D.B. Grady

Sales of Red Planet Noir continue apace, and I was fortunate enough to sell out recently at book signings in Austin, Houston, and Lake Charles.

For those unfamiliar with my literary debut, it won the 2010 Indie Book Award for Science Fiction, and follows Michael Sheppard, a New Orleans private eye coping with the infidelity of his wife and collapse of his marriage. He finds solace in the bottle and his career in the toilet. Nights at the casino pay the bills, until they don’t, and leg breakers start knocking at the door, and knocking out his teeth.

When he’s hired by a bombshell heiress to check out a murder on Mars, it’s a chance for a new start. But as the case unfolds, he makes enemies of cops and gangsters alike in an investigation racing from stately mansions to smoke-filled speakeasies, from deserted ice colonies to mining towns on the asteroid belt.

All he wanted was a paycheck to clear some gambling debt. Now Michael is the key figure in a murder conspiracy that’s left a vacuum in the halls of power, with the labor union, mob and military vying for control of Mars.

Red Planet Noir is for science fiction and hardboiled mystery fans alike. It’s a Raymond Chandler mystery in a Robert Heinlein world.

It can be ordered from:
Amazon.com
Barnes and Noble
Powell’s Books
Your local indie

It can also be ordered from most bookstores if they’re out of stock.

Here’s a little taste of the novel:

When the phone rang, I was half-drunk, half-dressed, half-asleep, and half expecting it to be the phone company reminding me that the bill was past due. I didn’t have any money because I didn’t have any clients, and I wouldn’t have any clients if they cut my line, which I had told them only last month and the month before that. They were becoming a nuisance.

So I pulled on a shirt that wasn’t very dirty, but smelled of Scotch and strippers, my signature cologne, and pressed the Answer button. A figure flickered on the telephone screen. The phone company only hired brunettes, because that’s what the owner liked to fool around with, and only hired men, for the same reason. She was neither, and carried her curves as if to prove the point.

“Mike speaking,” I said, fishing a lighter from my shirt pocket.

“Mike Sheppard, the private investigator?” she asked…

Chapter 1 can be downloaded here. [pdf]

Red Planet Noir is now available in paperback and on Kindle readers.

ISBN: 9780964167438

Image credit: Ari Yaoi

Over at Pop Syndicate, I profile author Sean Ferrell and his thrilling debut novel, Numb. I’ve long known that Sean is a really witty guy. I had no idea he was secretly a brilliant novelist. From the piece:

Says Ferrell, “I live in New York City. Images assault us constantly here. Just the other day I spotted someone’s personal car that had the name and number of a tax preparer painted onto the rear window — a sort of guerilla advertising that is seen more and more. I thought, how can that possibly work? Who is driving through Brooklyn, sits at a light behind this car and thinks, ‘Thank God I saw that. He can do my taxes.’ That’s where Numb lives: in a world so full of information that it ceases to mean anything.”

Read the whole thing here.
Buy the book here.

The long-awaited 2.5 update to the Kindle has been released by Amazon. New features include improved PDF rendering, enhanced font clarity, social network integration, and folder support for ebook organization.

Get a Kindle here.
Get the free software update here.

Because, you know, literacy is already so lavishly funded by the state and burdensome upon the tax payers, the Louisiana Book Festival has been canceled. If you listen closely, you can hear John Kennedy Toole, Truman Capote, William Faulkner, and Robert Penn Warren rolling in their graves. Some news to chew on:

Sad chapter for Book Fest

Book Festival victim of budget cuts

Budget cuts for cancellation of Louisiana Book Festival

Don’t worry, though. I’m sure Tiger Stadium will receive a fresh coat of paint, and the Hornets will get a well-equiped gym.

Over at Pop Syndicate, I conducted a series of interviews with some pretty big names in the crime and science fiction genres. I’m a little late on the housekeeping, but here they are:

Bill Cameron, on his novel Day One.

I stand firmly in the “trouble is interesting” camp of story-telling, so I see it as my sworn duty to make my characters as miserable as possible. As if the birth mark isn’t trouble enough, I’ve inflicted Skin with cancer, given him no end of relationship troubles, made him the brunt of scorn and indifference.

