Death Game--Could the Plot Really Occur?

With homeland security a national priority, most government officials would prefer that we wipe the imagery of a high-level target like the Golden Gate Bridge going down in a fireball from our minds. But when sailing under bridge in 2002, I found myself thinking, ‘What if…’”

Now that the book is published, have been asked a few times if it really is possible. It's impossible to say, of course. Officials at the Golden Gate Bridge District, like those at other high-profile facilities around the country, are loathe to share information. They simply won’t give you any specifics.”

One thing I do know is that the tight-lipped silence is probably because the bridge has been considered a terrorism target for many years. In 2002, Spanish officials found videos among the possessions of suspected terrorists that included detailed images of the span, and, in 2003, the state attorney general named the Golden Gate Bridge the fourth most likely target in California, after LAX and the ports of Long Beach and Oakland.

Since the bridge contains over 80,000 tons of steel and weighs nearly 900,000 tons overall, realistic scenarios of its destruction aren’t obvious. Still, speculation about possible methodology is all over the Internet. Most of the attention focuses on someone bringing in a car-bomb to blow a hole in the deck.

That speculation is easy to discount because the Golden Gate Bridge isn’t that vulnerable to those kind of attacks. Compared to the Loma Prieta earthquake, which the bridge easily survived, the typical car bomb attack is equivalent to a mosquito bite.”

An airline attack on the bridge is also occasionally postulated. “The destruction of the Twin Towers in 2001 made it clear that massive concrete and steel structures can be brought down from the air.

If you've read Death Game, you know it pegs the true danger somewhere else. The book uses what most authorities seem to consider the most realistic threat--the use of marine tankers.

It's hard to know if Death Game's plot could possibly occur. What is certain is that 9/11 forced the spectrum of credibility to expand for everyone in the free world. What was inconceivable was now possible--the utterly awful had become chillingly real.

One of the most valuable benefits of thrillers are that they can alert us to what’s possible. With the publication of a book that contains a possible scenario for terrorists, that idea is no longer a usable terrorist plan. Once a plan is public knowledge, they’ve lost the element of surprise. They are forced to go on to Plot B, or Plot C. And hopefully, those plots already have other authors writing books about them.

Cheryl Swanson, Author of Death Game, www.cherylswanson.net

DEATH GAME BY CHERYL SWANSON BURNING? TELL ME IT AIN'T SO!

Because news disappears in an eyeblink these days, I'm excerpting a story some of you may have missed below.

Wayne of Prospero's Books in Kansas City burned thousands of his books on Memorial Day weekend, as a protest against what he perceived as a lack of interest in reading.

"This is the funeral pyre for thought in America today," Wayne told spectators outside his bookstore as he lit the first batch of books. The fire blazed for about 50 minutes before the Kansas City Fire Department put it out because Wayne didn't have a permit for burning.Wayne said next time he will get a permit.

He said he plans monthly bonfires until his supply — estimated at 20,000 books — is exhausted. "After slogging through the tens of thousands of books and to have people turn you away when you take them somewhere, it's just kind of a knee-jerk reaction," he said.

Wayne said he has seen fewer customers in recent years as people more often get their information from television or the Internet. He pointed to a 2002 study by the National Endowment for the Arts, that found that less than half of adult respondents reported reading for pleasure, down from almost 57 percent in 1982.

The whole country has seen the number of used bookstores decline in recent years, and there are few independent bookstores left in town, said Will Leathem, a co-owner of Prospero's Books.

Dozens of other people took advantage of the book-burning, searching through the books waiting to go into the flames for last-minute bargains.
Mike Bechtel paid $10 for a stack of books, including an antique collection of children's literature, which he said he'd save for his 4-year-old son.

The point of the whole thing. Waye said that not reading a book is as good as burning it. Hmmmm.

Stealing Books and Writing

Ready for a true confession? When I was a kid I used to steal books from my school library. Okay...don't call the cops. I didn't actually steal them, I would always take them back after I had read them.

I took them because my school only allowed the students to check out two books a week. I wasn't a very fast reader, but I could read a lot more than two books a week. The librarian caught me one day and kicked me out of the library for the rest of the year. That was in sixth grade and it was the saddest school year I ever had.

Something a little similar happened to me the other day, when a librarian yelled at me (we were in cyberspace, so let's call it flaming) for asking how a writer might go about getting their novel into more public libraries. It offended her that I mentioned the title of my book; she thought I was advertising it.

Now...I have to admit that beginning authors do have a bad habit of name-dropping our book titles into conversations. Maybe we are trying to push ourselves, but I doubt it because most of us are so horribly shy. I think it more a way of reminding ourselves that someone thought we were good enough to publish. (There are days when that is all that keeps us going.)

