The Hardboiled Cat is Back! (Now With Fresh Covers)

It's been several years since Leo's books first debuted, and overall readers seemed to really enjoy the longhaired heavy as he navigated the treacherous underblly of New York's meaner streets. Both Marked Territory, and the second book Painted Cats have been my most popular sellers whenever I go to a convention, and I've had people ask when I'm going to write more stories for Leo.

And while other stuff has been a higher priority for me of late, I wanted to make an announcement this week... because my publisher got my books some fresh covers and I feel they really capture the feeling of what these books are actually supposed to feel like!

Seriously... LOOK at this art!

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

Lastly, don't forget to check out my Vocal archive for additional fiction, articles, explorations of weird history, and more! And, of course, check me out on Blue Sky, since that's what we're talking about today!

A Fresh Journey To The Mean Streets of Leo's Books

Generally speaking the idea of gritty, gangland noir mysteries starring a big bruiser of a tomcat, and with all of the traditional character archetypes being replaced by other street beasts (the local ganglord is a huge, bloated rat, Leo's best friend Doc is a former pit fighting dog who got adopted out, the powerless client with no one left to turn to is a literal church mouse, and so on, and so forth) is a concept that's novel enough to get folks interested. I've had a lot of ways to describe it, ranging from the love child of The Maltese Falcon and Watership Down, to a far more hardcore story that might have been going on in a reimagined version of An American Tail, but the idea has always been the juxtaposition of a book series where we have all the noir beats, style, and feeling, but all of our characters are animals.

At the same time all the humans in NYC are referred to the way animals normally get talked about in mystery stories. They're present, but generally not an important part of the unfolding narrative.

Now, I have half a dozen other books I'd love to write for Leo, but I just haven't had the time to dedicate to them. However, seeing the new covers that came out does make me really wish I could start laying the foundation for some of these books.

Again, LOOK at how this turned out!

The reason I stopped working on novels in general was that it's just so damn hard to get people to buy them, or read them. They can take a year or more to create, and if there's no demand/earnings, I have to focus on other projects. I will be honest, though, part of the reason I feel like it was hard to make sales was the old covers just did not hit.

But while art is subjective, something that always bothered me was the covers showed the wrong kind of cat. Leo is a hefty Maine Coon, and his bottle brush tail and thick coat are mentioned repeatedly throughout the story (along with his size, as Leo is somewhere between 24 and 26 pounds on average). The original covers, though, showed a tabby who appeared to be relatively average size... and while you can't judge a book by its cover, that image is often what we have in our heads regardless of what the text tells us.

So, yeah... if you haven't picked up the books with their shiny fresh covers yet, consider doing so! And if you want to get more of Leo's stories then tell your family, tell your friends, and leave reviews to spread the word. Because if I get my royalty report at the end of the year, and I find out that each book sold a few thousand copies, you can guess what I'm suddenly going to find time and energy to start working on!

Support The Literary Mercenary

If you want to see me produce more work, consider some of the following options!

- My Facebook

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- My Weekly Newsletter

- The Azukail Games YouTube Channel (where I contribute video content)

- My Rumble Channel (longer videos that won't show up on YouTube)

And if you happen to have some spare dosh lying around, and you want to be sure my supply doesn't run low, consider become a Patreon patron, or leaving a tip by Buying Me a Ko-Fi!

Also, if you're curious about how to write for tabletop RPGs, don't forget to check out my show Tabletop Mercenary, which you can find on both the Azukail Games channel, as well as my Rumble channel listed above!

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sci-fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, the Hardboiled Cat series about a mystery solving Maine Coon in Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

And to stay on top of all my latest news and releases, collected once a week, make sure you subscribe to The Literary Mercenary's mailing list.

The Hard-Boiled Cat Returns, Just in Time For The Holidays!

