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Sleuthfest Live-blog, Saturday, Part 2: James W. Hall

2/28/2015

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Saturday, February 28, 2015, 2:30 PM
   
    After entertaining the lunch crowd in the grand ballroom, author James W. Hall was kind enough to sit with me and discuss the reasoning behind shelving his popular protagonist, Thorn, and starting a new series.
     I asked Mr. Hall why an established author such as himself would start a new series rather than write standalone novels. I’ve spoken with numerous authors who started as series writers because that's what the industry demands of unestablished authors. Michael Koryta come to mind. Surely Mr. Hall has a large enough following to allow him to write standalones.
     “The publishing industry tracks numbers ruthlessly through Neilson Bookscan, which didn't exist in the 1980s,” he said. "The result is a downward pressure on all sales. There is no great incentive to produce more books than the previous book sold."
     "In the old days," Hall continued, "when you moved to a new publisher they had no idea of sales. They only knew what was in the public sphere and would often overpay."
     "The only way to change the trajectory of sales is to do something new, to convince the publisher that a new set of characters would rejuvenate sales,” Hall said.
     On shelving Thorn, about whom Hall has written 14 novels over the course of 30 years, the author said "I wanted to see if changing characters would change my numbers."
     Sales aren't the only motivation Hall has for shifting gears, though. There are creative considerations, too. "Thorn is easy," he said. "I know his voice. I wanted a new challenge."
     Hall, who never intended Thorn to be a recurring character, has the knowledge going into this new series that it will be a recurring character, which will allow him to develop the character in ways he never did with Thorn.
     Another thing new—or unfamiliar because of how long he has been under contract for Thorn novels—to Hall, now that he is trying to sell a non-Thorn novel, is pitching to  a publisher. He is about to submit the first third of his newest novel to his agent.
    I'm sure he'll do just fine.
        —Ed Irvin
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Live-blog from Sleuthfest, Saturday, Part 1

2/28/2015

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Saturday, February 28, 2015, 2:00 PM
    ”I'm supposed to have drinks with Jim Patterson later on. I'll let him know how that went.” James W. Hall, who leaves the stage to a raucous standing ovation.
        —Ed Irvin
Saturday, February 28, 2015, 1:55 PM
    A few years ago I took my wife to a Madonna concert for our anniversary. The Material Girl took the stage at 11:30 for a show that was scheduled to begin at 8:00. Patterson has reached one hour.
        —Ed Irvin
Saturday, February 28, 2015, 1:49 PM
    ”I actually like James Patterson. I think he's terrific. And all of his permutations.” James W. Hall
        —Ed Irvin
Saturday, February 28, 2015, 1:24 PM
    Still no Patterson, but James W. Hall has taken to the stage to amuse the crowd with stories of absentee orangutans in a novel about orangutans.
        —Ed Irvin
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Press getting fed like royalty. —Ed Irvin
Saturday, February 28, 2015, 12:59 PM

    The character naming sold for $975. I hope they didn't just drop a grand on a character who gets killed on page one.
        —Ed Irvin
Saturday, February 28, 2015, 12:55 PM

    A 50 page manuscript reading by bestselling author Jeffrey Deaver just sold for $650 during the luncheon auction. Next up on the block is a character naming in an upcoming James Patterson novel.
        —Ed Irvin
Saturday, February 28, 2015, 12:30 PM

    Author and Sleuthfest featured speaker James W. Hall with Pam Stack, host of Authors on the Air.
        —Ed Irvin
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Saturday, February 28, 2015, 12:17 PM

    The guest of honor is fashionably late. He is scheduled for the press room from 12-1:00 before giving his keynote speech from 1-2:00.
         —Ed Irvin
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Saturday, February 28, 2015, 11:28 AM

SRO crowd waiting for James Patterson.

     —Ed Irvin
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James W. Hall at Murder on the Beach 1/15/15

1/16/2015

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    James W. Hall is working on a new recurring character and he asked a small crowd of fans at Murder on the Beach what characteristics they are drawn to in a character. Character-wise I've got no idea but, if he's looking for a name, perhaps it should be Storm, because one has followed Hall to Delray Beach for the last two years.
 
    A monsoon kept the crowds at bay for Hall's appearance to promote last year's Going Dark. There were four people, including me, that night, for what turned into more of a fireside chat than a reading. While it was stormy last night, the wind and rain weren't at monsoon levels, so the audience was a little bigger. Keep in mind, the previous times I've seen Hall at Murder on the Beach the store was SRO. Still, the author's discussion of his newest, and possibly last, Thorn novel, The Big Finish, was just as intimate as last year's.
    Hall started by talking about the pitfalls of book touring itself, saying that by the end of a book tour he wants to talk about any book other than his own. The disjointed path his tour has taken him on surely isn't helping maters. He flew into Jacksonville for an event earlier this week, then came south to Vero Beach. Makes sense. Then his itinerary took him to northwest to St. Petersburg, then back east to Murder on the Beach. From Delray he will head back to Tampa, before driving cross-state to Jacksonville to fly out. Maybe publicists should be required to minor in geography. (That's my own opinion, not the author's.)
     As far as The Big Finish goes, Hall said he started with the title, something he never does. Thorn was never intended to be a recurring character, Hall said, adding that "publishers over the years have bullied me into continuing with Thorn."
     "If I would have known that he was going to be around for thirty years I would've done him differently," the author said.
      The Big Finish takes Thorn out of his comfort zone in Key Largo and into the mountains of North Carolina in search of his son, Flynn Moss, who Hall says is "Thorn to the tenth power." Thorn is what might be called an old-school environmentalist. He loves being on the water and realizes the symbiotic relationship man has with nature, but he isn't in any hurry to join a protest. Flynn, a member of an eco-activist group called the Earth Liberation Front, or ELF, "has that DNA, but he takes it to another level."
     Of The Big Finish and its theme of the damage concentrated industrial farming can do to the environment Hall said "This book isn't my soapbox," before jokingly saying that "I just thought it was high time that someone wrote a thriller set on a pig farm."
     Is this really the end of Thorn, though? "At the very least," Hall said, "I need a break from Thorn; Although I'm not sure if this is The Big Finish."
            —Ed Irvin
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