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Writing Advice Sucks #2: How forgetting shit might make you a better writer

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Last week I talked about the mechanics of thrillers and writing to trends.

This week I want to talk about why forgetting shit can be really valuable.

I’m the kind of writer who needs an outline. I respect people who can write by the seat of their pants—that ain’t me. My outlines don’t need to be super intense (usually a couple of sentences per chapter), and a lot of times I’ll diverge from them. But I need a general sense of where I’m going.

I learned this as I was writing my first book, New Yorked, which took me five years to finish. I was just writing blindly, and had to keep finding my path. I re-wrote it from the ground up twice. It tried to outline it three or four times after I’d already written it.

I went into my second book, City of Rose, with a solid outline, and it took me four or five months to write.

Which, granted, I knew my character and I found my process, and I had more confidence. But the outline helped a lot.

Remember: writing advice is mostly bullshit and you have to take what works for you and trash the rest. Maybe outlines don’t work for you. That’s fine! But I do have a trick for them. I even found another place to apply that trick, in my research.Continue reading “Writing Advice Sucks #2: How forgetting shit might make you a better writer”

Writing Advice Sucks #1: The mechanics of thrillers, writing to trends, and free books

I hit the publishing hat-trick with my newest book, The Warehouse. Nice deal with Crown, sold to publishers in more than a dozen countries so far, and optioned for film by Ron Howard. One of the funny/odd/interesting things about this is: how other people have responded.

Besides the general well-wishes, one writer called dibs on getting a blurb when his next book is ready (which is baller, so I said yes). I’ve had people walking on eggshells like I’m suddenly going to forget who my friends are (I won’t!). I’ve had at least one person quiz me on how the deal went down, and seemed so stunned that, by the end of the conversation, I felt a little bummed out (because it sounded like: “how did you manage to do this?”).

But one question I’ve gotten a couple of times now is: did you write something you were passionate about, or did you write to a trend?

And the more I think about it, the more I want to answer that. Because it’s like 95 percent no and five percent yes. And even that five is a little wonky. Continue reading “Writing Advice Sucks #1: The mechanics of thrillers, writing to trends, and free books”

Coming in January: ‘Take-Out, and Other Tales of Culinary Crime’

Someone else noticed before I did.

Over the course of a few months, I wrote and published stories involving a bagel maker, and warring food trucks, and a restaurant scam. A friend asked when my collection of food noir stories was coming out. When he said that, I was working on a story about a bouncer at a pastry shop.

It’s not surprising I’d fall into a theme, with writing about food. I like to eat. But it’s more than that, too.

Food is the thing that binds all of us, across continents and cultures. No matter where you go, there are signature dishes and traditions of hospitality. Sharing a meal is as much about emotional sustenance as it is about the physical.

Which makes food a fantastic storytelling device, especially within the confines of crime and noir fiction. They’re intersections where passions collide.

In total, I wrote more than a dozen stories with components of food or hospitality.

And now Polis Books is going to collect them in Take-Out—and it will include three stories that haven’t been published anywhere. The whole jam will be available in paperback and eBook, and it’s coming out in January.

That should fill the hole in your heart between Potter’s Field (coming in July and available for pre-order) and The Warehouse (due sometime in the back half of 2019).

I’m really excited to see this hit, because I think it represents some of my best short story work. Two of them were shortlisted for Best American Mystery Stories, and one (the title story, “Take-Out”) made the final cut. Another (“Foodies”) was nominated for a Derringer Award. One (“Confessions of a Taco Truck Owner”) I read at Noir at the Bar, and Todd Robinson told me he was putting it in the next issue of Thuglit before I even left the microphone. Best short story acceptance I ever got.

More on this soon. Three cheers to Jason Pinter for agreeing to publish it, and Josh Getzler for sealing the deal. This is going to be a fun one.

Want to get updates on this and other stuff? Sign up for my newsletter.

What’s ‘warehouse’ in Greek?

The dust has settled a bit, and it got announced in Publishers Marketplace, so now I can say, with a reasonable degree of confidence, that The Warehouse has sold to publishers in seventeen countries.

I’m astounded. Because I never sold foreign rights on the Ash books, but also, The Warehouse is very much about the American economy. So I figured—no one outside the U.S. would care.

