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March 09, 2005

Letters to Your Heroes

In the push toward publication of Painkiller, a couple of things have taken place in the past few weeks. First, with the help of my savvy and incredibly supportive editor, Rob McMahon, we sent a limited number of requests to big-name authors for "blurbs" on my book. Normally the publishing house will send a copy of the galleys with a nice letter to the author in question, requesting a read and a line or two for use in publicizing the book; I was given some advice, though, that you've got a much better shot of seeing a positive response from people who have no idea who you are...if you write a handwritten note to said big-name authors.

I'm happy to report that the bestselling author type appears to be a charitable sort of person, or at least friendly and willing to help: to date, I've been fortunate enough to receive "advance praise" from the likes of James Patterson, Clive Cussler, Christopher Reich, Gregg Hurwitz, David Morrell, and there remains hope for a couple other of my heroes we've sent the request out to. You can check out the blurbs on my website, willstaeger.com.

And that's the thing I wanted to say: what has been most enjoyable about this stage -- at least outside of actually receiving positive blurbs from these guys -- is that I had the opportunity to write thank you notes to some of my biggest heroes and role models. Not a thank you note for their blurbs -- I mean a note thanking them for their work. For their pinpoint-accurate choice of words, or rollicking plot turns, or universally appealing, cool, wisecracking characters. For showing me how to write; for keeping me awake many a night with tales of espionage, adventure, anti-heroes, extortion, victory. How often do you get a chance to write a note to the handful of most influential professionals in your life, each of whom you've never met, and yet, in writing the note, you know there's at least a fifty-fifty shot they'll read it? In each case I simply indicated it would be great to have a kind word or two if the writer had time to read and liked the thing...but mostly I wanted to say thanks for the beacon of light you provided with your work. Cool stuff. We only have a few more out there, and it doesn't take more than a few to give you what you need: some comments on the back jacket, or for use in delivering greater interest from booksellers. So we're doing well.

The other event that has taken place in recent weeks is that the vote has taken place on the use of a subtitle on the cover, and the decision was to go with one. I believe it will be "a cocktail of rum, rogues, and revenge" -- i.e., the title of the book is Painkiller, and instead of the typical "a novel" that follows in smaller print somewhere on the cover, we'll have the above-mentioned subtitle. Provides a little more texture, atmosphere, and grit. I'm all for it.

Meanwhile my second Cooper novel plods along...my deadline is later this year and there's this little something in between now and then -- the release of Painkiller. And I don't happen to fall into that group of people who believe that sleep is overrated...

This posting was a little short as I'm pressed for time today. Hope to get more down next time -- we're beginning the planning of the tour to end all book tours, including the filming of a documentary tracking the trip, along with a few other things along the way. More later.

Posted by Will Staeger at 04:24 PM | Comments (0)