J. A. Konrath and Whiskey Sour

I just finished Whiskey Sour by J. A. Konrath, a serial killer / police procedural novel, the first featuring Konrath's series character Jacqueline "Jack" Daniels.  I'm not a big series mystery reader.  I believe I have read one Alex Cross novel several years ago, so even when Konrath initially caught my attention by way of his very cool blog, A Newbie's Guide to Publishing, I didn't necessarily plan on checking out the Jack Daniels novels.

Apparently "pre-published" is either a new, softer, term for "unpublished," or a subset of "unpublished" that only includes stuff the author actually intends to get published.  This is writer lingo I picked up from Konrath's blog.  I was drawn to Konrath's blog because lately, after not really thinking about it for years, I've again started thinking it would be fun to get something I've written published.  Now, I don't think I would qualify as "pre-published" because I don't really have anything ready to intend to get published, but the definitely has me thinking in that direction.  Konrath's extensive discussion of his own experience publishing to the Kindle spurred me to make my first Kindle purchase, and it seemed only fair to give that sale to Konrath, so I ordered his ebook The Newbie's Guide to Publishing (notice that definite article -- clearly superior to the blog).

At several points in The Newbie's Guide, Konrath turns to his own fiction for illustrative excerpts, and those excerpts piqued my interest enough to convince me to try out one of Konrath's short story collections, Crime Stories, which was available for just a couple dollars for the Kindle.  To be honest, much of the short fiction didn't do a whole lot for me, but I liked Konrath's voice enough that I decided to give Whiskey Sour a shot and picked up the paperback.  All of which appears to prove a point that Konrath makes again and again on his blog -- cheap ebooks are an easy sell and can also route readers to more expensive print books.