Perpetuating Trouble: I’m Livin’ the Dream! Or Am I?
I’m pleased to announce the release of my personal memoir about the writing life, Perpetuating Trouble. I’ve been working on this book on and off since…
WANTED: A 21st Century Author Promoter
I love writing. I love sitting down with half a dozen fresh Blackwing 602 pencils, sharpening them to a razor edge and filling up pages…
Why I’m Selling My Books Everywhere Now, Instead of Just on Amazon
Between January 2012 and this month (over 3 years), I sold my novels on Amazon exclusively. I did this under their KDP “Select” (Kindle Direct…
Why I Write a PI Series
I wasn’t going to write the latest Dakota Stevens mystery. Back in June of last year, at a reading I gave from my then-new pastoral novel…
To All So-Called Authors: Stop Doing This; You Look Like Idiots
Maybe I shouldn’t be giving away my writing secrets. Maybe I should be like Ernest Hemingway, who, with the exception of a couple of Paris…
A Successful Interview with Pam Stack on Authors on the Air
This evening, I did my first-ever LIVE radio interview, and I’m very pleased with how it turned out. Host Pam Stack asked me some thought-provoking…
ONE HUNDRED MILES FROM MANHATTAN — A Novel by Chris Orcutt — Now Available!
Please forgive the cumbersome title of this piece. I’m still sick and a little delirious, but I don’t want to put off my readers any…
One of the Best Indie Books of 2013—THE MAN, THE MYTH, THE LEGEND
IndieReader, the trusted and informative web-zine about all things indie publishing, has included my book of short stories, The Man, The Myth, The Legend, on their…
Chris Orcutt & Dakota Stevens Hit the Airwaves
Today, I’m in my first-ever radio interview. I haven’t heard the completed, edited version yet, so you can bet I’m going to tune in to…
Storytime: Chris Orcutt Reads “The Magnificent Murphy,” His Homage to The Great Gatsby
Recently I did a radio interview with Stephen Campbell, the terrific host of “Murders, Mysteries and Mayhem” on the Authors on the Air Global Radio…
Everything That’s Wrong With Ebooks
So I was browsing Kindle books on Amazon earlier today and came upon one that thoroughly pissed me off. Truly, this book represents everything that’s…
Orcutt Books Back on KDP Select
This is just a quick entry to let readers know that my books—The Man, The Myth, The Legend; The Rich Are Different; and A Real Piece of…
THE MAN, THE MYTH, THE LEGEND is Now Available!
After several months of getting the words right, working with my cover designer and ebook formatter, and ensuring that the book I ask readers to…
Sneak Preview of THE MAN, THE MYTH, THE LEGEND
My new short story collection, The Man, The Myth, The Legend, will be released in less than a week, but I wanted to give readers a…
Coming Soon: THE MAN, THE MYTH, THE LEGEND
My new short story collection, THE MAN, THE MYTH, THE LEGEND, will be released within a month. In the meantime, here are the professions of the…
Thanks for the Incredible Year
A little more than a year ago, I published A Real Piece of Work for the Kindle, not for a second anticipating the terrific success the…
Engaging Novels About a Detective
The other day, after publishing the second novel in the Dakota Stevens Mystery Series—The Rich Are Different—I pulled a giant plastic crate labeled “Dakota Stevens…
The Rich Are Different is Now Available
The second book in the Dakota Stevens Mystery Series by Chris Orcutt, The Rich Are Different, is now available for Kindle on Amazon. In February, I…
The Indie Author’s Guide to the Universe: An Interview with Jeff Bennington
Greetings, readers. Today, for the first time in the history of my blog, I’m making somebody else the focus. Today I’m going back to my…
Next in the Dakota Stevens Mystery Series…
Back in late November 2011 when I released A Real Piece of Work, I promised to release book #2 in the series, The Rich Are…
The Free Ebook Experiment — Part 2 —Conclusion
Last week I said I would report on the results of my 2 “free days” on Amazon’s KDP Select: the total number of free downloads,…
Writing vs. Self-Promotion
The big problem facing writers today is finding a balance between writing and self-promotion. I’m currently doing a free promotion of my Kindle mystery novel,…
The Free Ebook Experiment — Part 1
According to the new, social-networking philosophy of book promotion, one of the most effective ways of building your audience is to give away copies of…
It’s All About the Reader
ONCE UPON A TIME there was a mystery novel, a mystery novel that only one agent and zero editors believed in. This mystery novel was…
A Shattered Paradigm
I have read hundreds of books on writing. Conservatively figuring an average of 15 per year, over 24 years that makes 360 books on the…
An Open Thank You Letter to Readers
This one is for you readers. For those of you who took a risk on a relatively unknown quantity (me) by plunking down cash for…
You Don’t Need a Kindle to Read A Real Piece of Work
Friends, Romans, Countrymen: I’ve received dozens of messages from would-be book-buyers who say, “I’d love to read A Real Piece of Work, but I don’t…
1,000 Mysteries and the Ideal Reader
A common piece of advice given to writers is to envision your ideal reader and write your book to that person. And although I didn’t…
What I Learned While Publishing the Dakota Stevens Series on Kindle
What did I learn from publishing the first novel in my new detective series on Kindle? A lot of disjointed things that would take too…