Now in Paperback: Joshua's Ladder

I have it on good authority that if Oprah hadn't retired last month, Joshua's Ladder was next on her Oprah Book Club. Such is my luck.

Sooooo, we'll have to settle for announcing it on this blog. Joshua's Ladder is now available in paperback! At the low, low price of just $14.95.

CHECK IT OUT HERE.

The paperback version is extra good because it combine's Joshua's Ladder and the sequel, Amy's Ladder, all into one easy to read book. As e-books, those two were, at least for the last two days, the top sellers at independent book publisher Smashwords.com (and you can also get my Hitchhiker short stories there for free).

It's really worked out quite well as I've had over 1,500 downloads of the e-books and now the paperback version is out on their heels.

Check out my close personal friend Mr. Bill (he took the interview more seriously)

Bill Flynn is a featured author in this weeks “E”ndependent Publishers $2.99 Ebook Club enewsletter in the "general fiction" category.

Reasons/Motivations/Inspirations Behind Why I Wrote The Feathery

I started in golf as a caddie at 12 years old. Caddies were allowed to play free on Mondays. I worked at a golf course assisting the greens keeper during high school and continued to play and become enamored by the game.

Fast forward to my adult year … as an aerospace engineer I worked in Naples, Italy, Paris France and The Hague, Netherlands over a period of ten years. While in those countries I played golf there as well as in Scotland, England and Ireland. The Feathery is set at the golf courses of Turnberry and St. Andrews, Scotland for the golf segments. London and Ireland provide a venue for drama in the book.

While in Europe I attended four British Open Tournaments and one Ryder Cup. Back in the United States I followed an acquaintance PGA Professional from Q-School and behind the ropes at The Masters. This gave me insight into the atmosphere and play at those major championships and helped me to create that same atmosphere in The Feathery.

After retiring from Aerospace, I started a golf product export business. As part of this I was consigned a collection of golf antiques and memorabilia. This took me to Japan and back to Europe in an attempt to sell them. Included in the collection were several feathery golf balls made and played at St. Andrews, Scotland in the 1800’s. I didn’t sell the collection, but feathery balls became my mantra of interest. I researched the method of manufacturing the ball and its history when used in play at St. Andrews. I decided to write a work of fiction with a valuable and most sought after feathery ball used during a record round being an object of collector greed. Besides golf play I wrapped this feathery ball in the story around teenage defiance, foreign intrigue, sleuthing, suspense and romance.

It took me about five years to complete the book. It was accepted by a traditional publisher, Sleeping Bear Press out of Michigan with a $2500.00 advance. Half way through my work with that publisher’s editor, Sleeping Bear was sold to Clock Tower Press. The new CEO decided not to do fiction. I was able to keep the advance because of a clause in my contract stating in effect; that if the publisher changed his mode of doing business the advance would be retained by the author. I self-published with Booksurge in 2007 and since then I’ve sold a total of 612 books through bookstores, book signings, direct sales and Amazon.

About the book: Scott Beckman inherits an antique feathery golf ball used in 1849 during a record match at St. Andrews, Scotland from his mentor, a golf professional, Sandy McNair. Sandy’s intervention had kept Scott and his best friend, Matt Kemp, away from juvenile delinquency by involving them in the game of golf. Scott moves on with Matt as his caddie to play on the PGA Tour. After running out of funds to stay on tour Scott reluctantly submits the valuable antique feathery ball, bequeathed to him by Sandy, to an auction in London. Ironically, after doing so, his earnings on tour start to soar. Scott removes the feathery from the auction much to the chagrin of those who were set on possessing this treasured artifact. One collector’s obsession is so strong he’ll murder and rob to own it.

Scott leaves the solution of murder and robbery up to Chief Inspector Bradshaw of Scotland Yard and Detective Riley of the NYPD while he continues play at the British Open. But his good play there against hot competition is interrupted when his caddie and friend, Matt Kemp, is abducted. A threatening note demanding Scott’s withdrawal leaves the tournament leader with no alternative … unless Scotland Yard’s quick intervention is successful.

