Guest Post and Giveaway from Matt Cost
Our guest on the next Crime Cafe episode will be Matt Cost. Go to his website (click on that link there), hit "blog", and prepare to have your mind blown.
Matt's provided this week's guest post and giveaway. The first one of the new year! We're off to a good start, for sure.
I'll let Matt take it from here. Happy new year!
The Evolution of a Book By: Matt Cost
My PR firm, Books Forward, hooked me up for this blog with Debbi Mack back in March of 2023. Since then, I have published five books. Velma Gone Awry was the first in my Brooklyn 8 Ballo series, Mainely Wicked was the fifth in my Mainely Mystery series, Pirate Trap was the fifth in my Clay Wolfe Trap series, City Gone Askew was the second in my Brooklyn 8 Ballo series, and Mainely Mayhem was the sixth in my Mainely Mystery series.
In 2025, I will publish the first in my new Max Creed thriller series, the sixth in my Clay Wolfe Trap series, and the first in my Jazz Jones 1950s Raleigh series.
What follows is my secret for researching, writing, editing, marketing, and promoting three books a year for publication.
THE EVOLUTION OF A BOOK is a complicated journey through time that takes many a turn and twist but at the same time follows a basic model. Mainely Mayhem, my latest published book this past November, has followed all these stages in its evolution.
It starts with an idea. What is the book going to be about? Often, for me, this is something gleaned from the news or something that I have read. What if there were a problem at a nuclear power plant? What if heroin was being smuggled through lobster traps? These ideas can range from cults to ice storms to genome editing to powerful lobbyists to unexplained aerial phenomena to an epidemic. Or, in the case of Mainely Mayhem, the corruption and power associated with nominating and placing a man on the most powerful Bench in the world.
In Velma Gone Awry, my idea germinated with the thought that I desired to combine my love of history and mystery between the front and back cover of a novel. I decided that I wanted to write a historical PI mystery set in the past. Where? I decided that Brooklyn, New York, was a fabulous place to set this novel. It didn’t take me much longer to realize that the Roaring ‘20s was absolutely great fodder that was rich in material.
Once the idea is generated, the next step is to begin the research. Straight up historical fiction requires a great deal of delving into the topic at hand, whether it be about Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution, Joshua Chamberlain and the Civil War, or New Orleans during the period of Reconstruction. To me, this is fascinating material that is exhilarating to dive into and toss around and learn more about. I have taken this love of digging into topics with my contemporary mysteries on the above-mentioned topics. Nuclear power, Big Pharma, Scientology, and what is in the sky above us?
Sometimes this research takes you places that are engaging and intriguing. Cuba. Civil War battlefields. New York. Brooklyn. New Orleans. More often, this research finds you poring through books and scrolling through your computer screen.
For Velma Gone Awry, it was a mixture of these two ideas; getting the time period correct regarding people, events, slang, as well as the topics of the day. The most fascinating research method that I used to accomplish this was to read the Brooklyn Eagle for every day for the entire year of 1923. Just 100 years later. The articles, events, and listings for what was happening was all great information, but it was the advertisements for everything from automobiles to fashion that was perhaps the greatest contributor to this research.
And then you write. I write every day. Sometimes just a bit, often more, and occasionally the words will spill from my keyboard like the rain during monsoon season. I might miss nine or ten days of writing all year long. Without writing, the rest of the evolution is pointless.
I also keep an outline where I will fill out tidbits of thoughts that will happen at certain times in the book. My basic philosophy is that something substantial must happen every 12.5% of the book. I shoot for 80,000 words on the first draft, knowing I will add another eight thousand with edits, so every ten thousand words something must go down. Shit must happen.
As I write, I continue to constantly do research, especially in a historical such as Velma Gone Awry where I need to fit appropriate slang in, fact check that refrigerators existed, or some other factoid of the time. Often, my best writing times are taking a solitary hot tub, walking the dogs, or driving. This is when I put the pieces together for the next segment of writing, so that when I sit down at the computer, it is a race to see if it can keep up with my fingers. I haven’t won yet.
The editing phase can be a frustrating exercise in painting the exterior trim to make the novel shine. The stages of editing for me include at least two passes of my own, three by a professional editor I pay, and then at least two more by the publisher. In a recent book, Mainely Wicked, my wife, after those seven edits had been done, found a major mistake in the ARC. A character who had been abducted was present for the planning session on how to saver herself. Whoops. Glad it was caught.
The book is done. Now it must be marketed. ARCs sent out for review, queries for interview, guest blog appearances, podcasts, radio, and most recently for me, Tubi TV (whatever that is). This is followed by promotions. The appearance of the author at events such as bookstore signings, readings, library presentations, and the culmination of that groundwork preparing for interviews in all sorts of various mediums.
My mornings are devoted to writing. I am only writing one new book at a time. In the afternoon, I am doing a variety of things. I am usually editing at least one book, some times as many as three. I will be marketing the release of then next upcoming book release and out promoting doing COST TALKS, podcasts, interviews, and whatnot for the most recent publication. And always, thinking about new ideas and researching new books.
The evolution of a book passes through the stages of idea, research, writing, editing, marketing, and promoting. And then what do we do? Write on.
How to Enter My Giveaway. Simple.
Go to www.mattcost.net and peruse my books. There are currently sixteen titles.
Pick one that looks interesting to you.
Email me the title at matthew-cost@comcast.net
I will enter the names in a hat, draw a winner, and reach out to you for your address.
Easy peasy.
*****
Matt Cost has owned a video store, a mystery bookstore, and a gym. He has also taught history and coached just about every sport imaginable.
During those years, since age eight actually, the true passion has been writing. I Am Cuba: Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution (Encircle Publications, March 2020) was his first traditionally published novel.
Cost has now written six books in the Mainely Mystery series starting with Mainely Power, five books in the Clay Wolfe Trap series starting with Wolfe Trap, and two books in the Brooklyn 8 Ballo series starting with Velma Gone Awry. A few historical fiction pieces fill out the shelves.
Cost now lives in Brunswick, Maine, with his wife, Harper. There are four grown children: Brittany, Pearson, Miranda, and Ryan. He now spends his days at the computer, writing.