BURN COUNTY Is On Its Way!

BURN COUNTRY, the long-awaited sequel to Hammett Prize finalist SORROW LAKE, is finally on its way.

The Plaid Raccoon Press is pleased to announce that the second March and Walker Crime Novel is now entering its final production stages.

Review copies of the new novel will be available in print and eBook format before the end of March.

Stay tuned for further details over the coming days and weeks!

Turning the Raccoon Loose on Facebook

Call me a reluctant independent, if you will.

Just like anyone else, I'd love to be working under contract with a traditional publisher, but since that's not currently in the cards it's important, for the sake of morale and courage in the face of the manuscript in progress, to embrace my independence.

Yea, to celebrate it, even.

I have fun with the @PlaidRaccoon Twitter account. For example,

The Plaid Raccoon urges peace talks in war between Toronto City Hall and Raccoon Nation: http://t.co/GiIqB1ZRUs ;)

— Plaid Raccoon Press (@PlaidRaccoon) April 9, 2015

The Raccoon Twitter persona has sort of taken on a life of its own. I have fun tweaking the beak of the Random Penguin while promoting our publications and otherwise fishing for notable trout in the ever-flowing Twitter stream.

So why not, in the spirit of embracing independence, spread the fun to Facebook? This way, the rascally raccoon isn't limited to 140 characters. Hmmm, on second thought......

Check out the Plaid Raccoon Press on Facebook, and if you're so inclined, LIKE us! You may be sorry you did, but oh well. What's life without risks? Just tap your paw on this link: https://www.facebook.com/plaidraccoon

 

Time for a Breather

I'm taking a break from my three weekly blogs, The Overnight Bestseller, Open Investigations, and Behind the Walls of Nightmare until about mid-October so I can start writing a new supernatural novel.

In the meantime, The Rainy Day Killer, the fourth Donaghue and Stainer crime fiction novel, is up and running on NetGalley. Our Plaid Raccoon Press is doing a soft release of the novel. It has been posted to Amazon as a Kindle selection, and the trade paperback version and other electronic formats will be available in October.

If you'd like to read and review the novel, I've posted information below on how to access it through NetGalley:

Here's your chance to read The Rainy Day Killer via NetGalley, an online site that provides digital galleys to reviewers, bloggers, media, librarians, booksellers, and educators. 
 
If you're not already a NetGalley user, you can register for free at www.NetGalley.com, create a profile, and browse their catalog to select titles. Then just hit the “Request” button for the title(s) you want. 
 
Once you request the title, you’ll just need to wait until the request is approved, and then the galley will appear on your NetGalley homepage (under “New Invitations to View Titles”). You will receive an email notification once your request is approved, so that you’ll know to log in to view the galley. 
 
You’ll have the option to download the galley to your computer or read it on a variety of devices. You can find step-by-step instructions for each here.

Be sure that you download Adobe Digital Editions (the program you’ll need to view our galley) first – it’s quick and free: http://www.adobe.com/products/digitaleditions/
 
If you have any questions, feel free to contact NetGalley: support@netgalley.com.

Happy New Year: Reviewing 2012 and Looking Forward

From everyone here at The Plaid Raccoon Press in Oxford Station, Ontario, Canada, to all of you who read The Overnight Bestseller and follow the Donaghue and Stainer Crime Novel series, we send our best wishes for a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2013.

A New Year's Day Postcard from Oxford Station (M.J. McCann photo)

The past year was our first full calendar year in business. In 2012 we published two books: Marcie's Murder, the follow-up to Blood Passage; and The Fregoli Delusion, the third Donaghue and Stainer Crime Novel. I also had the supreme good fortune to travel to Rothes, Scotland, to visit The Glenrothes distillery as a winner of their 2012 Vintage Moment competition. While promoting Marcie's Murder I made several radio appearances and a television appearance, was profiled in magazines and newspapers, and the novel was reviewed favorably by Jack Batten in the Toronto Star. I participated in the Word on the Street Book Festival in Toronto as part of the Crime Writers of Canada contingency and made a number of book signing appearances, which provided an opportunity to meet many enthusiastic readers of crime fiction.

It was an exciting and eventful year. Can we top it in 2013?

The fourth Donaghue and Stainer Crime Novel is underway. I'm completing my research and writing the preliminary background material. Very shortly I'll write the outline, and then another manuscript will begin to take shape. Plans are for the novel to be published this summer.

On another front, The Plaid Raccoon Press will add supernatural fiction to its lineup this year as well. I have re-acquired the rights to my very first novel, The Ghost Man, and we will soon issue a revised edition under our own imprint. A second title under the new banner will aim for a Halloween 2013 release date. Fans of The Ghost Man will be pleased to know that this novel will also be set in eastern Ontario.

It's a great time to be an independent. The just-in-time print-on-demand model has proven itself to be a viable and forward-looking option for small publishers to produce their books on paper (see this article by Danny O. Snow in Publishers Weekly),  and enterprises such as Smashwords have revolutionized how the world receives books in ebook format (see Smashwords founder Mark Coker's 2012 Year in Review).

