Can you give us a brief overview of your latest book? Is it part of a series?
Off the Books is my sixth novel to feature Chicago-based private detective Nick Forte; he also appears in two of my Penns River police procedurals. In Off the Books Forte is hired by a wealthy businessman whose wife witnessed a fender-bender in a small Illinois town while visiting their grandchildren. Nothing special there except that the driver who rear-ended the car in front of her was obviously drunk and came out of the car brandishing a weapon; the client wants to know why the local police aren’t doing anything about it. Forte quickly finds his client has not been straight with him and there’s a lot more wrong in Lundy, Illinois than sloppy police work.
What factors influenced your decision to self-publish your book(s)?
I’m in my late 60s and decided after eight or nine years with a publisher I wanted more freedom and control over what would be left of my career. By self-publishing I can set my own release schedule and marketing plan (such as it is) without worrying if I’m doing right by my publishing partner.
If you used a graphic designer/publisher’s designer, how involved were you during the creative process for your cover?
This is a good story. The seventh novel in my Penns River series, White Out, was ready to go out for blurbs before we had a cover. The Beloved Spouse™, who is a wizard with Photoshop, dummied up a placeholder in black and white that was supposed to be only for the ARCs, but we liked it so much we kept it for the general release. “Branding” is a big deal these days and it occurred to us we could use the simple, stark covers as a kind of logo for my books. The Nick Forte novels now all look like what you see here and the Penns River books will be re-covered over the next year so they’ll all look like White Out. My two standalones will be similar but different enough so folks will know they are not part of either series.
What is your writing process? Do you listen to music or do you like silence?
I was a professional musician until I was about 35, so the problem for me with having music around when I write is my mind tends to focus too much on the music and not enough on the writing, so I now write in silence. Or at least without music; background noise doesn’t bother me much.
My process varies from draft to draft as I refine the work. The first draft is two or three sessions of 500 words each; the goal is to get the story on the hard drive. Parts may even look like a screenplay, as dialog tends to come easier to me than action, so I sometimes put a slug in place to remind myself what has to go there and will tidy it up on the second draft.
The second draft is a true re-write, where I type everything out again., Substantial changes, additions, and deletions can be made. Authors are taught to “kill your darlings” when editing. I have found it’s easier to leave them along the side of the road and just not type them in again.
The next draft is the hard core editing. I like to think the book is essentially done when this is finished.
Last I have a three-step process:
Day 1: Read a chapter or two. Just read them. Nothing else.
Day 2: Edit what I read on Day 1. Read the next chapter or two.
Day 3: Have Word read back to me what I edited yesterday to make sure it’s right. Edit what I read on Day 1. Read the next chapter or two.
Then repeat until I’m done.
I think of each draft like this:
Draft 1: Producing the raw materials.
Draft 2: Refining the iron ore from the bauxite.
Draft 3: Turning it into steel.
Draft 4: Tempering the steel.
This process is a little different every time, but after sixteen books it’s now pretty well set.
Do you outline your story or just go where your muse takes you?
Outline, though usually little more than a sentence or fragment to remind me what needs to happen in each scene. How it happens is a game time decision, and those decisions sometimes force me to revise the rest of the outline.
I tried to write a couple of books without an outline and ended up throwing away 25,000 and 35,000 words. I’m one of those writers who needs to know the story before I do it justice, almost as if I’m reporting on things that have actually happened.
Did you hire an editor to review your manuscript before publishing?
Yes. Chris Rhatigan has been my primary editor for years and he never fails to improve the books.
A word of advice about editors: Make sure you have one who shares your vision for the book and isn’t going to remake it into something they think will be better. Maybe they will; then again, maybe they won’t. In the end, it’s your name on the cover, and you’re paying the freight, so make sure you get someone you’re comfortable working with. That doesn’t mean you’ll always agree. You want an editor’s suggestions, not your mother’s.
