Beyond book No. 3
Tag Archives: thatchannel.com
Crime Beat Confidential features Nate Hendley
Nate Hendley true crime writer
Recently taped Episode 2 of Crime Beat Confidential my TV show on thatchannel.com. My guest was Nate Hendley, a true crime writer whose latest book The Boy on the Bicycle is creating a lot of buzz. The book is about a little known (until now) miscarriage of justice in the mid-1950s in Toronto the (supposedly) Good. A then 14-year old teen, Ron Moffat was wrongly accused of murdering a seven-year-old boy, arrested, tried in court, found guilty and spent some time in jail before the real killer (a serial killer) was found. Now Ron joins Nate for their public presentations, including the book launch.
I met Ron at the book launch. Ron is a gentle soul who has been through a lot but he has come through on the other side of a dark tunnel. You need to read his story as told by Nate. Here is a link to Nate’s current blog post on it.
And below is a direct link to the Crime Beat Confidential TV segment on it. Private Investigator Dana Bowman, the main character in my Beyond mystery series , as usual introduces the segment, but she gets serious for a change. She is a mother, so…
I do the actual interview. You will learn a lot from Nate in this TV segment.
Dana Bowman does the Crime Beat Confidential into
Sharon hosting Crime Beat Confidential
Book Promo by Serendipity
The latest Beyond mystery.
I have learned that just having a Marketing Plan to promote my Beyond mystery books (and following it, even) is not always the most lucrative way to do it. The late great John Lennon was right when he said “Life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans.” And so it has been happening with me lately.
In late July I was in the thatchannel.com studio, or rather the main character, PI Dana Bowman, in my Beyond mystery books was being interviewed on the weekly Liquid Lunch show. Three people interviewed Dana – the show’s host, Hugh Reilly and two authors – Jen Frankel (genre fiction) and Dave Boyle (literary fiction). Both Jen and Dave passed along to me a couple of places to do author presentations. And Dave even took it one step further – getting it in motion. This one is that joint presentation literary author Michael Robert Dyet (author of the short story collection Hunting Muskie) and I do – The War Between Mystery Fiction and Literary Fiction. After much to-ing and fro-ing on my part with Dave and the librarian, Michael and I are now scheduled to do our presentation at the Annette Street Library branch in the west end of Toronto, 6.30 p.m., Tuesday, October 23. And we can bring book copies to sell. If you want to see some photos from this presentation we did the end of June at the S. Walter Stewart library branch, visit my website here.
Jen suggested an east end Toronto advertising company that has author readings and emailed me the info afterwards. I still have to follow-up on that one.
Perhaps the most serendipitous one is with my neighbour, Bob. Bob is a retiree who with his wife, Norma Jean, now collects wine and pop bottles and donates the money he gets for them to local kids’ sports leagues for their uniforms and equipment. So he gets my few empty wine bottles when he comes by with his buggy. We also chat then. A month or so ago he told me about another neighbour who would be doing a cable TV show interviewing local people doing interesting unusual things and he was going to be a guest. So, I piped in about being a published mystery author and he jumped in and asked questions about that. Turns out he and his wife are big mystery fiction readers and have a huge collection of books. He asked me about mine and where they could get copies.
So, since then he has bought a copy of all three of the Beyond books from me – this month. The local TV show hasn’t started yet, but who knows…
And Monday some of my cousins came to visit Toronto for the day. We are all avid gardeners so went to the Toronto Botanical Gardens and then came back to my place to see my garden. Then we went to dinner at a local restaurant. It was there that I mentioned Beyond Faith – as they hadn’t been able to come to the Book launch for it last fall. Two of them who are big mystery readers wanted to buy a copy, so it was back to my place for them to do so before they headed for home.
That’s five Beyond books sold this month that was not part of my marketing plan.
Sometimes it is good to give serendipity a chance.
Hey, we writers have story ideas come to us from wherever. Why not let book sales come to us some of the time?
