An Introduction

I write professionally under the pen name of Jack Bates. I do this within the crime fiction community. It's something I started to doing in the winter of 2009 after I sold the first in the Harry Landers, PI series to Mind Wings Audio, a start-up publishng company that deals with producing novellas on disk or as an MP3. I was a little skeptical at first but now, as the royalty checks roll in every quarter, I have to say this is a pretty good gig.

I've branched out, publishing on a couple of hard-boiled sites. It's really been a ride finding my niche after writing for thirty some years as a hobby. Mind you, I started when I was eighteen but in those early days, I was trying to be a name, not a writer. Now I'm what I've never thought of being and I'm digging it. Who would have thought after all those years of watching black and white crime films and reading Bradbury, Hemingway, and nearly the entire gamut of the Hard Case series I'd be doing this?

Me, I guess. I mean, writing has always been a source of enjoyment for me. I started with plays and have recently had a few short ones produced. I got a Super 8 movie camera when I was in my teens and copied what I saw at matinees; I never attempted Star Wars, though. I did do a remake of James Brolin's The Car and called it The Bike, starring my nephew as a demonic bike rider with a robot head. We used a mask we had gotten at Disney World, of all places. I was story-boarding before it was in style. In 2007 I sold a screenplay to Triboro Films.

So now here I am the author of a pretty well received series about a rookie PI who is afraid to carry a gun. Not use a gun, just carry it. He's afraid of the power he holds. His dream is to be a private eye in Las Vegas so he's cutting his teeth in Detroit and its suburbs, hoping to toughen up and learn the ropes. Did I mention he's a gambling addict who chases jackpots and even when he wins one he realizes the old addage 'A dollar is too much and a thousand isn't enough' is more truth then he'll ever get out of his clients.

I have nine Landers stories sold. Five are produced. There is one stand alone novella about a drifter with a motorcycle and penchant for finding bad girls. It just might cost the guy his life.