It's been a year and a half since three of my novels went out of print due to the death of my previous publisher Eric Flint's Ring of Fire Press. And while it's been a tough time finding a new ship to get onto in these troubled waters, I finally managed to get onboard with Untreed Reads (or Novus Mundi, depending). However, as with a lot of authors who found themselves and their work adrift with the Ring of Fire sinking, my titles were getting a lot of pushback from Amazon. This was namely because Amazon wouldn't recognize that the books had been republished by someone new, and so they were resisting our attempts to get the titles back into circulation.

My dystopian sci fi thriller Old Soldiers made it back into rotation this summer. However, for those who enjoyed my series about a hard-nosed Maine Coon and the trouble he had to deal with (sometimes figuratively, and sometimes literally), my Hard-Boiled Cat series was having a lot of trouble getting back into print. But just in time for the holidays, both Marked Territory and Painted Cats are available again!

As a warning, these books are not for kids despite the lead being a cat.

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

Lastly, don't forget to check out my Vocal archive for additional fiction, articles, explorations of weird history, and more!

Is It Time For a New Chapter in Leo's Saga?

For those who didn't grab these books before they went out of print, let me catch you up to speed. These are a series of hard-boiled, noir-style crime novels set in modern day New York City... the difference is that it focuses on all the street beasts who call this town their home. From the raccoon mafia, to the squabbling gangs of seagulls, to roughhouse packs of stray dogs, and all the mice, rats, and others just trying to make their way in the world, we see a bit of everyone. And our protagonist is Leo, a hulking Maine Coon who lives in a crate out behind a deli. He tries to keep his nose free of other people's troubles, but sooner or later something always sucks him in.

The books have been called the unholy love child between Watership Down and The Maltese Falcon, for those who are looking for a frame of reference. And if you want a break down of the first book, Alice the Author reviewed it a little while back. So check out her take, like the video, and subscribe to her channel while you're at it!

I've had a couple of fans asking me over the past year and change when they were going to get a new story in Leo's saga. Hell, I've had editors from my publisher ask when they're going to get their hands on a new manuscript. And if I'm honest, I've got at least a couple more novels about Leo (and maybe a couple I'd love to write about Trouble as a spin-off series for those who have read Painted Cats), but when Ring of Fire went under, I just couldn't justify spending all that energy writing a new novel. I had bills to pay, and I'd just lost 3 novels (in addition to never receiving my final royalty check for sales I'd made in the period leading up to the company closing), so I really haven't had Leo on my mind much. I've been pumping out TTRPG supplements, writing a variety of scripts and short fiction for folks, and putting together a lot of audio dramas for the Azukail Games YouTube channel, and I haven't so much as thought about a novel in going on 2 years now.

Now that they're back on the market, though, that may change. And I say may, not will, because as with everything else this is going to come down to you, the readers.

When it comes to which projects I take on these days, a lot of my focus on what's practical. Novels take a long time to write, so even if I started on a new book for Leo right now, it likely wouldn't be available until next Christmas. Between now and then I have a lot of bills to pay, and a writing schedule that is jammed absolutely full of deadlines. Now, I love Leo. I love the world I built for him, and I would love to go back to it... but I can't do that if I can't put any distance between myself the bills clawing at my back pockets.

What I'm Going To Do (And How You Can Help)

For those of you who think that sounds like giving up, rest assured, I'm not going to just sit back and wait for the market to flow my way. I have some plans for things going forward, but I'm going to need all of you to help me turn them into a reality.

First and foremost, I'm going to do my best to big up the signal, and tell folks about Leo's triumphant return! I've got two blogs and a lot of social media channels, and I'm going to do my best to put the word out on all of them. In addition to that I'd like to put together some sample audio dramas to give folks a little teaser for the books, and to get potential readers to check the titles out for themselves. Stuff on par with my latest fantasy audio drama below, which appeared on the Azukail Games YouTube channel.

So if that sounds like something you'd be down for, make sure you subscribe to my Rumble channel The Literary Mercenary, as it will probably be appearing there, at the very least!

