Lawrence Block's Blog, page 15

The leaves are the least of it...

I could be wrong—I know, it's hard to believe—but lately it feels as though everything is falling. Falling down, falling apart, falling alike upon the just and the unjust, all in the course of this autumnal season. I'd say the good news is it gives me an excuse to use this template for the newsletter, but many of you will recall that I use it all the time. (I mean, it's always autumn somewhere, right? Oh, it's not? Oh. Never mind.)

It's been donkey's years since my last newsletter, and not for lack of news. So let me get right to it.

1. In Sunlight or in Shadow. Early next month, Pegasus will publish my anthology, with 17 stories inspired by paintings of Edward Hopper. It's their lead book for the season, and I could quote the raves in Booklist and Kirkus and PW, but we'd be here all night. What particularly pleases me is that every reviewer singles out a few special favorites—and they're always different stories. That confirms my own take on this collection—i.e., that all of the entries are outstanding.

Which figures. I mean, have a look at the lineup: Megan Abbott, Jill D. Block, Robert Olen Butler, Lee Child, Nicholas Christopher, Michael Connelly, Jeffery Deaver, Craig Ferguson, Stephen King, Joe R. Lansdale, Gail Levin, Warren Moore, Joyce Carol Oates, Kris Nelscott, Jonathan Santlofer, and Justin Scott. With writers like these...I'm sorry, is something wrong?

You said 17 stories. That's only 16.

I was being uncharacteristically modest. I wrote a story of my own for the collection, inspired by Hopper's "Automat."

It's probably not as good as the others.

Probably not. The book, as I was saying, is off to a good start, and we've scheduled three promotional events, all in the New York area and all in early December. We'll have a handful of contributors at each, and I'll be at all three. Here's the schedule:

Friday, December 2, 7 to 9pm—The Edward Hopper House, 82 North Broadway, Nyack NY 10960. This was Hopper's longtime residence in Rockland County, now preserved as a museum and art center. Always worth a visit, and you can go home with a book.

Monday, December 5, 7 to 8:30pm—The Whitney Museum of American Art, 99 Gansevoort St, New York NY 10014. The Whitney's collection of Hopper's work is unrivaled, and we're thrilled to be launching the book in such a richly appropriate setting. Admission's free, but you have to reserve a space.

Tuesday, December 6, 6:30 tp 8:30pm—The Mysterious Bookshop, 58 Warren Street, New York NY 10007. NYC's premier mystery bookshop. If you can't attend any of the events, but want a signed copy of the book, call Ian Kern at 800-352-2840.

If you can't come to a signing and hate the telephone as much as I do, may I suggest you pre-order the book ? A couple of mouse clicks and you've locked in a first edition at a very attractive pre-order price. Go ahead, do it now. I'll wait until you've completed the transaction.

There, wasn't that easy? In Sunlight or in Shadow is also available in ebook and audiobook editions, and I certainly don't want to talk you out of either medium, but the high quality of the book production, and the gorgeous paintings illustrating each story (plus a bonus painting for the frontispiece) are not to be missed. Even if you'd rather do your actual reading on your Kindle, or close your eyes and listen to the stories, you'll want to own a hardcover copy.

2. Sinner Man. Sometime this month, Hard Case Crime will bring out a book I wrote more than fifty years ago. It was my first crime novel, and for the longest time my agent couldn't sell it; when he finally dumped it off on a low-rent paperback house, I lost track of it entirely. Never saw a copy, didn't know the title, and spent years searching for it. That whole story's told in detail in my Afterword. It makes an interesting story, and the critical consensus is that Sinner Man's a pretty good book in the bargain, the deeply noir story of a Connecticut suburbanite who kills his wife by accident and reinvents himself as a gangster in Buffalo. Maxim Jakubowski calls it "gripping, impeccable hardboiled prose with sharp as a razor dialogue, femmes fatales in perfect deshabille, villains galore, gang wars and a chilling lesson in how to disappear and evade justice." It's pulp, all right, and gets just the right hard cover and paperback treatment from Hard Case, and a spirited audio reading from Mike Dennis .

I'll be signing Sinner Man at the December 6 ISIOS event at Mysterious Bookshop; again, Ian at 800-352-2840 can arrange a signed first edition for you.

3. Resume Speed. Close to forty years ago I heard a man tell of coming to after a blackout, terrified of what might have gone down the previous night. So he packed a bag, caught a bus, skipped town— and never looked back. Last fall I remembered the incident, and this time it sparked a story, and by year's end I'd written a 20,000-word novella. It had a nice run as a Kindle bestseller, and before this year's end it'll be a handsome hardcover book from Subterranean Press, with this gorgeous Ken Laager cover. The limited edition sold out in a flash, and the $25 trade edition will almost certainly be sold out before the book is off press. You can still get one, but only if you act now .

Also coming from Subterranean, after a similar bestselling eDebut on Kindle, is Keller's Fedora. Pub date's in April, but you can pre-order now —and that's a must if you want the $45 limited, and not a bad idea if you want the trade edition.

Both novellas are available right this minute as Kindle ebooks. And they've both been recorded as audiobooks, with Resume Speed expertly voiced by Theo Holland and Keller's Fedora narrated by its humble author. Which reminds me...

4. New in Audio! You know, I'm not sure about that exclamation point. The enthusiasm's real, and warranted, but I'm a shy lad and hate to shout.

Never mind. I've published two more titles in audio, and commend them to your attention. First is Shadows , Jill Emerson's first book—and, come to think of it, my own first novel as well. It's the thoughtful tale of a young woman's discovery of her sexual identity, set in Greenwich Village in the late 1950s, and when I re-read it for ebook publication, I have to say I liked it. (Your mileage may vary, but I'll tell you this much; even all those years ago, Ms. Emerson could turn a phrase. And P. J.Morgan has given Jill's characters a whole new dimension.)

The eight Evan Tanner novels have appeared in audio, but all have long since gone out of print. The silver-throated Alan Sklar has voiced quite a few of my books over the years, including Tanner on Ice, and he's now done well by Tanner #2, The Canceled Czech .

It's a source of great satisfaction to me that almost all of my books are now available to listeners. The 13 titles I've self-published are sometimes harder to find, but these links will get you there: Voiced by Emily Beresford: Enough of Sorrow , Thirty , and Warm and Willing . Voiced by Mike Dennis: Borderline , Sinner Man , and Writing the Novel from Plot to Print to Pixel . By Theo Holland: Resume Speed and Four Lives at the Crossroads . By Don Sobczak: Defender of the Innocent and Wide Open—New Modes of Marriage . By Alan Sklar: The Canceled Czech . By P. J. Morgan: Shadows . And, yes, last and unquestionably least, my own rendition of Keller's Fedora .

5. Matt Scudder's agenda for world domination! Here the exclamation point seems inescapable. How else can you punctuate a phrase like that?

I refer, of course, to another self-publishing project. Like the audio, it's a cooperative venture; earnings are divided between the humble author and his expert translators. And for all parties, it's a slow way to get rich. But it's hugely gratifying for me to see the work reach a wider audience, and I can but hope my translators get some joy out of the enterprise. After all, they're the ones with sweat equity in it; all I do is sit here.

Here's what's happening:

[image error]German: Stefan Mommertz has been working his way through Matthew Scudder's case file. The first two novels, Die Sünden der Väter (The Sins of the Fathers) and Drei am Haken (Time to Murder and Create) have been getting a good reception in ebook and paperback form, and Mitten im Tod (In the Midst of Death) should be ready soon.

Stefan's been busy as well with the Scudder short stories, with Im frühen Licht des Tages (By the Dawn's Early Light) the most recent addition to the lineup, joining Aus dem Fenster and Eine Kerze für die Stadtstreicherin . And he took a break from Scudder to give us Mit leichtem Gepäck (Resume Speed).

Italian: Luigi Garlaschelli is Our Man in Italy, and he led off with a forced march through the Scudder short stories. We've made nine of them individually available for Kindle, but your better advised to pick up La Notte e la Musica, which contains all eleven stories, along with end notes and Brian Koppelman's evocative appreciation of Matthew Scudder. As a Kindle ebook or a handsome paperback , the book's been getting a nice reception.

And Luigi, I'm delighted to report, is making good progress on a translation of The Burglar in the Library.

