My Key West book signing

Key West Island Books took out print and radio ads for my signing on April 5. I also had mention in Solares Hill*, Paradise (weekly newspaper art/entertainment supplements) and the Keynoter, as well as interviews on US1 Radio, 104.1 FM; SUN 99.5 FM, and WGMX/MIX 94.3 FM. We don’t really have local TV in the Keys, but if we did, I would’ve found a way to be on!

Of course, I have heard the horror stories from writers about book signings from hell where no one shows up and I lived with that anxiety for about a week! Imagine, my hometown and no one shows. Okay, I knew some close friends would be there, but the public was another story.

I showed up at the store at 4:30 p.m., much to the laughs of Marshall Smith, owner of the shop, as he pointed out to Suzanne, his sales assistant, that he predicted I’d be early. What Marshall didn’t know was that I inherited being early for everything from my father. Suzanne told me people had showed up Friday, thinking the signing was that night. Now that’s being early!

Well, at 4:45 p.m. Tom, an old sailing friend, showed up and bought 10 copies for members of his family who live off island. A good contingent from ROTARY arrived and bought copies, as did Paul Clarin (the man who took my book jacket photo), lots of old friends, and some people who just heard about the book and wanted a copy. There was also a fair turnout from my Monday lunch group, the Luncheonaires.

From years of attending book signings, I know that the average book sale during a signing is as low as 10 - 15 copies. That’s what I expect, at best, when I sign outside Key West, but Saturday the bookstore sold out its 50 copies. I had a box-and-a-half of books in my car and all but six of those sold! Marshall said he sold80 copies! When I asked if that was a good thing, he laughed and said yes.

I know Marshall deserves most of the credit, because I think the radio ads reached a lot of people, since it ran for a week and up until about 4 p.m. on April 5.

It was a high and I enjoyed singing until 7:30 p.m. and then met with many of the book buyers at the Hog’s Breath Saloon and celebrated. I think I still have writer’s cramp in my right hand, and I say that with a smile!

I also want to add that on Friday, I was on 99.5’s "Hoebee in the Morning" show and he paid me a complement, long before I arrived at the studio. Bill told listeners that Thursday night his cable TV went out, so he figured he’d skim the book, so he could talk to me about it Friday morning. Then he said the first few pages captured his interest and he read until 12:30 a.m. and had to force himself to put the book down and grabbed some sleep, since he had to be up at 3 a.m.! Hoebee said he never read a novel (or textbook) in his life! But, he loved “Chasin’ the Wind.”

I’ve known Hoebee for about 10-years and take his comments as my best review to date. The fact that he said this on the air before my arrival, I took as a major compliment. Thank you Bill Hoebee!

I will be signing this Thursday at Murder on the Beach, 7 p.m., in Delray Beach, and on Saturday, 3 p.m., at the Bookstore in the Grove, in Coconut Grove. I will sign again in Key West on April 25, 4-7 p.m., at the Hog’s Breath Saloon. If you are in town for Conch Republic Days Celebration, come on in and say hi.

*You can read the full Solares Hill feature review of “Chasin’ the Wind,” by Mark Howell, on my website: www.michaelhaskins.net.

The AP Stylebook and language

I am up early each morning, to the chagrin of Celine, and usually switch the TV news shows between the local ABC and Fox news programs. I am most interested in the expected weather conditions and both stations give predictions for Key West, even though the stations are in Miami or thereabouts.

I’ve been involved in journalism most of my life and, unlike fiction, journalists have stylebooks that give rules on writing. I used the AP Style Book in Boston and, again, years later, in Key West.

What does early morning TV and AP Stylebooks have to do with one another? I’m glad you asked. On both TV stations, the weather person and traffic reports use the word “towards.”

“The storm is moving towards Miami.”

“The traffic has stalled north bound towards the 95 from the interchange.”

Wondering what’s wrong? I think most people would because, more and more, I hear people using “towards” in conversations.

I wrote a business story a long time ago and the editor at the Key West Citizen, Bernie Hunt, pointed out to me that in American English there ain’t no such word as “towards.”

“It’s a British usage,” he told me and, being an Irishman who grew up outside London, Bernie would know. He also was part of the news team in San Diego, California, who won the Pulitzer for newspaper coverage of a commercial airliner that crashed at the city’s airport.

Since then, whenever I hear someone on the TV news use “towards,” I cringe. Shouldn’t the electric media know better?

