Review a book and get one FREE

Starting today, you can get one of my e-books for FREE every time you review one.

Post a review on Amazon and/or Smashwords, then send an e-mail to abqbrewer@gmail.com, saying something like, "Hey, Steve: I reviewed CALABAMA, and now I'd like a copy of THE BIG WINK." I'll send you a FREE e-book of the one requested, via either Smashwords coupon or Amazon "gift," your choice.

My e-books are already cheap ($2.99 or less), but I need more reviews. If you like to write reviews, you could plow through my whole backlist for almost nothing. But you need to get cracking. This offer ends May 31.

To see all my books, go to my Amazon page here or my Smashwords page here.

Now get to reading!

Not dead yet

This blog has been dormant for six weeks, so I wanted to poke up my head and say I haven't died. I'm writing the first draft of a new novel.

Whenever I'm in this stage of the novel-writing process, other things tend to fall by the wayside. My head is so full of the story I'm writing, it's hard to focus on other stuff, such as blogging and marketing and laundry.

I'm a little over halfway through the first draft of a thriller called STASH THE CASH. It's ripping along at my regular pace, between 30-40 pages a week. At this rate, I should be done within six weeks, with the usual months of rewriting to follow.

I'm also teaching this semester at the University of New Mexico. That class keeps me busy on Wednesdays. I volunteered to teach a few sessions at an April 20 writing seminar at UNM, and I'm devoting this weekend to preparation for that.

So it's a busy time. Kelly and I have also been socializing some, trying to catch up with our Albuquerque friends. Hard to believe we've been back in New Mexico six months already. Feels like we should still be unpacking.

Of course, I've had my head down, writing, ever since we got here. First, I cranked out the latest Bubba Mabry story, a novella called PARTY DOLL. And now I'm hard at work on STASH THE CASH.

Meanwhile, I signed an extension on the film/TV option on my 2004 novel BOOST. And, while I can't really talk about it yet, there's some film interest in 2005's BANK JOB as well. Now if I can just get Hollywood interested in my more recent books, such as LOST VEGAS or THE BIG WINK, I'll be all set.

For more info about all my books, check out my Amazon page at http://www.stevebrewer.us.com/. Now I've got to get back to writing the new one.

Free Bubba!

If you're a book blogger/reviewer, I'd love for you to have a free review copy of my new e-book, PARTY DOLL. Drop me a line at abqbrewer@gmail.com.

PARTY DOLL, a 37,000-word novella, is the ninth story in the series featuring bumbling Albuquerque private eye Bubba Mabry. In PARTY DOLL, Bubba is hired to locate a missing stripper who goes by the stage name Joy Forever. His investigation uncovers corruption at the highest levels of state government.

I'm available for guest-blogging related to the new book, and I also have a Q-and-A with the author that I can send to you.

For more info on PARTY DOLL and my other 23 books, see my Amazon page here. Thanks!

A brief history of Bubba

I was being interviewed the other day about the new Bubba Mabry novella, PARTY DOLL, when I realized I've known Bubba for more than 20 years now.

Bubba was the star of my first published novel, LONELY STREET, and we've been together through six more novels, two novellas and a movie. I've published 14 other books during that time as well, but I keep coming back to Bubba.

All the Bubba stories remain in print via Kindle and Smashwords for $1.99 or less, and most are still readily available in paper as well. For those who've come to the series recently, I thought you could use a quick history of Bubba.

I wrote LONELY STREET in 1991, but it was 1994 before it was published by Pocket Books. In LONELY STREET, the bumbling private eye is hired by what appears to be the living Elvis. A reporter is trying to expose that The King faked his own death years before, and Bubba's hired to tail him.

Partly because of that rock 'n' roll connection, LONELY STREET remains my best all-time seller, and it was made into a Hollywood comedy that came out a couple of years ago. Here's the trailer:

That's the ever-hilarious Jay Mohr as Bubba. Underneath that incredible makeup is Robert Patrick as Elvis. Other faces you probably recognized are Joe Mantegna, Katt Williams and Mike Starr. The film was directed by Peter Ettinger.

The second Bubba book was BABY FACE. In that one, Bubba and his girlfriend, newspaper reporter Felicia Quattlebaum, take on the Religious Right, politicians, hookers and a vicious pimp named Sultan Sweeney.

Next came WITCHY WOMAN, in which Bubba goes to Taos, NM, to try to wrest a rich heiress away from an all-female cult. Things get weird when Felicia goes undercover by pretending to join the cult.

In SHAKY GROUND, Bubba and Felicia get married, but their wedding is almost ruined by Bubba's investigation into the killing of a biologist in the desert west of Albuquerque.