The only thing we have to do is mention our books unless like with the Liquid Lunch show the info is already part of what is going on.
And if you want to find out about the upcoming (so far) Beyond gigs go here and scroll down and a workshop I’m teaching called “Memoir as Creative Nonfiction” – which has nothing do with mystery writing, go here.
I’m not the “M and M” lady for nothing (and I don’t mean those scrumptious chocolate and peanut butter candies, but Mystery and Memoir – that’s what I write)
And here’s the link to that Liquid Lunch segment where Dana Bowman appeared. thatchannel.com does have it on its website, but this You Tube link is quicker.
Cheers.
Sharon
PI Dana Bowman guests on Liquid Lunch
Sharon A. Crawford hosts Crime Beat Confidential TV show
Now that I have finally taped the first segment of my TV show Crime Beat Confidential on the Internet channel thatchannel.com I have a few thoughts on doing a TV show.
First some basic info about the show.
Crime Beat Confidential is the new bi-monthly crime interview show hosted by former journalist and now mystery author Sharon A. Crawford https://samcraw.com/. The first segment opens with a short introduction by Private Investigator Dana Bowman, the main character in Sharon’s Beyond mystery series and then segues to Sharon and her guest, James G. Wigmore, a respected forensic toxicologist. Sharon and James chat about alcohol, DUIs and cannabis. James covers not only the legal aspects, but some of the caveats with the current cannabis because as James says, “Not your grandad’s weed.”
Guest James Wigmore, forensic toxicologist and author of Wigmore on Cannabis
View the show here.
The next segment will be in mid-August. Guests will be in various areas of crime – although not murderers, but not all authors either – police officers and private investigators, crime writing and reading organizations. And authors will have something interesting and unique in their books to talk about.
So, how did all this happen?
I have been interviewed by Hugh Reilly on three segments of his Liquid Lunch show (and no, he does not serve us booze) – one segment for each of my Beyond books. Shane at my publisher’s (Blue Denim Press) got me in for the first book Beyond the Tripping Point the end of October 2012 the day after hurricane remnents hit Toronto. Still raining a bit the day of taping and I missed the bullet for overnight power outages which hit houses on my street from next door.
I’m a former journalist for 35 years or so and also as it turns out I have a new interest and apparently some talent for it – acting – comedy mainly. Those of you who follow this blog know that I sometimes dress up as my main character PI Dana Bowman for author presentations. Well with Dana introducing the show segment and then me taking over doing the interview, we had to tape the first part separately to give me time to change back into me
But to back-up – the producer at thatchannel.com asked me to do a show and Crime Beat Confidential was what I came up with including a sample schedule of shows and she loved it. I had to become a member of thatchannel.com to do the show, but that’s okay as it gives me other benefits including being listed as one of their show presenters. See here and also have a member profile.
We were supposed to tape the first segment in June but one of the two guests cancelled at the last minute as she couldn’t get tine off work. They are tentatively scheduled for the August taping and I have a guest booked for the fall taping.
I don’t think I took it too seriously at first.- especially after announcing it at a Sisters In Crime meeting and then had to postpone the taping. Guess I was going on the modus operatndi of “when I see it I will believe it.” or “when it gets taped…
There were a few ups and downs like the links for my first guest and me not being included in the show. But I think that’s been fixed for future shows.
And getting from the idea stage to actually taping took longer than I expected, but “life” gets in the way.
I found the experience of taping that first show very interesting and thought it went well. My guest has experience appearing on TV before, in court, and lecturing. As mentioned, I am a former journalist (print and online) but have also had some experience with TV – cable TV – doing a few interviews and getting interviewed, but mostly working behind the camera, including operating one of the cameras. My cohort in this was in front of the camera – she has a British accent and that goes over well in an interviewer. We were both freelance writers and we collaborated in choosing guests and met with the guests before to get to know them.
