Haven't read it all yet, but I'm so happy that this new Deadpool comic of Gischler's:
reminds me so much of this, one of my all-time fave comics titles:
God bless you, wonderful allusion makers! (And if you have time, check out this awesome Conan cover slideshow).
Seems like every time I go on a road trip or signing tour, I come back and go into a shell for a while. Especially when it comes to blogs and tweets and all that bullshit. Just a decompression period or something. But then, right back at the grind. I've got books and stories to write here, and stuff to tell you about.
First, thanks to all the blogs that have been keeping track of me lately. Jed Ayres's HARDBOILED WONDERLAND interview was a long and tough one. I appreciate him giving me the chance to talk at length. Plus, the Pulp Pushergave Gischler and me a page to kill some time and pimp our products. Gotta love that mag.
I had a great time at indie bookstores all over the place. Since the last update, I was at Houston's Murder by the Book, always a great place to land, and Kansas City's I Love a Mystery, which is a wonderful store. It was my first time there, and I appreciated the low-key conversational approach they had, as I sat down with some readers and answered questions. Sold a good handful and a half of books. Thanks to Sean Doolittle for flying down to Houston and joining me on that leg of the tour, and to B. Clay Moore for showing me around the KC area. Not to mention how cool it was to hang out at The Foundry bar in KC with two of the best comics writers working now--Clay Moore and Jason Aaron--and wildass noir writer Scott Phillips.
Today, Marshal Zeringue has me talking about page 69 of Hogdoggin'. Always fun to give that a shot.
On July 16th, I'm heading over to Common Good Books in St. Paul to read and sign. I've heard a lot about this place, as I believe it's Garrison Keillor's store, and I'm excited for my first visit. Hope we can round up enough Twin Cities folks to pack the joint.
And now, I've got a lot of work to do...
Shaking off HOGDOGGIN' MONDAY, I can finally post some of the photos from my two-night stand in St. Louis, thanks to Scott Phillips and Jedidiah Ayres going to bat for me and helping set up two great events. I've set up a new photo album which you'll find off in the left-hand column. Here are a couple of samples. Check out the movie poster over our heads at the Delmar Lounge:
And here's us mugging at Pudd'nhead Books:
Thank to Nikki at Pudd'nhead for hosting us at her wonderful store. And thanks to the folks who listened to us read without running out of the room or slapping our fresh faces.
And then there was Noir at the Bar, the St. Louis version (thanks to Peter Rozovsky for letting us borrow the name. It's becoming a franchise!), which was kick ass. We had to read LOUD to overcome the noise from the front room, and it was great. I was hoping my shouting would inspire a drunken bar brawl, but alas, no dice. Scott got things started with dirty, cum-stained porn. In his public reading debut, Crimedog Frank Bill pummeled the audience with his rural rape/incest/Old Testament-level family violence and dysfunction. Jedidiah Ayres gave us a rowdy, bloody purgatory with his story from Sex, Thugs, and Rock & Roll.
Then we took a break. I pissed a lot of beer out.
By the time I read, the Delmar was rockin'. We had a rapt audience, standing at the fringes of the room. I went on way too long, but no one seemed to care.
And let's give three cheers for Kelly, owner of Subterranean Books, who braved our awfulness even though she says it gave her nightmares, in order to provide books for the reading. I really love this store, a narrow little treasure chest of the weirdest and coolest books. Glad to have a spot on her shelves.
And then I trucked on down the line to Davis-Kidd in Memphis and Square Booksin Oxford. Please go get some copies if you're nearby, as it will just help keep me coming back book after book.
After hanging with my folks around New Orleans, then going to see buddy Craig Johnson at Garden District Bookshop on Thursday, I'll head over to Houston for Monday's signing with Sean "Tall & Smooth" Doolittle. Come see us at Murder by the Book.
Let's keep the HOGDOGGIN' train rolling throughout the summer!
UPDATE TUES. MORNING >> Well, the shouting's all over, and it looks like the paperback is actually still on the Amazon Series and Hardboiled charts (albeit #99 and #100), but hey, that's something cool. And I don't know how many people made trips to local stores or chains asking for it. Thanks, folks, for believing in the book this way. Maybe it wasn't the shock to the system I was envisioning (nothing ever is, though. I dream big), but it certainly moved some books. Sweet!
