An Interview with Chester Campbell

Chester Campbell is a former journalist, freelance magazine writer and publisher, and public relations man. He wrote speeches for the governor of Tennessee and commercials for bluegrass musicians Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs. Fortunately, he made good on his promise to write novels after he retired. He’s written four mysteries in the Greg McKenzie series, and The Surest Poison, his first book in a new series, featuring private investigator Sid Chance, is a tale of deception, pollution, and old conflicts surfacing.PDD:
You now have four books in your Greg McKenzie series. Why did you decide to write another PI series with a different type of protagonist?

Chester:
I enjoyed writing about Greg and Jill McKenzie, a pair of sleuths in their late sixties. Writing their snappy banter was particularly enjoyable. Several reviewers referred to them as cozies. I didn’t think of the books that way, but they’re certainly not hard-boiled, and I felt I’d reached the place where I wanted to strike out on a bit edgier path.

The Surest Poison deals with the dumping of a large amount of a toxic chemical behind a small plant in a rural community west of Nashville. When the state comes after the plant’s current owner, PI Sid Chance is hired to find the real responsible party. He soon finds himself, and his associate, Jaz LeMieux, beset by three seemingly unrelated murders, an explosion, and shadows from Sid’s past.

PPD:
I gather Sid has—what’s the current term—issues?

Chester:
He was formerly a National Park ranger, then spent ten years as a small town police chief. After he was disgraced and forced to resign, he spent three years roughing it in a hillside cabin in the woods fifty miles from the city. Jaz got him out of that cabin, back to Nashville and into the PI business.

PPD:
Jaz is sharp, sexy, and fourteen years younger than Sid. Do we see romance ahead?

Chester
A. Sid has never been married, or even had a serious relationship. He and Jaz clash now and then, but they’re obviously coming closer. Who knows what may lie ahead?

PPD:
Where did the plot for The Surest Poison come from?

Chester:
I have a friend in Nashville named Norma Mott Tillman who is a private investigator specializing in finding missing persons. She’s pretty well known, being on Oprah and several other shows. She told me about a case she had investigated in West Tennessee a few years ago that involved a similar scenario. I saw the possibilities, moved it closer to Nashville, and the story took off.

I should have given Ralph Waldo Emerson credit for the title, but I don’t guess he’ll complain. He wrote an essay in The Atlantic back in 1862 in which he said substances like prussic acid and strychnine “are weak dilutions: the surest poison is time.” I thought it fit the story. The actual poison took years to affect the community, while time took its toll on the characters.

PPD:
The Surest Poison is published by Night Shadows Press, your second small publisher. What are the pluses and minuses of going with a small publisher?

Chester:
I’ve heard a lot of New York editors are only concerned with acquiring manuscripts. With a small press, I got to work closely with my editors. I learned an awful lot from my first editor.

I’ve also been fortunate that my editors have stuck with my suggested titles. The only change in mine was with the first book, which I called The Secret of the Scroll. I was rightfully told to leave off the first “The.” Covers involve another plus. I have had total input on all my covers. An additional favorable aspect is production time. From the time I sent the manuscript to the editor, it was no more than nine months until the release date.

On the minus side, the chief problem is distribution. The books are available through Ingram and Baker & Taylor and can be ordered through any bookstore. However, the stores do not routinely stock them. They will only be on the shelf at places where I have done signings. Also, the major review sites mostly ignore small publishers. Library Journal is the only one that has reviewed some of my books. However, respected review sites like Midwest Book Review and Crimespree Magazine always come through.

PPD:
I’m not telling secrets to say that loads of us in the mystery community envy your ability to do top-notch book signings. Got tips for the rest of us?

Chester:
I’m always looking for any kind of venue where I can sell. One of my grandsons’ school has a Market Place. I went there and to a street fair in a small town not far from here. My book launch for The Surest Poison will be at my church. Church members are always asking, “When will your next book be ready?” So I know I’ll sell a bunch of books there. I do some signings in larger chain bookstores as well, and we have a small mystery bookstore in Nashville that pushes my books and has ordered several copies of the new one.

I’m pulling out all the stops for this new release, primarily on-line. With the economy as it is, I’m cutting back on travel this year, spending more on venues where I can sell books. I’ve recently done the Southern Kentucky Book Fest, and will do the Kentucky Book Fair in November. I’ve always done well at book fairs.

So I guess my tips are get on the road, do bookstore signings when you can, and constantly keep your eye out for other places to sell. Build a team. I’m very fortunate that my wife plays such a big part in all of my appearances. She’s my shill: she passes out small promo folders and directs people to where I’m signing. If you’re not as lucky as I am, with a ready-made co-conspirator, build a team to help you sell.

PDD:
It sounds like retiring to write books has been very rewarding.