This librarian was really angry with me and it made me feel terrible for a minute or two. But I think I will persist in asking the question, because I'm pretty sure that she was wrong. And so was the the school librarian in sixth grade. Librarians just shouldn't act that way. It doesn't go with the territory.


to those schools. concrete Okay. For all those who think

ForeWord Magazine Review of Death Game

BOOK REVIEW

Death Game by: Cheryl Swanson
Issue Month: May/June 2007 Category: Mystery Publisher: Zumaya Publications 306 pages , Softcover $14.99, PDF and HTML $6.99, 978-1-55410-326-3 ISBN: 9781554103256

There’s a fine line between games and reality and most of the time it is only the most disturbed people who cross that line—although they occasionally take the innocent with them. That’s what Cooper O’Brien discovers when she watches a video tape that shows her brother, Jimmie, killing another boy. She and her boss, attorney Rick Capra, view the footage on a surveillance tape from a client’s yacht. Although the face of the shooter is not immediately recognizable, the tee-shirt the boy is wearing is distinct. Cooper saw that shirt just this morning when she took Jimmie to school.
Cooper is pulled into this sharp, fast-paced mystery to prove that her brother couldn’t have pulled that trigger, but she is quickly caught up in a tide of intrigue that threatens to derail everything she has considered normal most of her life.
In this debut novel, the author weaves an intricate story with fine characterization and plenty of surprises. The pace is relentless and the language vivid. Early on, the reader is graced with this description of a troubled teenager: “Happiness rarely appeared on his face, and when it did it looked like a guest who had shown up at the wrong party—out of place and uncomfortable. It would hang around for a few moments then flee.”
Cooper has been responsible for her teenage brother since their parents died, and she is often at a loss as how to deal with his grief. This topic is handled with realism and emotional depth in the hands of an author who has known her share of pain.
Swanson holds a degree in education and biology from Arizona State University and has worked in the medical imaging field. She founded IntelliSys, a company that worked on pilot projects in imaging and robotic surgery with various medical colleges. She has written three nonfiction books, but her true love is fiction. Like her protagonist, Swanson has learned that life is not a game.
Review by: Maryann Miller

Death Game by Cheryl Swanson Deepened by Cancer Experience

As Hawaiian thriller author Cheryl Swanson knows, stories often get more interesting when death enters the picture. Amazingly, her own experience has taught her that is sometimes as true in real life as in fiction.

Four years ago Cheryl Swanson was diagnosed with invasive breast cancer. “Make a will,” her surgeon urged, when asked for a prognosis. Instead, Swanson transferred her feelings of being out-of -control into her debut novel, a thriller in which a strong, likeable female protagonist has to deal with her troubled teenage brother getting involved in a violent Internet game that leads to murder.

“Being in a chemo room is like being in the anteroom of a gas chamber,” Swanson said. “My challenge was to put that thoroughly awful thrill into words. And then, final step, create a much more entertaining situation than my own, in which those feelings might have happened in the first place.”

In Death Game, Swanson sends her female protagonist, Cooper O’Brien, on a nonstop roller coaster ride through the mean streets of San Francisco. Terror nips at Cooper’s heels all through the book, just as it did at Swanson’s during her cancer treatment. “What Cooper goes through is a reflection of what you experience as a cancer patient,” Swanson said. Cooper’s family, her life, her mental balance, her self-respect—they are under attack. “Just like those of all individuals fighting an extremely critical disease,” Swanson claims.

Death Game is chilling, but also often hilarious. Peopled with renegade teenagers wearing “Enema of the State,” and “I Love my Weenie,” t-shirts, a man who conceals microphones in his Iron Maiden bra, and a nonchalant beauty who seduces almost everyone she meets in Absinthe, a swank San Francisco restaurant, this is the wonderfully wacky landscape of life, San Francisco-style. In Death Game, San Francisco is a city where everything that is not for sale is up for grabs.

As Cooper searches for her vanished kid-brother, she is plunged into a wind tunnel of violence and dread. But she turns her terror and depression into a joke. “This is exactly what you see in cancer treatment rooms,” Swanson said. “You laugh because it’s laugh or commit suicide. You quickly learn not to take anything seriously. “

Cheryl Swanson cites that old Kathleen Turner movie, Romancing the Stone, as one of her inspirations for staying with her novel. “Remember how this crazy romance novelist forgets everything while she was writing? Cancer treatment made me feel just like that. Half the time, while I was writing about my heroine getting beat up, poisoned and terrorized, it was me I was writing about. I would go home from chemotherapy and find myself in the perfect mood to write the next horrifying scene in my novel. And then I would lighten up and start laughing. It’s how you handle something like this—it’s what gets you through.”


Swanson pointed out that being diagnosed with a serious disease often causes people to get down—finally—to doing what they’ve always wanted to do. “A serious disease teaches you your own mortality, your own humanity, your own limits. Once you’ve stop deluding yourself about your invincibility, you realize the time is now. Or never. Not next month, not next year. Today.”