DIRTY POOL came next. Bubba goes head-to-head with a Texas private eye named William Pool as they both search for a young skinhead who's faked his own kidnapping. Whoever finds him first gets to keep whatever ransom is recovered.

In CRAZY LOVE, Bubba goes to work for a jealous widower who believes his wife had an affair before she died.

MONKEY MAN takes place mostly at the Albuquerque zoo. It opens with the shooting of a whistleblower zoo employee by a man wearing a gorilla suit. Things only get weirder from there.

I got invited to write a Christmas novella for an anthology, and the result was SANITY CLAUSE. In that story, Bubba is working as security at a mall at Christmastime, and somebody bumps off one of the guys who plays Santa.

That brings us to the new novella, PARTY DOLL, in which Bubba is hired to locate a missing stripper who goes by the stage name Joy Forever.

I don't have immediate plans to write another Bubba story; I've started working on a standalone about bank robbers. But I'm sure Bubba will return before long. He and I go way back.

BOOST now a bargain

I'm pleased to announce that one of my most acclaimed crime novels, BOOST, is now available as an e-book for only $2.99.

BOOST was the only one of my books that had been e-published by its regular hardcover/paperback publisher. They'd been charging $8.61 for the e-book, and the pricing was out of my control. But last week I successfully got the e-book rights back so I could publish it myself via Kindle and Smashwords.

In BOOST, professional car thief Sam Hill discovers the corpse of a police informant in the trunk of a stolen 1965 Thunderbird. Someone has set Sam up, and he won't rest until he gets even. It's a fun, fast-paced story in which car thieves are the good guys.

Kelly Brewer did an outstanding job on the cover art, as you can see. By the way, that is indeed a '65 Thunderbird in the photo.

BOOST got some of the best reviews I've ever received; the Baltimore Sun called it "incredibly entertaining." The book remains under TV/film option in Hollywood, and a director in India also has expressed interest in making it into a movie.

My E-book Empire is now complete. I've self-published my entire backlist, as well as new crime novels such as THE BIG WINK, LOST VEGAS, CALABAMA and FIREPOWER. All are $2.99 or less.

The new Bubba Mabry novella, PARTY DOLL, is selling well, and I thank all of you who've bought a copy. It's only $1.99 on Kindle and Smashwords, as are all the novels featuring the bumbling Albuquerque private eye.
 
My other recent e-publication, the short story PAYOFF, is only 99 cents.
 
Please check out all my e-books. Thanks!

Bubba's back!

Bubba Mabry, the bumbling Albuquerque private eye who starred in eight previous books, returns in a new novella, PARTY DOLL.

In PARTY DOLL, Bubba is hired to find a missing stripper who goes by the stage name Joy Forever. Business at the Pink Pony Gentlemen's Club is down without the star attraction, plus she vanished owing her boss, Slick Gurken, a lot of money. Slick wants her found, and he wants it fast.

But there's more here than meets the eye. The feds also are interested in Joy. And her disappearance may play a role in the latest crusade by Bubba's wife, newspaper reporter Felicia Quattlebaum.

I started writing PARTY DOLL back in October. At first, I thought it would be a short story. But the story kept growing, getting more complex, and it ended up being a 37,000-word novella.

Thanks to the e-book revolution, there's a market now for such shorter books. And novellas can sell for much less. PARTY DOLL is only $1.99 via Kindle and Smashwords. All the other Bubba e-books are similarly priced, so you can get the whole series for less than twenty bucks.

PARTY DOLL is a fast, funny mystery. Hope you enjoy it!

Ready, aim, Kindle Fire!

Amazon.com says it sold more than 4 million Kindle e-readers in December, and I was one of the lucky ones who received a Kindle Fire from Santa.

I've played around with my new Kindle so much, I gave myself a pain -- aching neck and shoulders from hunching over the full-color screen. I've learned to look up occasionally and swivel my head around to keep from freezing up.

Already, I've downloaded mystery novels by Anthony Neil Smith, Paul Bishop, Ray Banks, Mark Terry, John Galligan and Reed Farrel Coleman. Most of those I got for free or at bargain prices.

(Blatant Self-Promotion: All my books are available on Kindle, most for $2.99 or less. Click here: http://amzn.to/cvTTMv. The Bubba Mabry mysteries remain 99 cents each, though the price is going up soon.)

My Kindle mania goes beyond reading e-books. I've got apps for Facebook and Twitter and Gmail, a slew of newspapers and magazines as well as The Associated Press and ESPN, music via Pandora, The Weather Channel, MapQuest, chess and Scrabble and Spider Solitaire. All in the palm of my hand.

I'd be interested in hearing what other apps are tops among Kindle owners. I'm sure I've only scratched the surface so far.

