Hard Case Book IV: A Violent Life

Tomorrow morning is release day for my latest novel: Hard Case Book IV: A Violent Life. As a writer, coupled with the nuts and bolts of also being a mechanic, I see an endless stream of positives and negatives with each new offering. I’m jaded in that I have a day-job away from writing I was born for in a way. I love fixing cars and trucks. It’s paid off in my owning the shop and land I have in Oakland, CA.

My buddy from the service refers to me as Castle. While I never miss an episode, I’m not Castle. I’m a storyteller. While I respect the works of others, I have no need to seek the approval of the top tier writers. Writing, first and foremost, satisfies a craving deep inside of me. I can create worlds where all the wrongs I see in real life get handled the way I want them to. Writing is like being an Auto Tech. I fix things. In my imaginary worlds away from reality, my fixes and characters deviate from the politically correct norm in drastic ways.

Hard Case Book IV: A Violent Life is a fix in exactly that set of parameters. It is a no holds barred, action and adventure novel, with human horror and humor mixed in. While I have no easy fixes for real life, I can adapt the entire earth to meet my needs in the fictional world. The process is addictive, which makes writing so exciting. :)

Hard Case Book IV: A Violent Life

Hard Case Book IV: A Violent Life

I finished Hard Case Book IV: A Violent Life at just over 112,000 words. I'm into the third line edit now. It will be released on time, March 1st, 2014. It is a wild and definitely violent chapter in the series, certainly not for the squeamish with Lynn Montoya, information gatherer supreme on the job. I'm starting the sequel to Cold Blooded while I'm editing HC4. This is a 'what have you done for me lately' type business. I take nothing for granted. As long as the voices in my head don't go away, I will ride the wave.  :)  Hard Case Book IV: A Violent Life is available for pre-order now.

Hard Case Book IV: A Violent Life

Audio Book News and BTS e-mag for February

I have some great news now for the audio book fans. Both HARD CASE and now COLD BLOODED are on audio with HARD CASE BOOK II: THE LURE OF HELL coming February 15th. Also on the writing front, I’ll be nearing the final scene today in HARD CASE BOOK IV: A VIOLENTLIFE. I will be at a 105,000 words by the end of the day. It is in my partner RJ Parker’s opinion the best yet, and I’m hoping the readers feel the same way. Release day is March 1^st, and it is available for pre-order now. Also, Amazon has featured my novel THE PROTECTORS this weekend for only 99 cents.

Book Trailers Showcase Book Reviews e-mag is out, and has my short story The Reunion featured along with my ads. Because of their success and increasing readership, they are going to a bi-monthly format to provide even more articles and reviews. If you haven’t already read The Reunion, it’s a humorous look at two former schoolmates hooking up after their stint in the service.

February Issue of BTSBook Reviews

HARD CASE on Audio! HARD CASE IV for pre-release!

We writers today must also be marketers. We could pretend our work is an art form above the call and duty of marketing. Yeah... let me know how that works out for you. :)  Authors write. Authors market. Unless your name is Stephen King or Nora Roberts, that's just the way it is. I wish it were different. Thanks to RJ Parker Publishing obtaining full publishing credentials with Amazon, my fourth book in the HARD CASE series is now up for pre-release sales, titled Hard Case Book IV: A Violent Life.

HARD CASE IV: A VIOLENT LIFE

Also, the first book in the series is now available on audio. RJ Parker and I have come a long way together, and he is indeed a marketeer and publisher as well as being a best selling author of true crime novels. His latest offering, Serial Killers True Crime Anthology 2014 is a truly horrific look at the genre's subject. Here is the link to HARD CASE in audio form, over ten hours of nonstop action, adventure, violence, and humor.

HARD CASE on Audio

We have award winning narrator Kevin Pierce doing the entire Hard Case series, and he is very entertaining as the voice of my Hard Case offerings.

New Year News

I have a couple of real fine writing and marketing items to share. First is the January edition of BTS Book Reviews Magazine, my favorite monthly journal of new books in multiple genres, with writing and publishing news and tips. My ads, as always are in there. They do a sensational job on them.

BTS eMag - January Issue

Next up, Amazon decided to promote my HARD CASE series with a 99 cent sale of the first book in the series. They did a very nice job of their usurpation of our publishing product. Here’s the link, and a wonderful presentation by my publishing partner, Author RJ Parker on his blog. 