Swanson pointed out that women often struggle with wasting their time on non-essentials. “Women are expected to be caretakers, nurturers, housekeepers, nannys, pet-sitters, and walking credit-cards for their teenagers,” she said. “We’re all at the point of self-annihilation. As Erma Bombeck once said: “’Just doing the housework will kill you, if you do it right.’”

“As women, we have a right to pursue our own dreams—but too often we let them slide. At some point, we’ve got to stop accomplishing what others want us to do.”

The reviews of Death Game indicate that Swanson has accomplished something worthwhile with her debut novel. According to December, 2006, Midwest Reviews: “The author, Cheryl Swanson, has penned a stunning debut novel with all the hallmarks of a great thriller.” According to Jeffrey Marks, consulting editor with Mystery Scene magazine and Edgar-nominee, “Pacing, characterization, intrigue, Death Game has it all. It keep me on the edge of my chair from the very first chapter. I couldn’t put it down and read it well into the night.”

Epinions review (December, 2006) said: “If you’re looking for a thoughtful, well-crafted thriller that will keep you guessing till the last clue’s in place, with a strong-willed protagonist who’s so real you finish the book thinking that she must exist somewhere on Earth, then give yourself a break and read Death Game at the earliest opportunity.”

Terrorism Subject of Thriller Death Game

Death Game Focuses on Unusual Terrorist Attack

With homeland security a national priority, most government officials would prefer that we wipe the imagery of high-level targets going down in a fireball from our minds. But when sailing under the Golden Gate Bridge in 2002, Cheryl Swanson, an expert on three-dimensional computer technology, found herself thinking, ‘What if…’”

Such was the genesis of Death Game, a suspense/thriller recently published by Zumaya Publications, LLC. “Doing the research was a challenge,” Swanson said, “because officials at the Golden Gate Bridge District, like those at other high-profile facilities around the country, are loathe to share information. They simply won’t give you any specifics.”

The tight-lipped silence is probably because the bridge has been considered a terrorism target for many years. In 2002, Spanish officials found videos among the possessions of suspected terrorists that included detailed images of the span, and, in 2003, the state attorney general named the Golden Gate Bridge the fourth most likely target in California, after LAX and the ports of Long Beach and Oakland.

Since the bridge contains over 80,000 tons of steel and weighs nearly 900,000 tons overall, realistic scenarios of its destruction aren’t obvious. But Swanson found that speculation about possible methodology was rife on the Internet. “Most of the attention focuses on someone bringing in a car-bomb to blow a hole in the deck,” Swanson said. “But the Golden Gate isn’t that vulnerable to those kind of attacks. Compared to the Loma Prieta, the typical car bomb attack is equivalent to a mosquito bite.”

An airline attack on the bridge is also occasionally postulated. “The destruction of the Twin Towers in 2001 made it clear that massive concrete and steel structures can be brought down from the air,” Swanson said. But her thriller pegs the true danger somewhere else; Death Game is based on an attack on the piers by marine tankers. “I came up with the idea mostly based on an awareness of how easy it is to sail into harbors on the California coast unchallenged,” she said. “But most authorities seem to consider marine tankers one of the more realistic threats.”

Swanson said that over the years she was only boarded once on the California coast—by immigration officials, when she strayed into Mexican waters. “My experience is that anyone can sail up and down the coast, enter whatever harbor they wish, and no one even notices.”

Swanson is the author of three non-fiction books and an expert in esoteric video technologies, including those used to train surgeons, as well as robotic systems for guiding emergency surgery in remote locations. “The U.S. Army, medical schools, Hollywood animators, and teenage boys are all fascinated by computer games,” she said. “I already knew a lot about the technology, from a realm where it was used in a helpful way. But you can’t work with advanced technology without realizing that this millennium has become increasingly dangerous because the things with which we are surrounded with are more dangerous.”

Swanson never intended to write a suspense/thriller, when she chucked her career in medical technology and started writing a novel. “I was in the middle of chemotherapy for breast cancer,” she said, “I was also in the final stages of an adoption from Guatemala, which my surgeon told me to stop pursuing because of my cancer diagnosis. That put me in a black mood. And then, like all of America, I was transfixed by 9/11. After 9/11, the spectrum of credibility expanded for everyone in America with a thinking brain. What was inconceivable was now possible--the utterly awful had become chillingly real.”

Swanson neatly transferred her feelings of being out of control into the heart of her heroine’s. Cooper O’Brien is on a nonstop roller coaster in Death Game, trying to prove her kid-brother is not a killer. “Being in a chemo room is like being in the anteroom of a gas chamber,” Swanson said. “My challenge was to put that thoroughly awful thrill into words. And then, final step, create a much more entertaining situation than my own, in which those feelings might have happened in the first place.”

