Blood Passage Book Trailer

A trailer for Blood Passage has been uploaded to Vimeo, which you can view below. As always, comments are most welcome.



Blood Passage Trailer from Michael J. McCann on Vimeo.

Venturing Forth Into the Twitterverse

Okay, so now I've gone and done it. I've opened a Twitter account and I've begun to tweet. All suggestions and tips for the effective use of Twitter to get the word out there would be gratefully received!

Thursday Themes

The beauty of the blogosphere lies in part in the fact that it's a rich field of opinions on a wide range of subjects. You never know when you're going to trip over a thread that can lead to insight. Such was the case the other day when I read a post by BJ in her blog The Dark Side of the Covers on the subject of free prequels. I posted a comment on her blog at the time but it's been percolating in the back of my mind ever since, so I've decided to take it up where she left off.

You can read BJ's post here.

To summarize, she noted that the e-book phenomenon has bred free spinoffs, often of the prequel variety, that authors will publish in order to publicize an upcoming book. Effective freebies are self-contained and whet our appetite for more, while poor freebies seem truncated or stagnant and can be sloppily edited.

As followers of this blog will know, I've used this technique to spread the word about Blood Passage, the first Donaghue and Stainer Crime Novel. I've published six free short stories featuring Donaghue and Stainer so far that can be found here. Others will follow this fall and winter until the collection is complete. The idea is to eliminate cost barriers and give readers a chance to become familiar with the characters and my writing style. Hopefully those who enjoy police procedurals and like the stories will take a shot at the novel, which is now only $0.99. (End commercial.)

Here's the thing: I'd like your opinion on the effectiveness of this approach as a marketing technique. Each story tends to attract the same number of downloaders. I'm assuming/guessing/hoping that people are collecting all the stories as they appear. At the same time, I'm aware that Smashwords has a reputation for being a place to trawl for freebies but not a place where people tend to spend money. So here are a couple of questions:

• do readers of e-books who download free offerings tend to be willing to pay a buck or two for the primary product if they like the freebie, or do they tend just to graze on the freebies?
• if you're a downloader of freebies, how long do they tend to sit in your reader before you get around to reading them (ie, how long should I wait before I decide this strategy doesn't work)?

I look forward to your comments on this subject. Fire away!

Indie Writing and Indie Recording

Those of us in the indie book business regularly find inspiration in the scores of indie recording artists who keep producing outstanding music at the ground level. Recently I came across a terrific blog called the Indie Music Filter, produced by fellow Canadian Chris Budd in Toronto. He welcomes mp3s from emerging performers and features the best on his blog, which I encourage you to look up.

Among the links that I followed were four that I'll quickly mention.

A name familiar to many, M83 is the electronic pop act of Anthony Gonzalez. Indie Music Filter has embedded the new video "Midnight City," a very catchy tune.

Next up was Savoir Adore, which features singer/songwriter Deidre Muro and drummer Paul Hammer. Indie Music Filter links to their song "Dreamers." Their website and blog are a little disorganized but I found a couple of singles that had me very excited. These guys are GOOD. Check out as well this article published online in The L Magazine, featuring Savoir Adore as one of eight NYC bands you need to hear.

Also of note from the Indie Music Filter was the band the High Highs, a Brooklyn band with a soft retro sound that really appeals. I particularly liked "Ivy" and "Horses."

Finally, it was fun to discover the Montreal band Adam & The Amethysts, featuring Adam Waito, originally from Thunder Bay. Indie Music Filter featured their single "Dreaming" from their album Flickering Flashlight. Apparently I missed them in Ottawa not too long ago. Next time.....

If you're interested in new music, I encourage you to follow Indie Music Filter and to check out these performers.

Follow Friday, Oct. 21/11

Once again it's Follow Friday, hosted by Parajunkee's View  and Alison Can Read. This week their feature bloggers are The Bursting Bookshelf and Book Savvy Babe. Hop by and take a look.

This week's question: What superhero is your alter ego?

I'm afraid my answer is pretty mundane. My favorite superhero was always The Amazing Spider-Man. I bought each issue as they appeared in the drugstore down at the corner and kept them in a special place, in order, in my bedroom closet. I really wanted to be able to swing from rooftop to rooftop the way he did, and I thought it would be great to be able to snare that bag of chips on the other side of the room just by shooting web at it.

What Compels Us Toward Tales of Violence and Murder?

Yesterday NPR ran an interesting, if short, book review by Bruce Machart entitled “Devil in the Details: 3 Artful Tales of Murder.” You can find it here: http://www.npr.org/2011/10/19/139002629/devil-in-the-details-3-artful-tales-of-murder. While the article offered brief reviews of three novels, A Wild Surge of Guilty Passion by Ron Hansen, The Devil All The Time by Donald Ray Pollock and So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell, I was mostly attracted by the question Machart posed at the beginning of his piece, which I’ve paraphrased as the title of this post.

What, indeed, draws us to fiction that focuses on the worst aspects of human nature?

As a reader I’m attracted to crime fiction that features a strong protagonist as the representative of law, order, rationality and the human need to challenge and defeat the brutal side of our nature. Perhaps it was my misspent childhood reading comic books with shining, invulnerable heroes that’s responsible, but there you go.

As a person I abhor violence and I’m afraid of death. Much of my life has been a process of trying to come to grips with the existence of these things in life and to find ways to cope with them. I read fiction not only to be entertained but to learn what I can about perspectives other than my own, so as a result I’m drawn to stories featuring a central character who can move in these worlds and handle these things better than I can. Even if they fail, it represents the struggle to do what’s right in this life, to resist, “to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield,” if you will.

As a writer of crime fiction my motives are essentially the same. The central characters in the Donaghue and Stainer series deal with death and brutality every day. When Hank Donaghue’s mother, a retired State’s Attorney, asks him in Blood Passage how work is going, he jokes that it’s the same as usual: “The hours suck, the pay is worse and all my clients are dead.” Law enforcement officers are notorious for their black humor, but it’s a defense mechanism, a way of depersonalizing the horror they witness every time they punch the time clock.

Is depersonalization the key? Are we drawn as readers to crime fiction because it gives us a chance to deal with death and brutality from an objective, third-person perspective? Does it provide an opportunity to examine the horror and the emotional reactions of others through a filter, to imagine from a safe distance how we would cope if we were put in such a position? A rehearsal against the day when we might have to face such horrible things head-on?

What draws you as a reader to crime fiction?

Book Launch, Jasmine Aziz

This afternoon I had the pleasure of attending the launch of Jasmine Aziz's novel Sex and Samosas at the East India Company restaurant, 210 Somerset St. W. in Ottawa. Jasmine's book is erotica with a distinct comic flavour, and anyone with an interest in that genre should definitely check it out at Amazon.com. Congratulations to Jasmine on a great launch!

Props as well to Donald Lanouette of Partner Publishing for a terrific-looking cover. I also had a chance to meet Karen Opas Lanouette, editor-in-chief at Partner Publishing. This company deserves consideration by anyone looking for assistance in book design, editing, and other related services.

Finally, the East India Company was a great venue for the launch, and although I didn't try the food it looked and smelled wonderful.

Well done, Jasmine.