While traditional publishing houses grow larger (as Penguin and Random House merge) and fewer (as Douglas & McIntyre and others file for bankruptcy), and traditionally-published authors such as Sue Grafton, Jodi Picoult, Richard Russo and David Hewson launch incendiary strikes against what Hewson calls "a phoney revolution," the fact remains that the publishing business and the book market for readers have turned a corner, and there's no going back. For me as an independent author beginning a new career, it has happened, if you will, "just in time."

The key to success, of course, will have to be quality. Best-selling A-list authors can get away with publishing a sub-par title to fulfill contract requirements with their Big Five publisher because their name alone sells the book, but independents have no such wiggle room. As a result, our objective is always to do our very best to make sure the next title is better than the previous one. Continuous improvement is not just a cliché around here, it's the way we do business.

With that in mind, we promise to continue to offer engaging stories that are well-written, are as free of typographical errors, spelling mistakes and grammatical errors as humanly possible, with eye-catching covers, and all with an upbeat, positive, and enthusiastic attitude.

Come join us as we continue the publishing revolution in 2013!

Happy New Year and best wishes from me, from my wife, business partner and editor Lynn, our son Tim, who shoots our author photos, our editorial reader Margaret, and our manuscript readers Gwenda, Anie, Danielle, and Larry.

And, of course, from Cody, who's going to end up being our biggest celebrity by far!

Happy 2013, everyone!

New, Lower Prices for D&S Series E-Books

To celebrate the publication of The Fregoli Delusion, The Plaid Raccoon Press has reduced the price on the e-book editions of Blood Passage and Marcie's Murder, the first two books in the Donaghue and Stainer Crime Novel Series.

Blood Passage is now available for the new low price of $1.99 USD, while Marcie's Murder may be purchased for $2.99 USD.

These new prices have already been implemented, but may not have reached all distribution points at this printing. If you see the old price still listed, feel free to follow the Smashwords link listed below, where you may obtain copies for the device of your choice, and the new prices are already in effect.

Blood Passage e-book links:

Kindle                        Nook
Kobo                         Sony
Apple
Smashwords

Marcie's Murder e-book links:
Kindle                       Nook
Kobo                        Sony
Apple
Smashwords

A Note on the Pricing
The Fregoli Delusion is the third novel in the series, and many e-book authors have discovered that their sales jump noticeably once they publish their third book. One of the techniques used by many authors includes dropping the price of the first book to Free, which increases the volume of downloads they see and helps hook readers into the series.

We've decided not to make Blood Passage available for Free.  We're hoping that being able to purchase all three titles in the series for a grand total of $9.97 USD will be enough of an incentive to entice more readers to take the plunge.

Why have we decided not to reset the price of Blood Passage to Free? Last year The Plaid Raccoon Press published several short stories featuring Donaghue and Stainer, and these were all made available at no cost to the reader. While the stories saw a great many downloads, there was never any way of telling whether or not people were actually reading the stories or just collecting "freebies."

More importantly, though, the comments and "reviews" we did receive were occasionally very nasty. Every independent author experiences this phenomenon, of course, and one soon learns to grow a thick skin, but it seemed that many people felt getting something for nothing entitled them to say whatever popped into their head, including vulgarisms, racist remarks, and other slurs that made it obvious the person either hadn't read the story or else had read it very carelessly. It wasn't making very good business sense to keep these stories posted with such negativity attached to them.

The final straw came in a bizarre twist when two people started using one of the free stories as a mail drop. The good news was that each time they entered a comment they gave the story a five-star rating, but the messages they exchanged were in some kind of cryptic code that soon began to creep us out. It was time to remove the free stories altogether and rethink this strategy.

As a result, Blood Passage is listed at $1.99 USD. While we may occasionally offer it for a lower price, and perhaps even for free during promotional events through the use of coupon codes, The Plaid Raccoon Press has implemented a policy of never again setting an e-book price at Free in the future. If readers feel an overwhelming desire to register their outrage, hatred, and anger at what they read, well, frankly, they can pay two bucks for the privilege.

Meanwhile, we can rest easier at night in the knowledge that the comments section of our publications are not posing any kind of security risk!

Thanks to you all for your patience and understanding.

M.J. McCann
L.L. Clark
The Plaid Raccoon Press

The Plaid Raccoon is happy to note that avid readers have now passed the 1,000 mark in downloads of Donaghue and Stainer Crime Novel publications on Smashwords since July of this year. Since this is an average of about 250 downloads a month, the Raccoon thinks this is pretty good for starters.


Thanks very much to everyone for your support!