Spanish: Ana and Enriqueta Carrington started off with a non-series thriller, Such Men Are Dangerous, which they rendered as El hombre peligroso , before moving on to the Matthew Scudder short stories. As above, we've published nine stories individually , but you're much better off picking up the complete collection, La noche y la música . It's available now as an ebook, and in a week or so it should be on sale in paperback—while las hermanas Carrington are already busy with the third Matthew Scudder novel, In the Midst of Death.

Note that Ana and Enriqueta have had company. Early on I commissioned a translation of Killing Castro, and Eduardo Hojman's Matando a Castro is available as an ebook and paperback. Some time ago Jordi García translated my erotic thriller, Getting Off, as Excitación ; more recently he translated Burglars Can't Be Choosers, Bernie Rhodenbarr's debut, as Los ladrones no pueden ecoger . (Those are ebook links; Los ladrones is also available in paperback .)

I see a hand, and I bet I know what you're wondering: "What about Keller?" That's your question, right?

Well, no, but—

It's my pleasure to announce that we should be ready to launch El sicario very shortly. That's Hit Man, the first Keller book, as translated by Maria Carmen de Bernardo Martínez. It's my hope that Ma-Carmen will translate the entire Keller series, and I'm sufficiently enthused at the prospect to give you an advance peek at the cover.

That's what you wanted, right?

It's very nice. But what I wondered was when you'd let readers in Asia get to know Matthew Scudder.

They're already on pretty decent terms with him, without any self-publishing effort on my part. Top publishers in Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Mainland China issue and promote my books every bit as well as their Western counterparts, and Matt and I are surprisingly popular over there. Perhaps the work gains something in translation...

Still, there are gaps. Which is why I'm pleased beyond words—English words, anyway—to let you know that the very first Scudder book, The Sins of the Fathers, has been translated into Hindi by a longtime Matthew Scudder aficionado in Mumbai. I've been writing professionally for almost sixty years, and I've been published in almost as many languages as Evan Tanner can speak, but this will be my first book in Hindi, and I'm over the moon about it. As you might imagine, text formatting and cover design pose a challenge to my Goddess of Design and Production, but she seems to have the matter well in hand, and soon I'll be able to show you what the book looks like and tell you where to buy it. (Amazon.in, of course, and all other Amazon platforms.) And there'll be a paperback edition as well, and if all goes well there'll be seventeen more Scudder books to follow, one right after the other, and, and—

Easy there, LB. Take a breath. Good. Now take another.

Sorry. I get carried away. There's so much going on, and I'd tell you more if time and space permitted. We've reissued all the Jill Emerson novels in ebook and paperback, for Nook and Kobo and Apple as well as Amazon . We've got more audio in the works, and Theo Holland's halfway through voicing The Adulterers . We're redesigning the covers in the Classic Crime Library in ebook and paperback, switching to a package with a little more pizazz—but again your mileage may vary, so if you prefer the more classic look, better grab copies now.

You know what? That's enough from me. Probably more than enough, but it's been ages since the last newsletter, and I really did have a lot to tell you. Relax, kick back, enjoy the autumn—and settle in with something to read.

Cheers,

please feel free to forward this to anyone you think might find it of interest—esp. friends who might be interested in our foreign-language editions, as that audience is a hard one for us to reach. And, if you've received the newsletter in that fashion from a friend and would like your own subscription, that's easily arranged; a blank email to lawbloc@gmail.com with Newsletter in the subject line will get the job done.

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Much to report...

..so let's get to it, shall we? And let's do it by the numbers.

1. I wrote something new. I hadn't planned on it. In fact a failed two-week writing retreat in July made it clear to me that I wasn't ready to write anything at all now, and wouldn't be for a while. Then an email reminded me that I'd promised a story for a publishing project of Crime Fiction Academy in conjunction with Kindle. I'd entirely forgotten, and it turns out Plato and Frank Zappa were right and Necessity really is the Mother of Invention. Who knew? An idea popped up, and eight days and 10,000 words later I had a story called "Gym Rat," which will be eVailable ere long. I'll keep you posted, and you can let me know whether or not I should have bothered.

2. I found a couple of old things, one of which I've mentioned before. It's Sinner Man, my very first crime novel, written in 1960, rejected by every publisher worthy of the name, then brought out by one who wasn't, eight years later and under a pen name. I never saw a copy, never found out what new title they'd hung on it, and tried mightily but unsuccessfully to track it down. Then it turned up, as you'll be able to read in my afterword, and I did a little dusting and cleaning, and Hard Case will bring it out in November. They're offering it in three forms, ebook and hardcover and paperback, and Mike Dennis, the gritty Voice of Noir, has recorded it in audio. You might want to pre-order it in the medium of your choice; as one who seems to be forgetting things lately, I highly recommend you do so.

The second thing isn't as old, but it's definitely a thing. My assistant, the indispensable David Trevor, was going through a stack of manuscripts in a storage closet, with an eye toward listing them for auction. (First, though, he priced them for private sale, and a single collector bought the lot. So there won't be an auction. Sorry!)

Among the treasures was the photocopy of a manuscript of a short story, "Whatever It Takes." And then, right underneath it, was a typescript of the same story, the original on bond paper. He brought them both to me, said he couldn't recall the story, and I realized I'd written the thing sometime in the 1990s, had it Xeroxed, and then never got around to sending it anywhere. I read it, and while I don't think you'll find it shortlisted for an Edgar next year, it struck me as perfectly acceptable. I sent it to Linda Landrigan at Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, and she agreed, and you'll be able to read it in their December issue—which goes on sale in early November, about the same time Sinner Man makes its appearance.

3. I actually remembered something. You may recall that, of the 1000 hardcover copies I published of The Crime of Our Lives, around 800 went to Amazon. Sales were slow, and some months ago I had an opportunity to pulp the lot and spare myself stiff storage charges. But first I slashed the price—from $24.99 to $9.99, with free shipping to Amazon Prime members. That moved a lot of copies, but it still left a ton of them, and I kept missing deadlines for free removal, perhaps out of a disinclination to see such lovely books destroyed. Well, sentiment and publishing don't go well together, and when another deadline approached I remembered in time to consign 600 books to the metaphorical flames. They've still got 40 or 50 left, and they're still $9.99, and once they're gone I'll never have to write out this paragraph again. TCOOL is my collection of essays and remembrances of crime fiction and its practitioners, and the hardcover is a rare book (1000 printed, 600 of them pulped) and this would look to be your last chance.

4. Bouchercon's coming. Well, you probably know that. It's in New Orleans this year, and my Frequent Companion and I will be there September 14-18. I'll have various events and signings on my dance card, but chief among them is a panel Thursday at 1:30pm. Wonder of wonders, it's a panel without a topic—but I suspect we'll find things to talk about. My fellow panelists are Bill Crider, Catherine Coulter, Joe Lansdale, and SJ Rozan, none of whom I've ever found to be at a loss for words. And the moderator, at what I'm told is her very first Bouchercon, is one Jill Block. You may have read her first story in Ellery Queen, or her second in Dark City Lights; she has another coming up soon in In Sunlight or in Shadow.

5. Which reminds me—In Sunlight or in Shadow is coming, too. As you no doubt recall, it's an anthology of stories inspired by Edward Hopper's paintings, beautifully produced and lavishly illustrated, with brand-new stories by a host of writers, including Stephen King and Joyce Carol Oates and Craig Ferguson and Megan Abbott, and I'll stop now before I reproduce the entire table of contents. ISOIS is the lead title for fall for Pegasus Books, and they're reporting keen early demand. They'll be beating the drum for it at Bouchercon, and there'll be more promotional phenomena closer to its December publication date in New York City and at the Edward Hopper House in Nyack. (Details on those events when I have them.)

Pegasus is right proud of this book—and, by golly, so am I. It's shaping up to be a hugely popular Christmas gift, but if you buy it for that purpose you'd better order more than one copy, or how will you force yourself to part with it? Pre-ordering locks in a very favorable price, should guarantee you a first edition, and—to return to what seems to be a theme here—guards against your forgetting the whole thing.

