The Long and Winding Road

Keith Raffel here for the first time in a while.

I live in Palo Alto, California and worked in high tech for a quarter century. That makes me a Silicon Valley guy.

What does that mean?

That means I’m almost always willing to try something new. If it pays off, fine. If not, well, that’s fine, too. I’ll just try something else.

Getting into novel-writing was something new. I was a little bored at my job so I signed up for a mystery-writing class at UC Berkeley Extension. When my work life heated up, I threw a half-finished manuscript into a drawer. A few years later I pulled it out and finished it. I found an agent who sold Dot Dead to Midnight Ink. Twenty months after signing the deal the book came out. Midnight Ink bought my next book, too. (I am skipping over the trials and tribulations of querying agents and publishers – another time.)

The reviews on my first two books were encouraging, and the second even showed up on a national bestseller list. Okay, good. Now it was time to see if I could support myself at this writing gig: what I was making with a traditional publisher wasn’t going to cut it. So I decided to try something new. I self-published my next two books, Drop By Drop and A Fine and Dangerous Season, and put them up on Amazon and BN.com. Somewhat to my surprise, I sold more copies and made more money than I had on my first two books. Another few steps down the road to making a living.

Amazon has its own publishing arm for crime fiction called Thomas and Mercer who were impressed enough with A Fine and Dangerous Season’s sales to offer to buy rights to it and bring it out under its own imprint. Sure, why not give it a try? It was a great ride. On one glorious day this past March, I saw my book ranked as the #5 seller on all of Amazon.com. But I still wasn’t making enough to support myself, let alone pay for another two kids’ worth of college tuition.

So I was ready to try something new to move the ball down the road. I decided to raise money via Kickstarter, the crowd-sourcing site, for my fifth novel, Temple Mount. Why? Two reasons. First, I wanted to get buy-in from my fans. There’s an old Silicon Valley saying that when you eat a bacon-and-egg breakfast, the chicken participates, the pig commits. I wanted commitment from my fans (but I did want to keep them alive, too). And I think I got it. They were co-publishing right along with me and had a stake in the venture. They’ve helped the spread the word and 50 of them even helped edit the book. (Paying for the privilege to edit? That made me feel like Tom Sawyer.) I’ve been blown away by their enthusiasm and generosity. Second, the money raised spurred me to try something new, or maybe old, to publicize Temple Mount. Starting next week we’re running an ad for it on Bay Area cable stations. (You can see the ad below.) I’m keeping my fingers crossed on how it does.

So here I am, getting closer to my goal of making a living as a writer, but still not quite there. When I started at this game, I went the only way I could: signing with a traditional publisher. Now an author can also self-publish, publish via a publisher with a new model like Thomas and Mercer or Polis or Brash, or even crowd-publish. Any one of them might be the right one for an aspiring author or even an old hack like me. It just depends what she or he wants.

I do feel lucky to be writing in a time where authors have choices.

Cheers,
Keith 

Before turning to writing full-time, Keith Raffel watched over the CIA, supported himself at the racetrack, founded a software company, taught writing to Harvard freshmen, ran for Congress, and sold DNA sequencing to medical researchers. He became a published author in 2006 with Dot Dead, which the New York Times said was “worthy of a Steve Jobs keynote presentation.” These days he can usually be found tapping his laptop’s keys and power-drinking green tea at a café around the corner from his home in California’s Silicon Valley. His latest novel Temple Mount ("a terrific battle of wit and wills" -Steve Berry) came out this month.

A Fool Like Me

Keith Raffel here.

There’s an old Japanese saying that I’m very fond of. It goes something like this: “Every person should walk to the top of Mount Fuji, but only a fool would do it a second time.”

Color me foolish.

I spent three years working as a full-time novelist. I had just finished my fourth book, A Fine and Dangerous Season, when I went to a New Year’s Party. The host asked me what I was going to do next. I told her I didn’t have an idea for a new book. She asked if I would consider going back into the Silicon Valley fray and taking on a day job. I told her maybe, it depended on the job, and poof! – a few months later I was working at a DNA sequencing company. Fascinating work but that company was just purchased and so now I’m ready to give full-time writing another whirl no matter how ga-ga a Japanese sage might consider me.

I’ve tried publishing the traditional way and I’ve tried publishing e-books myself. Both ways worked fine, but I want to expand my readership. To quote another sage, Albert Einstein: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

So I am moving to full-time novel-writing for a second time, but am trying something different.

