1. What motivated you to write your book, to force you
from taking an idea or experience and turning it into this book? Having
twice been mugged in Manhattan in the late Seventies, I long carried an image
of one of the female drug addicts who had pulled a gun on me, wondering what
had brought her to that point. Out of that experience I wrote a screenplay
entitled, “Bedeviled: A Song for Leonard Cohen”, which won the Empire Drama
Award at the NY Screenwriting Competition and the Cannes Competition in 2017. This
novel sprang out of the screenplay.
2. What is it about and who is it for?
A beautiful young singer-songwriter ends up dead on a Madison Avenue sidewalk,
a gun in her hand — just another New York mugging, except she was the mugger.
Set in a tense and lawless Seventies New York, the unexplained elements
surrounding her death are gradually revealed through the lyrics of the songs
she left behind, as her intended victim is forced to defend himself, uncovering
evidence of police persecution and religious bigotry, his own life being placed
in jeopardy the closer he gets to the truth.
This is a psychological thriller reflecting the mores of the time.
3. What takeaways might the reader will be left with
after reading it? In addition to creating a tension-laden
mystery with many unexpected twists and turns, I was intent on conveying New
York City and its noir culture at that time. For those who lived through that
period it will be a reminder of the extent to which social attitudes have
change. And to those who have a romantic notion of the Seventies, it will be a
sobering immersion in reality.
4. How did you decide on your book’s title and cover
design? The lyrics of the songs written by the victim play a
big part in solving the crime. One of those songs, pivotal to the story, is “A
Song for Leonard”. The cover art was intended to hint at the hard-nosed crime
novels of that period.
5. What advice or words of wisdom do you have for
fellow writers? Get the written work as good as you can
possibly make it, and then get a professional editor. Despite all the revisions
you make, you’ll be amazed at how much better the final MS will be.
6. What trends in the book world do you see -- and
where do you think the book publishing industry is heading? Clearly
the major publishing houses are trying to achieve dominant positions via
acquisitions and mergers, leaving the small and so-called “independent”
imprints struggling for shelf position. Celebrity writers are preferred to good
writers, and with OpenAI and ChatGPT handing the creative reins over to
algorithms, writers will have to look to their personal brands for survival.
Around 90% of staffing in publishing is female, and the same is true of
readership. Both groups are heavily represented by liberal social studies graduates,
and book themes are reflecting that. This is not how to achieve diversity.
7. What challenges did you overcome to write this book?
Having my manuscript subjected to scrutiny by “sensitivity readers” was a
venture into a world of insanity that (if I’d been accepting) would have made
“A Song for Leonard” not worth writing. Agents are now terrified. I wasn’t.
That’s the beauty of indie publishing. The point of this book is to show the
hard-nosed reality of cultural standards of that time.
8. How would you describe your writing style?
I punch up, not down. My style has been described as multi-layered, but I like
to think it is very readable. Give the reader food for thought, but keep it
moving along!
9. If people can buy or read one book this week or month,
why should it be yours? One critic paid me the best
compliment I could possibly receive. She said, "Books like this are what
good fiction is all about - they take you off somewhere new…"
About The Author:
A.I. Fabler is the pen name of a New Zealand-born author who has spent a large
part of his working life in London, New York and Sydney, initially in
journalism and advertising, holding senior international corporate roles before
turning to writing full time. His political satire, “Agenda 2060: The Future as
It Happens” was published in 2021, described by Kirkus Reviews as ‘A
laser-focused, irresistible lampoon of woke culture’. It was the winner of the
2022 Indie Reader Discovery Award for Popular Fiction. His mystery thriller
“The Seed of Corruption”, set in Vietnam during the 2004 Sars epidemic, digs
deep into Big Pharma and state corruption 15 years before Covid-19, and was
published in 2022. He is the recipient of a number of screenwriting awards,
including the NY Empire Award for Drama in 2017, and the 2017 Cannes Drama
Award. For more information, please see: https://www.aifabler.com.
“Reading should
not be presented to children as a chore or duty. It should be offered to them
as a precious gift.”
--Kate DiCamillo
“If you only read
the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else
is thinking.”
--Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood
“A glance at a
book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000
years. To read is to voyage through time.”
--Carl Sagan
“Books and doors
are the same thing. You open them, and you go through into
another world.”
--Jeanette Winterson
“Books are the
training weights of the mind.”
--Epictetus
Need Book Marketing Help?
Brian Feinblum, the founder of this award-winning
blog, can be reached at brianfeinblum@gmail.com
He is available to help authors promote
their story, sell their book, and grow their brand. He has over 30 years of
experience in successfully helping thousands of authors in all genres. Let him
be your advocate, teacher, and motivator!
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About Brian Feinblum
Brian Feinblum should be followed on Twitter
@theprexpert. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog ©2023. Born and
raised in Brooklyn, he now resides in Westchester with his wife, two kids, and
Ferris, a black lab rescue dog. His writings are often featured in The Writer
and IBPA’s The Independent. This
award-winning blog has generated over 3.3 million pageviews. With 4,400+ posts
over the past dozen years, it was named one of the best book marketing blogs by
BookBaby http://blog.bookbaby.com/2013/09/the-best-book-marketing-blogs
and recognized by Feedspot in 2021 and
2018 as one of the top book marketing blogs. It was also named by
www.WinningWriters.com as a "best resource.” For the past three decades,
including 21 years as the head of marketing for the nation’s largest book
publicity firm, and two jobs at two independent presses, Brian has worked with
many first-time, self-published, authors of all genres, right along with
best-selling authors and celebrities such as: Dr. Ruth, Mark Victor Hansen,
Joseph Finder, Katherine Spurway, Neil Rackham, Harvey Mackay, Ken Blanchard,
Stephen Covey, Warren Adler, Cindy Adams, Todd Duncan, Susan RoAne, John C.
Maxwell, Jeff Foxworthy, Seth Godin, and Henry Winkler. He recently hosted a
panel on book publicity for Book Expo America, and has spoken at ASJA,
Independent Book Publishers Association Sarah Lawrence College, Nonfiction
Writers Association, Cape Cod Writers Association, Willamette (Portland)
Writers Association, APEX, and Connecticut Authors and Publishers Association.
His letters-to-the-editor have been published in The Wall Street Journal, USA
Today, New York Post, NY Daily News, Newsday, The Journal News (Westchester)
and The Washington Post. He has been featured in The Sun Sentinel and Miami
Herald. For more information, please consult: www.linkedin.com/in/brianfeinblum.
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