Swanson said that she believes we are under-estimating the sophistication of terrorists, and mistaken in calling their acts irrational. “There’s a popular misconception that terrorists are lunatics who want to kill everyone in the West. It’s comic book image—Batman fighting the Joker. What we are actually seeing, instead, is much more complicated. These are highly sophisticated individuals, fully versed in media imagery. They know that we in the West think in images. On the West Coast, nothing is a more powerful image than a beloved landmark like the Golden Gate Bridge.”

Swanson found through her research that an amazing number of the Arab and Muslim terrorists have secondary and even primary identities as Westerners. “A standard part of growing up in bin Laden’s family, for example, involved attending university in the West. Osama studied in Jiddah, but he was a playboy in Westernized Beirut before he repented and returned to fundamentalist Islam. In many ways, that is the driving force of aggression against the West. They see it as a betrayal of his Muslim identity and pride.

“Terrorists intend to kill a certain number of people, yes, but their real goal is to exploit the news media to terrify a far larger portion of the public, she added. “The brilliance of bin Laden’s plan was that he spoke to us in a language of images we understood. Watching 9/11 on television, people felt like it wasn’t real. It seemed like something made up—a scene out of a movie. And that was the point. It was supposed to be like something out of a movie. The imagery kept it front and center on the world’s news’ channels for a long time. Bin Laden counted on that to help him attract a fresh army of recruits to jihad.”

Swanson said she felt there was a strong connection between the reduction of individuals to abstractions and terrorism. “In 1967, the political scientist Ole R. Holsti published an essay titled “Cognitive Dynamics and Images of the Enemy,” in which he argued that, while terrorists exploit media images, they are also psychologically disposed to reduce their human enemies into a single abstract image. Holsti went on to say that these abstractions cause terrorists to resort to violence, because the very abstractness and unreality of those images means they are bound to inspire immoral action.”

“It is a closed loop,” she said. ‘Terrorist groups manufacture oversimplified and repulsive images of the enemy, and then those images prompt attacks that are themselves highly repulsive.” Is it also possible that Swanson’s novel—with its imagery of a terrorist attack-- might inspire some immoral action?
She believes that it’s more likely the images created by books like hers are a deterrent. “One valuable benefit of fiction is that it alerts us to what’s possible,” she said. “With the publication of anything that contains a possible scenario for terrorists, that idea is no longer a usable terrorist plan. Once a plan is public knowledge, they’ve lost the element of surprise. They are forced to go on to Plan B, or Plan C.”

(Considered officially to be in cancer remission, after four years of being cancer free, Cheryl Swanson now lives with her Guatemala-born daughter, and her husband, Bob, two densely jungled miles from Michael Crichton in Kauai. Death Game can be purchased from Amazon.com and through local bookstores.)

Books I'm Reading

I occasionally get asked for the name of books that I am currently reading and enjoying. Below I’ve listed a recent favorite.

Coping With Weapons and Violence In Schools and On Your Streets, by Maryann Miller

The book was a New York Library Best Book For Teens. Timely, relevant and a great eye-opener.

I finished it a month or so ago, but I still recall fondly the fun of reading Legends of the Serai. J. C. Hall is the author and she is as skilled a wordsmith as they come.

Legends of the Serai stole hours of sleep from me. At the heart of this fantasy is a haunting exploration of the transfiguring power of love--a subject that, for all of its universal nature, requires a delicate touch to make bloom. J.C. Hall has that touch! She has another fantasy trilogy coming out soon, the first book will be Lady of the Lake.

Posted by Cheryl Swanson, Death Game

Cheryl Swanson Featured at Green Apple BookStore

RICHMOND REVIEW STORY
Death Game, by debut novelist Cheryl Swanson, was recently released and is being featured at Green Apple Book Store this month. Death Game was published by Zumaya Publications and introduces a hard-boiled, Irish Catholic female sleuth who lives in the Richmond District.

Cooper O’Brien spends her evenings prowling the area’s pubs and walking streets humming with Russian and Cantonese speakers. Her father is a counter-espionage agent and Cooper is pulled into her father’s shadowy world when her troubled teenage brother is targeted in a terrorist plot.

The waves of immigrants, not to mention a plethora of establishments serving food from every corner of the world, made the Richmond and Sunset an appealing setting for the novel, according to Cheryl Swanson. Not to mention the notorious fog, booming foghorns and marine breezes. Swanson said she found the area fascinating and exhilarating when she worked in it for several years.

Cheryl Swanson now lives in Kauai, but she visits often. “When I come, I take my five-year-old daughter to the Camera Obscura and hiking in Lincoln Park,” she said. Along the portion of the Coastal Trail that runs about six miles along the bluff above the sea she did research for her plot, sitting and watching traffic come under the bridge.

