Bestsellers on Amazon - 21 May

1. Raking Hell (Black Horse Western) by Lee Clinton (28 Feb 2011)
Hardcover £7.99

2. The Ghosts of Poynter (Black Horse Western) by Amos Carr (30 Jun 2012)
Hardcover Available for pre-order £12.38

3. The Kansas Fast Gun (Black Horse Western) by Arthur Kent (31 Oct 2011)
Kindle Edition £2.74

4. Arkansas Smith (Black Horse Western) by Jack Martin (30 Apr 2012)
Kindle Edition £2.74

5. Marshal Law by Cobra Sunman (30 Apr 2012)
Kindle Edition £2.74

6. Chinaman's Gold by Lou Armstrong (30 Apr 2012)
Kindle Edition £2.74

7. Devil's Range by Skeeter Dodds (30 Apr 2012)
Kindle Edition £2.74

8. Gunsmoke in Vegas by J William Allen (30 Apr 2012)
Kindle Edition £2.74

9. The Hanging of Charlie Darke by Will DuRey (30 Apr 2012)
Kindle Edition £2.74

10. Comanchero Trail (Black Horse Western) by Jack Dakota (30 Sep 2011)
Hardcover £9.11

State of the Blog

Blogger recently updated their system with improved statistics. So here's some facts about the visitors to this blog:

Over the last year monthly visitors have grown steadily :

May: 655
Jun: 666
Jul: 678
Aug: 725
Sep: 684
Oct: 806
Nov: 1104
Dec: 1076
Jan: 1192
Feb: 1164
Mar: 1109
Apr: 1253

These people come from:

1. US (48%)
2. UK (26%)
3. Germany (6%)
4. Australia (5%)
5. Russia (5%)
Followed by France, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal and South Korea

The most popular types of item are :

1. Articles - Ride the Trail to Success by Jack Edwardes
2. Reviews - Gunsmoke over New Mexico by Dale Graham
3. Interviews - Derek Rutherford
4. Bestsellers on Amazon.
5. E-BHWs published that month
6. Black Horse Westerns published that month
7. Guest blogger - Jack Giles's granddaughter
8. Dales westerns published that month
9. Linford westerns published that month

Traffic that comes from search engines gets here by people tapping in the following words :

1. Title (yes, the five letters title. Don’t get that)
2. black horse westerns
3. black horse express
4. blackhorseexpress.blogspot.com
5. a black horse western
6. arizona showdown
7. a dorman leishman
8. g.f. unger
9. peter taylor
10. range war
11. skeletal squirrel (a well-covered area on the blog. In fact I know of no other blog that covers it better)
12. 50's comics
13. a western fiction book about a man called strange
14. conestoga boots
15. ghost horse rider
16. joanne lanigan
17. steve ritchie
18. the desperadoes
19. Dead man riding horse
20. Owls (?)

I guess that these statistics tell me that in future I'll have to put more effort into keeping the dead squirrel and owl fanbase happy!

Dales Westerns - May 2012

The Night Horseman by Max Brand

ISBN: 9781842629031
Large Print (Soft Cover) - 400 Pages
Published - 01-06-2012
Genre - Western
Price - £ 15.99

Whistling Dan's friend Joe Cumberland is dying. Although his daughter Kate gets the best doctor available to save him she realizes that the only one who can bring him back is Whistling Dan, the untamed hero that she loved and lost. Can she find him? Will Dan come, and if he comes, will he stay?
 

High Iron by Frank Bonham
ISBN: 9781842629123
Large Print (Soft Cover) - 384 Pages
Published - 01-06-2012
Genre - Western
Price - £ 15.99

Frank Bonham's short novels, as Bill Pronzini says, are essentially mini-novels loaded with twists and turns of plot, historical incident, breadth and depth of character, action, romance, evocatively described backgrounds, and rich period detail. Here, for the first time in large print book form, are three of Bonham's best Western short novels.

Review of Sundown at Singing River by Ty Kirwan

Looking at this book you’d be forgiven for thinking this is the first Black Horse Western to carry the author name of Ty Kirwan as Hale haven’t listed any others. In fact this is Kirwain’s sixth BHW, the previous book being published way back in June 2001. Why the big gap? I have no idea, as I haven’t any knowledge of this author, other than seeing somewhere that Ty Kirwan is a female writer...

Read more at Western Fiction Review

Bestsellers on Amazon - 14 May

1. Comanchero Trail (Black Horse Western) by Jack Dakota (30 Sep 2011)
Hardcover £9.11

2. Old Guns (Black Horse Western) by Ross Morton (30 Apr 2012)
Hardcover  £9.23

3. Silver Track (Black Horse Western) by Caleb Rand (30 Apr 2012)
Hardcover  £9.25

4. The Kansas Fast Gun (Black Horse Western) by Arthur Kent (31 Oct 2011)
Available for download now £2.74

5. Gunhawk (Black Horse Western) by John Long (31 Oct 2011)
Available for download now £2.74

6. Arkansas Smith (Black Horse Western) by Jack Martin (30 Apr 2012)
Available for download now £2.74

7. High Mountain Standoff by John C Danner (30 Apr 2012)
Available for download now £2.74

8. Arizona Pay-Off (Black Horse Western) by Duke Patterson (31 Oct 2011)
Available for download now £2.74

9. The Black Horse Westerns by Abe Dancer, Dean Edwards, Tyler Hatch and Scott Connor (1 Jan 2011)
Available for download now £6.86

10. Hour of the Black Wolf (Black Horse Western) by Mark P. Lynch (31 Jul 2012)
Hardcover available for pre-order £12.38

Review of Twilight Trail by Lance Howard

Lance Howard’s thirty-third Black Horse Western is as strong as anything he wrote before, perhaps not quite as dark in tone, yet it still delves into the nightmare world of guilt. Much of the first part of this story shows how Teel Barsom becomes a hopeless drunk, seeing this as the only way to escape the consequences of his decisions...

