In this issue:

1. Tucson Festival of Books
2. Countdown to Relocating (Again)!

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First, FYI: TWO Audiobook Editions of Rogue’s Gallery Coming (Regular & Deluxe)!

——> watch this space, and look for another Sam Travis adventure (#4) soon, too! <——

As you might already know, I recently published my latest (third) heart-pounding Aubrey Greigh Mystery, Rogue’s Gallery this fall in Kindle and paperback editions.

In my last post, I mentioned I was seriously considering something that is not business-as-usual in audiobook production: a “theatrical” edition that will feature not only a stellar narrator performing the script (me!), this edition will also feature tasteful, scene-specific background music, with cinematic sound effects as well.

I see this as an attractive niche to provide a more engaging listener experience. So, I am indeed producing this theatrical audiobook edition as an option for Rogue’s Gallery. I think you’ll love it.

I’ll be looking for a few reviewers to provide feedback in the near future.

So if you’re interested in a FREE edition to listen to and provide a few observations, please contact me at gjurrens@gkjurrens.com. But hurry, and only if you can dedicate the time to listening and reviewing! I will only have a limited number of U.S. & U.K. promo codes!

Yes, I’m still having an absolute blast mixing and producing this. It’s about 75% complete. Won’t be long now, kids!

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1. Tucson Festival of Books Report!

If you’re not aware, this is the TFOB:

• The 2nd largest book festival in the country (in the world, maybe?),
• Typically >100,000 attendees (free admission) over one weekend,
• Dozens of ticketed venues (presentations & moderated panels),
• Millions of dollars raised for the community (non-profit),
• More than 200 year-round volunteers.

This two-day festival took place this last weekend at the University of Arizona campus in Tucson just 13 miles from where we currently park our home on wheels.

TFOB was particularly special to me this year for several reasons which may be of most interest to you authors or aspiring writers. For example:

• I’m not sure how many independently published (“indie”) authors wanted to participate in signing and selling books at TFOB (there is always a wait list – I was on it for last year’s festival), but only 200 of us were accepted this year. That’s determined by the amount of space available. The committee still accepted me even after reviewing my bio, two of my recently published mystery manuscripts, the entire list of my 21 published works, website/blog, and the gist of my rather opinionated social media accounts. This process started last July. So, yeah, this is a big deal for me.
• Of the 200 authors that “got in,” they selected only 13 authors to be “presenting indie authors,” that is, those of us selected to participate in panels across various genres before a ticketed audience.
• Of those 13 authors, 3 of us were accepted to participate in a panel within the mystery genre.
• Even though our session was scheduled at the very same time as the inestimable Maureen Dowd, world-famous opinion columnist for the New York Times, we still drew a standing-room-only crowd in a room whose seated capacity was 110.

My insatiable ego needs this sort of periodic nurturing, y’all, and yes, I am still a work in progress.

The perks available to presenting authors also impressed me (great job, indie committee!):

• On Friday, the day preceding my panel, the committee provided me with a coveted Second Street Garage parking pass, adjacent to the U of A Student Union, the venue for our panel on Saturday. This may not sound like a huge deal, but when “schlepping” maybe a hundred pounds of books, a banner, my point-of-sale terminal, and about a gallon of drinking water in my collapsible canvas wagon around this huge campus, proximity was my friend. And did they ever scrutinize my parking pass before allowing me and the Jeep entry! You’d think I was trying to cross the border into the U.S.!
• I was to proceed to “Author Hospitality” where my credentials were checked. I offered my birth certificate, but that was unnecessary. I’d meet my panel moderator for the first time and/or my volunteer guide to direct me to our speaking venue, also in the huge student union (close by).
• Author Hospitality? Very nice, indeed. Complimentary coffee, tea, pastries, boxed lunches (even vegetarian!), a secure place to store my inventory while I explored the festival a bit, or sat on the patio people watching. I texted one of my fellow panelists, also a mystery author: “Look for the olive drab Fedora atop a ghost-white goatee. I’ll be on the patio.” Like we were undercover! Nancy (see below) even knew what a Fedora is (old-fashioned brimmed hat for you youngsters)!
• I was indeed delighted to meet Nancy Nau Sullivan, one of my fellow panel members. She is a fascinating author of cozy mysteries. I know we will continue to be friends. She uses a publisher, and offered me several valuable tips, both there in Author Hospitality, and later Saturday night at a Happy Hour. Say what, Mr. Recovering Alcoholic and vegetarian? Nancy, we must talk more about your Peace Corps experience in Argentina, Mexico, Viet Nam, and… Ireland? ¡Disfruté mucho pasar tiempo contigo, mi nueva amiga!
• I also very much enjoyed meeting another indie author from our panel, Chris Jansmann, an extremely articulate author who writes in the first-person narrative with aplomb. After the panel, we discussed its pros/cons versus my third-person narratives. Plus, his rather unique penchants for Olympic swimmer training and model railroads as a basis for his mysteries? Dude, you rock!
• Yes, this is the very first year of what’s being called the “Re-imagined Indie Author Experience” at TFOB. For the first time ever, select indie authors were invited to present as part of genre-specific panels, and presenting indie authors were invited to a happy hour hosted for all authors, including some hard-core veterans of the industry. I didn’t collect names, just pointers, sentiments, etc. An awesome experience for this little fish in that big pond in the desert! I drank or ate nothing. Too busy mingling, talking, and most of all, listening.
• Kudos to Hilary Hamlin, Nancy Thompson & Pamela Clarridge, indie author co-chairs for the festival, for being crazy enough to select this uber-opinionated scribe! Hilary & Nancy, I especially enjoyed getting to know both of you this weekend! Also, thanks to Jo Perry, our panel moderator. I had never met a noir author before. Jo, you did not disappoint. I still wanna find out how you know Eric Idle!

