Vincent Zandri's Blog - Posts Tagged "the-guilty"

Jack is Back!


Years ago when I was writing The Innocent and Godchild for a major publisher (back then The Innocent was called As Catch Can, which never really rolled off the tongue the right way for me), I had assumed I'd be writing about Jack Marconi, former maximum security prison warden turned private detective, for the rest of my days. I was only thirty at the time.

But then my publishing deal started going south when the imprint I was with was handed its walking papers and the office was swallowed up by another imprint that didn't want to back Jack in the first place. In fact, although they honored my contract and even paid me my full advance, which was quite hefty, Jack was relegated to the broom closet. In the words of my then editor, "I'm think Marconi is done for a while." RIP, that is.

But then something miraculous happened. About three years ago my agent (now retired, but what a wonderful women God bless her), was able to wrangle the rights back from said major pub for both Marconi books (You see, even though the publisher wasn't going to publish anymore Jack, they still insisted on holding onto the rights for the first two Marconi's for years...). How she did it, I'm still not sure. But the novels were promptly republished by StoneGate Ink. In just a single six week period, The Innocent went on to sell more than 100,000 copies while earning more then 60 four and five star reviews. I entered into the Top Ten overall Kindles on Amazon and I was blowing even the top New York Times Bestsellers out of the water. Godchild fared almost as well selling tens of thousands of copies. In the end, I'm sure said major publisher was punching itself in the head thinking, "Why oh why did I let those rights go?" Or perhaps, they should have said, "Why oh why didn't I back Jack?" Or maybe they said, "Who gives a rat's ass?"

Now The Innocent and Godchild have been bought out by Thomas & Mercer of Amazon Publishing and continue to be the gifts that keep on giving. Jack just won't quit. Which means, I've given the tough guy a new case. As always, it's loosely based on a true events.

Here's the tagline: Sometimes the recipe for true love can turn out to be the perfect poison.

Jack Marconi is back. In The Guilty, Jack finds himself investigating a local restaurateur who’s not only obsessed with the sexy, dark romance novel, Fifty Shades of Grey, he’s accused of attempting to murder his school teacher girlfriend. As the now brain-damaged young woman begins recalling events of that fateful winter night when she was allegedly pushed down the stairs of a West Albany mansion, she becomes the target of the angry foodie/sex-obsessed boyfriend once again. Only this time, he’s cooking up a plot to keep her silenced forever.

As you can see, I became a little intrigued with this popularity not only of the dark romance Fifty Shades of Grey but also with the the explosion of vampire, zombie, and fantasy lit. I wondered what it would be like if someone were to begin living the fantasy for real and if it could result in murder?

Jack Marconi is also pondering that very question in THE GUILTY.

Yup, Jack is Back, and he's as bad ass as always. You just can't keep him down. Like great poetry his message (and his actions) resonate.

WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM
Murder by Moonlight

Things change at lightening speed in this business. Which means, what was hot and happening and the absolutely only alternative yesterday is today, cold and old and as outdated as your great grandmother's underwear.

Three years ago when I first started working with indie publishers you didn't go a day without posting something about your books on Facebook, Twitter, and even Myspace. Of course, you had to watch what you posted since you couldn't directly ask someone to buy your book. You needed to utilize a more indirect approach. For instance, you might post something on Facebook about "Identical Twins" and their uncanny ability to know what one another are thinking at any given time, which on the surface seems like the kind of interesting topic that might pull you away from your accounts payable reports at work. But within the piece itself would be a quick mention of my novel, The Remains. Of course, The Remains is about a set of identical twins who communicate even after one of them has died.

Oops, I did it again...I just promoted The Remains.

But not so fast. The point here is that even that kind of off-handed, soft, and gentle promo is not as effective as it used to be. Which is why I rarely do it anymore. Instead I just might post a piece on Twins and let it go at that.

But then how do I get the word out about new books?