Read more at Western Fiction Review

Review of Derailed by Owen G. Irons

Owen G. Irons has come up with an unusual twist to a kidnapping plot by not having humans taken for ransom, but a train. Why? I can’t spoil the reason by revealing that here, but like me, I believe you’ll have fun finding out, for this is a very entertaining book full of action and excitement....

Read more at Western Fiction Review

Bestsellers on Amazon - 7 May

1. The Kansas Fast Gun (Black Horse Western) by Arthur Kent (31 Oct 2011)

Available for download now £2.74

2. Gunhawk (Black Horse Western) by John Long (31 Oct 2011)

Available for download now £2.74

3. Arkansas Smith (Black Horse Western) by Jack Martin (30 Apr 2012)

Available for download now £2.74

4. High Mountain Standoff by John C Danner (30 Apr 2012)

Available for download now £2.74

5. Arizona Pay-Off (Black Horse Western) by Duke Patterson (31 Oct 2011)

Available for download now £2.74

6. The Black Horse Westerns by Abe Dancer, Dean Edwards, Tyler Hatch and Scott Connor (1 Jan 2011)

Available for download now £6.86

7. Hour of the Black Wolf (Black Horse Western) by Mark P. Lynch (31 Jul 2012)

Hardcover available for pre-order £12.38

8. Death on the Devil's Highway (Black Horse Western) by Josh Lockwood (29 Feb 2012)

Hardcover  £8.90

9. Range War Hell (Black Horse Western) by Ryan Bodie (31 Aug 2011)

Hardcover  £9.11

10. Loner with a Gun (Black Horse Western) by Ryan Bodie (30 Jul 2010)

Hardcover £1.86

Philip McCormac's new website

About Philip McCormac

I did have the yearning to be a writer for a very long time. Initially I started writing verse and when I got more confidence I sent the completed items to newspapers and magazines. I suppose they mustn’t have been too awful for surprisingly some were published.


At the same time I was dabbling in prose and wrote a few short pieces mostly random thoughts on various subjects. Those jottings evolved into abortive attempts at short stories.


I was fascinated by horror and fantasy and sci-fi but leant more towards horror which again surprisingly, at least to me, were published. Of these I shall tell more below. One day I read an article about writing western novels.


‘Mmmm.... methinks I might have a go at that...’ mused I.


So I wrote HOT SPUR and used the pseudonym – ELLIOT JAMES.


I sent the manuscript to Robert Hale Ltd, laboriously printed out on my ancient printer page by page, all 45,000 words of it. In a short time I received a letter of acceptance. That was a great feeling.

Learn more at:

http://www.philipmccormac.co.uk/index.html

Jack Martin - questions and answers

Arkansas Smith finally goes on sale in the new fangled eFormat, which means that the hardcover bestseller is available for Kindle and other eReaders, or of course it can be read on your computer screen, phone, tablet...whatever. I'm pleased to see the book made available on eBook at such a great price - I've always believed this book deserves a wide audience - you see the book was originally published in a handsome hardcover edition from those wonderful people at Robert Hale, but the fact is that the books are primarily intended for the public library and are made to be durable to survive multiple readings. This is great but the hardcovers are expensive.

Now to step back through the years a moment - when I first started reading westerns, and that was a heck of a long time ago now, you could find western paperbacks in most bookshops, but these days it's hard enough finding a bookshop let alone a westerns. And so by making the book available electronically we can replicate the days of cheap mass market westerns. eBooks never need go out of print and so the sales potential is without boundaries, and I do hope a great many of you will shell out just a couple of pounds for Arkansas Smith - I think I can guarantee a good read and a few hours of pleasure...

Read more at Tainted Archive

Review of No Peace for a Rebel by Peter Wilson

Peter Wilson’s fifth Black Horse Western proves to be a terrific read. Yes, we’ve all read other westerns about groups of Southerners wanting to continue the war against the Northerners, and yes, this book begins with that familiar plot. But Peter Wilson soon deviates from that storyline as he hints at something much more shocking behind Reno’s plans...

Read more at Western Fiction Review.

Bestsellers on Amazon - 30 April

1. Gunhawk (Black Horse Western) by John Long (31 Oct 2011)

Available for download now £2.74

2. The Black Horse Westerns by Abe Dancer, Dean Edwards, Tyler Hatch and Scott Connor (1 Jan 2011)

Available for download now £6.86

3. The Kansas Fast Gun (Black Horse Western) by Arthur Kent (31 Oct 2011)

Available for download now £2.74

4. Death on the Devil's Highway (Black Horse Western) by Josh Lockwood (29 Feb 2012)

Hardcover £9.11

5. Hour of the Black Wolf (Black Horse Western) by Mark P. Lynch (31 Jul 2012)

Hardcover Available for pre-order. £12.38

6. Arkansas Smith (Black Horse Western) by Jack Martin (30 Apr 2012)

Available for download now £2.74

7. Range War Hell (Black Horse Western) by Ryan Bodie (31 Aug 2011)

Hardcover  £9.11

8. Loner with a Gun (Black Horse Western) by Ryan Bodie (30 Jul 2010)

Hardcover  £1.86

9. A Colt for the Kid (Black Horse Western) by John Saunders (31 Oct 2011)

Available for download now £5.49

10. Brazos Fugitive (Black Horse Western) by Tyler Hatch (31 Mar 2010)

Hardcover  £1.87