Oh, did I mention I was approached by a German publisher who is looking to expand their portfolio into U.S. mysteries? Just in passing, but she took my info. We’ll see.

I am so glad to have participated in this event. Overall, three exhausting but exhilarating days of possibilities!

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2. Countdown to Relocating (Again)!

We’ve enjoyed our stay in Tucson since the beginning of the year, and we’re not quite done here, yet.

Later this week we move the rig to Tucson Freedom RV (again) for some final pre-road preventative maintenance.

We also plan to see our dear great-niece, Hannah, who now lives here, having relocated from Lakeshore Drive in Chicago.

And I’ll be winding down my Spanish studies as Kay finishes up physical therapy after her shoulder replacement. She’s making great strides on range of motion and recovery pain management.

Then, we start a near-month-long trek northward to Minnesota, stopping in New Mexico, Missouri, and Iowa along the way to visit friends and family.

We don’t dare venture too far north too soon, however, as RV parks “up there” keep their water turned off until the threat of freezing passes. Without water they don’t open. And we like our full hook-ups (power, water, and sewer), “fer sher, dontcha know.”

If you haven’t yet heard, after almost ten years “most-timing” in our beloved bus with her being our only home for the last few years, we’ve lived in some 40+ states for a few weeks to a few months each stay, returning to our favorite haunts. We’re now seriously contemplating “coming off the road.” Yep, that means shopping for stix ‘n brix again, as they say. We’ll be house-shopping once we return to “the Mothership.”

That’s Rochester, MN, our home town. But perhaps as significantly, that’s also the home of the Mayo Clinic, our primary healthcare provider. We now find ourselves increasingly outrunning our healthcare while we’re in perpetual motion.

Plus, let’s be honest, we wish to be closer to family, old friends (after running away for a couple of decades), and I miss a garage, okay? There, I’ve said it!

Kay, however, is like the Energizer Bunny. It seems she could continue scurrying about North America indefinitely. At least that’s her story, and she’s stickin’ to it.

But for now, we’re looking forward to another three weeks here in lovely Tucson.

Now, I really gotta get back to work. Books to be written and edited and formatted and recorded! Plus, covers to design! I think a relaxing retirement lifestyle might “take” any day now (not)!

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So, until… and wherever…

Gene

P.S. For those of you who are new to the party, this is our only home (for now):

In this issue:

1. Dark & Cold?
2. New Audiobook Edition in Progress
3. My Appearance at the Tucson Festival of Books

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Dark and Cold? What Happened?

Last Monday, doctors at Banner University Medicine in Tucson, Arizona replaced my wife Kay’s right shoulder. On Wednesday night—actually at 2AM on Thursday morning—thankfully, sleep eluded her. She shook me out of a sound slumber. “Gene, we have no power!” Oh, crap. It was thirty-nine degrees outside, and our heat, both electric and diesel, depends on either external resort (“city” or “shore”) power or our motorhome’s battery power.

I scrambled out of bed at the rear of our forty-three-foot bus and headed toward the cockpit to diagnose the problem. Stumbling out of my sleepy stupor, I noticed the panel said “low battery.” Warning lights flashed. So did an instant headache. We were likely less than an hour from draining (and probably ruining) about two-thousand-dollars worth of deep-cycle “house” batteries that power the entire coach.

