GLITZ AND GLAMOUR AT THE SUNDANCE FILM FEST ... AND HOW WE BEAT THE MOVIE MOGULS TO IT BY WEEKS!

JOYCE McKINNEY AND THE CASE OF THE MANACLED MORMON by ANTHONY DELANO ... THE *REAL* EXCLUSIVE.

So, let the fanfares blare, roll out the red carpet, goggle at the stars, wear sun glasses against the pyrotechnics of paparazzi in Sunday best. But it’s time for BeWrite Books to blow its own trumpet, too ... please remember that we beat the high-profile movie moguls by weeks.

Tomorrow (July 15) Academy Award-winning movie maker Errol Morris, who has already premiered his latest super-production, Tabloid, in Toronto and London, is star attraction – at the world-famous Sundance Film Festival ... but his picture still hasn't yet been distributed and released to the general public.

Splashed all over the internet, in TV interviews and the world press this month, Errol gleefully says it’s his favourite and best piece of work to date. It’s red hot news, folks (simply Google for evidence). And maybe, in a year or so, the movie might actually see the projectionist’s light of dark at a cinema near you when Errol’s Hollywood fishing results in an inevitable bite. He’ll doubtless pick up another trophy or three for yet another blockbuster and weep tears of joy all the way to the bank with a few more millions. He'll maybe even get himself another Oscar for his mantlepiece. So far, though, not many folks have actually laid eyes on the film; and they won't even in Sundance. Invitation-only tickets, people. Burly bouncers at the doors.

Why wait?

With sincere apologies to that wonderfully talented and acclaimed gentleman and his dedicated team of movie professionals, intrepid researchers and skilled interviewers (the credits threaten to beat the record set by Ben Hur) BeWrite Books reminds him -- and you -- that we spilled the beans, the whole beans and nothing but the beans when we pipped him at the post with the first international ebook editions of the story that inspired his insightful and intriguing – sometimes shocking, more often hilarious – docudrama … on June 23 (it was my 62nd birthday treat to myself).

Proud, tickled pink and not a little smug, we released – in glorious ebook editions and in cahoots with Revel Barker Publishing – Anthony Delano’s warts-n-all, blow-by-blow insider account of the whole murky and side-splittingly funny shebang: Joyce McKinney and the Case of the Manacled Mormon. It’s also available in paperback from RBP.

US beauty queen Joyce McKinney hit the international headlines in the seventies when, love-struck by a straight-laced Mormon missionary, she – and a devoted minder – stalked him to England, kidnapped him (magic Mormon underpants and all) and manacled him to a bed in a remote country cottage where the magic underpants were immediately confiscated and Joyce had her kinky way with him on a regular basis and he, presumably, thought of Utah and hummed hymns he’d learned by heart from recordings of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

She skipped bail and fled home to America, under one of her many, many exotic aliases on one of her many, many fake passports, before she could be fully tried for what amounted to charges of the abduction and serial rape by a beautiful woman of a helpless, God-fearing man she'd held captive and lashed to a special love bed she’d had shipped over the Atlantic for the occasion.

This was no laughing matter. Just imagine the sheer torture the poor evangelist must have suffered as he lay there, chaps, helpless beneath a ruthless blonde beauty queen!

Great tabloid newspaper fodder was that tale. And, wow, did it hit the headlines big time and long time on both sides of the Shining Big Sea Water! But Joyce herself is just one act in the circus ring. The real stars – both of the book and the so-far largely invisible movie – are the expert trapeze artists, jugglers and lion-tamers; the crafty, cut-throat and amazingly skilled and resourceful journalists who competed around the world, daggers-drawn (until the pubs opened and they were all pals again), to unravel the weirdest tale even the most hard-bitten had encountered. That's why Errol Morris called his movie Tabloid, of course. McKinney was a mere chorus girl to the main act.

Delano’s book (which Morris bought for three hundred bucks as a collector’s piece when the first edition was out of print) tells all in this extended and updated edition ... the tragedy and the travesty, the mystery and the almost unbelievably comic of la crème de la crime.

