I love a good mystery. Obviously, it’s what I write, at least a lot of the time. So as Constellate Creatives is putting together my novel SEVEN ANGELS for 2026 release, I’ve put titles to the novel’s 69 chapters.
Here are some. And yes, I deliberately tried to invoke the “say what now?” feeling of the cryptic episode titles of shows like STRANGER THINGS.
Looking forward to June 2026 publication of SEVEN ANGELS.
Some of you might know that in October I lowered the $9.99 price of my book THAT OCTOBER to $1.06. It was a pricing stunt, of course, and I increased the price to $8.99 today (although as of this writing, it was still $1.06).
Authors and publishers who’ve played around with prices before know there’s some fascination to watching what happens. No surprise that people are motivated to buy when the price is reduced and we saw a nice bump in sales all October long and the first week-plus of November. (The kindle version came out September 1.)
Royalties were down, of course, but we expected that, and that isn’t the primary point anyway, because I wasn’t going to get rich off sales at any price. (Maybe those solid gold editions I plan for the holiday season will take care of that!)
But practically giving the kindle version away caused the book to jump into the top 100,000 titles on kindle for a short period, which was very cool.
Also interesting was a price change I made in the paperback edition, which came out June 1. Most sites, like B&N and Powell’s and Bookshop dot org, have been selling it for the recommended $24. A few have knocked that price down a couple of dollars.
Recently I created a link to buy THAT OCTOBER directly from the printer, Ingram Spark, and at a discounted price of $20 for the paperback. It’s given the paperback a modest boost in sales.
We’ll probably run some other price discounts in the coming months, to get the book and ebook in more hands and to continue this experiment,
Here’s a link to get THAT OCTOBER for $20 from Ingram Spark:
https://shop.ingramspark.com/b/084?params=J7whM7pHUaWJ8Yo51MkumOJTtw3j1gvNLmIfhQBGBMi
It’s a work in progress, but aren’t we all?
Y’all know by now, if you care to, that I’m working with my friends at Constellate Creatives. We’ll be helping writers with editing (both developmental and copy editing) book design, cover design, marketing and publicity for their books.
The boss at CC came up with the CP logo above, which stands for Constellate Publishing.
We’ve got a bunch of stuff in the works and best of all we’ve got a few books in the pipeline for 2026, when we really gear up. They’re a diverse lot, too.
Here’s a link if you want to know more about Constellate Creatives. There’s a button on the site for more info (services with a foundation of socially responsible pricing based on regional wage numbers), including free consultation.
And I’ll tell you more over the next few weeks.
I’ll never forget seeing my novel THAT OCTOBER in the bookstore at Bouchercon, the world mystery convention, in New Orleans this summer. I geeked out and thanked the woman from Garden District Book Shop, which ran book sales for the NOLA Bcon, several times over the course of the conference.
I’ve been writing since I was in high school and over the decades in the newspaper business I won more than 30 first-place journalism awards, both state and national. I’m the co-author of four best-selling, award-winning true crime books.
But there was no experience quite like seeing THAT OCTOBER among books from other authors, available to anyone. (It’s all over online booksellers too, but again – having a novel that someone can pick up is an incredible experience.)
That’s a big reason I’m working with my longtime friends at Constellate Creatives to help other writers with developmental editing, copy editing, cover design, interior design, marketing and publicity including social media.
Maybe some of this perception was all in my head, but at the time of my first Bouchercon, in Nashville in 2024, I didn’t have a book in print and it felt very different to be in NOLA in 2025 with a book that people could literally pick up and purchase.
Constellate wants to help you with a goal of getting your book in readers’ hands.
There’s a button you can smash – as the young people say – on the site to ask about a free consultation.
We’re writers just like you. We’ve got some ideas.
It’s been observed by smarter people than me that writing can be a daunting profession and avocation because of the isolation inherent in sitting at a desk all day, typing on your laptop or making notes in your journal.
It can be a challenge, and I’m not talking about writer’s block, although there is that, too.
