Lessons from the trenches

I've gotten some requests of late to collect my last years Lessons from the Trenches into a single blog post, and I hope people can find these useful and benefit from the things I stumbled upon that helped me and avoid some of the mistakes I made along the way.

Lessons learned from the trenches: Part 1
Lessons learned from the trenches: Part 2
Lessons learned from the trenches: Part 3
Lessons learned from the trenches: Part 4
Lessons learned from the trenches: Part 5
Lessons learned from the trenches: Part 6
Lessons learned from the trenches: Part 7
Lessons learned from the trenches: Part 8
Lessons learned from the trenches: Part 9
Lessons learned from the trenches: Part 10
Lessons learned from the trenches: Part 11
Lessons learned from the trenches: Part 12
Lessons learned from the trenches: Part 13
Lessons learned from the trenches: Part 14

Small Crimes in Harvard Square

(thanks to Clark Smeltzer for creating the display and sending me the photo)

The Harvard Coop Bookstore has put together a pretty eclectic collection of noir books in this 'Beaten to a Pulp' collection, and I'm thrilled to have Small Crimes included. So if you're in Harvard Square check it out and buy some noir!

"Pariah's a terrific blast"

From the Metrolife book section for the UK Metro:

Pariah's a terrific blast
by Dave Zeltserman (Serpent’s Tail, £7.99)
by TINA JACKSON - Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Pariah

To describe mobster Kyle Nevin as a nasty piece of work is something of an understatement.

At the beginning of Dave Zeltserman 's white-knuckle ride of a second novel, Nevin is just out of jail after serving eight years for armed robbery and keeping his mouth shut.

Now he wants revenge, and as he heads back to his old haunts and his old cronies from Boston's Irish underworld, Zeltserman seems to be pulling off a cracking piece of straightforward, hard-boiled noir.

After Nevin and his brother bodge a kidnapping, though, the novel takes off on a killer tangent as an increasingly psychopathic Nevin becomes the darling of the publishing world, and different kinds of venality are put wittily under the microscope as the book rattles along to its terrific conclusion.

Small Crimes Review Scorecard

Given that Small Crimes is a trade paperback and my first with a more well-known publisher, I'm amazed (thrilled, really) with how well reviewed the book has been by world newspapers. Here's a list, with review links where I have them:

US newspapers
Washington Post
Boston Globe
Sun-Sentinel
Lansing State Journal

London newspapers
London Times
The Guardian
Sunday Express

South African newspapers
The Citizen
Business Day

Small Crimes in South Africa

Small Crimes has just been reviewed by yet another South African newspaper. Earlier, The Citizen gave Small Crimes a very nice review, and not to be outdone, Business Day in their Weekender section gives Small Crimes a terrific review, saying:

Zeltserman has mixed together an explosive Molotov cocktail of a book. This is a dark shocker, a downward spiral of violence, betrayal, manipulation and tragic misunderstanding.

This is all very cool for several reasons--not only am I being reviewed in other continents, but I'm sharing review space with a couple of Richard Stark books (Firebreak, Breakout), which is very cool by itself. You can read the complete review here.

Film Option Sold

Film option rights for my novel, 28 Minutes, have been sold to Constantin Film Development and Impact Pictures, with John Tomko (Ocean's 11, Falling Down) and Jeremy Bolt (Resident Evil, Death Race) to produce, and Travis Milloy (Pandorum) to write the screenplay.

28 Minutes is about a group of unemployed software engineers coming up with an almost brilliant plan to rob a bank. Almost brilliant because things do not go as expected. UK rights are being sold to Serpent's Tail, and US rights are still being worked out by my agent, Matt Bialer at Sanford J. Greenburger Associates.

Upcoming Small Crimes events

I have readings/signings for Small Crimes scheduled at some terrific local independent bookstores:

Feb. 24th, 7:30 pm, Back Pages Books, 289 Moody Street, Waltham MA

March 24th, 7 pm, Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard Street, Brookline MA

April 6th, 7 pm, Harvard Coop, 1400 Mass Ave., Cambridge MA

Commenting on the commenting...

