I’m taking control this year of my writing/publishing/audiobook career. I was able to go non-exclusive with four audiobooks previously distributed through ACX (it’s a long story, but I can only do this with audiobooks I’d paid the narrator a per hour fee for, the other six books are royalty shares and can’t be changed).

I’ve longed for an alternative to ACX/Amazon/Audible for years, and Findaway Voices has provided the freedom I’m looking for. One of these is to sell my audiobooks directly through a storefront on their platform, and here it is. Look for the other three audiobooks soon, and a new one to be produced later this year.

I’m focusing this year on “going wide” as they say, and I’ve made my ebooks available with a few other popular retailers, as well as direct-buy. You can now get them all at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo. And if you’d like a significant savings, you can buy them directly at my storefront on Payhip.

This is my February monthly video for email subscribers (join us here!) I give a short personal update and let subscribers and visitors to my website know what I’ve been up to with my writing and creative projects the last month, and what’s coming their way with books, projects and podcasts.

Just finished: The narration of ‘Reservation for Murder: A Kyle Callahan Mystery,’ on the Mark McNease Mysteries Podcast. You can also enjoy that as an uninterrupted audiobook on SoundCloud. Next up for narration: Rough and Tumble (A Dystopian Love Tragedy).

I’m a third of the way into the second Maggie Dahl Mystery, ‘Open Secrets,’ and plan to have that out by the fall.

It’s done! My narration for the recently released ‘Reservation for Murder: A Kyle Callahan Mystery’ is now available as a complimentary audiobook on SoundCloud. You can enjoy the entire book, chapter by chapter, by clicking on the playlist. Start and stop as you please, and you don’t need an app to listen.

This is the sixth book in the series and was recently #1 on Kindle’s LGBT mystery bestseller list.

Enjoy, and keep listening for more audio mysteries and fiction. You can also hear this as a weekly podcast, with an introduction and three chapters at a time, at the Mark McNease Mysteries Podcast.

About ‘Reservation for Murder: A Kyle Callahan Mystery’

It’s been several years since Kyle Callahan sought the help of a New York City therapist to overcome the trauma of his encounter with a serial killer, and just as long since his investigation into a teenage girl’s murder brought down the Manhattan District Attorney. He and his husband Danny Durban have decided to move away, to start a new life in the idyllic river city of Lambertville, New Jersey. They have friends there. They’ll have peace and quiet. They can leave the hustle and bustle and stresses of America’s biggest metropolis behind.

They open a bed and breakfast, and soon discover that murder and mayhem are waiting to check in. There’s a writers conference in town, with big names and big egos heading for a clash—and a killing—of titans. No sooner has the ink dried on the guest registry than Kyle finds himself pursuing another murderer, this one closer to home than they’ve ever come. He enlists the help of his old friend and local resident Linda Sikorsky, once a detective on the New Hope, Pennsylvania, police force. The two of them follow one lead after another in a race against time until the shocking truth is exposed.

I came across this online recently. It dates back seven years, to when I’d just had a silly video go viral on YouTube (1.9 million views) about my life as a cubicle dweller. That’s all changed, but the memories remain.

I was asked shortly after that to host an ‘Ask Me Anything’ session on Reddit, where people who logged on could ask me anything. I’d just finished the third installment of my Kyle Callahan Mysteries and I talked about that, as well as some things about my personal life. The newest Kyle Callahan Mystery, Reservation for Murder, just came out a few months ago (the sixth in the series), and I’m narrating it myself with brief introductions as the first of many planned narrations on the Mark McNease Mysteries Podcast. I’ll also be releasing it as an audiobook on SoundCloud once I’ve finished recording all 56 chapters. I’m up to 40 now, so it won’t be long.

Check out my ‘Ask Me Anything’ from 2014

I never post reviews (it’s such a humble brag – no offense to my author friends! I do it in plenty of other ways), but after this crap year I needed this. From a reader on Goodreads for the new book, Reservation for Murder: A Kyle Callahan Mystery:

“It’s been too, too long of a wait. Five years! I read “Kill Switch” back in 2016 and have been hoping for a 6th book in this amazing and thrilling series.

I love the characters of Kyle and Danny. It’s refreshing to read a LGBTQA+ book with main characters of my generation. And to make them a well rounded, 3-dimensional, realist gay couple. I was pleasantly surprised and refreshing thrilled that even though they were a loving and affectionate couple I did not end up knowing their penis size, what their favorite type of lubricant was and who pitched and who catched. Mark McNease has a wonderful way of slowly building suspense and character development. He sucks you into the story and doesn’t let go. Highly recommend this series and I hope and pry Mr. McNease writes many more books in this series.”

It’s enough to make me want to keep writing!

Merry Christmas! Finally, something good to end this year on. My newest, Reservation for Murder: A Kyle Callahan Mystery, hit #1 in LGBT Mystery on Amazon’s Kindle list today.