When my second book, Out of Darkness, was published in June I decided to devote the remainder of the year to promoting both my novels, primarily though author events.  It has been a whirlwind.  When December rolls by I will have had an author event every two weeks.  Since June we have traveled to Door County, LaCrosse, Fort Worth, Oshkosh, Wichita, Waupaca (twice), Chicago and Milwaukee from July-Oct.  All of the experiences have been fun, educational and sales have been robust. 

I am tired.  I need to return to writing.  During my travels I’ve decided that the Murphy Series will be a trilogy and I know what the theme and general story arc will be for the third novel.  I have written the first chapter in my head and need to have the full arc of the story in my mind in order to begin Chapter One.

Once I was eager to begin writing novel #3 in November.  Now, I know I need to have more space – more time.  I need to create an emptiness that I can then have room to write.  I’m not sure when that will be.  I have confidence that it will come when it wants to come.  And when it does come – it will be a tsunami of creativity.

With my second novel I floundered for months to select a story I wanted to write.  For the third novel I know what I want to write and that is a relief and a joy.  However, Ian Padraic Murphy’s story will end with the third novel.  From my experience at the 2015 Irish Book and Music Celebration, I have an idea for my fourth novel, which will also be historical fiction.  I plan to write about the late 1500’s and take the opportunity to have a female protagonist.  Writing a female protagonist will allow me to grow as a writer and provide an opportunity to showcase the role of women in Celtic society/culture.

Let the writing begin . . . 

Several weeks ago I had an author event at the Crystal River Inn in Waupaca, Wisconsin.  One of those attending was a young Irish woman who married an American and had immigrated to the United States in January.  She told me an incredible story about how my first novel, Murphy’s Troubles, changed her life.

There is a scene in the novel that takes place in a bookshop in Blessington, Ireland.  I selected Blessington first because I loved the name.  For the story plot I needed to have Ian Murphy have a meeting in an out of the way place that no one would notice.  I thought it would be appropriate to have an author visit a local book store and research proved there is in fact ‘The Blessington Book Store’.  Continuing my research it was the perfect location for the scene.

The young woman was reading my book and was shocked and excited when she read the scene in Blessington.  As it turns out she grew up in Blessington and was very familiar with what she called their “quirky” book store.  She told her husband about the scene and had him read it to prove that she wasn’t making it up.

Having left Ireland a few months before the young Irish woman was homesick and feeling uncertain about her choice to immigrate to America.  Reading the scene in my book, written by an American author, was a sign to her that she had made the right decision to move.

Six degrees of freedom?  Coincidence?  How likely is it that a scene in my book would influence the life of a young woman from Ireland?  I don’t know.  When she told me her story the hair rose on the back of my neck.      

For the second consecutive year our friends Deb and Robert in Waupaca have hosted a book event for me.  Last year they invited a group of their friends to their Bed & Breakfast, Crystal River Inn.  Everyone brought something to share and we dined on a traditional Irish meal.  Robert lit the wood fireplace in their parlor and we talked about writing, publishing and my first book Murphy’s Troubles.  The conversation lasted until midnight.  It was a special, magical night.

This year Deb and Robert again offered to host an author event with a twist.  Some of the guests were family but most of the guests were people staying at the Inn for the weekend.  Deb and Robert invited the Bed & Breakfast guests to listen to a presentation from me then enjoy a traditional Irish coddle with brown bread, cultured butter, coleslaw and Irish soda bread.

While we shared a few drinks and some snacks I talked about writing, publishing and my two novels, Murphy’s Troubles and Out of Darkness.  They were generous with their time and allowed me 45 minutes to speak and with questions the entire presentation was 60 minutes.

During the drive to Waupaca my wife kidded me that I was the entertainment for the evening.  For some reason I struggled with that notion.  After my presentation Deb thanked me and told me that all the people in the room had booked the bed and breakfast to hear my talk.  I told her, “Well, I guess I was the entertainment.”    

It’s simple.  Write me an e-mail at:  [email protected].  Request a copy of my second novel – Out of Darkness.   Agree to post a book review on Amazon within 30 days.

I will send a free book to the first 5 people responding.  I trust readers.

As an independent author the biggest job isn’t writing the novel and having it published.  The biggest job is finding readers once your magnum opus is published and available for readers.  In the past week I’ve found readers is both a very likely place and in a very unlikely place.

I write historical fiction.  Both of my novels:  Murphy’s Troubles and Out of Darkness are about the Troubles in Ireland.  Every year the Irish American Heritage Center (IAHC) in Chicago hosts the Irish Book and Musical Celebration (IBAM) in October.  The Irish have influenced all aspects of Chicago life for decades and there is a robust Irish population in the city.  Obviously, attending is a must for me to reach out and find readers interested in Ireland and its’ history.