Over at Jason Pinter's blog he has some people expressing their ideas on how to fix publishing. There's some interesting stuff being written, mostly about things publishers need to do surrounding marketing, promotion, business models, eBooks, etc. There very well might be some good ideas to be be pulled out of these suggestions but I still have to think the biggest problem is the big houses move towards "safe" books. Books like the Harry Potter series, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo prove that there are readers who will flock to exciting, compelling books if they're published. The problem is the large houses need to be willing to step outside the lines more often, trust their readers more, and quit feeling the need to only publish the "commercially relentless" cookie-cutter genre books that they're mass producing in droves. Anyway, I'm going to comment on some of the comments on Jason's blog, but first I want to make one obvious observation: indie bookstores are crucial for the health of publishers and the future of books, and right now they're struggling. A few years ago NY City had 4 mystery bookstores, which for a city of over 8 million people doesn't seem like that much. Now they have 2. When Small Crimes came out I had an event at Robin's Bookstore in Philly (the oldest bookstore in that city), and the owner, Larry Robin, impressed me as being someone passionate about books. A few weeks after the event, he announced he was shutting down, saying it's impossible in today's climate for a retail bookstore to survive. This same scenario is playing out everywhere. If you truly care about books and their survival, buy your books at your local indie bookstore--even if it costs you an extra buck or two. When the people who are the most passionate about books are out of the picture, then we're really in trouble.

Now for commenting on the commenting:

Author John McFetridge suggests that all formats of a book be released at the same time: eBook, hardcover, paperback, etc. As an author I hear John, especially with the price of hardcovers they're mostly only for collectors and libraries these days. But publishers have a good reason for releasing paperbacks a year or so after hardcovers, and that's so that the reviews, word-of-mouth, etc., generate interest for the paperback, so I think this would end up sabotaging paperback sales. Putting out eBooks and hardcovers together does seem to make sense.

Sarah Weinman is asking the industry to take a bottom up approach, make the reader more involved in the process. I think that's already happening. 100s of thousands of books are being either self-published or given away free on peoples web-sites/blogs, and the few that garner attention have been getting bought by NY. Again, the real issue is if NY could move past "safe" and commercial books and trust their instincts and readers, more of these books would be published by them initially, instead of going the route they've been going.

Scott Siglar talks about using podcasting to generate large audiences for books that were ignored by NY, and later was able to get contracts for. His point is that publishers need to watch the free content out there and see what books are proving themselves. I think NY is currently doing that, as Scott and Seth Harwood have proved. The problem is the "free content" will soon become a mess as 10s of thousand try to duplicate the success of Scott and Seth in podcasting, and David Wellington in blog serializing. The real issue again is NY taking more risks and not rejecting these books in the first place.

David Montgomery suggests the industry promote reading as a leisure activity, I guess sort of like a "Got Milk" campaign. While authors like Ian Flemming and Walter Mosley were helped a lot when John Kennedy and Bill Clinton were seen with their books, that was more readers finding out about those authors as opposed to new readers being created. Ads featuring celebrities reading books or "the cool kids" reading aren't going to get kids away from their video games. But again, as the Harry Potter books show, if publishers put out compelling books, readers will flock to them.

Charlie Stella on Pariah

I sent Charlie a copy of Pariah knowing he'd get a kick out of the South Boston mob angle of the book, and yep, Charlie liked it enough to write the following review:

Evil incarnate …

Evil comes in all forms. The Hitler prototype is perhaps the one we’re all best familiar with, but there have been others we can confidently label evil (even if their kill totals are on a much lesser scale). Certain serial killers fit the description and/or sociopaths in the business world guilty of bankrupting the elderly without an iota of remorse might qualify. There have been bad guys out on the streets, whether acting solo or in groups (organized or not) who’ve more than qualified (and some who’ve managed to bilk the system one further and cut deals to walk free again—trading off 20 or more murders for a little inside info the helpless feds might need).

