The Minnesota Crime Wave Gives a Peek At the Future of Fiction Book Maketing

Three authors, who call themselves the Minnesota Crime Wave, may be showing us the future of how books of fiction can be marketed. Mystery writers Carl Brookins, Ellen Hart, and William Kent Krueger have put together what could be called a poor man’s version of Book TV, the nationally seen weekend show that limits content to non-fiction books.

These three, with the help of volunteer staff at CTV-15 have turned the Minnesota Crime Wave into a series of shows that is, in the words of Bookins who serves as moderator, a “fast-moving, light-toned program that deals with serious topics in publishing, mystery writing, writing (in other genre), and authors.”

The format of the show is simple. The three authors sit at a round table in front of a black curtain in a TV studio, presenting a show in three segments, separated by graphics, a design that gives flexibility. A typical show may include a discussion on some aspect of the publishing business; an interview with an author (not necessarily a mystery writer), and a discussion of a mystery of note such as Dashiell Hammett’s 1930 detective novel, THE MALTESE FALCON.

When the idea for such a show was born, Brookins admits the questions were, “ How many people will watch? Will the program reach its intended audience? Those two questions have become easier to answer now that the show goes beyond the limits of the local cable system.

Thanks to the Internet and You Tube, The Minnesota Crime Wave is now available to an audience of many thousands, if not millions of viewers. On its Web site, The MCW now posts each of the three segments of its TV show.

Any person, at any point on the globe, who has an Internet connection and an interest, can watch the shows. This is the step that may give a glimpse of the future as authors of fiction struggle to find ways to promote and sell their books.

Publisher financed publicity, except for a few superstar writers, is becoming a shrinking part of the industry. In many cases, an author is handed an advance check and the responsibility for promoting and marketing his or her book.

The book gets listed in marketing catalogs such as Amazon, and if lucky enough to get good reviews from the right people, catches the attention of the library trade. The rest is up to the author.

The average author, either on his or her own, or through a publicity firm if such can be afforded, or working with other writers, begins the arduous task of assembling a collection of promotional items and a schedule for appearances and signings.

Personal travel, be it to bookstores for signings or to attend conferences, can consume large amounts of a writer’s time and the cost can quickly exceed any advance and profit from book sales. These limits of time and money can turn the author’s personal appearances, at best, into a regional endeavor. Too often, a national tour remains the stuff of dreams.

These limitations are the things that give the Minnesota Crime Wave’s approach to the issue of publicity and marketing such great potential. The approach mimics in concept what changed in the music industry when Country Music Television, VHI and VH2 became household cable fare. If a group recorded an album before the days of these cable shows, the next step was to go on tour for months to promote it.

These mega-tours by musical groups are a thing of the past. Music videos featuring songs from the album are created, and shown on television. These create the publicity and sales for the album. Successful music groups now make fewer public appearances, and when they do, the public reaction, more often than not, creates sell-out audiences.

So, is what the folks in Minnesota doing the wave of the future? It’s quite possible, but not easy. Bookins explained. ”Almost every community of any size has a community or access operation, if served by a cable company. Theoretically almost anyone can produce and cablecast content of almost every imaginable subject.”

“But it can be vastly time intensive,” he explains. “Guests must be invited and then prepped, studio time scheduled, production crews with requisite skills recruited, scripts written, graphics determined and produced. And there are “rehearsals and meetings.”

Will the concept spread? The potential is there at the local level. Federal law requires every cable system within the top 100 in size, to offer at least one public access channel, and the quest for quality program content is a never-ending challenge. Almost every cable system has within its service territory, authors who are looking for new methods for book marketing.

Will the concept grow beyond local productions, with a proliferation of Web sites containing the local show? Could it work on a national level? The potential is there for a fiction version of Book TV.

The potential and technology is also there to follow the path of musical groups into retail stores with videos. Imagine walking into a Barnes and Noble and in addition to the display for an author’s books, see and listening to a video of the author.

It is impossible to underestimate the value of a book reader or music listener seeing his or favorite author or musician on video. Study after study shows that such viewing increases the reader’s or music listener’s desire to see the writer or author in person.