About the Author: Bill Flynn is a retired aerospace engineer who lives in New Hampshire with wife, Barbara. His follow-on career was devoted to golf product exporting. Both careers took him to the places where his book, The Feathery, is set. He has been fortunate to have played imperfect golf on many of the perfect golf courses on this planet. Bill’s first novel, A Deadly Class Reunion was published in 2004 and available on Amazon.com. Bill’s work in process (working title: A Drumbeat Too Near) is about the adventures of three boys on Cape Cod in the 1940′s while German submarines lurk off shore. One sub launches two spies, and the boys stumble in on their covert mission. The back story describes the life and love of a German U-Boat commander who is not as enthralled by the Nazi regime as some of those in his crew.

Buy The Feathery at Amazon by clicking HERE.

Q&A with reclusive author of Joshua's Ladder (paperback version coming soon!)

As one of the featured authors in this week's Endependent Publishers Book Club, I had to submit to a question-and-answer session that you may, or may not, find enlightening. Here it is:

Q&A with Mark Haugen

Q: Haugen? Is that Swedish?
A: Norwegian. Don’t call me names.

Q: No offense. So what’s the book about?
A: Joshua’s Ladder?
Q: You have other books you want to talk about?
A: It was just a marketing thing - repeating the name of the book.
Q: Clever.
A: Thanks.

Q: So what’s Joshua’s Ladder about?
A: A guy who builds a ladder and climbs onto his roof and replaces some shingles.
Q: Seriously?
A: No.
Q: Can you be serious for a minute?
A: Okay. Joshua’s Ladder is about a guy who lost his parents and brother and then had a falling out with his fiancé and cancelled the wedding.
Q: Does he go looking for his family?
A: No. They’re dead. Killed in a car accident.
Q: Sorry.
A: That’s okay. They weren’t my family.

Q: So Joshua is bummed out?
A: Very. He retreats to his cabin in the Black Hills of South Dakota, drowns his sorrows, for 10 years.
Q: That’s a lot of beer over 10 years.
A: Whiskey, actually.
Q: Then what?
A: He goes into town about twice a year. On his most recent trip he finds that his old friends have given up on him ever returning to the Joshua of old. So he moves.

Q: Where?
A: Cocoa Beach, Florida.
Q: Good choice.
A: Yep. Falls in love with an astronaut.
Q: He’s gay?
A: No, the astronaut is Amy. But he meets a couple friends who are. Joshua and Amy fall in love, his life is coming back together. All is good.
Q: Until?
A: Until things go bad. And just when you think he’s fallen to the bottom of the ladder, he goes back to South Dakota, Amy rejoins him, his old friends meet his new friends, they bust a nationwide crime ring.
Q: And all is good?
A: For most of them.
Q: That’s kind of vague.
A: You want me to give away the ending?

Q: I’ll ask the questions here. How’d you come up with this story?
A: I read Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and it really struck a nerve. I decided I wanted to write a mystery/adventure/romance that was thoughtful, emotional, kind of the opposite of the serial killer/murder mystery stuff I usually read. No grisly murders, no courtroom scenes, just a narrative of a guy going up and down life’s ladder, something we all do but maybe not to the adventurous extent of Joshua.
Q: Will this book make me cry?
A: You’ll come close.
Q: Will it make me laugh?
A: Wet your pants.

Q: Is there a moral to the story?
A: Life is about the stories you can tell at the end of it. Stories, that when you tell them, people will arch their brow.
Q: Would your life’s stories make people arch their eyebrows?
A: Their eyebrows would fall off.

