that they were filing for bankruptcy, but if I wanted to get books for the launch, I could come to Columbia, SC and she would provide them.

Actually, as I look back, that lack of cooperation (she couldn't afford to ship the books) was a blessing in disguise (cliché, Carl). I went and got the books and the store had a great response for the initial signing (over 300 books sold); however, I knew that was the end of it. The publisher would ship no more books. The blessing in going to pick up the books was that I located the warehouse where the books were stored.

Everything had gone so well and the response to the book had been so good that I refused to let it disappear. I called a friend who had a van and, under the cover of darkness, we drove to Columbia, cut the chains on the warehouse door and purloined a thousand books. I had already decided to buy the remainder from the bankruptcy court, but I knew that could be months away. I set myself up as a distributor with Baker & Taylor and proceeded to ship the books myself, set up signings and get on with the promotion. The book sold over four thousand copies in the first year from my jury-rigged efforts. It was later optioned for film twice by Tim Moore (the man behind Gran Torino, The Changeling and others). Never made it to the big screen, but the experience kept me going.

The only real problem I encountered after Nothin' Left to Lose was what I was going to write about next, but that's a story for another time and not any less dramatic.

Nothin' Left to Lose will be released an an eBook in June.

On Dealing With Reviews

Some writers say they never read reviews of their books. Quite simply, since there is a significant amount of ego within most artists in any field -- actors, singers, painters, dancers, etc -- that I have met, I find it difficult to believe that those writers who say that they have no interest in accolades of their work. The thing is we get reviews from very strange places, which brings me to an interesting little story of one of my best.

When my novel, Lowcountry Boil, came out I was a little nervous. Not because of the quality of the work, writers I greatly respect -- Pat Conroy, Steve Berry, les Standiford, Carolyn Hart and others -- had already given me great compliments, which I read and re-read many, many times, savoring each positive comment. What made me nervous was that it was loosely based on an actual event in Beaufort, South Carolina, a nine hundred million dollar marijuana conspiracy. What interested me was not the drug story, but the fact that it was run by many of the town's most significant professional citizens, some of whom went to jail and are now back practicing their professions. It also included shrimpers, boat captains, environmental law officers, contractors and others.

I didn't receive threats or derogatory remarks when the book came out, but I was never quite sure that there were not some people waiting for the proper situation to seek some retribution, even though the characters were totally fictional, which no one believed. Quite a few people in town bragged about how much they knew about the conspiracy or that they could identify each character in the book. Even Pat Conroy said I wrote "faction not fiction". The fact that I hadn't received midnight calls or messages in my mail box constructed with letters cut out of newspapers did not remove all of my apprehension.

A few months after the book's release, I was having dinner at an eclectic "shotgun" bar on Saint Helena Island. On "hamburger night" the crowd was as eclectic as the bar itself. They had the best hamburgers and spread of food one can imagine. Lawyers, doctors, shrimpers, laborers and retired people from some of the area's most exclusive communities and all for $6.95. The bar is in a remote area of the island and has a small parking lot, bordered by a wooded area.

I had gotten there late and had to park in the back next to the woods. it was not a lit parking area. Very dark. As I was walking to my car, I was nervous. Would have been even if I hadn't written a book. Suddenly out of the woods came two men who could have been cast in James Dickey's "Deliverance", beards, baseball cap and big loads of dip under their lower lip. I noticed all this. I'm a writer, which at that point I wished I weren't. Needless to say, I became more tense, but the car was only a few feet ahead. Suddenly I heard a voice. Now you must read this with a southern accent with a mouth full of dip...

"Carl?" the voice said. I won't say what my bodily functions threatened at that moment.

"Yes," I answered tentatively, eyeing the distance to the car. The two men moved forward. Close. I could smell the Copenhagen.
"You wrote that book, Lowcountry Boil, didn't you?" one said, his face inches from mine. I tried to think of what Sam Larkin, the leading character in the book would have done, but nothing came to mind.

"Yes," I said, my panic beginning to grow.

The man brought his face even closer. I think it was the Copenhagen. "Well, let me tell you somethin', son, that's the finest book I ever read and you can look at me and tell I ain't the book-readin' type." He shook my hand with his own calloused one.

"That's right," the other man said.

"Thank you," I said and they moved on.

As I drove home, I realized I had been given one of the greatest reviews I would ever receive. If I could write something that appealed to Pat Conroy and the "gentlemen" I met in the parking lot, I had covered a wide spectrum of opinion. I patted myself on the back and smiled all the way to my front door. It had been a great night.