UPDATE 3:38 PM >> Looks like the online sales ranks are sliding back into the muck. So I'm just hoping you wonderful people are continuing HOGDOGGIN' MONDAY at the indie bookstores and big boxes. Your service to the cause is appreciated.
UPDATE 2:14 PM >> On Amazon.ca (Canadian version), Hogdoggin'is now #1 on the mystery series list! # 7 on hardboiled! #67 on Thrillers! (Thanks to Ron Dickie for pointing that out to me).
UPDATE 1:04 PM >> Hogdoggin' is making huge leaps up the Amazon charts! The paperback is now #24 on the Mystery Series list, and #26 on the Hardboiled list! Can we keep up the momentum? Know anyone who's still on the fence? Go go go!
And thanks for all the love, folks. I hope you really dig this book!
A national holiday? No, no. A guerrilla marketing campaign masterminded by some lame-o crime writer who roped in a bunch of bloggers? There ya go!
I hope you'll take me up on the challenge to hit the bookstores today, both virtual and real, in order to buy/order/demand my new novel Hogdoggin', the second book of the "Billy Lafitte Saga" (will there be more? Well, let's just say I've got a plan, but it kind of depends on how well this one does, right?). I want some noise to be made all over the place about this book, making the booksellers and publishing industry take notice. More than that, I hope to reach crime fiction readers who may not know much about what the indie presses have to offer. The more people talk about this book, the more booksellers will take an interest, and then they'll take a shot, leading to good recs for their customers who usually take the "big name, big publisher" approach. And that's good for everyone, I think.
Or at the very least, good for me.
Anyway, here are a couple of recent reviews that might sway you:
Jedediah Ayres at Hardboiled Wonderland takes a run. He also pushes a few more books that deserve your attention, including the amazing new Thuglit collection Sex, Thugs, and Rock & Roll(including Jed...and me, and a bunch of our writer buddies and PWG alums) and the initial works from New Pulp Press.
The Nerd of Noir (and his dirty mouth) talk it up at Bookspot Central.
Do me a favor: once you've put your order in or found the book at the store, leave a comment and tell us where you purchased it. Come on, let's make it some sort of "Noir Across America" Day! Celebrate the Bleak!
With only one more Rally post left, now posted on The Future is Bleak, it's time to turn our eyes away from the inferno that consumed our final rally days, and towards the bright and shining morning that brings Hogdoggin' Monday--June 1st, 2009. This is the day appointed to go forth and buy, order, demand, (and encourage others to do the same) my new novel Hogdoggin' in order to make a loud, clear statement to the booksellers, the publishing industry, and to other crime fiction readers.
What is that statement?
Well...mainly it's "Let's make Neil successful." But then again, it's a signal that noir, the "little genre that could, even though its been told it can't", actually can sell. But not in the same sense that the agents and editors from the New York behemoths think of the word. I'm talking about selling to the possibly tens of thousands of people out there who like noir, but are ignored when it comes to advertising, reviews, promotion, or attention. We're talking about finding the audience. And the only way to get that attention is to seel the book, which makes the booksellers say "Well, gee, a lot of people want it, so maybe we should try selling more of them", which then makes the publishers say "Hey, if that one is selling, maybe we should pick up a few more writers working with the same flavors." And so on.
Except that I'm a dreamer, and this isn't the way it works at all.
I wish I may, I wish I might.
In truth, I have no idea why a book must sell a shitload of copies in order to be seen as successful enough to justify more books by that author. I just think it should sell to the audience who would like it, and that PR people should find out what type of advertising reaches that audience best, and then try to convince as many of those people as possible that the book is worth their time and money. And maybe that would go a long way to sell out print runs. Seriously, we're only talking a couple or few thousand books, right? Are you telling me that in a country of three hundred million people, you can't figure out how to sell a few thousand copies to people who would like it?
Here's a hint: Try.
Aw, shucks, I know I'm being a little harsh, but I just want to see things get better, you know? I want to see the paperback original authors start getting respect again. I want the authors I'm publishing in Plots with Guns feel like there's a damn good shot of their novels being published. I want indie presses to be serious contenders up against the Goliaths.
