Lawrence Block's Blog, page 21

All Keller, All the Time...

Here's a newsletter that went out to subscribers yesterday. I post some but not all newsletters here on my blog; if you'd like to receive the newsletter, a blank email to lawbloc@gmail.com, with "LB Newsletter" in the subject line, will get you on the list; adding LawrenceBlock.com@mail.vresp.com to your email address book will help ensure delivery.

ALL KELLER, ALL THE TIME...

I began writing about Keller in 1989, with a story called "Answers to Soldier." Playboy published it, MWA shortlisted it for an Edgar, and I forgot about it for a couple of years. Then I thought about the wistful assassin and realized he was just the sort of Urban Lonely Guy to wind up on a shrink's couch. That led to Keller's Therapy (Playboy again, and an Edgar victory this time), and one thing led to another. The first book—Hit Man—was published in 1998.

#5, HIT ME, will be published February 12 by Mulholland Books. The early reviews, online and in print, have been very gratifying, and only false modesty keeps me from sharing them with you. And the word seems to be spreading—a second printing is already on order.

Ah, I see some hands. Yes?

Where can I get a copy of Hit Me?

Wherever good books are sold. Order online from Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Books-A-Million| Indiebound | Other Retailers

Suppose I want a signed copy?

A little over a week ago I went to the publisher's warehouse in Lebanon, Indiana, and spent hours on end just writing my name. Here's a list of retailers who'll have some of these signed copies for sale:

A Capella Books | Alabama Booksmith | Book Carnival | Book People | The Booksmith | Carmichael's Bookstore | Garden District Bookshop | Iowa Book |Lemuria | Murder By the Book | Murder on the Beach | Mysterious Bookshop | Mystery One | Once Upon A Crime | Poisoned Pen | Seattle Mystery Bookshop | Uncle Edgar's Mystery Bookstore

With a second printing off-press before publication, ordering a signed book from one of these stores is one easy way to guarantee a first printing.

February 12? I don't want to wait that long!

Well, you can order the Limited Philatelic Edition and get a copy by return mail—we've got just under 100 of them left. That'll cost you $75; for a mere $2.99, you can read the opening episode of Hit Me, "Keller in Dallas," on your Kindle or Nook or eReader of choice.

This is Keller #5, right? How do I get #1-4?

LB's eBay Bookstore has various editions of Hit Man, Hit List, Hit Parade, and Hit & Run, all signed.

And, in addition to "Keller in Dallas," there are two more Keller stories newly eVailable. "Keller's Adjustment" is a novella which forms a part of Hit Parade, and it's been selling very strongly on its own; "Keller on the Spot" appeared originally in Playboy, won an MWA Edgar Award (Edgar's been a major Keller fan over the years) and was included in Hit Man. Both of these stories are Kindle exclusives @$2.99.

Could you tell me more about the Hit Me Philatelic Edition? Like, how come it's so expensive?

Just the other day I got out a specialized newsletter to the Philatelic list, and I don't want to repeat all that here. You can read the newsletter on Keller's Page; there's more information in the description of the eBay listing.

I'll be happy with the Trade Edition of Hit Me @ 26.99, but I'd love to get it signed in person. Will you be touring?

Not really. I'll fly out to L.A. sometime in February for The Late Late Show with my good buddy Craig Ferguson, and will very likely show up at one or two bookstores in the area. You'll get details in a newsletter and blog post in plenty of time. And February 14 I'll be signing at good buddy Otto Penzler's Mysterious Bookshop in New York City. Aside from that, I expect I'll be spending February the way it's meant to be spent—at home, with my feet up, reading.

And may I wish you the same? And may the book that you're reading be one of mine? Excellent!

LB

It's Orange Wednesday!

Here’s a newsletter that just went out to subscribers:

Ah, hello there. I hope your Thanksgiving was joyous, and that you fortified yourselves sufficiently at table to perform heroically on Black Friday. And CyberMonday—Open Road marked that occasion by dropping prices on 40+ backlist titles of mine by an astonishing 80%. Quite a few of you backed up the eTruck and loaded up, esp. on those early pseudonymous titles that are easily overlooked.

And here it is, Orange Wednesday. The prices, alas, are back to normal, but they’re still reasonable enough. Here are links to Kindle http://tinyurl.com/bsknmps and Nook http://tinyurl.com/brnwzvf, and you can find them on all other eBook platforms as well.