It doesn’t end there. The word “over” is another misused word that drives me crazy and this one, I admit, I regularly abused. That is, until copy editor Van Trotter explained the correct used of “over” and “more than.” We were at the Green Parrot Bar on Whitehead Street, a couple of blocks from Ernest Hemingway’s home. A journalism background didn’t hurt Hemingway’s writing and, some would say, it helped him form his unique style.

Somehow, Van and I got to talking about work and he told me every time he drives by a MacDonald’s he goes crazy when he sees the golden arches and the words: over a billion sold (maybe it says 10 billion, but you get my point).

“Over!” Van said, or maybe even yelled and scared some of the late-night drinkers (this was after we put the paper to bed at 11 p.m.). “The cat jumped over the moon, is right, but over a billion sold, is wrong!”

So, what’s the right way? “More than a billion sold,” he said. “If it involves math, numbers, comparison, it’s ‘more than’ not over. Numbers don’t jump over things.”

The AP Stylebook has pages and pages of correct usages for newspapers. So why, as mystery writers should this interest us? I think it is important that we get it right in our stories. And, getting it right might be having a character use the wrong “towards.” It is also a good idea not to have someone educated in England use “toward.”

Idioms change by locations. Sayings that make sense to someone in Boston may confuse the hell of a person in Mississippi. For example, in N. Quincy, where I grew up we called soft drinks “tonic.” When I moved to California, it took me a good year to stop asking for tonic when I wanted a Coke or Pepsi. Tonic, in most other states is just that, tonic water. Gin and tonic, please.

So, if I was reading your story and the character was from Massachusetts, maybe Quincy, and he or she asked for a “soda pop,” I would notice your mistake.

Mystery writers don’t usually kill people or blow up buildings, or do the crimes they writer about, but they do have to research guns and bombs and violent death. It shouldn’t stop there. Maybe Hemingway was not entirely wrong when he said, “writer what you know.”

I would be hard pressed to write a Faulkner story, since I have never traveled through, or lived in the Deep South. Remember, from Key West you have to travel north to reach the South! Honest.

So, know your characters and where they are from. If they are from somewhere you ain’t been, rethink them. Because there are readers out there that will write you every time you make a mistake with a weapon, locale, boat, airplane, or accent!

Signings for Chasin' the Wind & radio interview

Here are some of my planned signings for Chasin' the Wind. I hope, if you are near any of them, you will stop in and say hi. I have been unable to figure out how to get an audio of my radio interview linked to my blog, but, if you want, you can listen to it on my website, http://www.michaelhaskins.net/.
·
· Book Signing at Murder on the Beach
· April 10, 2008 7:00 pm
· Delray Beach, Florida

· Book Signing at Bookstore in the Grove
· April 12, 2008 1:00 pm
· Coconut Grove, Florida

· Book Signing at Books-A-Million
· May 10, 2008 1:00 pm
· Fort Myers, Florida

· Book Signing at Mysteries to Die For
· July 12, Time TBA
· Thousand Oaks, California

Book Signing at Flintrdige Bookstore & Coffee Shop
· July 17, 2008 7:00 pm
· LaCanada Flintrdige, California

· Book Signing at the Mystery Bookstore
· July 19, 2008 3:00 pm
· Westwood Village/Los Angeles, California

I look forward to meeting those of you who stop in to a signing. Also, I would be interested in your comments on how I did on the radio. This is all new, so I appreciate the input.

SleuthFest Reviewed

Celine and I left Key West at 5 a.m. on Feb. 29, and arrived at the Deerfield Beach Hilton at 9:30 a.m. I missed the 9 a.m. panel, but got there in time for “The Devil Made Me Do It” panel, with Bob Morris, Don Bruns, and Philip Cioffari. The panel discussed the whys of evil doings in their characters. Or why sometimes good characters have to do bad things, like kill. Bob is a friend who wrote a blurb for my novel, Chasin’ the Wind, and last year I met Don at SleuthFest. Google them, you might just like their books as much as I do. I am glad I caught the panel.

Celine worked the registration desk, because we couldn’t check in to our room at the Embassy Suites until after 3 p.m. I hung out with her after the 10 a.m. panel, because by the time I finished talking with Bob and Don, it was too late to get into a panel discussion; or at least I felt it would be disrespectful to walk in halfway through.

