Cambridge, MA: Two readings this week!

I'll be in Cambridge at Porter Square Books on 3/26 at 7PM. Lots of my family and folks will be there, but I'm hoping to see a lot of you too. I'm expecting some of you to turn out and come along for a pub crawl after!! Yee haw!

On 3/27 I'll be reading at a special event in a cool bar/lounge called The Enormous Room in Central Square! (starts at 7:00) My friend DJ Mosart 212 will be spinning beats and breaks after the reading. This promises to be an awesome night! Free tapas with drink orders until 8! Come out and celebrate what we did to Amazon! Soccergirl expected to be here too!

Both events fully accessible by T (Red Line). More info here.
Hope to see you there!

Back in the saddle!

So I've been slow to post more this week as things move on. More because I've been recuperating and getting the energy back up, enjoying a little time with my wife, than for any other reason. Turns out I was pretty wiped out after Palms Sunday. But you know who was even more wiped out? Amazon, those bastards. Not only did we hand it to them on a platter on Sunday, but we bought them out of Jack and home! Even though JWU is strictly print-on-demand and, as far as anyone knows, Amazon just orders the books to be printed as the purchases come in, somehow by 11:30 last Sunday morning, they were showing "out of stock. Ships in two to four weeks."

You know what I'm talking about if you saw this message. For going ahead and buying anyway, I thank you. So of course, Siglerisimo has his conspiracy theories about why this would be the case (and why the Amazon bestsellers numbers basically ground to an updating halt on Sunday) and I can't honestly say I disagree. Thing is, it seems like he's offered the best explanation I've heard. Might be he's the only one who has a theory to explain this (Amazon's not saying anything), but still.

So is Amazon against us? Do we care? Like the Russian in Rocky 4, we come to crush them. "I will break you." That's what we say to Amazon. Even if they move to Siberia to train by carrying heavy rocks and large branches across their shoulders as they tromp through knee-high snow, or run up large mountains wearing tight black pants and a snazzy leather jacket, we are stronger, faster, and shoot way more steroids than they can keep up with. So yes, it is inevitable: we will break them. Our next shot comes on April 1 when Siggie's Infected goes live for real. Lucky for me, I'm "better together" with him after our big push last Sunday. That should be great.
Have a look. And yes, I'll be getting a new episode of JP3 to you today. So get ready!

This (and THANK YOU) says it all

THANKS!

Harwood vs. Hosseini: Kite Runner Falls!

Hosseini's award and heart-winning book (now movie) is the latest victim to fall to the attack of the Palms! First Cormac and now Khaled. Patterson, Sandford and Evanovich already pushed out the way.

Update #9

Ate. Probably too much considering that I haven't eaten much today. Ouch. Slowing down.
BUT on the charts, I'm back up to #45 overall!! What Woot!
DOn't call it a comeback!

Update #8

Small decline a little. We've dropped to #50 overall, which might mean #45 was the peak. Nothing I can be ashamed of there. No way, no how!
Yow. Serious. At #50 now and holding strong, dominating Mystery Still and Movers and Shakers.

Update #7 of Palms Sunday!!

Ok, Peeps: here's the current counting at 4:54PM. (ANd by the way, as we've shaken down amazon today, they've been getting later and later with their stats updates, to the point now where they're practically a full hour behind. Bitches!)
Current numbers: #45 overall. THis is literally amazing. Not only did I blow past The Road, but I've cracked into the top 50. Zow!
#1 in mystery&thrillers>>Mystery
#3 in Mystery&thrillers overall and in Mystery&Thrillers>>thrillers>>suspense
#1 in Movers and Shakers
#21 in Hot New Releases
and... up to 25 reviews now! Keep em coming! Drop a review if you haven't.

Uncle Stu and Aunt Connie go Palms Wild!

As we wait for the NEXT update from Amazon--man are they going slower and slow as the day goes on--we see Uncle Stu and Aunt Connie ready to go Palms Wild!

Update How Many?? PALMS SUNDAY!!

OK: Amazon #50 overall
#1 in Mystery
#3 in Suspense
#3 in Mystery and Thrillers
Booming!
SL is done. Waiting for updates. At home, in the sun!
Check new audio.

Update #5

#1 in Mystery!!!
#4 in thriller suspense
#60 overall at amazon!!
This is f**king awesome!!

Getting ready for SL!!