Chester:
I’d say there are several rewards. The first is that I simply enjoy writing mysteries. I wrote eight before the first one sold, and I guess I’d still be writing away if none of them had. Another is the satisfaction I get when readers tell me how much they enjoy reading my books. And being a bit vain as we all are, I get a charge out of reading a good review, like the one Jon Jordan wrote in the current Crimespree Magazine that ended, “A top rate mystery by a gem of a writer.”

For more information about Chester and his books visit his web site.
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Sharon's blog returns next week.

Psst! Want a Hot Deal on a Good Book?

Sandra Parshall

You know those sidewalk peddlers who try to make you believe they're selling you a real Rolex for twenty bucks? Sometimes I think a little-known writer selling books is the literary equivalent.

Sure, you’re offering people something in exchange for their money, and you think it’s something valuable, but you have to persuade the customer to see it that way. They’ve never heard of you or your book, and some will wonder out loud whether you’re self-published. Worst case scenario is that you end up feeling as if you should be paying them to read what you’ve written.

Before I published my first novel, The Heat of the Moon, last year, I had no idea how much emotional and physical stamina a simple two-hour booksigning required. Try smiling nonstop for two hours and see if you’re not exhausted afterward. Try giving the same pitch two dozen times in two hours and see if you don’t feel like retiring to a nice quiet padded cell.

You go to every signing with high hopes, and the first thing you want to see is your table set up in a good location. Bookstore managers are busy people, and they don’t have time to totally rearrange their merchandise to create an optimal space for a visiting writer. (Why aren’t such spaces built into the store design? An unanswerable question.) So you have to count yourself lucky if you don’t end up at a table in the storeroom. Count yourself positively blessed if you’re somewhere near the front door, in the line of foot traffic. Of course, you’ll get exasperated looks from customers who see you as a hindrance on their path to the coffee bar, but if you smile and persist some people will stop, listen to your pitch, maybe ask questions, and, in the best of all possible outcomes, even buy a book.

Those who have never done a booksigning and have only attended signings by bestselling authors may wonder what I’m talking about. What pitch? Stephen King doesn’t pitch his book to every customer at signings. People come in droves and line up out the door for the privilege of buying a signed book. And if he smiles at you, wow, but he’s probably not sitting there for hours with a grin plastered on his face. He doesn’t have to. I do. Most writers do. We don’t bring in crowds, so we have to work hard at attracting the attention of passing customers and making our books sound like something they absolutely must own.

I’ve even given my pitch to a ten-year-old girl, who confessed that she loves reading about crime and watching shows like CSI (I like this kid), but her mother places onerous restrictions on her viewing and reading. I sent her to the children’s mystery section. She came back a few minutes later with a book in hand and asked if I thought it would be good. I saw that it was a Newberry winner and assured her she would enjoy it. Maybe in another ten years she’ll come to a signing and buy one of my books. I’ve also pitched my novels to people who seemed captivated and vowed to get the books from the library and read them asap. (They only came in the bookstore to buy a computer software manual. Hardcover novels are too expensive.)

Multiply all this effort three or four times and you have an idea of what it’s like for a relatively unknown writer at a big book festival. Envision a huge room filled with long rows of tables, a dozen or more writers at each. Customers drift down the aisles, sliding their gaze over the stacks of books and carefully avoiding eye contact with the smiling, hopeful writers. You can try to lure them closer by speaking to them, but the place will be so noisy that they can easily pretend not to hear. Dozens of people may pass before anyone thinks your books are worth stopping to examine. Some customers will want to talk to you, but many will ignore you as they pick up a book and read the jacket copy. If you see “the look” forming, you can forget about a sale. (“The look” resembles that open-mouthed, curled-lip thing cats do when they smell something revolting.) Your precious novel, the one you spent a year or more of your life bleeding onto the page, is hastily dropped back on the stack and the non-customer breaks a speed record in distancing herself from it.

When you first start doing booksignings, you feel the urge to be all things to all readers. Does someone want romance? Yes, yes, my book has romance! Does someone else want a lot of action? I swear my characters never have time to breathe! Whatever the customer wants, you rashly promise.

Then one day you find before you a woman in a plain cotton dress that covers her legs to the ankles, her arms to the wrists, and her torso to just below the ears. Her hair is pulled back into a tight little knot, and her face has never been altered by makeup. She sternly inquires whether your book has any “bad words” in it. Well, uh... You frantically run through your cast of characters, reviewing their language, wondering if damn and hell count, and wondering just how many times you used the more offensive four-letter words. Looking into the woman’s unforgiving face, you realize that everything will count to her, and even once will be too much. “Yes,” you admit, “my book has bad words in it.”

As you watch her turn on her heel and walk away, you feel redeemed. No sale, but you told the truth and you didn’t even smile when you did it. This feels good.

But wait, here comes another prospect. Smile! Make eye contact! Prepare to pitch!