Hi, I've been playing around with a hit man character in a novel, short story - arrg! I can't make up my mind! The biggest barrier I am finding is that I have made things rather difficult for myself.... 1. My character is not going to have any ties to organized crime, that is he is completely independent of a mafia family. He will eventually work for the mafia at points but he won't be exclusive to them. 2. He's going to struggle with the logistics of making a living as a hitman, specifically how to let people interested in his services find him, how to collect his money from them once he's done the job and eliminated the target, and then how to hide the income from the killings he does. 3. The actual killings themselves will not be extraordinary at all - beatings, shootings, stabbings, arson, garrotting - and MAYBE poisoning. I am not going to play around with drone strikes or car accidents for example as I think those are too over the top for a basic, ordinary guy to pull off while also staying off the radar. In a car accident, there's too much evidence left behind. A shooting? Not so much, just a bullet and a dead body. My big struggle right now is what kind of business can he do that will give him a daily routine, some legitimate income and also allow him to launder some of his illegitimate income through the business. My initial thought was a bar and I made a start of that in the short story crime forums where I posted "Working Title: Bar Business." I felt that had been done to death though so I was reviewing businesses that people started or worked in and then I looked at the title of the thread, specifically the "Working Title" - words and I started to wonder, what about a publishing company or a book store? So my questions: 1. Does anyone know what is involved in starting a publishing business, what kind of staff they have - agents, editors, authors under contract, administrative staff - and what they need to operate? Photocopier, phones, computers, printers, paper, office space somewhere, parking for staff..... It doesn't have to be perfect but I do want it to SOUND realistic when I write it so the more I can pin down, the better. 2. What type of income could such a business generate at the start-up stage, the publishing several books stage, and the maturity stage where they are publishing 100 books per year? I envision a "jack of all trades" type of publishing company in that they will print all genres. 3. Would it work as a message conduit if there is a middle man who submits potential targets to the main character who can own the business and work in the business and then he decides on reviewing the "book proposal" if he will accept the contract or not? This is one way I have thought would work to keep a few layers between the person hiring him and he. This way, they never meet. Related to #3, he could also write about the hits he commits and have them published under "fictional" crime to make some money. If the targets are in various cities and he works in Toronto and publishes in Toronto, then......? Realistically, what are the chances that detectives in town #1 are going to have the resources to devote to a random killing every so often? Unless he's stupid enough to use the target's real name and location, publish it and then one of the detectives who worked the case happens to buy the book and read it....and even then, lots of people write books. It COULD be a coincidence..... Thanks all for your help!