Book Gorilla Deals

RJ Parker Blog

RJ Parker has commissioned the HARD CASE and RICK CANTELLI series to audio books to be released this spring. The voice artists are very entertaining. More on that soon.

Last but not least, I’ll be hitting the 60k word plateau by Sunday in my fourth HARD CASE installment. It’s bloody, violent, and as usual, contains a touch of humor. Lynn Montoya, also known by John Harding’s crew as Cruella Deville, decides to add a horrific interrogation tool to her already frightening bag of information extraction methods – straight from ancient and medieval times. She’s on the case, and adding planning to her many duties. John allows her a lot of leeway as they battle to stop a deadly plague.

Hard Case Book IV: A Violent Life preview

Here's the blurb and cover for Hard Case Book IV: A Violent Life. I hope to have it ready for release in early spring.

The approaching holidays find John Harding’s West Coast Murderers’ Row crew in the usual Las Vegas double duty mission. John takes on a rising star in the UFC world nicknamed Rattler, because of snake fast striking ability. On the flip side, Denny Strobert turns the crew loose on a lady drug queen, Victoria Lydia Voltaire. She plans to use her drug network to aid and supply a Muslim Brotherhood offshoot setting up terrorist cells across the country.

Thanks to Lynn Montoya, nicknamed Cruella Deville, the crew gets a bonus when she initiates a plan to lure the Muslim Brotherhood gang readying to be dispersed across the nation into a public trap. A successful sting leads out in spiraling directions with terrorist plots involving Alexi Fiialkov’s container shipping line. Soon, the crew launches a rescue mission for Fiialkov’s granddaughter, and entraps the architect of a weaponized anthrax threat. The kid gloves are off, and the bodies begin piling up.

Add in a taste of what happens when Murderers’ Row decides to end an infamous start of the ‘Knockout Game’ in Oakland, and another excursion to help their ‘Hollywood Bounty Hunters’ reality show favorites take down a deadly assassin returning to our shores – all happening around the holidays, and a dreaded return visit by the in-laws to the Harding household. It’s business and humor as usual, but with a final cage rematch like no other.

Cold Blooded

I have the digital rights back for my novel COLD BLOODED, first published by Wild Child Publishing. I am very happy to have it back in my control. My partner, RJ Parker and I already have it up on Amazon under the RJ Parker Publishing banner. I will write a sequel for it sometime next year. My partner has already managed to drop the novel down into terrific rankings for the first time ever. When I signed the contract for COLD BLOODED with Wild Child Publishing, I had this newbie's perspective they actually did something to earn the 60 percent cut they took. That nonsense was quickly resolved when I received a list of things I was supposed to do to market the novel. While I didn't mind doing my part, I found out quickly WCP did absolutely nothing. I look forward to writing the sequel, and possibly another series to add on to my others: HARD CASE and RICK CANTELLI, P.I. 

I learned a lot about the publishing world from WCP, and I'm grateful for it. The experience convinced me I would never ever seek representation from an agent or a mainstream publisher. What RJ Parker and I have done over the past year has been the most exciting time of my writing career. RJ is without doubt the most gifted marketer I have ever encountered. He also writes chilling True Crime, and is the winner of the World Book Awards 2012 for True Crime. He has just published a Serial Killer Anthology with big name authors. I think we're going to have a very interesting year ahead on the Amazon marketplace. COLD BLOODED first brought RJ and I together. He reviewed COLD BLOODED for me, and loved it. It is still his favorite book of mine. Now, we own it, a great exclamation point on an exciting venture.  :)

Drawing

I wrote a guest blog for my partner/publisher/agent Author RJ Parker. We’re celebrating RJ Parker Publishing receiving full publishing credentials from Amazon with both e-book and paperback pre-order releases, along with a myriad of tools for tracking. There will be a drawing amongst the visitors making a comment on either RJ’s publishing site or his blog. I wrote about the changes we’ve seen in such a short time period, and the problems still in evidence on the Amazon marketplace I’ve mentioned here a few times. Stop in over there and take a look. Make a quick comment and get in the drawing automatically. You can even ask questions about anything to do with writing, or books or publishing on Amazon. RJ and I will be checking the comments right up until the January 15^th drawing. It's a fun deal, and the first prize is rather unique.  :)

RJ Parker Publishing

Author RJ Parker Blog