Joyce is now back in the world news in a big way because of the movie, this book ... and because her true identity was discovered accidentally when she boasted on TV of having a litter of puppies cloned from the severed ear of her dead pet dog. That is one time she wasn't telling fibs and little black lies. Even though she’d assumed yet another alias and changed her appearance to spread the cloning tale, baby-boomers clocked her at a glance.

You can read more about Joyce McKinney and the Case of the Manacled Mormon and the author and read the first chapter and reviews in the bookstore section of the BeWrite Books website HERE. 

The ebook can be bought from us or any major online ebook store (but more often than not, cheaper from us). It’s available for reading on PCs and laptops, all dedicated ebook-reading devices like Kindle, Nook, Kobo, Sony, Apple iPad, etc, etc, etc, and also on iPods and smart phones. You can even read about it and buy the ebook through iTunes now. And you can buy it direct from BeWrite Books in all popular digital formats. Paperback from RBP is HERE.

What’s Hack-Lit? Hack-Lit (named as such by no lesser an authority than the mighty Independent ‘serious’ daily newspaper in the UK) is books by ace international journalists with proven mass-appeal to millions of general readers on a daily basis. You see, within the Old School of journos who ain’t dead yet, to be described as a ‘hack’ is praise indeed. If you’re an outsider and use the term, you’ll be punched in the nose and thrown out of the bar on your asterisk. Just as you would if you accused us Old Schoolers as telephone ‘hackers’. Hackers are a different and new species and wouldn’t be admitted to the pub in the first place.

So become an insider with BB/RBP Hack-Lit. And if you’ve not enjoyed that privilege yet, Anthony’s Manacled Mormon is the key card to our members-only club. You’re welcome. But it’s your round. The tab’s $5.95 (or its equivalent in whatever pennies you count in your neck of the woods). Less than half the price of a single cinema ticket when Tabloid eventually comes to the screen … whenever that may be. Maybe $5.95 might buy popcorn for one. It's the price of a decent pint in Fleet Street currency.

FOR THOSE NOSEY PARKERS WHO WANT TO KNOW: JOYCE McKINNEY AND THE CASE OF THE MANACLED MORMON. AUTHOR: ANTHONY DELANO. EDITOR: REVEL BARKER OF RBPUBLISHING. DESIGN AND TECHNICAL PREPARATION: TONY SZMUK OF BEWRITE BOOKS. ADDED EDITORIAL INPUT: THE BEWRITE BOOKS TEAM. EBOOK EDITIONS AND DISTRIBUTION: BEWRITE BOOKS.

BUNDLES OF BARGAINS AND BARGAINS OF BUNDLES

We promised last week, so here you go, folks: The first BeWrite Books e-Omnibus of three individual and unabridged works, each with its original cover and in the digital format of your choice from all online ebook stores or direct from BeWrite Books, in a single, quick download ... and at bargain basement price.

     Omnibus #1 is Jenny Telfer Chaplin's The Candleriggs Trilogy – complete. It will be followed on July 15 by Hugh McCracken's The Masters of Mobius: a Medieval Time Travel Trilogy. And on July 18 we will release the first three books in Brian Kavanagh's ongoing Belinda Lawrence Mysteries series in a single download omnibus edition. From there in, BB e-bundles will be released at a rate of at least one per week. So watch this blog for release announcements, and p-p-pick up a parcel.

     You can still buy the individual ebooks anywhere on line or direct from THE BEWRITE BOOKS BOOKSTORE at a recommended cover price of $5.95. These BB e-collections, though, offer THREE titles at a saving of more than 40% with a cover price of just $9.95. This is a tad less than the very minimum charged for a single volume by those many publishers using what's called the 'Agency Five' pricing model which allows no discounting of cover price.

     "What a coincidence!" some sarcastically noted this last week. "Three for less than the price of one under A5M." 

