Importance of Reviews

I just wrote a great big February newsletter filling in subscribers on the importance of Amazon reviews. I figured The Red Menace and Crag Banyon pages would be the best place to find the biggest fans. I'll post this to both pages.

In a nutshell, Amazon reviews make or break a series. You might think that books from your favorite authors will keep going on without your help. They might not. This isn't the old days, with series books clogging the shelves of the corner bookstore. A couple of minutes of your time over on Amazon could mean the difference between life and death for The Red Menace and Crag Banyon. It really is that simple.

If you've read and enjoyed only the most recent books -- A Red Letter Day or Bum Luck -- or just the first books in each series -- Red and Buried or One Horse Open Slay -- it doesn't matter. Review one book, review them all. Obviously I'd prefer all, but, hey, I'll take what I can get. I need your help, folks, and so do Podge Becket & Dr. Wainwright and Banyon, Mannix, Doris and all the rest. If you wait, you'll forget, do it now. Thanks in advance.

Thanks to K.S. Brooks and the folks at Indies Unlimited for featuring my latest Banyon Mystery, Bum Luck, in their Fun Titles for February post.

A Red Letter Day

Read an excerpt of A Red Letter Day at Indies Unlimited. The latest Red Menace book is featured as a Sneak Peek.

Shane Black Cover Blurb

I just now got some author copies of Red and Buried from my publisher, so I suppose it won't hurt to let everybody know the cover blurb:

"(Mullaney is) a miracle tonic for today's ghostwritten knockoffs and so-called 'novels of suspense.'" -- Shane Black, Lethal Weapon, Iron Man 3

Many thanks to Shane for taking time out of the madness of finishing up Iron Man to blurb me.

Thanks as well to Warren Murphy for the very kind intro to the book, which is way too long to reprint here. He'd tell me that you must buy the book to read his blurb, and who am I to argue? So buy the book to read his flattering words about how great I am, and many thanks to Warren for lying.

COMING IN MAY: 

 

Now on Smashwords:

The Red Menace #4: A Red Letter Day is now on Smashwords. Which means it's available for download for Apple iPad/iBooks, Nook, Sony Reader, Kobo, and most e-reading apps

Author Biz

I've got to do a new Facebook picture in one of those wonderfully pretentious, unsmiling, humorless "serious author" poses I see others do. It's just hard to work the camera with my head jammed that far up my rear end.

Red Menace news

I just now finished the rewrite of The Red Menace #4, A Red Letter Day. Assuming the Morlocks aren't high on paint thinner and rolling flaming coconuts from the mouths of their caves (again), they will definitely have it ready as an ebook well before Moonstone's Red Menace #1 hits bookstores near you.

Reviews Matter

Thanks to some recent reviewers of my books:

Vernon Petersen, on Royal Flush (Banyon Mysteries #3)

 I really enjoyed the humor used in this book. It was silly, corny, and at the same time very creative. I actually read certain lines to my wife 'cause they were too good to keep to myself...

J. Buckley, on Red the Riot Act (Red Menace #3)

With each book in this series, Mullaney seems to sharpen his portrayal of the main characters, while simultaneously teasing us with just enough back story to keep us wondering... There's also plenty of the trademark humor and satire...

 Uncle Fud, on Drowning in Red Ink (Red Menace #2)

[Drowning in Red Ink is] a high-velocity, slam-bang, all-out, full-throttle action adventure with enough superhero derring-do to satisfy the most demanding adrenaline junkie.

Royal Flush (the Crag Banyon Mysteries #3)

Available now on Amazon Kindle

Book news

The release of Red Menace 3: Red the Riot Act was delayed mostly because I got distracted working on Crag Banyon #3. The good news is that Menace 3 should be out this weekend, and that I'm nearly finished writing Banyon 3, so about a month from now Banyon will be back.  Before things go nuts for the Menace, a little plug for Banyon.  If you've read Devil May Care and enjoyed it, a positive Amazon review would help in a lot of ways. If you haven't read it, I'm shocked and appalled.  Available now in Kindle and paperback.

One Horse Open Slay

The paperback, for non-ebooking dinosaurs like me.

Get Yours Today

Work progresses on Crag Banyon #3. While the world holds its breath in anticipation, what are you waiting for? Check out where the silliness began.

One Horse Open Slay

Thanks for the review

Thanks to J. Buckley for his terrific Amazon review of One Horse Open Slay (A Crag Banyon Mystery). Positive reviews help for a host of reasons, and it's always gratifying -- particularly with the oddball Banyon books -- when folks get the joke. Great review, and if you've not yet entered Crag Banyon's world, what's keeping you? Hey, it's better than this one.

 One Horse Open Slay

 

The Red Menace #3, Red the Riot Act. Finished.

Preview: Red the Riot Act (Red Menace #3)

From chapter 6:

       Podge and Wainwright took the stairs to the seventh floor.  The hallways were piled with trash and stunk of urine, the recipients of society's munificence having reasoned that the best way to get an even better free apartment was to piss all over the one they had now.

Thanks...

...to Amazon reviewer Tractor45 for his great, kind review of Devil May Care (A Crag Banyon Mystery). I've said many times that these positive reviews matter, but I just learned of yet another reason why that's true. So if you've enjoyed any of my books but never got around to reviewing them, now's the time. All the cool kids are doing it.

Amazon apparently has a computer program that pulls short, one-sentence quotes from reader reviews and pastes them up above all the reviews. Like reviewer pull-quotes on movie posters, these give shoppers a shorthand idea of what people are saying about a product. But it appears as if the program doesn't kick in until five reviews are up, so Drowning In Red Ink needs three more reviews to get the pull-quote program to activate.

Drowning in Red Ink (Red Menace #2) 

New Interview

Thanks to the kind folks at Indies Unlimited for the review.

Jim Mullaney is the author, co-author or ghostwriter of thirty books that have sold over a million copies. He is currently working on two new eBook series, The Red Menace and the Crag Banyon Mysteries. The first Red Menace novel, Red and Buried, has been picked up by a traditional publisher and will soon be available nationwide.

Big Shiny Robot

Thanks to the folks at Big Shiny Robot for the plug.  Indie Books: James Mullaney

"I’m in the midst of reading Devil May Care and I have to say it’s a lot of fun. It feels like a supernatural twist on a Mickey Spillane sort of premise. James is a great writer and deserves some attention."

The Trades

A great review of Devil May Care is up at The Trades.

"The pages drip with well-timed sarcasm and wise-ass puns, as Banyon deals with elves, demons, and his former co-workers at the police department."  R.J. Carter -- The Trades

Banyon Mysteries Paperbacks with Update

Paperbacks of One Horse Open Slay and Devil May Care have just gone live on CreateSpace. 

One Horse Open Slay

Devil May Care

Update: the paperbacks are now listed on Amazon, though not available just yet. But you can have Amazon email you when they're available.

One Horse Open Slay

Devil May Care