This is not to suggest that the concept will turn hundreds of authors into media darlings and highly sought-after individuals for personal appearances at book conferences, but the appetite of a reader already whetted by an author’s words would be heightened by seeing his or favorite author in a video.

Proof that the idea has potential for growth comes from Brookins who said, “ W e have already started to receive questions and comments from all over the country in reaction to the six programs already produced.”

At lest one other group on the west coast films author appearances at two local bookstores, shows the events on local public access, and offers DVDs of the events for sale. However the Minnesota Crime Wave has demonstrated a clearer path toward a national base for fiction writing.

The founders of the MCW dared to think outside the box, using their talents to give us a new concept. Writers of friction, by their nature, are creatures of imagination. How far and how fast this concept could grow on a national scale is pure conjecture.

Wherever it ends up, the record must show that Minnesota writers, Carl Brookins, Ellen Hart, and William Kent Krueger, helped lift the veil of anonymity behind which most fiction writers live, strangers to all but family, friends, and devoted readers.

Cuban-Born Carolina Garcia-Aguilera Writes with Passion and Complexity

Reading is a lot like fishing. Even if using tackle and bait for only one species, or genre, you know you’ll never catch them all, or read them all. But, when wading into the section of the stream at the library where the mysteries lurk, the desire is to land a prize catch, one you want to tell everyone about.

Such was the case when HAVANA HEAT was reeled in. To say this book, written by Carolina Garcia-Aguilera, is a mystery does not cover its scope. The book is as multi-layered as a wedding cake.

Set in Miami, HAVANA HEAT does not give the reader the flash and flesh of a Tubbs and Crocket episode of Miami Vice. At every level, it pings with the ring of reality that only someone with the author’s background could write.

The book is the fifth in a series featuring Lupe Solano, a private investigator living and working in Miami who carries the passion, as does the author, of her Cuban heritage. Family relationships, food, drink, love of the island homeland; they all come through in the writing.

Fidel Castro had been in power for nearly a year when, in December 1959, Carolina Garcia-Aguilera’s mother picked up her ten-year-old daughter at school and took her to the airport, telling her she was to spend Christmas with her grandparents in Palm Beach. She has never returned to her native Cuba.

In a New York Times interview, she said, ''I feel this sense of loss, of unfinished business, of having been taken violently from my home and from the normal course my life would have followed.''

Garcia-Aguilera presents the world of private investigators without any of the fudging on or glossing over of details is often found in novels written by folks who know their subject matter only through second-hand experiences or discussions. The author spent ten years working in the business.

She wanted to write, but wanted background experience. She went to work for a private detective firm. She told the New York Times, ''I thought I would do it for a few months and then get back to my book,' but I ended up staying for 10 years. I loved it.''

HAVANA HEAT gives readers a picture of Miami’s Cuban society, a cross-section of life, from those who have achieved the American dream of success to those who live on the edge, plotting and scheming for their next score.

The story plot also involves Cuban art. Readers get a glimpse of a shadowy world, from real works confiscated by Castro’s government and sold to raise cash, to forgeries that are sold with faked documents on official, but stolen government forms.

The Old Cobbler has never been known as a connoisseur of a book’s dust jacket art. But in the case of this series, I would be first in line if a local art gallery announced it was hanging an exhibit of poster sized prints of Garcia-Aguilera’s cover art. They are bold in design, vibrant in color, without being garish. Several have been included for the viewing pleasure they give.


Garcia-Aguilera won the Flamingo Award in 1999 and the Shamus Award in 20000, but has not yet climbed to the heights that some of her contemporaries have with their more simple plots and less complex characters.

After reading a few of the “big name” reviews of her works, it is the Old Cobbler’s opinion that the author has delivered a more complex story than those doing the reviews are used to dealing with. Some of the reviews left the impression that the books were liked, but the reviewer was not exactly sure why.

Based on a review of readers' comments, the author seems to have generated more reader buzz with ONE HOT SUMMER, a story in the romance genre, but again one that is more complex and thoughtful than the average romantic read.

It does appear that Hollywood and the TV industry have gotten the message that in Lupe Solano, the author has created a character that has star appeal. If Lupe Solano appears on the screen, big or little, it is The Old Cobbler's bet that Carolina Garcia-Aguilera will take her rightful place among our best-selling mystery authors.