Q: Without getting into those stories, assuming the statute of limitations hasn’t expired, what’s your background?
A: Journalism. I’ve worked for newspapers belonging to two of the nation’s largest chains, Gannett and Lee Enterprises. I’ve also worked for small weekly newspapers. I’ve been a reporter, editor, sportswriter, written obits, pretty much everything. Finally, I started my own weekly newspaper from scratch, ran it with some success for five years, then sold it to Gannett.
Q: Went the full circle?
A: Yep.
Q: Where do you live now?
A: I’m a fifth-generation South Dakotan, and never strayed too far away. Lived the past six-plus years outside Rapid City, SD.

Q: Family?
A: Wife of 22 years; two daughters, 19 and 17; son, 13; a retriever/lab named Stanley; and a pet rabbit, Johnny Depp.
Q: Your rabbit is named Johnny Depp?
A: Yep.
Q: That explains a lot.

No Pulitzer, but the 'E'ndependent Publishers $2.99 Ebook Club came calling!

Just received notice that Joshua's Ladder will be among the six romance novels promoted in the May 15 newsletter of the "E"ndependent Publishers $2.99 Ebook Club.

Say what?! You don't belong to that club? I have just one thing to say to that: Loooooser!

But it's not too late for you. You don't have to be a loser for your entire life. You can subscribe to this ebook club and receive its enewsletter and your life will improve dramatically - guaranteed, almost. Guys, you know the hot neighbor lady who has never given you a second glance ... well she'll be ogling you up and down now! Gals, the FedEx guy who ignored you in your see-thru teddy last time you answered the door ... well he'll be dropping that sign-in tablet thingy and whispering sweet nothings in your ear now that he's learned you belong to the "E"ndependent Publishers $2.99 Ebook Club.

Whadayou have to lose? Nothing but your loser status.

It costs nothing, and then you might even find an inexpensive ebook like Joshua's Ladder that will exponentially improve your standing in life - guaranteed, maybe.

The book promos are scheduled to run May 15. Subscribe to this link.

Books you will find offered include:

Romance
◦Helmy Kusuma - Ai :/lʌv
◦Sheri Leigh – Star Struck
◦Mark Haugen – Joshua’s Ladder
◦Skylar Hamilton Burris – Conviction: a sequel to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice
◦Rebecca Melvin – In the Brief Eternal Silence
◦Skylar Hamilton Burris – An Unlikely Missionary

General Fiction:
◦Bill Flynn – The Feathery
◦Colleen Wait – Lessons Learned at Summer Camp
◦John Guenther – Soul Runner
◦E. V. Mitchell – Color of Heaven
◦Diane Morlan – Too Dead to Dance
◦Patricia Rockwell – Sounds of Murder

History, War and Military (fiction and non-fiction):
◦Marva Dasef – Tales of a Texas Boy◦James Spurr – Sworn for Mackinaw
◦Jane Gill – A Matter of Pride

Non-Fiction
◦Colette Ellis - Focus on Your Vision
◦Genieve Dawkins - Words of Hope for the Depressed, Oppressed and Recessed
◦Tannieka Dawkins – Cultivating Lilies
◦Maria Papadopoulou – From Hell with Love
◦Vickie Johnstone – Kaleidescope

Sci-Fi – Fantasy – Vampire - Horror
◦George Straatman - The Converging: Closures in Blood
◦Brent Nichols – Bert the Barbarian
◦Laura Lond – My Sparkling Misfortune
◦Sheri Leigh – Graveyard Games
◦Peter Shackle – A Disruptive Invention
◦Laura Lond – The Battle

20 books for instant rice readers

We're an impatient people for the most part, and I'm usually leading that parade with baton in hand. So, if you are looking for 20 classic novels you can read in one sitting, check this out.

Of the ones I've read (only nine), The Red Badge of Courage stands out to me as perhaps one that you don't usually see on these kind of lists as it rightfully should be. It was assigned reading in my English-teacher Dad's classes and I went back and reread it again a couple years ago with a lot more appreciation, and maybe a tad bit more maturity than I had 30 years ago. Just a tad, maybe more like a smidge.