I still use all the social media tools, but instead of shotgunning dozens of notices over dozens of engines, I elect instead to send out a mention of the new book on Facebook and Twitter on its release day. I'll also set up a Facebook event page in order to invite certain people who might be interested in reading it. Lastly I'll utilize a guaranteed reader's list of email addresses (which have been obtained with permission from the people who own them) by sending out a direct mailing.

All in all, even this softer approach won't light the book on fire, but it will serve to slowly get the wheels turning. You don't want to see a huge surge in sales on Day 1 only to see your book fall to the back of the algorithm line on Day 2. Better to see your book slowly begin to make its rise to the top over a period of weeks or even months (It took The Innocent nine months to reach the Amazon Overall Top 100...The same for Godchild, The Remains, The Concrete Pearl, and others...).

Things like virtual blog tours, the occasional free special, and blogging, remain important tools. So does careful pricing, as well as a great cover, and a great product description. But nothing sells like writing more books. The author who can put out great work speedily and consistently will find that he or she is writing faster than publishers can keep up. Even indie publishers. I suppose that's when authors begin to contemplate self-publishing (No, despite the rumor, I have yet to self-publish...Surprise, surprise...But I will one day).

Amazon's algorithms have changed. Books that surge to the top are almost automatically now pushed to the back of the line. Better to focus on slow, steady growth than a fast shotgun approach. Don't think sprint, think slow jog. Think organic growth. But don't think for too long, because a week from now, the blog you just read will be old, and dumb, and useless. Like the Beatles once sang, "Tomorrow Never Knows..."

WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM

The Guilty
Vincent Zandri

Thriller author Ian Walkley interviewed me last month for The Big Thrill...Here's what he came up with:


Harlan Coben describes Vincent Zandri’s novels as “Gritty, fast-paced, lyrical and haunting…” Vincent’s latest mystery thriller THE GUILTY finds former prison warden and private eye Jack Marconi investigating a local restaurateur who’s not only obsessed with the sexy, dark romance novel, FIFTY SHADES OF GREY, he’s accused of attempting to murder his school teacher girlfriend. As the now brain-damaged young woman begins recalling events of that fateful winter night when she was allegedly pushed down the stairs of a West Albany mansion, she becomes the target of the angry foodie/sex-obsessed boyfriend once again. Only this time, he’s cooking up a plot to keep her silenced forever.

Vincent Zandri is the No. 1 International Bestselling Amazon author of THE INNOCENT, GODCHILD, THE REMAINS, MOONLIGHT FALLS, THE CONCRETE PEARL, MOONLIGHT RISES, and more. The bestselling author of SAVAGES, Don Winslow, says of Zandri: “He’s a terrific writer and he tells a terrific story.” Zandri’s work has been published in many languages including Dutch, Russian, and Japanese. An adventurer, foreign correspondent, and freelance photo-journalist for LIVING READY, RT, GLOBALSPEC, as well as several other news agencies and publications, Zandri lives in New York.

Vincent, what are some of the things we’ll discover about Jack Marconi in this story?

In the first two Marconi novels, THE INNOCENT(formerly AS CATCH CAN), and GODCHILD, Jack was much more brooding and dark-minded due to his obsession over who killed his wife Fran and why. That mystery now solved, and ten years having passed in the meantime, Jack is now a little more cocky, and somewhat happier. He’s come to terms with Fran’s death and although he hasn’t remarried, he’s gotten his life back and it shows.

And what or who are some of the obstacles Jack has to face?

Maybe Jack has gotten his life back, but he’s also aging in a way that’s making him feel culturally irrelevant. Smartphones, texting, blogging, Facebook, Google…none of these things were around during his previous adventures or, at least, were in their infancy. How does he compete with a would-be killer who’s obsessed with the post-modern indie erotica novel, “Fifty Shades of Grey?” He has to find a way to get into the killer’s mind-set. Not an easy thing for someone who is essentially still rooted in the 1950s. The sense of isolation he feels adds to his already heightened sense of existentialism. He feels at once alone and dismayed at a new generation of socially media savvy and digitally raised young people who can torture others both sexually and mentally with all the ease and carelessness as one would experience playing a video game. I explored a very similar theme in my stand-alone thriller, SCREAM CATCHER.

