Snow?

I'm sitting in my office now watching the snow fly outside.  Ah, Minnesota.  People sometimes ask me why I selected a place like Duluth to set most of my novels, and I tell them that extremes make for better drama.

Minnesota can be an extreme place.  Then again, I think that it has the same kind of romance for people outside the U.S. that areas like Scotland and Ireland do for Americans.  Not many people may sign up to actually live there -- but they enjoy reading about the cold remoteness of the place.

My wife Marcia is reading the draft of book five.  She'll be the first person other than me to see it from the first to the last page.  Right now, she's savoring it to make it last longer -- which is a good thing because she's enjoying it, but naturally makes ME impatient!  In the interim, I'm brainstorming another project -- more about that later.

You may find me on the road less when IN THE DARK is released next year.  Travel has become extremely expensive for authors and everyone else, and book signings aren't as big a draw for readers as they may have been in the past.  But that doesn't mean I'll be out of touch.  I'm making a big push to do phone-in book clubs around the country, and I'm connecting with readers every day on Facebook and MySpace.  Interestingly, I'm getting a lot of Italian readers finding me on Facebook -- they must be enjoying STALKED as LA DANZA DELLE FALENE in Italy right now.

I had hoped to do "Skypecasts" -- essentially Internet conference calls for up to 100 people -- with readers around the world, but Skype has pulled that technology for the time being.  Hopefully, we'll soon have an easy online way to do live book chats in the U.S. and elsewhere.

Once Upon a Crime

I participated in an author's panel last night at the wonderful Once Upon a Crime mystery bookstore in Minneapolis.  If you're a Twin Cities reader, you really need to check out the amazing selection of crime fiction there -- and Pat and Gary attract all of the top names in the genre for signings.  If you're ever looking for signed copies of any of my books (including mail orders), they're usually a great place to start.

The panel was part of a monthly meeting of the Sisters in Crime group.  I was joined by local award-winning authors David Housewright and Mary Logue.  We had an opportunity to discuss some of the challenges for authors these days, ranging from finding an agent and publisher to techniques for marketing and promotion.  Our conclusion:  It's a tough market and not getting any better, so an author has to be determined and innovative to reach an audience.

Next week, another panel:  I'll be participating in a meeting of the Society of Professional Journalists on the topic of writing and publishing books.  Expect the same conclusion!

On the overseas front, I received an e-mail today from a reader who publishes mystery reviews in Spain.  He was kind enough to highlight STALKED in this month's issue of a widely read Spanish magazine.  Here's what it looks like:

Number Five

Yes, I know most of you are still waiting for the release of the fourth Jonathan Stride novel (IN THE DARK in the U.S. next April 1 and THE WATCHER in the U.K. this December).  But I've been busy on the next book, and I completed the first draft of Stride #5 yesterday.

It will still be weeks before I submit the manuscript to my publishers.  I'm something of a fanatical editor down to the word and sentence level, so I'll be spending a lot of time in October and November going through the whole book multiple times.  I also have a couple advance readers who give me their sage counsel on whether the whole thing works -- and what doesn't!

It's always an important milestone, though, to get the framework completed by wrapping up the first draft.  I'm very excited about the book.  It's quite dark, maybe even gut-wrenching at times, but the pace literally glides the reader from chapter to chapter.  I can't wait for you all to read it.

When can you see it?  Well, the wheels of progress move slowly.  U.K. readers will probably have it in stores before the end of 2009 and U.S. can expect it in the spring of 2010.  (Can we really be talking about 2010??)  No title as of yet, and no clues about what happens, but I'll keep you posted.