Random thoughts

LEAVE IT TO BEEVES: Reading the Custer County Chronicle today, which incidentally is my favorite newspaper in the state, I noticed in their "Down Memory Lane" column a reference to something I'd never heard of: "130 Years ago, 1881 - Notwithstanding that there were four butcher shops in town, Jim Clark was keeping up his lick and was killing six beeves daily."

Consider, I grew up on a farm; I was editor of a large and influential regional ag newspaper; I even once dated a girl from South Dakota State University; but with all that agricultural background, I've NEVER heard of the term "beeves." I first considered whether Mr. Clark was butchering beavers, but thought six a day seemed like a lot, plus who would eat them? It's not like they had Taco Bells back then. Still befuddled, I consulted the internet, where one should always go for accurate irrefutable answers to your questions. At dictionary.com I learned that "beeves" is/are: 1. the flesh of a cow, steer, or bull raised and killed for its meat; 2. an adult cow, steer, or bull raised for its meat.

Well, dip me in honey and call me sticky, but I learned something. I'm going to have to pull that out of my hat next time I'm talking with one of my rancher buddies and see if he knows that he's raising beeves.

BAN MY BOOK SO MORE PEOPLE WILL READ IT: My collegiate daughter proudly proclaimed last week that she has read five of the top 10 banned books in the world. Good for her. There are worse ways to rebel against authority. The top 10 are: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Lolita, The Catcher in the Rye, Harry Potter Series, The Anarchist Cookbook, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Candide, 1984, Satanic Verses, and Brave New World.

Speaking of Huck Finn and the rewriting of a politically correct version, it strikes me that right or wrong, it takes some serious stones for somebody to sit down and think they are worthy of rewriting anything Mark Twain ever wrote.

As for being unworthy, I'm reminded of the writer I most admired while growing up. He was John Egan, legendary sportswriter at the Sioux Falls Argus Leader. He was my writing god. Fast-forward to me in college at 18 and nabbing a parttime gig in that sports department. I often sat at desks adjacent to John, I marvelled at his abilities and the gentlemanly manner he carried himself. He even spoke to me! By 22, I was fulltime on staff, often did night desk duty where I actually edited John's columns and stories and put headlines on them.

I just chuckled to myself. For one, John's writing was so immaculate and precise, it didn't need editing. For two, the last thing he needed was a slug like me portending to fix anything he ever wrote. He cared so much, he even called late at night to find out what headline the 22-year-old punk had decided to afix to his stories. He never called me a punk, probably didn't even think of me as a punk; but, I was a punk - probably a lot like the punks who have the audacity to edit Mark Twain now.

FYI, Twain died April 21, 1910. It's a pity he's not available to defend his masterpiece.

Catch the wave

Ride the wave, be the wave ... From CNN Money: The publishing tide is shifting fast: E-book sales in February topped all other formats, including paperbacks and hardcovers, according to an industry report released this week. Story here.

Spring cleaning? Stick to windows

Here's a story about the challenges of spring cleaning, which in their mind means getting rid of books cluttering your house. I'm not so sure I consider books to be clutter.

Though I probably don't need those Encyclopedia Brown books from my grade-school years. But, but, but someday I might.

In honor of Opening Day tomorrow!

A new book tells the story of the first woman to say “Yer out!” – Amanda “Mandy” Clement. She was the first female professional umpire. And she was a South Dakotan!

Jill Callison of the Sioux Falls Argus Leader has a story about the book, “Umpire in a Skirt: The Amanda Clement Story,” written by Marilyn Kratz of Yankton.

You can buy it in paperback HERE.

The Black Hills over a century ago ...

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then this link is worth, well, a lot. Several photos over a century old offer a unique glimpse into the history of these Black Hills I call home.