That’s when I remembered the screw-up that caused this situation.

NEVER

ALLOW

THE FOLLOWING

TO HAPPEN

IF YOU LIVE IN AN RV

(OR ON A BOAT)!

The previous afternoon, I prepared a late lunch. It was chilly outside. Even though we’re in the SW Arizona desert, we’re at almost 3,000 feet of elevation here south of Tucson. So, the temps are only in the forties and fifties during the day here in January, and a lot colder at night.

Our diesel boiler (furnace) provides central heat (and hot water on demand). It is powered either by “shore” power (110VAC) or our house battery bank (12VDC). It was too cold for our two rooftop heat pumps to be effective. They’re powered by either shore power or our diesel generator, but that requires battery power to get started, too (although separate unaffected “chassis” batteries).

We often run an electric space heater, too (also driven by shore power or generator) to ease the burden on the far more costly diesel boiler. Plus, the boiler burns about a liter of diesel per hour during the coldest times, which we use instead of propane for heat.

We were nice and cozy that previous afternoon. I toasted a ciabatta bun in the kitchen’s electric toaster oven. At the same time, I reheated a wonderful vegan pasta dish in the microwave. The power flickered. Oops! I then realized I was operating three very power-hungry 110VAC appliances all at the same time. Dumb! In an RV, anyway.

But after a brief flicker, like a momentary brown-out, all appeared to be okay. I immediately turned off the space heater to finish heating my lunch. I figured our automatic (electrical) load-shedding feature on our electrical management system just did its thing with only a slight hiccup. NOPE! But on we went with our lives.

What really happened? I had blown an obscure breaker, and instead of then providing all the power in the coach (one fridge, two freezers, lights, TV, home theater system, space heater, humidifier, etc.) from resort or shore power, which is normal, all now depended on our bank of house batteries for their power! That’s fine for short durations like a few hours when necessary, when shore power isn’t available, but longer term, like last week? The bus gobbles batteries dry and sends them to the scrap heap!

Our inverter normally translates 12VDC battery power into clean 110VAC household power from either shore power or battery power. Our 110VAC (household) appliances didn’t care where the power was coming from.

It wasn’t until 2AM Thursday, when our batteries had been drawn down to dangerously low levels, did I realize my mistake. So, I trundled outside, shivering in my pajamas and slippers, with my trusty headlamp to locate the breaker on the inverter itself in the “basement” (a storage compartment underneath the motorhome), pushed the emergency breaker to reset it, and everything came back online as it was supposed to.

STUPID! I will plan to hear about my mistake from now to eternity. I deserve it.

I checked the fluid levels in the batteries the following day to ensure I did no permanent damage. They’re okay, but another hour or so of drawing them down into oblivion? That would have made for a very expensive battery replacement fiasco. As soon as I had reset the inverter’s breaker, the battery charging system automatically started pounding a recharge into the four huge depleted house batteries.

Catastrophe averted! Narrowly. Such is “la vita!”

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FYI, TWO Audiobook Editions of Rogue’s Gallery Coming

I’m seriously considering something that is not business-as-usual in audiobook production.

From my last newsletter, you’ll recall I’ve just published my latest heart-pounding Aubrey Greigh Mystery, Rogue’s Gallery this summer in Kindle and paperback editions. I’m now narrating its audiobook edition, and hope to publish and distribute it to Audible, Amazon, and Apple by early this summer. But here’s the thing.

What would you think of an “enhanced” or “theatrical” version of this audiobook mystery? I envision offering such an edition separately in addition to the straight narrated version. This enhanced edition would include selected sound effects and music. I think such an edition might offer a more engaging listener experience, and would really appreciate hearing what you think of this idea.

Allow me to illustrate. Below is an audio sample of what I call a “theatrical” edition (do you have a better name for such an offering? I’m all ears!):

Enhanced audiobook track (Chapter One of Rogue’s Gallery):

I really would like to know what you think. Would an extra offering like this enhanced audiobook edition be of interest to you? To other audiobook aficionados, do you think?

Besides, I’m having an absolute blast producing this!

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Personal Appearance at TFOB (Tucson Festival of Books)

If you’re not aware, the TFOB comprises:

• The 3rd or 4th largest book festival in the country (in the world, maybe?),
• Typically >100,000 attendees (free admission) over one weekend,
• Dozens of ticketed venues (presentations & moderated panels),
• Millions of dollars raised for the community (non-profit),
• More than 200 year-round volunteers.

