A Writer's Life

Plotting Death and Destruction

I spent the day Saturday in the company of  a bunch of talented writers to plot a DEAD MAN novel...not just any book, but our biggest tale yet, both in page count and ambition. The story will be published next fall as a Kindle Serial (six to eight, 10,000 word "episodes" that will add up to one, cohesive novel). The project is being written by Phoef Sutton, Lisa Klink and Kate Danley from a shared outline. So series co-creator William Rabkin and I, along with DEAD MAN author David Tully (THE KILLING FLOOR), got together with them and we all spent the day cracking the story in a "writer's room" setting.

Bill, Phoef, Lisa and I are all experienced TV writer/producers, we are very comfortable with the "writer's room" process of hashing out the story as a group, analyzing every character motivation and story beat until we come up with all the moves of the story, which we layout on a white, dry erase board. It was a new experience for Kate and, to a lesser extent, for David, who has been part of a writer's room on some television projects in Germany (where his wife was a network executive).

The writer's room process is wonderful because not only do you benefit from the creativity of everybody in the room, but it also forces you to really explore, analyze and figure out all the angles of your plot and the motivations of your characters.

The group experience also forces you not to give in to the easy, lazy or cliche way of resolving plot and character issues...to go further and dig deeper. It means there are some inevitable frustration or disagreements, but it's all positive...because you end up with a much stronger, more-thought-out story.

It's my favorite part of the TV writing experience...spending hours, days and weeks in a room full of smart, clever, outrageously creative writers...all working to together to tell the best possible story.

Our writers room session for THE DEAD MAN went great. We first discussed character and our over-arching, creative goals for the book. Then we started talking broad plot points. Then we drilled down to the novel equivalent of the eternal TV question: "what do we want our act breaks to be?" (Or, in this case, the "cliff hanger" moment at the end of our six "episodes") And once we had that, we got into the nitty-gritty of the specific beats of each "act."

That's where the real work was. We hashed it out in spirited debates while eating lots of food (and, occasionally, diverging into discussions of lame plot points in SKYFALL and the last BATMAN movie. Do you realize Bond failed at *everything* he did in SKYFALL? He didn't do anything right. Still a great movie, though).

We got started at 10:30 am and by the time we finished around 5:30 pm, we'd plotted out the novel and felt great about what we'd come up with.  Or, as one person in the room put it, we accomplished in one day what it would take an author by himself a month or two to figure out. It's going to be a kick-ass, standalone DEAD MAN novel that requires no previous knowledge of the series to enjoy...but that will also satisfy our loyal fans with a game-changing story that acknowledges past events, answers some long-standing questions, sends Matt Cahill in an exciting, new direction.

Now everybody is writing up their portion of the outline, which Bill and I will cobble together into one document and submit to our editors at Amazon Publishing's 47North imprint for their notes. Once we have their input, the authors will start writing.

I wish I had a writers room for my novels...

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Slaves to Evil

The Midnight Special

Guest Blog: Anthony Neil Smith on Writing THE DEAD MAN #16: COLDER THAN HELL.

Anthony Neil Smith on writing COLDER THAN HELL, out this week on Amazon...

Look, I don’t do supernatural. I just flat out thought that was beyond me. I write crime novels about people doing awful things to each other, no ghosts or monsters or demons in sight. But this Dead Man thing, I was watching it grow with awe. Several friends of mine, also crime writers, got caught up in the fervor and churned out some great horror pulp. And I was jealous. Really jealous. But…I couldn’t do that sort of thing, could I? And not that they would ever ask me, anyway.

But then I got an email from Bill Rabkin—co-creator of The Dead Man series along with Lee Goldberg—who I had met via Tod Goldberg and who was writing a screenplay adaptation of my novel Yellow Medicine. That magical, unlikely email asked me to write a Dead Man novella. Yep, one o’ them spooky, supernatural, knock-em-out, fists and axes and evil spirits sort of books.

I was thinking, There is no fucking way I can do this.

But what I said was, “Yes. Yes. Yes. Fucking yes.”

And then I told them I’d get to work in May, probably have it in a couple of months.

At which point I fell off a writing cliff and had to drag my ass back up the sheer rock face inch by inch.

No idea what happened. I had recently finished a short, punchy third entry in my Billy Lafitte series. I was riding high off some nice reviews and decent sales of All the Young Warriors. But then it was as if words and me stopped getting along. In fact, those goddamn words were bullying me. Taunting me. And I didn’t know what to write.

But I was under contract for Dead Man. I had to write it. I wanted to. It ended up helping me break the drought and get back to the normal flow of things. But it didn’t take two months. It took nearly five, and I even went over the deadline by a week.

The story came to me more easily than I had expected.  At least some of it. If I had to pitch it, it would come across as “The Shining, but on a frozen interstate.” One of the most frightening things I’ve come across while living up north is the idea of being trapped in your car on an interstate or highway due to snow and ice. You’re surrounded by hundreds of others in the same boat, but you’re all little islands of loneliness, seems to me. So what if some horrible virus or spirit or [INSERT SUPERNATURAL THING HERE] was loosed on top of that?

Fine, fine, the guys in charge liked the idea. They just didn’t get the cause of it all. Something wasn’t clicking. Two reasons for that: 1) I was trying to be a bit too ambitious by tying some ancient evil from a previous Dead Man into this one, hoping to cement a place in the “mythology”, and 2) Again, I don’t do supernatural.

Anthony Neil Smith

But I wrote it, including an old 18^th Century diary, some Scandinavian settles in North Dakota who met up with evil Native Americans from The Dead Man #5: The Blood Mesa who had some more ancient evil that was older than Mr. Dark’s evil, and so there was a killer on the loose and an Indian golum, and and and…

What the hell was I thinking?

I finally finished it, turned it in, and waited to be told how bad it was.

Now, the thing I discovered about Lee during the outline process is that he is one tough son of a bitch when it comes to ideas. He was shooting them down all night long. I could imagine his Grinch-like sneer as my emails came in, rubbing his hands in glee as he printed them out for the sole purpose of watching them burn.

But after I turned in the draft, something remarkable happened. His heart grew three sizes…for the first half of the novella, anyway. All the other historical/mythology stuff? I had truly wasted my (and his) time. As bad as I thought it was. That doesn’t mean I didn’t try to save it. Of course I did. That was a month’s work! But it came down to Lee telling me, “Rewrite the second half. You’ve got a month.”

And I was all like, “But how do I…what should I…Can’t you tell me…?”

And the guru said, “Well, how about [INSERT SUPERNATURAL THING THAT PUT MY SUPERNATURAL THING TO SHAME, AS IT WAS MUCH MUCH BETTER HERE]?”

Why come I hadn’t thought of that? So I was learning a lot about how this sort of story works, what’s expected, how to subvert what’s expected and still deliver a good fright. And best of all, I had to write about fifty pages in a month.

In a good week, I can maybe get fifteen pages done. I hadn’t been having good weeks. But still, fifty pages was within my window of doable.

Five weeks later, I turned it in again. And this time the damn thing worked.  We went through a few edits, not so hard at all, and then Jeroen ten Berge put together a killer cover for it. This was actually happening! I was a Dead Man author! Not only that, but the turnaround on this book was a few months—it would be out by the end of January. That, of course, continued to shore up my already good impression of Amazon Publishing. They knew exactly what they were doing.

Once Dead Man #16: Colder Than Hell was out of my hands, my head was spinning with new ideas—how to fix the stalled novel, how to get a couple of other ideas I had into bed together for yet another novel. I was thinking much more like a pulp writer—write the damned story. Faster. Think through the first two drafts in your head, put the third one down as the first. Hey, I did it once, I could do it again.

All in all, this was a tremendous experience. I’m glad Lee and Bill let me play in the Dead Man toy box, and I look forward to trying it again one day, maybe. In the meantime, there’s not an hour I sit at the typewriter when I don’t think about how my writing process has changed for the better after Dead Man.

Hope you’ll check it out. And if you do happen to have travel plans through North Dakota in the winter, make sure to bring extra layers, some gloves, a thick blanket, and a last will and testament. Just in case.

The Dark Side of Love and Loyalty

Author Christa Faust shares her experience writing THE DEAD MAN #13 THE DEATH MATCH in a blog post on Amazon's Kindle Daily Post. She says, in part:


One of the things that appealed to me about the Dead Man series was that it wasn't just empty meaningless gore. Sure it's violent, but it also explores the psychological repercussions of that violence, delving into the darker side of love, loyalty, and friendship. With that in mind, I wanted to use my own uniquely female perspective to highlight the complex emotional depth in the character of Matt Cahill without sacrificing the kind of gripping action that the series is also known for. And combining emotion with action has always been at the heart of my own hardboiled crime fiction. It was a perfect fit.

Playing Santa Claus

I had the pleasure of calling writer Barry Napier to let him know that he'd won the "You Can Write a DEAD MAN Novel" contest. Today, he writes on the Kindle Daily Post about the call and his reaction to the news. Here's an excerpt:

I was stopped at a red light on a Thursday afternoon at a busy intersection with my family. As a mini-meltdown from my son in the back seat rose to a thundering level, my phone rings.

“Hello?”

 “Hi,” comes an unfamiliar voice on the other end. “This is Lee Goldberg and I’m calling to let you know that you’ve won the Write a Dead Man contest!”

I paused for a minute. My son kept screaming. With the look of shock on my face, I think my wife must have thought there was bad news on the other end.

“Oh, hi,” I said rather stupidly.

For the next thirty seconds, Lee went through some details, most of which I only caught fragments of.  Feeling like an idiot, I could hardly speak when he was done. The light turned green. A good thing, too; it’s likely the only thing that unfroze me from the amazing news that I had yet to digest.

We're looking forward to working with him on his DEAD MAN tale, which will be published in early 2013.

We Have a Winner!

We are pleased to announce that BARRY NAPIER has won the "You Can Write a DEAD MAN Novel" Contest, snagging a publishing contract for his DEAD MAN tale DREAMLAND, a $500 advance, and a $500 gift card.