I particularly like the photo of the five men riding shotgun on a stage coach hauling $250k worth of gold. Those dudes look pretty tough, but in those days, with your back against the wall, I could easily see why some unscrupulous sorts might be tempted to take them on and knock off the stage coach. Put a guy with a rifle up on the hill on each side of the road, have two other boys with pistols meeting them on horseback. The guys in the hills snipe out two of the guards, the guys on horseback take out the other three, the two in the hills come down and hop on the stage and they giddy-up away. Split four ways that's over $62 grand apiece. Not that I would have done something like that .. I'm just saying.

This link was sent to me by a U.S. Forest Service friend, which reminded me of a story another USFS friend recently told to me. In the central Hills is a town aptly named Hill City. Their high school nickname is the Hill City Rangers, and their logo is Smokey the Bear. Apparently, they are the only school in the nation officially licensed by the USFS to use the Smokey the Bear mascot/logo thingy.


That approval stems from a forest fire raging decades ago and threatening the town. As the fire neared, the football team stopped practice and joined the foresters in digging fire lines and putting out the fire. The USFS was grateful and said, "Thanks. You saved our city. We'd love to pay you, but ... hey, you can have Smokey the Bear!"

Augie's 150 books you should read

I ran across this from the ol' alma mater. These lists usually give me an inferiority complex when I count how many of the books I've read on the list. I put this one at about 10, with a couple more books I own but haven't read yet.

In honor of their sesquicentennial, Augustana College asked its faculty and staff for the titles of the books they recommend.

See the Augie 150 books you should read before you kick off HERE.

Listen to a chapter

Here is Chase Adams reading Chapter 10 of Joshua's Ladder. It was an expirement for both of us, as even though Chase is the voice of West River South Dakota on KBHB radio, he's a newcomer to the book-on-tape thing. He agreed to give it a shot, and then I dinked around and figured out how to upload an MP3 to Youtube. So we both learned something.

Chase is also an attorney, but don't hold that against him. He has an awesome voice that would make John Wayne envious.

Give it a listen ...

Haugen Hump Day Link-o-Rama

Longtime SD reporter Terry Woster recalls time spent away from family covering the Wounded Knee occupation.

The Argus Leader's Jill Callison recalls a serendipitous series of coincidences that worked out well for one fella.

AP has this story by James Macpherson: Sheriff Keith Gall is known as the “singing sheriff” for his a cappella performances at weddings and funerals. But thanks to a judge, the gun-toting tenor now spends more time with a grunting, testy audience of some 6,000 bison that outnumber people in his South Dakota county.

It's not SD, but this looks promising: ABC Greenlights Pilot About Edgar Allen Poe as a Detective in the 1840s.

... and ya, I know, my time and date stamp is all screwed up. I think I'm on Algerian time, which would explain why I was late for Mass too. It is 7:14 Rapid City time. I don't care what Blogger says.

Kindle site features yours truly

The guys at ereadernewstoday.com features Joshua's Ladder and Hitchhiker 1 tonight, which has sent the download counter clicking in high gear.

The site caters to Kindle readers and offers only free e-books, so we offered a coupon there for a free JL download. Check it out now and later for all kinds of good free ebooks - from famous authors and shlubs like me.

Hitchhiker hits the e-shelves

I've posted the first in a series of Hitchhiker short stories on my smashwords e-pub site. It's short enough to read on your cell phone or while you're at work! You can download to your computer or e-reader. And, best of all, it's free.

This is the first in a series of short stories where Lincoln Anderson shows he is a sucker for thumbs stuck out along the highway. He picks up these hitchhikers and often ends up learning as much about himself as he does about them. Today, he picks up a man claiming to be Jesus Christ. Together they drive from Rapid City to Denver and Lincoln's life is changed forever.

Lemme know what you think.

