We’re only five days away from the official publication of Every Time He Dies. YAY!!!!

If you haven’t already, click here to pre-order your copy of the book. Everyone who pre-orders the book automatically gets access to the first five chapters as a thank you.

Pre-orders are vital to a book’s success as these sales are included as part of the release week sales. If pre-sales are strong, the book has a far better chance of getting on a best-seller list, appearing in algorithms or being included in Amazon’s weekly “recommended for you” email newsletter.

This increase in exposure is invaluable.

So please, if you have been following this blog for a long time or if you are planning on buying a copy of Every Time He Dies anyway, then please consider pre-ordering the book. I sincerely thank you.

Now, on to this week’s topic.

You guys have been asking a ton of questions about ETHD, so I thought I’d put this blog together as a way to answer them!

1 / ETHD is a Hybrid Novel

When you boil it down, ETHD is a mystery novel as the book is shaped around a central mystery. Dah.

However, labelling ETHD this way is slightly misleading.

ETHD is not a tidy, read once, throw away mystery novel. Oh no, this baby’s got layers. She is about something.

ETHD draw upon many different genres. There are elements of crime, thriller, horror, supernatural, mysticism, romance and speculative fiction.

Basically, it’s Frankenstein’s monster: a stitched together beast whose parts I’ve pilfered from robbing the graves of multiple genres. But, that’s what makes her so damn beautiful — if you can get past her lopsided smile!

2 / ETHD is Not Your Average Girl Novel

This is connected to the last point, but it’s also a little bit different …

Though the book opens at a crime scene, a double homicide, ETHD is not a crime novel.

In fact, the crimes that occur in this novel do so as a way to keep the story moving forward.

The book isn’t about an unsolved crime, not really, it’s about what happens we bury our grief and isolate ourselves from our community and ourselves.

What this novel is really about is the characters. An early title for this book was Haunted. Not because the book has a ghost, but because ALL of the character’s are haunted by their past mistakes; mistakes they can never undo.

This book is an exploration of how our mistakes can have huge ramifications and how we can move through this.

3 / ETHD is Funny

After reading points one and two, you’re probably thinking, “Damn! This book sounds heavy!”

Look, a good book should contain both light and dark passages.

There are some sad moments and some moving exchanges, but this book is also very funny.

I mean, how could it not be?

I attached a ghost with amnesia to an embalmer who is suffering from PTSD and who doesn’t believe in anything woo-woo … I mean, that kind of character friction can’t be anything BUT funny.

4 / Research

I covered this a bit in one of my last posts, but it bears repeating.

One of the elements that makes Every Time He Dies so unique is the volume of research that informed the writing process.

I interviewed cops, psychic, mechanics, nurses, pharmacists, Filipino witch doctors (boy, howdy!), embalmers, funeral home directors, medics, detectives, and other crime authors.

Basically, I bought a lot of people a lot of coffee.

The reason I am telling you this is because I embedded all of their glorious knowledge into my book.

As a result, the scenes are visceral and authentic.

I describe the embalming process, the smell of the chemicals, the equipment used. I go deep into the psychological ramifications of working the beat and I’ve included colourful adaptations of stories told to me by Western and Eastern Healers.

Basically, ETHD is pretty awesome.

5 / Effort

I’ve made a lot of sacrifices in order to write this book: financial and personal.

I chose to invest in a master’s program where students spent one year developing their novel under the guidance of established writers and teachers. I worked with a brilliant mentor and hired a slew of professionals.

I quit my job, moved to a different city (three times!) and rented rooms with strangers (now friends) in order to study.

Much to everybody’s horror, I turned down a lucrative job in order to dedicate more time to study and writing.

And I haven’t even touched on the effort it required to write the book.

Needless to say, I’ve totally lost count of how many revisions this book went through.

There is only one scene (the climax) and one single paragraph (the opening paragraph) that has remained virtually the same since the day I wrote them. Everything else has been rewritten more times than I can count.

But it was all worth it.