Three Slaves Arrival at Fort Monroe Prompt a Major Shift Civil War Goals

On the night of May 23, 1861, three slaves, Frank Baker, Sheppard Mallory and James Townsend, launched a small boat into the waters of Hampton Roads at Norfolk’s Sewell’s Point and began rowing across the harbor. Their goal was to reach Old Point Comfort and Fort Monroe, still held by Union troops. They made it safely to the fort. And they changed the course of American History.

Their actions that night set into motion one of the most significant moments in the storied history of Old Point Comfort. The chain of events that followed altered the thinking of President Abraham Lincoln, changed the objectives of the Civil War, led to the Emancipation Proclamation, and sowed the seeds of what was to become Hampton University.

It’s safe to say they didn’t envision such lofty achievements when they began their journey. Their owner, Col. Charles K. Mallory had taken them from their home in Elizabeth City County (now the City of Hampton) to work on at a Confederate artillery site in Norfolk. The word was that when finished there, they would be taken south, farther away from their families. They were hoping to prevent this.

One needs to understand the political atmosphere in 1861 to appreciate the risk the three slaves took. Eleven years earlier, political compromises in Washington led to the Fugitive Slave Act. This law directed that any escaped slave be returned to his owner, and any person who did not do this was subject to both fine and jail time.

There were a measurable number of African Americans in northern cities who were free men when the Act was passed, but that did not stop private individuals and even some police departments from going after any African American caught on the streets. Capturing “runaway” slaves became a growth industry in many parts of the country.

In April 1851, public notices were posted in Boston that read, “Caution, colored people of Boston, one and all. You are hereby respectfully cautioned and advised to avoid conversing with the Watchmen and Police officers of Boston. For since the recent order of the mayor & aldermen, they are empowered to act as Kidnappers and Slave Catchers.”

The Union Army, into whose camp the three slaves rowed that night, was known for strict adherence to the letter of the law. What the three men did not know was that two days before a lawyer from Pennsylvania, who had used political connections to become a Union General, had arrived at Fort Monroe.

General Benjamin Franklin Butler, who quickly proved to his superiors in Washington his inability to follow orders, had been assigned to Fort Monroe to get him out of the limelight. The general saw the assignment for what it was, a demotion, protested the move, and accepted only after he negotiated a broader-sounding title.

One can only speculate the decision he made regarding the three slaves was in part a reaction to his reassignment. His said his sworn duty was to take possession of any property that either helped his cause or denied aid to the enemy. Since the slaves were property under federal law, being used to build enemy fortifications, they would not be returned, but held as confiscated contraband of war.

This was contrary to the expressed position of his Commander-in-Chief. President Abraham Lincoln had previously stated he had called out the troops to suppress rebellion against national authority, not to free slaves. The president had even expressed doubt that he had Constitutional authority to do so.

After much discussion with his cabinet, the President reluctantly allowed his Secretary of War to approve General Butler’s action. That decision became the next link in the chain of events, and turned the focus of the war. Eighteen months later, on January 1, 1863, President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. “All persons held as slaves are, and henceforward shall be free.”

Word spread quickly about the decision to support General Butler’s decision. Slaves began flocking to what came to be called Fort Freedom. General Butler appointed one of his officers as “Commissioner of Negro Affairs,” putting him in charge of a group that grew into the thousands.

The slaves filled the available space at Old Point Comfort and spread into the town of Hampton, which ironically had been all but abandoned after it was burned in August of 1861 by Confederate troops, a desperate attempt to keep the town from being used by the Union Army.

Near the war’s end, the federal government established the Freedmen’s Bureau to deal with the issue of freed slaves. The organization that General Butler has established was used as the model for setting up the Bureau. The former Confederate States were divided into areas, each with an assigned superintendent.

The number of former slaves at Old Point Comfort was so large that it was established as a separate area with General Samuel Chapman Armstrong named the Superintendent. The son of the founder of the Hilo Training School for Native Hawaiians, General Armstrong began to teach some of the slaves to read and write.

This effort was so successful that General Armstrong, with help from the American Missionary Society, The Freedmen’s Bureau, and private funds, purchased a local farm. In April 1868, the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute opened. The school continued and is now known as Hampton University.

