Noir fiction for the modern reader.

Now that I have several books out, they’re starting to get some reviews. So far, most of them have been pretty good, if I do say so myself. And to those reviewers on the various websites that looked at my books, as well as to those readers who wrote their own reviews and put them up on Amazon, I offer my heartfelt thanks. I truly appreciate the kind words, but more than that, I appreciate that you took the time from your own schedules to write those reviews, no matter how brief.

It’s to the readers that I now speak. You bought my book(s), whether in ebook or paperback form, with your hard-earned money, and I hope you felt it was well-spent. Some of you are in the group I mentioned above, that is, you put your thoughts and impressions of the book into a review and put it up on Amazon or Barnes & Noble or LibraryThing or whatever.

Some of you, however, have elected not to write a review. I know your time is valuable and perhaps you just don’t care to do it. I get it. But I want to ask you to reconsider for the following reasons.

I don’t seek reviews for ego purposes. Yes, it’s uplifting when someone I don’t know writes something nice about my novel. That, however, is not the purpose of a review. The more reviews any of my books get, especially if they’re good reviews, it will show potential readers that other folks just like them have tried my books and (I would hope) liked them. The greater the number of reviews a book can display on its Amazon page, the greater the chance that someone will buy that book. It’s really that simple. That’s one of the best ways to create buzz.

So I would humbly ask, if you liked any of my books, please go to Amazon and write a brief review of it. It can be as long or as short as you want, and it doesn’t matter that you’re not really a book reviewer. Neither are 99% of the people who write Amazon reviews.

Here are the pages you can go to. Find the page for the book you read and go there. On Amazon, you just scroll down and you’ll see “Create Your Own Review” on the right side. On Barnes & Noble, scroll down and you’ll see “Write a Review”. If you can spare a couple of minutes to do this, it would mean a lot to me. I thank you in advance.

Setup On Front Street / Amazon, Barnes & Noble

Bloodstains On The Wall / Amazon, Barnes & Noble

The Take / Amazon, Barnes & Noble

There’s an excellent website called whatbookisthat.com, which is primarily a review site. They review many different genres, and I was very pleased when they agreed to have a look at my noir novel, The Take. They gave it an A- and I’m delighted. You can check it out here and when you do, please leave a comment. It will really, really help out.

On Saturday, April 23, I’ll be doing a signing and a reading at the Key West Author’s Book Fair. It’s being held from 10 AM-6PM in the garden of Key West’s Oldest House, 322 Duval St. I’m going to have copies of both The Take and Bloodstains On The Wall, and I hope to be reading a brief excerpt from each one.

See you there!

The good folks over at DailyCheapReads.com have posted a little feature on my noir novel, The Take. This is pretty amazing, since they usually feature only very inexpensive books. The Take weighs in at $4.79 for the digital version and $12.95 for the paperback (both prices set by my publisher). They’ve got a great site going over there at DailyCheapReads. Check it out here.

Over at Kipp Poe’s blog today, she ran a very nice interview with yours truly which also included the cover image of The Take. The interview contained some of the usual questions, but I found myself giving them unusual replies. I don’t know, maybe I just felt like being candid or something.

Anyway, if you’d like to read it, go here and leave a brief comment at the end, okay? Thanks.

For all those of you who attended last year’s Bouchercon, or if you plan on going this year, you should’ve received your Anthony ballots by now. There’s a little category on there for “Best First Novel,” encompassing those first novels published in 2010. There’s space for you to write in five novels.

Now, I know most of us haven’t read five first novels that were published last year, so if you find yourself with an empty slot or two in that category, how about jotting down my little noir opus called The Take? I know this seems a little brazen, but hey, who’s gonna blow my horn if I don’t do it first?

Besides, you only get one chance at a best first novel.

Vicki Hendricks gave it a blurb (which you can read here), so I figure I must’ve done something right. Right?

Here’s a novel idea.

And here’s another one.

Booklist, the prestigious review magazine, has reviewed The Take in their latest online edition. In case you don’t understand why I’m doing cartwheels in my living room before popping champagne, it’s because Booklist receives submissions of over 60,000 novels each year, but reviews fewer than 1500. Most of the books they review are in the broad mystery genre, which of course encompasses the noir subgenre of The Take, but nevertheless, I’m ecstatic.

Now, apparently the reviewer does not quite get the world of noir and its population of characters with less than stellar IQs. And he certainly didn’t think he was reading The Maltese Falcon, but hey, I’m not complaining. He liked my novel and that’s good enough for me.

The review is also going to appear in their newsletter, which goes out to some 90,000 librarians. And if they don’t start ordering the book for their libraries, I’m calling Charlie Stella to get Jimmy Bench-Press after them.

You can read the full review here.

My noir novel, The Take, already out in print and various ebook formats, is now on Fictionwise. This will enable people who have e-readers other than Kindle to acquire the book. Fictionwise makes it available in formats such as Sony e-reader, Palm Doc, Kindle-compatible, PDF, and nine more. You can check it out in greater detail here. It’s not on the iPad yet, but we’re working on it.

Of course, it’s also available in print on Amazon, Barnes & Noble online, and electronically on Kindle and All Romance ebooks.