It happened in Boston when Whitey Bulger in a deal to aid the FBI gave up the New England Italian mob. Later, with a little help from his friends (the FBI), Whitey went on the lam and hasn’t been heard from since (and remains on the FBI’s top 10 most wanted list). His FBI handlers didn’t fare so well and are doing time, but that’s a whole other enchilada.

Dave Zeltserman’s latest entry to the world of noir (Pariah) features the victim of a Whitey Bulger-like character whose just been released from serving out his term (a conviction that was a set up from start to finish). Kyle Nevin is an anti-hero and a half and a weapon of mass destruction in his own right. His story is a train wreck that is very difficult to take one’s eyes from (as I found myself reading forward at every opportunity … on the train, the ferry, the next train … the bathroom, etc.). A page turner from the moment Kyle is met by his brother Danny outside the prison he’s just been released from, Pariah moves fast and furious through a series of events motivated by vengeance and a lust for the old life (and all the power) Nevin’s been missing.

Upon seeing how much his younger brother has yielded to the legit life (i.e., driving the Honda {and brother don’t I know that feeling}, living in a hell hole apartment, living under the bland girlfriend’s rules, etc.), Kyle needs to bring Danny back and fast for he has a game plan that will not only set them both up for life, it’ll facilitate his vendetta for the man that put him behind bars for eight years.

There’s something else going on you won’t get from this review but it has to do with a “fictional” book deal based on Kyle’s game plan gone horribly awry. Author Dave Zeltserman also offers us some of good old fashioned male chauvinist sexual perspectives (what, say, the Queen of Noir, Vicki Hendricks, does for women) and it’s a nice change to read something from a writer unafraid of offending the politically correct.

But back to that hint of the publishing angle to this missile of a read. Wannabe tough guys love to talk about themselves (it’s a fact of street life); the more grandiose the tales, the less likely there’s any validity to them, but talk they will. Civilians call them “tall tales” or “fish stories” … street guys call them “war stories” … but turning such stories (no matter where the genesis) into publishing gold is something special. Think it doesn’t happen? A guy named Michael Pellegrino once passed himself off as a member of the Gambino crime family and got a $500,000 advance for a tell-all book (until he was exposed as a fraud and sued by Simon and Schuster). Somebody forgot to perform the due diligence, eh?

There are notes to an editor interspersed throughout Zeltserman’s Pariah and they will keep you alert as to what is likely going down … except then there’s a sharp turn that sweeps the rug from under some feet (including the readers) and all (in the form of justice—no matter how it comes about) is suddenly not lost.

For those who prefer the darker slice of life, Pariah will keep you glued to its pages. The chain reaction of Kyle Nevin’s release from prison on the world around him is the stuff of nuclear explosions. Violent, sexual and relentless, there are no holds barred anywhere in this wonderful launch into evil. The meek beware … be-very-ware.

Seymour Shubin/Pariah

Seymour Shubin hasn't been as prolific as say Jim Thompson, and that's probably why he hasn't gotten the attention he deserves, but his crime noir novels, such as Anyone's My Name (published the same year as The Killer Inside Me) and The Captain, deserve every bit the attention of Thompson's best. I've read most of the Hardcase Crime books, and by far my two favorite among the new issues are Russell Hill's "Robbie's Wife" and Seymour's "Witness to Myself". Maybe those two are more literary than the typical Hardcase Crime novel, but man they're great books.

Over the last several years after discovering Anyone's My Name (which I believe led Charles Ardai to discover this book, which further led to Witness to Myself being published by Hardcase), Seymour and I have exchanged numerous emails on writing, crime novels and the publishing industry, and this has grown into a friendship that I value greatly, and I was recently honored to write the introduction to Seymour's upcoming crime novel, The Hunch. What I've learned over these years is not only is he a writer of great talent, but also of great integrity, so I can't possibly describe how proud I am when he summed up his thoughts on Pariah with these four words:

"This is a masterpiece"