When I attended last year I had one book for sale.  I was scheduled to make a presentation about my book and participated in a panel discussion with Frank Delaney and others on the topic of the attraction to Irish literature.  It was a big weekend for me and I sold out of all the books I took to the event.

I attended IBAM this past weekend in Chicago and the experience was different.  The number attending was down significantly.  I made a presentation which was held in a room at the end of the library that was difficult to find. One person and the moderator attended my session.  The person speaking prior to me thought they had an hour to speak rather than 30 minutes.  By the time the previous speaker finished I had only 20 minutes.  Also, the one person who attended bought both my books earlier in the day.  In a word – it was a bust.  At the end of the day Saturday I was discouraged and uncertain about meeting readers and having sales on Sunday.

We set up about 30 minutes before the event started on Sunday.  Three women stopped by after mass and in less than 10 minutes I sold six books.  Throughout the early afternoon people strolled by my table in waves and I kept attracting readers.  By 3:00 pm I was sold out of books – two hours before the event ended.  I plan to return to IBAM next year.

This past week I was invited to speak at the local Rotary meeting.  The person inviting me wasn’t sure how many would attend but said I could sell books following my presentation.  Sixteen people attended the event and following my 30 minute presentation I was given a robust round of applause.  I stayed after the meeting to answer more questions and people began buying books.  I ran out of books and took orders for books that I would deliver the next day.  I sold 14 books in just a few minutes and had to make three deliveries the next day because I hadn’t anticipated that many sales.

So where does an independent author find readers?  Everyplace – often in unexpected places.

The Wisconsin Book Festival attracts thousands of attendees every year and all events are free to the public.  It is THE event for authors.  This year the Festival is showcasing indie authors with two events over two weekends.

On October 3rd the Middleton Public Library hosted 21 authors in a single day.  On October 9 and 10th the Pinney Library will host 25 local authors.  The organizers of the book festival are providing an unprecedented number of authors the change to have an audience.

I was selected to participate in the event hosted by the Middleton Public Library on October 3rd.  The format was the most unique.  Every author was given 15 minutes to present whatever they wanted and or to read from their work.  After three authors presented there was a 15 minute break and we moved to another room for an opportunity to meet with audience members and sell books.

I have been giving presentations for two years and have developed a series of “talks” based on the make-up of the audience.  I am very comfortable on my feet and enjoy question and answer sessions during presentations.  To be honest I was terrified of the 15 minute format.  How could I possibly condense 30 to 60 minutes of material to 15 minutes and allow questions? 

I asked several author friends; including one who was participating in the Pinney Library event what they would present.  The answers varied widely and didn’t provide much guidance.  I put myself under a great deal of pressure and the thought this is your 15 minutes of fame lodged in my mind.

I was able to cover the material I wanted, read for a few moments and responded to a few questions with my 15 minutes but I stumbled several times and suffered those terrible “blanks” when the brain freezes and jumbled words drop out of my mouth.

Moving to the separate room to sell books was a disaster.  Not a single person came to meet me, ask more questions or buy a book.  It was 15 minutes of hell.  Of the three authors in the room one woman, writing chick lit, sold about 3 books.  The other two of us didn’t sell a single book.

The pairings of three authors was very odd.  In my segment was a chick lit author, an author on childhood food allergies and me with historical fiction we had absolutely nothing in common.  Would the chick lit reader want to sit through a presentation by a historical fiction author?

The event at the Pinney Library has the same odd mix of authors.  One pairing includes political nonfiction, women’s fiction and medical nonfiction.  Really?  What were the organizers thinking?   

Another unique aspect is that the authors received a generous stipend for participating.  This is the first and I expect only time I will be paid for speaking to an audience.

I hope that the Wisconsin Book Festival continues to support local authors but I hope they ask us for our experience so that we can improve the format in future years.

How did would I characterize the event?  I’ve had my 15 minutes of fame – it was ok.

We recently visited a suburb of Fort Worth Texas to visit our son, his wife, almost 3 year old daughter and 8 week old son.  They moved to Texas in May where my son started his new job.  This was our first visit to the Lone Star state and to meet our new grandson.

