Last week, Minister for Small Business Nick Sherry predicted that brick-and-mortar bookshops would disappear within five years. His intention was to encourage booksellers to embrace online retail; however, all he did was make them angry. (Who didn’t see that coming? Just him, I suspect.)

“Whoa, hey, relax. What’s the big deal?”

For the record, I understand his point. Physical books sales are down. The Red Group (Borders and Angus & Robertson) recently collapsed. In the places where I used to see people reading - train stations, bus-stops, airports, park benches, cafes - I now see people playing Angry Birds on their iPhones. And Australian retailers getting online is important, not just for their own sake, but for consumers. Until 2010, I regularly had the following conversation:

Reader: “Why haven’t you written a sequel to The Lab?”
Me: “I did. It’s called Remote Control.”
Reader: “Then why haven’t you released it?”
Me: “It’s been out since 2007.”
Reader: “Then why isn’t it on Amazon?”
Me: (sigh) “Because Amazon only stocks US publications.”*
Reader: “Then where can I get it?”
Me: “Every single bookshop in Australia. Or, failing that, other online bookshops like Fishpond, Booktopia, Seekbooks or Bookworm.”
Reader: “Wait a sec. There are other online bookshops?”

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I have good news and bad news. Which would you like first?

The bad news? Okay. I don’t know why I bothered asking – no-one ever says they want the good news first. You can’t enjoy the good news if you know there’s bad news coming.

The bad news is that the release of Dead Man Running has been postponed, so you’ll have to wait until 2012 to find out what happens to Agent Six.

The good news is a fact about the book that I’ve been itching to reveal for months. Before I tell you about it, you need to work out what kind of person you are. Some people hate knowing anything at all about a novel’s plot before they read it. I count myself as part of this group – I don’t read blurbs. I even try and avoid titles, to protect against spoilers. (Thanks a bunch, The Invisible Man.)

If you share this quirk, you probably shouldn’t read on, because the good news has a spoiler from page 18.

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If you spend enough time on the internet, at some point you’re going to come across haters, flamers, trolls, and garden-variety idiots. They’re the unfortunate but inevitable consequence of anonymity, and the only tried and true method of dealing with them is to ignore them. No matter what they say, if you refuse to give them the attention they crave, they’ll eventually evaporate.

I have never once passed this test. My desire to not have my time wasted is always trumped by my desire to be a smart-arse. This often gets me into trouble — in high school once a thuggish-looking guy asked me just what the hell I thought I was staring at, and instead of telling the truth, (I’d been watching the soccer game in the distance behind him) I took a glance at his caveman-brow and said “I think it might be the missing link.” When he worked out he’d been insulted, he threw a rubbish bin at me, leading to some richly-deserved humiliation for me and a richly-deserved detention for him.

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I’d just turned 15 when the World Trade Center fell. The newspaper told me that 3,000 people were dead, and while I knew this was a terrible thing, it took me a while to understand the world had fundamentally changed. An earthquake in India had killed 12,000 people earlier that year, and this hadn’t noticably altered the way anyone spoke or behaved or thought.

Of course, earthquakes are no-one’s fault, but the deaths in the Twin Towers turned out to be cold-blooded murder. It had never really occurred to me that someone might kill 3,000 people on purpose - that only happened in ancient history and James Bond movies. The realisation that the world was more complex than I understood came when I saw, on the news, people singing and dancing and waving flags on a street in Afghanistan.

“Why are they so happy?” I asked my dad.

“Because someone’s killed Americans,” he replied.

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In a recent video blog, I suggested that Apple products were overpriced. Amongst the usual flood of death threats, I found this interesting comment from a viewer:

btw this kind of stuff also happens in the gaming industry. it takes $10 for the game company to make one copy of the game. then they sell it to us for $100 or more. this also happens with the game consoles and computers. the truth is that all companies are out to not make profit but make HUGE profit earning him millions of dollars in a matter of months

This is a pretty common view, one that’s often used as a defence by pirates. (I’m not suggesting that commenter was a pirate - the comment was just what got me interested.) “If it only costs a dollar to burn a DVD,” says the pirate, “then why the hell should I pay $99.95 for a pre-burnt one? What a rip-off! Why shouldn’t I steal from those profiteering game companies?”

Profiteer or buccaneer?

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I’ve been to a lot of great plays. Hamlet, A Doll’s House, Uncle Vanya, Doubt. But my very favourite play is one I’ve never seen performed, but only read: The Pillowman, by Martin McDonagh.