When Rob Thomas wanted to make a Veronica Mars movie, he raised $5 million from fans to get the project kick-started. Now I am not looking for that kind of money, but I do want to kick-start publication of my fifth novel, a thriller set in Jerusalem titled Temple Mount. I am terrifically excited at the prospect of building a groundswell of support for Temple Mount among readers of my novels, both past and future. I’m even ready to rely on supporters to crowd-source the editing of the manuscript.

I just hope others will join this possibly foolish, but probably sane author in getting Temple Mount published using a new crowd-publishing model. You can check out what I have in mind here. Don’t know if it’s going to work, but I’m going to give it a try. Please don’t be shy in offering advice and wish me luck!

Five Fine and Dangerous Novels

Guest Post by Keith Raffel


My experience, probably not that different from other authors, is that the following three questions come up in just about every appearance I make.

Question 1: Where do you get your ideas?

Question 2:  What are you reading?

Question 3:  What have been your strongest influences?

My answer to the first question is that I have no clue.  It’s a miracle.  My answer to the second is Canada by Richard Ford and Death’s Door by James Benn.  Partway done with both, I recommend them highly. The answer to the third question might take a bit longer to spin out.

Like so many thriller novelists, I write about ordinary people confronted by extraordinary circumstances. The acknowledged master of that genre isn’t a novelist at all.  It’s Alfred Hitchcock, of course, but we’ll save rhapsodizing about North By Northwest, The Thirty-Nine Steps, Shadow of a Doubt, and Rear Window for another time.  (Well, maybe I’ll need to come back to The Thirty-Nine Steps before the end of this posting.)  In my latest thriller, though, I am trying something different than writing about a high tech guy who finds a dead body in his bed (as in my Dot Dead) or a man shattered by the terrorist death of his wife (Drop By Drop).  I’m still telling the story of an ordinary man confronted by extraordinary circumstances -- what could be more extraordinary than a Palo Alto businessman given the chance to save a world hurtling toward nuclear war?  What makes A Fine and Dangerous Season different from my other books is that it’s not set in the present day, it’s a historical thriller, and I try my best to fit its action in the interstices of history.  A Fine and Dangerous Season describes something that might well have happened if only we could have had the right vantage point to watch events unfold.

So what novels by what writers influenced me in the writing of the book? Here’s a top 5 list:

1.  The Winds of War by Herman Wouk.  After writing a few chapters of A Fine and Dangerous Season, I picked up this tome to see how a master interweaves history and fiction.  Wouk puts a navy captain on the main stage of history.  FDR sends Captain Henry to weekend with Goering and negotiate with Stalin.  The Winds of War together with its sequel War and Remembrance constitute a big sprawling saga, though, while A Fine and Dangerous Season focuses on a few October days in 1962.  Still, my character Nate Michaels accepts a dangerous assignment from President Kennedy as the country hurtles toward war during the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Following Wouk’s lead, I did research in archives and primary sources to make sure I got the historical background as right as I could.

2. Seven Days in May by Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey.  I have Nate Michaels, the protagonist of A Fine and Dangerous Season, carry a copy of the then-bestselling Seven Days in May with him as he flies to the White House in the fall of 1962.  Seven Days unfolds over a week in May.  I try to move even faster in A Fine and Dangerous Season action with the action compressed into five days.  Heck, I even thought of calling my book “Five Days in October.”

3.  The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit by Sloan Wilson.  Unlike the first two books, I did not re-read this one before writing A Fine and Dangerous Season.  Nevertheless, I vividly remember the flashbacks that took suburbanite Tom Rath back to his service in World War II.  Rath behaved irresponsibly in his personal life because he figured it didn’t matter -- he wasn’t going to survive the War anyway.  In A Fine and Dangerous Season, I used flashbacks of Nate Michael’s experience as a B-17 pilot and infused them with that sense of wartime fatalism.

4. The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan.  Richard Hannay, just a regular chap who’s stumbled on a deadly diplomatic secret, is chased hither and yon by foreign agents in this 1915 novel.  Because A Fine and Dangerous Season is set in D.C., I have Nate skipping across townhouse roofs instead of the Scottish moors.  Perhaps influenced by Hitchcock’s 1935 movie version where Hannay is handcuffed to a beautiful woman who makes no appearance in the novel,  Nate is accompanied in his leaps between buildings by a beautiful Russian spy.

5. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John Le Carré.  This one may be a bit of a stretch, but how could I leave it out?  I take inspiration from Le Carré’s theme that the same human emotions and motivations inspire both sides in the Cold War.  While writing my book, I remembered how Le Carré writes characters that operate and even love in a hall of mirrors where nothing is as it seems.



