The Time Arthur Conan Doyle Helped Solve a Real Murder Case

From Publishers Weekly…

It was one of the most sensational crimes—and most scandalous wrongful convictions—of the 20th century, a case that would be known as the Scottish Dreyfus affair. It involved a savage murder, stolen jewels, an international manhunt and a wily maidservant who went to her grave knowing far more about the killing than she would ever disclose.

Even more remarkably, it involved the world’s foremost writer of detective fiction, playing real-life detective on a case in which the stakes could scarcely be higher—a case, he wrote, that was a “disgraceful frame-up, in which stupidity and dishonesty played and equal part.”

Just before Christmas 1908, Marion Gilchrist, a wealthy 82-year-old Scotswoman, was violently murdered in her Glasgow home. Robbery appeared to have been the motive, although Miss Gilchrist’s maid, Helen Lambie, told the police that only a single item was missing: a valuable gold brooch, shaped like a crescent moon and set along its length with diamonds.

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AudioBooks up 23%

Audiobooks continued their meteoric rise in 2017, a new report issued by the Audio Publishers Association found, with another year of double-digit growth for both audiobook sales and title output.

Total sales rose 22.7% in 2017, to an estimated $2.5 billion, over an estimated $2.1 billion in sales in 2016. Unit sales rose an estimated 21.5%, the APA reported. Sales are based on reports from about 20 audiobook publishers. The APA then extrapolates from those figures, to derive an estimate for the entire market.

The audience for audiobooks remains young, with 54% of audiobook listeners under the age of 45. They are also consistent readers in all formats, the studies found: not only do audiobook listeners listen to an average of 15 books a year, but 83% of frequent listeners also read a hardcover or paperback over the last 12 months, and 79% also read an e-book.

More from Publishers Weekly…

B&N Losing in 2018Q2

Total sales at Barnes & Noble fell 6.0% in the fiscal year ended April 28, 2018, compared to fiscal 2017, and the retailer posted a net loss of $125.5 million last year, compared to net income of $22.0 million in fiscal 2017. Revenue last year was $3.66 billion, down from $3.89 billion in fiscal 2017.

The net loss includes a host of one-time charges: impairment charges of $135.4 million, $16.2 million of severance charges, and $15.3 million of strategic initiative costs. Excluding one-time charges in both fiscal years, EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) was $145.4 million in fiscal 2018, down from $187.2 million a year ago.

More from Publishers  Weekly…

Publishing…

Apple Unveils New Book App

With the forthcoming release of its new operating system for phones and tablets, iOS 12, Apple is signaling a new emphasis on digital book and audiobook sales. The new operating system, set to hit in the fall, will replace Apple’s long-serving iBooks app with a new Apple Books app.

The new e-book app will, according to Apple, offer an enhanced reading experience and will make book discovery easier. Editorial, in particularly, will be front and center and more visible in the app.

A new set of tabs at the top of the app will create what the company is touting as a “virtual nightstand,” and highlights the current book you are reading, as well as those books you want to read. The new book store tab will offer a selection of bestsellers and staff picks, as well as books on sale and those offered for free. Apple’s editorial staff will curate collections of titles. Perhaps of more importance, will the introduction of audiobook sales directly in the app;.

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/digital/Apps/article/77220-apple-offers-new-book-app-with-update.html

Greg Smith Featured on the Hero’s Forge Podcast

https://www.theheroforge.org/podcast/2017/7/20/episode-027-greg-smith

Greg Smith is based in Richmond, Virginia and is the creator of the Agile Writer Method which is a model to help writers move from their initial idea to publication in just 6 months using Joseph Campbell’s monomyth, insights from the field of psychology and some project management wizardry.He is also a co-creator and contributor to the ‘Reel Heroes’ project along with previous guest and heroism scholar Scott Allison – together they analyse the narrative structure and heroic principles revealed in modern cinema releases.

Agile Writer featured on local show

Richmond, VA – Agile Writer Jackie Hunter, a retired teacher and elementary school administrator, will be a special guest on the next broadcast of “Love, Light and Positivity”. Hosted by Richmond personality, Yemaja Jubilee, the television episode will air at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, July 11th. Viewers may tune in on local public access channels, Comcast (Channel 95) and Verizon (Channel 36).

“Retirement can be the best phase of your life,” says Jackie Hunter, 66, a retired public middle school administrator, “When you want to learn how to do something new, my advice is to research ‘how-to’ books, and find the people and places you need to learn from.”

A native of Richmond, Hunter decided to write a sci-fi fantasy novel after working 31 years in public education as a math and science teacher. She joined Agile Writers of Richmond, a writer’s club dedicated to helping the beginning writer create a first-draft in six months, and a year later had completed her first manuscript.

Her book, Lost in the Red Hills of Mars, is about a twelve year-old girl who lives in the first human colony on Mars. It will be available as an e-book and in paperback in late-August 2017.

Agile Writer Keith Van Allen Releases New Novel

Ezekiel Saw a Wheel is a Sci-Fi Suspense Magical Realism novel by animator director Keith Van Allen, about an excentric cartoonist, Zeke Landover who’s convinced he and his family were once abducted by aliens. What he finds out is far more startling, and his cartoon characters agree with him! A surrealistic romp through the back roads and towns of historic Virginia, as Zeke and his friends search an otherworldly humanoid,while often chased by odd and sinister men of unknown origin and frightening agenda.