The plot: A writer has been arrested, and he doesn’t know why. Nor does he have much time to figure it out, since the police interrogating him are corrupt, and will stop at nothing to get to the answers they’re looking for.

You can tell a book is good when it provokes a physical reaction, such as goosebumps or tears. But The Pillowman is perhaps the only thing I’ve ever read that has actually made me scream out loud (much to the alarm of the person who happpened to be sitting next to me). It also made me laugh quite a lot, as you’d expect from the writer of In Bruges.

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My computer is full of deleted scenes from my novels. Most are too crap to publish. But I’ve just decided that this one isn’t.

If you enjoyed Hit List, hopefully you’ll like this alternative prologue. And if you haven’t read Hit List, hopefully this encourages you.

House Fire

by Jack Heath, 2010

I don’t deserve to die, Kathy Connors thought. I’m not perfect, I’ve done some stupid things, but I don’t deserve this. It’s not fair!

The smell of burning books filled her skull, clouding her thoughts – the fire must have reached the study. The kitchen was already gone, plastic plates melting into Dali paintings, the fridge glowing red as the metal cooked.

She ran towards the back door, head low, eyes watering. Maybe she could still get out that way. But when she rounded the corner, she saw that it was hopeless. The back door, like the front, had been drenched in petrol, and was fully ablaze. She hovered a few metres away, torn – she could try and charge through, and she might survive with some skin intact, but she just couldn’t bring herself to do it. There was so much heat, she didn’t believe the heat, and she wasn’t bold enough to throw herself into the flames. In any case, once she was outside, she had no means of defending herself.

She was just a software developer, for god’s sake. How had she gotten herself into this?

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In Arizona on Saturday, a man got out of a taxi in a supermarket parking lot, drew a Glock 9mm pistol, and fired 31 shots into the surrounding crowd. Six people were killed, including a federal judge and a nine-year old girl. Fourteen more were injured, including US Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who is currently in hospital with a bullet in her brain.

The gunman was trying to reload when a woman grabbed his magazine. As he tried to pull it from her grip, two men tackled him to the ground and another held down his legs. He was arrested shortly thereafter, and has been described by the authorities as “uncooperative” and “unstable”.

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Well, no. Not really. Men can get pregnant (and when it happens, it’s weirder than The X-Files) but in my case, it’s a figurative pregnancy. What I mean is that in nine months time, I will have a bundle of joy to show off.

I’m thrilled to report that I’ve finished writing my new book… and it’s a Six of Hearts book.

Wait, what? You said Third Transmission would be the last one!

That’s correct, I did say that.

What made you change your mind?

I didn’t. I was lying.

Why?

Because the ending of Third Transmission only worked if there was a sense of finality to it. I didn’t want my readers thinking, “How the hell is he going to get out of this one?” I wanted them to think “Wow, what an ending.”

Didn’t you get death threats over that?

Worth it.

So how is Six going to get out of this one?

You’ll have to wait until September to find out. I don’t want to talk about the plot yet - I’ll probably release a blurb in August.

Why did you decide to write another Agent Six book? Are you running out of ideas?

Quite the opposite. While I was writing Third Transmission, a really strong story concept hit me, and it was the kind of idea you don’t walk away from. But it would only work as a Six of Hearts book. No other character could have the necessary back story.

So I wrote some things into Third Transmission that would help me bring Six back for one last adventure, and after I finished Hit List, I started writing it. It took me most of last year.

“One last adventure?” So this will be your last Agent Six book?

Yes.

Why not keep writing them until people stop buying them?

Because then when people did stop buying them, I’d be out of a job. The idea of getting typecast honestly terrifies me.

Besides, I didn’t get into writing for the money. I got into it because I had stories to tell. I’ve still got dozens of novels I want to write, and every year I spend writing Agent Six books means postponing all the others. So this will be Agent Six’s last journey, but he’s going out with a bang.

That’s what you said last time.

And he did, didn’t he?

I mean “Agent Six’s last journey.” You said that last time.

But this time I mean it.

Have you ever read The Boy Who Cried Wolf?

Shut up.

I went to see Harry Potter 7: Part 1 the other day.

I’m not sure why. I didn’t like Harry Potter 1, 4 or 5. (That’s not to say I liked 2, 3 or 6. I skipped them.)

