The E-Sylum:  Volume 10, Number 51, December 16, 2007, Article 8

DOUBLE DAGGERS AUTHOR JAMES CLIFFORD INTERVIEWED

[An interview with James Clifford, author of the numismatic
novel 'Double Daggers' was published this week.  In it he
discusses his work and his next book.  Here are some excerpts.
-Editor]

How would you describe your creative process while writing
this novel? Was it stream-of-consciousness writing, or did
you first write an outline? How long did it take you to
write it?

 I would describe it as haphazard. Double Daggers was a
 challenge to write because it is set in four different
 time periods: the Roman Empire, The Crusades, World War II
 and New York City in the present. But the characters in each
 time period are similar, at least in their motivations,
 flaws, and obsessions.

 The book took about three years to finish but that includes
 many stops and starts and even months of not working on it
 at all. Double Daggers took me a little longer to write than
 others because of the research that was necessary do to the
 different time periods in history.

What type of book promotion seems to work the best for you?

 My books are fiction but I have numismatic elements to them
 so I have a bit of a niche market. We do a lot of targeted
 marketing through mailers and placing ads in trade magazines.
 I also have booths at coin shows and I spend a lot of time
 trying to come up with non-traditional ways to sell my books.
 An example of the non-traditional market that has worked for
 me is that a relative of mine owns an auto-repair center
 and they sell a couple hundred copies of my books ever year.

Do you have another novel on the works? Would you like to
tell readers about your current or future projects?

 Double Daggers is my second novel and I just finished a new
 one that I am excited about.

 The story is about what happens when a successful family
 man who has more cracks underneath his surface than a
 shattered mirror collides with a Cherokee curse, a fortune
 in gold coins stolen before the Civil War and the discovery
 of his family's darkest secrets — Ten Days to Madness.

 The book is set over ten days and like Double Daggers it
 is a work of fiction with a numismatic element to it. In
 Ten Days to Madness the chief character discovers a diary
 written by one of his ancestor and the diary makes him
 obsessed with finding an ancient burial cave in the
 Appalachian Mountains that, according to his ancestor,
 contains a fortune in Bechtler gold coins.

To read the complete interview, see:
Full Story

  Wayne Homren, Editor

	coinbooks.org Web

The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization 
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