Texas has a reputation for being big in all things, and my first impression is that it is.  The airport is plunked down west of Dallas and north of Fort Worth, earning it the common name of the Dallas Forth Worth Airport, locally called DFW.  The airport is currently under massive construction.  My son told us the airport boasts 28,000 parking places yet on a Thursday afternoon he couldn’t find a parking place closer than a mile from our gate arrival.  Leaving the airport was too much of a challenge for his gps because it was ignorant of the construction detours.  We circled the airport about three times before finding an escape route.  Our son lives only 15 miles from the airport but it took us 90 minutes to get to their home – traffic is also big in Texas.

We traveled on local state highways that were three lanes in each direction and about a football field space between the set of three lanes.  I was afraid to see the interstate system after being on the state highway system.  The speed limit on the state highway system was 70 mph but I don’t think anyone traveled less than 80 mph when they’re not bogged down in traffic congestion.

Our son and family live in a moderate town house north of Fort Worth.  You can see downtown Fort Worth which is about 15 miles away or about 90 minutes most days.   Their neighborhood includes large homes, duplexes and townhouses which are surrounded by an 8 foot high brick wall.  As we drove around the community I noticed nearly all of the neighborhoods were surrounded by brick walls.  Some of the neighborhoods were gated, some not.

We took our granddaughter for a walk and I noticed every welling, no matter the type, had a sign posted near the front door that the home was protected by security.  Our son’s home didn’t have such a sign so I asked, they had a security system but it wasn’t turned on – too expensive for a family with two small children.

The other curious thing I noticed was that many of the homes had a large black gate barring the way to their drive and garage.  The gates were electronically controlled and some even had a sensor so that when the owner arrived the gate would automatically open.

I asked my son if there was a lot of property crime in the area.  They’ve only lived there about five months and he wasn’t sure.  “People just want to feel secure.  With gates and security systems there probably won’t b crime.” He suggested.

What it told me was that people were living in fear.  I can’t imagine living anywhere surrounded by walls and having a home security system.   It’s literally the modern day castle, with moat and all.  How sad, I thought for these good folks to be living in fear. 

Our Tuesday Morning Book Talk discussion group is reading both To Kill a Mockingbird and Go Set a Watchman. The story provided by the publisher, Harper Collins is that Lee submitted Go Set a Watchman which the editor rejected and she was told to undertake a major re-write and To Kill a Mockingbird was the result.  There is no way to determine the credibility and in the end it doesn’t really matter.  Given Harper Lee’s current medical condition it isn’t clear if she even gave permission or is even aware the Go Set a Watchman has been published.

I do not want to compare the books with each other, I believe that us unfair and inaccurate, they are very different books.  Characters may have the same name but the personality and age of the primary characters differs as much as night and day.

I have always found it difficult to find Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird a credible character.  He has been diminished to a white knight in a white suit with admirable qualities of fairness and principles based on the rule of law but he is also one dimensional, aloof from his children, and more of a characterization than a living, breathing, middle aged man living in the south.  Frankly, Atticus is too good to be true. 

The Atticus Finch we meet in Go Set a Watchman is credible and we learn he can defend of black man from injustice while still believing in gradual social progress for the race that does not disrupt the white culture of the south.  Marshall Cook’s description of Jean Louise as “self-absorbed, petulant, and insufferably judgmental” is accurate.  While Go Set a Watchman is Jean Louise’s story, she is not a character we learn to like or even care about.  At best we can feel empathetic for Jean Louise.

The craft in Go Set a Watchman leaves a lot to be desired.  The plot is uneven and Madonna Dries Christensen pointed out at some points just boring.  Chapter 9 is pure telling followed by Chapter 10 an exposition on what the reader was just told.  Both Chapters 11 and 15 are flashback scenes that for me had no place in the book and don’t move the story along; in fact they are detours to the main theme and story.  Chapters 17 and 18 are pure dialogue with no action.  The dialogue borders on the trite and expected versus compelling.  While the entire story builds to the dialogue of Chapters 17 and 18 the use of dialogue is disappointing and unrewarding.

As an author, I find it most sad that Go Set a Watchman tarnishes the Pulitzer Prize winning contribution of Harper Lee to American literature.  In addition, the only real beneficiary is the publisher, Harper Collins who will generate millions in profit from releasing this book.  

I want to share my experiences with two authors I have met on what I lovingly call the “author circuit”.  The first I met last year at the Irish Book and Music Celebration in Chicago.  He and his wife drove all the way from New Jersey.  He is an independent author and at that time offered two historical fiction books.  He’s a retired professional who decided to explore his wife’s Irish family history and his own Irish family history in America.  His wife’s grandfather climbed the political ladder like many Irish Americans in eastern cities and became the mayor of Pittsburg.  He claimed to write historical fiction but it was closer to historical docudrama since the book included pictures from family albums.

