The Latest on Jim McGill

It's time to provide some feedback to all the readers who have been kind enough to either buy or download "The President's Henchman," Jim McGill novel #1.

First of all, your numbers are growing, for which my co-publisher Catherine and I are very grateful. Unlike the cliché attached to many writers — that we're neurotic wretches afflicted by creative constipation — I have a grand time when I sit down at my keyboard. I live my stories as I write them. It's a vicarious experience, of course, but it's also intimately personal as it occurs within my mind.

The only thing that comes close to the joy of writing for me — other than spending time in the company of my wife and daughter — is hearing from readers that I've provided them with a good time. Reading a good review on a McGill book always brightens my day.

McGill has actually been around for quite a while now. I wrote the manuscript for "The President's Henchman" in 2003. That was back in the days when I was traditionally published, and well before Amazon came up with Kindle Direct Publishing. The publisher who brought two of my books to market, Bantam Books, rejected TPH. So did many other big name publishers. They didn't see a market for the book.

So I put Jim McGill on the shelf but never put him out of my mind. A number of years went by and a small regional publisher showed interest.

Sorry to say, things didn't work out. I got the rights back, and Jim McGill had to wait patiently once again. His time came when Amazon let authors publish their work independently through Kindle Direct Publishing.

Catherine and I jumped at the opportunity. Using a BookBub promotion, TPH shot up to #6 in the overall Kindle Paid Store. That was early last year, 2016. Then BookBub decided to emphasize traditionally published books and Catherine and I started to advertise on Facebook a couple of months ago. We were following the lead of an English writer named Mark Dawson.

Thank goodness for Mark. Before we advertised on Facebook, we had 550 people on our mailing list. Now, in a matter of weeks, we're closing in on 2,000. We had 1,600 followers on BookBub. Now, we're close to 2,000 there also.

For comparison, Mark has 75,000+ people on his mailing list. So we have a lot of room to grow, and we intend to do just that. We feel, with good reason, we think, that there are many more readers out there who would enjoy McGill's exploits just as much as you have.

So please spread the good word, not just for me but for any author whose work you enjoy. As readers/consumers, you have tremendous power. Amazon and every other smart retailer want as much feedback from you as they can get. So, please, when something — like a good book — really pleases you, write a brief but glowing review.

That's the surest way to get more of what you like.

I'm working on a new John Tall Wolf novel right now. If all goes well, there will be a first post-White House McGill book out next year, as well as some new heroes (and villains) for you to meet.

Thanks again for being a friend of McGill.

Old Friends and New Acquaintances

Jim McGill is back today in “The Daddy’s Girl Decoy,” number nine in the White House cycle of the McGill saga. This is the e-book edition; the print version will be a month or two in coming. “Decoy” is the penultimate book in this cycle. The next title, yet to be named, will close out the second term of Patricia Grant’s presidency and Jim McGill’s position as the president’s henchman.

I’m happy to say I still enjoy exploring McGill’s character. I think he’s grown since the day he was introduced in “The President’s Henchman,” and I feel he has miles to go before he calls it quits. He’s about to embark on a career as an international businessman — without giving up his own sleuthing, of course. Patti is about to become a venture capitalist with a social conscience. The McGill kids are becoming independent adults and, who knows, one or more of them might make McGill a grandfather.

That’s the thing that keeps me interested in McGill, Patti and all the others. They age just like the rest of us. Their situations change and they have to adapt. They outgrow old circumstances and move on to new ones. Old friends depart and new ones appear. I certainly anticipate all these things as the next cycle of McGill stories are written.

One reader review of McGill on Amazon said I make the characters in the story “too perfect.” To that I plead somewhat guilty. McGill has his regrets like the rest of us, but he’s probably more fortunate than we are, too. He gets along with his ex-wife. His kids are fairly well adjusted and self-directed. His second chance at love with Patti Grant is pretty much a winning lottery ticket.

