What is the title of the first book you published (or hope to publish)? What would be the “elevator pitch” for that story?
13 thoughts on “Reader Friday: Name The Title Of The First Book You Published”
Finding Sarah – a romantic suspense
25 word pitch (which probably wouldn’t get me anywhere today):
Being robbed at gunpoint wasn’t part of Sarah Tucker’s business plan. Neither was falling in love with the detective who arrived to solve the case.
The next paragraph might have been better :
For police detective Randy Detweiler, a routine robbery investigation turns into the biggest challenge of his career when he falls in love with the victim and ends up having to save more than her business.
The first book I hope to publish is the novel I’m shopping around, The Heat Connection. My ‘elevator pitch’ is: Two agents of an interplanetary law enforcement agency must learn to work together to save Earth from an interstellar bandit.
TO SEE THE SUN – debut novel published in 2012.
Erin Macintyre never expected to be a widow and a new mother in the same year, any more than she expected mysterious notes, threatening phone calls, and a strange homeless person who seemed to know all about her. The thought of raising a child without a father is daunting enough—worse when you have no idea who might want to harm you. Put an old flame into the mix, and her life begins a tailspin into a world she never knew existed.”
NATHAN’S RUN (1996): When 12-year-old Nathan Bailey kills a juvenile detention center guard in self-defense and runs away, nobody believes his story. He becomes the symbol for what is wrong with society’s young people. Politicians, law enforcement officers and popular media want him hunted down, prosecuted as an adult and put away forever. Syndicated radio talk show host Denise Carpenter–“The Bitch”–is among Nathan’s harshest critics until he calls in to the show and tells his side of the story. Now branded “America’s favorite criminal,” it’s even more important to Nathan’s enemies that the boy be killed.
And that was a great book, John!
Thank you, Dave. 😀
HUNTER’S WAY (1991)
Missing child and a female cop back when they weren’t so prevalent. 🙂
My first book (other than the eight textbooks I wrote or edited while in medical practice) was a non-fiction book. The tag line was “Offering hope and healing for the brokenhearted, the Tender Scar addresses the heart-wrenching pain of losing a spouse.” It was at the writer’s conference where I hoped to learn enough to write and publish such a book that I met Jim Bell, who gets the credit and/or blame for getting me started writing fiction.
KARL’S LAST FLIGHT, 2006
“Karl Alexander was an adrenaline junky. Whether flying Harriers in the Marines, piloting the Space Shuttle or running rich tourists on low orbit space tours he always took it to the limit, and then some. But when his craft crash lands in Iran, he is thrust into the deadliest adventure of his life as he joins MI6 agent Liam Cleary and the seemingly insane CIA agent Kharzai Ghiassi in a high-speed chase to avert a nuclear suicide attack on Israel and US forces in the region. With the aid of a terribly persecuted Christian family, Faisil and his lovely daughter Esther, they weave their way through a trail of blades, bullets, and blood to literally save the world.”
Karl’s Last Flight was originally published as a serialized audiobook podcast in 2006. Then in ebook when Amazon opened self-pubbing in 2009, and was picked up by a main stream publisher in 2016.
Interesting note: The character Kharzai started off only as a comic relief/violent side-kick character, but after many listeners/readers commented that he was their favourite, and after totally fell in love with the character, he has been a major part of every novel I’ve written except one and is in several short stories as well. I plan to use him in most of my future books too. Really…he is a truly fun guy to write.
“Nerve Damage” (2014) is the story of young ER Dr. Drake Cody and his family as they are swept up in high-level intrigue and edge-of-your seat suspense. Murder, greed, and renegade agents of the trillion-dollar pharmaceutical industry place Drake and everyone he cares about in peril. The events are tomorrow’s headlines credible with surprises unfolding to the final page.
ISABELLA MOON (2007)
A woman on the run from her psychopathic husband settles in a small Kentucky town only to be caught in the web of lies surrounding the disappearance of a young girl, whose ghost appeals to her for justice.
(Hey, that’s a way better pitch than I had at the time. It only took me 10 years!)
INSTRUMENT OF THE DEVIL – publication Fall 2017
When technophobic widow Tawny Lindholm receives a baffling new smartphone as a gift, a dashing stranger helps her navigate its mysteries. But while romancing her, Kahlil Shahrivar is actually a terrorist who drags her into a plot to sabotage the power grid by cyber-attack on Montana’s Hungry Horse Dam. Soon the feds are chasing her and her family is in jeopardy. Tawny must find a way to turn the instrument back on the devil himself. Otherwise, when the lights go out, she dies.
My book, Night of the Nokozjumi, has been accepted by a publishing house. I’m (still) waiting for its release.
It’s the story of a young American woman, a highly-decorated U.S. Marine military police officer, runs smack dab into the middle of monstrous creatures that allegedly roam the back forests and perhaps the deserts of America, as she searches for her lost godbrother.
Its a cautionary tale to America as we push outward from our cities, into the wooded and wild hinterlands. Here is the caution:
Be careful. Your nokozjumi may be one of the dangerous ones.