Based on that books success he wrote a second book about his own family’s journey to America and he used the same format as the first book since that had been successful.  The second book was not as well received as the book about his family.  The book about his wife’s family had name recognition and a well defined readership in Pittsburg at least.

When we met the New Jersey couple they were spending their summer crisscrossing America participating in a variety of Irish themed events.  He was very aggressive about selling.  Our tables were directly across from each other and as people looked at my book he would walk up to them and ask if they were interested in reading a story about Irish family history in America.  His wife was noticeably embarrassed with his assertiveness and I had to ask him to politely return to his table.  His next strategy was to stand in front of his table and try to engage people in conversation as soon as they left my table.

He didn’t get it.  People didn’t want to be attacked; they wanted to browse like in a bookstore or library.  I don’t think he sold more than 5 books all weekend and he didn’t understand why.

I met him again at the Milwaukee Irish Fest this year.  He didn’t remember my name.  A tent was set aside for book sales.  He stood outside the tent in +90 degree humid weather handing out a blurb about each of his books to anyone that walked by.  I tried to engage him in conversation.  He spat out a few sentences as he handed out his flier to the ill prepared passersby.  He still doesn’t get it.  He did teach me a lesson about how to not be “in your face” book promoting/selling.

Recently I attended an author presentation at a local independent bookstore.  The author was the brother of a friend of mine.  He’s a policeman in an average size California town and has written his debut police crime mystery, has an agent and was published by an imprint of McMillan.  His agent secured a two book deal for him and his second book is scheduled to be published in February 2016.  The format was to have a local journalist, recently fired from the newspaper, interview the author.  The questions centered on the author’s childhood history in Wisconsin and the Wisconsin setting for most of the novel.  The interviewer didn’t want to discuss the plot of the book, but did generally discuss three of the main characters in the book.  The author was asked if he considered independent publishing and he said he never considered it because he was focused on commercial fiction.  He also related how he had no voice in determining the title of his books, he was given a non-negotiable schedule to turn in the draft of the second book and the editing was done for him.  He is determined to be a commercial success.

I felt sorry for him because both the interviewer and the audience were not interested in the book but only interested in his life as a cop.  He did read a few paragraphs from the prologue to his book and it should have hooked a few in the audience.  His hardcover book sells for $26 which I find very expensive for a debut author.  Unless you are a true crime story zealot that is too much money for a book.  The next day I saw him and he wouldn’t reveal how many books had been sold.

His path was to be a commercial novelist, in a very specific genre that he has credibility for because he’s a cop.  He doesn’t need to spend time researching the details and he admitted that he fictionalized his own experiences. 

He has given up creative control of his writing in exchange for commercial success.  He never talked about having readers – just selling books.

Talking with him reinforced my decision to be an independent author.  I retain total creative control of my work.  I want to have a relationship with my readers.  My life as an author has opened many unexpected doors including my own radio show interviewing local authors, leading two book groups, working with a team of teachers to teach writing skills to fourth graders and many author events.    

So, to each their own.   

Did you miss me?  I haven’t posted my regular Wednesday blog for two consecutive weeks.  We spent one week in Waupaca at the beautiful Crystal River Inn.  The Waupaca area is Wisconsin’s land-o-lakes and we enjoyed paddling in our new kayaks.  After a brief few days back home we drove to Door County to stay in Ephriam at the Waterbury Inn.  The Door County State Park has bike trails that weave between the lake and the forested inland that we enjoyed.

I have to admit that I have struggled to get book reviews for my second novel, Out of Darkness.  The book has been published for three months and I have only two reviews.  The urban myth is that book reviews directly generate sales.  When I challenge those that make such claims for objective documentation they are not able to present the evidence.

That being said, I do believe that book reviews demonstrate that readers have read the work and care enough to take the time to write a review.  From an author’s viewpoint a review is another form of feedback and critique that is valuable for lifelong learning that authors, at least this one relish.

To entice readers to review Out of Darkness I am making a giveaway offer.    I will send readers a FREE copy of Out of Darkness in exchange for a book review to be posted on my Amazon site at:  within 1 MONTH of receiving my book in the mail.  The number of books I give away depends on the number of requests I receive for the book.  MAKING A REQUEST FOR A FREE BOOK DOES NOT GUARANTEE THAT YOU WILL RECEIVE A FREE BOOK.  Your participation in the program means you also agree to receive e-mail updates regarding my work in the future.

To participate send an email to:  [email protected] and put BOOK GIVE AWAY on the subject.  In the e-mail provide:  Your name and full mailing address.