Episode 20- Books You Want to Be Buried With

Click Here to Download This Episode

In this episode, we talk about which books are so important that you can’t even die without them, let alone live without them.

Many people gave us their answer and we have a chat about several of the selections, so have a listen and see who says what. Some pretty interesting answers crop up. Plus, we have one special guest who rings in on the subject- Justin Macumber, one of the hosts of the Dead Robots Society Podcast!

We won’t list the guests or books here, so not much in the way of show notes for this one, but we do end up discussing a broad range of awesome books, some in detail. Enjoy!

Episode 19 – Reading & Writing

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THIS EPISODE!

 We talk about ThrillerCast being nominated for a Parsec Award for Best New Podcasting Team, and Alan’s short story “Declan’s Plan”, published by Wily Writers, is up for a Parsec for Best Short Story.

http://www.parsecawards.com/

"Declan’s Plan" by Alan, short story podcast (read by Philip Pickard) - http://www.wilywriters.com/blog/?p=2154

Which leads us to talk about podcasting short fiction and what are other good fiction podcasts.

Alan's favourites:

Escape Pod sci-fi fiction podcasts – http://escapepod.org/

Podcastle fantasy fiction podcasts – http://podcastle.org/

Pseudopod horror fiction podcasts - http://pseudopod.org/

Wil y Writers spec fic podcasts - http://www.wilywriters.com

Alan then talks about writing for the Machine Of Death anthology and the concept behind the book.

http://machineofdeath.net/

David talks about his new book, Quest, and his novella, The Zombie-Driven Life, which is available now on Kindle, Nook, and Smashwords:

http://davidwoodonline.blogspot.com/2011/06/apocalypse-arrives-few-weeks-late.html

Then Alan reviews The Intruders by Michael Marshall:

http://www.amazon.com/Intruders-Michael-Marshall/dp/0061235032/ref=tmm_mmp_title_0

Then David reviews C J West’s The End Of Marking Time:

http://www.amazon.com/End-Marking-Time-CJ-West/dp/097677884X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1308536084&sr=1-1

We go on to talk about the necessity of small press in publishing books that are hard to categorise or cross genres in unusual ways.

This leads us to talk about what we read when we write. Can we read fiction when we write fiction? What type of fiction do we read when we write?

Alan mentions Dead Red Heart, that features his story, "Punishment Of The Sun" - http://www.amazon.com/Dead-Red-Heart-Russell-Farr/dp/0980781310/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1308536377&sr=1-2

We talk about the importance of reading when it comes to being a writer, and the influence of the things we read on the things we write.

Dave mentions the new James Bond novel by Jeffery Deaver, Carte Blanche - http://www.amazon.com/Carte-Blanche-James-novel-ebook/dp/B004ZKVERE/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1308537016&sr=8-2

.

Special Episodes

David was a guest this weekend at ConCarolinas in Charlotte, NC. We'll be sharing some of the panel discussions in which he took part.


The Art of War (Writing Battle/Combat Scenes) Panelists: A.J. Hartley, Stuart Jaffe, Chris Berman, Rachel Aaron, David Wood,Toni Weisskopf.


Avoiding the Plotholes Panelists: David Wood, Jana Oliver, Emilie P. Bush, Glenda Finklestein, Rachel Aaron, Edmund Schubert.

Episode 18 – Getting Noticed as a Writer

Click here to download this episode!

In this episode we talk about the nature of getting noticed as a writer and what are the best methods of developing a career and income as a writer.

Alan and Dave talk about short fiction sales.

Then we go on to discuss the process of short story writing. What’s involved in making a short story good and how it differs from writing longer fiction.

Alan talks about Cat Sparks, her short fiction success and her transition to novel length work.

http://catsparks.net/

We talk about self-publishing short stories on Kindle as a way of building a broader base of available work.

Alan talks about the Dead Red Heart anthology from Ticonderoga Publications and the joy of being part of something bigger, in the form of an edited anthology.

http://ticonderogapublications.com/tp/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=126:dead-red-heart&catid=77:dead-red-heart&Itemid=97

Alan talks about making his short fiction available on his Dark Shorts page after its initial publication.

http://www.alanbaxteronline.com/dark-shorts

Is it better for authors to put as much work out there as possible to get noticed, or work on their profile directly? Lots of work or a lot of online noise? Or both?

Readers expect to know a bit about authors, so an online presence is essential. But an author needs a decent body of work as well.

The sudden, massive success story is not the norm! We mention Amanda Hocking and J A Konrath as examples.

The long tail and how good writing will endure. The legacy income.