     Yes indeed. What a coincidence, eh? And may the gods bless you for noticing and -- in some cases unintentionally -- spreading the good word.

Anyway, here's what Jenny's Candleriggs Trilogy is all about ...

THE CANDLERIGGS TRILOGY by JENNY TELFER CHAPLIN

As the tragic 19th Century turns into the equally hopeless 20th century for millions of helpless poor, Kate Kinnon refuses to buckle under the overwhelming odds against an unmarried and pregnant, penniless and disgraced chambermaid, escaping the horrors of her native Ireland for the even worse terrors of Scotland's city slums.

     There she faces the added and unexpected miseries of a detested Irish immigrant in the lowest sub-caste of a grim Glasgow underworld of the ragged, starving and desperate, struggling to survive the blackest and bleakest of times on their own home ground. Kate is the outsider.

     Is this a rags-to-riches story? Only the reader of this trilogy will know. But along the way will be encountered love and betrayal, disasters and triumphs – and, in Kate Kinnon, a woman never to be forgotten.

Told with humour, compassion and uncanny insight into the period, 'The Candleriggs Trilogy' is a multi-leveled and multi-faceted first rate read.

     This exclusive BeWrite Books ebook Omnibus, DRM-free for fair sharing and in all popular digital formats, contains the unabridged books – each introduced with its original cover – in a single, quick and light download for any electronic reading platform under the sun from a PC or laptop, through all ebook-dedicated reading devices to tablets and smart phones.

These three titles are stand-alone novels in their own right, but for even greater enjoyment and ultimate satisfaction, we suggest you read them in sequence, as characters and situations flow and develop, page by page, book by book.

*Author Jenny Chaplin is well-loved by loyal readers worldwide for her books on Scottish social history and for her regular articles in the 'Scots Magazine' and the 'Scottish Banner'. She is also a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. She writes in a centuries' old cottage on the remote Scottish western island of Bute under the name Jenny Telfer Chaplin to differentiate between her fiction and non-fiction work.

A TIP AND A WARNING: By visiting the BeWrite Books Bookstore and homing in on the OUR AUTHORS page you can read about all of Jenny's books and about each novel in this trilogy, complete with a free chapter of each. That's the tip. Here's the warning. Unlike with an ongoing series, cover notes on each book in a trilogy tend to describe an updated storyline and reveal developments. Anyone new to this work might well consider these notes 'spoilers' – unwelcome hints of things to come. My advice? Don't read the individual title notes in case it lets cats out of bags that you would rather release yourself as you read along.

THE CANDLERIGGS TRILOGY. Author: Jenny Chaplin. Editor: Hugh McCracken. Design and technical preparation of the collection e-editions: Tony Szmuk. The Books are also available in paperback at BEWRITE BOOKS and from all online bookstores or on order from your local brick and mortar book shop if they are not in stock.

Happy e-reading, chums. Neil Marr et al at BB

MYSTERY AND DANGER SCREAM FROM NEW BEWRITE BOOKS DARK CRIME THRILLER

SCREAMS IN THE WOODS by MIKE MARTIN

Today's new release from BeWrite Books is a chilling crime thriller ... the gripping tale of a lethal threat that comes to light by chance more than 100 years after the event that lies at its black heart.

Christine Lynch is handed a file by her private investigation agency boss. A routine dossier. A year earlier, two local men had suddenly and inexplicably disappeared. Police made no immediate progress and back-burnered the case as low profile.

But the wife of one of the missing men has given Christine’s boss the file with a scrawled comment: "Basis for a Stephen King novel!"

Christine looks again at the hand-written line, her imagination stirs ... and she soon finds that the claim was no joke.
 

The missing men had been researching a century old mining disaster when they vanished. Contemporary reports indicated a straightforward explanation. But later information reveals a cover-up and the terrible consequences of the pit owners’ efforts to find a dark secret buried deep underground.
 

Now, there’s a bitter war for its possession. One fanatical group is desperate to use it for its own purposes, the other passionately seeks to conceal it forever … and to save humanity.
 

