William Maltese |
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Comments, among other things, on his new book A CONSPIRACY OF RAVENS: A ONE-HAND READ (a test of Sex versus Substance) by William Maltese Okay, my university degree in Marketing/Advertising may well account for my penchant for continually searching out ways to "test things". By example, regular readers of this news magazine may remember my experiment that pitted my POD book SS MANN HUNT against my mainline-published THAI DIED: A STUD DRAQUAL MYSTERY (second of the series) which came out at about one and the same time. Completely new to the POD scene, I wanted to check out the POD advantages and disadvantages, rather than rely upon what others had to say. For the past few months, I've watched both books keep pretty close together, by way of Sales Ranks, on on-line retailer sites like amazon.com and bn.com. Some weeks THAI DIED coming in ahead of SS MANN HUNT, but the latter more than holding its own and more than once coming in with superior sales. If Green Candy Press, the mainline publisher of THAI DIED, gave me a great cover and quick listings on the on-line retail sites, POD iUniverse provided me a great cover and quick listings on the on-line retail sites. So far, Green Candy Press having the advantage because it has provided more sales, via brick-and-mortar bookstores, and it has managed to get THAI DIED selected as an InsightOut Book Club selection. Which doesn't mean that I've been soured on POD publishing. Quite to the contrary. Not only do I continue to like the author-control POD publishing allows me, but also it's an inexpensive and fast way of conducting additional "testing" projects. Which brings me to another POD book of mine, out this month (in time for the Christmas season), part of yet another test, rather tests. My POD book: A CONSPIRACY OF RAVENS: A ONE-HAND READ. The test(s): Would iUniverse get back to me with a critical - "This book is just too damned filthy to print!"? (Answer: No!). Would iUniverse balk at a male-nudie cover, albeit artfully done? (Answer: No!) Finally, is there really something to what most of my publishers have been telling me since almost Day One? Namely, gay sex-lead books beat out gay plot-lead books, in sales, every time. Shorter gay books beat out longer gay book, in sales, every time. Something to do with the short attention span of readers wanting more and more quick fixes, in this day and age of fast foods, fast computers, fast computer games? Something proven, here and now, by so many publishers of gay plot-lead "quality literature" suddenly cutting back on their gay-book lists, some quality gay imprints (for instance, Stonewall Inn) biting the dust altogether? I'm not a novice at producing shorter, faster-paced, sexier gay books. I did over fifty of them for Greenleaf Classics in the early days of gay-genre fiction when "gay" first became a publishing phenomenon on the bookstands with the publication of Richard Amory's best-selling SONG OF THE LOON. If it's once again the time for this kind of gay book, I'm here to find out, possibly cash in, maybe take advantage, who knows even shovel in some resulting loot. Will I be responsible for contributing to setting back gay literature by three decades, returning it to mere self-sex supplement status? My theory being I'm a writer and a writer writes. And since I can tell you from experience that I far prefer the monetary rewards of writing what readers want than writing what they don't want, I've made room in my repertoire for A CONSPIRACY OF RAVENS: A ONE-HAND READ. Whether or not it's a mistake, I'll have to get back to you. If I've misjudged the market, what the heck: there's no money-out-of-pocket publisher moaning to me and blaming me for lack of sales. That alone is enough to keep me advantaging the innovative POD publishing method for a long-long time to come. Besides, none of this means that A CONSPIRACY OF RAVENS: A ONE-HAND READ is plotless, purely appealing to prurient interests. The book's story line is actually based upon a real legend that has England's final fall coinciding with the Tower Ravens vacating the infamous Tower of London grounds (the birds' wings actually clipped to prevent any such departures). If someone in my book is out to kill the ravens, making his attempts while heroes and villain alike cavort shamelessly in sexual shenanigans, who's to say a gay mystery has to be three-hundred long pages of only gloom and doom? Stay tuned! |
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Conspiracy of Ravens: a one-hand read by William Maltese Paperback, $9.95, 88 pages ISBN 0-595-29162-7 August 2003 (iUniverse) AFTER NIGHTFALL. Inside the grounds of the infamous Tower of London. Patrick whose Irish lover, Ian, was killed by an English homicidal butcher behind the wheel of a speeding car. Tad whose American parents have sent their erring son to live with Brit relatives, one of whom is a Tower yeoman. Six Tower Ravens, the subjects of legend that predicts—they gone, the British Empire soon to follow. A man and five Tower Ravens murdered. One man determined to see the sixth bird dead, no matter the consequences.
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