Is your book(s) in Kindle Unlimited or is it wide? What percentage of royalties does page reads represent if in KU?
All the Nick Fortes are now Kindle Unlimited, mainly because I lack the energy and discipline to regularly keep up with multiple markets. I honestly do not know what percentage comes from KU page reads, as the book only came out a couple of weeks ago.
What advice would you give a new author just entering into the self-publishing arena?
Make sure you’ve written the best book you can before you start worrying about formatting or marketing. You only get one chance to make a first impression with readers, so you want them to see the best you got. Marketing might sell this book, but it’s not going to generate repeat business.
Also, be meticulous about the formatting, by which I mean how the book looks on the page, to include pagination, typos, margins, paragraph indentations, and all the other things we take for granted when buying a professionally-published book. Get a proof and compare it to a book on your shelf. It doesn’t have to be as polished, but you also don’t want anything to scream, “I don’t know what I’m doing!” The key is to present yourself as a professional.
Some fun facts about you, which do you prefer – dogs or cats? Chocolate or vanilla? Coffee or Tea? Talk or Text? Day or Night?
Dogs, no question. Cats are assholes.
Chocolate. I love French vanilla ice cream, but with chocolate syrup.
Tea. I’ve had two cups of coffee in my life. The first was such a bitter disappointment I knew I wasn’t going to like the second before I even tasted it. This post is already longer than I planned, so if anyone wants to know about that first cup, ask me in the comments section.
Talk. Interactions are too slow and clumsy in texts. I’m also a lousy typist.
Day. There are few things I enjoy more than being outside on a beautiful day. I’, also more productive during the daylight hours. To me, nights are for winding down to prepare for the next day.
What’s next for you?
Lunch. After that I’ll move things along in Phase 4 of my first Western, which I hope to have finished by the time this interview appears in print. After that I plan to move right into the next Nick Forte novel; the outline is already 95% finished.
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BLURB:
Nick Forte has lost his detective agency and makes ends meet doing background checks and other paperwork. He pays for everything else through jobs he takes for cash and without any written contract. What starts out as a simple investigation into a traffic accident exposes Forte to people who have truly lost everything and have no viable hope of reclaiming their lives. That doesn’t sit well with Forte, leading him and his friend Goose Satterwhite to take action that ends more violently than anyone expected.
“The return of Chicago private detective Nick Forte, the tough protagonist of two Shamus Award nominated novels, is well worth the wait. Nick’s latest escapade Off The Books—the first in nearly six years—will surely earn additional praise for the acclaimed series.”
-J.L .Abramo, Shamus Award-winning author of Chasing Charlie Chan.
"Nick Forte reminds me of Robert B. Parker's Spenser: a PI with a finely tuned sense of justice who doesn't take anyone's s***. Any fan of hardboiled detective fiction is in for a helluva ride."
--Chris Rhatigan, former publisher of All Due Respect Books
BUY LINKS
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AUTHOR Bio and Links:
Off the Books is Dana King’s sixth Nick Forte private investigator novel. Two of the earlier books (A Small Sacrifice and The Man in the Window) received Shamus Award nominations from the Private Eye Writers of America. Dana also writes the Penns River series of police procedurals set in a small Western Pennsylvania town, as well as one standalone novel, Wild Bill, which is not a Western. His short fiction appears in numerous anthologies and web sites. He is a frequent panelist at conferences and reads at Noirs at Bars from New York to North Carolina.
WEBSITE
BLOG
One Bite at a Time https://danaking.blogspot.com
TWITTER
@DanaKingAuthor
FACEBOOK
https://www.facebook.com/dana.king.735/
Thank you so much for hosting today.
ReplyDeleteThanks for having me today. Sorry I'm late here but i had yard work that needed to be done and rain was forecast. I just about got it all done when the rain hit, so i came in, got cleaned up, and took a shower in time for the rain to stop. It figures.
ReplyDeleteLooks like a interesting read.
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