Lunch was good and the guest speaker was Douglas P. Lyle, M.D. Doug is a forensic doctor and has a number of books out on forensic science and a couple of mystery novels; Forensic for Dummies being in my library. He also helps writers, via his website, with simple forensic questions. I know he has responded to my questions a few times. He is another one you should Google and check out.

His talk was interesting and funny! I don’t know why the funny part surprised me. I guess I expected him to be more dour. Anything but!

After lunch, 2:15 p.m., Sun-Sentinel writer/columnist Oline Cogdill and I were the panel for “Write a Better Blog.” Oline blogs for her paper. Let’s see, if I say the room was half-full, I am what? An optimist, right? So, it was half-full. Oline talked about how papers are using blogging, especially, for our concerns, for book reviews. Papers are also cutting back the size, and, in some cases, getting rid of book review sections, so we all agreed that the blogs were important. Maybe they are the future of book reviews.

I talked about blogs I liked and why, and asked the audience what blogs they liked and why. Some people were hesitant to begin a blog, but as writers, a blog, we decided, is a good way to get readers to your website. Group blogs seemed like the best idea, I pointed out, because writers who take time daily to blog, are taking time from their writing.

After the panel, Celine and I checked into the Embassy Suites, napped for an hour, and then went back to the Hilton to meet a few other writers from Five Star, my publisher.

Around 7 p.m., my friend Emily Roach and her husband, Ernie Dick, came by. Emily and I worked on the Key West Citizen together. She has left for a bigger and better position and recently moved to the Boca Raton area. It was nice seeing them and catching up on old times. I sure miss her professionalism.

Saturday began with a big, free breakfast at the Embassy Suites and then back to the Hilton.

Agents and editors held a morning panel on “From Publishing’s Front Lines: A Look Ahead.” For a new writer, or someone wanting to be published, it was not good news. It keeps getting tougher to get an agent, as well as a publisher! Tell me something I don’t know.

James O. Born, and ex DEA agent, now a FDLE agent, hosted the “Exotic Lethal Weapons” program, before lunch. Jim is great and tells it like it is. His novels are well written and, yeah, Google him, too. He always brings along weapons (unloaded, he likes to point out) and displays their uses.

Lee Child was the luncheon speaker and did a good job. Before he spoke, the MWA held an auction and sold off lunches with writers, you can buy your name into a writer’s next novel and/or get a critique for a published writer. I don’t remember how much was raised, but it all goes toward an MWA sponsored charity.

Lee Child and Charles Todd were on the panel discussing “Writing Dynamic Dialogue.” It was worth the trip. Lee’s Reacher’s books are a good read.

The agents & editors cocktail party was fun and by the pool. This year the food was outrageous! Celine and I grabbed a table by one of the serving stations and were soon joined by Jerry Healy, Sandy Balzo, and then by Lee Child, Don Bruns, and Jim Born. It made for some interesting conversation.

A few years ago, the ladies of SleuthFest over heard the men in the bar (where else?) talking about the babes, so they came up with their version of a hot male of SleuthFest award. It’s done with a lot tongue-in-cheek and good humor. Doug Lyle beat out Lee Child and Jim Born! It was a fun way to end the evening. Doug is wearing the pink boa in the photo above! Leave it to the ladies, a pink boa and bottle of Jack Daniels!