Working on the questionable moral belief that ends justify means, each side is equally ruthless in its struggle.
 

Christine is lured into a web of intrigue, unable to tell friend from foe. Can she discover which side stands for good and which for evil? And if she can … can she find out in time?

Available now in paperback from BEWRITE BOOKS, all online stores and on order from your local brick-and-mortar bookshop. Also available in all ebook formats from BeWrite Books and all major and minor online ebook bookstores.

Author: Mike Martin. Editor: Hugh McCracken. Text design, technical preparation and creation of digital editions: Tony Szmuk.

BUNDLES OF FUN ... BEWRITE BOOKS LAUNCHES OMNIBUS EDITIONS

INTRODUCING BEWRITE BOOKS OMNIBUS e-EDITIONS

You’ve seen them in your local book shop – hefty book bundles at knock-down prices, buy-two-get-one-free offers and what have you. So, for the first time, BeWrite Books is launching e-bundles ... unabridged trilogies, collections of three books in an ongoing series, books by the same single and prolific author, also books grouped in specific genres.

The bright idea is simply to bring new readers a completed trilogy, to introduce them to running series, to an author or an untried genre. And without paying through the nose for the privilege. These are no grab-bags for cherry-picking of goodies, though. The titles in each collection have been carefully selected for complete satisfaction and enjoyment of every item contained.

All BeWrite Books Omnibus e-bundles will be in simple, quick-to-download, easy-to-catalogue ebook form in all popular digital formats direct from BB’s own BOOKSTORE or from all major and minor online ebook sellers.

And they will be on sale at more than 40% off the combined cover price of the individual titles included ... $9.95 for three complete books is less than the very minimum cover price of a single title by those many publishers using the Agency Five Model pricing method that does not allow discounting of ebooks. We don't play A5M. And we don't play DRM padlocking, either. These e-Omnibuses -- like our paperbacks -- are for sharing with friends and family. We trust you, of course, not to make a business of this (now pretty rare) freedom to share.

All titles will remain on sale individually at all retail outlets, but if you’re new to a series, author or genre, you can now sample each book in the new BB eOminibus editions for little more than the price of a Starbucks cappuccino (or a pint of beer in macho money).

And you can still read about the books, their authors, read reviews and free extracts by clicking on the individual titles in OUR BOOKSTORE (for quicker reference go to the OUR AUTHORS page and scroll down to home in on individual authors and their titles).

But a word of advice if you have read none of these books so far: We suggest you do NOT first read the back cover blurbs (known as side-notes in the digital world) for each individual title. Hold your horses. Thing is that back notes on volumes in a trilogy or a series tend to hint at wee spoilers, new book by new book, which is something you neither need nor want if you’re reading in series. Our Omnibus e-Edition collections will be released with completely re-written notes that describe them to a 'T' .... without letting any cats out of bags to reduce the pleasure of your discovering for yourself the developments, twists, turns, ups and downs as you read in sequence.

All BeWrite Books authors involved have been consulted for their views and for their specific permission to offer readers this special break ... every one has given generous, hearty, enthusiastic approval to the project. Lower prices mean lower royalties, of course. But they also will mean more readers for their superb work. And that counts for a lot in our gang.

We’ll be launching the first BeWrite Books Omnibus e-Edition collections later this month. The first will be (not necessarily in this order), Jenny Chaplin’s Candlerigs Trilogy of historical fiction featuring the unsinkable Kate Kinnon, Hugh McCracken’s Masters of Mobius: Medieval Time Travel Trilogy – of particular appeal to adventurous young adults, their parents and their grandparents (that a wide enough generation catchment, do you think?) – and the first three books in the ever-growing Belinda Lawrence Mysteries series by Brian Kavanagh starring Belinda, who seems as much a magnet to murder as to love-struck beaus.