When I started writing ETHD, I knew that I’d be figuring out how to write a novel while writing a novel.

It was a long and windy path, but I did reach the top of that summit. Eventually.

There’s no guarantee that my next hike up the novel-writing mountain will be any easier, but at least I will have a map and well broken-in shoes.

There you have it guys, the five things you need to know about ETHD. Remember to pre-order your copy BEFORE publication date (Tuesday, November 5) and enter my book giveaway. DETAILS BELOW!

EVERY TIME HE DIES

AVAILABLE FOR PREORDER + GIVEAWAY

‘Who knew that a book about murder, grief and disintegrated families could be so funny?’ – Paul Williams

‘A unique modern mystery that is one part psychic practices and one part police procedural. The fast pace, dynamic characters and intricate plot will keep readers hooked until the end.’ – Gregory James

‘It’s rare to find an Australian-set book of this scope and genre that could stand among its international peers and hold its own, but I won’t be surprised to see this book find its success in all corners of the crime genre reading world.’ – Shayla Morgansen

‘Can someone please make this into a TV series? This is a fabulous read and I want to see Liam and Daff on the small screen.’ – Carol Seeley

CLICK BELOW TO PREORDER NOW

PREORDER GIVEAWAY!

Everyone who preorders a copy of Every Time He Dies (paperback or ebook) will go into the draw to win one of THREE MAJOR GRAND PRIZES.

To celebrate the release of Every Time He Dies, I’m running an EPIC book giveaway. The three grand prize packs include signed copies of:

🎉Dying in the First Person by Nike Sulway
🎉Bordertown by Gregory James
🎉Haunted by Shayla Morgansen
🎉The Spark Ignites by Kathleen Kelly
🎉Every Time He Dies by Tara Louise East

If you preorder a copy, simply take a snapshot of your proof of purchase and fill out the entry form here.

WAIT, THERE’S MORE!

Everyone who preorders a copy will ALSO receive the first five chapters straight to their inbox. Not only will this tide you over until the book arrives, but it’s also my way of saying thanks!

September 25, 2019September 20, 2019

taraeast881 Comment

Research: taking your book to the next level

Like everything else to do with writing, how and when you decided to conduct your research is a matter of style. In all honesty, you need to know yourself as a writer, because research can quickly become procrastination in a fancy suit.

I chose to write my “first draft” (I’m not even sure what this means anymore) of Every Time He Dies before I started researching. The purpose of this exploratory draft was to get to know my characters better, to figure out the beats of the story, what the story was actually about and whose story it was.

It was only later, during the revision process, that I fired up Google and went to town.

Every Time He Dies is a mystery novel that centres around one major crime. As a result, I was Googling some pretty crazy things, such as:

The decomposition rate of human bodies that are: buried, exposed to air, weighed down in water
The decomposition rate of human bodies in Summer vs Winter
Australia’s VLAD laws
Drug importations
Gang crime in Australia
Location of Police Academies in Australia
How do you embalm a body?
Crime scene investigation
Forensic evidence
Criminal Law, Australia

Don’t worry, I always made sure that I Googled “How to write a crime novel” before and after every research session. I also Googled “Puppy Images” as a palette cleanser.

Google is a great place to get some basic background information, but it can’t replace one-on-one interviews with industry professionals/experts.

There are some details and nitty-gritty facts that you just can’t find online.

Research adds credibility and believability to your writing. — Research adds credibility to your writing.

Two of the central characters in ETHD have unusual jobs, Daff is an embalmer and Jon Lawrence is a Detective. Had I relied on Google to supply all my information, there would have been some seriously big errors in my manuscript.

The thing is, Australia is pretty small. There was a ton of information on police departments and funeral homes in the US and the UK, but I struggled to find detail information on how these services operated in Australia.

Fortunately, I have a background in Journalism, so … I have no problems “cold calling” businesses and departments, introducing myself and seeing where my (well rehearsed) speel gets me.

Cold calls can be effective, but of course, a far better option is to tap into your existing network. Trust me, someone will know exact person you need to speak to — you just have to ask!