Barry has published more than 40 short stories and poems in print and online. He is the author of the Everything Theory series, The Hollows, The Masks of Our Fathers, and Broken Nightlights, a short story collection. He has also had work published thought various small presses, including his novel The Bleeding Room, and two poetry collections. He has served as guest poetry editor of Inkspill Magazine and has recently completed compiling and editing the poetry anthology I Know What I Saw: poems of the unexplained.

You'll be seeing his book in the DEAD MAN series in early 2013. But you can get a sneak peek right now. His winning chapter is below.

Thanks again to everyone who entered the contest.

DREAMLAND

            She’d been in bed for so long that it seemed unnatural to be standing again.  Her old aching knees seemed fifty years younger and the lungs that had hindered her lifestyle for the last five years seemed reinvigorated, breathing in the crisp air of the afternoon.  When she breathed the clean air in it made her body feel plump, a far cry from the frail state she had last seen herself in.

            She was standing in the middle of an ancient dirt road, the ditches to each side so worn and faded that she could imagine the finger of God etching them shortly after Eden.  The dirt track wound away to both sides, bending to the right ahead of her where it eventually merged into the distant forest.  In the other direction, the path sketched itself through an impossibly green field where it then narrowed to a pencil point on the horizon of greens and blues.

            A butterfly passed by her, circled back around her head and perched on her shoulder.  It seemed to be directing her eyes slightly to the left where a long forgotten white house stood untouched by human hands for countless years.  A once-white porch sat crumbling and gray.  A porch swing hung from a single chain with its fallen twin curled up in a rusted loop on the porch boards.

            She knew this all; she had been here before and she knew that something was missing.  She looked beyond the house and saw a fence, the majority of it cracked and fallen.  She waited for a human shadow to fall across its weak posts but there was nothing.  The sun blazed down fat and bright but there was nothing behind the fence to cast a shadow, not a man, not an animal, not so much as a tree.

            She frowned and waited.  She knew that she wouldn’t be here long; she could already feel the weight of reality tugging at her, pulling her towards a world where her knees still flared with pain, where her now delicate fingers were callused and weathered.

            She looked back to the wooden fence, its rails splintered and cracked, waiting for that figure to appear.  But the blue country sky on the other side of the fence and the golden fields that rolled out beyond them were all there was to see.

And as beautiful as this all seemed, she was still slightly disappointed; the man that should be standing there by the fence post was not coming.

            In this to-good-to-be-true place, she felt a tear forming in the corner of her eye.  It was the sweetest relief imaginable, the most normal thing her body had done in weeks.  And with that sign of human frailty, that other place stopped tugging at her and simply claimed her.

            She let out a gasp and tried desperately to feel the warmth of the tear on her cheek before she was taken.

            She opened her weary eyes to a white ceiling, dreary walls and poor light.  She felt something on her shoulder, wondering if she had somehow brought the butterfly back from that country road.  But when she lolled her head to the side, she saw what perched there and it was not a butterfly.

A plastic tube brushed against her shoulder where a small patch of her dry skin was exposed by the yellow hospital gown that she wore.  The tube traveled upwards, into her nose and then, in the opposite direction, over the side of the bed and into some machine that hummed patiently.

            “Momma, you’re awake…”

            She looked over and saw Chester.  His graying hair was frazzled and the poor boy looked as if he hadn’t slept in ages.  Calling him a boy seemed foolish; the amount of life lived and the knowledge acquired from it was evident in his eyes.  But she had held him inside of her for nine months, had breastfed him, had clothed him and sent him to college, had nurtured him through his first broken heart, his first experience with death…fifty-five years old or not, Chester would always be her little boy.

            “Yeah,” she said in a shaky hoarse voice.  “Haven’t gone anywhere yet.”  

            She looked into his eyes, made tiny behind the lenses of his glasses, and was reminded of the man she had not seen by the fence.

            “You were smiling in your sleep,” Chester said.  He grinned at her when he said it, not voicing the fact that it pleased him to know that whatever dream she had been having could very well be her last, and that he was glad it had made her happy.

            The machine that she was plugged into made a persistent beep-beep sound, like a metronome for the life she had left to live.  But she did not hear it.  These days, it was hard to hear anything past the rattle in her chest when she breathed.

            There was a fleeting moment when she knew that she needed to tell Chester something, but she couldn’t remember what.  She knew that he would like to know about the house she had seen, the failing fence and the winding country road.  But that wasn’t it…there was something more.

            Her eyes were growing heavy and she felt the ghost traces of pain begin to tickle her at the knees.  She felt her eyelids fluttering and was vaguely aware that her boy was reaching out, grasping her hand lovingly.

            “Chester,” she said, so softly that she didn’t know if he had heard her.  “The man at the fence…so handsome…please stay away from the man at the fence…”

            But before her son could respond, she was gone again.

            She wore a sundress and smelled of jasmine.  The smell was pushed out ahead of her by the country breeze at her back, making it so that she walked into her own scent as she made her way over the gentle rise of an impossibly green hill.  There was a man walking with her, his eyes glued to her.  He usually wore a hat but, in those times when chivalry wasn’t quite dead just yet, he held it in his hands.  His dark brown hair stood up in several directions as a result.

            “Do you not love me?” he asked.  “Is that it?”

            “Of course it’s not,” she said.  “Nothing is ever so simple that it can be blamed on love.  Do all men think women are that stupid?”

            He grinned and looked down to his feet.  “No, I suppose not,” he said.

            She looked to him quickly, out of the corner of her eye, and repressed a smile.  There was the slightest trace of grass stains along the elbows of his shirt sleeve from where they had been rolling in the grass, kissing. Yet when his hands had found the waistband of her skirt, she had pushed him playfully away, stood up and began walking.  It was not the first time she had done this.

            “Are you waiting on marriage, then?” he asked.  “If that’s the case, I think you know I would marry you.”

            She smiled at him and stopped for a moment.  “Not all women are that stupid, either,” she said and then started walking again.

            She glanced down the hill and saw the dirt track that would lead her home.  The sunset cast out shades of subtle gold that seemed to be sewn into the ditches along the track.  God, it was such a beautiful day.  Had she had a few more glasses of wine with her lunch earlier, perhaps she would have given him what he had been seeking from her for nearly a year.  The thought made her tremble inside and she felt an anxiousness in that place that her mother told her was supposed to only be for the man she married.

            As they neared the dirt road, her male companion tensed up a bit because he knew this is where they parted ways.  “Do you want me to walk you home?” he asked.

            “I’m a big girl,” she said.  “I think I’ll be okay.”

            He nodded, leaned in and kissed her on the mouth.  He tasted like salt and she knew that the taste of wine was still lingering on her own lips.  When their tongues touched, she felt that creeping need once again.  She broke the kiss and smiled at him.

            “Can I see you tomorrow?” he asked.

            She nodded and gave him another kiss, this one on the cheek, and turned away from him.

            A few steps down the road, she paused.  Up ahead she could see the framing of a fence, like a giant crooked spine springing from the ground.  She felt the slightest bit of uncertainty and the fear caused her to turn back towards her boyfriend.

            He was headed down the road, his shoulder hunched like a defeated man and his hat once again on his head.  She smiled briefly at him, considered going to him and then thought better of it.  She watched him go until he was nothing more than a silhouette and then she started walking again.

In a blur of motion that only exists in dreams, she found herself standing by the fence. The man she has been expecting is standing there as if he had been there all along.  He wore torn blue overalls and a straw hat on his head, but she somehow knows that this is not what he wears most of the time.

“How do?” she said.  

            The man grinned and adjusted the straw hat.  He looked as if he might be a bit uncomfortable, but he never took his eyes off of her.  He didn’t speak to her, only looked her up and down.

            She stared right back, cocking her head to the side and studying him as best as she could.  She felt her heart pulling in two directions, one wanting to retreat back down the dirt trail, the other wanting to stay here with this man, to venture into that old abandoned white farmhouse with him and learn his secrets.

            Without a word, the man removed his hat in a sign of chivalry.  The gesture made no sense to her, but she instantly felt an irrational fear spreading through her. 

            And then the smell of it hit her.

            Something dead…the smell of a gutted animal left the rot in the woods in the summer.  The smell was overpowering and she thought that it might be coming from the man at the fence—a man that was very familiar to her. 

            “Why are you here?” she asked him.  “I know this is just a dream. I know I am old and dying in the real world. Why are you, of all people, here?”

            When he opened his mouth to speak, she saw his teeth.  They were misshapen, slightly yellowed.  Sharp.

            “The same as before,” he said, his voice like a spring breeze.  “To let you know it is almost time.”

“I don’t understand.”

“We’re coming,” he said to her with a smile.

            Then a scream rose up in her throat (her dreaming throat and her real one) and she opened her eyes to the hospital room.

            She saw Chester again, confused and crying.  She saw the bright lights overhead and a muted television on the wall.  And for just a fleeting moment, she saw his shape there in the room with her.  Seeing this, she screamed again.  She kept screaming until two nurses came into the room and gave her an injection which calmed her almost immediately.

            As she rest her head back onto the pillow, she looked to Chester and shook her head in defeat.

“Don’t let him in,” she told her son.  “Keep him out…he’s coming…”

           

The Dead Man Music Video #3

Here's the third of three DEAD MAN music videos. Please visit the Dead Man facebook page and vote for the video you think should be the "official" one that will be featured on the Dead Man's Amazon series page.

The Dead Man Music Video #2

The second of three DEAD MAN music videos...vote on your favorite here on the Dead Man facebook page.

The Dead Man Music Video #1

Here's the first of three original music videos based on Matt Branham's theme song for THE DEAD MAN... the new series of original novels created by yours truly & William Rabkin...and published monthly by Amazon/47North. Once all three of the videos are up, which should be in the next few days, I'll let you know how you can vote on which one you think should be our "official" video posted on our Amazon series page.

Busy Bee Lee

Sorry I have been so absent around here lately... the last few weeks have been intensely busy for me. Here's a quick run-down...with pictures. 

