Thank you for stopping by I'm delighted to be one of the stops on the blog tour for Cold Winter Sun and sharing a Guest Post by Tony J Forder today!
First of all though let's take a look at the description for the book...
A missing man. A determined hunter. A deadly case.
When Mike Lynch is contacted by his ex-wife about the missing nephew of her new husband, he offers to help find the young man with the help of his friend Terry Cochran.
Arriving in LA to try and track down the young man, the pair are immediately torn away when the missing man’s car shows up, abandoned on the side of a deserted road in New Mexico.
When two fake police officers cross their path, Terry and Mike know there is more to the case than meets the eye, and soon they find themselves asking exactly who it is they are really looking for…
People often ask me what are the
good and bad things about writing. The fact is, the pros and cons are fluid,
and they have changed enormously since I was first asked that question. I have
no doubt that many of these will be shared with other writers, but also suspect
that some may be reversed. I guess it’s all about the individual. For me,
however, right now, here are my thoughts on the question:
Pros
Walking into my local Waterstones
and seeing my books on the ‘Crime’ table and on the ‘Crime’ shelves gives me a
thrill every time. It was everything I aspired to when I started writing, and
now my books are there for any browser to come across by chance. That is the
biggest thrill and the biggest pro right there. Just a few weeks ago I went in
there to browse for more books to add to my ever-expanding To Be Read pile. I
ended up signing the books they had on the shelves, which gave me a real kick.
Making a living from writing is
a big one. I don’t sell in the millions, but I set out hoping to sell a few
hundred copies along the way, so when I see the numbers I have achieved over
the past eighteen months then I have to say I still pinch myself.
Discovering a whole community of
writers, bloggers and readers out there who are so gracious, so friendly, so
approachable, and so deep into reading and writing, was a massive thrill. It
has been my great pleasure and privilege to get to know so many of them, not
just on social media but also in person, and a nicer bunch of people you could
not wish for. To be recognised by complete strangers at the Harrogate festival,
and to have them talking to me about my books, was a surreal experience.
The physical act of writing is a
pro. It’s something I look forward to each morning as I take my seat at my desk
and power up the laptop at around 8.00am five days a week. Sure, there are
times when the story is not quite flowing as I would like, or the ending is not
coming together in my mind, or the edits compel me to cut chunks of work
because it’s for the good of the storyline and pace, and they are not exactly
fun times. But they are part of the overall process, and as such you have to
accept them. They are overwhelmingly outnumbered by the times where scenes are
disappearing beneath the fierce clatter of keys, characters come to life and
take a grip of the story, and the satisfaction at having pulled together
another 100,000 words or so to produce one more book. After six books, I can
only hope there is more in the tank yet.
Cons
Crippling self-doubt is
something I know I share with a lot of writers. I recently exchanged a few
online words with a crime author who sells in her millions, and she told me
that she goes through the same agonies as I do with every book she writes. It’s
something you have to overcome, but I am my own worst critic and I can be
extremely harsh with myself. I know I can write books people enjoy reading, but
I also know I can get better at it.
The agonising wait for the first
few reviews to come through can seem interminable. The wait between first
handing your book into the publisher and receiving those first reviews can be
as long as six months, and that’s a long time to sit back waiting for people to
read your book and publish their reviews. The feeling when that first 5 star
comes through is such a massive relief it’s all you can do not to collapse in
on yourself. You work yourself up into such a frenzy that it makes the wait all
the harder. I tell myself I’m half a dozen books in now so I can sit back and
relax, but not a bit of it. As I write this, Cold Winter Sun is still a month
and a half away from being published, and I am absolutely in pieces.
Socialising does not come easy
to me. I was as nervous as anything when I did my first reading, my first
couple of signings, my first literary festival, and my first ‘meet the author’
event. I try to overcome it all with a combination of humour and alcohol
consumption, and so far it seems to have worked. But it’s a nervous time,
believe me. However, as an author you occasionally have to put yourself out
there. Don’t get me wrong, it’s been a tremendous experience getting to meet
and socialise with fellow authors, book bloggers, and readers. I really enjoy
it when I’m doing it – if only it weren’t for that pesky anticipation.
When it comes to the reviews I
mentioned earlier, they can be both a pro and a con. However, the reviews from the
stunningly wonderful book bloggers have been incredible, and the vast majority
on both Goodreads and the various Amazon sites have been terrific. Some of the
positive comments have been mind-boggling, and there is nothing to match the
feeling when a reader endorses something you took great care over. Though few,
those poor reviews sting. A number of my worst ratings have been non-reviews,
really. It seems that there are some people out there whose aim it is to trawl
the various review sites specifically in order to give a 1* rating or a few
miserable words to a book which has a high overall rating. Those people I can
ignore because I know they haven’t actually read the book.
But you cannot please all of the
people all of the time, and invariably there will be people who shelled out
their hard-earned money and are unhappy with their purchase. It’s tough to
take, but provided they have been thoughtful and honest in their appraisal, then
you just have to live with it. You may not agree, and sometimes they can get
things dreadfully wrong or accidentally leak a plotline you’d rather have been
kept quiet. So a thick skin is necessary, and you move on. Reviews can be a
double-edged sword, but on the whole enormous satisfaction can be garnered from
them, especially when a reader thanks you for writing the book. Now that is a pro, and a wonderful one at that.
Tony J Forder is the author of the critically acclaimed, best-selling crime thriller series featuring detectives Jimmy Bliss and Penny Chandler. The first three books, Bad to the Bone, The Scent of Guilt, and If Fear Wins will be joined by a fouth in the series in 2019.
Tony’s dark, psychological crime thriller, Degrees of Darkness, featuring ex-detective Frank Rogers, was also published by Bloodhound Books. This is a stand-alone novel. Another book that was written as a stand-alone was Scream Blue Murder. This was published in November 2017, and received praise from many, including fellow authors Mason Cross, Matt Hilton and Anita Waller. Before it had even been published, Tony had decided to write a sequel, and Cold Winter Sun will be published in November 2018.
Tony lives with his wife in Peterborough, UK, and is now a full-time author.
Author Links:
Bloodhound Books: http://www.bloodhoundbooks.
Fantastic Fiction: : https://www.fantasticfiction.
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