What are some of Jack’s flaws? Did you develop these through conscious character design, or do they flow more from the storyline?

Jack is always going to do the right thing, even if it means breaking the law. He’d rather hire a convicted drug dealer and killer as his sidekick than a white-bread goody-two-shoes, because he knows the former knows a hell of a lot more about real life in the modern world than does the latter. Such close underworld associations, however, can make Jack suspect in the eyes of both the police and his clients. It also elevates the potential for Jack to do something bad in order to get at an ultimate good. Like shooting a bad guy in the thigh for instance in order to extract some much needed information.

Who are some of the other characters in THE GUILTY, and how will they impact Jack.

Jack’s a got a new side-kick in the form of a former Green Haven inmate whom he once was in charge of incarcerating. Blood, which is his nickname, is now the local neighbourhood watchman which means he more or less controls who sells and buys what on the street corners. He can also get anything done…anything…but for a price. He is a handsome, very in shape, middle-aged African American man of strict morals who knows what it’s like to be on the wrong side of a set of prison bars. Like Keeper, he only wants to get at the truth of any given case.

What did you particularly enjoy about writing THE GUILTY?

It was fun being back in Jack’s voice. Some readers will say that Jack seems a lot like my other serial character Dick Moonlight, but there are tremendous differences. Jack would do stuff Moonlight would never do and vice versa. They know one another, and often work with the same men and women at the Albany Police Department. One day I’m going to sit down and start writing a novel with both of them in it.

That sounds like a fun story to write. In what ways has your writing evolved since the first Jack Marconi book? Who are some of the influences that have impacted your writing?

I’m older and having written thirteen novels and countless articles in between, I’m a somewhat better writer. Or so I hope. I’ve also been exposed to some great voices over the past decade and a half since I wrote the first Marconi novel. Charlie Huston, Don Winslow, Boston Teran, Les Edgerton, Belinda Frisch among them. They have taught me all about writing great sentences and paragraphs with few if any wasted words.

You recently attended Thrillerfest. What were some of the memorable moments?

Andy Bartlet, my original acquiring editor at Thomas & Mercer, and I tried our best to steal a Kuwaiti flag which was mounted to a pole on the exterior of the Kuwaiti embassy. I suppose in the end it’s good that we didn’t get the flag because then we would have had to fight over who got to take it home. The whole adventure blended well with Thrillerfest in that it’s the one occasion during the year where editors, writers, publishers, fans, all get to let loose together and have some fun. It’s what keeps me coming back year after year.

As well as writing novels and short fiction, you continue to work as a freelance photo-journalist, travel a great deal, and play the drums in a punk rock band. You also spend time in Italy. Do you find your lifestyle creeping its way into your stories?

Sure, it can’t help but creep in. I just wrote a novel called CHASE which is about a writer/adventurer who lives in Florence part-time. He often gives walking tours for extra cash and on occasion will act as a private detective for the local police. In the first book he goes on the trail of a missing archaeology professor and ends up in post-revolutionary Egypt. Not the safest of places. I went to Egypt this past October to research the novel. I couldn’t admit to being an American. My fixer and I also got run off the road, our car crashing into a ditch. It was a strange feeling finding yourself in the hornet’s nest. But then, I like that sort of thing.

You have been extremely successful as an indie author, through Amazon publishing and through StoneHouse Ink, a highly regarded indie publishing house. Do you have a view about how publishing might evolve over the next few years?