I turned in my 15th, and final, Monk book -- MR. MONK GETS EVEN  -- to Penguin/Putnam on June 1st, then jetted off to Book Expo America in New York, where I got to hang out with my friends at Amazon Publishing and Brilliance Audio, talk shop with scores of authors (including fellow "Amazon" authors Blake Crouch, Vincent Zandri, Johnny Shaw, Robert Pobi, Deborah Reed, David Hewson, Robert Kroese, etc), and meet Audie-award nominees Patrick Lawlor (the voice behind my book KING CITY) and Luke Daniels (the voice behind the audio version of THE DEAD MAN, THE WALK). (That's me on the convention floor with Mike Holmes, a HGTV celeb that my wife adores)

From New York, I headed to Kentucky, to direct a DEAD MAN music video that I wrote for Amazon to go along with the terrific theme song written & performed by Matt Branham. 

And now I'll digress... on the flight, I was stuck in an aisle seat right next to the toilet...so close, I could have peed into it from my chair.If that wasn't bad enough, a morbidly fat woman sat down next to me and couldn't fit into her seat...so she had to lift up her armrest to spill her blubber onto me. I found myself sitting at an angle, tilted towards the bathroom, which a guy promptly rushed into after take-off to have a gastrointestinal explosion of historic proportions. The fat woman quickly fell asleep...and proceeded to loudly fart her way across the midwest. It was hell.  I didn't know whether to put my earplugs in my nose or my ears. When we finally landed, she asked me how the flight was. I told her we lost two engines but she managed to keep us in the air. She had no idea what I was talking about, but at least I amused myself.

Okay, back to the video. We shot in and around Tell City, Indiana, and at the Hawesville, Kentucky stage of Firelight Entertainment Group, the extremely talented and industrious folks I worked with on my short film Bumsicle. Our DEAD MAN cast included Silvio Wolf Busch and Misty Sisco and we had a blast. (That's Misty and Silvio in the center, between the two monsters. You can see a lot more pictures on the Firelight site and their Facebook page)

The day after wrapping the music video I had to jump into my duties as honorary co-chair of the International Mystery Writers Festival in Owensboro, where I played host to the legendary Firesign Theatre and authors (and now fellow Kentucky Colonels) Max Allan Collins, Barbara Collins, Robert Randisi, Christine Matthews and Libby Hellmann and moderated a panel on writing James Bond novels with Raymond Benson and Jeffrey Deaver.

The highlight of the Festival was a night-time, out-door screening of my Owensboro-set short films Remaindered and Bumsicle, which drew over 500 people to Riverpark Center on the banks of the Ohio River. It was fantastic...and I am so glad that the cast and crew of those films, including actors Todd Reynolds, Rick Montgomery, and Eric Altheide, were able to be there to see the enthusiastic audience response. (That's Todd on screen)

As if that wasn't a big enough thrill for me, at the annual Angie Awards ceremony that capped the Festival, my friends at Riverpark Center surprised  me with a portrait by Aaron Kizer, the incredibly talented "speed artist."  It was a wonderful gift and a great honor.

And all of that was just the first three weeks of June.

July has been much slower... at least in terms of travels...since I've mostly been sitting at my desk, working on my book with Janet Evanovich, who flew into L.A. last week to be a guest on The Talk, which gave us a chance to get together for a wonderful dinner.

I'm also in the midst of editing THE DEAD MAN video with Firelight's Rachael Nunn (the footage looks great!) and reading entries in the "You Can Write a DEAD MAN Novel" contest, which ends on August 1st.

In other words, don't be surprised if I don't have a lot of time to contribute to the blog...

The Midnight Special

Emmy-award winning writer Phoef Sutton's THE DEAD MAN #12: THE MIDNIGHT SPECIAL, his wickedly funny and scary addition to the series, is out today... and it's the perfect way to end our "first season" of short novels. It's also Phoef's first published novel since his acclaimed ALWAYS SIX O'CLOCK back in 1999...and a real departure from his previous work. 

So we asked him about the book...and his writing career.

You're a two-time, Emmy award winner for your work writing & producing CHEERS, and you've written for such shows as BOSTON LEGAL, NEWHART and TERRIERS. You're one of the few TV writers who has been able to move between comedy and drama. Why is that so uncommon and how have you been able to pull it off with such apparent ease?

It’s just that I approach them all in the same way.  As stories about characters involved in compelling situations.  When you think of it like that, the specific genre or style doesn’t become paramount.  The character’s journey is what matters. 

How did your first novel come about? What did you think about the experience? 

Writing is my work and my hobby,  I wrote my first novel in my spare time, just to see if I could do it.

Not only are you a TV writer and novelist, but you've also written several feature films, like THE FAN and MRS. WINTERBOURNE. What kind of writing are you most comfortable doing? Or is it just enough to be writing?

 I like all of it.  Doing different things helps keep me interested; that’s one of the reasons I keep branching out.  But of the three, screenwriting is the least friendly to the writer.  In TV, the writer can be the boss, at least if he’s the showrunner, up to a point.  In the novels, of course, the writer is the boss of everybody.  Because he makes everybody up!

 What attracted you to THE DEAD MAN series?

 I’ve always wanted to write horror.  I’m huge fan of that genre.  Richard Matheson was one of my boyhood idols.  For whatever reason, I’ve never gone in that direction professionally, so when Lee Goldberg mentioned this series to me, I jumped at the chance.  Of course, Lee was himself another attraction – we’ve been trying to work together for years and this is first time we’ve had the chance.

 What did you get out of writing THE MIDNIGHT SPECIAL that you don't get from writing sitcoms, dramas, and movies? 

 There is one obvious thing you get out of writing novels that sets them apart from other forms of writing – no network or studio notes.  You’re writing this mostly the way you want to write it.  The other thing I love about fiction is the way it’s so easy to get inside your characters heads.  You want to let the reader know what he’s thinking?  You just write it.  No need to resort to voice-over or character foils or narrative tricks.  I revel in that!

 What sets your book apart from the others in the series?

 Some say it’s the humor.  I can’t help but find comedy – in even the most dire circumstances.  Not that the book’s laugh riot, but there is humor between the lines.  Let’s say the narrator of the book has a wry sense of macabre humor.  I also liked the narrative trick they used in the first book of flashing forward in time and I tried to use that as well.  I think the narrative voice of this book is closest in the series to the original.

 What were some of the challenges you faced writing the book?

 Action scenes.  I’ve never really done them before.  And writing them is a real bear. Try writing “he threw a punch” in seventeen different ways.   But I’m learning! 

 What's next for you?

 I’m finishing a new novel – a bit of hard-boiled action called CRUSH.  And I’m producing a comedy for TVLand, THE SOUL MAN.  That should keep me busy through the summer.

 

Learn More Here

Big Apple Bound

I'm heading off today to New York City...Amazon is sending me there to attend Book Expo America, the big publishing industry trade show, and meet booksellers, librarians, reviewers and reporters. I love attending the show. I've only done it a few times, and I've always had a great time and come away with tons of galleys. This time, though, I want to control myself and try not to grab every galley that I see. 

After that, I head off to Kentucky, where I will be directing a music video featuring my friend Matt Branham performing his kick-ass Dead Man Theme. I'll be working again with my good friends at Firelight Entertainment Group, the production team behind my short film Bumsicle, which will be premiering at the International Mystery Writers Festival on June 16 in Owensboro. We've got a terrific group of people working on the video... including actors Silvio Wolf Busch, Misty Sisco, Aaron Taylor and Alex Booty and the special effects make-up team at Eriksen Services.  

I'll report back from NYC and Kentucky on my adventures.... 

You Can Write a DEAD MAN Novel

How would you like to become a PUBLISHED AUTHOR...and win $1000 in cash and prizes?

Now's your chance to win a $500 advance, a $500 Amazon gift card, and a publishing contract to write your own tale in the hugely popular DEAD MAN saga...to be published in early 2013 by Amazon's 47North imprint. 

 HOW TO ENTER

All you have to do is write a sample chapter and a brief outline of your story, complete the entry form and sign the release...and email the whole package to us at thedeadmanbookcontest@gmail.com by August 1, 2012...or before we receive 500 entries...whichever comes first. Each entry will be judged by a group of current writers of THE DEAD MAN, led by series co-creators Lee Goldberg & William Rabkin.  

WHAT ARE THE RULES?

The contest rules are below. Please read them carefully to make sure that your entry meets all of the eligibility requirements before you submit. 

Good luck! 

WRITE A “DEAD MEAN” NOVEL CONTEST 

OFFICIAL RULES 

Please read these Official Rules before entering the Write a “Dead Man” Novel Contest (“Contest”). By submitting an entry, entrants (“you” or “your”) acknowledge that you are eligible to enter the Contest and have read and agree to be bound by these Official Rules and our and the judges decisions related to the Contest. We will select one winner who will receive a full, work-for-hire publishing contract to write a 25,000 word novel in “The Dead Man” series of books, commissioned by  Adventures in Television Inc. (the “Sponsors”) and published by Amazon Publishing. 

1.                  ELIGIBILITY. You are eligible to enter the Contest if you are at least 18 years old at time of entry and a legal resident of one of the following countries: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada (excluding the Province of Québec), China, Denmark, Finland, Germany, India, Ireland, Japan, Luxembourg, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Romania, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, the United States (the 50 states and D.C.), or the United Kingdom. You are not eligible to enter the Contest if you are (a) an Amazon employee or independent contractor or an employee or independent contractor of any of Amazon’s  affiliates; (b) a family member (spouses, domestic partners, parents, grandparents, siblings, children, and grandchildren) of an Amazon employee or independent contractor; (c) a family member (spouses, domestic partners, parents, grandparents, siblings, children, and grandchildren) of an employee or independent contractor of any of Amazon’s affiliates; (d) an individual living in the same household as Amazon’s  employee or independent contractor; (e) an individual living in the same household as an employee or independent contractor of any of Amazon’s  affiliates; or (f) a judge involved in the Contest. 

