Month: April 2025

Call for ARC readers

Posted on by Tony McFadden

Hello, all you happy readers. I’m calling for ARC reviewers. You can sign up for either one or both of my two upcoming books by going to this form.

[EDIT: The original form was spammed, with over 24,000 “responses” in 12 hours. I’ve added Google verification to address this issue. If you’d prefer not to go through Google, please leave a comment below with the word ‘elephant’ in it if you’re interested in being an ARC reader, and I’ll reach out to you.

Both books stand alone, so don’t feel you’ll be short-changed by reading only one of them.

Just a reminder that I’ll be managing book distribution through Booksprout.co You can sign up for a free reader account at this link.

Fast Track is Mac Durridge’s latest case.

Mac has been scrounging for cases. Business hasn’t been good.

Thirteen-year-old Josh has hired him to find his coin collection for the princely sum of $25.

He’s in the middle of that nearly pro bono case when Sophie, his on-again, currently off-again girlfriend, comes to him with a problem. Her best friend, Central Coast Network News reporter Linda Carmody, hasn’t been heard from in over a week.

Completely out of character.

Mac’s investigation uncovers a financial conspiracy that threatens to topple the government and exposes him to a level of physical danger he hasn’t encountered in years.

Do Not Pass Go is Nick Harding’s latest case.

Nick Harding’s fifth case.

With the rotten smell of his last case still lingering, Nick is hired to find a missing person.

His girlfriend, Lucy, asks him to locate Alex Bainbridge, one of her close friends from university and a member of a group of six who have remained in touch since their time there. He is a financial journalist who often goes to the ground during investigations, but this time, he has missed a regular group gathering and has become electronically invisible.

Nick’s investigation uncovers a financial conspiracy that threatens to topple another government and exposes him to a level of physical danger he hasn’t encountered in years. ARCs will be available starting next week.

Pop over to this form (opens in a new window) and register. Since these books are both releasing on July 18, I’m looking for reviews by July 11 to help propel the launch.

Review copies will be made available (and ARC readers accepted) through Booksprout the first week of May until the end of June.

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Why Indie?

Posted on by Tony McFadden

Why, indeed?

fingers typing on a keyboard, much like mine are now.

And not ‘self-published’, please. Independently published.

First and foremost, not a huge fan of gatekeeping of any kind. I realise that a lack of gatekeeping can equate to a lack of quality control, but when we’re talking about books, poor quality won’t result in a collapsed bridge or a sunken ship.

The market will take care of the crap. Sometimes.

It will always take care of the technical crap—the misspellings, poor grammar, shitty covers—but not always take care of writing crap—poor story structure, weak character arcs, gaping plot holes. Sometimes, inexplicably, those poorly written books become “best sellers” and “money-making movies” and “competitive drinking amongst not-so-lucky other writers”.

Anywho.

The second reason is the timeframes involved. A writer friend, part of a writers’ group I was once a member of, announced that she had signed with a small publisher. Congratulations were justifiably shared.

I don’t remember the exact timeline, but it was in the order of signing the publishing contract in January and the book would be on the shelves by the FOLLOWING MARCH. Fifteen months later.

And she’d have to arrange and bear the cost of most of the marketing.

With indie publishing, when the book is ready, the book is ready. The biggest challenge (after writing the book, and editing the book, and editing the book again) is knowing what “ready” looks like. Traditional publishing offers a layer of professional editors. They aren’t free. Their cost is factored in when your royalties are calculated. But it does buffer the author against editing mistakes. It doesn’t guarantee no mistakes, but it provides a scapegoat for the poor author.

The reality of writing is that unless you’re a top-tier author, the grunt work is on the author’s lap. So you may as well do it on your terms.

Back to the gatekeeping aspect for a closer.

Gatekeeping adds technical quality — most of the time. I read a traditionally published book where a main character’s age changed from something like 53 to 47 over two paragraphs. In another book, the main character left his rifle at the back door of a house he was entering, only to have it in his possession on the next page when he needed it.

