Dot Dead Diary

Black Friday

I cannot resist being caught up in the post-Thanksgiving shopping mania.  Here's my deal.  Purchase the ebook original Drop By Drop: A Thriller for $3.99 and I will send an e-copy of Smasher: A Silicon Valley Thriller to you for free!

Here's what Andrew Gross, New York Times best-selling author, said about Drop by Drop:  "No one puts the crosshairs on Washington, terrorism, and intrigue better than Keith Raffel."  Drop by Drop has 19 reviews on Amazon.com, all 5 stars, and not one was written by a relative!

Smasher was a national bestseller and has been optioned for film.  Publisher's Weekly wrote: "“Raffel blends computer world wheeling and dealing with the academic world's lust for glory and fame in his compelling second mystery...."

Details:  Purchase Drop by Drop from amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, smashwords.com, or the ibookstore in iTunes by 11.59 PM on Sunday, November 27.  Then forward your proof-of-purchase to [email protected].  Please let me know whether you prefer the Kindle or ePub format and I will email an e-copy of Smasher to you. That's it!

November 22

Yesterday was the anniversary of the death of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States. Each year since 1963, when November 22 slithers across the calendar, I remember that day and those that followed. The shock. The widow’s blood-stained dress. The riderless horse. The son’s salute.

In office President Kennedy stood for culture, for civil rights. He was a family man and a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, a student of history. Now we know the truth is far more nuanced in each case. (I visited the Kennedy Library and saw his college transcript: D+ in European History.)

I do yearn for those days when we had heroes. Remember? I did have heroes growing up, but none have lasted. Even if JFK was not the hero we thought, he did perform heroic acts. I’ve read the transcripts of the Executive Committee that met during the Cuban Missile Crisis. There he deserves his reputation. The generals wanted to bomb Cuba and invade it. He did save the world from nuclear war. And I must admit his inauguration address still inspires.

So for me November 22 is more than that horrible day when our president was murdered. In retrospect my listening over the school loudspeakers as a pre-teenaged boy was the beginning of growing up, of knowing how little can be counted on in this world we live in.

Good Review, Bad Review, Does It Really Matter?

The rubescent glow that Lynn Farris's review of Drop By Drop on Examiner.com left on my cheeks has scarcely begun to fade:

"I found Drop by Drop... to be an exciting political thriller as well as a fascinating philosophical political treatise. While the political thriller part offered the reader an excellent whodunit, the philosophical discussion is what makes it a powerful book to read....

"I love the title Drop by Drop because it serves as a metaphor for so much occurring in the book and perhaps society today. Drop by drop we are giving up our civil liberties. Drop by drop we are losing our principles. Drop by drop, our government officials break the law and others ignore it....

"I thoroughly enjoyed this book and believe that readers of all political persuasions will like it as well. I wouldn’t be surprised to see this as an upcoming movie. Five stars out of five."

Now I understand that Examiner.com is not the New York Times, but I don't care. (Well, maybe a tad, but why theTimes doesn't hire Ms. Farris is beyond me.) Any author will tell you the real joy of writing is connecting with that one reader, the one who sends you the laudatory email, the one who leaves you a Facebook message that she is gifting a dozen copies for Xmas. (BTW, I am not a friend of Ms. Farris, except now on Facebook and that doesn't really count, does it?)

Of course, it works the other way, too. Well-known mystery writer and critic Hallie Ephron gave my second book,Smasher, a real put-down in her Boston Globe review:

"We follow the narrator as he caroms among the story lines.... Too bad, because with so much going on, this novel desperately needs a main character with an emotional core that can hold it all together".

I suspect a few more people read the Globe's reviews than read Examiner.com's. While this less than stellar review might have hurt just a little less than committing hari kari with a butter knife, research shows that Ms. Ephron did me a favor. A study in Marketing Science found that "For books by established authors, a negative review led to a 15% decrease in sales." Well that makes sense. But "for books by relatively unknown (new) authors, however, negative publicity has the opposite effect, increasing sales by 45%." This 45% is roughly the same, if not a little higher, than for positive reviews.

Those of us who are not quite selling as many books as James Patterson, Stephen King, or Dan Brown can take heart. A great review warms our hearts. A bad review increases sales. A win-win!