According to ForeWord Magazine, the leading reviewer of academic and independent press books, “Death Game is a sharp, fast-paced mystery.” ForeWord reviewer Maryann Miller said: “In this debut novel, the author weaves an intricate story with fine characterization and plenty of surprises. The pace is relentless and the language vivid.”

Many writers frequent the Richmond District, including best-selling author Amy Tam. Even though she uses Chinatown as the setting in her five novels, including The Joy Luck Club, she said in an article in the Charlotte Observer on January 28, 2007, “There's a cooler, lesser-known part of town where the newest immigrants from China, Vietnam and Russia have settled.” You guessed it. In the Richmond District, particularly around Clement Street.

Death Game
Cheryl Swanson
306 pages
Zumaya Publications
Softcover $14.99
978-1-55410-325-6
PDF and HTML $6.99
978-1-55410-326-3

M.D. Benoit Goes On Virtual Book Tour

Announcement on New Sci-Fi Title from M.D. Benoit.

From 28 March to 11 April, M. D. Benoit will be going on a virtual book tour to promote her upcoming alternate reality novel, Synergy. During that period, ten people will host her on their blog for one day. There will be discussions on the book, Synergy, its themes, characters, interviews with the author, reviews of the book, etc.

Every day, on her own blog, Life’s Weirder than Fiction (http://mdbenoit.com/blog), she will announce where she will be that day, as well as talk a bit about her host.

Synergy’s Virtual Book Tour will culminate with a Virtual Book Launch, on 15-16 April (http://mdbenoit.com/synergy). M. D. can be contacted at mdbenoit (at) gmail (dot) com.

Benoit is a terrific author. Several of her other sci-fis are reviewed on my companion blog, http://www.gottaread.blogspot.com. I'll be one of the first to buy Synergy. If you like sci-fi and are looking for a new author, check it out on Fictionwise.

Death Game Links Story to Teenage Killers

DEATH GAME FOCUSES ON ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY AND MISPERCEPTION OF REALITY -- News Story in Posting Press

In the suspense/thriller Death Game, debut novelist Cheryl Swanson explores the mass psychology behind a worldwide teenage obsession—Internet games. In the novel’s opening chapters, fifteen-year-old Jimmie O’Brien is accused of shooting another teenager in connection with a violent and bigoted game carried on between unidentified players on the Internet.

Jimmie shares similarities with many teenage rampage killers, including Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold of the infamous Columbine school shootings, or (more recently) Jeffrey James Weise, who killed seven people at Red Lake High School in Minnesota in 2005. Weise created violent Flash animations and posted them on the Internet (including Newsgrounds) using the alias “Regret". One animation entitled Target Practice depicts the shooting of three people with an assault rifle, followed by blowing up a police car with a grenade.

Like Harris, Klebold and Weise, Jimmie O’Brien is presented as a lonely and somewhat isolated, prone to angry outbursts and obsessed with a violent fantasy world in cyberspace. What gives Death Game an interesting twist is that Jimmie does not appear to be abnormal, at least not to any parents of a modern teenager. He is presented as an idealistic, kind-hearted boy who is enraged by injustice. When a drunk driver escapes punishment after killing Jimmie’s parents in an automobile accident, Jimmie’s teenage angst explodes. But while Jimmie’s gaming partners are motivated by bigotry and specifically target Jews and other minorities in their killing games, Jimmie is simply trying to ease his rage and emotional pain.

Swanson sets the stage for the psychological thriller’s obligatory "analytical scene," by bringing in Jimmie’s clinical psychologist, a pony-tailed retired army colonel. Psychologist Nate Jordan explains to Jimmie’s sister, Cooper O’Brien, the appeal of total immersion in screen violence. When told that explicit, obsessional killing can also be a form of sexual titillation, Cooper responds: “For the first time I thought I understood why Jimmie had sat endlessly in front of his computer, pulling on a phallic-looking joystick with the empty-eyed look of someone whose spirit had been extracted out of his flesh.”

The book quickly progresses into twisted computer games, ‘closed cities’ and the religious extremism of terrorism. The almost-obligatory terrorist plot is unusual in that it is involves ordinary American human beings. “There are any number of thrillers about terrorism, but Death Game brings it into the living room, where it’s not about unidentified strangers but people we know,” said Elizabeth Burton, executive editor with Zumaya Publications.

Certainty of solution used to be a staple of detective fiction, but it is becoming more common for crime fiction to end as Death Game does, without very little completely resolved. The astute mystery reader can figure out what is left unsaid on their own, including whether Jimmie is really guilty. As Sherlock Holmes said: "Whatever remains, however improbable, must be truth" (from Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles).