Jimmy Berslin, the Mafia, and Omertá

Jimmy Breslin could write a grocery list and I would want to read it. His collected columns, in at least two books, are exciting reading because of how he records characters, especially criminal characters. The small details he catches are wonderfully revealed in his writings. While he often uses wit in presenting details, the underlying facts of criminals, especially the old Mafia, comes through as he attended, cold, brutal, and often foolish.
Any mystery writer that uses organized criminals as characters, or even as background, should go and get Breslin’s new book, “The Good Rat.” Breslin spent time researching the incidents he writes about and attended the trail of the two NYPD detectives, Stephen Caracappa and Louis Eppolito, who were recently convicted as murder-for-hire contract killers for the Mafia.
Nothing in the organized criminal life is sacred to Breslin, not the legends, long departed, or the new Mafia and its misfits. He definitely eliminates any belief by today’s organized criminal in the Mafia’s blood oath, Omertá – silence.
“The Good Rat” is in the research section of my home library and it should be in every writer’s, because it takes the glamour out of organized crime and brings it down to the human level, greed, and power and how it doesn’t always fall to the brightest.
For two reasons, Breslin has included part of the court transcript in the book. One reason, he tells the reader, is because he couldn’t write it better than it played out in court. The second reason, though he doesn’t clearly admit it, is some of the testimony is so unbelievable, written as prose might leave the reader doubting its honesty.
In the ‘90s, many of us were infatuated with the trials and tribulations of the Teflon Don, John Gotti and his henchmen. Breslin’s handling of Gotti, and how he helped destroy the old guard Mafia, made me stop and wonder why he was handled with such kid’s gloves in the media during his trials. Gotti, Breslin writes, broke the rules to get to be boss and, in so doing, began the decline of the Mafia.
The FBI, which denied the existence of the Mafia thanks to J. Edgar Hoover, has, in the past decade, brought many of the foot soldiers, made men, and bosses to justice; more often than not, because of the failure of Omertá among its members.
Breslin writes with authority, because he knew many of the old time Mafia bosses and drank and ate at their hangouts. His recounting incidents are often humorous, but the underlying facts show blown up egos and callous individuals.
I think some of the humor that Breslin has put in all his writing, columns, books and magazine articles, is because if he only presented the facts to us, the excitement read into the pieces would be gone and replaced with boredom. He has taken boring individuals, ala Damon Runyon style, and made their story interesting.
A native New Yorker, he grew up with many of the old gangsters and, thankfully, he says, many of them loved to see their names in the paper, so they often wanted him to hang around the same restaurants and bars as they did.
Yeah, it is a good reference book for mystery writers. I mean, come on, how many of us could come up with names like Thomas “Three-finger Brown” Lucchese or Jimmy “the Clam” Eppolito or have a Jewish gangster, Burt Kaplan, working with the Mafia, help bring down two NYPD hit men because he feared an old friend was gonna rat him out first?
The scary part of this book is how matter-of-factly Kaplan talks of robbery and murder, sometimes to friends, during the trial.

SleuthFest and the release of "Chasin' the Wind"