Van Allen worked with Agile Writer Coach Greg Smith in 2014 to bring his unique skills and story to the world. He has twisted his TV animation and cartooning career into an extraordinary magical realism tale of the surreal and unexpected, set against the landscape of historic central Virginia. It’s a sometimes horrific and even comic romp through town and back roads as Zeke and his friends, Jerry and Minnie, are enveloped in one strange occurrence after another, in the seemingly placid landscape of their lives. At each turn of the road, the friends are confounded and confronted by things which challenge their conceptions of reality, the Universe,time and what’s actually happening around them in the everyday world,(that is when they have the time). Alien and metaphysical worlds collide as the friends go spinning onward through vortex after vortex of mysterious apocalyptic visions and bizarre situations. A truly wild ride of weirdness!

Also along for the ride, inside Zeke’s mind are his cartoon characters from his weekly comic strip (which he really should be working on), Melvin the Gunk and Stupid the Cat, a marooned blobby alien and an out-of-work cartoon character actor, who drive a 39 Ford in search of America. Zeke struggles to keep his mind on creativity and also the business of survival while they intrude on his thoughts at unwanted moments,and even try to help him (if he’ll let them), and in between his occasional rants about the world, the media, the environment and politics.

Minnie is an ex-girlfriend psychic of free wheeling New Age attitude, who re-hooks up with Zeke and joins in the undulating chase along with Jerry, an exuberant easy going but unorganized conspiracy theorist who takes what comes in his own unique fashion which defies description. Various characters of the Virginia landscape, downtown Richmond and elsewhere also invade the swirling plot,as one by one they are wrapped up and spun out, into some sort of realization that seen and unseen forces for good and evil are everywhere at work, while encountering clues which promise to lead them somehow to an understanding of what’s going on in, and out,beyond,within and even without-The World.

Van Allen’s book can be found on Amazon.com.

The Art of Incubation

At Agile Writers we’ve been reading Sage Cohen’s book “Fierce on the Page.” Each week one of the writers will take the book home and read a chapter and digest it down to one page. Then, they return the next week and share what they learned and we talk about how it applies to our writing in general and what it means to us as Agile Writers.

• Procrastination is sometimes confused with incubation, the process of ruminating and allowing ideas the time they need to take root.
• Nobody looks at a six-months-pregnant woman and says, “Oh, she’s procrastinating. If she were a real achiever, she would have given birth to that baby already.”

• The challenge is that the writing life doesn’t have finite gestation.
• Henri Poincaré, mathematician & scientist proposed creativity happens in four steps.
  • Preparation: We set our intentions and define our goals.
  • Incubation: We dream into the possibilities, honor the unknown, and become receptive to what is seeking us.
  • Illumination: We have the revelation in which some new possibility takes shape.
  • Execution: We create to manifest and materialize our discovery.
• Many writers leap straight to execution without having first grappled with what they are striving for
• Execution without vision is like a house without a foundation.
• Procrastination— which is born from fear— often happens between steps three and four
  • You have a crisis of confidence that prevents you from taking the next necessary steps.
  • This is a very different from incubation, in which you have a goal or a vision

 

Greg’s Thoughts: At Agile Writers we do Preparation when we write our abstracts. We’re setting up our goals by writing down what we think our story is about. Incubation occurs during the synopsis. We extend into Illumination by creating a storyboard and massaging it until it is ready. Then, finally, we Execute – we write 10 pages a week until we’re done.

Fail Fast

At Agile Writers we’ve been reading Sage Cohen’s book “Fierce on the Page.” Each week one of the writers will take the book home and read a chapter and digest it down to one page. Then, they return the next week and share what they learned and we talk about how it applies to our writing in general and what it means to us as Agile Writers.

This week, it was my turn. Here’s my take on Cohen’s chapter called “Fail Harder.”

• Book Review – Cohen received a book review from a reader who loved the book but went on at length about a typo.
• Cohen started out a perfectionist
  • did not send my work out for fear that it contained a flaw.
  • did not share it with anyone, ever
  • What if my writing was no good
  • What if other people didn’t like it
  • What if the writing contained a mistake?
• She stumbled upon a mural that said “Fail Harder.”
  • failing hard is often in direct proportion to trying hard
• In Japan, wabi-sabi is an aesthetic rooted in the art of imperfection
  • a celebration of the flaw that makes a piece of art (or a life) unique.
• When you embrace imperfection in your writing
  • you cultivate the compassion and acceptance that you (and your writing) deserve.
  • trust your material instead of fear of making a mistake.
  • your mistakes make you vulnerable enough to connect with other humans.
• Sharing writing and making an authentic connection is more important than perfection
• The Japanese art of Kintsugi involves mending broken objects by filling the cracks with gold.
  • to illuminate the repair and honor an object’s history of usefulness rather than to try to disguise the damage.

 

Greg’s Thoughts: Not only “Fail Hard” but “Fail Fast.” At Agile Writers we write abstracts, a synopsis, and a storyboard so that when our plots fail – they fail fast. It’s easier to see the flaws when we lay out our plot up front. Get the errors on paper right away rather than a year down the road after the first draft has been written. When I send you home to fix “Stage 2” it’s a failure – but you’re failing fast. You’ll also succeed fast!