Saturday, October 23, 2010

WANTED: RAP SHEET ON J.A. KONRATH

RAP SHEET: J.A. KONRATH, TIME TWISTER

SUBJECT: J.A. Konrath, AKA Jack Kilborn, AKA Joe Kimball

KNOWN ASSOCIATES: Planet iPad, Kindle Nation Daily, Amazon.com, Detective Jacqueline “Jack” Daniels of the Chicago PD

BACKGROUND: Subject born 1970 in Skokie, IL. Occupation: Writer
WANTED FOR QUESTIONING: In connection with the whereabouts of and recent investigations being conducted by Chicago Police Department Detective Jacqueline “Jack” Daniels. Department records indicate Daniels is currently in hot pursuit of the serial killer known as Mr. K. 

Konrath by his own admission in print was seen with Det. Daniels at the time of her disappearance.

(Investigator's note: Daniels appears to have taken the capture of Mr. K as a personal crusade following her initial encounter with the killer twenty one years ago.) Konrath has six priors, novels based on his relationship with Det. Daniels.

Konrath, an outspoken commentator on the publishing industry, is a maverick. His outbursts about publishers and advertisers are well known.

His statements, writings and his blog for writers—especially new writers—seem to advocate the overthrow of traditional publishing practices. His most recent activity is the innovative release of a book called Shaken.  Evidence indicates links between Konrath and corporate giant Amazon.com.  He also has ties to two net-based publications:  bestselling blog Kindle Nation Daily and, more recently, the blog Planet iPad.

These conspirators this week released the third installment of a “pre-quel” or serialization of massive segments of the book.  Expressing no remorse, they vow to make good on their threat to publish a fourth segment on Monday.

Sources report the entire book, will be released from an undisclosed location inside Amazon.com computers to police and the general public on October 26 as an ebook.   Printed copies are being held until on February 22, 2011.

Attached find the third installment “pre-release” of Shaken.  Below find a Planet iPad report of the perpetrators' unconventional publishing scheme.

Konrath should be considered armed with computers and tools of the writer's trade, as well as a vivid imagination, and is widely considered as dangerous to traditional writing and publishing methods.

Under his alias of Jack Kilborn the subject has associated with psychotic killers (see the book Afraid.)  Konrath/Kilborn's own extensive preoccupation, in book form, suggests an unbreakable fascination with horror as well as his fascination with crime.

Be advised Konrath may be difficult to apprehend, as he has somehow managed to slip into the future, 2054 to be specific, where under the alias Joe Kimball he claims to accompany Det. Daniel's grandson. These reports can only be classified as science fiction at this time.

 Reference detailed files available online:


An ebook compilation from the blog: $2.99


From report published on Planet iPad:


By Tom Dulaney, Editor

Maverick author J.A. Konrath serves up the third in his innovative serial publication of Shaken in today's Planet iPad. Click here to jump right to it.

Planet iPad readers get the free installment as a result of an innovative and unusual collaboration by the author with our sister publication, Kindle Nation Daily, and Amazon.com to exclusively release portions of Shaken in serial form before the full book is released on Oct. 26.

The next free installment, available only on Planet iPad and Kindle Nation Daily, will be released at 3 p.m. Monday Oct. 25.

Schedule of the Serial Releases

Amazon released Part 1 as a free ebook “teaser” several months ago.

Part 2 appeared on Planet iPad on Oct. 15

Part 3 appeared here on Oct. 23, and on Kindle Nation Daily on Oct. 22

Part 4 will be released only on Kindle Nation Daily and Planet iPad on Monday, October 25.

Shaken, the complete book in its entirety and with bonus content, is now available on Amazon for pre-order.  It releases as an ebook on Tuesday, October 26.

While Part 1 has been available in the Amazon Kindle Store free and billed as three “teaser chapters,” Parts 2, 3 and 4 are exclusively appearing on Planet iPad and on Kindle Nation Daily.

Shaken violates most of the rules literature and writing professors warn about when it comes to “flashbacks”-- jumping back in time in a novel. “Flashbacks” are generally viewed by the profs as dangerous ploys, a technique that has generally gone out of date. Young writers in classes and conferences are nearly uniformly warned to stay well clear of flashbacks.

In Shaken, Konrath jumps into flashbacks and flash-forwards with leaps to and from three major time-space points: 21 years ago, 3 years ago, current time. The “Bonus Content” included with Shaken irons out the dizzying flashes, putting the story in chronological order for those who like their literary time travel at a more orderly, sedate pace.

