Robert Bidinotto is an accomplished thriller writer from Maryland’s Eastern Shore, but it’s his own story of success with independent publishing that many writers find thrilling.

The author has shared his success story at the Bay to Ocean Writers’ Conference held each year at Chesapeake College, and his will return again in March 2018. Here is some of the author’s story.

Having lost his job as a magazine editor, and entering his sixties, his employment prospects looked bleak. That’s when, with the encouragement of his wife, he finally wrote a novel. The result was Hunter, a self-published Amazon super bestseller. The author has been a tireless supporter of other writers with his “how to” advice on his popular website http://www.bidinotto.com/.

For self-published writers, Bidinotto stressed the importance of writing the best books possible by using advance readers, volunteer editors to stop every typo in its tracks, and great cover design.

Bidinotto offers tips for thriller writers and readers, starting with classic examples of great thrillers, including Peter Benchley’s Jaws and Where Eagles Dare by Alistair MacLean and Wilbur Smith’s Hungry as the Sea.  He also noted the thriller elements of classic films like High Noon.

As Bidinotto points out, thrillers come in all shapes and settings, but they have a common thread of often larger-than-life characters who overcome impossible odds, whether it is stopping a killer shark or the gang of killers due to arrive in town on the 12 o’clock train.

“Your job is to keep the reader riveted in that world,” Bidinotto notes. He quotes Lee Child: “Write the slow stuff fast and the fast stuff slow.”

Bidinotto has written a sequel to his bestselling Hunter, which also has become an Amazon bestseller. Just this month, a third book in the series was released, called Winner Takes All. The story focuses on an attempt to install a puppet president in the White House. Sounds like yet another great Robert Bidinotto thriller!