I think the big six or five or four or whatever they are down to now will rebound and enjoy a new resurgence with e-books. It’s taken some time, but they are beginning to understand the potential of digital publishing and how it will now replace entirely the mass market paperback. Medium sized Indie houses like StoneHouse/StoneGate Ink will get larger and larger until they are either bought out by the majors or they become majors in their own right. Self-published authors who have not been previously published by major houses will find it harder and harder to compete in a crowded marketplace but that doesn’t mean there won’t be huge success stories every year. At the same time, established authors who have been published by the majors will begin to seek out more independent alternatives in order to gain more control over what they write and publish while increasing profit margins. More brick and mortar bookstores will close including more Barnes & Nobles. However, the trade paperback will continue to share the podium with e-books while on-line sales thrive. I’m actually wondering what’s going to replace the e-book. Whatever it is, it will happen very soon.

It remains difficult for new writers to be noticed. Do you have any advice for aspiring novelists about increasing their chances of success?

Write great books. There’s no better way to be noticed.

THE GUILTY was released in July as a paperback original by StoneHouse Ink/StoneGate Ink.

WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM
The Guilty

The following blog is now appearing in slightly different form at The Vincent Zandri Vox:
http://vincentzandri.blogspot.com/201...


If you were to ask Ernest Hemingway what he did to get in the mood for writing, he might come back at you with a rather macho and dramatic response like, “There’s nothing to writing. All you do is sit at your typewriter and bleed.” Or he might tell you that one’s mood has nothing to do with the all important task of “biting the nail.” He might even say, “Writing is like mass. God gets mad if you don’t show up.”

I think it’s safe to say that as masterful a writer as Hemingway was, the actual process of writing did not come easy for him. He had to work at it, mining the right words, gem by precious gem, until just the right meaning and feel of a sentence was conveyed. In order to ensure that he was “in the mood” for writing day in and day out, he kept a rigorous schedule of waking at dawn and writing until noon. He would then reward himself with fishing, shooting, playing baseball, or simply heading out to his favorite watering hole like Sloppy Joes for a couple of drinks. He never wrote much more than 250 words per day (about a single double-spaced page), and he always stopped at a place where he knew he could pick up again in the morning, thus guaranteeing that he’d be able to continue to write.

I’m not even going to pretend that I belong in the same class as Hemingway. But like him, I do make my living by sitting at my typewriter (Or Lenovo ThinkPad anyway), and bleeding. I don't teach and I don't have another job to supplement my writing income. Making a living at writing words on a page entails two things. The first is that you have to be good, either by sheer talent or by force of will. The second is that you become prolific, at least to a degree that can guarantee you enough of an income to live according to your own idea of what constitutes a decent quality of life. That said, I need to write and have published a certain amount of novels that can guarantee me a steady stream of income for a long, long time (I’m still I my forties). Just what is that magic number of books? I’m not sure yet, but I know it will be more than 20. Currently, I’m writing my 16th, so I’m almost there.

But writing book after book is a lot of hard work (I’m a journalist too, so my daily word count is up there, believe me). That said, getting in the mood to write doesn’t even enter into the equation. I get up to write at least six days a week no matter what mood I’m in, no matter where I am in the world. It’s a discipline I maintain in order to ensure success, and it’s no different from the discipline a surgeon or a lawyer or a brick layer or even a priest maintains. A brain surgeon doesn’t wake up on any given Tuesday and tell him or herself, I’m not in the mood to operate today. He just does it, and does it to the very best of his ability. It’s the same for me. I don’t get writer’s block anymore than an accountant gets accountant’s block. This is something they will not teach you in writing school.

I also don’t require solitude or even absolute quiet. I’ve written in airports, on planes, trains, in boats, and in cars. I’ve written in Italy, France, Spain, Turkey, Africa, Egypt, China, the jungles of South America, and in the suburbs of Albany, New York. I’ve written when my wives were bearing our children in the hospital, and I wrote five pages of a new novel only hours after my father dropped dead from a heart attack. I write on my birthday, on Christmas, and Easter. I write on weekends. I write if my significant other is angry with me and tossing my shit out the window, and I write if I’m hung over. I wrote on September 11, 2001, and I wrote on the day we killed Osama Bin Laden. I suppose I will write on the day I die. It is the one thing in my life that is constant, never changing, and loyal beyond the possibility of betrayal, and it is the one thing that is as certain as the sun that also rises on each and every morning. And as for my mood? Well, my mood has not one goddamned thing whatsoever to do with it.

