Third Time’s A Charm: The Long Road of a Trilogy
Loyal readers of this blog might remember when The Devil Doesn’t Want Me came out in 2012. Or maybe not, it was a while ago. Now, nearly six years later, the saga I began in that book is coming to a close. Many authors have to face up to the end of a long running series. Mine isn’t so long, though, in content. It’s a trilogy. Why did it take twice as long as it should have to get all three books out into the world? Don’t blame me.
I’m not what you call lazy or unproductive, usually. I have my moments, but writing is rarely one of them. But I have this problem, or is it a curse? There are certainly days when I feel like I kicked a gypsy’s black cat under full moon. Maybe it explains why I can’t go into a store without picking the slowest checkout line regardless of how many people are already queued up.
See, I have this habit of picking publishers who go extinct. I have five – count ‘em, five – notches in my belt so far. And the Lars & Shaine trilogy? It’s taken three publishers to complete a three book story.
First came Guilt Edged Mysteries, an ebook only division of Dutton/Penguin. In 2012 the ebook gold rush was on and many publishers tried their hand at getting into the game which seemed, at the time, like a license to print money, if not physical copies of the books.
Guilt Edged was a revival of a storied imprint of Dutton’s past and the original publishers of Mickey Spillane, among many high quality pulp and hardboiled titles of the 1950s including Frederick Brown, Earle Basinski and more. I was beyond thrilled to be associated with the golden age of pulp so I was all in. So much so I went and wrote book two in the series.
And Guilt Edged were great people. Everyone I worked with on the book was top notch and highly professional. But when the ebook ended its fad phase, many imprints were left realizing the same rules applied to ebooks in terms of promotion. It’s simply hard to get eyeballs on a book.
Dutton decided their efforts were better spent on the tried and true so Guilt Edged ground to a halt. They sent a very nice letter about book two, but they would not be publishing it, or anything else.
Lars and Shaine were orphaned for the first time.
Around the time the contract ran out on that book and I got my rights back, a small upstart publisher from Europe called 280 Steps (after a line in a Raymond Chandler novel – bonus points) emerged and reached out to me about another of my novels.
That book was tied up in a deal but I mentioned that I had my rights back to The Devil Doesn’t Want Me and that I already had the sequel written and would they want to take a look. They did and just like that, the trilogy was back in print. Well, I needed to write book three but they wanted to publish it.
Lars and Shaine would get the treatment they deserved.
In addition, 280 Steps picked up my novel Rumrunners and its sequel, Leadfoot. Things were moving along. Book two, When The Devil Comes To Call, was released in July of 2016. A long time between sequels.
Again, my experience working with the publisher was good. Until it wasn’t.
For personal reasons the owner of 280 Steps decided to shut the doors. Hard to fault them for that. We all have our reasons for doing things. The trouble was, by then I’d written the finale to the Lars and Shaine story. I had a release date. I had a cover. I’d done my edits. We were two weeks away. On this very site in 2016 I was talking about book #3.
And then overnight it all vanished.
It had happened again. I’d written a book that was now orphaned. I’d been through two cover designs. It had been years I’d asked loyal readers to wait and now I had to ask them to wait some more.
So to the rescue came the fine folks at Down & Out Books who stepped in and took Lars and Shaine (and all their baggage). I warned them about my habit of killing publishers. They didn’t hesitate.
Things took a few more months of prep and waiting so I wasn’t dumping books on readers, since they also picked up the lost Rumrunners and Leadfoot. But now it’s time.
But here’s one thing you know about Lars if you’ve read the first two books – he’s hard to kill.
The Devil At Your Door is a send off to these characters who have been with me longer than any other I’ve written. In that time the books have grown more personal. Underneath it all they are a comment on family and how it doesn’t always come from blood (I am the father of two children we adopted). It shows a character age and confront a disease, Parkinson’s, that threatens to rob him of his quality of life. (my father was diagnosed in 1995) And I hope it stands as a testament to my own resilience in the face of adversity in this business.
Even when they were cast aside, I always believed in these books as some of my best work and books people would love. In many ways it was sad to say goodbye after all these years. In other ways I’m glad the drama is over.
If I got it right on the conclusion, I’m happy. And if you stuck around to see it through, you are to be commended for your patience. But don’t blame me for it taking this long.
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