Death Game
Cheryl Swanson
Zumaya Publications
ISBN: 1554103258
Distributed by Ingram, Baker and Taylor
Suggested retail price: $14.99

Finding Out A Book's Sales Numbers

Contrary to popular conception, there is no fast path to fame and fortune as a novelist. Still, those of us on our way to best-seller status (we can all hope) would like to know if our latest opus is selling 100 copies a week.
Or no copies at all.
Those reading this blog who aren’t authors, look at it this way: If you beating your brains out trying to boost sales, wouldn’t you like to know if anyone even noticed? Those reading who are authors know exactly what I’m talking about. (You can send me $1000 for the tips below, because that’s what you’d have to pay for this information otherwise.)
First, let’s discuss why we can’t simply email the book’s publisher, or look on their website to find out how we’re doing. No author can on a regular basis–no matter who their publisher might be–because publishers keep sales numbers more secure than they do their bank accounts.
There are several excellent reasons for this, however, and it’s helpful to know them.
A few years ago, Bookscan tracked sales of 1.2 million books in the United States. Of those 1.2 million, only 25,000 books sold more than 5,000 copies. Fewer than 500 sold more than 100,000 copies. Only 10 books sold more than a million copies each.
If you work through all the numbers, (I did and double-checked, so don’t bother) you’ll discover something horrifying. The average new book in the United States sells about 500 copies. (Yep. Only 500. Time to stop reading if you’re an aspiring author and have a weak stomach.)
You can understand from this why small publishers keep the numbers private. Most have such low sales numbers they don’t like posting them publicly. Others simply feel that tracking and reporting numbers takes them away from the fifteen other jobs they’re maintaining to finance their “We’re gonna be Doubleday someday” addiction. In the meantime, the big guys don’t like to admit that they’re not doing much better. (And spending a lot more money.)
If they’ve got a recent best-seller, they’re happy to brag. Otherwise, mum’s the word.
The bottom line: the entire book industry treats sales information as proprietary; something they can sell or bargain with.
You can’t blame them, or…maybe you can, but it won’t do you any good. So what’s the hapless author to do?
Well, you could sign up for Neilson Bookscan, which gets reports from the majority of retail outlets. On a yearly basis, that would set you back around $1000 per title. Like I said in the beginning of this article, if you ‘ve got that kind of money, send it to me. I can use it.
ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS WORTH OF FREE ADVICE
Fortunately, there are several fast, free ways to get immediate information on your book(s) sales—without having to mug your publisher.
The easiest method is to call Ingram directly. (Assuming that Ingram wholesales or distributes your book.) The number is: 800-937-8000. Pick option “4″ when prompted, then dial ext.#36803. When given the chance, dial your book’s ISBN number.
An automated service will tell you how many books of yours are in their warehouses and how many have been shipped.
Remember that this number only represents the books that went through Ingram, which typically shows how many books you have sold to bookstores. Books bought directly through LSI probably wouldn’t show up in these numbers.
Many authors compulsively check their sales ranking on Amazon, which is a waste of time. In case you haven’t figured this out yet, you can’t determine anything from a single rank under the new system at Amazon, and even their old system wasn’t that accurate. What you want is your long-term rank/average. A new software (free because it’s in beta) will allow you to track your long-term average on Amazon. It’s simple to set up and easy to use.
Surf on over to http://www.titlez.com/ if you want to give it a try. (Consider all the typical warnings on using beta software issued. And if your computer crashes after loading it, please don’t tell me. Mine did fine.)
One thing that all authors should know is how the book industry defines a “bestseller.” Bestsellers in mainstream categories are up for grabs. The number of sales per week required varies with the season and competition. Even worse, if the book is in an unusual niche, it could be declared a bestseller simply because it has no competition. A recent publisher declared their book about organic food for pets a bestseller before it was even printed. (I made that up.)
If anyone uses these tips, please be sure to check out my new website at www.cherylswanson.net and at least leave me a nice comment. (Buy my latest thriller, Death Game, and help my sales numbers! Please!)
Otherwise, Cooper O’Brien, my sassy heroine in Death Game, has a good Irish curse for you:
May the curse of Mary Malone and her nine blind illegitimate children chase you so far over the hills of Damnation that the Lord himself can’t find you with a telescope.
Oh, yeah.
And may you lose $1000 tomorrow.
Cheryl Swanson, author of Death Gamewww.cherylswanson

Web Site Gets a New Look

My website has just been completely redone. Check it out at http://cherylswanson.net

New look, new info, new ways to find some good authors. (Click on the madten blog, see what the authors in my cyber writing group are up to these days.)

Cheryl Swanson Featured in Newspaper The Garden Island

Borders Books and Music in Lihu‘e will be hosting the launch of the suspense/thriller “Death Game,” by Kaua‘i novelist Cheryl Swanson tomorrow at 2 p.m.

A second book-signing event is set for Hanapepe Art Night on Friday, Feb. 9 at 7 p.m. at Talk Story bookstore.