Yooo hooo ho hooo

Wow. So Tee Morris says we're gravy from here on out. Hope we can get one more push/bump up. Keep buying everyone

Update #3

We're here with Sigler! He says based on the numbers I'd be #1 in Men's Adventure, and top ten in Hard Boiled and Action Adventure!!
Big ups!
Almost time for another update!
PDF up over 13,000 now!!

Amazon screwing us already! But we rock

Amazon saying it won't ship JWU until 2 to 4 weeks. What's up with that? They would tell us they're not even stocking the book!
So what's up?
Dunno. Just keep buying!
Inside 100 here we come.

Palms Sunday update 2--11:19AM PST

YEAH Woot!!
#980 in books on Amazon. Rocking at the Espresso Roma with the peeps and
30 in Mystery&Thrillers>>Mystery
and #33 in Mystery>>Suspense!!

Oh, old update is it was around 3,300 for about 2 hours from 10-11.

Also: Sigler's at 2,177 in books. I've overtaken the little midget bastard!

Palms Sunday update 1--9:00AM PST: One Hour to go!

9AM. Website problems averted thanks to Jason Andrews. Me: about to send out a carpet bomb of short, succinct, friendly emails that contain a link to the amazon page.
You: ready to rock, I hope.
JWU: POW!! #5,335 in Books! We on the move. It was just 20,000 a few minutes ago.

PALMS SUNDAY!

This is it, peeps. Not only does it come down to us buying this thing today, but we all have to do it at the right time: 5PM GMT, 1PM EST, Noon CST and 10AM PST.
Apologies to those of you whose time zones I haven't included. It's just because beyond these I'm not sure. No offense intended.
Also apologies if you life on the other side of the dateline and it's already St. Jacktrick's day when it's time for you to buy. Oh well.
Have a look at the links in SH.com's "Buy" menu for more info on international purchasing, signed copies, and direct links to Amazon.
THANK YOU!

Tiime to spread the love and help my boy!

Photo: Peter Kim
Anthony Neil Smith, awesome writer, Jack Wakes Up supporter, editor of the amazing crime zine Plots with Guns, former JP2 SSF reader, and author of the brilliant novel YELLOW MEDICINE is currently getting Skunked over at the Bleak House Books book club poll. Seriously. (No offense, Neil.) It's time we do everything we can to pitch in and help this great writer make sure that YELLOW MEDICINE is THE book club book for these folks.
They're deciding it by a vote over at Bleak House books. What can you do? Go here and vote for Anthony Neil Smith and YELLOW MEDICINE. In this election year, we can do no less!
AND, we have to do this fast! Voting ends Monday, St. Jacktrick's Day, March 17th!

Present Tense in JACK WAKES UP: Grammar Girl

Here Grammar Girl talks about the present tense in novels, particularly in the new crime novel JACK WAKES UP by Seth Harwood. She discusses the first present tense novels, its traditions and how it works in Harwood's book.

read more | digg story

Sunday Second Life Thing

On Palms Sunday, at 2PM PST, I'm going back into Second Life to do a reading and Q&A on Meet the Author at the Red Sky Club, which happens to be at Written Word, on Cookie Island. (Of course!)
If you want to attend this event in SL, go to this link (slurl) at the appointed time. You'll be there to see me (and for me to see you) and you can ask questions by IM that the moderator will incorporate into her plans.
If you don't do Second Life, and have no idea what it is (pretty much like I am 98% of the time) you can actually watch this whole event as it streams live (yes audio and video) on the Second Life Cable Network (slcn.tv). Yes, really. They have programming on the site all day Sunday, and I'll be on from 2-3PM PST (that's 5-6PM EST). No baloney.
So watch me dust off that old fuzzy avatar, bulk him up and slip on the tuxedo, as I go "in world" to hang with Jilly Kidd (from England), read from Jack Wakes Up, tell people about the Palms Sunday goings on, and answer your questions. Word!

More thanks-10,000 thanks!

Oh, we've got much to be thankful for this holiday season: Jack Wakes Up in print, all the Palms Mommas and Palms Daddies coming together to celebrate Palms Sunday right around the corner (less than 3 days now!!) and a full scale, massive Seth Harwood takeover of the internet, podosphere and even Siglerism for a few days! Damn, I mean the Jack Wakes Up PDF has been downloaded over 10,000 times now!
10,000 times! Wow! Thanks to Shua Mullikin for making the thing!
What's next? Nothing but Amazon.com everybody!
Here are more folks I want to thank profusely for helping me out and spreading my message this week:
Brian Ibbott: Under-Coverville, Mikel OD: Most People are DJs, Kevin from the First Person Show, George Smyth: The One-Minute How-to, J. Kingston Pierce at The Rap Sheet, Scott Sigler, Soccergirl, Declan Burke: Crime Always Pays, P.G. Holyfield: Murder at Avedon Hill, Anthony Neil Smith: Crimedog One, Cian MacMahon: View From the Quad
AND a big special thanks to all of you, the listeners, for all your support. YOU are Palms Nation!!

