Remember when you were in elementary school and the new school year started? Did your teacher ask you to write a short story about what you did over the summer? And then read them to the class?

I never cared for the ones about some vacation other kids’ families took. Or the camp they went to. Or their baseball team.

The stories I liked best were the out-of-left-field tales that no one anticipated. Like the cat that was run over by a car. (We were a dog family. Never had a cat.) Or the wreck of a father’s newly restored Studebaker. (Who cared?) Or the kid struck by lightning while holding his bicycle under a large oak tree during a rain storm? (He lived. The bike was ruined.)

I was very entrepreneurial as a kid. I found ways to make money. Mowing yards. Shoveling snow. (Old people were free.) Collecting wire coat hangers and tying them in bunches of a dozen. (The cleaners paid 25 cents/dozen.)

My favorite was catching minnows in a nearby drainage ditch and selling them to the bait store for 25 cents per dozen. My brother Tom and I would ride our bikes to the grocery store and buy a loaf of white bread, which I think cost about 30 cents back then. We then took one of Mom’s old Mason jars (she canned dill and sweet pickles every year). We also borrowed one of our parents’ aluminum buckets.

We took the roll of string off of one of our kites and climbed on our bikes. With all of our supplies in the baskets attached to the handlebars, we rode our red and white Schwinns to the drainage ditch about two miles east of town.

We planted ourselves on the little bridge that crossed the drainage canal. This ditch always had water in it. After making a visual inspection of the water to verify that there were indeed minnows swimming in the shadow of the bridge, we made small balls of white bread and put them in the Mason jar. We tied string around the neck of the jar and lowered it into the water.

Leaning over the edge of the bridge, we kept a close eye on the jar. It took no time before the minnows found the bread balls. Once we had several of the silver minnows in the jar, we pulled it up and dumped them in the bucket along with the water. We repeated the process until we had at least 48 in the bucket. Avoiding spilling our treasure, we then rode carefully to the bait shop and asked that we be paid in quarters instead of a dollar bill: easier for us to split the proceeds. My recollection is that this story earned me an A.

What’s Going on This Summer with Me?

While we are only half way into summer, some things have occurred related to my newfound career as a novelist. First, I received a copy of the full dust jacket for my first novel, Incentive for Death. Second, International Thriller Writers invited me to join its Debut Authors Program and write an article about how I found a publisher. Third, the Killer Nashville Writers’ Conference asked me to judge three debut novels under consideration for their Claymore Award.

My First Book Jacket

I was very pleasantly surprised when Oceanview Publishing emailed me a copy of the jacket for Incentive for Death which will be released on October 3rd. A copy appears below.

As you can see, the front cover remains the same except that a different part of Steve Berry’s blurb is quoted at the top. The front flap summarizes the novel.

The back cover has three blurbs. One from Steve Berry, author of the Cotton Malone series. The second is by Patricia Gussin, the New York Times best-selling author of Medicine & Mayhem: The Dr. Laura Nelson Files. The third blurb was supplied by Shawn Wilson, author of Duplicity.

The back flap contains my headshot and a brief bio, as well as links to my author website jamesspoonhour.com and my publisher’s website Oceanviewpub.com.

I think it is a great cover. All of the marketing sources I have read say that the first step toward getting someone to look at your book is the cover.

International Thriller Writers

ITW was created around 20 years ago by a group of authors. It is still run by authors and is probably the largest writers’ organization in the world. Now that I am published, I have become a full member of the International Thriller Writers.

In June of last year, I attended my first ITW conference (ThrillerFest XVII) in New York City, which is a five-day gathering of published and unpublished authors, literary agents and publishers. The conference was held at the Sheraton Times Square. Several hundred people attended.

Kimberly Howe, the Executive Director of ITW, suggested to Oceanview that I apply to participate in their Debut Authors Program and also write an article about how I found a publisher.

I am now a member of the Debut Authors Program, which regularly provides updates on Twitter about the progress of the debut writers. The entire group will be recognized in June, 2024 at a debut authors breakfast at next year’s ThrillerFest XIX in NYC and introduced at the concluding banquet where the ThrillerMaster (lifetime achievement) Awards are given. Last year those awards went to Frederick Forsyth (Day of the Jackal was his second novel in 1971) and Diana Gabaldon (Outlander was her debut in 1991).

I have also submitted my article Finding a Publisher through Serendipity. Hopefully, it will appear in ITW’s The Big Thrill magazine next spring.

Also, author Elena Hartwell Taylor interviews writers in the Debut Authors Program. My interview is scheduled around my release date of October 3, 2023.

Judging Books for the Claymore Award

I have no idea how they found me, but the Killer Nashville International Writers’ Conference reached out in late June. They asked me to review three debut novels being considered for their Claymore Award. A lot of people have gratuitously helped me along my path to publication, and I felt it only appropriate to pay it forward. I agreed to do it.

Killer Nashville sent me the first 50 pages of three debut novels. If I found that the manuscript was not yet ready for an award or a bestseller list, they wanted my input as to what was wrong with the manuscript. I was also asked to comment on the opening of the tale, how the characters were developed, as well as sentence structure and the mechanics of the writing. There were additional questions about the use of setting and focus on the use of dialogue.

One was a story about two sisters in 1863 Colorado searching for their missing father. Another was a tale about a former CIA agent whose wife is kidnapped and killed during their honeymoon in Greece. The third was about a young married woman dealing with a mystery murder and other problems in 1857 in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Two of the three were quite good stories and well written. The third one had some shortcomings in connection with the writing itself. It was an interesting experience and was helpful in focusing me on issues in my latest Detective Mac Burke novel that is currently in process.

Thanks for Reading

I appreciate all who take their valuable time to read my periodic ramblings. Incentive for Death is available for pre-order from the following booksellers: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Bookshop.org, and Kobo. If you like what you read, please submit a review, particularly to Goodreads and Amazon. Four and five stars gets attention from the algorithms. If you don’t like the book, skip the review and send me an email with your input as to what worked or didn’t work for you. Hope you have a great summer. Regards to all.

Photo by Nita Halloran

Best,

Jim Spoonhour