Swanson began writing full-time after giving up a six-figure income as a consultant and motivational speaker in medicine and dentistry.

She was a clinical editor of Dentistry Today magazine, headquartered in New York, the author of three non-fiction books on medical technology and spoke at medical/dental schools and conventions in the United States and Canada.

The author of “Death Game,” which was published by Zumaya Publications, drew on her experiences with troubled teenagers as a child advocate to pen her first novel.

As a child advocate in San Francisco, she worked extensively with children who experienced sexual and physical abuse in their homes and had been removed from that environment by local police.

According to J.C. Hall, the author of “Legends of the Serai” and a reviewer with Epinions, “Death Game” is a “stunning debut novel with all the hallmarks of a great thriller.”

According to Mystery Scene magazine consulting editor and Edgar nominee, Jeffrey Marks, “A taut novel of suspense, ‘Death Game’ had me on the edge of my seat from the very first chapter.”

MidWest Review, December 2006 said: “Talented author Cheryl Swanson maintains a quick pace that reaches a spine-tingling, heart-stopping climax.”

“One con about ‘Death Game’ is that after you’re reading it, you’ll be worrying about your teenager even when she/he’s at home,” Swanson said.

The book tells the story of a teenage boy who is obsessed with Internet gaming and ends up being the prime suspect in the shooting death of the heir to a shipbuilding dynasty in San Francisco.

The novel links the seemingly harmless teenage fixation of video and Internet gaming with the training of military operatives and more sinister consequences.

“Death Game” is both timely and relevant, and a sharp reminder of the startling vulnerability of ordinary American citizens,” Hall wrote.

According to Book Review Club, “The horrifying implications in ‘Death Game’ are not far from reality in the present world we live in.”

Swanson herself is fascinated by survivors, partly because ‘Death Game’ was completed during chemotherapy. “I was diagnosed with breast cancer four years ago,” she said in a release. “Being a victim is a matter of luck — bad luck. Being a survivor, on the other hand, is a matter of character and faith. There is a lot of bad in the world — and boy, with all my research as a novelist, do I know it. And I think that gives everyone a fascination with heroes. How do they find the strength? What secrets have they learned? The world isn’t going to magically get better anytime soon, so we could all benefit from that strength.”

Swanson is not the only survivor in the family. She and her husband adopted a child from tough circumstances in Guatemala several years ago.

“My husband Bob calls our daughter Carmen and myself his two survivors,” she said. “We know something in our family about making it through tough times.”

Swanson will be featured in a live interview by Tracey Schavone on KKCR, Kaua‘i Community Radio, on Feb. 7.

She can be reached through her Web site at cherylswanson.net, where the first chapter of the “Death Game” can also be read.


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Island-wide book launch for Kaua i novelist starts tomorrow

Richmond Review-- San Francisco Newspaper Covers Death Game

Story in Richmond Review on Death Game

The Richmond and Sunset districts are the setting for a recently published thriller entitled "Death Game," by Bay Area author Cheryl Swanson. After working in and visiting the City for years, the foggy and mysterious districts inspired Swanson's imagination to write this debut novel, which has received good reviews from Mystery Scene magazine, Midwest Review, and Foreward, one of the leading reviewers of small and academic press books.

Local trivia abounds, with mentions of sites and activities well-known to those who know the area, such as St. Ignatius Church, several of the area's Irish pubs, and famous city chefs frequenting the markets in the evening hours to select produce for their restaurant menus.

"Death Game" is available at San Francisco Mystery Bookstore and City Lights. For more information, visit the Web site at http://www.cherylswanson.net

Death Game Launch--Kauai

Story from Kauai news

Borders Books and Music in Lihue will be hosting the launch of the suspense/thriller "Death Game," by Kauai novelist Cheryl Swanson on January 27. A second book-signing event is set for Hanapepe Art Night, on Friday, February 9 at Talk Story—The Bookstore.

Cheryl Swanson began writing full-time after giving up a six-figure income as a consultant and motivational speaker in medicine and dentistry. She was a clinical editor of Dentistry Today magazine, headquartered in New York, the author of three non-fiction books on medical technology, and spoke medical/dental schools and conventions in the United States and Canada.

The author of Death Game, which was published by Zumaya Publications, drew on her experiences with troubled teenagers as a child advocate to pen her first novel. As a child advocate in San Francisco, she worked extensively with children who experienced sexual and physical abuse in their homes and had been removed from that environment by local police.

According to J.C. Hall, the author of Legends of the Serai and a reviewer with Epinions, Death Game is a "stunning debut novel with all the hallmarks of a great thriller." According to Mystery Scene magazine consulting editor and Edgar nominee, Jeffrey Marks, "A taut novel of suspense, Death Game had me on the edge of my seat from the very first chapter." MidWest Review, December, 2006 said: "Talented author Cheryl Swanson maintains a quick pace that reaches a spine-tingling, heart-stopping climax."

