The world's best Caribbean boat bum

I mentioned before that I'm writing new trilogy of Ron Anejo stories (tropical mysteries with a twist). While you wait, you can listen to the original story. The audiobook is available for free right now... first come, first served. And sign up for my newsletter to learn when the new books are available.

Writing and traveling

Writing and traveling are rather compatible, if you can work in strange places. For me, it is an inspiring combination. Traveling and publishing are less compatible, but as things worked out that's exactly what I'll be doing soon. We are making a trip, a road trip to Colorado to see family for the first time in a while. The timing coincides with the release of my next Martin Billings book DEATH BENEFITS from Float Street Press. Of course, there is never a right time for much of anything in this world, especially not enough time to do things right, and I am trying to get this right. So I am being more methodical than I am normally prone to be.

Jes Richardson put together a wonderful cover for the new book.

I like it because it suggests all the elements in the story. Jes did a good job of winnowing out all the junk I tried to get into it and focused on the key things.

I'm doing some last minute things to the text and getting the formatting done. I'll be doing a pre-release of the book (at a discount) through Kobo and Barnes & Noble while I'm on the road, and then it will go live in both ebook and paperback on July 10th. I'll announce the pre-release when it is up.

For those of you who haven't read the first Martin Billings book, UNDER LOW SKIES, I'll be reissuing it with a modified cover and dropping it to the price for a short time. Naturally I am hoping you will want to read both. And book #3, which takes place on a tropical Caribbean isle, is in the works. It will be out later this year. I want to get you addicted to Martin's adventures in the Caribbean, and to feel the rhythms of life there.
 Meantime, I am looking for to contact reviewers who like mystery/adventure stories. If you have a book blog and are interested in getting an advanced review copy of DEATH BENEFITS, please contact the publisher at publisher@floatstreetpress.com

Here is the blurb for the new book.

Martin Billings goes to Venezuela to get some documents signed for a friend, but the man who is supposed to sign them has gone sailing. Martin finds his sailboat burning on a beach but it's too far gone to know if he was still in it. If he was, who left him there? Who is the mystery woman he sees taking pictures of the burning boat? And why is an ex British spy interested in the man's whereabouts? Martin needs to find some answers, and preferably before Ugly Bill gets too tired of him playing detective.

A taste of Traveling Ed's crime fiction

Here is a great chance to get acquainted with my new fiction at no risk. The ebook of my crime short story A Mexican Divorce will be free on Amazon from March 30, 2014 to April 3, 2014.

Here is the blurb:

How is a girl supposed to have fun on vacation when blackmailers are going to try and make her pay them for pictures of it all? And what will Bart say if he finds out? Of course she can't little thing like a greedy blackmailer ruin a perfectly good setup.  

 

Book reviews, sales and other confusions

Float Street Press has been experimenting with things, trying to figure out how to reach readers. We'd like our books to be read (seeing as that is the point of publishing them) and especially find readers who like a particular author. Javaid Qazi writes strange and wonderful short stories, but his two collections (UNLIKELY STORIES and THE JEWELED WEB) have not sent tremors through the publishing world. Still, when UNLIKELY STORIES came out, it got good reviews. Someone giving it a five star review wrote:

 

Excellent stories from Pakistan to Silicon Valley 

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

Javaid Qazi's first collection of short stories is notable both for their insightful nature and amazing variety. A country-western barfly, Silicon Valley office workers, a doctor and his family in Pakistan, a lustful maid in Portugal, and a German 'stripteuse' populate these tales. Throughout the world Qazi finds interesting people in interesting dilemmas. His language is as original as it too is varied. A highly recommended first book by an upcoming writer who measures up internationally.

 

 That was lovely, but it doesn't seem that it encouraged shoppers to avail themselves of the book.

 

Okay, I get it that short story collections, especially when they lurk in a strange limbo between experimental and mainstream fiction, sometimes encroaching on one, sometimes the other, isn't the easiest sell. How do you tell people what it is? Our thought was to publish some stories individually and let people know they were from a large collection of such stories.

So we published two stories and made them available at 99cents and used the Kindle free days to let the world know.

 

 Both received an encouraging number of downloads, both free and paid. And one reviewer (the only reviewer) of President Sahib's Blue Period gave it:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wise, metaphorical, entertaining May 16, 2013

By Scrabble Fan

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

This short story contains many allegories and metaphors for our age, at the same time containing irony and humor. The writing style reminds me of Marquez' "One Hundred Years of Solitude." 

 

We've seen no reviews for Berlin Danse Macabre yet, but it is a challenging story.

 

Understanding what this anecdotal evidence means is difficult. I don't know what inspires people to write reviews, or how other people relate to reviews. I take them along with salt tablets myself, as single grains are usually inadequate, but the reviews of Javaid's books suggest that they struck a lovely chord with some readers.Now we are hoping that the interest this generated is enough to get readers to go for the collections. We could publish all of the stories individually and we will if that is what readers prefer. Given that the least we can charge for a story is 99 cents and the collection of 11 stories in UNLIKELY STORIES is $3.99 and THE JEWELED WEB has 18 for $4,99, I am not sure why readers would prefer single stories, but I know that I am not a typical reader. (We have both in paperback as well, for those who are not addicted to ereaders and like the touch and feel of books.)

It's a fun experiment and the results are sketchy. If you have any thoughts on the idea or value of individual stories versus collections, or how to let people taste a collection in another way, I'd love to hear them.

 

New Speculations

Float Street Press has been taking on a bit of a life of its own lately. I started publishing my own work, then stumbled across Kurt Dysan and published his (with more to come). Then my old friend Javaid Qazi got the rights to his out of print short story collection (UNLIKELY STORIES) returned from Penguin and we published that. Then, while Jim Beckett and I were finishing up THE INVENTION OF CLAY McKENZIE, Tilly Jupiter turned up with funny speculative fiction (you are free to speculate whether or not the science is science or fantasy) and that went into the mix.

And now Jim has produced a couple of fine and funny science fiction stories. He comes from a hard science background, but with his funny bone intact. The first story is:

Proton, protector of the innocent and oppressed, roams the world of Chem fighting evil and injustice. But if she can't escape the ambush she has wandered into, all life on Chem will be in peril.

An adult story for those who appreciate chemistry.

And of course he writes about space travel as well:

When Amanda Murphy accepted the command of the spaceship that would test a revolutionary new propulsion system she didn’t bother to ask why she was selected over dozens of veteran Captains with more rank and seniority. Until, that is, she learned that the computer would actually have total control of her ship. A human couldn’t think fast enough to make course corrections at the speeds the Dark Drive was capable of reaching. But what if something went wrong?

Both books are available as ebooks from Amazon and Smashwords

(and soon through B&N and iTunes and Sony and Kobo) and in paperback from Amazon or CreateSpace.

You can find both right at Jim's sites on Amazon and Smashwords.

I'd put previews or teasers up, but they are in a nicer format at the bookseller sites anyway.