But my wife pointed out: the American economy is the world economy, and she’s generally smarter than me, so I’ll go with that.

Come next year the book should be available in (deep breath):

Germany, the UK, the Netherlands, Brazil, Russia, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Hungary, Japan, Italy, Greece, France, the Czech Republic, Taiwan, Turkey, and China.

Continue reading “What’s ‘warehouse’ in Greek?”

Ron Howard might direct ‘The Warehouse’

I’m trying to swear less around my daughter, especially now that she’s three and repeats so much of what we say. This is not easy as I tend to swear a lot. Sometimes, though, it’s hard to help.

For example, I get home from work and sit down at the dining room table with dinner. I pop open my laptop and see an e-mail from my agent about The Warehouse, which had already sold to Crown and was doing bangin business in foreign territories.

The e-mail is simple enough: there are multiple offers for film or TV, and which would I prefer? I thought about it for a few minutes and responded that it’s a nearly impossible question to answer, and I would think about it some more, but my gut was telling me TV.

His response was: Well what if it’s a film and Ron Howard is the director?

Continue reading “Ron Howard might direct ‘The Warehouse’”

Welcome to ‘The Warehouse’

So. It’s been a day.

I’m thrilled to say my new book, The Warehouse, has been acquired by Crown at Random House. I’m even more thrilled to say they bought it at pre-empt before it could go to auction, which is really humbling (and also a little scary!).

It’s April 2 so I swear this isn’t a belated April Fool’s Day joke (I spent part of the weekend thinking maybe it was?).

It’ll come out in 2019, under the editorial guidance of Julian Pavia, who did The Martian and Ready Player One. He also worked on Dark Matter by Blake Crouch, a book I enjoyed so much I read it in a single day. Julian is a smart dude. He gets me and he gets my book and I’m really excited to be working with him.

The Warehouse is about a thing that makes me angry: big businesses and how they treat their workers. It’s also a book I was afraid to write, because I thought I wasn’t smart enough or a good enough writer. I’m glad I pushed past that and I am very excited for people to read it.

I want to give a shout out to my agent Josh Getzler for doing such an incredible job on this—he went to bat for me and knocked it clean out of the park. And Jason Pinter at Polis, who gave me a place to learn and grow as a writer.

Most of all, I want to say thank you to everyone who supported me and encouraged me and read me. I wouldn’t be here without that.

More soon!

Ash McKenna in audio and large print!

Do you like having your books read to you? Do you like print books but find the letters are too small?

Then you’re in luck!

City of Rose, South Village, and The Woman from Prague are now available as audiobooks for your listening pleasure!

This is pretty exciting. See, what happened was, New Yorked got picked up as an audiobook, but didn’t do fantastic, so the publisher decided not to acquire the rest of the series. Which is a bummer, but I get it. There’s some behind-the-scenes stuff as to why that happened… so goes the biz.

But Ash, he’s a slow burn. The series has been picking up steam. Another publisher swooped in and scooped ’em up. They even brought back Alexander Cendese, who did a phenomenal job narrating New Yorked.

Go forth and listen!

And while we’re talking about subrights, just a reminder: The Woman from Prague is available in a handsome large print edition.

Get ’em here:

City of Rose audio

South Village audio

The Woman from Prague audio

The Woman from Prague large print

These books are available in regular-old eBook and print formats, too, in case you’re so inclined. Now is a good time to brush up, ’cause Ash’s last ride takes place in Potter’s Field, which is coming out in July…

Cheap AF eBooks

Are you the type of person who does not like to pay full price for goods and services?

Then I have some good news for you: Every book in the Ash McKenna series is currently discounted for one reason or another!

New Yorked and South Village have been selected in this month’s Kindle deals section on Amazon, so both are currently available for $1.99.

City of Rose is going to be in some cool newsletter promotions over the next few days, so for a limited time you can get it for only 99 cents.

And because we love you, we shaved two dollars off the price of The Woman from Prague, which you can now get for $5.99.

That means you can get the ENTIRE series for $10.96. That’s cheaper than some individual eBooks. While the books are currently only discounted on Amazon, due to the magic of price-matching, the other sales sites ought to follow suit pretty soon.