Nobody’s perfect.

So, it’s a trade-off for me. In a couple of weeks, I’ll post about how I self-edit the shit out of my stories to lighten that weight of preconceived poor quality just a little bit for the rest of you indie authors.

Introduction: Nick Harding

Posted on by Tony McFadden

I’ve already written four Nick Harding case files, but for those who haven’t read them yet, an introduction is in order in advance of the fifth, coming in July (subscribe, top right of this page, to get updates).

I wanted to veer away from the whiskey-soaked, ex-beat cop trope for my next PI. And I happened to be working (in the job that put the good food on the table) in risk management and governance when I was in the ‘what am I going to write about now’ phase.

Map of Sydney to Bondi Beach, the part of the city Nik Harding lives and works.

Nick Harding is a former Australian Federal Police officer based in Sydney who led investigations into money laundering and other financial crimes. Until the regularity of it all bored his socks off. There are only so many ways to clean money. Once you knew what they were, it came down to uncovering the electronic paper trail. Or, more often than not, trails.

Boring.

AUSTRAC had the really fun work, and he couldn’t get a nose in with them.

So Nick split off on his own and set up a small (it couldn’t be any smaller) firm to help companies guard against internal financial crime. It seemed like a safe, not at all dangerous, way to make a buck.

I mean, if you don’t include the beatings, abductions, threats to friends and family and trashed cars and apartments.

Funnily enough, he’s found the danger more appealing. He now has tacit proof that his fights bring results. He sees the baddies getting cuffed. He even has, on occasion, meted out the punishment himself. A darker side of himself he didn’t know he had.

E-books can be found on all good and evil purveyors of digital stuff.

Paperbacks (including Large Print) are on

Barnes&Noble: Batteries Not Included | Broken | Dead Tomorrow | Under the Shadows and

bookshop.org: Batteries Not Included | Broken | Dead Tomorrow | Under the Shadows

Subscribe to be notified when the next in the series, Do Not Pass Go (18 July) is available for pre-order

Artificial Pseudo-Intelligence

Posted on by Tony McFadden

I’ve drafted this post too many times. It’s very straightforward: There is no place for AI in creating art.

I received an email from the South American River ™ this morning informing me (and they seemed proud of the fact) that I had been “…invited to participate in KDP’s beta for audiobooks.” ALL of my books were eligible.

I took one of them through the steps to the point where I could “edit” the audio. First, the voices had no Australian option. Strike one. Second, it pronounced some slang incorrectly. Strike two (though you could alter pronunciation with a very clunky interface). Finally, IT WAS A VIRTUAL PERSON. Strike three.

Shouldn’t have even stepped up to the plate.

I have been aching to release my books as audiobooks. There’s a huge market for them. It’s been impossible to do it in an even remotely financially viable way from Australia, so, on the face of it, this seems like a good alternative.

Except it’s not worth it.

There was a fourth strike, and apologies in advance for the language. (Well, warning in advance. Not apologies.)

In the first chapter, bad guy says other character he had kidnapped to “get in the fucking tub”. (Don’t worry. Bad guy gets apprehended a paragraph later.)

The virtual voice “said” with an inflection that sounded like “get in the tub we use for fornication” as opposed to the way all of us humans would say it. And that wasn’t something I could edit/correct.

AI, as a tool, has some business benefits. It can point someone in the general direction of knowledge. For example, if I need to know what legislative criteria I’d have to follow if I were a telecommunications company, it can provide a list. Though I’d highly recommend you verify it.

When it comes to creating art, it’s A) cheating, B) stealing other people’s work to derive an output and C) pretty poor quality. ‘C’ will slowly go away, and the quality will improve.

A and B are reasons why you still shouldn’t use it.

I will NEVER use AI to write a book, or accept cover art that is AI-created. Solemn word.