Do we devalue our work if we give it away for nothing?

Feel free to comment or email with your thoughts!

Episode 17 – Lost Worlds

Click here to download this episode!

In this episide we talk about Amazon rankings and April Hamilton’s guest blog on Alan’s site - http://www.alanbaxteronline.com/2011/01/03/age-publishing-guest-post-5-april-hamilton.html

We talk about the relationship between Amazon, publishers and indie authors.

Here's Alan’s blog post about Apple’s 30% cut controversy that we mention - http://www.alanbaxteronline.com/2011/02/02/apple-cake-eat.html

Dave talks about small press Seven Realms Publishing signing David Golemon, NYT Bestselling thriller author, for his new horror novel, The Supernaturals.

Dave winds Alan up about the possibility of Tom Cruise starring in the Guillermo Del Toro movie version of H P Lovecraft’s At The Mountains Of Madness.

Which leads us to lament all the great films Tom Cruise has spoiled with his presence.

We go on to talking about Lovecraft’s writing and Alan describes the basic premise of At The Mountains Of Madness.

Which leads us to talk about Lost Worlds and their popularity in thrillers and genre fiction.

We give examples of our favourite lost cities from various books and movies and discuss what drives people to write about them and why they are so compelling for readers.

.

Episode 16 – The Jeremy Robinson Interview

Click Here to Download the Current Episode

http://www.jeremyrobinsononline.com/

Jeremy talks about his latest book, Threshold - http://www.jeremyrobinsononline.com/books/threshold-by-jeremy-robinson.html

Jeremy talks about the nature of marketing and why he had to change the Chess Team Adventures to the Jack Sigler Adventures.

We discuss The Last Hunter, Jeremy’s previous book - http://www.jeremyrobinsononline.com/books/the-last-hunter-by-jeremy-robinson.html

The difference between 1^st and 3^rd person in thriller writing.

We discuss how thrillers blur the lines through straight up action into speculative fiction, and how Jeremy’s books often explore the speculative.

This leads to a discussion of Jeremy’s sci-fi novel, Beaneath, an action-adventure novel on a moon: http://www.jeremyrobinsononline.com/books/beneath-by-jeremy-robinson.html

Jeremy talks about his journey from self-publishing through his own small press to traditional publishing with St Martin’s Press, and how his various sales are now.

We talk about Jeremy’s efforts marketing and promoting his first self-published book, The Didymus Contingency, and the success it generated.

Jeremy talks about his future projects.

Jeremy wraps it up with his advice for new writers and what’s happening with thrillers.

http://www.jeremyrobinsononline.com/

Also on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/profile.php?id=780504950&ref=ts

and Twitter - @JRobinsonAuthor

Stick around past the credits for a great out-take showing what consummate professionals Alan and David are.

Episode 015 - Writing Fighting and How Not to Fight with Reviewers

Click Here to Download the Episode!

An eclectic ThrillerCast today. We start with talk about fighting.

Alan talks about his new ebook, Write The Fight Right, about writing more realistic and convincing fight scenes.

Alan talks about his background as a martial instructor and fighter.

What’s the thing most often wrong with written fight scenes? Alan talks about the problem with writing a fight scene like a visually choreographed movie fight.

David talks about the problem of misunderstanding martial arts as some kind of magical skill. What’s really real in fighting?

How much is heart and hunger a factor in fighting?

How can we use these things in characterisation with our stories? Motivation and ability.

Streetfighting versus tournament fighting.

When Alan is talking about a great fight scene and he can’t remember which movie it’s from, it’s Bridget Jones’s Diary. The fight is between the Hugh Grant and Colin Firth characters.

You can get Alan’s ebook, Write The Fight Right, now for just $1.99 – all the details here: http://www.alanbaxteronline.com/write-fight

Alan talked about a competition to host a fight writing competition on his blog. That contest is now on and you can enter here to win free books: http://www.alanbaxteronline.com/2011/04/12/written-fight-tournament.html

From here we segue rather clumsily into a discussion about the Jacqueline Howett debacle that occurred recently, where a self-published author responded very poorly to a bad review.

The original meltdown is here: http://booksandpals.blogspot.com/2011/03/greek-seaman-jacqueline-howett.html

Dave and Alan discuss what the problem is with responding like this to a review and how an author should respond to any review, good or bad.

Gaiman’s smackdown – the Dunning Kruger effect: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect

The Adam Christopher/Angry Robot story - http://angryrobotbooks.com/2011/03/welcome-angry-robots-latest-signing-adam-christopher/