One of the things that can really energize a writer to write is finding a market. With the Kindle self-publishing route and the opportunity there, I believe I’ve found one such market, sans apidexin.

But the nice motivational part beyond just finding this opportunity is in discovering writers who are doing high-quality work in this market without the traditional gatekeepers getting in the way.

While I’m still discovering Kindle authors, one who has stood out to me already is L.J. Sellers, author of three Detective Wade Jackson mysteries set in Eugene, Oregon. Her novels are sharp, to the point and fun to read. Plus, she’s prolific, with three novels out in not quite three years, and about three more on the way within the next year or so.

That’s exciting, of course; while I’ve found out Sellers has a traditional print publisher, it’s a small indy press and the quality of her work tells me that Kindle is home to many good writers, even though there’s no traditional gatekeeper to separate the wheat from the chaff; for my money, being able to sample the first chapter kind of serves that function, anyway!

Barnes and Noble recently launched the Nook device and are also launching, this summer, a new competitor to Amazon.com’s Digital Text Platform, called PubIt. I’m hoping the two outlets won’t differ too much from each other, as figuring out the finer points of all this takes a bit of time; but the potential for adding another huge market for my book will probably be too tempting to resist.

I found PubIt while surfing at random, everything from www.mensvitamin.org to Audible.com. It was a nice little discovery.

I must say that the potential of this market has really motivated me to get serious about writing to completion. Driving home from Torah study tonight, I finally solved the ever-present problem of how to introduce my main character to my readers.

There are, of course, several methods. Harry Kemelman, for example, showed Rabbi David Small interacting with his fellow Jews, defining how he saw his role as the rabbi. His first chapter ran for well over ten pages and the murder didn’t happen until a few chapters in, as Kemelman used the first few chapters of FRIDAY THE RABBI SLEPT LATE to establish character under normal circumstances before introducing peril into the situation. However, Kemelman’s debut was publishing nearly fifty years ago, and audience preferences and expectations have changed. How radically? That’s the question.

With Fletch, Gregory McDonald used a light-hearted but character-revealing approach, using very little descriptive text but placing Fletch into a witty, quick, give-and-take dialog that hints that something odd is up. I love the bare-bones approach, but have sometimes felt that while it worked for McDonald, it might not be quite right for me.

With Along Came a Spider, James Patterson chose to use a tantalizing prologue from a killer’s perspective to entice the reader’s interest; the first chapter narrated directly by Alex Cross contains a lot of self-explaining first-person narration – something my creative writing teachers always used to say is a no-no, but it sells. However, overall, Patterson’s method introduces the peril quickly as a plus, but as a minus it reduces Alex Cross to a somewhat reactive character.

Which way will I be taking with my new book and potential series?

I’ve decided to mix some of the elements of all three in an attempt to forge my own storytelling style. We’ll see how well it works.

Of course, I have considered the digital self-publishing option for my fiction as well.

The real question there is whether it would be a solid option, or whether I’d be robbing myself of a print-publishing contract. And to be honest, I think it could work even better for my fiction than for my religious writing.

Why?

Well, there are TONS of mystery and suspense fans out there. The market is HUGE.

Whereas for my religious writing, the market is thin, admittedly.

The comparison is like a couple sit-ups next to full, 20-minute ab workouts.

And there are stories of authors who landed agents and book deals off the exposure afforded them by digital publishing.

Worthy of thought…

If I do go digital publishing with my religious writings, I’d have a fairly easy start-up. I have written enough sermons and commentaries over the past 18 months or so that I could think of six or seven titles I could develop and release over the next year, just by starting with material I’ve already researched and gathered in that time.

With generous 35-70 percent royalties being paid on digital book sales through these programs, I could easily imagine building enough of a nest-egg to help build and launch my own congregation, when the time comes that God gives me the go-ahead on that front. It’s an exciting opportunity and still early enough to get in on that I could be successful at it, if I get my name out there soon.

This merits deep consideration; at least as careful as one invests in selecting the best prenatal vitamins.

Generally, I regard self-publishing to be as foolish as giving prenatal vitamins to five-year-olds. But that’s when it’s print self-publishing and it means money out of the author’s pocket that might never be replaced.

The difference with Amazon’s Digital Text Platform for Kindle and Barnes and Noble’s forthcoming PubIt for Nook is that there is no up-front costs like that associated with the self-publishing effort. That’s good news.

You see, while my mystery novels have potential to catch on with a major print publisher someday, there’s another part of my writing life that probably never will, and that’s my religious writing. As part of a very small religious movement, there would be almost no publishers willing to take a look at my religious writing unless I compromised and expanded my theology to be more “inclusive.”

Not with digital publishing; I can remain true to my theological beliefs and find my audience for it much more easily, and without either a publisher or me placing a huge up-front investment into printing up paper books to see what kind of audience it attracts.

