author of 'The Paradox Hotel' and 'The Warehouse'
Over at LitReactor, I’ve got a new installment in my Path to Publication series. This time I talk about TV rights, sequels, synopses, and show off the pretty new cover for New Yorked.
And over at the Mulholland Books blog, I’ve got a piece that explores a very important question: What do you do with a giant pile of Jim Thompson books?
Only one of the options I discovered involves body disposal.
Go forth and read stuff!
“Most cities are nouns; New York’s a verb.” —John F. Kennedy, quoted in Native’s Guide to New York
Coming in June from Polis Books.
Negotiations are complete. Contract is signed and in the mail. Nobody died. I’d call that a win.
Column is up at LitReactor. Read it here.
My Path to Publication column is back at LitReactor!
Come find out how much it sucks to lose a book deal and how nice it is to be back in business.
I’m thrilled to announce that—after my publisher abruptly shut down and dropped me last month—my books have found a new home: Polis Books.
Jason Pinter, the head of Polis, is a smart, passionate guy, and it’s great to be with a publisher that’s at the vanguard of the industry.
Here’s the official announcement from Publishers Marketplace:
Rob Hart’s debut novel NEW YORKED, about self-described “blunt instrument” Ash McKenna who wakes up to find that the woman he loves has been murdered, and must cut through the city’s underworld to find her killer while confronting his own family history of violence, along with a sequel, CITY OF ROSE, to Jason Pinter at Polis Books by Bree Ogden at D4EO Literary Agency.
Major props to my agent, Bree. She is a rockstar superhero.
It sucks losing a book deal. Here’s a thing you worked your whole life to achieve, and then you actually achieve it, and then it gets taken from you. It’s depressing on a level that’s hard to put into words. Luckily I had the support of an amazing community of writers and readers who reached out with a kind word, or the offer of a drink, or just a ‘like’ on Facebook. Every little bit helped, and it kept the days from being as dark as they could have been.
Now, though, it’s back into the light. Time to put the gears of war back into motion.
Look for New Yorked in print and digital in Summer 2015, with City of Rose to follow in Fall/Winter.
My latest Path to Publication column is live at LitReactor.
It went live last week, actually, but I’ve been on vacation. Check it out!
You dig?
My first official interview as an author guy.
And so much damn fun that everything from here is pretty much downhill.
When I first conceived of New Yorked, it was meant to be a standalone novel. One and done. But I really enjoyed writing Ash McKenna, even though he’s a bit of a dumbass.
Plus, his voice sounds a bit like my voice, so I figured that for subsequent stories in the crime genre, the protagonist would sound too much like him, or like me.
So I started kicking around ideas for a series. Taking some of the books I wanted to write and twisting them around Ash. Let them serve as vehicles for this kid who’s seeking his moral compass. The more I thought about it, the more excited I got.
Exhibit A is excited about it, too. So much that they’ve agreed to buy the second book in the series, tentatively titled City of Rose.
This is hugely exciting. The folks at Exhibit A have been a pleasure to work with. They’ve got the guts and the vision to make this thing work. And the idea of me making a living writing books is becoming slightly less insane.
At the same time, it’s terrifying. Because now I’m committed. I have to write the damn thing. And Exhibit A is putting a lot of faith in me—they trust that I can do this. I don’t want to let them down.
I don’t think I will. Because the exciting part is way overshadowing the terrifying part.
So, New Yorked will hit in January 2015. We’re toying with Autumn 2015 for City of Rose, which will mean a lot less Titanfall and a lot more hours locked in my office. We’ll see how that goes.
Speaking of, want to learn more about the next installment? Check out the Exhibit A website, where the official announcement just hit.
Want to learn even more about the series? Tonight I’ll be interviewed by the brilliant ladies at the Books & Booze podcast, and I’ll spill some more details about it—including the mechanics of how the series will work, because that part, I’ve got mapped out. And it’s going to be a lot of fun. So you have to listen to the show.
I’ll blast out the link as soon as it’s live.
And mad props to my agent, Bree Ogden. This lady is unstoppable.
My first novel is the start of a series. In my last column, I talked a bit about the process of researching the sequel, City of Rose. You’d think, in the month since that column ran, I would have gotten a lot of work done. And you would be wrong!
If I were a smart person, I would have used my impending purchase of an XBox One as an incentive to work harder. I should have said: “Self, you can buy the XBox One only when you finish the first draft of your next book. Then you can play a straight week of Titanfall as a palate cleanser, before you have to get into the editing process.”
But I have poor impulse control. So I bought it. And really, it’s the definition of a catch-22: I wanted to use my advance to treat myself to something, and in the process turfed my chances of having the free time to write another book. And you know what? I’m fine with that. Titanfall, man. There is something so viscerally satisfying about being pinned down by enemy fire and then summoning a giant robot from the sky and then climbing inside it to fire rockets at people. Especially after a long day…
Rob Hart