2.                  HOW TO ENTER. We must receive your Contest entry between June 1, 2012 at 12:01 a.m. (U.S. Pacific Standard Time) and August 1, 2012 at 11:59 p.m. (U.S. Pacific Standard Time). We will stop accepting Entries after we have received 500 submissions.   You must download the entry form and the Release & Non-Disclosure Form from  http://thedeadmanbooks.blogspot.com. You must then follow the instructions on the entry form and email to us, at thedeadmanbookcontest@gmail.com, the following attachments (1) a sample chapter of your proposed book in the “The Dead Man” series (“Chapter”) of up to 4,000 words, (2) an outline of your proposed book of up to 1000 words (“Outline”); (3) a signed release and non-disclosure form and (4) the personal information required on the entry form. (1-4 collectively, an “Entry”). We will not accept or review any Entry that does not comply with these Official Rules. 

3.                  ENTRY REQUIREMENTS. You must be the only author of your Chapter and Outline. Any Chapter and Outline submitted as an Entry written by two or more authors will not be eligible. Your Chapter and Outline must: (a) be your original creation; (b) be fictional; (c) be in the English language; (d) be of interior black and white text without images; (e) not currently or previously have been the subject of a publishing agreement with any publisher. Additionally, you must submit your Chapter and Outline digitally in Microsoft Word .doc, .docx, .rtf, or .txt format. Any entry that we determine, in our sole discretion, to meet these requirements will be considered a “Valid Entry.” You may be represented by an agent on the condition that you - not your agent - agree to comply with these Official Rules. Our servers and clock will be the official clock for all phases of the Contest. You will not receive any notice that your entry has been received. You will only be contacted if you are the Winner. You may only submit one entry. 

4.                  CONDITIONS OF ENTRY. By submitting an Entry, you represent and warrant that your Entry: (a) is your original creation; (b) has not been copied in whole or in part from any other work; (c) has not previously been published as described in Section 3(e) above; (d) does not violate or infringe any copyright, trademark, privacy or publicity right, or other proprietary or intellectual property right of any person or entity; (e) is not defamatory, libelous, obscene, or otherwise illegal; and (f) is your sole and exclusive property. You further represent and warrant that you have complete, worldwide distribution rights in and to your Chapter and Outline. 

5.                  GRANT OF RIGHTS. By submitting an Entry and if you are selected as the winner, you grant Adventures in Television the exclusive first publication rights to your Entry. By submitting an Entry, you grant us and our respective affiliates and agents permission to use, without charge, portions of your Chapter and Outline, along with your name and stated reason for writing the submitted Entry (if provided) for any purpose in connection with this Contest. You also grant us the right to edit the formatting and display of your Entry, and to create literary or any other types of effects in respect to your Entry without compensation or approval. In addition, to the extent that any moral rights (for example, the right to attribution and the right to integrity) apply, you waive (and to the extent that these rights may not be waived, agree irrevocably not to assert) your moral rights in your Entry for purposes of this Contest, including, without limitation, our use of excerpts from your Entry in connection with this Contest. You represent that you have received the consent of any person (or parent or legal guardian if such person is a minor) whose real and actual name or likeness is used or featured in any Entry that you submit. If you fail to obtain the consent, your Entry will be disqualified. We have the right at any time during the Contest to request proof of consent, and to disqualify your Entry if you cannot provide the requested documents. Excerpts, along with the your name, city, and state of residence, and portions of your Entry which relate to the submitted Chapter, may be posted on any website owned or operated by us or any of their affiliates (“Our Site”), any other website or other online point of presence on any platform through which any products or services available on or through Our Site are described, syndicated, offered, merchandised, or advertised. Our decision to post an Excerpt or any portion of an Entry on any one of Our Sites does not mean that the selected Entry has been selected as a winning Entry. Furthermore, you acknowledge that your Entry is based on copyrighted characters, concepts, and other creative elements belonging wholly to Adventures in Television Inc. and that “The Dead Man” logo is a registered trademark of Adventures in Television Inc. and that you may not publish, or otherwise publicly disseminate or repurpose your Entry in any media or format, regardless of whether or not you win the contest, without the written consent of Adventures in Television Inc. 

6.                  COLLECTION/USE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION. We are collecting personal information primarily to process Entries, to contact you if necessary, or for marketing and other purposes. By participating in this Contest, non-U.S. resident entrants are authorizing the transfer of personal data to the United States for these purposes. By entering the Contest, you agree that we may share your information, in our sole discretion, with third parties that have a need to know the information, such as the judging panel or third parties that we retain to assist in administering the Contest; however, those third parties may only use the information for purposes related to this Contest. 

7.                  GRAND PRIZE. If you are selected as the Winner in a category, you will receive a $500 Amazon gift card and a standard work-for-hire publishing contract with Adventures in Television Inc. to write a novella, of no more than 25,000 words, in “The Dead Man” series and to market and distribute your final manuscript as a published book. Upon the full execution of the publishing contract, Adventures in Television will pay the Winner $500.00 USD (in addition to the $500 Amazon gift card). The $500.00 payment is an advance against the royalties to be earned by the Winner under the work-for-hire publishing contract. The approximate retail value (“ARV”) of the publishing contract is $500.00 USD for the advance. You will receive half of the advance on signing the contract, half on delivery of the final manuscript. Adventures in Television will determine the royalty rates to be paid under the work-for-hire publishing contract, which will depend on the format in which the book is published and the projected print run. You may not negotiate the standard work-for-hire publishing contract with Adventures in Television, and you must sign it “as is” upon receipt of the executable contract if you wish to enter into the publishing contract being awarded. The work-for-hire publishing contract will be governed by the laws of the State of California. 

8.                  DISQUALIFICATIONS. If your Entry is disqualified for any reason, you will not receive a notice or explanation describing the reason for the disqualification. 

9.                  WINNER NOTIFICATION AND REQUIREMENTS. If you are selected as a potential Finalist, we will notify you by phone or e-mail starting on or before Sept 1, 2012. You will be required to sign and return a work-for-hire publishing contract with Adventures in Television, which Adventures in Television will countersign only if you are selected as the Winner. We must receive the signed publishing contract by Oct. 1, 2012. If any documentation is not returned by the specified dates, we may invite an alternate Finalist, chosen by the Adventures in Television judging panel to replace the original Finalist. If notification to the alternate Finalist is returned as undeliverable, we will invite the next eligible alternate Finalist, and so on. Prior to awarding a prize, we may require you to sign additional documents we believe are necessary to confirm your eligibility, to obtain a liability and publicity release, and to award any prize. 

10.              ADDITIONAL TERMS. The Contest and all accompanying materials are © 2012 by Adventures in Television, Inc. All rights reserved. The Contest is void outside the eligible entry jurisdictions and where prohibited by law. You agree that our decisions related to the Contest are final and binding in all matters. We reserve the right, to the maximum extent permitted by law, in our sole discretion, to change these rules or cancel the Contest at any time. We may also modify, terminate or suspend the Contest if any viruses, worms, bugs, unauthorized human intervention, or other causes beyond our control corrupt or impair the administration, security, or fairness of the Contest or submission of Entries. If you use the name or likeness of an individual in your Entry, you agree to be solely responsible for that use. Amazon is not a sponsor of or involved in the judging of this Contest.  You agree that we, Amazon and our and their respective parents, affiliates, subsidiaries and advertising and promotion agencies, along with any officers, directors, agents, employees and representatives of any of them (collectively, “Released Parties”), will not be responsible for any action brought by a person whose consent you did not obtain. The Released Parties are not responsible for: (a) any human or other error that may occur in the processing of the Entries; (b) any error, omission, interruption, deletion, defect, delay in operation or transmission, theft or destruction, or unauthorized access to or alteration of Entries; (c) or for technical, network, telephone, computer, hardware or software, malfunctions of any kind, which may occur in connection with this Contest, including, without limitation, any errors or problems related to the administration of the Contest, the processing or judging of Entries, the announcement of the prizes, or the Contest-related materials. Released Parties are also not responsible for: (y) inaccurate transmission of, or failure to receive, any entry information on account of technical problems or traffic congestion on the Internet or at any Web site; and (z) injury or damage to you or any other computer resulting from downloading any materials in connection with the Contest. We reserve the right, in our sole discretion, to disqualify any individual found to be tampering with the entry or voting process, the outcome of the Contest, or the operation of the Contest or Web site; to be acting in violation of these Official Rules; or to be acting in an unsportsmanlike or disruptive manner or with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any other person (including actions by you INDIVIDUAL TO DELIBERATELY DAMAGE ANY WEBSITE OR UNDERMINE THE LEGITIMATE OPERATION OF THE CONTEST MAY BE A VIOLATION OF CRIMINAL AND CIVIL LAWS, AND IF SUCH AN ATTEMPT IS MADE, WE RESERVE THE RIGHT TO SEEK DAMAGES OR OTHER RELIEF (INCLUDING ATTORNEYS’ FEES) FROM THE PERSON TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW. 

11.              LIMITATIONS OF LIABILITY. THE RELEASED PARTIES ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE UNAUTHORIZED USE OF ANY ENTRY (OR ANY PORTION OF ANY ENTRY) BY ANY THIRD PARTY. YOU AGREE (FOR YOURSELF AND YOUR HEIRS) THAT THE RELEASED PARTIES, TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY LIABILITY, LOSS, INJURY, OR DAMAGE TO PROPERTY OR TO PERSON. YOU ALSO AGREE THAT WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY REASONABLE ATTORNEY’S FEES AND COURT COSTS DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY RELATED TO YOUR PARTICIPATION IN THE CONTEST, OR BY REASON OF YOUR ACCEPTANCE, POSSESSION, USE OR MISUSE OF THE PRIZES (INCLUDING ANY TRAVEL OR ACTIVITY RELATED TO A PRIZE). NOTHING IN THESE OFFICIAL RULES WILL LIMIT ANY RELEASED PARTY’S LIABILITY FOR DEATH OR PERSONAL INJURY CAUSED BY THAT PARTY'S NEGLIGENCE, A BREACH OF THESE OFFICIAL RULES, OR FRAUDULENT MISREPRESENTATION. 

