Sign of the (L.A.) Times

I grew up in a news junkie's household. When I was a kid, Washington DC had two main papers, the Washington Post and the Evening Star. When I was in high school in Richmond, there were also two daily papers, one in the morning and one in the evening--the Richmond Times-Dispatch and the News-Leader. There was also the Richmond Mercury, and Richmond Style Weekly, a freebie paper I wrote for after college.

In addition to the local papers, my father subscribed to the Wall Street Journal and, off and on, to the Christian Science Monitor. On weekends, he'd made the drive out to a hotel near downtown to buy out of town papers--the NY Times, the L.A. Times, etc.  When I moved to L.A. there were three main daily papers, the Times, the Herald-Examiner and a paper that was then known as the Valley News and Green Sheet.  (Among staffers, the Valley News was often referred to as "the green shit" and if you were overheard saying that, it meant a pink slip.) The Her-Ex folded some years ago but the Times and the Valley News are still around, along with a handful of hyper-local papers.

I grew up reading newspapers in  cities where there were a lot of papers covering the news. And from the time I moved to Los Angeles, I had a subscription to the Times.  But in 2007, with the WGA Times now costs $1 a copy, which used to be what the fat Sunday edition cost. And I realized I couldn't remember the last time I sat down and read an actual newspaper. Probably around the last time I looked a number up in the actual Yellow Pages and dialed it on my land line.

strike looming, that subscription was one of the first things I chopped out of my budget, along with cable and eBay browsing. I would occasionally pick up a single copy from a newspaper vending machine but eventually I transitioned over to online news and I haven't really looked back. Until today when a newspaper headline caught my eye and I looked closer and discovered that the L.A.Times now costs $1 a copy, which is what the fat Sunday edition used to cost. Wow.
I can't remember the last time I sat down and read a newspaper. It was probably around the same time that I looked something up in a paper Yellow Pages and dialed the number on my cordless phone. 





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Washington's Spies!

I had never heard of TURN, AMC's new historical series, until yesterday when I saw a billboard for it.  It's based on the book Washington's Spies and it looks like it could be a lot of fun. The Brit villains aren't very subtle unlike the Jason Isaacs' character in The Patriot) but they're VILLAINS.  Here's the trailer for it:

Criminal Element runs a promotion for Whipping Boy!

I've been working as a "Fresh Meat" reviewer for Criminal Element," the crime fiction blog hosted by Macmillan publishing for a little over a year now. (And I learned about the paid gig via Twitter, which is something I tell my clients who see no value in social media because they don't think "anyone wants to know what I ate for breakfast.")

I am a proud indie author but it's still kind of fun to drop the phrase, "My editor at Macmillan," into casual conversation.  The editor in question is Clare Toohey, and she is awesome. She set up a great promotion to celebrate the publication of my debut mystery novella, Whipping Boy, and is running it in conjunction with an excerpt on Criminal Element today.  She's also helped me hone in on a description of the book that fits my brand of crime fiction, which is not that easily defined. Did I mention she's awesome?  Here's how she describes Whipping Boy:

Whipping Boy by Katherine Tomlinson is a California cop mystery novella, the debut of a female criminalist whose strange existence swings from the darkest crime scenes to life among Hollywood royalty--no wonder she has such a bad attitude (available March 12, 2014). 

 

If you love crime fiction in all its varieties, you should be checking out Criminal Element. And you should definitely stop by today because if you leave a comment about the excerpt, you can win excellent swag! Here's a link to the excerpt.

I do not think that word means what you think it means...

I love The Princess Bride for so many reasons, but the title of this post is probably my favorite quote among many quotable lines. I always think of the line when I'm surfing CraigsList looking for gigs because I often find lines like this:

We need someone to write the story and share the profit 50/50 with the author. 

I'm a ghostwriter by trade and have absolutely no problem being the writer behind the name, but it does seem a little delusional when the person hiring the ghostwriter is unclear on the concept of what's actually happening.

Sigh.

Judging a Book by Its (Pre-made) Cover

I love the covers that Joy Sillesen of Indie Author Services does for me. I've also bought a number of IAS pre-made covers over the years. But I also like looking at other sites offering pre-made covers and today I hooked up with the UK-based Cover Collection via Twitter. Their covers are very affordable (they seem to be in the 30 pounds and up range with sale covers offered at 20 poumds) and they offer covers for many different genres. More than a couple caught my eye. Maybe you'll find something there for your next project.

City of Darkness and LIght--Paris & Mystery

My favorite city and my favorite genre are combined in City of Darkness and Light. Check the book out on today's Criminal Element.  The book is one of a series by Rhys Bowen, and series are always good news for mystery readers.

Cover reveal: Christine Pope's Darkangel

Cover by Indie Author Services

My friend Christine Pope--aka the hardest working writer in romance fiction--has a new book coming out this month and I can't wait. It's called Darkangel, and it's the first in a new series for her.
Here are the details:

Finding the man of your dreams can be a real nightmare….

As the future prima, or head witch of her clan, Angela McAllister is expected to bond with her consort during her twenty-first year, thus ensuring that she will come into her full powers at the appointed time. The clock is ticking down, and her consort has yet to make an appearance. Instead, her dreams are haunted by a man she’s never seen, the one she believes must be her intended match.

But with time running out, and dark forces attempting to seize her powers for their own, Angela is faced with a terrible choice: give up her dreams of the man she may never meet and take the safer path, or risk leaving her clan and everyone in it at the mercy of those who seek their ruin.

Darkangel is the first book in the Witches of Cleopatra Hill, a paranormal romance trilogy set in the haunted town of Jerome, Arizona. 

If you've read Pope's Sedona Trilogy, you know she has mad love for the area, and the setting here is Jerome, the funky little town that neighbors Sedona. For more about Christine Pope and her books, go here. The latest book in her Gaia Consortium series is now available here.