Seriously, though? I want to see enough books to make sure I can publish the next one. Because I'm hooked on telling stories, and it's no fun telling them out loud to myself and the cats. When there's a funny moment, I want to know someone else is laughing. When a character gets beat down savagely, I want to know a reader is flinching somewhere. And when I'm talking about a particularly explicit sex scene, I hope there's a reader out there feeling horny.
HOGDOGGIN' is the new one. It continues the story of Billy Lafitte, but it's on a bigger playing field--or larger dog pit--than Yellow Medicine. They're designed as different types of experiences, too. In one, Billy tells you his story like he's sitting next to you in a bar, a bad man trying to charm your pants off. In the other, you're a fly on the wall, watching it unfold on your own, free of Billy's pleading, manipulative voice in your head. Watching how all the pieces in this deadly game move themselves into place, as if guided by a ballsy, mischievous Fate.
I hope you're willing to take a chance on it, and once you have, let me know what you think.
And thanks to all of the great bloggers, writers, and critics who participated in the Rally. They'll be immortalized for a long time in the list over in the right hand column. I truly appreciate your help and support.
I'll just go on and get back to work on the next one. I can't wait to tell you that one, but let's let Hogdoggin' sink in first.
Today's Guest Blogger is Ben LeRoy of The Future is Bleak, the blog of Bleak House Books, publisher of HOGDOGGIN'.
We rode two wide. One hundred miles an hour. Burning down state highway 41. Still early. Still seventy miles to go before we made Steel God’s campfire social.
The fuck he’s got us out here for?
It’d been two weeks since the run in with the Chick Litz gang outside Bismarck and whatever wounds we’d picked up wholesale were only starting to disappear. And now this long haired fucker was talking about swinging chains with a bunch of thick skulled boys from Chicago.
The heat, Christ, the heat. Rising up from the bikes. Dropping down from the sun. A goddamn blanket choking the life out of us. No relief.
The weatherman said something about rain.
He’d be the next motherfucker killed.
We were right on the border, somewhere in that blurry countryside along the Wisconsin/Illinois border when the Buick showed up. All white. Horn blaring. Engine pushed to the limit. No signs of slowing down as it crawled up our backs.
I could see in the mirror that whoever the cocksucker driving was, he had vanity plates and a scowl and when he caught me looking at him in the mirror he raised his middle finger and shoved it out the window.
The bumper inched closer. Fusion. In seconds it would be a love tap and I’d be off my bike, somewhere in the cornfield. Lucky to be dead. If the Patron Saint of Assholes and Lowlifes wasn’t smiling on me, it’d be an hour of suffering, running a mental inventory of broken bones and places where the blood flowed like beer from what was left of my flesh until the Devil himself raised up from Hell and took me back home.
I motioned for Monkey the Other One to move ahead. Give her bike full throttle and make herself a few seconds to find somewhere up ahead that the Buick couldn’t follow. She nodded and I heard the sweet sound of her engine as it roared and she bucked forward, that BHB patch like a worn movie poster
I checked the mirror again. And that’s about the time that swollen sonofabitch Lafitte made himself known to me and the Buick’s driver. The first thunder from the .45 overrode everything. The sound of the road. The horn. All of the goddamn ghosts rattling around my head asking me how the fuck I ended up where I was doing what I was doing. Loud as it was, I don’t think it hit anything.
But the second shot—goddamn she was a beauty. Clean through the back windshield. The Buick jerked hard to the right, making waste of some poor farming sonabitch’s July gold.
I didn’t know Lafitte’s intentions. Maybe there was another slug chambered for me. I waited to see if he made a move.
He caught up to me and yelled, “I’ll explain later.”
“Monkey is up ahead. We’ll pull over. Talk it about.”
He nodded. Tucked the .45 into his vest.
We rode two wide. One hundred miles an hour.
Today's Guest Blogger(s): The First Offenders. Jeff Shelby speaks for Alison Gaylin, Karen Olson, Lori Armstrong, and myself...at least today.
“Dude, why are we doing this?” Lori asked for at least the eleventh time.
“Because biker rallies are awesome,” I said. “Motorcycles, booze, tattoos. It’s like awesomeness come to life.”
“You said you’d never been to one,” Karen said.
“I haven’t.”
“Then how would you know?” Alison asked.
“Because I just know, alright? And like the three of you had anything better to do.”
