Prolific and Public and Not for His Own Profit–Michael Gandy

Michael J. Gandy

Short Bio: Retired from a career in the field of blindness rehabilitation, I have been writing mystery novels since 1989.

Why and when did you begin writing? What inspired your first book? In 1989, after being haunted by a real-life crime in which a leading citizen of a medium-sized city was kidnapped and later found dead,  having died only a couple of hours before the discovery, I decided to novelize it. Cognizant of the fact that real crimes involve real people with real families, I changed the time period, setting, characters, and the nature of the crime.

 Do you have a specific writing style? The tone of each book is determined by the narrator; if in first person style, or my “writer’s voice,” which when I’m reading over a manuscript doesn’t sound like me at all.

 What are your current projects? Every so often, I will publish on Facebook a “Book Report.” Here’s the latest—

Writing Whistler, a small-town mystery set in both Texas and Maryland.

Sending out Solstice, a political/legal yarn to The Gandy Mysteries Weekly Readers, subscribers (for free!) to two novels a year, a half-chapter a week, in nine countries on five continents and, at present, thirty-two of the United States and the District of Columbia.

Finishing edit of P-Town, a Cape Cod mystery.

Just released talking book version of Synergy, another Cape Cod mystery.

Recording Solstice as a talking book.

Transcribing 1978 journal of Europe backpacking trip to be published next year on Facebook as Forty Years On, date-for-date.

Working out final design with my bride Susan Neral Gandy for cover of Coelacanth, a coming-of-age audiobook to be released in August.

Preparing layout for Inspired, a collection of Susan’s covers, for this year’s eBook giveaway at Christmas.

Do you see writing as a career? Absolutely not! I found out years ago that if you make your avocation your vocation, it becomes work. You don’t get to write, you have to write. No, sir!

How do you help new writers? Many of my weekly readers are writers and have shared manuscripts in development with me for comment and review. I also speak about writing to various groups.

 Hardest part of writing latest book? Finding the time! The old cliché about retirees being busier than ever is true! I’m down to two days a week, so my quota is 2,000 words a sitting. When I was working full-time, I wrote five days a week before work and got 500 words out at a time.

 Advice for other writers? Write for the love of writing and sharing what you’ve written, not to get published or to count book sales. I check my eBook sales figures occasionally but knowing that four hundred people are reading my stuff every week via email, that’s a kick!

 What do you love about being a writer? Hearing from my readers! As they are all over the world, it is such a kick to get feedback from readers in Australia or Hawaii or Spain or South Africa or any of the many other places from which mystery buffs will contact me.

 Anything specific to say to your readers? Yes…please sign up to be a Gandy Mysteries Weekly Reader at gandyflix@hotmail.com! It’s always free, as this is not a means of trying to get you to buy anything else…it’s how I publish. Yes, there are other formats, but those are all used to support the state Talking Book Services, formerly the Library for the Blind. I give all my books away and always have!

 Links: Log into amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com and enter “Michael Gandy Mysteries” (fiction) or “Michael Gandy Miniatures” (nonfiction) in the search space, and you’ll find my eBooks.

 

dotday@bellsouth.net