6. Meanwhile, Matt Scudder aims for world domination...with Bernie on his heels. Which is to say that my program of self-publishing partnerships with translators continues apace. Drei am Haken (orig. Time to Murder and Create) , the long-awaited second novel translated by Stefan Mommertz, is on sale at all Amazon platforms, and in a matter of days it will join Die Sünden der Väter as a handsome paperback. Scudder was quite popular in Germany some years ago, but the books have been out of print for ages, and I'm delighted to see how eagerly German readers are taking to them. The Kindle ebook of Drei am Haken is offered right now at an introductory price of $2.99 (or €2,99), but in a week it will go up to the more realistic price point of $4.99/€4,99. (Subscribers to the German edition of this newsletter learned as much a couple of days ago; if you'd like to get on that list, just send an email to lawbloc@gmail.com with "newsletter-DE" in the header.)

Spanish readers can now meet Bernie Rhodenbarr. His debut in Burglars Can't Be Choosers has been translated as Los ladrones no pueden escoger by Jordi García, who previously rendered Getting Off as Excitación. Meanwhile, Ana and Enriqueta Carrington have been wending their way through the Scudder short stories, and are all the way to #7—Perdámonos. (They've also translated the thriller Such Men Are Dangerous as El hombre peligroso.)

In Italy, Luigi Garlaschelli has been teaching Matt to speak Italian, with eight stories now available in that language; Un momento di sconforto is the latest. It won't be long before both Luigi and the Sisters Carrington finish the last of the stories in The Night and the Music, at which time we'll bundle them up, and you'll be able to acquire either La noche y la música or La notte e la musica, in ebook or paperback form, as you prefer. (Whereupon Luigi and Ana and Enriqueta will turn their attention to novels. With a backlist like mine, nobody is likely to run out of work...)

7. Listen up! Among the self-publishing options on hand, the ability to bring out my works in audio via ACX has been particularly gratifying, as has the way y'all have responded to Theo Holland's voicing of Resume Speed, Mike Dennis's Writing the Novel from Plot to Print to Pixel, Emily Beresford's Thirty, and my own Keller's Fedora. I'm happy to report that there's more to come. There's one Jill Emerson novel that's never been recorded, Shadows, and P. J. Morgan is doing wonderful work with it, as is Theo Holland with The Adulterers.

The eight-book Evan Tanner series has long been out of print in audio, but that's about to change. Years ago, when Tanner on Ice came out, an audio publisher engaged Alan Sklar to voice it, and Alan got in touch to ask me how to pronounce various phrases in Burmese. Now how the hell would I know? Alan, undaunted, trotted off to the Burmese Embassy, where he spent a pleasant half hour with a pair of obliging young men who told him everything he wanted to know on the subject. (And more, I suspect...)

Now that's dedication. And it delights me to report that Alan has agreed to be the voice of Evan Tanner, and is making his way right now through The Canceled Czech.

8. Achtung! I'm looking for someone to voice audio versions of Die Sünden der Väter and Drei am Haken on a shared-royalty basis. If you'd like to narrate a book in German, and have the capacity to produce it in a home studio, email me.

9. Gotta go write something in Chinese. Well, not exactly. I'll be writing it in English, but it'll be published in Chinese, in the Taiwanese magazine Unitas. I've been contributing a monthly column to this deluxe publication, and it's mostly been a matter of selecting an article or short story that's never appeared before in that language. But this month I decided some thoughts on series characters would be appropriate, and I couldn't find anything I'd already written on the subject that struck me as ideal—so I'll have to write something new. I'll probably post the English version on my website if I think it might be worth your time.

Whew! Well, I warned you I had a lot to report, and I've nattered on long enough. Enjoy what's left of the summer, prepare to welcome the fall, and when the world is too much with you, pick up something to read. And if it's something of mine, so much the better!

Cheers,



PS: As always, please feel free to forward this to anyone you think might find it of interest. And, if you've received the newsletter in that fashion from a friend and would like your own subscription, that's easily arranged; a blank email to lawbloc@gmail.com with Newsletter in the subject line will get the job done.

Welcome back, Jill Emerson!

Over a ten-year period starting in the mid-1960s, I brought out seven books as Jill Emerson. In 2011, I wrote an eighth—Getting Off, published by Hard Case Crime. And just last month I added a ninth book to the list—Shadows, the first book I ever wrote, originally issued under a different title and pen name, but clearly a part of Jill's body of work.

Jill is rather more than a pen name. An aspect of self, I suppose. (An earlier stage of the new covers read "Lawrence Block as Jill Emerson." We thought about it, and changed as to is.) It's hard to define what she is to me (or I to her) but I'll say that it's hugely satisfying to me to be bringing her work back into print. (Getting Off, of course, has never been out of print, and continues to be available as an ebook, a hardcover or paperback book, and an audiobook superbly voiced by Lily Bask.)

The others have been unavailable for a while, and I've thus far self-published the first four. The first three— Shadows , Warm and Willing , and Enough of Sorrow —are all sensitive explorations of the lesbian experience, more emotional than erotic in tone and content.

The way Jill Emerson came into being, and how she sold two books to Midwood via cold over-the-transom submission, makes a pretty good story—and I tell it in the book descriptions on the Amazon pages; even if you're not interested in the books, you might want to click the links and check out the trip down Memory Lane.

Jill's fourth book, Thirty , is a departure. Again, I tell its story on the Amazon page, but will say here that it's a fiercely and frankly erotic novel in the form of a diary kept by a woman in her thirtieth year. I read it before republishing it, perhaps for the first time since I wrote it, and I'm forced to cast modesty to the winds and admit I liked it. Perhaps you will as well.

Next is Threesome, coming soon; it's a tour de force, with three alternating narrators, and has long been a favorite of mine. A Madwoman's Diary is more in the mode of Thirty—except of course that it's a different diarist with a different story to tell, and a curious connection to another pen name...

After that, something entirely different for Jill: The Trouble With Eden, a big Bucks County novel that falls somewhere between Grace Metalious and John O'Hara. And after that, A Week as Andrea Benstock, a serious work of mainstream fiction serialized in Redbook.

Jill does run a gamut, doesn't she?

I must admit she does. I'll be delighted when all her works are published, and that may well happen by Labor Day. Note that the first three books are eVailable exclusively for Kindle, and can thus be read free by Kindle Unlimited subscribers. That's not the case with Thirty; as an experiment, I've published this title on other platforms as well, and you can click here to scoop it up for Nook or Kobo or Apple .

And, as soon as all Jill's books are eVailable, they'll morph into paperback form. And won't they look nice on a bookshelf or coffee table? All credit for the classy covers goes to my Goddess of Design and Production.

What about audio?

Remarkably enough, all but one of the books are already in audio. Emily Beresford's had great notices for her work with Warm and Willing , Enough of Sorrow , and Thirty . And your ears will delight in Threesome (Julie Roundtree), A Madwoman's Diary (Eva Wilhelm), The Trouble With Eden (Mark Delgado), and A Week as Andrea Benstock (Julie Roundtree).

What's missing? Shadows—and an audio version is already in preparation, voiced by P J Morgan. From what I've heard so far, I think you'll like it.

And there are some other audiobooks on the way. Theo Holland, who hit home runs with Resume Speed and Four Lives at the Crossroads , is set to do the same with The Adulterers. Mike Dennis, who shows what noir sounds like on Borderline and The Girl with the Deep Blue Eyes , is wrapping up Sinner Man.

And may I take a moment to share a bit of Bill Ott's Booklist review of Sinner Man , coming in a few months from Hard Case Crime? "It’s undiluted noir—even if, back in 1960, that term was still the property of the film crowd—and its narrator, a Manhattan insurance salesman turned killer, makes most antiheroes seem, well, a little genteel....Block’s signature style—careful plotting, sly wit, straight-ahead prose—is well in evidence here, even in its rough-edged infancy."

Well, I'm still a little rough around the edges, but infancy is not even a memory. Nice review, huh? You might want to pre-order the book , which is being released simultaneously in hardcover, paperback, and ebook form in November. (And the audio should release around the same time.)

Could we change the subject? I keep seeing more of your work in different languages. What's up?

An experiment. Can a writer successfully partner with translators to publish his own work in other languages? The results aren't unequivocal, but I have to say things are looking good.

My newest partner, Luigi Garlaschelli, is at work translating the Matthew Scudder short stories into Italian; so far he's worked his magic on "Out the Window" and "A Candle for the Bag Lady" (shown here), with more coming. You can pick up Giù dalla finestra and Una candela per la barbona at any Amazon site. (Here's a link to the Italian page .)