12.              GOVERNING LAW/DISPUTES. This Contest is governed by the laws of the United States and the State of California. As a condition of participating in this Contest, you agree, to the extent permitted by law, that any and all disputes which cannot be resolved between the parties, and causes of action arising out of or in connection with this Contest, will be resolved individually, without resort to any form of class action, exclusively before a court located in Los Angeles County, California. FURTHER, IN ANY DISPUTE, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES WILL YOU BE PERMITTED TO OBTAIN AWARDS FOR, AND YOU HEREBY WAIVE ALL RIGHTS TO CLAIM, PUNITIVE, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, INCLUDING ATTORNEYS' FEES, OTHER THAN ENTRANT’S ACTUAL OUT-OF-POCKET EXPENSES (E.G. COSTS ASSOCIATED WITH ENTERING). YOU FURTHER WAIVE ALL RIGHTS TO HAVE DAMAGES MULTIPLIED OR INCREASED. 

13.              RIGHTS OF PUBLICITY. By participating in the Contest, you consent to the worldwide use of your name, biographical information, photographs, videos or likenesses in any manner and in any medium now in existence or later invented for any purpose in connection with the Contest without additional compensation, notification or permission, except where prohibited by law. 

14.              SPONSORS’ ADDRESS. Adventures in Television, Inc, P.O. Box 8212, Calabasas, CA 91372  

Slaves to Evil

Today marks the debut of Lisa Klink's THE DEAD MAN #11: SLAVES TO EVIL, her first published novel. She's also the first woman (so far) to contribute to the series, which is published more-or-less monthly by Amazon's 47North imprint. Here's the plot...

Matt Cahill has an unusual gift: he can see the corruption in people’s souls, making the afflicted appear as walking corpses to his eyes. This macabre ability has set him on a one-man crusade to eradicate these servants of an ancient and powerful evil, embodied by the aptly named “Mr. Dark.”

On his way through the small town of Breckenridge, Minnesota, Matt sees the unmistakable signs of corruption in the chief of police and numerous cops. The evil that has consumed them now terrorizes innocents and allows drug and sex trafficking to run rampant. Just as Matt confronts the enslaved cops, a gun-toting teen appears, looking to make Matt pay for murdering her brother. Of course, Matt did kill her brother—he was another corrupted soul who’d been planning a bombing. But how can Matt convince Elena of the truth without any proof?

Trapped between Mr. Dark’s forces and a girl hell-bent on revenge, Matt faces an impossible choice: remove Elena—permanently—or let her kill him and doom the town.

Sounds great, doesn't it? Lisa has spent years toiling in the trenches of primetime television, as a writer/producers on shows like Star Trek Voyager and Missing...and has even written a Las Vegas strip tourist attraction (The Star Trek Experience, which was at the Hilton for years) . So I thought I'd invite her over here for a chat about her career and her creative process. 

How did you become a writer?

I’ve written stories ever since I knew how to write.  I wrote a play in college and graduated with an English major.  After college, I moved to L.A. to work in Hollywood.  At first, I wanted to write movies.  Then I tried writing a TV spec script and found I liked that better.  I took a UCLA Extension class in TV writing from Bill Rabkin, which I really enjoyed.  I had been pitching stories to the Star Trek series “Deep Space Nine” and “Voyager,” and finally sold one to DS9.  That was my first produced episode.  It led to a staff job on “Voyager.” 

What do you enjoy most about being a writer?

I love the feeling when I get a moment of action or line of dialogue just right.  It’s like thinking of exactly the right comeback to an argument (usually in the car on the way home).  For a few minutes, I feel like a genius.  Then it’s back to work.  I also like the problem-solving aspect of writing, figuring out the right order for the scenes and which clues to drop where.

What drew you to "The Dead Man?"

I was lucky enough to work with Lee and Bill on two TV series, “Martial Law” and “Missing.”  We became friends.  I heard about the “Dead Man” series they were working on and told them it sounded like fun.  So they asked if I’d like to write one of the books.  I jumped at the chance.  I was right – it has been fun.

You've written scores of produced screenplays, but this was your first, published book. Did you find the transition to prose tricky?

Yes, it was tricky.  TV writing is very sparse and functional.  A script isn’t a final product in itself, but a blueprint for an episode.  If something won’t be on screen, it doesn’t go in the script.  With this book, I had to push myself to include more description, emotion and inner thoughts of the characters.  There would be no set design or actors to add those elements later. 

You've spent many years writing and producing TV series, some of them with Lee Goldberg & William Rabkin. How was writing "Slaves to Evil" different than writing an episode of a TV series? In what ways was it the same?

I found it challenging to write prose after years of scripts.  The biggest advantage of a book over TV is the complete lack of budget and network restrictions.  I could have as many sets and characters as I wanted.  I could use bad words and nasty violence with no censor to stop me.  That was fun. 

This experience was like TV writing because the premise and main characters had already been established.  I had always found the idea of writing a novel intimidating because I’d have to create the whole universe from scratch.  This was the perfect transitional step.  Also, I was already comfortable working with Lee and Bill, so I knew I had good support. 

You've written TV shows, comics, books....you even scripted the "Borg Invasion 4-D" attraction that ran for years at the Hilton in Las Vegas. They are such different mediums. How do you do it? Do you have one guiding philosophy or approach to the writing that you do? What sort of writing do you like best? 

I honestly don’t think I have a preference.  I’m most comfortable with television, but I really enjoy the challenge of working in different media.  Whatever the format, good writing always comes down to story and character.  I have to get those right first.  Then it’s a matter of shaping the script to fit the final product.

Now that you've written a book, are you tempted to write another outside of "The Dead Man" universe?

I would love to write more books.  I read a lot of nonfiction, so I’d like to try that next.  I also have a couple of ideas brewing for original novels.  I’ll always keep writing, in as many different media as I can.  New experiences and new challenges keep it interesting.

Me on Me Yet Again

Kings River Life caught up with me at Left Coast Crime last weekend...and the result is this print interview by Deborah Harter Williams and, in addition, this video interview by Lori Ham:

 

Everything is Connected

 

I've got some good news: Amazon has ordered 12 more books in the DEAD MAN series...in digital, print and audio...on top of the 12 that they ordered back in September. That will keep the monthly series of original novellas going into 2013 (book #9, CARNIVAL OF DEATH, comes out in a few weeks).  

The renewal comes just as DEAD MAN VOLUME 1, a digital and print compilation of the first three DEAD MAN tales, and the audio edition are released.

And, even more amazing, the news came almost to the day that Bill Rabkin and I self-published FACE OF EVIL, the first DEAD MAN tale, one year ago this month. Last February, I had the silly fantasy that Amazon would see the potential of the series and become our publisher...little did I know how quickly that dream would come true.

But I owe that to a series of events that began in an "Introduction To  TV Writing" class I was teaching at UCLA back in 2007. One of my students was a guy named Mike Daniels. The goal of the class was for students to leave with a solid outline that they could use to write their first spec script in the "Introduction to Screenwriting" class. But it was clear to me that Mike was far too talented to be wasting his time writing an outline...he should go to script now. So asked I him to continue participating in class, but to start writing  the script and share his pages with me on the side. He did.

By the end of the term, he'd turned out a brilliant RESCUE ME spec...and, if memory serves, a spec pilot script as well. At the end of that last class, I told him he was as good, if not better, than most TV writers that I knew and to stop wasting his time taking classes...he was ready to conquer the TV biz.

And he did.  

Within a year, he was on staff of ONE TREE HILL. Today, he's married to one of the actresses from the show and a producer on SONS OF ANARCHY. 

 

What does all of this have to do with THE DEAD MAN?

Not long after our class was over, Mike asked me if I'd read an unpublished novel that his brother James had written.  James was a lawyer, but on the side he also narrated books for Brilliance Audio. I agreed, with more than a little hesitation, to read the book. Much to my surprise, I really liked the book...it was clear he had enormous talent...but the story needed a lot of work. I suggested some revisions to the opening chapters, which James made, and then referred the book to my agent. She saw the potential too and took him on...and although she wasn't able to sell the book, I never forgot it or how talented he was. When the DEAD MAN came along, I asked him if he wanted to write one. He did...and the book turned out to be RING OF KNIVES, the second in our series.

When RING OF KNIVES came out, James told all of his friends at Brilliance Audio about the book...and when they read it, they thought that it, and the other books in the series,  would make great audiobooks.

Since Brilliance is owned  by Amazon, word about their interest in the series soon filtered up to the editors at Amazon Encore and Thomas & Mercer...who called me about the print rights. 

And you know how the rest of the story goes...

But the capper is that James, and his brother Luke, are narrating the audiobooks (James narrates his books, Luke narrates all of the others). Is that just  too perfect?

Anyway, this all goes to show how everything is connected...and that you have no idea how something you do today could pay off in unexpected, unimagined ways years from now.

 

Give a hand to the DEAD MAN

 

Matthew Branham's terrific theme song for THE DEAD MAN is now live on Amazon's book page.  But you can listen to it right here.

Deadman

 

I hope you enjoy it!

 

Dead Man #7: The Beast Within

The seventh volume in the DEAD MAN series, James Daniels' THE BEAST WITHIN, is now available from Amazon. The series is about Matt Cahill, a guy who inexplicably came back from the dead and can now see a nightmarish netherword that nobdoy else does...and pursues an evil entity known as Mr. Dark.

In this novel, Matt Cahill journeys deep into the Northern Michigan woods searching for a militaristic community that's led by a paranoid visionary... a man who claims to have defeated an entity eerily similar to Mr. Dark. This could be Matt's chance to solve the riddle of his nightmarish quest. But things go very wrong very fast... and soon he's trapped in a bloody siege between warring factions. The only way to escape from an unstoppable advance of mayhem, carnage and black magic is to trust his instincts, grab his ax, and unleash the ferocity of the Beast Within.

James has given some serious thought to who, and what, Mr. Dark might be...and I thought I'd share his take with you:

Who is Mr. Dark?

The straight-forward answer is that he's Matt's nemesis...a taunting, supernatural entity who spreads evil like a disease with just a touch of his finger. Mr. Dark is also, perhaps, the only one who knows the reasons behind his Matt's resurrection from the dead. But Mr. Dark is much more than that. But what, exactly? That's the question that every author is tackling and each one is coming up with their own, intriguing interpretation. 

Lee and Bill have been enormously generous letting the writers contribute to the development of the Dark Man's nature. And it's interesting, because--like Matt's character--the Dark Man is an archetype that's incredibly versatile. A blogger recently implied that Lee and Bill may have borrowed the evil-clown idea from Todd McFarlane's Spawn series. 

