AuthorJim Flynn is a humorist, writer and novelist. He is available for speaking engagements. To contact email: [email protected] Archives
April 2025
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 You know what’s crazy? There’s a ton of money being made in the independent writing world right now. But here’s the twist: almost none of it’s being made by people actually writing books. The real jackpot? It’s all in selling dreams about writing books. Online courses, masterclasses, secret Facebook groups—teaching hopeful writers how to build an "author platform" or unlock their "7-Figure Mindset." (For a modest four-figure fee, of course.) It’s the Gold Rush all over again. The prospectors went broke; the guys selling picks and shovels retired early. Today’s version just has better branding and a lot more hashtags. As soon as you publish a book, you get barraged by these wizards who hold the secret key to writing success. It's a way to get more emails than if you reply "Yes, I do want to pay to chat with Lonely Eastern European Women." Not that I've ever done that. A friend told me about it...his name ...Bob. I can't even blame these people who take advantage of wannabe writers. Honestly? It’s kind of brilliant. If you can’t sell a novel, sell the idea of selling a novel. There are a lot of desperate authors out there, and some of the competition is now coming from Artificial Intelligence. There's a YouTube tutorial where a guy in a bathrobe shows you how to "write an AI novel" in one minute. Meanwhile, the rest of us are still doing it the hard way—actually writing the books—because apparently we missed the memo about the real business plan. At least we're stubborn. And hey, stubborn counts for something... right? Meanwhile, just in case, I'm working on a combination marketing plan. How's this from the Jim Flynn Creative Writing Institute? Learn To Write Bestsellers From Attractive Eastern European Women. Only $999. No refunds, but you get a free refrigerator magnet. If you haven't done so, please check out my latest book: Dead Men Don't Cash Checks click the link below: www.amazon.com/dp/B0F3TT394W 
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Civilization Could Depend On This4/19/2025  I am currently working on two books. One deals with how hard it is for a book to compete for attention of people whose minds have been lowered to the reptile level by the cellphone. It's very hard to get people to let go of their phones, Sample overheard conversation: Doctor, what do you mean I can't bring my phone into surgery? But I'm expecting a very important update regarding my fantasy football team while I'm unconscious! Smartphones can do a lot of things books cannot do. Example: I admit this, and I bet you do it too. I use my cellphone to act like a big deal. Scenario: I'm in a group of people and my cellphone buzzes. "Excuse me, I've got to take this." I act like it might be my agent confirming my movie deal with Steven Spielberg, or an encrypted text from U.S. Cyber Command. Civilization may depend on this. What is it really? Some guy I don't remember from high school...sent me a photo...of what he had for brunch. Due to poor lighting it looks like a diseased greenish omelet, oozing over the plate,. It could be an image from the 1950s horror movie, The Monster That Devoured Cleveland. I do not divulge this to the people near me. I act like I will handle this only when I get to a Top Secret, Eyes Only secure location. It's tough for a book to compete with this kind of functionality. More in coming weeks. Meanwhile, if you haven't done so, please take a look at my latest book: Dead Men Don't Cash Checks. go to Amazon to check it out. Click: www.amazon.com/dp/B0F3TT394W 
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 I just published my latest book: Dead Men Don't Cash Checks Lessons I learned since writing the first book:
People have told me that it's my best book, my funniest book. If you're into smart liars, moral ambiguity, and a story that moves fast but hits hard—give Dead Men Don’t Cash Checks a read. Click to find out more on Amazon: www.amazon.com/dp/B0F3TT394W 
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Dead Men Don't Cash Checks4/5/2025  Here's the book description as it appears on Amazon: In JR Johnson’s world, trust is a liability—and he’s done pretending otherwise. A razor-sharp blend of dark humor, espionage, and psychological suspense. After losing $1.5 billion, a chunk of his sanity, and maybe his marriage (it's a little unclear), JR is laying low in Austin, Texas—watching squirrels trip his security cameras and wondering how to get his fortune back. Not to buy a yacht. He wants to give it away—to fund a cutting-edge brain surgery center at Johns Hopkins, where all three of his siblings just happen to work. Ulterior motives? Absolutely. Altruism, with an asterisk. Then the U.S. government shows up with an offer: one job, huge payout, sounds too good to be true. JR’s internal alarm bells start clanging immediately. He doesn’t believe in clean deals, honest motives, or mutual trust. But he says yes—partly because it beats doomscrolling and lonely tacos, and partly because of a recent, unsettling realization: he liked killing the people who tried to kill him. And this job? It might offer the chance to keep that new hobby going. But if he plays this wrong, he won’t just fail—he’ll be discredited...or dead. Dead Men Don’t Cash Checks is a darkly funny, paranoid, and unexpectedly heartfelt thriller about trust, betrayal, and the quiet thrill of doing the right thing… for all the wrong reasons. For fans of smart antiheroes, twisted plots, and gallows humor with a side of Dr. Pepper. Book One in a new series about loyalty, lies, and what happens when trusting anyone feels like the biggest risk of all. Perfect for readers of Barry Eisler, Nick Harkaway, Don Winslow, or early Greg Rucka. to order click below: www.amazon.com/dp/B0F3TT394W
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Dead Man's Password3/29/2025  Okay-the sequel is in the works.