While I am seducing you with the siren song of cheap eBooks, this is a good time to remind you that if you read any of these books, and you dig them, and would be amenable to leaving an honest review on Amazon and/or Goodreads, it’d be highly appreciated.

Here’s the thing about reviews: The more you get, the more your book shows up in search algorithms, and the more it applies for promotions (and trust me, promotions like this are HUGE, especially for authors at smaller presses who have a harder time making some noise amidst the throng of bigger releases).

Already read/reviewed my books? Go review another author’s books. It’s a nice thing to do. Especially if you’re planning to leave a positive, or even semi-positive, review. Because it counteracts stuff like the one-star review I got yesterday on Amazon, calling New Yorked “puerile alcoholic ramblings”.

So there you have it. Get the eBooks before they go back to full price. Contribute the inflation of my sales rankings and therefore my discoverability. The world is a magical place.

If you don’t know much about me or the books, you can click here to see some pretty banners with quotes and blurbs about the books. And if you click those banners you’ll find even MORE quotes and blurbs, and also plot summaries and sometimes sample chapters.

‘The Woman from Prague’ is here!

I probably should have posted this yesterday, considering that was the actual release date of the book, but hey, things got a little busy. But: The Woman from Prague is now officially available! A lot of fun stuff happened, so I’ll do a quick roundup:

We launched it at The Mysterious Bookshop last night. Author pal Alex Segura did an excellent job moderating.
The book is listed as temporarily unavailable at Amazon, because we already cleared through the first printing. The second printing should arrive any second. That’s nuts.
I wrote a piece for Criminal Element about pulp fiction in a modern context.
This is a little older but I wrote a piece for Crimespree about writing lessons I got from Krav Maga. Also Dan Malmon wrote a really nice review of the book.
I answered some questions for The Real Book Spy, which also reviewed the book.
I got tired of writing promotional posts (there are a bunch more on the way) so I crowd-sourced an interview for LitReactor—essentially, I asked people to pose questions on social media, and then I rounded them up an answered them. It was pretty fun.
LitHub called The Woman from Prague a must-read crime book for July.
I’ve got more tour events coming up. Staten Island tomorrow night, then Scottsdale, Portland, Houston, and Austin. More details here.
I offered a prize pack for people who pre-ordered the book. The winner is Brent McCarthy! Brent, I will be mailing some stuff to you shortly.

It’s been a good launch. I’m thrilled to have a book in hardcover. I’m extremely thrilled that people are responding to the book. Get it if you haven’t, or wait until I show up at a bookstore to buy it, and I will sign it for you, or give me your phone number and I will read excerpts to you (that last one is not true… maybe).

‘The Woman from Prague’ Book Tour

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The Woman from Prague arrives in less than a month, and thusly I will be showing up at bookstores to sing and dance so that maybe you will buy it.

Locally I’ll be in Manhattan on July 11 (The Mysterious Bookshop) and Staten Island on July 13 (Barnes & Noble).

Then it’s off to Scottsdale on the 20th (Poisoned Pen, pictured above), Portland on the 24th (Powell’s at Hawthorne), Austin on the 26th (BookPeople), and Houston on the 27th (Murder by the Book).

I won’t be alone for all of these events! At Poisoned Pen, I’ll be appearing with Daryl Gregory, author of Spoonbenders. And at BookPeople and Murder by the Book, I’ll be rolling with Jordan Harper (She Rides Shotgun) and Bill Loehfelm (The Devil’s Muse).

In a general sense, when I’m not doing these events, I’ll be hanging around town, searching for drinks and burritos and other fun things to do. If you’re around, get at me.

If you want to see all the event links, click here. You can also find the Facebook events at this link. If you want to RSVP to them, that’s cool. You don’t have to in order to attend, but it’s always nice to get a sense of how many people might be coming out (plus, you’ll get reminders from Facebook so you’ll have no excuse to miss it).

Finally: There’s still time to get in on the pre-order campaign. Pre-order the book, get a postcard, get entered to win a prize. Details here. If you’re planning to attend one of these events, you can always put in a pre-order at the store. That certainly qualifies.