The bigger challenge can be the feeling of working in a vacuum, the feeling that you’re writing and writing and rewriting and aren’t sure if you’re getting where you want to be with your story, your article or your book.
I’m known to say, “If you write, you’re a writer.” It doesn’t matter if you’ve been published or not, if you’ve had short stories or books published, to great acclaim or total *cricket noise.*
Cause I believe if you’re writing, or making notes, or thinking about writing and sending yourself ideas in texts and emails … well, you’re writing.
Sometimes you need a boost. I know I do. I’m lucky to have writer friends who read my stuff, from flash fiction to novels, and tell me what they think. I’m lucky to provide the same kind of support for my writer friends.
So a small group of us are now offering a boost to writers, no matter what stage they’re in.
I joined up with Constellate Creatives a while back and just the other day announced my affiliation with CC, which is owned and overseen by longtime friends of mine who are writers but also know other aspects of the writing life, from editing (developmental and copy editing) to publishing to marketing and everything in between.
Our goal is to help writers.
There’s a contact button on the Constellate Creatives site that I’m linking to below.
And I’ll tell you more in the weeks and months ahead.
The image above isn’t the Constellate Creatives logo. It’s an image from the 1960s spy TV series “The Girl from UNCLE.” But it’s a pretty nifty bit of art and sort of communicates the international foundation of Constellate.
More info:
Okay, be sure you have the beverage of your choice before you settle in for this.
I’m the guest for the new Pages & Partners podcast from Muncie Public Library. This interview was shot in June when I was last in Muncie. Host Gabby Sandefer was so much fun to sit down with.
I talk about journalism, true crime and my 1984-set high school crime novel THAT OCTOBER.
It’s almost an hour of me, but there’s lots of stuff about other topics, including late-night meetings with sources and how I cover cold cases and other true crime.
I’ve always loved watching Halloween horrors on TV. That didn’t change when it became easy to find classic horror films on first cable TV and VHS and later online and on streaming.
There’s still something wonderful about the communal experience of watching horror films, old and new-ish, on TV, even if the communal watchers are all over the world. That’s one of the reasons I love TCM – Turner Classic Movies – in October.
A few years ago, AMC was a go-to place for horror films and documentaries in October and the channel still shows the genre, but TCM has the largest and most diverse and often strangest selection of films each October.
That’s again the case this year, with Fridays devoted to Creepy Cinema, Sundays devoted to Hitchcock and weekends featuring classic horror films. Look for Hammer horror on Monday October 20, Boris Karloff on the 21st, sci-fi horror on the 22nd and horror marathons the last few days of the month.
Here’s a link to TCM’s offerings this month. Happy Halloween!
When my short story “A Fighting Life” was published in the past couple of weeks in the FIGHTING WORDS anthology, it contained the latest reference to the fiction worlds I operate in.
Since I wrote four or five novels back in the early 2000s – books that’ll probably never be seen, unless radically rewritten with what I’ve learned about writing in the meantime – I’ve enjoyed writing in a universe where, despite some timey-wimey variations, most of my characters and storylines play out in a shared world mostly consisting of the small city of Middletown, Indiana – based on my hometown of Muncie, Indiana, which was referred to in 20th century sociological studies as Middletown – and Seven Angels, a Tennessee town based on Jamestown, the small town my parents came from.
The early 2000s books featured Jack Richmond, a Middletown newspaper reporter, and a group of friends including Jess Peterson, an affable cop on the Middletown police force. There are lots of other characters too, including Luna, a topless dancer Jack falls in love with. By the end of the series of books, the two are married and have a son, Cody, and the final, still-to-be-completed book features Jack and Peterson’s desperate efforts to get Cody back after Luna’s ex brutally assaults her and kidnaps the boy.
When I wrote SEVEN ANGELS in 2019, my first crack at writing a novel in 15 years or more, I set it in the titular small Tennessee town with a side trip to Middletown and a pivotal appearance by Peterson.
My next novel, the also unpubished GHOST SHOW, is set in Middletown, but in 1948 and follows the Anderson family, who came to the big industrial town from the small Tennessee town of Seven Angels. No crossover characters, though.