I could have made McGill a darker character, but there are plenty of novels with those guys, and there’s grim news daily in just about any newspaper that comes to hand. From my point of view, McGill and his friends, with new ones to come, help to balance the daily dose of hard reality we get delivered to our front doors (or computers) every morning.

So, one more title in the White House cycle and then on to new contexts with new characters joining the familiar favorites. One thing McGill can always use is new readers. Please continue to introduce him to anyone who enjoys a good read. You know, stories with characters who are just a bit more perfect than you are.

KDP Select, BookBub & New Developments

My first paid writing gig was at an ad agency. I started at $13,000 per year. I was elated. I got my own office, an IBM Selectric typewriter and free beer on Friday afternoons. To earn my keep all I had to do was fire up my imagination, synch it to my vocabulary and crank out copy for print ads, radio commercials and TV spots.

I had a series of wonderful creative partners, art directors, with whom I could have great conversations, bounce ideas off of, share a lot of laughs with and of course get the work done.

Once the work was done, we "creative" people had a whole network of support staff. There were illustrators, photographers, producers, directors, acting talent, voice talent, and all sorts of other people. Even a few account executives — suits — who knew what they were doing. Then there were media people who made sure the finished creative product was seen by the right audience, i.e. people who were interested in buying the goods and services we were pitching.

Flash forward to the present. Now, I'm a novelist with twenty titles for sale online. I'm also half of a Mom and Pop publishing company: Stray Dog Press, Inc. I have my own (home) office, an iMac and I can drink beer any time I want, but I have to pay for it. Mom, aka my wife, Catherine, is a wonderful creative partner. We bounce ideas off each other, laugh and have great conversations. Catherine also has an amazing number of talents and skills we put to use in our business.

But both of us know roughly zilch when it comes to doing what every successful business has to do: find its target market. Oh, we know who they are: people who like to read mysteries, thrillers and comic novels. But where do they live? What's the best way to reach them? How do we do that with far less money to spend than it costs for one second of a Super Bowl TV spot?

Here's where I do my testimonial: We heard of a potent combination from the apostle of indie publishing, Joe Konrath. He said to the multitudes: Go forth and sign up for Kindle Select. Use the five-day free promotion the Select are offered. Multiply your loaves and fishes — i.e. opportunities — with an ad on BookBub. com.

So that's what we did. We took our novel, Nailed, off all the other distributors, PubIt, iTunes, et. al., and enrolled it in Amazon Select. We scheduled a free promotion from Amazon for the period 3/28 - 4/1/13 and backed it up with a BookBub ad at a cost of $230.

Remember what I said about finding our target audience? BookBub did that for us. It sent our email ad to 360,000 mystery and thriller fans. Of that number, we downloaded 57,189 copies. Better than a 15% response. If you ask people who know about this kind of thing, they'll tell you that's a fantastic number. Here's another one. Nailed went to No.1 on the Amazon Top 100 for mysteries and thrillers. In the first five days of April, Nailed has made more money for us than all twenty of our titles did in the entire month of March.

So, it probably won't come as a big surprise that were thinking of enrolling all our books in KDP Select and planning BookBub promotions for more than a few of them. This means we'll have to take our books down from the other distributors. Fans who don't have Kindles won't be left out in the cold because there are free Kindle apps available for every device short of a cuckoo clock, and that will likely be available soon.

Now, Nailed had thirty-four reader reviews with a 4.5-star average before we enrolled it in KDP Select.   So we had reason to believe it was a good book. Not every book will do as well as Nailed. But if you're an indie writer with a book you really believe in, and can spare the money for a BookBub ad — the mystery and thriller category is the most expensive because it reaches the most readers — you might do well to look into the KDP Select/BookBub combination.

If you're a reader/fan without a Kindle, please consider getting one or at least a free app. I think a lot of your favorite writers will be taking the same path we've taken. The other distributors just aren't trying as hard as Amazon to make indie writing and publishing a paying proposition.

Of necessity, writers have to do what Willie Sutton said bank robbers do: Go where the money is.

Last but not least, Jim McGill #5 will be out within a month — God and Catherine willing.