The historical significance of the efforts of the three slaves to reach Old Point Comfort is underscored in the book, FREEDOM’S FIRST GENERATION, written by Robert F. Engs, a professor and Civil War scholar at the University of Pennsylvania. He calls Fort Monroe “the place where freedom for all Americans finally and truly, if haltingly, began.”

While the nation is filled with memorials, statues, and other physical reminders of less significance historical events, there is nothing of such a nature at Old Point Comfort to tell the world what happened there in May 1861.

Professor Engs has been quoted as saying, “It’s a story that may be well-known in Hampton but not much anyplace else. And it needs to be told. It’s the story of three men who led a migration to Fort Monroe, taking a giant step toward freedom.”

General Butler was one of the most complex men to participate in the Civil War and in its aftermath. Controversy followed him like his shadow, even after his death when executors attempted to separate his private affairs from his involvement in public endeavors. Interestingly enough, his most significant contribution to American history, at Old Point Comfort, seems to get the least attention.

Fort Monroe, Crown Jewel at OPC

The most dominant feature at Old Point Comfort is Fort Monroe, the largest stone fortress built in the United States, and the only one surrounded by a tidal moat. Constructed between 1819 and 1834, the fort covers some 63 acres.

The history of military fortifications on the site begins much earlier. In October 1610, men arrived from England with the expressed purpose of building Fort Algernourne, later referred to as Fort Algernon, at Old Point Comfort. A year later, wooden walls atop an earthen breastwork was home to several heavy guns and a company of men. The history of Fort Algernon was a short one. An accidental fire destroyed it in early 1612.

During the next 200 years, the history of military fortifications at Old Point Comfort is a mixed bag of success in a climate of basic survival, a debate on the need of coastal defenses, ravages of hurricanes, and wrangling over funding between the colonists and the crown.

In the final months of the American War for Independence in 1781, when Admiral de Grasse, commander of the French West Indian fleet, took station in the Chesapeake Bay to help defend Yorktown from the British fleet, he directed troops and cannon ashore to take positions on Old Point Comfort. The troops saw no action, and after the victory at Yorktown, the site was abandoned.

As early as 1791, President George Washington took up the call for coastal defenses. Congress was reluctant to follow the idea. Later, in 1801, when President Thomas Jefferson declared coastal fortifications cost too much and required too many men to maintain, the issue became an under funded, uncoordinated, and largely ignored effort. This proved to be a painful decision during the War of 1812.

In 1813 British war ships met no resistance when they sailed past Old Point Comfort to sack and burn the town of Hampton. Eighteen months later, token defenses on the Potomac River did nothing to stop the British from attacking the nation’s capitol. When they left, only the walls of the White House were still standing; the rest destroyed in a fire started by the invaders.

With lessons learned, bureaucratic Washington turned its attention to coastal defenses. After the requisite number of recommendations, surveys, directives, studies, appointments, and appropriations, work began on a stone fortress at Old Point Comfort in March 1819.

Labor became an issue. The problem was solved by the military decision that all soldiers at east coast installations who were court marshaled and sentenced to more than six months of hard labor would be sent to Old Point Comfort as construction workers. These prisoners were under the guard of men hired by the contractor.

By July 1823, the number of military convicts had reached a number that exceeded the capacity of the civilian guards. On July 25, Company G, 3d Artillery, became the first garrison stationed at Fort Monroe, assigned to guard the convicts.

The following year, construction on the fort had reached a point that active military operations began. Ten artillery companies arrived at Old Point Comfort to form the Artillery School of Practice.

During the last decade of construction, work was suspended when malignant cholera broke out among the construction workers. The shortage of labor also rose up again when the military discontinued the use of military convicts.

In the spring of 19344, work on the fort was declared substantially complete and it was turned over to the military for completion. At the time of turn over, $1,731,264.14 had been spent on construction.

When the Army leaves in 2011, it will end 187 years of continuous military activity at Old Point Comfort. The exact future of Fort Monroe, a national historic landmark for over half a century, is somewhat uncertain as the debate continues as to the future of the entire peninsula known as Old Point Comfort.