The Carrington sisters, Ana and Enriqueta, are also making their way through the Scudder short stories, with five already up and running on Amazon: Salió por la ventana, Una vela para la vagabunda, A la luz de la madrugada, Los ayudantes de Batman, and El Misericordioso Ángel de la Muerte. Here they are on amazon.com and amazon.es , but you can find them on all other Amazon sites as well. Ana and Enriqueta also translated a title from the Classic Crime Library, Such Men Are Dangerous, reborn in Spanish as El hombre peligroso ; it's available as both an ebook and a paperback. They're moving rapidly through the rest of the short stories, and a Scudder novel will be next on their agenda.

Meanwhile, Stefan Mommertz has been diligently—and artfully—rendering my work in German. We've brought out the first Scudder novel, Die Sünden der Väter, and the first two short stories, Aus dem Fenster and Eine Kerze für die Stadtstreicherin, as well as my novella Resume Speed, called Mit leichtem Gepäck.

Stefan's completed his work on the second Scudder novel, Time to Murder and Create, and as soon as his proofreader wraps it up we'll be publishing it as Drei am Haken. Like Die Sünden der Väter, we'll offer it as a paperback as well as an ebook.

Amazon platforms worldwide have all our German titles; here are links to them on amazon.com and amazon.de .

I spent the last two weeks of July in Philadelphia. I'd gone there with the intention of Writing Something, but that didn't happen. Either the well had gone dry or my bucket had a hole in it, and it's not as though I lacked for other things to do. I ate a lot of Chinese food, and now I'm home, and glad to be here, and ready to settle in for the Olympics.

Cheers,



PS: As always, please feel free to forward this to anyone you think might find it of interest. And, if you've received the newsletter in that fashion from a friend and would like your own subscription, that's easily arranged; a blank email to lawbloc@gmail.com with Newsletter in the subject line will get the job done.

Oh, before I forget...

It's been a while since I cluttered your mailbox with a newsletter. But it's summer, as you've very likely noticed, and a summer replete with more distractions than usual, and so I hesitate to bother you at all. Still, there are a couple of quick points I ought to make, and then I'll get out of your way.

1. LB's eBay Bookstore is closed. It's scheduled to re-open the first week in August, but may well be shut down for most of the summer.

2. Amazon has The Crime of Our Lives in hardcover at a close-out price. My collection of essays and remembrances of the genre has been well-received, but the hardcover edition was not a marketing triumph; I printed only 1000 copies and sent almost all of them to Amazon for order fulfillment. And there they languished. To escape storage charges, we chopped the price from $24.99 to $9.99 —$5 less than the paperback price, with free shipping to Amazon Prime members. They're available until we get around to having them pulped to stop storage charges altogether.

3. My new book this summer is the Hard Case paperback edition of The Girl with the Deep Blue Eyes . (The hardcover's still available, along with the ebook and Mike Dennis's fine audio version.) The book, set in central Florida, has been described as "James M. Cain on Viagra," and that strikes me as fair. My new books this fall include In Sunlight or in Shadow , an anthology of new stories inspired by paintings of Edward Hopper, with a stunning list of contributors; Pegasus will bring it out in December, and you might want to pre-order now to lock in a good price on a first edition. And fall will also bring Sinner Man, my long-lost first mystery novel, set for November release from Hard Case Crime. Again, pre-ordering's not a bad idea...

4. The Collection of Classic Erotica now stands complete, with 23 titles available in print and electronic editions—and ten of them in audio as well. ( Four Lives at the Crossroads will be in audio shortly; Theo Holland, whose rendition of Resume Speed has been getting such a good reception, has finished narrating the novel, and it should be on sale any day now.)

Speaking of Four Lives at the Crossroads, it's priced a dollar higher than the other Classic Erotica titles—not because it's a crime novel as well as an erotic thriller, but simply because it's a little longer and thus costs a little more to produce. But, because it lists at $10.99 instead of $9.99, Amazon has discounted it to $7.75—which makes it $2.24 cheaper than its fellows, which don't get discounted. This doesn't make an abundance of sense to me, but if you'd like to have the book, now's probably the time to grab it .

There's more, but I don't have the heart for it. I'm going away for a couple of weeks, and maybe I'll have something written by the time I return, and maybe I won't, and either way is fine with me. By then no doubt some new atrocities will have shoved the most recent one off the front pages, and perhaps out of our minds as well.

Cheers,



PS: As always, please feel free to forward this to anyone you think might find it of interest. And, if you've received the newsletter in that fashion from a friend and would like your own subscription, that's easily arranged; a blank email to lawbloc@gmail.com with GR-Newsletter in the subject line will get the job done.

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It'salways something...

...and today it's a whole batch of somethings, one right after the other. So let me just plunge in rather than waste time searching for a clever approach.

1. If you're a writer...

...I hope you were able to take advantage of the StoryBundle package of which Writing the Novel from Plot to Print to Pixel was an ingredient. It was a great deal, 10 books on the business side of writing for $15, and I'd be hard put to dream up a better investment, yielding no end of short- and long-term dividends. The bundle was up for grabs for three weeks, and I know a lot of you took advantage of it, and I've heard from others who regret missing out.

There'll be other chances, and when they come along I'll let you know. Meanwhile, may I put in a word for P2P2P? Never out of print from 1978 to 2012, it's now expanded (from 60,000 to 93,000 words) and updated (with a full discussion of ebooks and self-publishing). I've published it myself as an ebook , a handsome trade paperback , and an audiobook , and I'm pleased to report that the book's sales all across the board have been heartening.

The links above are to Amazon—but, while many of my self-published titles are Amazon exclusives, I've elected to go wide with P2P2P. So here's where you can find the book in its various forms at Barnes & Noble , Kobo , Apple , and Audible .

I've perpetrated quite a few other books for writers over quite a few years. Here's a quick rundown on what's available:

Telling Lies for Fun & Profit and Spider, Spin Me a Web are the first two compilations of my instructional Fiction columns for Writers Digest. Write For Your Life , a home seminar for writers, is the version in book form of an interactional seminar with which my Frequent Companion and I barnstormed the country three decades ago; it works on the writer within, and might have been called The Inner Game of Writing, if i'd had the wit to think of it. (I think it holds up, and recommend it, but would urge you to choose the paperback over the ebook, as you'll get more out of the processes if you have a physical book in hand.) The Liar's Bible and The Liar's Companion, both currently out of print, are two more compilations of columns; the rights recently reverted to me, and I'll be bringing out ebook and paperback editions soon.

Oh, that reminds me—

2. If you like to read with your ears...

...we've got you covered. I've already mentioned Mike Dennis's superb audio rendition of Writing the Novel from Plot to Print to Pixel , and Telling Lies for Fun & Profit is also available in audio, narrated by its humble author. The Liar's Bible and The Liar's Companion , presently unavailable in print or ebook, are readily obtainable as audio downloads, capably voiced by Robert Sams. And Hit List , the second Keller book and one inexplicably left out of the world of unabridged audio, is now on offer from Recorded Books, narrated by George Guidall.

But that's not all. I've been doing some audio self-publishing via an Audible division called ACX, and they've just released my novella Resume Speed , the Kindle bestseller. Theo Holland supplied the narration, and I think you'll enjoy listening to his rendition; I liked it so much myself that I've arranged for him to do the same for Four Lives at the Crossroads , a pseudonymous 1962 effort that's either a very steamy crime novel or a dark and violent work of erotica. (I flipped a mental coin and published it as #18 in the Collection of Classic Erotica ; it's eVailable now, and will be in paperback soon.)

I've narrated several of my own works over the years, and took on that role again for Keller's Fedora, our favorite assassin's latest adventure. Note: I was busy writing the preceding sentence when an email popped into my box informing me that the audio had made its way through channels at ACX and was now on sale. The novella's doing wonderfully as a Kindle Single—more on that in a moment—and it's scheduled for deluxe trade-and-limited print treatment early next year from Subterranean Press, so I'm delighted to be able to complete what someone less capable of verbal restraint than I might call the hat trick. Give it a listen; I do hope you like it.

