Austin S. Camacho’s Author Updates

Today my book signing is at Borders in Ronald Reagan National Airport from 1 pm to 5 pm.

Then Saturday I head north to the Borders Express in White Marsh Mall.  I have high hopes for my first visit to that store, at 8200 Perry Hall Boulevard, Baltimore, MD.  I’ll start signing books at 4 pm.

SATURDAY - I’ll close out the weekend Sunday at the Borders Express in Columbia Mall.  That signing will run from 2pm to 5:30pm.  The store is at 10300 Little Patuxent Pkwy, Columbia, MD.  I hope you can visit me at one of those stops.

It’s another big Borders weekend for me. It starts Friday when I return to Ronald Reagan National Airport. If you know anybody flying to DC let them know that I will sign my novels for afternoon travelers there from 1 pm to 5 pm.

Erik D. Kiessling is the author of a thrilling urban fantasy called “Bury them at the Crossroads.” He promised me a review of Russian Roulette but got caught up in his own writing after reading it. On the second reading of my novel Erik decided to send a comprehensive review.

Despite an overwhelmingly positive review, Erik did have honest criticisms. He mentions my having an Algerian offer Hannibal a ham sandwich. In my mind the character had good reason for fleeing his Muslim heritage and perhaps I should have made it clearer. Also Erik didn’t like the many references to rock music lyrics. He may have a point, but the lyrics in this book are tied to important plot points.

Are they worth it? I’ll let you be the judge when you read the book. Meanwhile, I’ve used an edited version of Erik’s extensive review as the featured review on my web site. Thank you, Erik, for your thoughtful and detailed comments.

Between Bouchercon and a big Halloween party I’ve seen lots of people in the last couple of weeks who are generally just names on e-mails for photos on Facebook.  We stay in touch and on those occasions that we get face to face it’s wonderful to shake hands or hug and fall into conversation just as if we had been sitting in a coffee shop together the day before.  Distance seems irrelevant to these relationships.

Good friends are like stars.  You don’t always see them, but you know they are always there.

I attended the Halloween book signing at Borders in Arlington, VA dressed as Hannibal Jones and saved the Hawaiian hula hula boy outfit for the party later that night. Denise was a hula girl, complete with grass skirt.

But there was lots of other great news this week besides partying. For instance, my review of Karl Alexander’s new book, Jaclyn the Ripper, is in this month’s The Big Thrill, the newsletter of the International Thriller Writers. This is the sequel to Time After Time in which H.G. Wells chased Jack the Ripper through time. This time Jack is a girl!

The big news for you Kindle owners is that my publishers have reduced the price on all my downloadable novels. They’re pretty popular already – in fact The Troubleshooter is ranked #20,745 which puts it in the top 5% of the 360,000 books available for the Kindle. And now you can get each of my novels onto your Kindle for $6.95… except Blood and Bone which Echelon Press is selling for an even $6 bucks!  Download my novels onto your Kindle now!

Those of you who are curious about what I was doing at Bouchercon can see a detailed report of the panel I moderated on “Big Beat From Badsville,” a super blog written by a red headed charmer named Donna. Badsville, BTW, is the home of Scottish crime fiction, and if you like my work you should be reading it regularly anyway.

And on Pop Syndicate, fellow Echelon Press author Beth Solheim posted a marvelous review of my latest novel Russian Roulette. Take a look at why the book is doing so well.

I have a book signing today at Borders Books - 2 pm - at 1201 S Hayes St, Arlington, VA. Then tonight we welcome the holiday that over the years has transformed from a day of evil to a day of magic to a day of fun.  This is perhaps how we defeat evil – by laughing at it.
 
It is also the day we are authorized to pretend we are someone else.  I’ll admit that one of my best memories of Halloween is having a grandmother who would pretend she didn’t know who I was on Halloween. 
 
I’ll bet living in a nudist colony takes all the fun out of Halloween.  But I hope you all still own enough whimsy to don a disguise and have some fun.  Let us all eat, drink and be scary.

I’ll start my Halloween celebration Saturday afternoon at a book signing in Borders Books.  It will begin at 2 pm at the store is at 1201 S Hayes St, Arlington, VA.  I’m thinking of doing the signing dressed as Hannibal Jones.  Or maybe a Hawaiian hula hula boy.  Come by the store and see.

I like to share the feedback I get from fans about my writing, and sometimes that feedback leads to good additions to our libraries.  This week’s example is from Richard Gazala.

Richard’s first novel, Blood of the Moon, was released this month.  Before Richard’s top notch political thriller hit the shelves he read my nonfiction book, Successfully Marketing Your Novel in the 21st Century.  He found it so useful that he wrote a wonderful review of the book on Amazon.com.  I was so flattered by the review I’ve made it the featured review on my website.  Thank you, Richard, for your kind words about my book, and I wish you great success with yours.

Read Richard Gazala’s review of Successfully Marketing Your Fiction in the 21st Century on my main web site, then look for Blood of the Moon on Amazon.com.

I had a wonderful surprise at Borders in the Boulevard at the Capital Center Friday. Aside from the books bought that evening, a woman came in with four books she bought earlier in the week. She returned Friday just to ask me to sign them.
 
Also this week I got a mention on one of my favorite blogs:  Criminal Brief: The Mystery Short Story Web Log Project. Author John M. Floyd talked about his great time at Bouchercon, including meeting me and some of the other writers in the holiday anthology he edited.  Read the Criminal Brief blog at http://criminalbrief.com/?p=9387

And you can read a good review of the aforementioned anthology, “The Gift of Murder” on the Blogger News Network, a high-quality source of analysis and editorial writing on the news.  Read this review of The Gift of Murder at ttp://www.bloggernews.net/122736

Tonight my book signing is at 6pm at Borders on the Boulevard at the Capital Center -  931A Capital Centre Blvd. Largo, MD.  The last time I was there I met Andre McGuinness.  He picked up a copy of Russian Roulette then, even though he said he wasn’t a mystery fan. He e-mailed me later with many nice things to say about the book which I of course appreciated. At the same time he took me to task for not putting more action into the book. He wanted more shootouts and a few more bloody fistfights. Then he said that the book felt like an old P.I. story, which I took as a compliment.
 
I hope Andre reads The Payback Assignment or The Orion Assignment to get more action into his reading diet. Meanwhile I was flattered enough by his note to post much of his e-mail as this week’s featured review on my website – http://www.ascamacho.com.  Take a look!