The Guilty

The following blog is now appearing at The Vincent Zandri Vox: http://vincentzandri.blogspot.com/201...

I'm by no means a Midas type of guy. Meaning, not everything I touch or write, for that matter, turns into gold. But I have become a survivor. Case and point: Eight years ago this week, my second wife and I split up. I packed up my stuff along with my then thirteen and nine year old son's stuff, and moved from a huge four bedroom, three bath house to a two bedroom, one bath apartment. My youngest son was forced to leave his school and his friends while my oldest son became quite angry and at the same time, withdrawn over what to him, seemed like yet another life rejection. Both boys also had to leave behind their little sister.

But here's the hard truth of the matter: I had no one to blame other than myself. I'd become a frustrated and unhappy young man. Having achieved some major success just a few years before in the form of quarter million dollar two book deal with Delacorte Press, I felt that I was entitled to more success. When that deal eventually went sour due to the publisher's corporate problems and I was left high and dry, I fell into a tailspin of despair that made life with Vince pretty unlivable.

Still recovering from the ill effects of a very expensive first divorce, my finances were in a shambles, my debt was enormous, and I had no real cash coming in. To make matters worse, I had no publisher and even my then agent was no longer returning my calls. That Christmas morning I was so depressed, I woke up, went straight for the refrigerator and cracked open a beer. I had reached rock bottom. As I stood there with the beer in hand and a tear running down my cheek, I knew I had two choices. I could either keep sliding south, which of course means six feet under. Or I could pull up my bootstraps and start climbing out of the hole I'd dug for myself. Luckily I tossed out the beer and got digging.

It was around this time I started writing THE REMAINS, a story about twin girls who were abducted back in the 1970s when they were only twelve by a madman who lived in a house in the woods behind their home. In part, the story was based upon my breakup with my second wife and I was able to utilize some of our relationship as the basis for the main characters. In this case, my protagonist, the artist and art teacher Rebecca, still maintains a friendly if not loving relationship with her ex, Michael. Michael is a writer who, having once before hit it very big, fell into a trap of partying like a rock star until one day he woke up in a hospital only to realize that everything he worked so hard for had turned to shit. And like me, he had only himself to blame.

Michael still loves Rebecca and since she is his muse, he insists on writing inside her apartment. When Rebecca begins to receive strange paintings with messages hidden inside them from an autistic savant who is her student, she comes to realize the paintings are warnings. The man who abducted her all those years ago has been released from prison and he's out to finish the job he started with she and her twin sister all those years ago. Only this time, he plans on doing it right. That said, Michael and Rebecca team up not only to solve the mystery, but also to rekindle their love.





Just the other day it dawned on me that if I hadn't broken up with my second wife whom I loved very much, I might never have written THE REMAINS. In fact, I'm quite sure I would not have written the story at all. if I hadn't reached rock bottom and survived it all, I never would have written the character of Michael. Nor would I have nailed the desperate-need-to-survive-at-all-costs that Rebecca experiences when she's being hunted down in the woods by the same man who abducted her many year ago. In a word, I had taken a very bad thing like a breakup, and turned it into gold.

Last month, THE REMAINS sold over 30,000 copies in paper, ebook, and audio. It reached the Top 10 in the UK and the US. It was also, or so my agent tells me, Thomas & Mercer's No. 1 seller for the month of September. Not bad considering the hundreds of books they publish. But the point here is not how well something sells. The point is that I was able to turn a bad situation entirely onto its back, and write something that I am entirely proud of. Something that can stand up in both the literary and suspense genres (since September 1, the book has earned more than forty new 4 and 5 star reviews).