David J. Williams, fellow Campbell Award loser and one-time arch-nemesis, about his new release, The Machinery of Light:

Wars of the future will be decided in space, but that’s going to mean something very different than the dogfights we saw in Star Wars. And as to cyberspace: look at how Russia shut down Georgia’s net in 2008. When major nations go all-out trying to do that, it’s going to be ugly…

Debbi Mack, on her novel, Identity Crisis, and about self-promotion in general.

If you have a tie-in with an industry, hobby or other topic that comes up in your book, take advantage of that. Make connections with people and organizations sharing that interest. Look for speaking engagements with people who might like your work. You could even end up selling books at a conference, like I did. I signed up as an exhibitor at a conference of fraud examiners. Since identity theft is part of the story (and was discussed at the conference), I had a hook that grabbed their interest. I ended up selling 27 books over two days.

Here are a few reasons to keep the Internet, courtesy of my intrepid readers.

Frugal Teen Buys House with 4-H Winnings
> Lindsay Binegar was 14 the first time she spent any winnings from years of showing hogs. She bought a purse. The second time, at 18, she splurged. She bought a four-bedroom, two-bathroom house with a two-car garage. And she paid in cash.

Signing in the Waldenbooks by Parnell Hall
> This hilarious (and all too true) depiction of a typical midlist author’s experiences with signings features the funny and talented Parnell Hall, author of the Puzzle Lady mysteries, as well as the newly-revived Stanley Hastings private eye novels.

Meet the Fourteen Year Old Toilet Aficionado, ToiletDude7
> On March 24, 2009, Toiletdude7 recorded himself flushing a Universal Rundle Atlas toilet and uploaded it to YouTube. Since then, he’s uploaded more than 183 videos of toilets flushing. We spoke to ToiletDude7 about his unusual passion.

Recipe: Root Beer Float Cupcakes
> Root beer floats are one of those things that my brothers and I loved as kids. I don’t know about them, but for me, its still something that I love to have on occasion. That’s why I wanted to make a cupcake that tasted like a root beer float. I mean come on, nothing is more fun than a cupcake, or root beer floats… why not combine the two.

Hacking Netflix
> Netflix news and info

Study Suggests Hand Washing Cleanses The Mind
> Reporting in the journal Science, researchers write that hand washing seems to lower the amount of second-guessing and rationalization that occur after making a decision. Study author Spike W.S. Lee discusses the paper, and why the simple act of washing one’s hands could ease the mind.

Steve Jobs Offers World Freedom from Porn
> Rare is the CEO who will spar one-on-one with customers and bloggers like this. Jobs deserves big credit for breaking the mold of the typical American executive, and not just because his company makes such hugely superior products: Jobs not only built and then rebuilt his company around some very strong opinions about digital life, but he’s willing to defend them in public. Vigorously. Bluntly. At two in the morning on a weekend.

Happy SAHD
> What happens when a family decides that Dad will stay at home with the kids while Mom works? SAHDs (Stay-At-Home Dads) are a growing trend in our culture. This new documentary by award winning Baltimore filmmaker Michael Ivan Schwartz, Happy SAHD follows a dozen Baltimore-area fathers who have chosen for a variety of reasons to be the daily caregiver for their children. This illuminating and humorous movie reveals the every day life trials, tribulations and triumphs of these unique men living outside the norm.

Huge Book Sale at Amazon.com
> Enjoy incredible savings on the titles you love in Bargain Books. From former bestsellers to textbooks, there’s something for every reader, and daily markdowns make it a store to check often. Take advantage of our lowest prices on thousands of books today, as we can’t guarantee they’ll be in stock tomorrow.

The Best of Clarence Boddicker
> “BITCHES LEAVE – said with 0% emotion. Could only be Clarence Boddicker, haven’t seen many hardcore bad guys like this in films for years. Surely one of the best 80s films, absolutely classic.” – GlynOtto

Red Planet Noir has won the Next Generation Indie Book Award for science fiction. So that’s pretty great. If you’re curious about the book, download the first chapter here [pdf]. If you like what you read, you can buy it here. It’s also available for the Kindle. I suggest you buy both.