I am preparing for two important events in my life.
First, I am the ‘panel’ for an afternoon discussion on blogging at SleuthFest; second, is the release of my book, Chasin’ the Wind, on March 19, and I have begun to set up readings and signings. Both are exciting and new experiences, to me.
I am going to SleuthFest 2008, a Mystery Writers of America – Florida Chapter annual event held at the Deerfield Beach Hilton, in Deerfield Beach, Florida, Feb. 29 – March 2. I am hosting a discussion on “How to Write a Better Blog,” on the afternoon of the 29th. If you are a regular reader of this blog, you are probably wondering how I got that assignment. I’m wondering too!
I thought it was a panel discussion I was assigned to, and when I asked why I was the lone panelist, I was told, “No one else volunteered.” I guess I was out of the room when I volunteered, because I missed my doing it.
I have put together handouts for the program. I have a two-page list of blogs I read and then I took my cheat-notes and decided to put headings on ‘em and now they are included in the handouts. Of course, I have no idea how many copies I need. Make too few and I have unhappy attendees and make too many and I look like an egomaniac! How’s that for a no-win situation.
Since blogging is a personal decision, with a gazillion varying likes and dislikes, I’ve decided to make the 50-minute program audience participation. I will raise the questions, give a short suggestion based on my likes and dislikes, and then pool the audience. The handout will give an outline of the topics and, I hope, will get the participants thinking a head, so quiet won’t blanked the hall when I’ve stopped speaking.
I want to know what you like, or dislike about blogs you read. Let me know and it may help me get through this, especially if you hit on something I missed. If you’re a blogger, let me know your secrets.
With a little bit of luck, I will keep everyone busy talking for 50-minutes. Wish me luck.
If you attend SleuthFest, and come to the blogging program, please introduce yourself. Even if you don’t attend my panel, say hi in the hallway.
The only negative, for me, is that my book will not be available by SleuthFest and I miss the opportunity to reach many people who might be interested in reading it. Getting a signed first edition of a first book makes it a collectable book, but alas, the gods were not smiling when they chose a publication date. Hopefully, some potential readers will remember to order it online or at their favorite bookstore, after they arrive home.
For more information on SleuthFest, go to www.mwa-florida.org.
Even more exciting than being the lone panelist at SleuthFest is the publication of my mystery novel. Chasin’ the Wind ships on March 19th and that should put it in stores by the 28th – one month too late for SluethFest! Anyone that pre-ordered Chasin’ the Wind on Amazon.com can expect it in the mail around that time.
The closer the publication date gets the more anxiety I have. I heard, but didn’t believe, that writers are very insecure individuals. I believe it now!
I have three signings in Key West: April 5, Key West Island Books; April 12, Fairvilla 1-3 p.m., and April 25, at the Hog’s Breath Saloon. Times are being discussed for the bookstore and the Hog signings.
I am also going to be interviewed by Ed Scales on his Sunday afternoon show on US1 Radio and on Richard Grusin’s talk show, Crusin’ with Grusin, on a Sunday morning, also on US1 Radio. When I know the dates and times, and you are interested in listening to the shows, I will post the information on my website, so you can listen to US1 Radio on the web: www.us1radio.com.
There are also two Friends of the Library talks scheduled. On March 27th, I am with the Friends at the Marathon Library and May 22, with the Friends in Fort Lauderdale.
The anxiety hits when I remember other writers talking of signings and readings where no one came to buy a book! How frightening, if that happened in Key West!
I am also preparing to follow up with bookstores in New Jersey/New York area and Southern California that I approached last year about signings. Ideally, I would sign at bookstores in NJ/NY in mid June. That would allow me to meet my new granddaughter, whose due in late March. Of course, I also get to see the proud new parents, Seanan and Paul. And my recently married daughter, Chela, and her husband Bryan, too. My major cost would be the airline ticket, since I would stay the weekend with Seanan and Paul.
If you live near any of these bookstores, please stop in or call and ask them to host a signing, because you want to buy the book: Barnes & Nobel in Paramus, NJ and the Barnes & Nobel in West Nyack, NY; also the Borders in Ramsy, NJ. I would appreciate it.
I hope to go to Southern Cal in July. There, I stay with my sister Patty and her family, Uncle Howie, Coco Joe and Alexis. Hey, don’t knock it, I am saving a fortune on hotels in both NJ and California.
In NJ, I could sign at the three stores during a long weekend visit, and in Southern Cal, I could do the signings during a two-weekend stay.
If you live in Southern California and visit any of these bookstores, please stop in or call and ask them to have a signing: Dutton’s, in Brentwood; The Mystery Bookstore located by UCLA; Mysteries to Die For, in Thousand Oaks; the Flintridge Bookstore and Coffeehouse, in La Canada Flintridge.
I suppose I would be disappointed if all three stores in NJ/NY and the ones in Southern California turned me down. I would go even if only one store held a signing for me. I left my press package and an advanced reading copy of the book with each store in NJ/NY, and am preparing to send the ADRs to the stores in California, where I left a press package, less the ADRs, last July.
The problem is the publisher. Five Star’s distributor doesn’t offer a good discount to bookstores. Don’t ask! It’s a long screwy story! But Five Star does offer a 40-percent discount if the store buys directly from them for an author signing and gives the author a form with a discount code for the store to fill out before placing its order.
You would think that’s a good thing, right? Well, too many of the bookstore managers I talked to were hesitant to have to go through the extra work to order directly from the publisher. A visit or call from you would be a great help.
And I thought writing the book was the hard part!

Adrian McKinty on James Ellroy

One of my favorite blogs is Irish writer Declan Burke’s http://www.crimealwayspays.blogspot.com/. As if there are not enough American mystery writers, my library is now beginning to hold Irish mystery writers, because of Declan.

Irish writer Adrian McKinty now lives in Colorado and even taught at one of the state’s universities. He has an interesting guest blog on crimealwayspays that deals with James Ellroy’s work.

McKinty, no slouch himself, with his “Dead Trilogy,” The Dead Yard, Dead I Well May Be and The Bloomsday Dead (the last honoring James Joyce and his Ulysses and, like Joyce’s novel, The Bloomsday Dead takes place on June 16, for 24-hours in Ireland) along with a stand alone novel, Hidden River. I have read them all and McKinty's writing leaves you breathless.

McKinty is well worth reading and when Dec’s Eightball Boogie and The Big O are published here in the states, within the next few months, they too will be worth reading. Or, I guess, you can do like I did and order them through his website and be the first in America to discover this talented Irish writer.

Back to McKinty, his blog has an interesting take on Ellroy’s work and I thought you might enjoy what McKinty said and why he said it.

Enjoy the site.