I'm also intending on reaching out to as many reviewers as I can. While Alice the Author had glowing things to say about Marked Territory, Rissy Reviews also put in her thoughts over on the video Hard-Boiled Detective Cats???, which you should also check out if you need another take on whether this is a book series for you. However, if you're someone who has read either of these novels (or you're planning on getting your copies soon) please remember to leave a rating and review on Amazon, Goodreads, and anywhere else you can... those things mean a lot, and it's really hard to get the algorithm on your side. One has 12 reviews, the other 18, and you need 50 before the wheels of that machine start turning in your favor.

At the end of the day, I don't need a million sales of these books. It would be nice, but I don't need it. Honestly, I just need them to start getting traction again, and to remind people that Leo and his stories are out there, and if they create a demand then I will do my very best to fulfill that demand as long as readers want more of him.

So if you want to see more of Leo's books, please take a moment to raise your voice, boost the signal, and stay tuned for more!

Support The Literary Mercenary

For folks who just want to do their part to help keep me making more content, please subscribe/follow me in these locations:

- My Facebook

- My LinkTree

- My Weekly Newsletter

- The Azukail Games YouTube Channel (where I contribute video content)

- My Rumble Channel (longer videos that won't show up on YouTube)

And if you happen to have some spare dosh lying around, and you want to be sure my supply doesn't run low, consider become a Patreon patron, or leaving a tip by Buying Me a Ko-Fi!

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sci-fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, my gangland noir thrillers starring Leo the Maine Coon Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

And to stay on top of all my latest news and releases, collected once a week, make sure you subscribe to The Literary Mercenary's mailing list. 

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!

"Painted Cats" is Now Out, Marking The First Sequel I've Ever Published!

Last year my novel Marked Territory dropped to a little bit of fanfare among my regular readers. The book followed my protagonist, a Maine coon alley cat named Leo, as he stuck his whiskers into some problems going on over on the south side of the Bronx. A church mouse and her friends were dealing with a territorial dispute with a pack of mangy mutts. Nothing wrong with that, things like that happened every day... but why here? The church wasn't worth barking over, much less fighting, and the deeper Leo dug the less sense everything made.

For those who want a slightly deeper dive, Rissy Reviews did a pretty great video on it recently. So if you haven't seen it yet, go check that out now!

What folks might not know is the ink was barely dry on my contract when I started work on the sequel. I finished it around Christmas last year, got it to my publisher once I'd made some adjustments, and now it brings me great pleasure to say that Painted Cats is available for all my avid lovers of hard-boiled detective stories, cats, and books that combine the two!

So What's This One About?

While Marked Territory established a lot of Leo's neighborhood, and some key facts about the world, Painted Cats gives us a very different kind of mystery to dig into. An old flame of Leo's named Delilah comes around asking for a favor; it seems a friend of hers has gone missing, leaving her kitten behind. While Mischief has seen some hard times, and made her share of bad decisions, she loves Trouble. If she hasn't come back for him, that means something is really, really wrong. While he's leery of what he might find, Leo agrees to go looking.

Reasons you should read the sequel (beyond it just being another of Leo's adventures in NYC) include:

- More heads of animal crime families (cats, possums, and even a reference to one run by snakes that I hope to get to in future sequels).

- A night spot for gay animals to mingle, meet, and eat.

- The adorable Trouble, who may end up recurring in future stories if the audience takes a shine to him.

- Celebrity animals, who earn their owners a living with their picture-perfect grooming.

You know, just in case you needed another reason to go out and buy your copy today.

Wait... Isn't This The Second Sequel?

For folks who want to get technical, there is a prequel to both of these novels. The short story "Stray Cat Strut" in the short story anthology From a Cat's View was Leo's debut into the world of fiction, and the first glimpse anyone got into his world of street beasts. The fact that I sold out of this book entirely at the first convention I brought it to was why I decided to expand Leo's adventures in the first place!

For those who are wondering, no, you don't have to read any of these stories in any particular order. I set out very specifically to mimic the style of serial detective stories like the Spenser series, or arguably Sherlock Holmes, where the order in which you choose to take in the cases won't affect your grasp of the narrative too much. There might be references to characters you haven't met, or to things that were said in other stories, but you can usually infer what happened or didn't happen without too much difficulty.