What sequel? The sequel to: Dead Men Don't Cash Checks, the next JR Johnson book. JR is just about ready to hit Amazon. It's structured like a long form TV show, so some issues are resolved, but other items are just beginning. To understand today's headline and the illustration, all you need to do is read: Dead Men Don't Cash Checks. Some of the production elements are out of my control, but it should be published in a week or two. People ask me how I come up with ideas. I just read the news, for example it hit this week that a Risk Manager for Mars Candy Company has been arrested for embezzling $28 million or so, over a period of years. It's a good thing the company had risk management. That's a lot of M&Ms! As readers may remember, JR Johnson loves peanut M&Ms. He might have to get involved. Questions or comments to: [email protected]
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The Next Voice You Hear...3/22/2025  AI is here. Maybe.
Audiobooks are among the fastest growing segments in any entertainment category. But for an Independent Author, producing an audiobook with a live narrator is expensive. A friend suggested I get Scott Brick or Peter Coyote to narrate my new book. If you listen to audiobooks you've heard Scott Brick. He's done Nelson DeMille's books and John Grisham, Clive Cussler, Michael Crichton, several Jack Reacher and Bosch books. Lots of others. Peter Coyote doesn't do as many books, but he does narrate for Ken Burns, for example, the great series on Country Music, and he's been in several movies. It would cost at least $30,000 to get Scott Brick or Peter Coyote. Maybe $50,000 and they both have waiting lists. I have a few audiobooks, the more successful are Be Sincere Even When You Don't Mean It, and Hit Your Second Shot First. on those, I've barely broken even. The other audiobooks I lost money. I'm not in the subsidizing narrators business. Now there's AI. Audible features a service for authors called Virtual Voice. It was good, and has just been upgraded. I may try Virtual Voice for my new book, Dead Men Don't Cash Checks. Attention any voice actor reading this: I would prefer a real person. Shoot me an email if you're interested in making a deal. There's a couple sequels in the pipeline. I still do use a real person to do the book covers, but it's a more modest expense. I'm looking forward to seeing the cover for Dead Men Don't Cash Checks. We're going for a noir-ish look. I'll show it here when it's ready to go. Coming soon. questions or comments: [email protected]
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 There's a new kid on the block. And his name is JR Johnson.
He's pictured here, after he got beat up, but before he got his nose broken by the Russian with the crowbar. I thought about what I had written on this very blog a couple weeks ago. How I mentioned Breaking Bad, The Americans, Longmire, Occupied, Bosch, Person of Interest and some others. Guess what? None of the above are novels! When you learn at an advanced age to write a novel there's no shortage of advice. Some of it is contradictory. Self proclaimed experts don't even agree on what the definition of a novel is. The Hero's Journey. Save the Cat. The Nutshell Technique, The Anatomy of Genres, The Story Grid. I could go on, but I won't. Let's just say I have more than enough plot structure ammunition to defend myself in case I get stuck in a Boredom Competition on an airplane seated next to the librarian who wants to tell me all about the Dewey Decimal System. I could drone on about this stuff long enough to have the Dewey Decimal woman begging the flight attendant to change her seat. I was getting down to the end of my latest story and realized: It doesn't end here! It's not a novel. It's a long form tv show. So--I've decided: I'm a storyteller. And I'm going to present this story structured like a long form tv show. What does that mean to the reader? The first book is just about ready. The new title of the first book: Dead Men Don't Write Checks. The first book is going to be shorter than the previous novels; more like one season of a long form tv show. And there's going to be an audiobook version. And at least two sequels. Know anybody at Netflix, Amazon Prime, Paramount Plus? I've got a pitch for them. Comments or questions: [email protected]
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 You've got to pursue your passion.