These are bargain-basement-priced bundles of reading fun, but top-of-the-range reading from skilled, talented authors whose imagination cannot be contained between a single pair of covers. Rolls Royce quality at mini-car cost. Hope you love ’em as much as we’ve loved seeing the works develop, book-by-book, as their authors slaved over hot keyboards, strong coffee and midnight oil to create them.

Within two or three months, we expect to have all appropriate titles available in e-bundle form (that's roughly one new bundle per week). From there in, we will update as new books are released and others become available for e-bundling.

Technical preparation: BeWrite Books tech and design director Tony Szmuk. Editorial preparation: the BeWrite Books editorial team: Exclusive and unabridged content: our wonderful BeWrite Books authors. Other publishers call their contracted authors ‘a stable’, we call ours ‘a table’. And that’s what it is ... a round table of talented equals who collaborate almost daily with the shared intent of keeping the reader happy. And that, folks, is why BB is the happiest house in town.

Happy weekend, chums. Neil

WHO OR WHAT IS 'THE CONFIDENTIAL'?

THE CONFIDENTIAL IS AN EXCLUSIVE NEW JOHN BRAY POLICE PROCEDURAL THRILLER RELEASED TODAY BY BEWRITE BOOKS IN PAPERBACK AND ALL EBOOK FORMATS

Dante Falconieri lives in the murky shadows, assigned the dirtiest undercover job of all … trapping fellow cops on the take from crime lords.

Dante is the guardian who guards the guardians.

But who guards Dante, the lone wolf and the wild card?

He's cynical and disillusioned. His promotion's stalled. He craves a return to the narcotics stings that made him the best undercover man the Federal Drug Enforcement Agency had. He's weary and needs a vacation. His cop-on-cop busts have led him to mistrust his bosses, their bosses, his closest partners, district attorneys, and the Joint Federal, State and City crack task force to which he's on loan for the biggest sting of all.

His trophy girlfriend needs much more than his agent's pay check can buy. And what comfort he has left – this all-consuming passion for Mina – is threatened by his code of secrecy, his unexplained, mysterious midnight disappearances from her bed at a bleep of his phone, and his shallow pockets.

His mind and his devotion to justice are showing cracks as subtly visible as those that eventually felled the House of Usher.

Can Dante himself be trusted, or can he be turned to the dark side by the very villains he's dedicated his life to putting behind bars … or consigning to hell? They're trying hard, and disheartened Dante is a desperate man. Open to temptation?

Author John Bray is a 17-year NYPD vet, who retired as a lieutenant attorney prosecutor and took early retirement to practice as a crime lawyer before becoming a full-time fiction writer. He knows what makes the man who is coded by investigation-hardened insiders as 'The Confidential'.

This Byzantine tale of intrigue and cunning deception twists and turns at every flip of a page, building to a climax that will leave you wiser – wise enough to be scared stiff! Dante is a beautifully flawed anti-hero … an irresistible character you'd never want to meet, but who you can't wait to read more of. NM

MORE ABOUT THE BOOK AND THE AUTHOR AND READ CHAPTER ONE AT THE BEWRITE BOOKS BOOKSTORE HERE. AVAILABLE NOW IN PAPERBACK FROM BEWRITE BOOKS ITSELF AND FROM ALL MAJOR AND MINOR ONLINE BOOKSTORES AND ON ORDER FROM YOUR LOCAL BRICK AND MORTAR BOOK SHOP. EBOOK EDITIONS AVAILABLE DIRECT FROM BEWRITE BOOKS OR FROM ALL MAJOR ONLINE EBOOK STORES IN DIGITAL FORMATS FOR ALL ELECTRONIC READING PLATFORMS FROM PCs AND LAPTOPS, THROUGH THE FULL RANGE OF EBOOK-DEDICATED READING DEVICES, TABLETS, iPODS AND SMART PHONES.

THE CONFIDENTIAL. Author: John Bray. Published internationally by: BeWrite Books. Editor: Hugh McCracken. Cover art, text design and technical creation of digital editions: Tony Szmuk. Proof reading etc: BeWrite Books editorial team.

Best wishes. Neil Marr