Finding Sarah – a romantic suspense
25 word pitch (which probably wouldn’t get me anywhere today):
Being robbed at gunpoint wasn’t part of Sarah Tucker’s business plan. Neither was falling in love with the detective who arrived to solve the case.
The next paragraph might have been better :
For police detective Randy Detweiler, a routine robbery investigation turns into the biggest challenge of his career when he falls in love with the victim and ends up having to save more than her business.
The first book I hope to publish is the novel I’m shopping around, The Heat Connection. My ‘elevator pitch’ is: Two agents of an interplanetary law enforcement agency must learn to work together to save Earth from an interstellar bandit.
TO SEE THE SUN – debut novel published in 2012.
Erin Macintyre never expected to be a widow and a new mother in the same year, any more than she expected mysterious notes, threatening phone calls, and a strange homeless person who seemed to know all about her. The thought of raising a child without a father is daunting enough—worse when you have no idea who might want to harm you. Put an old flame into the mix, and her life begins a tailspin into a world she never knew existed.”
NATHAN’S RUN (1996): When 12-year-old Nathan Bailey kills a juvenile detention center guard in self-defense and runs away, nobody believes his story. He becomes the symbol for what is wrong with society’s young people. Politicians, law enforcement officers and popular media want him hunted down, prosecuted as an adult and put away forever. Syndicated radio talk show host Denise Carpenter–“The Bitch”–is among Nathan’s harshest critics until he calls in to the show and tells his side of the story. Now branded “America’s favorite criminal,” it’s even more important to Nathan’s enemies that the boy be killed.
And that was a great book, John!
Thank you, Dave. 😀
HUNTER’S WAY (1991)
Missing child and a female cop back when they weren’t so prevalent. 🙂
My first book (other than the eight textbooks I wrote or edited while in medical practice) was a non-fiction book. The tag line was “Offering hope and healing for the brokenhearted, the Tender Scar addresses the heart-wrenching pain of losing a spouse.” It was at the writer’s conference where I hoped to learn enough to write and publish such a book that I met Jim Bell, who gets the credit and/or blame for getting me started writing fiction.
KARL’S LAST FLIGHT, 2006
“Karl Alexander was an adrenaline junky. Whether flying Harriers in the Marines, piloting the Space Shuttle or running rich tourists on low orbit space tours he always took it to the limit, and then some. But when his craft crash lands in Iran, he is thrust into the deadliest adventure of his life as he joins MI6 agent Liam Cleary and the seemingly insane CIA agent Kharzai Ghiassi in a high-speed chase to avert a nuclear suicide attack on Israel and US forces in the region. With the aid of a terribly persecuted Christian family, Faisil and his lovely daughter Esther, they weave their way through a trail of blades, bullets, and blood to literally save the world.”
Karl’s Last Flight was originally published as a serialized audiobook podcast in 2006. Then in ebook when Amazon opened self-pubbing in 2009, and was picked up by a main stream publisher in 2016.
Interesting note: The character Kharzai started off only as a comic relief/violent side-kick character, but after many listeners/readers commented that he was their favourite, and after totally fell in love with the character, he has been a major part of every novel I’ve written except one and is in several short stories as well. I plan to use him in most of my future books too. Really…he is a truly fun guy to write.
“Nerve Damage” (2014) is the story of young ER Dr. Drake Cody and his family as they are swept up in high-level intrigue and edge-of-your seat suspense. Murder, greed, and renegade agents of the trillion-dollar pharmaceutical industry place Drake and everyone he cares about in peril. The events are tomorrow’s headlines credible with surprises unfolding to the final page.
ISABELLA MOON (2007)
A woman on the run from her psychopathic husband settles in a small Kentucky town only to be caught in the web of lies surrounding the disappearance of a young girl, whose ghost appeals to her for justice.
(Hey, that’s a way better pitch than I had at the time. It only took me 10 years!)
INSTRUMENT OF THE DEVIL – publication Fall 2017
When technophobic widow Tawny Lindholm receives a baffling new smartphone as a gift, a dashing stranger helps her navigate its mysteries. But while romancing her, Kahlil Shahrivar is actually a terrorist who drags her into a plot to sabotage the power grid by cyber-attack on Montana’s Hungry Horse Dam. Soon the feds are chasing her and her family is in jeopardy. Tawny must find a way to turn the instrument back on the devil himself. Otherwise, when the lights go out, she dies.
My book, Night of the Nokozjumi, has been accepted by a publishing house. I’m (still) waiting for its release.
It’s the story of a young American woman, a highly-decorated U.S. Marine military police officer, runs smack dab into the middle of monstrous creatures that allegedly roam the back forests and perhaps the deserts of America, as she searches for her lost godbrother.
Its a cautionary tale to America as we push outward from our cities, into the wooded and wild hinterlands. Here is the caution:
Be careful. Your nokozjumi may be one of the dangerous ones.