But this is nonsense. The wicked, unpredictable trickster is one of the oldest characters in fiction. McFarlane's Violator was begat by Stephen King's Pennywise who was begat by Jerry Robinson's The Joker, who was begat by Edgar Allen Poe's Hop-Toad, who was begat by Mr. Punch, who was begat by Shakespeare's Fool, who was begat by Malory's Merlin, who was begat by the Loki, who was begat by Raven (Europe), Coyote (America), and Spider (Africa). They are all manifestations of the same principle. 

What is that principle? Every writer of the Dead Man will come to his or her own conclusions. 

For myself, that principle is entropy, and the madness and despair that arise from our recognition that all our efforts will ultimately end in death. The major challenge of life is to withstand--and maybe even overcome--that terrible prospect. In the Welsh Grail legend Peredur, the hero is frequently tormented by a black hag who reminds him at every turn that all his acts of valor are causing more harm than good. That hag, portrayed eight hundred years ago, is the direct ancestor of Mr. Dark. And you don't have to be a medieval knight errant to know who she is. I've seen her. And I bet you have, too. 

How we deal with her terrible message is the biggest challenge that we face in life. And one of the ways we learn to deal with it is by reading about others who confront it head-on. Matt Cahill is a hero because he does just that. That's why it's a thrill to read about him. That's why, when we read about him beating the devil, we set down the book hopeful and happy, believing--for a time-–that we can, too.

 

Dead Man #6: Kill Them All

Harry Shannon's KILL THEM ALL, the sixth book in the DEAD MAN series, is out today...and only 99 cents for a very, very, limited time. Here's the story:

Matt Cahill was an ordinary man leading a simple life until a shocking accident changed everything. Now he can see a nightmarish netherworld that exists within our own. Now he's on a dangerous quest for the answers to who he is and what he has become...and engaged in an epic battle to save us, and his soul, from the clutches of pure evil.

When Matt wanders into a struggling Nevada tourist trap recreation of an "old west" town, he's unaware that he’s being trailed by a Special Ops team of professional mercenaries hired by a University desperate to unlock the secret behind his resurrection...and that he's put everyone around him in dire jeopardy. The mercenaries have no intention of letting Matt escape...or letting any witnesses survive. Matt finds himself in a deadly bind. Somehow he must rally the peaceful citizens into defending themselves against the sadistic, well-armed mercenaries… or sacrifice himself to save them from certain death.

There's an interview with Harry on the KILL THEM ALL product page that gives you a peek into his writing process. Here's an excerpt:

Q: How did you get involved in The Dead Man series?

HS: In 2010, several experienced authors joined me in forming a loose organization called Top Suspense Group. Among them was Lee Goldberg, who co-created The Dead Man series. Lee asked me if I'd be willing to contribute a novella. Since I grew up on Gold Medal novels, Lancer books and other men's pulp fiction, I loved the concept and jumped at the chance. It was a wonderful experience, and now I'm looking forward to seeing how readers react to my take on Matt's character. 

Q: You've written a lot of horror books, including Clan, The Hungry and the Lionsgate movie and novel Dead and Gone. How is the horror in The Dead Man different from what you have done before?

HS: That's an interesting question. For me, horror is not a genre so much as an emotion, so it can be expressed in any number of ways. I generally gravitate towards dry humor coupled with a serious exploration of existential themes--literally the meaning of life, death and those fragile emotional attachments we form along the way. With my entry Kill Them All, I wanted to use the horror as a metaphor for moral corruption. I immediately saw Matt as the classic American hero, an archetypal loner wandering into and out of a troubled desert town, standing up to evil on behalf of the weak and downtrodden. I often set novels in Nevada, but to answer your question, this one has the feeling of a graphic novel, and though it's contemporary it is far more of a classic western than anything else I've ever done. It tempts me to try my hand at a period piece.

Doing the Unthinkable

There was a turning point when I realized that I’d completely shaken free of all of my previous, deeply held perceptions and beliefs about publishing….and fully embraced an entirely new publishing model.

It wasn’t when my out-of-print backlist, which the publishing industry deemed played out and worthless, started pulling in $70,000 a year for me in ebook royalties.

It wasn’t when I signed a 12-book digital, print and audio deal with Amazon’s 47North imprint for The Dead Man, a monthly series of original books that Bill Rabkin & I created, and that we are writing with a dozen incredibly talent authors, and that we began in February as a self-publishing venture.

And it wasn’t last week, when I agreed to a two-book digital-print-audio deal with Amazon’s Thomas & Mercer imprint for my new novel King City and a sequel.

It was Tuesday, when I delivered Mr. Monk is a Mess, my 14^th Monk tie-in novel to Penguin/Putnam and informed them that my 15^th book, the last in my current contract and due this coming May, would also be my last book in the series.

In other words,  I quit.

They were surprised, of course.

I am walking away from a hugely successful book series, one published in multiple languages around the world, and from the certainty of another three-book contract and an increase in my advance.

There was a time, not so long ago, when the idea of ending a hit book series, in hardcover, with a major publisher would have been inconceivable to me and just about every author I know.

But the publishing world has completely changed.

The Monk books, like the Diagnosis Murder novels that I wrote before, were licensed tie-ins. That means I was hired for an advance, and given a tiny royalty, to write books based on characters that belong to someone else. I was a hired hand…albeit one paid very well by tie-in standards.

I had a great fun writing those books, took enormous pride in them and, until recently, considered myself very fortunate to have the gig.

And in that old world, I was.

But now, in this new world, my attitude has completely changed. 

I am still very proud of the books…which is why I find it incredibly frustrating that I have written 22 novels that I dearly love but that don’t belong to me.

They belong to studios.

It’s frustrating because if they belonged to me, I could be earning so much more money from them now…and, more importantly for my family, in the future.

I won’t make that mistake again.

Instead of writing two books a year for Penguin/Putman, I will be writing that many books… or more…for myself that I own.

Some I will self-publish, others I will write for Amazon’s imprints.

But they will be mine.

I know what you’re thinking. What about those books for Amazon? Haven’t you just traded one master for another?

Every aspect of  the deals that I have with Amazon’s imprints on The Dead Man series and the King City books are far, far, FAR more author-friendly and potentially lucrative than anything I ever had before…as are my chances at success with such a savvy partner, one who, incidentally, operates the biggest and most successful bookstore on the planet.

And I own King City. If I end up writing 15 books in that series, all of those books, now and in the future, will be mine.

Ah, but what about all those writers who are doing The Dead Man books for us? Aren’t we exploiting them? Aren’t they making the same mistake I’d have made if I’d signed to do more Monk books?

Nope.  

That’s because unlike the old school publishers (and, let’s face it, publishers are what Bill and I have become with The Dead Man), we have thrown away the old rules of doing business with writers on licensed properties.

In fact, what we are doing is revolutionary in the tie-in world.

We are splitting all of the publishing royalties from digital, print, audio, and foreign translations on The Dead Man books 50/50 with the writers.

Our success is their success…and vice-versa.

We’ve made them our partners.

(And publishers of tie-ins should follow our lead…or there won’t be any tie-ins anymore, because it won’t make any financial sense for writers to write them).

The Dead Man series relaunched on Oct. 24^th and is already doing amazing business. Our next book comes out later this month.

And King City is coming in May.

It’s a bold, exciting new world for authors and I haven’t been this excited about writing since I was a teenager.

 

The Dead Man Sales Are Lively

It's been a week since Amazon re-launched the DEAD MAN series and the sales continue to be amazing...though I am braced for the high rankings to drop back down to earth once the 99 cent sale ends and we settle into our regular, $2.99 price point. Here are the rankings as of 9 pm on Halloween night (click on the image for a larger view)

The Dead Man is a Bestseller

UPDATED 6pm 10/20:  I just checked the Amazon sales stats and we're still going strong. Here are the rankings:

FACE OF EVIL  #147 ... #1 in Dark Fantasy, #4 in horror, #28 in thrillers

RING OF KNIVES  #333...#2 in Dark Fantasy, #14 in horror

HELL IN HEAVEN #400...#3 in Dark Fantasy, #16 in horror

DEAD WOMAN  #436...#4 in Dark Fantasy, #18 in horror

BLOOD MESA #571...#5 in Dark Fantasy, #22 in horror, #86 in thrillers

KILL THEM ALL  #790...#6 in Dark Fantasy (pre-order)

 

The books are on sale for just 99 cents. Please buy a copy of one or more of the books and help us put The Dead Man in the top 100!

A Great Deal on THE DEAD MAN

The Dead Man is Alive!

Amazon re-launched THE DEAD MAN series an hour ago...and with it, their 47North imprint. They are pricing the books at 99 cents for a very limited time. You can read all about the creation & writing of the series today on the Amazon Kindle Post blog and on the product page for Face of Evil. In addition, there are interviews with each of the individual authors on the product pages for Ring of Knives, The Dead Woman, and Blood Mesa.

The Dead Man is Coming

The big relaunch of THE DEAD MAN series, and the kick-off of Amazon's new 47North imprint,  is coming on Oct 24 and  I can't wait!

In the meantime, you can already pre-order Harry Shannon's November title KILL THEM ALL, James Daniels December book THE BEAST WTIHIN, and the DEAD MAN VOL 1-3 compilation. 

Amazon Launches 47North Imprint with THE DEAD MAN

Today, Amazon announced the launch of their new sf/fantasy/horror imprint 47North...and one of the premiere titles is THE DEAD MAN series. Our kick-off is coming in just a couple of weeks...in a very big way...and we can't wait!

UPDATE: Publisher's Weekly also wrote about it. Here's part of what they said..

Amazon has added another genre to its publishing stable, with the launch of 47North, a science fiction/fantasy/horror imprint that will publish original and previously published works from new and established authors as well as out-of-print books. “We are especially happy to have a diverse list at launch, and look forward to publishing across a wide range of subgenres,” said Victoria Griffith, publisher of Amazon Publishing’s west coast group.
 