Keith Raffel’s stints as counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee and Silicon Valley entrepreneur inspired him to try his hand at writing mysteries and thrillers.  His first novel, Drop By Drop, was published by Midnight Ink and deemed "without question the most impressive mystery debut of the year” by Joe Hartlaub of Bookreporter.com.  His fourth, A Fine and Dangerous Season, is available now as an ebook from Amazon and Barnes and Noble just in time for the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Check the latest on what Keith's up to at www.keithraffel.com.

My Fantasy Job: Hollywood Casting Director

a guest post by Keith Raffel

Out of the blue, a pair of award-winning screenwriters optioned my second book, Smasher, back in 2010. Reading the actual script last fall, I could just imagine the characters up on the silver screen in the local multiplex. Alas, not going to happen--at least not anytime soon. The option expired a few weeks ago. The screenwriters told me they have picked up assignments from producers who liked their treatment, but Smasher: The Movie was not going to be “greenlighted.” My agent went on suicide watch, but I had expected nothing so wasn’t disappointed (much).

What about my next book? In her review of Drop By Drop, Lynn Farris wrote she “wouldn't be surprised to see this as an upcoming movie. Five stars out of five." So why not Drop By Drop as feature-length film even if not Smasher? Why not go along with the fantasy? After all, I live in the world of fiction. Let’s cast the film!
Here’s a précis of Drop By Drop:

Stanford professor Sam Rockman suffers the crushing loss of his wife in a bombing at San Francisco Airport. Seeking meaning in the ruins of his life, he accepts an offer to work for the Senate Intelligence Committee. What Sam wants out of his stint in D.C. is revenge for the death of his wife. What he gets is danger and betrayal. Secret documents are showing up on his doorstep. Russians are trying to poison him. Sam finds allies among a savvy Kentucky senator, a billionaire investment banker, his wife's old rabbi, and the president's national security advisor. Too often, he finds himself thrown together with his counterpart on the other side of the aisle, the whip-smart, six-footer Cecilia Plant. Mourning still for his wife, Sam steels himself against Cecilia's appeal and remains suspicious of her motives.

So we have to cast Sam and Cecilia first. We know he’s six feet tall because he’s the same height as she is. Other than that we don’t know what he looks like. Kind of nerdy maybe. After all, he is a Stanford history professor in his mid-thirties. Lots of candidates then but I’m going to with Jake Gyllenhaal. He’s six feet tall and 32 years old. Earnest in Love and Other Drugs, driven in Source Code. He should be bankable, too.

Next is Cecilia. Getting this part right is the key to the movie. Readers love her. Joe Hartlaub wrote in his review in Bookreporter.com, “With regard to the characters, Plant almost steals the book from Rockman; if Raffel would see fit to bring her back in a future work, I certainly wouldn’t object.” Here she is in her first meeting with Sam: 

“We need to get the motherfuckers who did that.” She didn’t snarl as she cursed. She spoke in soft tones, as if to minimize the attention that would come unbidden to a foul-mouthed, red-headed woman with a seventy-five inch span between the tips of her heels and the crown of her head.

She’s six-feet tall (the extra three inches are from her heels) and an ex-athlete. Wait, I got it! Adrianne Palicki. She’s within an inch of six-feet. She can definitely handle the bad language--having played bad-girl Tyra Collette in Friday Night Lights. While in high school she played basketball and ran track. I’ve seen her on the screen as both a blonde and as a brunette; no reason to think she wouldn’t look just as great with auburn tresses. (Calling Clairol!) And even when she played a bad girl, she projected underlying intelligence.

Did I mention I myself worked for the Senate just as Sam Rockman did? One of my colleagues back in those days was Fred Thompson who (much later) showed his acting chops on TV’s Law and Order. And he actually served as a senator from Tennessee. Not too much of a stretch then to see him playing a member of the upper house representing the neighboring state of Kentucky. (Always glad to help out a former colleague.)

Billionaire investment banker George Fairchild has made the Forbes list of richest people under 40. Here’s where we first see him in the book:

George measured no taller than five-five, an inch shorter than Rachel and weighed in at about 130, only five pounds more than her. No banker’s suit for George. He wore khakis with a crease sharp enough to slice a loaf of bread and a blue-striped button-down crisp enough to crackle like cellophane.

Let’s go with Ryan Phillippe most recently seen on TV in Damages. A baby-faced 38 he makes the age cut.

My own rabbi says she likes the fact that rabbis in my novels are not figures of fun. Can comedic actor Paul Rudd play a serious clergyman? I say yes.

The president’s national security advisor is a tough, cigarette-smoking, New York dame. Let’s go with Dianne Wiest of In Treatment and Hannah and Her Sisters.