So, I am really enjoying doing this TV show – and. yes it is a way to promote my Beyond mystery books, but I get to. interview all these interesting people and learn something. And PI Dana Bowman gets out from between the book covers and well, rant a little as she does the brief introduction.
Again view the show here.
What do you think?
Anyone else using TV to promote their book? How did it go?
Dana Bowman does the into
Cheers.
Sharon
Getting you and your new book on TV
Being interviewed on a TV show is a good way to get the word out about your book and, if you have a good interviewer, get out some information about you, the author. One sign of interest in your book, is interest in you, the author. How do you write? Why do you write? Or in my case – who wrote the book, Beyond Faith – PI Dana Bowman, the main character who insists she wrote it, or me, Sharon A. Crawford, whose name is on the cover?
All that and more (including non-fiction books versus fiction books) got covered last week when I appeared on the Liquid Lunch where I was interviewed by host Hugh Reilly and a newbie co-host. This is on the Internet channel thatchannel.com – the channel has been going since 2004. Not bigtime ( or small time) TV but TV is no longer just regular channels. Think Crave TV. Think Netflix. And think thatchannel.com
This was my third appearance in six years (one for each Beyond book) on Liquid Lunch. This time I have mixed feelings about the way it went. There wasn’t time for me to read a couple of pages from Beyond Faith because we chatted too much. “We” is mostly Hugh and meas the newbie didn’t say too much and she put her foot in her mouth about one thing she said. But I handled it graciously. Also it was a different studio room and setup from the previous two appearances.
But my biggest gripe was my bangs had been cut too short the day before. Clearly I’m reading too many celebrity stories online. I was able to carry on an intelligent conversation and even steer it back to Beyond Faith when it got a bit off track.
You can check it out for yourself here. Or you can click on the Beyond Faith book cover above and that will take you directly to the interview.
And something extra is coming out of all of this.
I am getting my own TV show on thatchannel.com. It will be about crime – true and fiction and PI Dana Bowman will be a part of it – if she has her way. Show will get going this spring
More info closer to the date. Stay tuned. I’ll keep you posted. Meantime, watch the video (it’s about 27 minutes) and please spread the link to it on your social media. Thanks.
Cheers.
Sharon A. Crawford
Sharon holding up Beyond Faith
TV Interview with Sharon A. and Beyond Blood
Sharon A. Crawford’s latest in the Beyond series
Last week I went back to the Liquid Lunch, this time for an interview about Beyond Blood, its characters and writing or channelling as the co-host Sandra Kyrzakos called it.
Liquid Lunch is a weekly interview show on thatchannel.com. The LL crew and the studio are in the same building in downtown Toronto but now up on the fifth floor. It’s is an old building which even has an elevator operator. I walked into their new location and it is small – a narrow hallway with a computer and desk and to the right where guests sit and talk to some of the crew pre-taping. I had to go back out in the hall to get some paperwork filled out.
Then, I went inside the actual studio – and the atmosphere there is much better than their old studio two floors down. Smaller room here, but brighter with natural light and just the setup of the table was more conducive to interviews.
Did I say interviews? It was more like a chat with old friends, with Hugh Reilly and Sandra and me. My publisher’s editor, who has seen the video, says we all acted relaxed. Yes, but for some reason I stuttered a few times. Not really trying to get in character with Detective Sergeant Donald Fielding who does stutter. And why and when is part of the conversation. So are some of the other characters in the novel. I also get to read the beginning of the novel and wave around some objects that appear in the book.
But I’m not telling you anymore. Instead, go to You Tube where the full interview and my short reading is posted and see and hear for yourself. I am also getting a DVD of it, which my son will edit, i.e., pull out the reading segment so I can post it separately in social media.
Go to http://youtu.be/i2bBaePIWgY and enjoy.
Cheers.
Sharon A. Crawford
Author of the Beyond book series. See http://www.samcraw.com and http://www.bluedenimpress.com for more info. Book at top of this post links to my Amazon author profile.
Sharon A. Crawford author 