Quite a few of you have found a moment to order the Limited Philatelic Edition of Hit Me http://tinyurl.com/d4nwt44. The book’s at the printer, and should be coming off press soon; if you’ve placed your order, you’ve probably already received your complimentary souvenir sheet, Stamps from the Keller Collection, and I trust it’s sharpened your appetite for the actual book...

There's plenty more; click here www.lawrenceblock.wordpress.com to read the full newsletter on my blog.

November!

This just went out to newsletter subscribers...

Well, hello there! I’m nine days back from Japan and still a little loopy from jet lag, but our timing couldn’t have been better. We got back to our New York apartment three hours after the power was restored. With Thanksgiving on the horizon, that was an early occasion for gratitude.

The big news is that we’re now taking orders for the Deluxe Limited Philatelic Edition of HIT ME, with all signs pointing to delivery in time for Christmas. There’s more about this further along, but if that’s the news you’ve been waiting for and you don’t want to delay, click here http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lawrence-Bloc... to order from LB’s eBay Bookstore.

I”d just about settled in after our return from Japan when it was time to take Amtrak to Philadelphia for NoirCon. This every-other-year conference is wonderfully specialized, bringing together readers and writers who enjoy a look at the dark side; I didn’t much feel like going anywhere just then, even by train, but had to show up to receive the David Loeb Goodis award, named for Philadelphia’s late poet of the gutter, himself recently honored with the publication of five novels in the prestigious Library of America.

A highlight for me (if for no one else) was my onstage interview with Duane Swierczynski, who based his questions on my reminiscences in Afterthoughts; that led me down Memory Lane, recalling the early days of pseudonymous erotica, and made for an intresting hour and a half. My friend Otto Penzler was there to pick up the Jay & Deen Kogan award, and we got to spend some good time together. Add in a Roman Jewish dinner with a high school classmate at a Walnut Street restaurant, and it made for a weekend even a tired old man could enjoy.

I also enjoyed Gary Lovisi’s annual NYC Vintage Paperback show two days before we left for Japan. I finally got to meet fellow attendee Ann Bannon, with whom I’ve exchanged a few emails in recent years. It turns out she’s even more of a delight in person. She pointed out that she and Marijane Meaker and I are “the last of the early lesbian novelists,” and I felt a great rush of pride at being included in that company...

There's a lot more, and I don't want to jam up the Goodreads board. Click here http://lawrenceblock.wordpress.com/20... to read the rest.

October!

Here’s a newsletter that just went out to subscribers:

I apologize.

I’ve been starting most of my business and personal emails that way lately, and a fair share of my conversations, so why should this newsletter be any different? Like everything else lately, I’ve left this too long, and consequently have much to report. So let me Hop To It—

1. The first thing I ought to tell you is that I’m about to clear out of here for three weeks. On October 16, Lynne and I head to Japan, where after a few days of book promotion in Tokyo, we’ll join a small-group tour of rural Shikoku Island. Do I want to spoil its bucolic beauty with internet access? No way—so I won’t be taking a computer along. That means no email until our return the first week of November, and the most unsettling aspect is realizing how scary I find the prospect of being Out Of Touch. (And that, I submit, is reason enough to do it.)

Similarly, LB’s eBay Bookstore will be closed while we’re gone. We’ll be able to fill orders received through Friday, October 12 before we go, but after that date the store will be closed and the listings inaccessible until November 5. As we process orders within a day of receipt, you can order from us in November and be sure of delivery in time for the holidays.

2. It’s almost a year since I finished a fifth Keller novel, and Mulholland Books will finally bring out HIT ME in February. As some of you will recall, I issued a special Philatelic First Edition for Keller #4, Hit and Run, with a genuine USPS personalized postage stamp on the signed-and-numbered title page. It proved popular, and remains a prized item in the aftermarket.

We’re raising our game with HIT ME. Mulholland has authorized Otto Penzler’s Mysterious Bookshop to produce a very special First Philatelic Edition. It will be a true small-press book, printed on a finer grade of paper than the publisher’s trade edition, specially bound, and housed in a custom-fitted slipcase. Like its predecessor, it will be a limited printing, numbered and signed, and will bear a USPS stamp, affixed and canceled for the occasion, showing the book cover.

The price is $75 plus shipping.

But wait, there’s more!

In line with the longstanding philatelic tradition of commemorating an event with a souvenir sheet, we’ve prepared one to celebrate our special edition of Hit Me. Our sheet shows the jacket of the book, edged with mock perforations, along with six classic stamps referenced in the book, including rarities from German East Africa, Martinique, Allenstein, Obock, British East Africa, and a very special item we might call “the Poor Man’s Jenny.”