47North has signed 15 titles at launch with its first title coming from Lee Goldberg and William Rabkin, the authors of Successful Television Writing and who have written and/or produced scores of highly successful network television series, including Diagnosis Murder, Spenser: For Hire, and Baywatch. Their digital-first novel, Face of Evil, will be published this month; four more installments will also be published in October, with a new adventure following each month thereafter. A print compilation of the first three novels will publish in January 2012.
 

More Word from The Dead

Ron Hogan at Reader's Entertainment has written a great background piece on THE DEAD MAN series and our new deal with Amazon. Here's an excerpt:

“Ultimately, we are the ones responsible for maintaining the consistency of the franchise and turning in great books to Thomas & Mercer,” Goldberg explains; each book is commissioned on a work-for-hire basis, with the authors receiving an advance and splitting royalties with the series’ creators. Although Thomas & Mercer will be paying a lower royalty rate than the 70 percent Goldberg and Rabkin earned while self-publishing, the deal is still “much better than what we would get from a traditional publishing contract,” he says. “In addition, we are going to move a lot more units than we would thanks to Amazon’s marketing and promotional savvy on their own platform.” 

That’s welcome news for Goldberg, who attributes much of the “great” sales for Face of Evil to a guest post he wrote for Amazon’s Kindle blog in which he described how the series was connected to his love of classic “men’s adventure” novels that flourished when the paperback market was in its heyday. “The other books [in the series] were doing fine, but not spectacularly well,” he admits. “Nowhere near what we saw as their potential, based on the amazing critical response and reader reviews we’ve been getting.”

When Amazon’s audiobook division, Brilliance Audio, began negotiating at the beginning of the summer with Goldberg and Rabkin about audio versions of the series, Thomas & Mercer quickly became involved as well. “They instantly understood what we were hoping to accomplish with the series,” Goldberg says. “They saw the potential in it and, like us, were frustrated that it hadn’t been tapped yet.”

 

Reasoners' Reasonings

Wag the Fox has a great interview with  James Reasoner, author of THE DEAD MAN #5: THE BLOOD MESA and about 10,000 other books, today on their blog. Here's an excerpt:

Gef: You had mentioned that The Blood Mesa marks one of your most brutal works, a purposeful attempt on your part to cut loose. Was this something that you had been looking to do in your writing for a while, or just something you tackled when it came to you?

James: I’ve always included a lot of action in my work, and I’ve never been shy about going over the top when it felt right.  It’s never been quite as graphic as in my Dead Man story, though.  I think I saw this opportunity when I was reading the previous books in the series, and when I actually started writing, I knew that was the way I wanted to go.Gef: What were your initial thoughts when you were approached to contribute to The Dead Man series? With multiple authors each writing about the Matt Cahill character, did you have concerns of "too many cooks spoil the broth" or saw a unique opportunity to, in a way, become part of a writing team on a series?

James: I’ve written for a number of different multiple-author series, so this was just business as usual for me, with a slight difference.  Most of those other series I’ve worked on didn’t have much, if any, book-to-book continuity, so I had to be more concerned with this book fitting into the flow of the rest of the series.  Luckily, with Lee Goldberg and Bill Rabkin supervising everything, that wasn’t a problem. [...]I’m writing a Western series for Berkley called REDEMPTION, KANSAS, with one book out so far and at least two more to come.  I’m also doing a Western e-book series called RANCHO DIABLO with my friends Mel Odom and Bill Crider, with three books out so far under the house-name Colby Jackson, and many more to come, we hope.

THE DEAD MAN #5: THE BLOOD MESA

THE DEAD MAN #5: THE BLOOD MESA by James Reasoner, the laziest writer on the friggin' planet, is out today in ebook and paperback editions...and it's perhaps the bloodiest tale yet in the series. Matt Cahill finds himself trapped atop a blood-red mesa in the desolate American Southwest when an archeological dig goes terribly, dangerously wrong, awakening an ancient evil with an insatiable hunger. Now Matt, armed only with his trusty ax, must somehow escape...rescue a handful of terrified innocents... and prevent a slaughter of epic proportions.

He talks on the Dead Man Blog about his experience writing it. He says: 

it has strong elements of horror and the supernatural, and for the most part this is unexplored territory for me in my work.  True, I’ve done a few Westerns that had mild supernatural elements (often of the Scooby-Doo variety!), but THE BLOOD MESA is the first real horror novel I’ve written, even though I’ve been a reader and fan of horror for many, many years. But most important of all for me, writing THE BLOOD MESA was fun, just as I thought it would be.  I had an absolutely great time with it,

And you're going to have a blast reading the book, which is already getting some great reviews. Like these:

If you like horror with a dash of suspense then you should read the DEAD MAN series. They are not only fun but addictive [...] All of the books in the series are great and THE BLOOD MESA is no exception. On a scale of 1 to 5, I give it a 5! -- Futures Mystery Anthology Magazine

I dare say Reasoner also offers up the most gruesome iteration in The Dead Man so far, as some of the deaths in this one are nothing less than brutal.  - Wag the Fox 

This story is the literary equivalent to a drag strip race [...] the story keeps accelerating until its brutal climax. That truly is its strength - it's rapid fire pace and its unflinching brutality (which you've got to expect from a series featuring an axe wielding hero). --Permission to Kill 

The story riffs off of some creepy western themes, with a hefty dose of cannibalism, whacko/zombie-movie mania, and did I mention there's a few sticks of dynamite thrown in for good measure? [...]It is highly recommended. -- Post Modern Pulps

If you like this book, you're going to want to grab the previous books in the DEAD MAN series:

FACE OF EVIL by Lee Goldberg & William Rabkin
RING OF KNIVES by James Daniels
HELL IN HEAVEN by Lee Goldberg & William Rabkin
THE DEAD WOMAN by David McAfee

Coming in August... KILL THEM ALL by Harry Shannon.

THE DEAD MAN #4: THE DEAD WOMAN is out today

David McAfee's THE DEAD WOMAN, the fourth book in the DEAD MAN series, is out today as an ebook on the Kindle, the Nook , and on Smashwords, as well  as in a trade paperback edition. 

The widely acclaimed DEAD MAN series is about Matthew Cahill, an ordinary man leading a simple life...until a shocking accident changes everything. Now he can see a nightmarish netherworld of unspeakable evil and horrific violence that nobody else does...

For Cahill, each day is a journey into a dark world he knows nothing about...a quest for the answers to who he is and what he has become...and a fight to save us, and his soul, from the clutches of pure evil.

He thought he was alone with his torment, but in a small town in Tennessee, terrorized by a vicious serial killer, Matt meets a woman sees what he does…and together they must confront a horrific and immortal terror that thrives on death.

David McAfee is the author of the Kindle bestseller 33 A.D., a bloody thrill-ride through biblical Jerusalem that pits Jesus Christ against vampire assassins. So naturally I thought he'd be perfect fit for THE DEAD MAN series.

THE DEAD MAN books have been getting some fantastic reviews...here's just a sampling:

The story races by at a brisk rate of knots, each twist and turn, and shift in time providing another revelation [...] I was enjoying it so much, I didn't want it to end. --Permission to Kill Blog 

THE DEAD MAN FACE of EVIL reminds me of Stephen King and Dean Koontz.[...]a fascinating horror story that leaves you wanting more, more, more!  --Futures Mystery Anthology Magazine 

Hell in Heaven is a direct spiritual descendant of the sorts of awesome pulp action adventure tales that the greats like Robert E. Howard loved to write.  --Post-Modern Pulps

I've not seen a writing tandem like this since the glory days of Richard Sapir and Warren Murphy --Bookgasm

Hell in Heaven is the best so far in an already splendid series and is super rush of a read with plenty of sharp twists and turns and some truly smashing lines. --Paul D. Brazill

This series has kept me rapt from the first page [...]these authors are the Jamaican sprint team doing the 4x100m relay, each stage just gets better and better. --Right What You No

Isn't it time you started reading THE DEAD MAN series?

"The Dead Man #3: Hell in Heaven" Is Out

The third book in the DEAD MAN series, HELL IN HEAVEN, is now available on the Kindle, as a trade paperback, and on the Nook.  Here's the story...

Matthew Cahill was an ordinary man leading a simple life until a shocking accident changed everything. Now he can see a nightmarish netherworld that nobody else does. Now each day is a journey into a dark world he knows nothing about, a quest for the answers to who he is and what he has become...and a fight to save us, and his soul, from the clutches of pure evil.

HELL IN HEAVEN

The sign on the exit reads "Heaven." What better place could there be for a dead man to visit? But when Matt takes the ramp, he finds a banner welcoming him by name to a tiny town seemingly left behind by the 21st century... and waiting for him to rescue it. But when he agrees to save Heaven's citizens from a coming terror, he discovers that evil has more faces than he could ever imagine - and good is far more complicated than he ever dreamed.

BONUS MATERIAL

* the first two chapters of THE DEAD MAN #4: THE DEAD WOMAN by David McAfee

* The first chapter of JUDGMENT, the first book in the JURY SERIES, by Lee Goldberg.

Have you met THE DEAD MAN?

Now's your chance to meet the DEAD MAN...for just 99 cents.

That's right, for a limited time, we're practically giving away THE DEAD MAN: FACE OF EVIL, the first book in the series, so you'll be ready for DEAD MAN #2: RING OF KNIVES...and the books that will be coming every month...from writers like Joel Goldman, Harry Shannon, James Reasoner, Mark Ellis (aka James Axler), Bill Crider, and many more!

So don't wait...the price won't be staying this low for very long.

The Future of the Serial Novel is DEAD

We got a terrific review today from Post-Modern Pulps for James Daniels' DEAD MAN #2: RING OF KNIVES. They say, in part:

Now that the origin story in issue #1, Face of Evil is out of the way, Ring of Knives gives us a glimpse into what this series could really look like, and the prospects are fantastic. This is a creepy, violent, action-packed tale of suspense and supernatural horror. This isn't just weird, it's a glimpse into a dark, bizarre, and twisted world, one that the average person is completely unaware of...until the screaming begins.[...]After having read the first two installments of DEAD MAN, I feel I can say with some confidence that this is the future of serial adventure fiction[...] I see the DEAD MAN series having a long and successful publication run, the pioneer for what is sure to be many more serials to come. 