5-star review at Smashwords.com

A nice five-star review for Joshua's Ladder showed up at Smashwords last night. I appreciate all the input I receive, whether in person or via the interweb. Here's what Carole had to say:

Only took a few pages and I was hooked, couldn't stop reading. Perfect combination of romance, intrigue, and humor. A character with such depth in his sadness, yet such courage and perseverance. Diverse characters with great humor - caught myself laughing aloud - always a good sign. Romance that allowed you to feel the emotions but wasn't micro-detailed, creatively written. I'm not one for "smut" romance novels, this was perfect. GREAT READ!! Can't wait for another.

I swear it's the truth

I’ve never been a big swearer, in speech or in writing, and it’s not because I’m afraid of offending somebody. It’s just the way it is. It’s pretty easy to trace this character trait (one of my rare good ones) back to Grandma Lydia Renli.

One day when I was a kid back on the farm west of Canton, I let loose with a big “darn it!” bomb in front of Grandma. I thought “darn it” was pretty innocuous, but Grandma didn’t think so.

She explained to me that I was just replacing a swear word with a similar word, so the intent was the same. She told me it was the same as taking the Lord’s name in vain, and who was I to argue with perhaps the nicest woman I’ve ever met?

So I grew up avoiding “darn it”s and “Jesus!” and even “jeesh!” for fear of offending my Grandma. Add on to that, I don’t recall ever hearing my parents swear either. So I was raised in a relatively curse-free world where maybe the most offensive term heard on television in those days was Fonzie telling Ralph to “sit on it.”

To this day, one of the things I’m proudest of is that my kids haven’t heard me utter a swear word. Not that I haven’t on occasion; I just don’t in their presence. I figure they hear enough of that elsewhere, they don’t need to hear it from me.

But, when it comes to writing and presenting a scene in a bar room or in a roomful of bikers, it seems one might want to use the same words those people are likely to use in that setting. It’s realism and reality isn’t for the feint of heart.

With that in mind when I wrote Joshua’s Ladder four years ago, the dialogue between some characters contained some of the bigger words George Carlin made famous. Then over the years, as I would pick up the novel and do some more editing, I kept toning it down. Finally, just before publication, I took almost all of them out.

I just figured if a book was so reliant on a few swear words to be good, then it probably wasn’t so good to begin with. I thought it should be able to stand on its own with a good plot, some funny dialogue and interesting characters. I can leave reality-speak to the MTVs and HBO’s of the world.

Sure, there may be a couple that slip in, and sometimes I use that device Grandma didn’t like where I substitute a similar sounding word for the real swear word. But so be it. It won’t be so offensive to some, it contains a little reality for those who prefer that, and the book can sink or swim on its own merits.

I’m not trying to be James Patterson or Stieg Larsson here - just Mark Haugen. And as Dad use to say: There’s the right way, the wrong way, and the Haugen way. Not swearing much is the Haugen way.

Hump Day is Haugen Day Link-o-Rama

Some writing I found interesting this week, and think you might too ...

Kaija Swisher writes about outlaw murderer George Sitts in this Black Hills Pioneer story. I remember my dad telling me the headline in the next day's Argus Leader after the execution said: "Sitts sits"

Kevin Woster of the RC Journal recalls one of his father's former farm-hands from the Lyman County days.

The Argus Leader's John Hult is waiting for his toddler to grow up and explain herself. FYI, John was also editor of the Tea & Harrisburg Champion for a while after I sold it to Gannett.

Jim Kent of Hot Springs writes a column for the RC Journal and this week puts his faith in a hand shake.

The word from L.A. is ...

"Up to about page 50. I like it. The voice rings true. Captures South Dakota. Interested to see how it goes, but have to go out now. I like the voice in his head. Interesting."

MH adds: Thanks, but unless you're going to a Lakers game, there's no excuse to stop reading and "go out."

Breaking: Joshua now at Diesel bookstore

Diesel gives you instant access to over 2.4 million e-books from hundreds of publishers including Harlequin, HarperCollins, Random House, Simon & Schuster, and Smashwords.

Now count Joshua's Ladder among them!