Different people have different passions. This week I went to New York with my daughter. Fashion is her passion. Pictured are her Doc Martens custom glitter boots that she wore along with her handmade jacket. The jacket wasn't as flashy as the boots, but quite stylish, and way different than the run-of-the-mill black North Face parkas that so many commuters of both sexes wear these days. Combine that image with my daughter's 6'3" height and we had many people look at us. Correction: People looked at her. I was invisible. When we got home I thought I had missed out on the opportunity to bring her to a bank. Could have parked her in the middle of the bank floor and robbed all the cash. Nobody would have seen me. Oh well, maybe next time. Speaking of cash: A friend of mine told me about a recent plane flight on which a pleasant middle aged woman sat beside him. Turns out she was a librarian with a burning passion for: The Dewey Decimal System. Told him about it for a couple hours! "Really?" I asked. Really. She was so enthusiastic he didn't have the heart to stop her. I asked him how many decimal places did she get into, but it turns out he wasn't paying close enough attention. What a missed opportunity! That conversation started me on an online quest for more knowledge on the Dewey Decimal System. You know how starting a project like that can spiral you down an endless rabbit hole? I had to stop myself after a while, but I will share this: The Dewey Decimal System is owned by a non-profit corporation called the Online Computer Library Center, or OCLC, headquartered in Dublin, Ohio. I'm not making this up. The OCLC charges over 30,000 libraries around the world to be members. I looked up the salary of the CEO of the OCLC. He makes over $2.2 million a year! Not bad for a librarian; someone who doesn't play second base or hit a golf ball at the professional level. That's about $42,300 per week. Who knew? Well, it's possible the guy has a lot of expenses---overdue library books and such. Maybe he uses thousand dollar bills as book marks. And let's not forget the decision making pressure cooker of stress the fellow is faced with: whether a book about World War II should be classified as general, 940.53, or if it contains info on espionage, maybe 940.5481. Where, oh where, to draw the line? I'm not an expert on non-profit accounting, but those organizations have to pay out enough in salaries so they don't show a profit. Sounds like a pretty good gig. Anyhow, it sometimes pays to pursue your passion. I'll be publishing my new book pretty soon, and if successful I hope to avoid being a non-profit corporation this year. The Dewey System should catalogue it at 813.54, Modern American Fiction, published after 1945. questions or comments to: [email protected]
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In The Cone of Silence3/1/2025  Remember Get Smart?
Agent Maxwell Smart used to get into The Cone of Silence with his boss at the spy agency so their conversations were kept secret. Pictured is the smaller version of The Cone, used when the bigger version was deemed not secure enough. How did the actors do this without laughing? I know it must have been many takes before they got it right, but still...that's what I call acting! It's time for me to go into the Cone of Silence about my new book, The Final Password. It's in the finishing stretch. I won't mention it again after this until it's coming out. Some of you may remember that I finished an early version about a year and a half ago. I didn't think it was good enough, so I did Page One rewrite, which is just what it sounds like. I used a different process to do this one. Example: I use Beta Readers, people who look at early drafts to make comments. But this time I used different people, who hadn't read the previous JR Johnson books. This is a darker JR. He's still funny, but he's not the same. Toni Anne is in the book, so is Barbara Jean. As I wrote I imagined this was a long form TV show, like Dexter, The Americans, Longmire, Bosch, or Breaking Bad. Would I watch a show based on this book? That was my goal. Notice I didn't mention Yellowstone. JR makes fun of Yellowstone in The Final Password. I guarantee you'll laugh. Unless you're a big fan of the Dutton family, in which case I may get some hate mail. Coming soon: The Final Password. Comments or questions: [email protected]
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A Little Country Place2/22/2025  This is Alexandre Dumas' country home. It's called Monte Cristo, built after the fabulous success of the novel The Count of...guess where.
I ran across the photo and thought that maybe I'd build a little country place like this after the upcoming success of my next book The Final Password. Didn't know much about Dumas. Just thought he must have been very wealthy from his publishing income. Did a little research. Not so fast! Dumas did make a lot of money on his books, but was a wild, extravagant guy who owed money to all the banks, had scores of mistresses, partied like it was 1999, and as my grandmother would have said: spent a dime for every nickel he made. He eventually defaulted on this home. So I decided not to build a copy of this French chateau in Northwest Connecticut. Thinking more along the lines of a three way attachment for my tractor. Coming soon: The Final Password. JR Johnson as you've never seen him. questions or comments to: [email protected] |
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