Which one should you start with? Well, I'll generally recommend Marked Territory as the official starting place since it was written to give a wider introduction to Leo's world, but if you wanted to start with either of the other two you could always fill in the blanks later.

In either case, I'm super excited to have gotten this far. For all the folks out there who've supported me, thank you. And for those who want to see even more of Leo's adventures, well, get your copy, leave a review, and tell your friends about the series! I'll keep writing them as long as people keep reading them.

Like, Follow, and Stay Tuned!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing! If you'd like to see more of my work, take a look at my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my noir thriller Marked Territory, its sequel Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife as well as my recent collection The Rejects!

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!

A Book For Cat Lovers With a Taste For Noir, "Marked Territory" is Finally Out!

I've been sitting on this news for a while, but now that my new book has officially dropped it is time for me to tell you all about it. And if this is the first you're hearing about my novel Marked Territory from Eric Flint's Ring of Fire Press, then settle in for a bit... you're going to want to listen to this pitch!

Got your ears open?

At it's core, Marked Territory is a noir mystery thriller about a back alley heavy getting roped into someone else's problems. And the deeper he digs, the less things start adding up. So far so Bogart, right? The difference is that in this book our protagonist is a Maine coon named Leo. And before you start thinking that this is one of those books about animals solving human crimes, the rest of the cast are New York City street beasts, too. From Charity the church mouse, to Ringo Longtail the current mover and shaker among the south side's raccoons, every member of the cast is an animal of one variety or other.

The humans are still there, it is NYC after all, but they're just background characters. Sort of like how dogs and cats are treated in most other novels; there, but rarely noteworthy to the meat of the narrative.

And for those looking for the specifics, he's the back cover material:

"Leo does his best to keep his whiskers out of other people’s business. He’s perfectly content to spend his days stretched out in the sun, or wandering through his little patch of the Bronx. So when a south side mouse comes to him with a sob story about a pack of hound dogs trying to run her and her friends out of the abandoned church they call home, his first instinct is to walk away.

But why would a mouse be desperate enough to call on an alley cat for help? The raccoons on the south side have their paws in the mix, he discovers, and any deal the raccoons are tied up in is guaranteed to get messy. Add in the fact that the dog pack seems to have come out of nowhere, and Leo’s got more questions than answers.

Curiosity killed the cat, as the saying goes, but Leo isn’t going to stop digging until he figures out exactly why St. Bart’s has become… Marked Territory!"

Wait a Minute... This Sounds Really Familiar...

If you'd a longtime reader of mine, this might sound like a familiar premise to you. You're not imagining things, either. You see, Leo first came onto the scene a few years back in my short story "Stray Cat Strut" in the collection From a Cat's View. In that story an old shelter mate of Leo's named Tigger calls in a favor to get the big bruiser to help an uptown cat find her missing sister. It's not a job he particularly wants to do, but a favor is a favor, so he starts digging... and uncovers something particularly sinister going on in a bad part of town.

For those who've read it, don't you fret... the Persian will be back again in future stories. And if you're not sure what I'm talking about, I'd recommend getting a copy of this anthology as well so you can get the complete history of Leo and his adventures to-date.

You have not heard the last of me...

So... Is This The Start of a Series?

Ideally, I'd like it to be! People who know me as a writer know that I'm not really big on writing series, but I've got plenty of future cases for Leo to take up if a tomcat enforcer with a bottle brush tail and a chip on his shoulder is something the readers out there would like to see.

But, as with anything else, what's really going to decide if that happens is the audience! So if this is the sort of thing you'd like to see me develop and expand on, make sure you get your copy of Marked Territory as soon as you can! Then after you give it a read, drop a rating and a review on it, and don't forget to tell your friends and family to give it a read as well.

Because if the demand is high enough then I'll have no other choice than to give you what you want, will I?

Also, for those who are still on the fence Amanda Lyons has a lovely review up at PetLife!

Like, Follow, and Stay Tuned!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing! If you'd like to see more of my work, take a look at my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife as well as my recent collection The Rejects!

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!