And while I've got your ears, may I put in a word for some of our other ACX audios? Emily Beresford voiced three of my Jill Emerson titles, Warm & Willing , Enough of Sorrow , and Thirty . (The first two are sensitive novels of the lesbian experience, the third an erotic diary of a woman at a critical stage in life; I'm very fond of all the Jill Emerson books, but then I wrote them, so what do I know?) Emily's a real pro and did a great job with all three of these.

I only got to work twice with Don Sobczak. Before his way-too-early death, he brought my resourceful little lawyer wonderfully to life in Defender of the Innocent: The Casebook of Martin Ehrengraf . Don also voiced Wide Open: New Modes of Marriage , one of my John Warren Wells titles.

And let's not forget Mike Dennis, who may be said to have started it all when he read the Hard Case edition of my early novel Borderline and approached me in the hope of recording it. That was my first venture into audio self-publishing, and Mike did such fine work that I recommended him to Recorded Books for their audiobook of The Girl with the Deep Blue Eyes .

But let's hit the Mute button for a moment, shall we? Because I find myself with more to say about those two novellas, and modesty compels me to lower my voice to a whisper...

3. Resume Speed and Keller's Fedora...

Yes, they're the ones I had in mind. Both were written within the past half year, both were published as Kindle Singles, and both have been sufficiently well received to suggest that perhaps the old fellow's not yet completely past it. Admittedly, that's the sort of thing one would prefer to believe, and I'm inclined to clutch at any straw that might support the premise.

So I got a big boost Thursday morning when I learned that both novellas had earned spots on Amazon's list of Best Kindle Singles of 2016...So Far . There are 20 books on the list, and Keller's Fedora is in the #3 slot, with Resume Speed at #7.

I'm a big fan of the Kindle Singles program, and am very happy it's come along at a time when I find the novella length particularly inviting—and the prospect of writing a lengthy novel not a little daunting. And so I look forward to mid-July, when I'm scheduled to hole up once again in an Undisclosed Location, with every hope of returning a couple of weeks down the line with a novella in hand.

And what will I be writing? I honestly don't know. Will it feature one of my recurring characters? Will it be something wholly new? Hey, it beats me. All I know for sure is that I'm planning to write it in English.

4. Not that there's anything wrong with other languages...

Like German and Spanish, for instance.

Earlier this week, my email inbox held two versions of A Candle for the Bag Lady , the second of my Matthew Scudder short stories. Stefan Mommertz supplied Eine Kerze für die Stadtstreicherin ; Ana and Enriqueta Carrington sent in Una vela para la vagabunda. And my Goddess of Design and Production obligingly furnished me with covers for both.

Self-publishing translated works is an experiment, and time will tell whether it works. In the meantime, let me tell you what's available.

First, the works in German. The first Scudder short story, Aus dem Fenster , was Stefan's initial effort at translating my work. He followed it with the first Scudder novel, Die Sünden der Väter . A German edition of Resume Speed was next, with the title Mit leichtem Gepäck . And now Eine Kerze für die Stadtstreicherin has become our fourth German title.

The above links are to amazon.de , the German site, but the books are available on all Amazon platforms. Aus dem Fenster bears the introductory price of 0,99 Euros (or 99¢ US). The others are all priced at 2,99 Euros (or, duh, $2.99 US). And Die Sünden der Väter is also available in paperback for 10,69 Euros or $9.99 US.

And what of Spanish? Well, Una vela para la vagabunda is the third work of mine for Ana and Enriqueta. They began with Such Men Are Dangerous, which became El hombre peligroso , and then moved on to the first Scudder short story, Salió por la ventana .

As with the German editions, links are to the Spanish site, amazon.es , while all titles may be found at all Amazon sites, including amazon.com and amazon.com.mx . Prices are 2,99 Euros (or $2.99) for Vagabunda and Hombre, with an introductory price of 0,99 Euros (99¢) for Ventana.

Subscribers already on our German list received the new story free. To sign up and have a chance for future perks, just send an email headed NEWSLETTER—DE to lawbloc@gmail.com; to get on the Spanish list, make the header NEWSLETTER—ES.

And what's next? Well, Stefan has completed turning the second Scudder novel, Time to Murder and Create, into Drei am Haken, and we'll get it into production as ebook und Taschenbuch once it's back from the proofreader. Meanwhile, las Hermanas Carrington are at work on the third Scudder story, By the Dawn's Early Light.

5. Meanwhile, I just sit around raising expectations and lowering prices.

Well, one price, anyway. I mentioned the audiobook of The Girl with the Deep Blue Eyes, which Hard Case Crime published in hardcover back in September. Now, after a nine-month gestation period, they're about to deliver the paperback, with the same compelling Glen Orbik cover. To celebrate its release, I've reduced the price of the ebook from $9.99 to $6.99 .

This is the novel my film agent described as "James M. Cain on Viagra." It's a dark and devious tale of obsession and amorality set in a part of Central Florida that's off the tourist track. It's the quintessence of noir, and it's also a love story.

6. OMG, will you look at the calendar!

It was June 23 when I went to work on this apparently endless newsletter. Now it's June 24, which makes it my birthday. (My RPM birthday, if y'all are keeping score. Last year was my Sunset Strip birthday, and the year before that was my Trombone birthday. Time flies, when it's not standing in a long line at the airport.)

You're probably wondering what to get me for my birthday. Hey, I've got a better idea. Celebrate the day by giving yourself a present, something you'll really enjoy. Just click on one of the links in this newsletter and treat yourself to something nice.

Cheers,



PS: As always, please feel free to forward this to anyone you think might find it of interest. And, if you've received the newsletter in that fashion from a friend and would like your own subscription, that's easily arranged; a blank email to lawbloc@gmail.com with Newsletter in the subject line will get the job done.

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Well, it's more use to me than a good game of nine-ball...

A proficiency at pocket billiards, according to my father, was traditionally regarded as the sign of a misspent youth. I used to enjoy shooting pool, but I can't say I was ever very good at it. (There was one New Year's Day party at Don Westlake's house in Culver Lake, New Jersey, when I played as if I owned the table. I just couldn't miss. Similarly, there was one intramural basketball game during my freshman year at Antioch when every shot I took went in; I scored 22 of my team's 28 points. With those two exceptions, over a decade apart, I sucked big-time at both pool and basketball. I think the Universe likes to give a person a taste of brilliance once or twice in a lifetime, perhaps to nudge him toward humility.)

Clearer evidence of my own misspent youth may be found with a glance at the bookshelves. I spent my early twenties sitting at a typewriter, and my hands were by no means idle, though it might be argued that they were doing the devil's work. I was writing up a storm, and the greater portion of what I wrote came under the heading of what we now call Midcentury Erotica. (We who wrote them tended to call them sex novels, a term with which one can hardly argue. They were novels, generally running to 50,000 words or so, and they were very much about sex. They've occasionally been called "sort-core porn," though nowadays the adjective trumps the noun, as they're far softer than they are pornographic. Some enthusiasts call them "sleaze"—a word I find unfortunate in any context, but especially so when applied to my work.

It took me some time to come to terms with my early work, but that was almost as true with some of my early crime fiction. I'm better than that now, I would tell myself, and perhaps I am and perhaps I'm not, but what difference does it make? These were books of mine, and readers had enjoyed them back in the day, and the children and grandchildren of those early readers might well enjoy them now.

And besides, wouldn't it be nice if they could earn me a couple of bucks after all these years?

For my early crime novels, collected in the Classic Crime Library, my design/production goddess came up with a uniform cover format that was all about Classic and Library. For the Collection of Classic Erotica, I realized there was no way to improve on that original cover art from the early 1960s. And so we brought out ebook editions of 24 of the books, and while we're not knocking anybody off the bestseller list, they've been moving. It's a slow way to get rich, but in all these years I've never found a fast one, so I'm fine with it.

As soon as 21 Gay Street had led off the collection, some of you began asking about paperback editions. Those covers might look good on a Kindle screen, you pointed out, but wouldn't they look even better on printed books? Wouldn't they look fine on a bookshelf? Wouldn't they be eye-catching on a coffee table? I didn't take a lot of convincing, not with Ego and Avarice playing their usual roles, and just this week the books have begun rolling off our virtual assembly line. (We made one change, designed to appeal to those of you with a collector turn of mind: while for the ebook covers we trimmed off blurb lines and publisher's detritus, the new paperback editions reproduce the original covers in their majestic entirety.)

