Hello from San Diego. My new suspense thriller will be published by Oceanview Publishing and will come out next summer. I’m so excited about it. This is a long lead-time but is typical in traditional publishing these days. I had to get Oceanview a draft of the novel by the end of June.

Do you think I was in the weeds? I managed to get out of them and sent the manuscript out on June 29. I think it’s good. The book is about two feuding parents who must launder money in order to save their troubled teenage son. As with all my books, behind every crime is a family.

A few months ago a law firm contacted me and said that I had used copyrighted material on my website in 2019. These were pictures you will find in thousands of places on the web. Furthermore, Kim, who helped me with it, would only use unprotected material from the web. I thought it was a scam. Then a few weeks ago the same firm sent a package to my home address demanding thousands of dollars because I had used the photos. I had to hire a lawyer and found out these people were copyright trolls. They will pursue you all the way to court even if their demands are false. They figure that it costs people like me more to fight them than it does to pay them off. So instead of paying them I’m paying a lawyer. We’ve gone back and forth with this company and I don’t know if they will still pursue the case or not. But at least I have an Intellectual Property attorney defending me. The world is a pretty greedy place. For any of you who have websites, be careful what you download. These people have search engines that can find the images anywhere.

We welcomed Allison Brennan and Matt Coyle to kick off our Sizzling Summer Speaker series in June. This is a series that the chapters of Sisters in Crime in San Diego, Orange County, LA and Northern California jointly put on. Allison is a New York Times bestselling author and publishes three books a year. She does that by writing 3-5,000 words a day. She also has five kids and a home full of pets. Some people are just much more efficient than I am. Matt did a great job of interviewing her. Her latest is a crackling good book from her series characters, Special Agent Matt Costa and Detective Kara Quinn. Despite a large cast, Allison does a great job of making even minor characters distinctive.

Allison also gave some great writing advice:

• She doesn’t use outlines and lets the characters take the plot where it will go. She just continually asks herself, What if…?
• If she feels that the story is losing pace, she backtracks to find the boring part and sees if she can cut it.
• As soon as you want it perfect, you will kill the book. Put in the time every day and don’t worry if it’s good or not.
• She has some great advice on how writers can outrun the the demons of self-doubt. Check it out here!

Our next event will be hosted by our friends, the Sisters in Crime chapter of Orange County. Our fellow member, Maddie Magdalena, will interview a panel of three authors on Sunday, July 24 at 4:00 pm.

Brian Freeman is a New York Times bestselling author of psychological thrillers sold in 46 countries and 22 languages. Brian has written three Jason Bourne novels for the Ludlam estate.

Nick Petrie’s first novel, The Drifter, won the ITW Thriller and Barry Awards, and was nominated for Edgar, Anthony, and Hammett Awards. He was named one of Apple’s 10 Writers to Read in 2017.

Chris Hauty has been employed for the last thirty years as a screenwriter. He has worked for every major movie studio, in nearly all genres, and in collaboration with Hollywood professionals ranging from Mel Gibson to Jessica Alba.

This event is open to the public. Register to be part of it here.

I also got new book jacket photos taken by Deran Scott. Here are the best three so far. Before Daren gives me a digital facelift. Unfortunately he can't add any hair. Which one do you think should go on the jacket?

I’ve read some other very interesting books lately.

Social Venture Partners in San Diego just celebrated its twentieth anniversary with a party at the Bali Hai Restaurant on Shelter Island. More than a hundred people were there and the event raised $200K to help other nonprofits. Sierra Visher Kroha, our president, announced that we intend to double the number of nonprofits helped this year to 24. Our friends from Cesar Chavez Service Clubs were there, along with many other nonprofits to celebrate the terrific work that SVP does.

More news next month. In the meantime, please consider Murderabilia for someone who likes a good mystery thriller. If you’d like a bookmark just let me know and I will mail one to you. Links to read about the book (and buy it!) are below.

All the best,

Carl