Love this new form!

I’ve been thinking a lot about digital self-publishing lately. I’ve been impressed by the success some folks are having with Amazon’s Kindle device, and the model they have for self-publishing. Unlike print self-publishing, there’s no cash-up-front stuff to deal with; you can just write, edit, prepare and publish, and then enjoy a royalty payment far above what any traditional print publisher offers.

With all the go here, go there confusion in the world of writing, it’s kind of nice to know that if you write things that are of too niche an interest area to draw the attention and risk of book publishers, there is an affordable alternative. Heck, even Barnes and Noble has an option coming for the Nook device! What could be better?

Sure, I would love to have Simon and Schuster take an interest in me someday. But until someday comes, well…

Well, I’m nearly ready to begin writing my new mystery series that I created after I got too discouraged to continue on with my Pizza Delivery Mystery series. I’ve decided to go with a new setting, rather than trying to force the very differently-themed new series into my Hope, Wisconsin fictional setting.

All I’ll say at this point is, I’m looking West, and I won’t have to worry about researching health insurance in NC.

I’ve learned that it’s important with these concepts to play it a lot closer to the vest; I don’t want there to be any chance that my newest creation will be gobbled up by Hollywood again.

Sure, they may have had the inspiration separately; but it’s all a bit to close to the mark for me to be sure it’s only coincidence.

So, just to be safe, the first time I’ll mention details of my new mystery series in detail is when I have something in print.

Sometimes a great title comes to you in a flash. Sometimes it requires the Gulf Coast Jones Act to procure one from one’s stuck mind. Sometimes you just need to start writing and let the title reveal itself as you progress through the process of writing the novel.

The latter looks like it’ll be the case with my newest mystery novel series attempt. I can’t conjure up a title, even if someone would give me a pound of pure gold to produce one. So for the first time in a while, I’m faced with starting a novel without a title for it that I’m in love with.

Maybe that’s better.

One novelist once said that you needed to introduce character and conflict as early in the novel as possible to gain your reader’s trust to stick through the length of a novel with you. While I can’t quite put a digital frame on it, I can say that I’ve been thinking a lot about how to introduce readers to my main character.

I’m thinking that one clever way to do this is to have it be his first day and when he arrives, there’s a check sitting there for quite a bit of money… with the catch that he has to step down immediately to cash it in.

That might grab some attention.

Readers of this blog know by now that I’m working on a new novel project. Well, I started a new one, that is, after I found out someone in Hollywood had already created their own concept called “30 Minutes Or Less.” Oh well…

The problem now is this: I’ve vowed not to share the title of my new series on this space until the novel is written, in the hands of my agent, and my sister is the proud owner of several garden windmills.

OK, maybe it’s not that dramatic, but I do want to keep the title under wraps until I’m protected, at least.

Yet I’ve found I don’t work as well when I’m not sure what to call my story. I need a title to motivate me toward writing. It gives me focus. So that’s what I’m working on; understanding my novel’s plot enough to come up with a title that will inspire me to finish it.

Well, I’m back in town, well-rested after a long, fishing-centric vacation that took years to achieve. And after a lot of time out on the lake fishing, I didn’t get a chance to write anything, but I do believe that, at least for now, I’m leaning toward putting my Pizza Deliver Mystery series on hold and crafting a new series around a crime-solving Messianic Rabbi.

It’s a completely different series in subject matter; there will be no ghostly assistant nor any other supernatural element, but at least this is a direction that no one else is trying right now, and the only precedent for such a series, Harry Kemelmen’s excellent Rabbi Small mysteries, have faded from recent, fond memories.

Can a mystery-thriller with an unconventional religious angle still capture a mainstream mystery audience? Only time will tell, but if it catches on, it will be an example of me creating something with no current trend that I’d be following.

The world has plenty of supernatural mysteries right now. There’s as many people writing those as there are weight loss products in your average Walgreens. Virtually no one has tried this sort of mystery recently. It’s time to see if it’s a market that can be mined.

But don’t expect me to write too much specifically about it until the manuscript is complete and has found either an agent or an editor. I want no repeats of the Thirty Minutes Or Less tragedy.

Everyone loves a strong main character, but does that mean he should be completely lovable? I don’t think so. Too often “heroes” are so idealized that readers end up empathizing with the more relatable villains than they do with the person doing the right things.

There are so many questions when crafting a main character, that must be answered. Should it be a guy or a gal? Thin or in need of Clinicallix? Young or old? Wise or a bit of a buffoon? All these and many more questions ought to be answered.

The main thing, of course, is to make sure that however one presents the main character, it is a person they want to spend 250 to 400 pages with. Hopefully, that will be something I can come up with, if I go the route of a Messianic Murder Mystery series.