The ebooks, you should note, are Kindle exclusives. (Remember, please, that you don't have to own a Kindle to download and read Kindle books. A free Kindle app will turn your Apple or Android device into a Kindle-friendly eReader.) While this does shut out the Nooksters among you, there's an upside for KindleGardeners—all of the CCE titles may be borrowed at no cost whatsoever by Kindle Unlimited subscribers. (And if you read a lot, I can't recommend KU highly enough. A free 30-day trial should let you know whether or not it's for you.)

The paperbacks will be available from Amazon or in the CreateSpace store —and from other online booksellers as well, though it may take some time before they reach all those virtual shelves. On Amazon, you'll find each book's Kindle edition on the same page as its paperback edition—but maybe not right away. It sometimes seems to take a while for everything to get sorted out.

Here's a list of all the books in the Collection of Classic Erotica. If the link's live, it will take you to a page where you can order the book; if it's not yet live, that means it's coming eventually in that medium. As more paperbacks become available, we'll update the corresponding links accordingly. As you'll note, a few titles are available in audio; we may or may not decide to record and publish additional CCE titles in audio.

#1 - 21 GAY STREET ebook paperback

#2 - CANDY ebook paperback

#3 - GIGOLO JOHNNY WELLS ebook paperback

#4 - APRIL NORTH ebook paperback audio

#5 - CARLA ebook paperback

#6 - A STRANGE KIND OF LOVE ebook paperback

#7 - CAMPUS TRAMP ebook paperback audio

#8 - COMMUNITY OF WOMEN ebook paperback

#9 - BORN TO BE BAD ebook paperback

#10 - COLLEGE FOR SINNERS ebook paperback

#11 - OF SHAME AND JOY ebook paperback

#12 - A WOMAN MUST LOVE ebook paperback

#13 - THE ADULTERERS ebook paperback

#14 - KEPT ebook paperback

#15 - THE TWISTED ONES ebook paperback

#16 - HIGH SCHOOL SEX CLUB ebook paperback

#17 - I SELL LOVE ebook paperback

#18 - 69 BARROW STREET ebook paperback audio

#19 - FOUR LIVES AT THE CROSSROADS ebook paperback

#20 - CIRCLE OF SINNERS (with Hal Dresner) ebook paperback

#21 - A GIRL CALLED HONEY (with Donald E. Westlake) ebook paperback audio

#22 - SIN HELLCAT (with Donald E. Westlake) ebook paperback audio

#23 - SO WILLING (with Donald E. Westlake) ebook paperback audio

And yes, there will probably be more titles in the future. I wrote a lot of these, and seem willing to share them with the world. And may I suggest that you click on some of the links even if you're not interested in reading the books? The product descriptions on the Amazon pages frequently consist more of an extended tip down Memory Lane than summaries of the books. I'm urged now and then to write a memoir, and it's pretty clear that's not gonna happen...but in a sense I'm doing it piecemeal here and there, and a lot of material has been finding its way into these book descriptions.

Have fun!

@MyFavoriteBooks—an ongoing report

I've been reporting every couple of days on favorite books, and gathering them into this blog post which I update with each new entry. This will be a continuing feature, so if interested just check www.lawrenceblock.com from time to time for updates.

5/27 #MyFavoriteBooks Just what the title says it is: A Short History of Nearly Everything , by Bill Bryson.

A couple of years ago I was cruising the North Atlantic aboard Holland America's Veendam. I was alone, working every day on what turned out to be The Burglar who Counted the Spoons, and when I wasn't working I was often reading a book from the ship's impressive library. One such book was In a Sunburned Country, Bill Bryson's report from Australia. I got through it in less time than A Short History of Nearly Everything because I was all by myself, and thus did not feel compelled to stop every few pages to read a couple of paragraphs aloud to my wife. The urge kept surfacing, however, and if there'd been a mouse in my cabin it might have heard more than it needed to know about the salt-water crocodile.

Bryson undertook to write A Short History of Nearly Everything because of his own extensive ignorance of matters scientific, an ignorance I shared in spades. He devoted a couple of years to educating himself about, well, nearly everything, and recounted it in so compellingly readable a fashion as to render it not only comprehensible to me—a miracle, that—but hugely fascinating in the bargain. I've returned to it from time to time over the years, dipping into it to refresh my memory of something or other, and I think I'm about ready to start at the beginning and re-read it straight through.

 

5/25 #‎MyFavoriteBooks ‬ Some magic for those of us who know books are real. The Museum of Literary Souls , by John Connolly.

This one's a treat, in a manner not unlike W. R. Kinsella's Shoeless Joe . (Years ago, during the late Carol Brener's reign at Murder Ink, she stocked and vigorously championed a handful of books that were not crime fiction by any stretch of the genre's boundaries. They were books she liked, and books she was sure other mystery readers would like—and she was almost always right. Shoeless Joe was one such book. Come to think of it, I believe The Queen's Gambit —see below—was another.)

Connolly's a mystery writer of considerable distinction, but this is not a mystery—and I know Carol would have loved it. As I suspect will most of y'all. One really wants that museum to exist, even as one wants to go there.

I should probably mention that The Museum of Literary Souls, a Kindle Single, is priced at $1.99, and may be borrowed free of charge by Kindle Unlimited subscribers .

 

5/22— #MyFavoriteBooks Forever by Pete Hamill. Best New York novel ever. Brilliant premise beautifully realized. The author's a national treasure, of course, but even more than that he's a local treasure, and most of his books are love songs to the city. You'll hum along with this one. Cormac O'Connor comes to New York from Ireland in 1740, and is given a remarkable gift: he'll live forever, so long as he never sets foot outside the island of Manhattan. And as the decades slip by, and friends and lovers age and die, Cormac remains young and vigorous. (And, unlike that uncooperative cabdriver who left you stranded the other day, he's got a perfect understandable reason for refusing to go to Brooklyn.)

A wonderful read. You don't have to be a New Yorker to love this book. You don't have to be Irish or Jewish, either. But what could it hoit?

 

5/20— #MyFavoriteBooks The Power Broker by Robert A. Caro . http://amzn.to/20eUE0Z Best book I know about New York City in the 20th Century. Bob Caro, whose multi-volume work on LBJ may be the best book I know about *America* in the 20th Century, here examines the man who remade—and, while he was at it, did much to ruin—New York. Remarkable that this book, which continues to sell well, is not eVailable. It weighs a ton, and while reading it I wished I could have it instead on my Kindle. Sore wrists or no I was treated to exhaustive examinations of Jimmy Walker, Fiorello LaGuardia, FDR, Al Smith—indeed, to everyone who was part of the story. And I was sustained throughout by the comforting knowledge that Robert Moses, that thoroughgoing son of a bitch, would be safely dead and in the ground by the time the book was done. I don't expect to reread The Power Broker, but by God it's a keeper.

 

 

5/18— #MyFavoriteBooks The Year of the French, Thomas Flanagan's novel of the 1798 Rising, vol. 1 of an epic trilogy.

This is the finest sort of historical fiction. It doesn't set out to give you a history lesson. Its intention is to break your heart, and it succeeds admirably. I've read this book several times, always hoping for a happy ending. If this works for you, you'll want to go on to the succeeding volumes, The Tenants of Time and The End of the Hunt. Different time periods and characters, same benighted country—and the same extraordinary author, elevating the historical novel to literature.

Tuesday, May 17. A couple of days ago I posted a tweet (or tweeted a post, whatever) with this hashtag. On the one hand, it seems presumptuous to, um, presume any of y'all will care what I like to read; OTOH, I get asked precisely that all the time, so why be coy?

Here are the Facebook versions of the tweets. The picks are the same, but on Facebook I'm not limited to 140 characters. I'll add to this post—ideally every day, but who's to say how long I'll keep my nose to that particular grindstone? If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you'll get the tweets and posts as they appear. If you miss them, I'll add them here.

5/17—#‎MyFavoriteBooks ‬ The Parker novels by Richard Stark. http://amzn.to/27vtUim Start with The Hunter and read them all. University of Chicago Press has published the whole series in gorgeous paperback editions (thank you, Levi Stahl) and I was able to contribute introductions to three of them. Darwyn Cooke, who died way too young last week, turned several of the books into vibrant graphic novels—but read the books first and save the graphic novels for dessert. . . I've been a fan of these books since I read the first chapter of The Hunter before the second chapter was written—55+ years ago. I find the whole series endlessly rereadable, and Parker brilliantly realized and always compelling.