"One con about Death Game is that after you’re reading it, you’ll be worrying about your teenager even when she/he’s at home," Swanson said. The book tells the story of a teenage boy who is obsessed with Internet gaming and ends up being the prime suspect in the shooting death of the heir to a shipbuilding dynasty in San Francisco.

The novel links the seemingly harmless teenage fixation of video and Internet gaming with the training of military operatives and more sinister consequences."Death Game is both timely and relevant, and a sharp reminder of the startling vulnerability of ordinary American citizens," J.C. Hall wrote. According to Book Review Club, "The horrifying implications in Death Game are not far from reality in the present world we live in."

Cheryl Swanson herself is fascinated by survivors, partly because Death Game was completed during chemotherapy. "I was diagnosed with breast cancer four years ago," she said. "Being a victim is a matter of luck—bad luck. Being a survivor, on the other hand, is a matter of character and faith. There is a lot of bad in the world—and boy, with all my research as a novelist, do I know it. And I think that gives everyone a fascination with heroes. How do they find the strength? What secrets have they learned? The world isn’t going to magically get better anytime soon, so we could all benefit from that strength."
She is not the only survivor in the family. She and her husband adopted a child from tough circumstances in Guatemala several years ago. "My husband Bob calls our daughter Carmen and myself, his two survivors. I gotta tell you, we know something in our family about making it through tough times."
Cheryl Swanson will be featured in a live interview by Tracey on KKCR, Kauai Community Radio on February 7th. She can be reached on her website at cherylswanson.net, where the first chapter of the Death Game can also be read.

The Way Home

I became a novelist when I thought I was dying. I typed Death Game into my computer with eyes gritty and filmed from chemotherapy infusions; created scenes in the fog of four cancer and reconstruction surgeries. Scenes crept and chilled and chuckled in the marrow of my bones, as poisons fought the battle with cancer there—destroying damaged cells as well as those essential to my survival.

As things progressed, the reality of my disease set in and fear because a wall, high and hard and stone. I wrote Death Game to tear it down. Even the name was perfect; I was in a death game. Winner take all.

The first version was so bad that I wanted to throw it away, but it had cost me too much. Besides, the characters were part of my soul. The boy my heroine was trying to save was the child I wanted so badly. My heroine kept trying to find him, just as I kept trying to continue the adoption I had begun pre-cancer.

A new novel began to emerge when I started to recover. It was more hopeful—I allowed the bad guys to die. The good guys had another chance. My doctors told me I would have another chance. The cancer—for now, at least—was gone. There was always the chance it would come back, but the statistics weren’t that bad. I had a 90 percent chance of survival. I’m a risk-taker anyway. With those odds I would bet every dollar I have in Vegas.

And then entered, to the sound of trumpets—my adopted daughter from Guatemala. The exigencies of having to care for a child shocked me. Still in recovery, I shopped for formula bald, went to the park with her and couldn’t lift her into the swing.

Persist. My book was full of corpses, but I was alive. Groping onward, I left my home in San Francisco and moved with my child and husband to Hawaii. Not Honolulu, but off the map. As far as I could go, to the windward side of the northernmost Hawaiian island.

In an broken-down pole house hanging over a jungled ravine, my daughter was rock happy. She had a pet rooster and she loved the fact that she was never cold. But some nights I would sob with exasperation. I was a city girl, born and bred. My husband could not come with me—not for a long time, and were things in the jungle—feral pigs, rats, and centipedes.

The rats were the worst. They would climb up my mango trees, nibbling fruit on the way. Drop down on the roof and climb through the broken screens. When I ripped up the carpet, cockroaches scurried and the floors were black with ten kinds of mold I did nothing but try to make my house safe for the longest time. At nights the surf would keep me awake, and when I tried to surf, I broke my toe.

I got a beginner’s board, a soft top, and finally tottered upright. That moment I will not forget. In exile to my old life, I had ended up where I wanted to be. I was living in a place where the birds spoke in long, meaningful phrases, where clumps of tangled orchids hung from my trees.

I had proved what I had always suspected. As Paul Theroux said: "Even the crookedest journey is the way home."

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ISLAND WIDE LAUNCH OF DEATH GAME

ART NIGHT IN HANAPEPE
TALK STORY BOOKSTORE
7:00 PM FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 9th

BORDERS, LIHUE, 2:00 PM SATURDAY, JANUARY 27th

View From the Edge of the World

My family and I now live in one of the most unusual areas in the world: the northernmost edge of Kauai. Those of you who live here or have visited know that it is truly an unforgettable place.

The ancient Hawaiians considered the windward side of Kauai to be the “edge of the world,” the place where souls of those who had died jumped off to the next world. There are multiple sites for sacred hula, many of which are still used.