It's a beautiful day here in Albuquerque, and it's time to get outside and enjoy the non-virtual world. But I'll have my Kindle in my pocket.

Ho-ho-ho for the holidays

Holiday shopping is upon us again, and there's no better remedy than my Christmas novella, "Sanity Clause."

Bumbling private eye Bubba Mabry is hired to keep an eye on the Santas at an Albuquerque mall. This is harder than it sounds because Santa Claus has always given Bubba the creeps. Plus, he must suffer through mobs of greedy shoppers, shrieking children and Christmas Muzak.

When one of the mall Santas is killed, Bubba must solve the murder to salvage his shaky reputation.

"Sanity Clause" is one of Bubba's funniest adventures. I originally wrote it for an anthology of Christmas mysteries called "The Last Noel," but it's now available as an e-book for only 99 cents. How's that for an electronic stocking stuffer?

Whoa, it's NaNoWriMo

Good luck to all of you who are participating in National Novel-Writing Month, and keep on cranking out those words. Remember, you can always fix them later. When is National Novel-Editing Month?

I've never done NaNoWriMo, though I'm coincidentally working on a new novel as it gets under way. I started writing a new Bubba Mabry novel, PARTY DOLL, on Oct. 13 and, after some stops and starts, I'm up to 12,500 words. NaNoWriMo participants try to do 50,000 words during the month of November. That would be a good goal for me, too, but we'll see how it goes.

It's been a lot of years since I wrote the last Bubba Mabry adventure, MONKEY MAN, which came out in 2006. But Bubba's "voice" isn't that different from my own, and I've found it pretty easy to slip back into his skin. In PARTY DOLL, he's searching for a missing stripper who goes by the stage name Joy Forever. Because this is a Bubba book, things go horribly wrong. . .

I'm planning to publish PARTY DOLL as an e-book. Look for it sometime early in 2012. In the meantime, the other Bubba Mabry stories are available for 99 cents each on Kindle, Smashwords, Nook, etc. Enjoy!

Check out this Q&A

Author and book blogger Sean Patrick Reardon has discovered my crime novels, and he really likes them. He wrote about them on his blog recently, and today he features a Q&A with me. He asked good questions, and the answers are full of information about my latest books and upcoming projects.

Click here to read it.

Thanks, Sean!

Work, work, work

Now that we're fully relocated in Albuquerque, it's time to catch up on the paying work. Lots to report:

I'm busy promoting the three novels published in the last few months -- CALABAMA, THE BIG WINK and LOST VEGAS. Those novels and FIREPOWER, which came out a year ago, are $2.99 each via Kindle and Smashwords. All my other crime novels, including the Bubba Mabry series, have been marked down to 99 cents each. More info here.

Debuting next week is a new online anthology called WEST COAST CRIME WAVE, which includes my short story "Surf City." More about that this weekend.

I've started sketching out a new Bubba Mabry novel (working title: PARTY DOLL. What do you think?), and will begin the first draft soon. Plus, I'm bouncing around some screenplay ideas with a Hollywood friend. Nothing we can talk about yet, but lots of potential.

Now that we have a functioning mailing address, I'm again accepting manuscripts for editing and polishing. Albuquerque is a much bigger market for the one-on-one coaching I prefer, but I also take in manuscripts from afar for $3 a page. For more info, e-mail me at abqbrewer@gmail.com.

Lots of other reading to do, too. I'm teaching "Hard-boiled Fiction and Film Noir" at the University of New Mexico in the spring, and I haven't taught that class in nearly a decade. Time for a refresher course. I'm looking forward to being in the classroom again.

All this, and getting reacquainted with our New Mexico pals, too. This autumn promises to be busy and rich.

Bubba book bargains

All the Bubba Mabry mysteries -- seven novels and a novella -- are now on sale as e-books for only 99 cents each.

Bubba is my franchise player. Nearly half my crime stories have featured the bumbling Albuquerque private eye and his love interest, reporter Felicia Quattlebaum. Lonely Street was my first published novel and was later made into a Hollywood comedy starring Robert Patrick, Jay Mohr and Joe Mantegna. The seventh in the series, Monkey Man, was a finalist for the Lefty Award for funniest mystery of the year.

Three different houses published the Bubba series during its 12-year run, so it's been difficult at times to get the complete set in paper. But e-books make it a snap, and the price will never be cheaper.

Click here for the link to my Amazon page, where you can see all my Kindle stuff, including the Bubba books. For all other e-readers, link here for Smashwords. And remember: You don't need an e-reader to enjoy e-books. You can download the Kindle app for free and read books on your computer or smartphone.

Please tell all your friends about this limited-time offer. Thanks!