Great news for Kindle and Kindle DX users. Amazon is finalizing the 2.5 software update, which will add a slew of features we’ve been pining for. The release is expected to come in May, and will be pushed from Amazon’s servers. No thinking required. From the desk of Jeff Bezos:

• Collections: Organize your books and documents into one or more collections.
• PDF Pan and Zoom: Zoom into PDFs and pan around to easily view small print and detailed tables or graphics.
• Password Protection: Password protect your Kindle when you’re not using it.
• More Fonts & Improved Clarity: Enjoy two new larger font sizes and sharper fonts for an even more comfortable reading experience.
• Facebook & Twitter Posts: Share book passages with friends on Facebook and Twitter directly from your Kindle.
• Popular Highlights: See what the Kindle community thinks are the most interesting passages in the books you’re reading.

(Read the rest here.)

Collections are a nice idea, as anyone with ten pages of books can attest. PDF pan-and-zoom is long overdue and very welcome. Indeed, if properly implemented (and I have full faith in Amazon) it will be the reason Kindle remains the dominant ebook reader on the market. Fonts and clarity are a good thing, though I’m curious how they could possibly make gorgeous Kindle display even better.

Previously: Amazon Kindle 2 First Impressions
Previously: Kindle 2 Thoughts, and DecalGirl Skin Kit
Previously: M-Edge Prodigy Hinge Jacket for Kindle 2 Thoughts
Previously: Amazon Offers Another Reason to Give Thanks

Well, it’s official. I’m a Celebrity. Where do I pick up my bling? Many thanks to @shararee and the readers of Huffington Post. My first act as a famous person will be to ask the waiter why he thinks it’s okay to make eye-contact with me.

An as-yet unrealized killer application for the iPad is in small-group presentations. The display is vivid and breathtaking, and mounted sufficiently high, can eliminate the frustrations that come with digital projectors. Such problems as:

• There is no projector.
• There is a projector, but the bulb is out.
• There is a projector, but there’s no screen.
• There is a projector, but it only uses an RCA adapter video-in. (You forgot your adapter.)
• There is a projector, but it only uses a VGA video-in. (You forgot your adapter.)
• There is a projector, but it only uses a DVI plug. (You forgot your adapter.)
• There is a projector, but one of the VGA/DVI pins is bent, and as such, does not work.
• Your computer isn’t compatible with the projector.
• Your computer crashed.
• Your presentation is on the thumb drive in your hotel room.

I’ve never been one to use PowerPoint or Keynote for presentations, in part because of the inevitable headaches listed above, but also because audiences have become inured to slide shows. Eighty-slide, eighty-word-per-slide information dumps cause crowds to tune out before the projector lamp has even warmed up. After reading The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs, however, I’m rethinking my approach. Author Carmine Gallo studied how Jobs crafts each of his legendary addresses, and meticulously presents the reader with the secrets behind the magic. Jobs builds a narrative with each speech, and uses PowerPoint not as a crutch, but as a flourish. Bullet points are sparing, and language is simple. Oftentimes, the most effective slide has a only single word or picture. Less is almost always more.

This minimalist philosophy works well for the iPad. The screen is small but powerful. Keynote, Apple’s premier presentation software, is natively supported. Properly positioned, it’s easy to imagine how an iPad could really dazzle a crowd of less than twenty. Best of all, there’s no need to fiddle with projectors or projection screens or computers.

Apple seems eager to help. This week, they released a series of guidelines for designing iPad-optimized presentations. Before this is really feasible, Apple will need to update its Keynote Remote software. Currently, the program allows speakers to advance slides on MacBooks using an iPhone or iPod Touch, but iPad support would be trivial to add. Which means we’re on the threshold of having everything necessary to give full multimedia presentations fit comfortably in a purse or satchel. This could be the game-changer for those of us who give presentations to small groups. I once wrote that the best uses for the iPad have yet to be imagined.

Get ready. They’re coming.