This is strange to me, because I enjoyed the books, and I’m not one of those people who automatically hates film adaptations of their favourite novels. I think the movie is almost never as good, but that doesn’t make it worthless, and it’s always fun to see how the characters looked in someone else’s head.

Except with the Harry Potter films. These movies are well-acted, handsomely photographed, and beautifully scored, with terrific special effects - and yet, somehow, mind-bogglingly dull.

I think I’ve worked out what the problems with the franchise are. I may be too late, and filming on Harry Potter 7: Part 2 is already complete - but if it isn’t, and you’re working on the film, please pass this list along to the producer.

1: Length

Harry Potter 7: Part 1 goes for 2 hours and 26 minutes. This is slightly better than the average length of a Harry Potter film (2 hours and 29 minutes) but it’s a heck of a lot worse than anything Paul W.S. Anderson ever made.

If you want 90 minutes of AWESOME, this is the guy to go to.

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The golden age is over. This Tuesday, the 7th of December, the price of autographed books on this site is going to go up from $17.99 AUD to $19.99.

I thought long and hard about whether or not to write this article - the sensible thing would probably be to change my prices without calling any attention to it. But I figured I owed my loyal customers an explanation.

It’s partly because demand is up (thanks to Xmas), supply is down (I have less time to keep running back and forth from the post office, again thanks to Xmas), and because the US postal service has just changed their security screening procedures and imposed a $9 fee on all international imports (only $5 of which is factored into my shipping rates at the moment.)

Cavity searching the delivery people is expensive.

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Gay marriage has recently gone from being a hot topic to a sweltering topic in Australia. When surveyed, 22 of 39 government MPs expressed support for laws allowing same-sex couples to marry, and only seven were opposed. But despite this, they show no signs of changing the law. On the other side of parliament, Liberal Senator George Brandis has made the following unintentionally funny statement on behalf of the opposition: “We are unequivocally opposed to all forms of discrimination, we are unequivocally opposed to altering the definition of marriage.”

Today, the Courier-Mail published an article by Dr David van Gend, entitled Same-sex marriage hurts kids. “Two lesbian women may be model citizens,” he wrote, “but neither of them can be a dad to a little boy.” Award-winningly sharp-tongued author William Kostakis immediately responded with an article entitled Dearest Douchebag. “The closest thing my (straight) father did to parenting,” he said, “was avoid paying child support and not call on Christmas, teaching me the importance of being self-reliant and never trusting anyone. I was raised by two women, my mother and my grandmother, who, between them, kept me in school, kept me clothed, kept me fed, and you know what? I think I came out pretty darn fantastic.”

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For a writer, few things are more exciting than experimenting with a new style. It challenges us, teaches us, makes us feel young and inexperienced again. It allows us to imitate - and sometimes surpass - the novels we admire.

But there are always risks involved. What if the audience rejects the change? What if writing a Mills & Boon romance is harder than it looks? What if some authors just aren’t cut out for poetry?

This is demonstratably true.

But if anyone can pull off a drastic genre-switch, Tara Moss can. Having written five award-winning, bestselling, blood-freezing crime novels (one of which I reviewed here), she’s now turned her skills to gothic supernatural fiction. Her new book, The Blood Countess, comes out tomorrow. I won’t tell you about the plot - I’ll leave that to the terrific videos down below - but I will share her answers to some questions about the writing process.

JH: The Blood Countess marks your first foray into paranormal fiction - what attracted you to this genre?

TM: I have loved all things gothic and mysterious since I was a child. I was raised on Edward Gorey, and at age six I fell in love with Bela Lugosi’s Dracula through the jumping static of our TV. By age ten I was writing horror novelettes for my school classmates in Canada. In many ways, it is surprising that I haven’t ventured this way before…

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Hooray - it’s new video day!

I should also mention that Jeremy Bolt, (Anderson’s producer) is a hell of a filmmaker.

As always, if you like the video, show your friends. If you don’t, show your enemies.



MITIFOTIT:
Most Interesting Thing I Found On The Internet Today

Thinkgeek.com is currently selling lawn zombies. I want one.

There are two kinds of novelists - those who write for themselves, and those who write for others. The former often produce autobiographical or semi-autobiographical work (Bret Easton Ellis is a good example). The latter usually make stories that are more escapist. I am one of those - you’ll rarely see me exploring my own psychological issues through a novel.

I have photography for that.

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