We certainly hope they're right!  

Daniels on the DEAD

Booklife has posted part two of their terrific, indepth interview with James Daniels, author of DEAD MAN #2: RING OF KNIVES. And if you want to know why we signed him up, and why we're so excited to have him writing on our series, all you have to do is read this excerpt:

What was it about Lee and Bill’s “dark mythology” that got you excited?  What direction did you take in?

 James L. Daniels: I love the fact that the central character in the series is a loner who travels endlessly in search of the answer to a mystery, which will heal both himself and others.  To me, this type of tale hearkens back to the Grail legend, which I incorporated into Ring of Knives.  I think that Matt is the modern-day equivalent of the medieval knight errant, and also of the gunslinger-in-a-white-hat, who is his American descendant. This set-up is an incredibly flexible template for storytelling, and it allows the author to take it in any direction possible.  I’ve seen brief summaries of the stories to come, and they range from gritty urban shoot-em-ups to gothic Lovecraftian lore.  It’s wonderful stuff.  My own brand of pulp is derived pretty directly from Edgar Rice Burroughs; he’s the one (along with “The Uncanny X-Men”) who first snagged my attention as a twelve-year old, and those old-style heroics never cease to move me.  So I’ve taken a lot of inspiration from John-Carter-type stories and fashioned my own tale, which I dressed up in the trappings of Clive Barker, fed raw meat, and unleashed.

What is up with Mr. Dark, anyway?

James L. Daniels: That’s a good question, and every author in the series is going to come up with their own interpretation.  Lee and Bill have been enormously generous letting the writers contribute to the development of the Dark Man’s nature. And it’s interesting, because – like Matt’s character – the Dark Man is an archetype that’s incredibly versatile.  A blogger recently implied that Lee and Bill may have borrowed the evil-clown idea from Todd McFarlane’sSpawn series.  But this is nonsense.  The  unpredictable trickster is one of the oldest characters in fiction.   McFarlane’s Violator was begat by Stephen King’s Pennywise who was begat by Jerry Robinson’s The Joker, who was begat by Edgar Allen Poe’s Hop-Toad, who was begat by Mr. Punch, who was begat by Shakespeare’s Fool, who was begat by Harlequino (and perhaps Sir Thomas Malory’s Merlin), who was begat by Loki, who was begat by Raven (Europe), Coyote (America), and Spider (Africa).  They are all manifestations of the same principle.  What is that principle?  Every writer of the Dead Man will come to his or her own conclusions.

For myself, however, that principle is Entropy, and the madness and despair that arise from our recognition that all our efforts will ultimately end in death.  The major challenge of life is to withstand – and maybe even overcome – that terrible prospect.  In the Welsh Grail legend “Peredur”, the hero is frequently tormented by a black hag who reminds him at every turn that all his acts of valor are causing more harm than good.  That hag, portrayed eight hundred years ago, is the direct ancestor of Mr. Dark.  And you don’t have to be a medieval knight errant to know who she is.  I’ve seen her.  And I bet you have, too.  How we deal with her terrible message is the biggest challenge that we face in life.  And one of the ways we learn to deal with it is by reading about others who confront it head-on.  Matt Cahill is a hero because he does just that.  That’s why it’s a thrill to read about him.  That’s why, when we read about him beating the devil, we set down the book hopeful and happy, believing – for a time – that we can, too.

Check out the rest of the interview for some revealing insights into his creative process.

DEAD MAN #2: RING OF KNIVES out now!

RING OF KNIVES is the second book in the DEAD MAN series, which readers and book critics alike are already hailing as "an epic tale" that compares to the best of Stephen King and Dean Koontz...

Matthew Cahill is an ordinary man leading a simple life until a shocking accident changes everything. Now he can see a nightmarish netherworld that nobody else does. Now for him each day is a journey into a dark world he knows nothing about, a quest for the answers to who he is and what he has become...and a fight to save us, and his soul, from the clutches of pure evil.

RING OF KNIVES

Matt believes a madman may hold the secret to defeating Mr. Dark, the horrific jester with the rotting touch. But to reach him, Matt must infiltrate a lunatic asylum, where he is soon caught up in a spiral of bloodshed and madness. His only chance of escaping with his life and sanity intact is to face the unspeakable terror that awaits him deep in the asylum's fog-shrouded woods...within the Ring of Knives.

BONUS FEATURES include:

* an excerpt from DEAD MAN #3: HELL IN HEAVEN by Lee Goldberg & William Rabkin

* an excerpt from GHOST BRIDE, the new novel by James Daniels.

This is James Daniels' first published novel! 

I first encountered James' writing several years ago through his brother Michael Daniels, who was a screenwriting student of mine at UCLA (and who has gone on to great success as a producer of ONE TREE HILL and VAMPIRE DIARIES). Michael asked me as a favor if I would look at his brother's book and offer him some advice.

I was immediately struck by James' obvious talent and vivid prose. The problems with the book had more to do with focus and structure than with the writing itself. But I was so impressed with the writing, with his fully-realized and compelling characters, sharp dialog, and strong voice, that I recommended him to my literary agent, who worked with James for some time in an effort to get the book published. Although the book didn't see print, which is a damn shame, I remembered it with fondness and always kept my eye out for opportunities for him.

When Bill Rabkin & I came up with THE DEAD MAN as a book series, we knew we wanted the roster of writers to be a mix of seasoned pros and exciting new voices...and James was the first name that came to mind. It's an enormous thrill for us to be the first to bring James into print and to introduce him to a wide audience. I have no doubt he's going to have a long and successful career as a novelist...he is too good not to.  

You can help...by snagging a copy of his first book today.

The Bobble-Head Elvis

Booklife has a great interview with James Daniels, author of DEAD MAN #2: RING OF KNIVES. Here's an excerpt:

What do you think of being on the roster with guys like Bill Crider and James Reasoner?

James L. Daniels:  It’s pretty intimidating.  Virtually all of the other authors writing books for this series are Pulp Fiction Gods… some of them have written hundreds of novels, many of them have published in a dozen separate genres, some have created best sellers… And then there’s unpublished me.  If Lee’s lineup of authors is like a row of statues of Greek deities in a museum, I’m the bobble-head Elvis that someone set down between Zeus and Athena.  No joke.

So The Dead Man project is awesome, because…?

James L. Daniels:  It’s a dynamite project because the set-up they’ve created is brilliantly flexible, so every book can have a different feel, a different emphasis, a different angle; can explore a different aspect of their dark mythology, and still be true to the spirit of the original.  The stories are structured to be fast, fun, and action packed, with a generous helping of chills along the way.  It’s a wonderful project, and I’m really, really grateful to be a part of it.

 

Floored and Flattered

Bruce Grossman at Bookgasm praised THE DEAD MAN today, saying, in part:

THE DEAD MAN: FACE OF EVIL, a short novella from the very prolific authors Lee Goldberg and William Rabkin, is the first step in an intriguing series, for which this lays the groundwork. [...] I've not seen a writing tandem like this since the glory days of Richard Sapir and Warren Murphy. 

We are extremely flattered by the review. The comparison to Sapir & Murphy means a lot to us. We were not only big fans of the "Destroyer" novels, but we had the good fortune of working with Warren Murphy many years ago on the TV series "Murphy's Law," which was loosely based on his "Trace" and "Digger" novels. We have remained friends, and admirers, of Warren's ever since.

 

Amazon Spotlights THE DEAD MAN

Amazon is featuring the story behind The Dead Man original book series today on their Kindle blog:

I grew up loving those "men's action adventure" paperback novels of the 60s, 70s, and 80s...series like The Destroyer, The Ninja Master, Nick Carter: Spymaster and The Death Merchant. You could find them in finer supermarkets, gas stations, 7-11s and bookstores everywhere. They were the male equivalent of Harlequin romances, though the only romance was often between a man and his AK-47.

The books were short and tightly-written, with hard-boiled heroes, outrageously sexy women, and gleefully over-the-top plots. Nobody would ever mistake them for great literature, but they were enormous fun to read...and to write. I know, because I broke into publishing in the mid-1980s writing one of those series--357 Vigilante by "Ian Ludlow"--while I was still in college.  

Sadly, the "men's action adventure" series novels are virtually extinct now, early victims of the narrowing of the paperback marketplace.

But the Kindle offers the perfect medium for the revival of the genre..

Please spread the word. Amazon was kind enough to offer me the opportunity to post on their blog and I want to thank them by bringing as many new readers to their blog as I can!

DEAD Paper

THE DEAD MAN: FACE OF EVIL, which has been out as an ebook for a week, is now available as a trade paperback, too. We couldn't be happier with the enthusiastic response we've  had from readers so far. Some of the new blog reviews include this one from Book'em Benj-O:

 This adventure story has engaging characters, elements of finely tuned horror stories, and some fun thrown in for good measure. I’m looking forward to future installments to see where Cahill’s adventures take him.

And this one from Nathan Shumate:

It’s also pulp, in the best sense of the word: a supernaturally-flavored action-adventure, with this first installment setting up a mysterious conflict which will be pursued throughout the series [...] overall I think both the concept and its execution is a perfect one for the new realities of Kindle-based fiction, delivering a linked series of short novellas which can be consumed like popcorn.

And this one from Journey of a Bookseller:

This is the first in a series of horror stories that will have you sitting up straight in your chair as you read along.[...]You race through the story waiting to see what evil what will pop up next and the words flow well.  I don't read a lot of horror stories, but I sure enjoyed this one.  And I want to see where the story goes from here.  It's just beginning...

And this one from Futures Mystery Anthology Magazine:

THE DEAD MAN FACE of EVIL reminds me of Stephen King and Dean Koontz.[...]Lee Goldberg and William Rabkin have written an exciting, journey into what if….They have merged writing styles to produce a fascinating horror story that leaves you wanting more, more, more!

Those are just a few...and we are very appreciative. We can't wait to get the rest of the books in the series out there, including HELL IN HEAVEN by me & Bill Rabkin, RING OF KNIVES by James L. Daniels, and THE DEAD WOMAN by David McAfee. You can keep up on the latest DEAD MAN news on our blog.