Consider the dangers of such a daring architecture for a novel. The book, plot and characters must track sensibly in the helter-skelter flash-arounds spanning two decades.  You cannot know something in, say, chapter 5 that you will not learn until chapter 7.

Now scramble the chapters back into chronological order, and apply the same rule.

Does the dare of toying so roughly with time work?

Yes, says bestselling author Tess Gerritsen in her "5 very enthusiastic stars out of 5” review, which appears on the book's Amazon page:

J.A. Konrath achieves the stupendous feat of blending both a prequel and a sequel in this timeline-hopping thriller, expertly making the pieces click together like an intricate Swiss watch.
Over the course of her decades-long career, Detective Jacqueline "Jack" Daniels has pursued her own great white whale: a sickeningly twisted serial killer named Mr. K. Years ago, Jack came heartbreakingly close to catching him, but he managed to slip away. 
 
Now Mr. K is back from her nightmares, and she's his captive, in a secret place where she's beyond rescue. Bound and gagged, the clock ticking down till zero, Jack faces a death more excruciating than anyone's worst imaginings. She has seen Mr. K.'s other victims, so she knows how terrible her end will be.
In flashback, we see just how Jack ended up at this moment in her life. From her first exposure as a rookie to Mr. K's handiwork, through her career-long pursuit of her nemesis, we watch Jack grow as a cop, as a woman, and as a friend to her two eccentric colleagues, Harry and Herb. That journey is both terrifying and wildly hilarious, a wacky combination that only a writer as good as Konrath can pull off. Throw in a deeply moving denouement, and you have a story that hits every single mark.

The pace is frantic, the horrors truly horrifying, and the dialogue will have you laughing out loud even as you're gripping the pages in terror. Konrath is so good, he makes other novelists jealous--and count me as one of them.

'5 Very Enthusiastic Stars Out of 5'--Tess Gerritsen
And from Amazon's product description:

This Bonus Content Edition includes the full text of Shaken plus an alternate, chronologically linear version of the book which allows readers to choose their own reading experience. 

Since her debut in Whiskey Sour, Lieutenant Jacqueline “Jack” Daniels has dealt with her fair share of criminals. But she may have finally met her match in “Mr. K,” the brutal serial killer who has eluded Jack not once, but twice, over the years.

Mr. K is the essence of evil, credited with more than two hundred horrific homicides. Now, on a hot August night, Jack finally gets the chance to face the maniac—unfortunately, she must do so while bound and gagged in a storage locker, primed to be his next victim. As she awaits her fate, Jack looks back on her career, from her first homicide case to her recent retirement.

The twenty-five years in between saw Jack’s attitude toward justice, the law, her job, and her personal life shift drastically. She is a different woman now…but is she good enough to stop a madman? Novelist J. A. Konrath’s trademark blend of suspense and wry humor are on full display in this tense thriller, a gripping tale that will keep readers on the edge of their seats.

Readers who want to train for the full-force complexity of time flashing in the book can get a good workout on the Amazon.com web site.

Search Amazon for “Shaken” and a bewildering number of images of the book swarm across your computer screen.

There's the free teaser, then the ebook itself to pre-order. Then there are the audio books in various formats such as CD and also MP3 on CD.

Last (in our time stream at least) is the printed version of the book, being published under the AmazonEncore imprint. Pre-order it today, get it next year on February 22.

Konrath, Shaken and Amazon have even upended the apparent flow of time with the “Shaken project.”

The give us an “encore” on paper from imprint AmazonEncore that you can order before you could get the teaser, which was published a few months ago, or the next several teasers released earlier this month. Or the next teaser, coming next week only on Planet iPad and Kindle Nation Daily. 

That will be followed (we think, but let me check the clock to see which way the digits are running) by the completed ebook and its time-straightened bonus content on October 26.

Let's get it straight. 

The next sequel completes the pre-quel series of chapters, with the final sequel contained in the full book, following Monday's ebook which completes the pre-quel, unless you wanted the whole ebook, which you could have pre-ordered months ago for delivery as an ebook on this coming Tuesday, unless you pre-ordered last week the encore printed version of Shaken for delivery to your door next February.

Got it!

Click the title for Part 3.

Related posts:

Posted by at

1 comment:

  1. Robert W. WalkerOctober 25, 2010 at 1:06 PM

    Joe Konrath has Shaken up the publishing world and will likely become a part of publising history no doubt....and to think, he's a great and compassionate human being to boot.

    No one deserves more success or has worked as hard at achieving it as has Joe K.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)