And finally, what about President Lucas? Here we see him on TV:

The guy looked so damned presidential. He reached the same six foot four Lincoln had. His hair was swept back in a Reaganesque pompadour. An aversion to ties part of his brand, he wore an open-neck French blue shirt and navy blazer. He conveyed to the voters that he was no empty suit, but the perfect fit of his clothing, the way his jacket hung from his shoulders, distinguished him from Joe Sixpack even more surely than gray pinstripes.

Here’s the casting coup of the 21st century. Mitt Romney was a neighbor of a friend of mine. I met him at her birthday party. Don’t know how good an actor he would be, but from the description of President Lucas above it wouldn’t be much of a stretch, would it? And it’s my hunch that he will be looking for work after the first Tuesday of November. 

 Thanks for humoring me in my reverie. (But if the agents of Mr. Gyllenhaal or Ms. Palicki see this post, please do not hesitate to get in touch.)

Keith

Keith’s Drop By Drop is available for a free download from Amazon.com through Saturday. (Click here.) Thanks to imdb.com, igossip.com, huffington post, Wikipedia, accesshollywood.com, and mediaite.com for the photos above.

3 Books, 3 Formats, 6 Covers

Keith here.

The reading world is in the midst of a war over formats. We've all been following the back-and-forth between Kindle/Nook partisans and those who defiantly hold on to their paper-and-ink books. Here's which side I come down on: both.

Don't you think we authors should strive to ensure our novels can be read however our readers want to read them -- whether as words on a paper page or on an LCD screen? And what about those who might want to use their ears rather than their eyes to "read" a book? Fine with me. Let's add one more option to the mix then -- audio books.

My first two books have just hit the format trifecta. Dot Dead and Smasher are now available as audio downloads for iPods, MP3 players, and such on both Audible.com and Amazon.com. (You can listen to samples here and here.) Both are still available as ebooks and trade paperbacks. (Readers, pick your poison.) My third novel, Drop By Drop, is currently available only as an ebook, but if it continues to sell well (fingers crossed), I'm hoping it will be offered in print and as an audio book as well.

One side benefit to all these different formats is a flowering of covers. Dot Dead has one cover doing double duty for the ebook and trade paper and another for the audio version. Smasher -- lucky fellow -- has a different cover for all three formats. Drop By Drop is available in just the one format and hence has only one cover at present. If my arithmetic is correct, that makes a total of six covers. I'm pretty fond of all of them, but I do wonder which ones you prefer. Please let me know in your comments!

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

“AH, THAT AIN’T WORKIN’…”

Darrell James

Growing up working on my brother-in-law’s farm, the idea of “work” conjures images of something like toting barges and lifting bales. (For the record, while I have lifted bales, I’ve never actually toted a barge, or for that matter seen anyone else do it.) Still, being a writer has its own kind of grind. There’s long hours of brain numbing plotting. The continuing tedium of pounding a keyboard. And the excruciating madness of fitting just the right words to a scene, just the right scenes to a story. And, of course, there are the dreaded deadlines that can provoke hives, night sweats, and other yet unnamed mal-physical reactions. But the part of being a writer that isn’t so much work is the part where we get the chance to meet and talk to readers, and share camaraderie with other writer friends.

One of my favorite events of the year is Men Of Mystery, held annually in the fall in Irvine, California. This event is hosted by the ever-lovely Joan Hansen and the Orange County Writers Guild. It features some fifty male mystery writers and attracts more than five-hundred attendees. It’s a hands-on (so to speak) chance to engage with readers. Each author hosts a table of ten guests and also gets the chance to speak in round-robin fashion to the entire assembly. Which usually turns out to be something more like “Last Comic Standing” or maybe “The Writers Roast”. It’s great fun with each author trying to best the author to his left or right.

(And just in case you’re wondering, the O.C. Guild also hosts a mystery event for women authors too.)

Men of Mystery will be special for me this year. I have been participating for the past three years or so on my credentials as a short-story author. While I’ve had the pleasure to present Body Count: A Killer Collection of fifteen of my short stories to the audience, and the occasional additional anthology where my stories have appeared, I’ve always felt something of the step-child syndrome around all the fabulous novelists. Short stories, as masterful as they might be, and as difficult as they can be to write, just don’t seem to buy you the same respect.

This year, I’m pleased to report, will be my first chance to publicly announce a three book contract with Midnight Ink and foretell the coming release of Book One in the Del Shannon series of novels.

It’ll be great! It will! It’s something I have worked long and hard for.