I looked at the trio of women as we walked. Lori was carrying her laptop, balancing it carefully in her lefthand, tapping at the keys with her right, her brow furrowed in concentration. Karen was clutching a thick ream of paper, a pencil tucked behind each ear, a third pencil scribbling on her copyedits. Alison had her cell phone pressed to her ear, muttering something about Jon and Kate.
Okay, maybe they had better things to do.
And, yes, we were walking. To a biker rally. In the middle of nowhere. We weren’t supposed to be walking, but...
“So do you think everyone will be impressed with your ride?” Alison asked, then rolling her eyes as she switched her focus back to the phone.
I frowned. “First off, it’s our ride.”
“Bullshit,” Karen said, snapping the pencil in her hand in half and reaching quickly for the one behind her right ear. “If you think we are claiming that thing...”
“This thing is a classic,” I said, waving my hand across it like Vanna White. “Forest green in color, basket on the front, bitchin’ banana seat big enough for the four of us, crank pedals to start this beauty.”
“You are pushing a motherfucking moped to a biker rally, Shelby,” Lori said without looking up from her computer. “You’re gonna get your ass kicked.”
I didn’t own a motorcycle. I didn’t even own a bike. But I didn’t want to show up and look like we didn’t belong. So I’d purchased the moped on Craigslist for fifty bucks. It was pretty sweet. I figured we would just blend in. Only it had broken down an hour into our ride. I’d told them not to wear heels, so it was their own damn fault that their feet were hurting from the walk.
“Are we there yet?” Alison asked, squinting into the sun.
“What are you? Four years old?” I asked.
“No, she’s tired of walking to whatever this thing is you’re dragging us to,” Karen chirped. “And so am I. And so is Lori.”
“Do you guys know another word for ‘throbbing’?” Lori asked, staring at her screen. “Oh, I got it. Never mind.”
“By the way,” Alison asked, turning in a circle, gazing off into the empty miles that surrounded us. “Where the hell is Neil?”
“We’re meeting him there,” I said.
“I’ll be he didn’t walk,” Karen said, shaking her head.
Behind us, an engine rumbled in the distance. All four of us turned to see a car emerging amidst the dust on the horizon.
“Let’s see if we can get a ride,” Lori suggested.
“Just let this baby cool down,” I said. “She should be good to go any minute now.”
All three stared at me for a long moment, then burst into laughter.
“I’m sticking my thumb out,” Lori said.
She moved next to the road and held her thumb high in the air.
“It could be a serial killer,” I said.
“So don’t get in, Nancy,” she said, frowning, still balancing the laptop in her free hand.
The car got closer, moving at a good clip. She raised her thumb higher. The car roared past us.
Lori turned in the direction of the car and changed her thumb to her middle finger.
“Good work,” I said.
She rotated the middle finger toward me.
Alison slammed her phone shut. “Fucking Jon and Kate.” She looked at Lori, then Karen. “Okay, we’ll get the next one.”
“The next what?” I asked.
“Car,” she said. “I’m done walking.”
“I’m telling you. This bike will be ready in just...”
“Enough with your tricycle or whatever the fuck that thing is,” Karen said. “We are getting a ride.”
They huddled together, whispering. I wasn’t sure if they were plotting out how to catch a ride or where to bury my body.
They broke their huddle and stepped to the side of the road. Each one hiked up her leather skirt. (Yeah, I’d told them they had to wear leather to the biker rally. I didn’t know if that was true or not, but I thought it would be funny either way.) They stuck their legs out onto the asphalt.
And waited.
“I wish I had a camera,” I said.
“Fuck you,” they said in unison.
I stared at the horizon. I could make out the silhouettes of several buildings.
“I can see it,” I said, pointing. “We’re almost there.”
“And we’ll get there sooner in a car,” Karen yelled over her shoulder.
“Yeah, well, I don’t see one of those,” I said, starting to push the moped again.
No sooner had I said it then an engine again rumbled in the distance. All three turned in my direction and smirked.
Whatever.
I started pushing the moped again.
The engine roared louder behind me, but I refused to turn around. They could risk their life with a potential serial killer. I would make my way with my moped and blend in.
The engine roared again and I turned just in time to see it passing the girls and skidding to a stop next to me. The three of them began coughing as they were enveloped in a dust cloud from the skid.
A woman leaned out the window of the black Cadillac Escalade. Long blond hair, golden skin, curves spilling out of all the right places.
