Debbi Mack interviews crime writer Bill Duncan on the Crime Cafe podcast.
Read along with the podcast or, if you’re in a rush, download a copy of the show notes here. This post contains affiliate links.
Debbi: Hi everyone. This is the Crime Cafe, your podcasting source of great crime, suspense and thriller writing. I’m your host Debbi Mack. Before I bring on my guest, I’ll just remind you that the Crime Cafe has two ebooks for sale: the nine book box set and the short story anthology. You can find the buy links for both on my website, debbimack.com, under the Crime Cafe link. You can also get a free copy of either book, if you become a Patreon supporter. You’ll get that and much more if you support the podcast on Patreon, along with our eternal gratitude for doing so.
I would also like to recommend Stitcher Premium, if you're a fan of podcasts. If you like true crime or crime fiction, there are loads of podcasts out there for you. And with Stitcher Premium you can listen to the exclusive archives from Criminology or bonus episodes from True Crime Garage. You can also listen ad-free to episodes of your favorite podcasts. I've subscribed, and for only $4.99 a month, it's nice to have the ad-free entertainment. Just go to www.stitcher.com/premium and use the promo code, CRIMECAFE, to try it out absolutely free for a month.
Debbi [00:01:44]: Hi, everyone. I'm pleased to have with me today an author who writes private eye novels—my favorite sub-genre. Today's guest is the author of the Rafferty Private Eye series, and his name is Bill Duncan. Hi, Bill. It's good to have you on today. Thanks for being here.
Bill [00:02:06]: Hey, Debbi. It's great to be here.
Debbi [00:02:07]: Awesome. It's great to have you. And first, I just think it's wonderful that you've brought your father's books back onto the market through self-publishing. He must have been very proud of you.
Bill [00:02:20]: He was. It was a fantastic exercise to do and it was the sort of thing that finally gave him the ability to hear from the fans that he didn't get to hear from back during his trade pub days. So, as I think I alluded to a little bit in the guest blog post, back when he was publishing, the publishers asked for more books, sent royalty checks, that was about it. That was the sort of level of—and edits obviously, but that was the level of interaction that dad had with the funnel, I guess, where his books were going. So, he never really knew. And then to be able to hear, you know, 30 years later from people who had loved his books originally and then were loving them again now, was pretty special for him, yeah. And then for me too to be able to give that to him, yeah.
Debbi [00:03:24]: That's just so fantastic. So, your father's fan base was out there waiting for these books to be re-released pretty much. That must have provided a lot of help with the sales.
Bill [00:03:37]: Look, it did but there were some very influential people who had been fans of dad’s and they were great in sort of getting the word out. The funny thing that I found, though, is that the original books were only released in the US and Canada. And so, while there were a lot of fans that came back and said “it's great to see Rafferty back”, there were equally as many fans who never got a chance to meet the characters the first time around. So, they were reading Rafferty for the first time, and I had a number of emails from people saying, “I just wish I'd been able to get it the first time around”. So, people living in Europe and Canada and so on, who'd never met the character before. So, there was a fan base but then there was a new fan base that also picked up, which was great.
Debbi [00:04:36]: That's fantastic. These books, what year were they first written?
Bill [00:04:43]: Rafferty’s Rules, the first in the series, was written in ’85, I think from memory. I didn't study up on that question, Debbi. (chuckles)
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit debbi.substack.com/subscribe