Still, as much fun as it will be to show up with some bragging rights this time, I’m mostly looking forward to hosting a round-table of wonderful readers (mostly women, gotta love that!) and having the chance to socialize with all my great writer buddies.

The always noir Gary Phillips will be there, as will Bob Levinson (Robert S.), Michael Mallory (M2), James Scott Bell (Jim), and of course our very own Midnight champion, Keith Raffel (Mr. Silicon Valley himself). And headliners have included the likes of Vince Flynn and Michael Connolly. Just to name a few.

So, during those long days, weeks, and months of grind, alone, with my feet propped up in the recliner, hammering laboriously away on my laptop, I’ll think back on Men of Mystery, and all the other great writer events, and maybe, just maybe, I’ll manage to toil my way through to the end of another book by New Years.

Ahh, that ain’t workin’!

What about you? As a reader or writer, what’s your favorite event? And as a writer, what’s the best part of being one? Leave a comment.

Men of Mystery is an annual fall event in Irvine, CA bringing 500 mystery enthusiasts together with more than 50 male mystery writers from the US and beyond. The event is coordinated by a large and dedicated volunteer committee led by Joan Hansen. Whose mission is to promote mystery reading and writing and literacy while having tremendous fun! This year’s MofM will be held Saturday, October 30th at the Irvine Marriott.

To attend go to: www.menofmystery.org

Inkspot News - October 9, 2010

Three Midnight Inksters will be appearing on panels or other programs at Bouchercon in San Francisco, October 14-17, 2010:

Thursday, October 14, 4:30 p.m. - The Most Deadly Species: Women Protagonists
Cornelia Reid (M), Tasha Alexander, Meredith Anthony, Larry Light, Ronald Tierney, Keith Raffel

Friday October 15, 11:00 a.m. - Continuous Conversation
Camille Minichino, Catherine Astolfo, Lou Allin, Kathleen Ernst, Cindy Sample, Cathy Pickens.

Saturday October 16, 3:00 p.m. - No One Would Ever Do That: The Concept of Plausibility in Mystery Fiction
Cathy Pickens (M), Sophie Hannah, G.M. Malliet, Diana Orgain, Stefanie Pintoff.

Come up after the panels and say hi if you're a reader of InkSpot! Also meet Midnight Ink authors at the booth in the dealers' room.

Finally, the Anthony Awards Brunch is on Sunday, October 17 at 10:00 a.m.  Midnight Ink author G.M. Malliet is a nominee for Death and the Lit Chick.

Inkspot News - February 20, 2010

Lisa Bork's FOR BETTER, FOR MURDER has been nominated for an Agatha Award for Best First Novel. Congratulations, Lisa!

Keith Raffel is interviewed on Press:Here this Sunday, February 21 at 9AM (on the Bay Area's KNTV, cable channel 3). He discusses the suitability of Silicon Valley as a setting for mysteries and the factual basis of the characters in his bestselling SMASHER with NBC's Scott McGrew, NPR's Laura Sydell, and BBC's Maggie Shiels. To read Keith's comments on the interview and view the video clip, click here.

G.M. Malliet will visit Beth Groundwater's blog on Friday, February 26th. Come see what G.M.'s answers are to Beth's interview questions and feel free to ask your own in comments! G.M. is also interviewed by Oline H. Cogdill in the current issue of Mystery Scene Magazine.

InkSpot News - February 13, 2010

Deborah Sharp tries to top whoppers spun by her fellow authors in the Creative Writer (aka, Bald Faced Liar) Award. Did she REALLY take a Hot Bod title? Check out truth and fiction at her blog .

Beth Groundwater responds to Sue Ann Jaffarian and Keith Raffel's nominations for the "Creative Writer" blog award at her blog. Guess what's true or false about her!

On Thursday, February 18, from 5:30 - 7:30 PM, Beth Groundwater will join fellow Colorado authors Mike Befeler, Linda Berry, and Anne Randolph in a group book signing at the Montblanc Boutique, Cherry Creek Mall, 3000 East 1st Avenue #181, Denver, CO 80206. Beth will sign copies of her Claire Hanover gift basket designer mysteries, A Real Basket Case and To Hell in a Handbasket, and her science fiction novella, The Epsilon Eridani Alternative.

Keith Raffel will be chatting with readers and signing books at Kepler's in Menlo Park, CA today, Saturday, February 13, from 10 to 1. What better gift for your Valentine than Dot Dead or Smasher? And after you have determined how well Beth lies on her blog, check out Keith's blog and see how much worse he does.

G.M. Malliet is interviewed by Oline H. Cogdill in the upcoming issue of Mystery Scene Magazine.