My third novel, THAT OCTOBER, which was just published in June 2025, is set in 1984 Middletown and includes, among secondary characters, Richmond and Peterson at the beginning of their newspaper and police careers, respectively.
I won’t detail it all here, but I’ve returned to the Middletown and Seven Angels wells numerous times in short stories. The foul-mouthed, fightin’ siblings in “A Fighting Life” are pulled from GHOST SHOW. My very first published short story, “Independence” from the MOTEL anthology, is set in little Seven Angels, complete with the sheriff/main bad guy from the SEVEN ANGELS novel.
The seeding of characters from my earlier stories – like Butcher Crabtree, who I posted about here recently – throughout my fiction just goes on and on.
And so do I. To quote one of my (hopefully) self-deprecating quotes, “Enough about me. What do you think of me?”
That’s a murder board. You’ve probably seen them in movies and TV shows. You might have made one yourself.
But have you ever seen a murder board, based on two real-life unsolved murders, put together by 13-and-14-year-olds? I didn’t think so.
Earlier this week I spoke to teacher Megan Byard’s middle-school class at Inspire Academy in Muncie, Indiana, my hometown. Ms. Byard had approached me and Douglas Walker, my longtime writing partner at Muncie newspapers and in four true crime books, including “The Westside Park Murders: Muncie’s Most Notorious Cold Case,” published by History Press in 2021, about talking to the class about Westside.
In September 1985, teenagers Ethan Dixon and Kimberly Dowell were shot to death in Muncie’s Westside Park. No one was ever charged with the crime, although police have had a person of interest for a few years now. In our book, we name that person, who is in prison following a conviction for a separate murder years after the Westside slayings. We explain the line of reasoning that prompted police to suspect him. We reached out to him in prison to ask about the case against him. He did not respond to written questions and a self-addressed, stamped envelope. In addition to naming him, our book explores many other theories and suspects connected to the case.
Since it came out, our book has received a lot of attention. Popular podcasts have been based on our book and the crime. On Amazon, the book has 163 ratings for 4 out of 5 stars. It prompted a Peabody-winning producer of non-fiction television to contact us about turning it – and some of our other writing – into a multi-part true crime series, but no networks or channels took the producer up on the pitch.
Of all the attention that our book has received, I think one of the coolest and most interesting was from Ms. Byard’s class. The students, who are interested in journalism and writing and true crime, studied the book and the crime in advance of having me do an online talk for their class. They asked good questions.
I think I was most impressed with the murder board, though. Made me feel like I was working in a police precinct, hoping for a breakthrough.
And I guess all of us are still waiting for a breakthrough.
Thanks to Ms. Byard and her class at Inspire Academy. Your interest and care made my week.
Here’s a link to the book on Amazon, although you can find it anywhere, including many libraries, including the Chicago Public Library.
I’ve never been accused of being cool about writing successes, whether it was awards for journalism or publication of pop culture pieces at CrimeReads or elsewhere or short stories at several sites or in anthologies.
One thing I’ve not been able to experience is seeing my work in a bookstore. Indie authors who self-publish, as I did with THAT OCTOBER, can see their works for sale at a million online sites like Amazon or Barnes & Noble, but seeing an indie book in a bookstore is a very rare thing. I’ve been turned down twice when I’ve taken formal steps to see THAT OCTOBER on shelves.
That’s why it was such a thrill to see my 1984-set high school crime novel in the bookstore at Bouchercon in New Orleans earlier this month.
There’s a picture of the book above, nestled in with other books on the long tables of books available for sale.
By Sunday morning, the final day of Bouchercon, two copies remained of the several they stocked.
A huge shoutout to the Bouchercon 2025 NOLA books team and the wonderful people at Garden District Book Shop, 2727 Prytania Street, New Orleans, LA, 70130. I told them several times how grateful I was that they went to the trouble of getting copies of THAT OCTOBER.
Here’s a link to Garden District:
keithroysdon 