Getting Medieval

LA Times Festival of Books 2008

This weekend, I hope to report to you about the Festival of books. I will be at the Mystery Writers of America booth on Saturday morning from 10-11. Stop by and pick up a free bookmark! I'm not on any panels this year (no book yet) but next year! Meanwhile, I'll be wandering around, whoring my bookmarks to the poor sods in line for the mystery panels, so if you see me, have pity. It's a two hour sojourn to UCLA so I may not actually report until the following Monday. We'll see how the old girl is holding up. Books, books, books!

(By the way, that's a picture of President Bush signing off on getting rid of funding for Reading is Fundamental. See all those books flying away from all those needy kids?--No, actually, it is the Festival of Books illustration. Just a little reminder about what our pres is up to these days. He's the Decider, after all. Not the Reader.)

National Library Week!

It's National Library Week! Time to run to your nearest library and finally pay those overdue book fines. Then thank your librarians for being who they are and putting up with budget cuts and hour cuts and staff cuts and all the other cuts they have to endure. And while you're there, thank your local Friends of the Library, too, because they work hard raising money to buy books for the library. These are the true book geeks that make it possible to get those bestsellers and not-so-bestsellers onto the shelves free for you and me. Where the heck would I be without my libraries? So thank you Nancy Smith at the Sun City Library. Thank you Melissa Conway of the special collections at the UCR Tomas Rivera library. Thank you Jim Dunlevey from Friends of the Library. Don't forget to read my archived interview with librarians here.      

Pre-Order

Hey, did you notice? On the left--no, your other left! See that from Amazon.com? Yup, you can now pre-order Veil of Lies. No cover art yet. And next month I get the galleys. You'll know more when I do.

Publication and On-sale Dates!

This just in! November is the official publication, but the on-sale date is 28 October, 2008. Boy, have I got a lot to do now!

Origins of Westminster Palace

You are gonna love this! Here is a splendid online film of the development of Westminster Palace. I was enthralled. This is what the internet is for, people. Information like this shared for free with everyone else. The link is here.

Next Stop, Left Coast Crime

 

Next week I will be coming to you Live!From Left Coast Crime in Denver. What's that you say? Did California finally fall into the sea? You didn't know Denver had a coast? Let's not be picky, shall we? They offered to host it so that's where we're going.

I will be on a panel on Friday at 2:30, for those of you going. "The Good Old Days: Writing About the Past" with Lauren Haney, Brian Thornton, Sharon Rowse, Stephanie Barron, and me!

Check out this blog and I will give you the skinny on the mysterious doings to be had in the mile high city. See you there!

Exploring Relics

We go a little more indepth about relics on my other blog Exploring Relics on ParishWorld.net. It's a chance for me to, well, explore relics and maybe squirrel away some information that I might be able to use in later novels.

Check it out.   

Most Popular Posts

If you look to the left in the column below my picture, you will note a category called "Most Popular Posts" with links (that work now) to those posts. If you missed them, pick 'em up here. They seem to get the most hits for some reason or another. The winner by far: the interview with Sharan Newman and Margaret Fraser. Let us hope that someday an interview with yours truly will garner as much interest. Hey, any takers? 

Social Networking

Ah, social networking. Many of you who read this blog--fellow writers--know that social networking is a must these days. For those of you who don't understand the term, it is the long, tortuous process of advertising yourself and your book on as many venues as you can find. One of them is this very blog, my web site, Crispin's blog, crimespace (a social network of mystery authors and readers who like mysteries), even another blog I write about relics, and now myspace. Yes, Crispin has a myspace page. Why do we flog ourselves like this, go to conferences and vie for space on panels, lock up signing space in bookstores? It's simply the "Way It Is" these days in the world of publishing. No longer can an author simply write their masterpiece, send it off to the editor and let the publisher take care of it. Nope. The author must take his own publicity in hand and get out there. After all, these days one must compete with cable television, the internet, and monster truck rallies.

So go ahead and friend Crispin over there. He's sort of lonely at the moment.

Blog Name Change

Did you notice I changed the sub title of this blog? Look up to the top of the page right under "Getting Medieval". Yup. No longer does it say "The Trials and Tribulations of Getting My Medieval Mysteries Published." The change of name was to go along with the change in attitude. Hey, not that I still won't experience "trials and tribulations." but now that the book will actually be "out there" in about seven months (and I'll have more news about the series soon), it's time to think positive and look ahead.

Also, I've noticed on the web site, that I've been getting a few more visitors from all over. Israel, the Netherlands, England, Canada, Germany, Greece, France ...It's been very heartening. Thanks to you all for stopping by. Though the book will only be available in North America initially, I have hopes that eventually it will be available in other countries as well, particularly Great Britain (where my heart is).

In the meantime, I am gearing up to go to Left Coast Crime, another mystery conference to be held this year in Denver, Colorado. I will be on another panel called "The Good Old Days: Writing About the Past" with moderator Lauren Haney (who writes about ancient Egypt), Francine Mathews aka Stephanie Barron (who writes the Jane Austen series), Sharon Rowse (whom I met at Bouchercon Alaska but I bet she won't remember that, and who writes a Klondike era mystery), and Brian Thornton whom I interviewed on this very blog.    

We will come to you Live! from LCC once again telling you about my trials and--no, wait. Telling you about my triumphs and...um...good stuff.