Book Signing, Ottawa Small Press Book Fair

Today I appeared at the Ottawa Small Press Book Fair to sign copies of Blood Passage. It marked the public debut of The Plaid Raccoon as a small press in the small press crowd, and he got through the event without rummaging in the trash can or stealing anyone's corn. I also had with me copies of The Ghost Man, my first novel, in case anyone was in the mood for supernatural fiction.

Book fairs like these are an opportunity to meet a wide range of interesting people, and today was no exception. Friend and fellow OIC members Jasmine Aziz and Dwight Williams were in attendance. Thanks to Jasmine for snapping the photo above.

I also had a chance to meet Juliana McDonald, a visual artist with a remarkable vision. She was displaying a small portion of her 16-foot "book" consisting of photographs and text rendered as transfers mounted on acrylic, and was selling small hand-made versions of the book printed on vellum paper. I highly recommend a look at her website,  http://www.julianamcdonald.ca. Her work is quite amazing and the book is exquisite.

I also chatted with Marcella Kampman, who has published a book retelling Sumerian myths in an interpretation suitable for young readers. Inanna, Goddess of Love is visually very attractive and the stories are  well-told.

All the best to everyone in attendance today.

Saturday Ottawa Small Press Book Fair

Just a reminder to everyone in eastern Ontario that I will be appearing at the Ottawa Small Press Book Fair this Saturday, November 5 from noon to 5:00 pm in Rm. 203 of the Jack Purcell Community Centre, just off Elgin Street.

We will be flying the colours of The Plaid Raccoon Press and I will be signing copies of Blood Passage, the first Donaghue and Stainer Crime Novel, but I will also be signing copies of my first novel The Ghost Man, which is supernatural fiction.

Hope to see you there!

Smashwords Download Milestone

The Plaid Raccoon Press was pleased to note this morning that we passed the 500 mark in downloads of Donaghue and Stainer Crime Novel publications on Smashwords. This number does not include free samples of Blood Passage, the first Donaghue and Stainer Crime Novel. Blood Passage, the first work published with Smashwords, appeared exactly two months ago on July 11 of this year.

We celebrated by awarding ourselves the cute little 500 badge you see on the left.

While we have no doubt that other Smashwords authors/publishers have achieved much more significant accomplishments in the first two months of their association with this e-book publisher, we still feel pretty dang good about it all.

Thanks very much to everyone out there for your support! Stay tuned, there's lots more to come.

Ottawa Poster Collar Campaign: Phase Two

Phase Two of the Ottawa poster collar campaign took place today as I drove downtown, jack sack loaded, and tackled Ottawa's telephone poles with a fresh set of posters.

This time I forgot to take my camera with me, so the best I can do is include thumbs of the two posters I papered the town with today. One, as you can see, was aimed at promotion of the upcoming book signing at the Chapters - Pinecrest book store, while the other stayed with the cryptic teaser approach to promote The Plaid Raccoon Press. Puzzle them, and they will come.


I've always believed it's very important to be a lifetime learner. I've always said there's stuff you can learn from every situation you encounter in life, and this particular endeavor was no exception. During my previous poster plastering trip, I happened to come along just after the powers that be had cleared most of the poster collars of the old material that had been hanging around for god knows how long. So there was some bare space on the collars here and there where I could mount my poster. I carefully positioned each one so I wasn't obscuring anyone else's poster. After all, there must be some kind of poster ethics, right? Don't cover the other guy's ad? Help him out with a little bit of extra tape if his poster's corner has worked free, next to yours?

I'm so naive.

I visited each of the poles I'd visited last week because the plan was to follow up the first cryptic teaser poster with the book signing promo poster. Just put the new one right on top of the old one. Passersby would be used to looking at the cryptic one, and now there'd be the very specific one. "Aha!! That's what the 'fresh new voice in crime fiction' stuff was all about!!" I've seen bus ad campaigns like that which worked well.

I'm so naive.

I was dismayed to find that on every pole my first poster was completely buried beneath several layers of paper. In particular those @#&$^es slapping up big honking posters for concerts just papered the entire collar, completely disregarding everyone else's efforts, in clear violation of the city regulations, which I happened to have read beforehand, not only with respect to size of poster but also the limit of one poster per collar.

Is there no decency in poster plastering? Are there no ethics anymore?

It didn't take me long to adapt. By the third or fourth pole I was taping my l'il ole 8.5 x 11 on top of whatever the hell I felt like putting it on top of. Tough cheese, fella. Eat tape.

But it was a beautiful day today in downtown Ottawa and I really enjoyed it. It was busy in the Byward Market and I took my time at each pole. I chatted with another guy who was putting up a poster on the other side of the pole from me next to the Beaver Tails vendor on George Street just down from the television station. I watched a busker entertain a big crowd, and put up a poster on the pole right next to them.

Now the plan is for tonight's crowd going down to the Market for dinner and drinks will see the posters before they get plastered over by the next round of concert promos in a day or two. One learns to adjust one's expectations, doesn't one?

And the best part? I discovered that parking in Ottawa is free on Saturdays, so this time I didn't get a ticket!