She adjusted her sunglasses downward. “You need a ride, handsome?”
“I think I’m alright,” I said, nodding at the moped.
The window behind her rolled down and another woman leaned out. Brunette, same color skin, more curves.
“We could throw the...bike...in the back,” she said.
Hmmm.
The driver leaned across the blond. She had red hair. Bigger curves.
“Are you going to the rally?” she asked.
“I am,” I said.
“Well let us help get you there,” she said, smiling.
“What the FUCK?” Lori yelled, still coughing at the side of the road.
I nodded in her direction. “My friends. I probably shouldn’t leave them.”
The brunette glanced back. “I’m not sure we have enough seats for all of them.”
“Maybe they could ride in the back?” the blond suggested.
“With the bike,” the redhead said.
I smiled. “Done.”
On the truck stereo: AC/DC, "Shoot to Thrill"
Like I said over at First Offenders today, I've got to hit the road. Sorry, honey, I can't stick around. You knew that when you hooked up with me. But if you're sweet, maybe I'll be back tomorrow with some Offenders Rally goodness as we bring this thing home. In the meantime, I've got a couple of bookstores to drop into later today: Davis-Kidd in Memphis and Square Books in Oxford.
Stay tuned!
Today's Second Guest Blogger is Bill Crider of Bill Crider's Pop Culture Magazine.
My name's Rapper, and it's not because I listen to any punk-ass so-called gangstas. I've been around a lot longer than they have and I'm tougher than any of 'em. I'm tougher than that damn Sheriff Dan Rhodes too, even if you wouldn't know it by the way he keeps maimin me ever time I show up and Blacklin County. Me and Nellie, that's the guy that rides with me, we're part of Los Muertos, got the skeleton on the back of our jackets and all, but we like to get off to ourselves to run some little deals, and that Blacklin County seemed like just the place. Turned out not so good, though, because the first time I was there I lost a finger. I've been losin bits and pieces ever since, or gettin stuck with hay hooks or blown up in explosions. I can't figure it, how a guy like that mealy-mouthed sheriff keeps gettin the best of me. He wouldn't say fuck if you had a gun to his head, so how come he keeps comin out ahead. He's never got me in jail, though, or not for long because I'm smarter than he is by a long way even if my damn leg does hurt when the weather clouds up or gets a little frosty. Nellie, now there's a case for you. He's a wiry little squirt, and he never does seem to get hurt the way I do. I think it's because I take care of him, otherwise he'd be dogmeat. Me and him've tried a little bit of ever thing in Blacklin County, runnin a meth lab, some steroids for the high school kids, even a little moonshine, sweet little deals like that, but that fuckin sheriff spoils it ever time. Me and Nellie, though, we don't give up. There's not any quit in us. I had a football coach used to say that, you boys don't have any quit in you, and he was right about that. He rode us hard all the time, wouldn't never let up, but we showed the son of a bitch. We got him comin out of the field house one dark night and threw a tow sack over his head so he couldn't see who it was and beat the shit out of him. Wasn't no quit in us. I hadn't thought about that turd in a lot time, so it's good that I got this chance to think about the old days. Good times, good times. That idiot Crider, he runs his own blog, but he won't let me on it. He's like that damn sheriff, too sweety-pie for his own good or anybody else's. He'll find out, just like that sissy sheriff will sooner or later. Nobody messes with Rapper and Nellie. Next time we show up in Blacklin County, it'll be different. You take that Billy LaFitte who hangs around this blog, that's the kind of law enforcement guy I like. He'd give me and Nellie a break cause he's just like us cept he has that wife he's moonin after. That's a little sissy if you ask me, but you don't need to tell him that. He's a mean mutha if what I've heard about him's true. I mean, he's workin for Steel God now, and we've heard about that guy even down in Texas. Those boys in his club are mean as wild hogs, speakin of which a little hogdoggin is a good way to relax after a hard day. This Smith punk's written a book about it they tell me so you can read it and find out. I wouldn't know since I don't do a lotta readin. I can read, though, don't get me wrong, I just don't do a lot of it. On the move, that's me and Nellie. Which I guess means it's time for me to move on out of here. Things to do, people to screw over if you know what I mean and I think you do. Maybe we'll run into each other somewhere down the road. If we do, better keep your hand on your billfold, ha ha.