Today, I'm sitting at my writing desk in my studio and reflecting on all that has changed in the eight years since my wife and I split up. I've published hundreds of articles and photographs for some major news outlets like RT and magazines like Living Ready. I've traveled to from Moscow to the Amazon Basin, and from Shanghai to West Africa. I enjoy extended one and two month writing retreats in Italy. I've written more than half a dozen new short stories and two novellas. More importantly, I've written thirteen new books and have recently completed the first draft of my seventeenth. My debt is gone, and I even have enough money to invest. I don't enjoy the benefits of one publisher. But several.

A number of years ago a prominent local bookseller looked me in the eye and said, "You will never score another major book deal again." Since then I've published (and re-published) seven novels with perhaps the hottest major publisher in the business today. I will be publishing more with them to be sure.

I love proving naysayers wrong. But more than that, I love proving myself wrong. Eight years ago I felt like there was nothing to live for anymore if I couldn't be a working writer, and do so on my own terms. What I had to grow up and realize is that this is a business full of ups and downs and the work ethic must be adhered to like a priest and his daily Our Fathers. But if there is one thing I've learned more than anything else, it's this: Happiness is a choice. It's not something that arrives and departs like the cavalry. Happy people seem to attract other happy people. They also attract success. They are healthy and hopeful. Their dreams are vivid and real. Conversely, the miserable attract misery. They are physically and mentally incapacitated and they are the perpetually plagued. Avoid them at all costs.

Just like Rebecca and Michael from THE REMAINS, my ex and I are giving our relationship another try. Why shouldn't we? We've both changed and managed to ride out our separate storms. We've grown up in the process and learned a whole lot about life. We're survivors.

Want to read THE REMAINS?

The Remains

The following blog is now appearing in slightly different form at The Vincent Zandri Vox: http://vincentzandri.blogspot.it/2013...

People ask me...and ask me often I might add...if I have a home.

An editor for a magazine I work for referred to me in a nice way as a vagabond, and a fellow author posted in Facebook just the other day , "Does Vince even have a home?" My sig other got a little frustrated with me about month or so ago when she shook her head saying, "I feel like I'm living with a nomad."

I assure you I'm neither a vagabond, nor a nomad, and I do have a home, even if the home I live in is not my own. This goes for both my studio and said sig other's place of residence. I will admit, having been on the road for months and months over the past five years has begun to make me feel like I don't have one place in the world that I can call my own, so much as places I can return to, to sleep, to wash my clothes, and to be cared for by others while I care for them. But always in the back and fore of my mind are thoughts and dreams of where I might escape to next.

Italy has been a great place to escape to. Florence in particular. It's a good place to write and a good place to think. Its cobblestones seem to resonate with the inspiration that so motivated DaVinci, Machiavelli, Dante, and yeah, Zandri. I wrote Blue Moonlight here which takes place in part in Florence. There isn't a time I don't walk past the Duomo in Piazza Dell Duomo and picture Dick Moonlight being chased by two Russian mobsters on top of the dome, a la Alfred Hitchock. For me, this is more than a place for escape, it is romance and intrigue. A place where, in the fall as the rains come and darkness settles in early, men don their leather coats, scarves and black watch caps, while the women put on their black leggings, short wool skirts, and tall black leather boots.

Other places have been good for escape and writing. Paris is one of them. I even wrote well in Cairo, but always there was this sense that the barrel of an AK was staring me down. There is West Africa, and Moscow, and Athens, and even Lima. I've written in many places, but none of them I refer to as home. I will always consider them escapes regardless of the reason I go there.

In January I will return the US and my day will be the same as it is here in Florence. The only difference will be that at the beginning and end of the working day I won't hear the bells ringing from the Cathedral, nor will I make out the click-clack of the women's high heels pacing past my open French windows, nor will the street lamps shine down on the damp glazed stone in a way you never get sick of looking at. The voices will not speak Italian and the smells of olive oil and garlic cooking will not fill my head and make my mouth water. But when I look up on a clear night and see the same moon that we all see the world over wherever we lay our heads, I will know that I am never far from anywhere I call home.

WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM

The Remains