Wednesday, July 15, 2009

TWO-WAY SPLIT: Killing With Kindleness

Good news and bad news, folks – the good news is that Allan Guthrie’s terrific TWO-WAY SPLIT is available in yet another format, the Kindle, which means it’s likely to knock the socks off a whole new audience. Better still, it’ll cost you the princely sum of $1.25! Huzzah!
  For that all-essential Crime Always Pays take on TWO-WAY SPLIT, clickety-click here … but be warned – those of you with an aversion to purple prose should resist the temptation to click thru, the better to avoid lines like, “The result is a gut-knotting finale that unfurls with the inevitability of all great tragedy and the best nasty sex – it’ll leave you devastated, hollowed out, aching to cry and craving more.”
  The bad news? Well, it’s a kick in the nuts to see the likes of TWO-WAY SPLIT being offered at $1.25. I mean, the novel won the Theakston’s Old Peculier, and it’s a wonderful novel, noir or otherwise. How’s a man supposed to earn a living when his best work is on sale at the knock-down, low-low, bargain basement price of $1.25? Eh?
  I should probably declare a variety of interests here, before I go any further: Allan Guthrie is my agent; I’m planning on uploading a novel to Kindle in the very near future; I haven’t had any great tragedy or nasty sex recently; and I am, in fact – mwah-hah-hah!!! – Allan Guthrie.
  Seriously, though – I’ll earn more this month from freelance writing (reviews of movies, theatre and books, mostly, with some features and interviews tossed in) than I’ve earned in the last 18 months from writing fiction. And this month isn’t a particularly terrific month, it’s average enough. So you tell me – with a baby girl in the house needing food, nappies, clothes and new shoes (the girl loves her shoes!), what’s the point in trying to write fiction? Or, let me rephrase that – What’s the point in writing terrific fiction (which I do, modesty and all aside) and trying to sell it, and very probably winding up selling it for $1.25 a pop, which works out – given the outrageous cost of living in Ireland – at roughly three nappies per copy?
  The answer: None, unless you’re insane.
  Anyway, if you have a Kindle, go buy Allan Guthrie’s brilliant TWO-WAY SPLIT. Apparently he’s going to cut me in for 0.000015 cents per copy, as commission, and if he sells a million copies this week, my baby girl gets to eat.
  You know it makes sense.

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Declan Burke has published a number of novels, the most recent of which is ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL. As a journalist and critic, he writes and broadcasts on books and film for a variety of media outlets, including the Irish Times, RTE, the Irish Examiner and the Sunday Independent. He has an unfortunate habit of speaking about himself in the third person. All views expressed here are his own and are very likely to be contrary.