For example, a couple of years ago, I enrolled in a masters course. On the first day, I met another student who was also writing a crime novel. Now, here’s the cool part, Greg was a former detective. Hallelujah!

Greg decided that the masters course wasn’t for him, but I was smart enough to get his email address and to shout him a coffee in exchange for information. After that, I felt totally comfortable to send Greg an email whenever I needed a bit more detail about police procedure, lingo or his thoughts on certain “what would happen if?” scenarios.

I should also add that Greg is now a published author, his debut novel, Bordertown, came out earlier this year — so go buy it!

Later that same year, I was volunteering at a children’s writing festival, while waiting in the green room I started chatting with a lady who was on the cusp of having her debut novel, Becoming Aura, published (it wasn’t until four hours later that I found out she’d won the Queensland Literary Prize that year, the sneak). Anyway, we had a great time and I was desperate to make some new writing friends, so we exchanged phone numbers and organised a coffee date.

We talked about the writing life and our current projects while sipping away at our cappacinos. When Liz found out that I was writing a crime novel, she immediately put me in contact with a friend of hers who was also a crime writer and an active police officer. Yet again, I sent an email off to a total stranger, offered to buy her coffee and then picked her brain.

Here’s the thing …

When it comes to research, you’re never going to find facts or stories online that are as good as the ones shared by people who have lived that experience.

This might sound all very easy, and look, finding cop contacts actually was pretty easy — I once exchanged email address with a cop [also a writer] after he’d given me a fine! Miss no opportunity, people! — but it took me two years to make contact with an embalmer.

Research and writing — Me: waiting to find an embalmer that would talk to me!

At the time, I was studying away from home and was renting a spare room with a family. I had been cold calling and going into small funeral homes in the hopes that someone would be willing to talk to me. They weren’t.

Exasperated, I was sharing this experience with my live-in family one night — thinking that at least I’d get a laugh out of this scenario — when someone said, “Why didn’t you say you wanted to talk to someone? I went to school with a fella whose family owns the biggest funeral parlour business on the coast.” She open her phone, found said person on Facebook and sent them a PM. Fast forward a week and I spent three hours interviewing one of the top embalmers in Australia.

The crazy thing is, I had told everyone in that family what my book was about, but it wasn’t until I said that I wanted to interview someone from that industry that this connection finally happened.

Here are some of the things I found out through my in-person emails that I couldn’t find out online:

Cop lingo
Australian police culture
What a typical day looks like (for a cop and an embalmer)
What training is involved
Career trajectory
The fact that Australian embalm procedures differs from the US and the UK because of our unique climate
What embalming chemicals smell like
What embalming rooms look and smell like
The typical equipment used every day
Unusual requests/weirdest cases
The physical layout of workspaces
The dynamics between professionals, their colleagues and how they interact with the public
The worst part of the job
The best part of the job
How a cop/embalmer answers the question, “So, what do you do for a living?”
(Best Answer: “Bricklayer, it has way less follow up questions.” [I may have put a similar line in the book, it was too good not too!])

It was these details that added credibility, authenticity and intrigue to the book. Several of my beta-readers said that the embalming scenes in ETHD were among their favourite because they “were so different.”

I also interviewed psychics, mechanics, nurses and pharmacists, but that’s a whole other blog.

Research can make a scene in your novel really pop — Interviewing an expert will provide you with insights and details that you won’t find online.

Finding the right professionals to interview can take a lot of time or no time at all, but it’s always worth the effort.

The two biggest boons to one-on-one interviewing are:

1. Access to fascinating and unique stories, details, information and insight into a particular workplace’s culture
2. Talking to an actual person is (often) far more interesting and quicker than trying to find information online.

This second point is particularly important. Once you’ve conducted your initial interview with a professional, you have now created an invaluable resource. Over time, you will create your own customised Google: a network of contacts who will provide you with the exact information that you are looking for.

The internet is a great source of information, but nothing beats direct contact with an industry professional.

Every Time He Dies