This two-day festival takes place in the middle of March each year and sprawls across the University of Arizona campus in Tucson. This year, I am honored to have been invited to speak as part of a moderated three-member panel of mystery authors on Saturday, March 15th.

So, if you’re in the ‘hood, you’re invited. Tickets are free, but advanced reserved tickets are advised and are available one week prior. See the festival website for more and schedule info HERE.

On the next day, Sunday the sixteenth, I’ll be participating in the festival’s “Indie Pavilion,” that is, a meet and greet of independently published authors, where I’ll be selling and signing my sixteen published books for all you mystery fans and aspiring writers. This will be fun.

I’m not sure how much I’ll be speaking during the moderated panel, so I thought I’d use this forum to try out a few talking points. Care to weigh in on which ones you think I ought to prioritize?

My front line comments: “I love writing mysteries that are entertaining, authentic, and socially relevant. My mysteries are inspired by events that have occurred to me during my life. And I’ve been blessed with a pretty darn interesting one. Yes, this is most certainly driven by my passion for the allure of the obscure. I like to think I offer something in the pages of my books that readers are not likely to have personally encountered, like I have, nor maybe not have encountered in other mysteries.”

I plan to ask for a show of hands, and I ask you now:

• How many of you grew up on the wrong side of the tracks and yet worked near the top of a hundred-billion-dollar multinational tech corporation for a time whose boss got indicted for insider trading?
• How many of you have had your life threatened and were stalked for months after reluctantly firing 422 of your 1,013 employees? I’m not a fan of firearms, but I borrowed a loaded shotgun from a neighbor that I kept at my bedside that summer. We moved out of state, just in case. After that, I retired at age fifty-eight after thirty-two years with a full pension. I was not the guy I had become.
• How many of you have relatives and close friends who have been members of the US intelligence community, including one high-level executive at the NSA and another who was an “air pirate” who flew “farm equipment” (wink) and “support personnel” (still winking) into third-world countries most of us have never heard of?
• How many of you have owned a live-aboard sailboat that once was used as a safe house for Soviet defectors during the cold war, one of whom was married on its foredeck in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor?
• How many of you have strolled the infamous Tokyo fish market in a $600 camel-hair overcoat at 4AM and helped a little fish monger pick up a spilled wheelbarrow of live eels after bumping into him and causing the spill? That coat was never the same!
• How many of you lived on a boat in the Florida Keys and Eastern Caribbean for years and faithfully listened to the piracy report every morning at 0700 hours on marine radio channel 69, so you knew where not to go next, or only with a buddy boat, for safety?
• How many of you lived in San Francisco’s Hashbury district in 1969 as a rebel without a clue counseling draftees during the Tet offensive in the Viet Nam war when a thousand kids my age were getting killed each week? That’s when I got my draft notice, by the way, and enlisted in the US Coast Guard.
• How many of you have had thirteen motorcycle accidents before age 18 and experienced relocating a house’s porch with a big-ass Buick, destroying an entire alley, and running that same car into a tree at 50 MPH in a drug-addled state? Unforgettable… I’m told.  
• How many of you have almost died in the bowels of a shipwreck at a depth of 120 feet of seawater seven miles off Key West when your SCUBA equipment got entangled in overhead wreckage in a tight passageway?
• How many of you have experienced a free-fall skydive from 14,500 feet and seen the majestic curvature of the earth splayed out below you?
• How many of you have traveled in a forty-three foot bus for ten years, living in forty-plus states for a few weeks to a few months at a time?
• How many of you have smoked a joint with an awkward teenage Bill Cosby long before he became famous (then, infamous), and long before I became a respectable, high-functioning career alcoholic? I’ve now been sober for thirteen years.

This is just a sampling of life experiences that inspire me to write quirky mysteries with flawed characters who entertain you with believable situations that baffle, mystify, or make you laugh or cry. And you’ll wonder, “what if that were me?” I’d love to share at least a few of these anecdotes during my panel discussion, but at least I got to share them all with YOU.

One other important pearl of wisdom I’d share with you? NEVER try to out-drink your Japanese translator starting on the Shinkansen (bullet train) between Tokyo and Hamamatsu and later at the hotel, especially if you’re swilling down ninety-eight-degree (cheap) Saki. You will lose if you are “gaijin” (non-Japanese). No mystery, there.

I am growing excited to meet some new mystery fans at TFOB, and maybe also sell and sign a few books! This festival is one of the reasons we’re in Tucson this winter!

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So, until later, and wherever…

Gene