Keep it rollin' man

A brief smattering of places where you can find info on me and Jack Wakes Up today from around the web:

The Rap Sheet: Harwood finds his way
Scott Sigler: Freebie-- Jack Wakes Up
Soccergirl: Jack Wakes Up
Crime Always Pays: Easter Rising II
Murder at Avedon Hill: Special Edition
Crimedog One

thanks to the help of all these guys (and more), the PDF of Jack Wakes Up has gone out over 7,500 times already! Yow!! Yeah!! Keep it rolling, going... rocking!!

Doing the Shake Shake!

Yeah, we're cooking over here with Hot Grease! I mean, the oil's heating up.
Over at Podiobooks, look what's Number 1! (AND Number 3!!)
Rock that! Over at iTunes, I've finally got ALL THREE Jack Palms books in the top 100 of Arts>>Literature. Top 60 even, with Jack Wakes Up, Jack Palms II, and Jack Palms 3 at 39, 60, and 50 respectively. How sweet is that?
YEAH!! That PDF is now up to 6,600 downloads roughly since Thursday, and I see awesome posts today at Soccergirl, Scott Sigler's site, and on The Rap Sheet. Thanks to all three of these guys! Rawking!

Help me out with a Listmania List

Hey ho Palms Daddies and Mommas, here's a way that you can DEFINITELY help out bigtime with the push for Jack Wakes Up and for spreading the mojo on Amazon.com or whatever Amazon you're using.
It's called Listmania on Amazon and it's actually very easy to do. If you've got about ten minutes you can get started on your first list. From there it's even easier to make more. The trick is that as long as you put Jack Wakes Up at the top of all the lists you make, its cover will pop up on all kinds of people's screens as they browse Amazon. This can really help make a big difference in how many folks beyond who we know buy JWU on Amazon.
So please take a few minutes to help out today by making a list or two.
THANK YOU!!
Here's a quick document on how to make the lists.
And here's the info you'll need about JWU to do it.

Want an even easier explanation? Just watch this short video and it'll show you all the steps you need to follow.

THE Full PDF of Jack Wakes Up

Ok, a few days overdue here, but just in time for one week left to go!

Go ahead, have a look at it, browse through, read some, even print it out if you like. It's yours just like a book would be (but it's on your computer). Wait until you get the dead tree version and you can curl up with it!!
I'm posting this today for you to have and also for you to pass around to any of your friends who might be interested in having a look at JACK WAKES UP. This is for anyone you know who doesn't listen to podcasts, hasn't been convinced yet about the crime fiction dominance that JWU deserves, or maybe even *gasp* doesn't know about this book.

So spread it around, share the love, the link, the PDF. Feel free. Here it is:
JACK WAKES UP the book.

Big Goings On Around Here

Ok, my peeps. Here's the general gist: big things going on here... thing so big I can't even imagine. But biggest of all is that PALMS SUNDAY is rapidly approaching. No joke. 11 days away now and getting closer every minute. You don't believe me? Go here.
Now: here's more good news. Jack Wakes Up was inside the top 40,000 books on Amazon this morning. Not only is this into the 5's digits (way way better than the 6's, believe me) but it means we're getting ever closer to our big goal of the top ten on Palms Sunday. Whoever's doing this early buying really does help us down the road. *But don't buy until Palms Sunday if you're reading this!*
Second big thing this morning is that Jack Palms 3, Jack Wakes Up AND Jack Palms II are all in the top 100 over at the iTunes Podcast>>Literature page. Yes, that's what we like and what we need. What's it all mean? Nothing more specific (still) than that good things are happening. And even building!

Stay tuned. Tomorrow I'll drop the entire free PDF of Jack Wakes Up into my feed for you to pass around to any and every crime reader you know.

JACK WAKES UP in TWO WEEKS!

JACK WAKES UP is coming out on March 16th. I'm trying to make a run at the Amazon charts, and every sale really does count. So on March 16th, please go to Amazon and buy Jack Wakes Up.
Thanks.