 

 

 

5/16—#‎MyFavoriteBooks‬ The Killer Angels, Michael Shaara's novel of Gettysburg. http://amzn.to/1TgKTeF Riveting and endlessly rereadable. It served as a model for his son Jeff, who's gone on to chronicle the Civil War at length, and America's other wars as well. All recommended, but I suggest you start with this one. Then try the two that bracket it, Jeff Shaara's Gods and Generals and The Last Full Measure, in that order. And then just keep going. Jeff Shaara was a professional numismatist with no evident interest in writing until someone suggested he take up his father's mantle, and it turned out to fit him like a glove. Who knew?

 

 

 

5/15—#‎MyFavoriteBooks‬ The Queen's Gambit by Walter Tevis. Richly satisfying—spellbinding, really—whether or not you understand the game of chess...Tevis was a wonderful writer. Small body of work, almost all of it very special. This one's a particular favorite, and I've read it at least four times, always with delight.

How Hodge the Podge? How Mish the Mash?

Or, for that matter, how galli is my maufry?

Which is simply (well, not very) to say that I have several things to recount to you, and that they're quite unrelated, and the best I can do is number them, in the hope that this will provide an illusion of order. That helps me know how to begin, too. I'll just start with #1 and move on from there.

1. If you're a writer, you need to understand the business of writing. If you'd like to make a living, or even part of a living, out of your writing, you have to see it as a business and approach it in a businesslike fashion. Unfortunately, there's no university I know of with a program leading to an MBA in writing. (What they do provide is an MFA, and that—believe me—is a very different matter.)

No, you have to earn this particular degree all by yourself. Toward that end, I'm going to recommend a ten-book StoryBundle that has just gone on offer. I'm not an uninterested party, as my own book, Writing the Novel from Plot to Print to Pixel, is one the bundle's components. Have a look:



Here's how it works: You click here and pay $15 for all 10 books, available in any format for any eReader—Kindle, Nook, Kobo, Apple, your smart phone, your toaster oven, whatever. (You can pay more, they do give you that option, but I can't see why you would want to. $15 is all you have to part with.) Then you download all the books, and you've taken a first key step toward treating writing as a business. (My own book alone has never been offered for less than $9.99. There are two books included by Wesley Dean Smith and one by Kris Rusch that together provide as much solid business info as that mythical Writer's MBA would give you. I've not yet read the others—though I certainly intend to—but know them to be clear and straightforward in their coverage of other essential aspects of the subject.

In another of my books for writers, Spider, Spin Me a Web , there's a chapter called "An Investment in Pots and Pans." It cites a story Zig Ziglar used to tell about a cookware salesman's need to make a preliminary investment; you had to buy a set of the cookware yourself, he reasoned, if you were going to be able to sell it effectively. Writing doesn't require much in the way of capital investment—a laptop, a card table, a coffee pot—but if you're a writer with fifteen bucks to spare, you probably really ought to buy the cookware.

Moving on...

2. #MyFavoriteBooks. That's a hashtag I've been using for a series of tweets I've been perpetrating every couple of days, as the spirit moves me. I don't give blurbs, and I do my best to avoid saying anything nice about another living writer, but I'm often asked what I like to read, and thus this collection of ringing endorsements. They're very brief on Twitter, out of necessity, and not much longer when I repost them on Facebook. But I've been gathering expanded versions of them into an ongoing blog post , which I update accordingly each time I pick another book to tweet about. Writers so far include Michael Shaara , Walter Tevis, Robert A. Caro, Pete Hamill, John Connolly, Richard Stark, and Thomas Flanagan . Have a look from time to time, and see if there's something you missed—or that you'd like to read again.

3. A Walk Among the Tombstones. #10 in the Matthew Scudder series. The film (written and directed by Scott Frank, with Liam Neeson superb as Scudder) has been getting a lot of TV play lately, and no end of viewers who missed it during its theatrical run are discovering how fine a film it is. (No, it's not the book. Elaine's not in it, and there are some plot changes which may or may not have been a good idea. But it's a movie, and a genuinely excellent one. The cinematography is such that they'll be teaching this one in film schools for years.)

The film's available in DVD in a range of formats at prices as low as $8.89. Carlos Rafael Rivera's soundtrack can be had as an MP3 download or an audio CD. And, of course, there's always the book itself, as an ebook or a handsome trade paperback . Finally, LB's eBay Bookstore can supply paperbacks, foreign editions, or the movie poster —everything signed, of course.

And, to anticipate your question, there's no prospect at present for a sequel. Liam Neeson would like to play Scudder again, and Scott Frank already has the next book in mind—but the box office numbers were not good enough to get a sequel green-lighted. (Green-lit? Never mind. If it ain't gonna happen, who cares how we say it?)

4. Keller's Fedora. You already know about it, and you may already have read it, but who am I to refrain from preaching to the choir? It's the 24,000-word novella I wrote in March, sequestered in Jacksonville, and it's on sale now as a Kindle Single for $2.99 (or free to Kindle Unlimited subscribers ). My previous Kindle Single, Resume Speed , has been a bestseller, and this one's off to an even better start—and that's in advance of the special promotional boost Amazon gives all its Kindle Singles titles.

But will it be a book? I've been getting that question a lot, via email and social media, and I thought I'd answered it, but that's no reason not to answer it again. Yes, as with Resume Speed, the ebook will remain exclusive to Kindle, with Subterranean Press scheduled to publish a hardcover trade and signed limited edition. (Subterranean's Resume Speed has a release date of December 31 , and you might be well advised to pre-order it now ; their Keller's Fedora will show up sometime in 2017.

Which leads us into...

5. New ventures in audio. I've found a voice artist to narrate and produce an audio version of Resume Speed, and I've heard enough already to make me very happy with my choice. My guess is the audiobook will be on sale before the end of June. I'll let you know.

I've decided to do the same for Keller's Fedora, which I've recently opened for auditions on ACX . If you're an audiobook narrator with a home studio and want to work on a shared-royalties basis, feel free to submit an audition via the ACX site.

And if by some chance you're a German audiobook narrator, I'd encourage you to audition for Die Sünden der Väter , the German edition of The Sins of the Fathers. While the ebook and paperback have taken their time getting a foothold in the German market, sales have picked up sharply in the past two months, and we're encouraged to try it in audio. If we find a narrator/producer...

6. Speaking of German translations, and speaking of Resume Speed, it's my great pleasure to announce that the latter is available in the former. Which is to say that Stefan Mommertz's translation of Resume Speed, Mit leichtem Gepäck, is eVailable at all Amazon sites, including amazon.de and amazon.com . Stefan's translations of the second Scudder novel, Time to Murder and Create, and the second short story, A Candle for the Bag Lady, will be along soon.

May we move from Deutsch to Español? With El hombre peligroso (their translation of Such Men Are Dangerous) on sale in ebook and paperback, the Carrington sisters have turned their attention to Matthew Scudder—specifically, the Scudder short stories. Salió por la ventana will be on sale in a matter of days, with the rest of the stories from The Night and the Music to follow. (And that'll be La noche y la música when we bring out the entire collection.)

And, finally...

7. 51 Poems—or proof, if needed, that I've taken leave of my senses. I've embraced self-publishing with great delight, as y'all have no doubt noticed. But the last thing I ever wanted to do was publish something by somebody else.

Well, I seem to have gone and done the last thing. Through Facebook, I've become acquainted with the work of Marcus Bales, a Cleveland-based poet who composes light verse that rivals that of Ogden Nash and Morris Bishop and, oh, I don't know. William Mackworth Praed? Marcus is a master of tricky verse forms, and wildly prolific in the bargain, twice undertaking to write and distribute (free!) a poem a day for a full month. But he'd never had a book published, and wouldn't self-publish, and so I offered my services.

Thus 51 Poems. It's a lovely little book, and at $9.99 that works out to less than 20¢ a poem. It is, I assure you, the first and last book of poetry I'll ever publish, even as it's the first and last book by someone other than myself that will ever bear the imprint of LB Productions. And yes, there'll be an ebook edition, as soon as my Goddess of Design and Production is able to get it in shape. (And if you buy the paperback now, you'll be able to add the ebook later at the Kindle MatchBook bargain price.)

You know what? I believe we've actually come to the end of our hodgepodge, that our mish is sufficiently mashed. If you're a writer, pick up the StoryBundle —it's available, as you might suspect, for a limited time only. If you're a reader, pick up everything else. And, whoever you are, enjoy the long weekend and the eternal delight of spring.

Cheers,



PS: As always, please feel free to forward this to anyone you think might find it of interest. And, if you've received the newsletter in that fashion from a friend and would like your own subscription, that's easily arranged; a blank email to lawbloc@gmail.com with Newsletter in the subject line will get the job done.

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Hats Off to Keller!

Well, it took a while, but I'm delighted to tell you that my brand-new Keller novella, Keller's Fedora , is on sale right now at all Amazon sites. It's a Kindle Single, which assures it a heavy promotional push from the Amazonians. But if you click the link and order now , I guarantee they'll have a copy for you.

But do I see some hands raised out there? Ma'am, I suppose you'd like to know about the process involved in plot development, and how this particular episode fits into the overall arc of the character's growth. By all means, ask your question.

How much does it cost?

See, I recognized you right away as an artistic spirit. The price is $2.99. (If you're a Kindle Unlimited subscriber, you can borrow it for free and keep it as long as you like.)

It must be short if it's only $2.99. I'll probably read it in, like, seven minutes.

It's 24,000 words long, which makes it a third the length of the average Keller book. Not even Harriet Klausner, in her prime and stoked on espresso, could zip through Keller's Fedora in seven minutes.

What's the time frame? Is it a flashback, set during Keller's days as an Urban Lonely Guy in Manhattan?

No, it's present time, and he's living in New Orleans with his wife and daughter. Buying and selling stamps, rehabbing houses and flipping them. Leading a quiet and blameless life.

Then what's he doing taking assignments from Dot? I thought the man was retired.

Lady, I thought I was retired. Turns out we were both misinformed. And this particular assignment is a special challenge for Keller. He knows what he's supposed to do, but he doesn't know whom he's supposed to do it to. Before he can carry out his assignment, he has to make like a private detective.

A private detective? Keller as Sam Spade? Oh, that's where the fedora comes from!

Actually, the fedora comes from Peller & Smythe, Men's Clothiers, located on Canal Street at the edge of New Orleans' Vieux Carre. But that's why he buys it, and why he's wearing it when he boards that train to Chicago. And I'll tell you something, he looks damn good in it.

Sorry—no more questions. I'm in a hurry to spread the news. Keller's back, and a mouse-click or two will make him yours.

Enjoy!



PS: As always, please feel free to forward this to anyone you think might find it of interest. And, if you've received the newsletter in that fashion from a friend and would like your own subscription, that's easily arranged; a blank email to lawbloc@gmail.com with Newsletter in the subject line will get the job done.

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Twitter: @LawrenceBlock

all about Keller & Kindle

I know, I know. I told you that my brand-new novella, Keller's Fedora, would be on sale May 10. Well, that day has come and gone, as days are wont to do, and you haven't seen the novella, and neither has anybody else. Copy editing took a little longer than planned, and so did cover art, but I have to say I think it was worth it.

Innit pretty? It's not on sale yet, but it will be in a matter of days. Once it's out there, I'll make sure y'all know about it. But in the meantime I thought I'd tell you about some other Keller stories that I've just published on Kindle. They're not new—but they're new to the eWorld, and may be new to you.

Four of the five Keller books—Hit Man, Hit List, Hit Parade and Hit Me—are episodic novels. (Which stands to reason, as Keller's is an episodic existence: he takes a job, he makes his plans, he does his work, and he goes home even as the object of his attentions is cooling down to room temperature. End of episode.) Most of these episodes started life as novelettes or novellas, with many initially published in Playboy, and that seems to be a natural length for Keller. Over the years I've Kindle-published Keller in Dallas, Keller's Therapy, Keller's Horoscope, Keller's Adjustment, and Keller on the Spot, and all have been steady sellers.

Inspired by the prospect of Keller's Fedora, my Goddess of Production and Design came up with new covers for all of these, while I readied three more Keller tales for first-time ePublication: Keller's Homecoming, Keller's Designated Hitter, and Keller the Dogkiller. They're $2.99 apiece; Kindle Unlimited subscribers can borrow them free of charge.

You know, I could have sworn I saw one for 99¢...

That would be Keller in Des Moines, and it's the opening sequence of the one Keller book that's not episodic in structure, Hit and Run. That's the fourth book in the series, and it's a thriller with a single continuous story arc. This way you can get a very inexpensive taste of the book, and decide if you want to read the rest of it.

So much for Keller. Now let me say a word or two about Kindle.

In recent years I've published ebooks on all the major platforms—Kobo, Smashwords, Apple's iBooks, Barnes & Noble's Nook, and Amazon's Kindle. Increasingly I've found it distinctly advantageous to take my work down from other platforms and render it exclusive to Kindle. My Keller stories are all Kindle-only, and so are all the titles in the Collection of Classic Erotica (18 so far, with more to come) and most of those in the Classic Crime Library.

This is a source of annoyance to Nook and Kobo owners, who understandably resent the idea of having to buy another gadget. There are, however, several ways to read Kindle books without owning a Kindle, and not everyone's aware of them—so perhaps I can be of service.

1. Get a free Kindle app and read books on your desktop or mobile device. Completely free, and couldn't be simpler. You can read on your PC or Mac, and the experience is a healthy cut above most computer-screen reading. I read everything on my Kindle, which suits me fine, but people I know swear by the Kindle app for their iPads. And for years now my eldest daughter, a heavy reader, has done most of her reading on her iPhone.

2. Try Kindle Unlimited free of charge for 30 days. Every book of mine that's available exclusively for Kindle is automatically available to Kindle Unlimited subscribers—completely free. With KU, you can borrow any eligible book and keep it as long as you want. (You're limited to ten books on your KU shelf at any one time, but all that means is you have to give one back to borrow another.) The charge for all this access is $9.99 a month, and if you do a lot of reading you'll come out way ahead. But the best way to find out if KU is for you is to take Amazon up on their 30-day free trial offer. Just click the link and Bob's your uncle. (In the next month you could read all my Keller stories, including Keller's Fedora, and all those erotic classics and classic crime novels, and then wave bye-bye without spending a cent. Of course, the Amazonians figure you'll stick around—and I suspect they're right.)

I dunno, LB. You're trying to get us to pick up something free so that we can use it to read your books for free. And you're the one paying to send out a free newsletter. That's a whole lot of free. Shouldn't you be trying to sell us something?

You've got a point.

[image error]Okay, how this? The latest title in the Collection of Classic Erotica, and it came within a hare's breath of making it into the Classic Crime Library. Because it's a caper novel, a dark savage tale about an armored car holdup and the lives that go straight to hell around it. If The Girl with the Deep Blue Eyes is James M. Cain on Viagra, as my film agent called it, then this one is Gentleman Jim Thompson on that same happy blue pill.

So what's Four Lives at the Crossroads doing in the Collection of Classic Erotica? I asked myself the same question, and decided that its hefty erotic content dictated the call. I've edited it some—this is its first publication in any form since 1962—but the editing necessary to suit it to the Classic Crime Library would have been exhausting, and I found myself likening the enterprise to putting lipstick on a pig.

Lipstick or no, it's a pretty good read—and if you'd prefer to have it in printed form, you won't have long to wait. It and all its Classic Erotica comrades will soon be available in handsome paperback editions. The ebooks are all $2.99 apiece; the paperbacks will be higher—all that paper and ink, don't you know—but still reasonable, with $9.99 the likely price point.

Happy now? I've given all of y'all something to buy.

But suppose I sign up for Kindle Unlimited? Then I can read it for free, can't I?

You can indeed, and I can't thank you enough for pointing that out to me. I'm out of here, and I won't be back until Keller's Fedora is available at an Amazon website near you. Which should be very soon...

Cheers,



PS: As always, please feel free to forward this to anyone you think might find it of interest. And, if you've received the newsletter in that fashion from a friend and would like your own subscription, that's easily arranged; a blank email to lawbloc@gmail.com with Newsletter-GR in the subject line will get the job done.

LB's Bookstore on eBay
LB's Blog and Website
LB's Facebook Fan Page
Twitter: @LawrenceBlock