There's more, but I don't want to clutter up Goodreads. Here's a link to read the rest, and see the souvenir sheet: http://lawrenceblock.wordpress.com/20...

By: Roger Sitterly

It was my impression that the AM side of WYSO could only be received in the dorms because of something to do with the way it was broadcast – I remember someone saying it went out over the electrical circuits to the dorms or some such concept. I could never pick it up on my pocket transistor radio at the time, but if you had an AM radio plugged into a wall outlet in your room or in the common room, you could get it. I’m totally ignorant about anything electrical, so I have no idea how that could be – since you broadcast on WYSO, do you recall? Was AM just at such a super-low power rating that the signal faded before it got to Xenia Avenue? When I was there the FM side was powerful enough that it had to shut down at night when atmospheric conditions allowed it to interfere with commercial stations elsewhere in the region.

By: Lawrence Block

Roger, thanks so much. I love that the book had weekly midnight readings on WYSO. Never knew that. I had a weekly show on WYSO my freshman year—”The Blockenspiel,” I called it. It was an AM station at the time, and you could only receive it in the dorms, although occasionally it hitched a ride on an errant wave and wound up audible many miles away.

And yes, if it says “pica hole,” that would be a typo. I’d edited the Record one quarter, and probably would have called it a pica pole.

LB

By: Roger Sitterly

Aug 25, 2012

Mr. Block –

THANK YOU so much for authorizing the re-issuance of “Campus Tramp”. I know it’s been a couple of years since you did so, but I just last week found out about it in the Spring/Summer 2012 “Antiochian” – and immediately went on line and ordered a copy, which I’ve just finished reading.

I have to tell you it brought back some incredibly fond memories of my time in YSO (June 1962 – June 1967). I didn’t normally go to Ye Olde Trail Tavern (most of my friends and I patronized Com’s), but I recall the congested state of the golf course from time to time, and I spent a lot of time (way more than was academically advisable) shooting pool outside the Record Office on the second floor of the Union. Then, around 1965 or 1966, a portion of the Union Building that was accessed from that pool table area was turned into a photography darkroom, and I ended up inhaling copious quantities of glacial acetic acid fumes while mastering, sort of, the skills involved in black and white photography. During my time at Antioch, I lived in South (Camelot), Corry (Nash), the Presidents, and Mills (Orton). And, of course, there were lots of midnight trips to the YS Bakery to be on hand when the first batch of donuts came out of the hot fat – that was truly food for the Gods!

By the time I arrived as a freshman in June 1962, “Campus Tramp” was already part of the Antioch legend/atmosphere. However, for at least a couple of years, nobody seemed to have a copy so we poor entering students could only imagine what the book was like based on the tales of upperclassmen (not always accurate, as it turned out). Then, I think around 1965, someone at WYSO got a copy and one quarter read a chapter each week on WYSO-AM starting at midnight. Everyone in the hall unit crowded into the common room to listen – it was great!

I do have one infinitesimal little nit to pick. On page 93, line 4, the line begins “pica-hole he used to measure the copy. . .” My checkered career includes a five-year stint at a newspaper in Arizona, and we called them “pica sticks” or “pica poles”. I therefore believe it’s a typo. That doesn’t detract in the slightest from my enjoyment of the book – and again, THANK YOU so much for making it possible for me to finally enjoy first hand such an integral part of the 1960s Antioch experience.

Roger Sitterly

rogersitterly@yahoo.com

Class of 1967

ps – I tried your e-mail address from the 2007 Alumni Directory, but it didn’t work, so I’ve posted here.

Meet John Warren Wells. It won't cost you a cent...

Here's a newsletter that just went out to subscribers:

Ah, hello there. As many of you know, I once wrote a series of books on various aspects of human sexual behavior as John Warren Wells. Now, spurred on by the twin goads of Ego and Avarice, and ably assisted by brilliant eFormatter Jaye Manus, I’ve been republishing JWW’s body of work as Kindle Select eBooks. As of this moment, these seven titles are eVailable: EROS & CAPRICORN: a Crosscultural Survey of Sexual Techniques; 3 IS NOT A CROWD: Threesomes, Trios, and Trouples; THE MRS. ROBINSON SYNDROME: Older Women and Younger Men; THE SEX THERAPISTS: What They Can Do and How They Do It; WIDE OPEN: New Modes of Marriage; THE MALE HUSTLER: 7 Midnight Cowboys Tell Their Stories; and TRICKS OF THE TRADE: A Hooker’s Handbook of Sexual Technique. They’re all priced at $4.99 apiece, or may be borrowed at no charge by Amazon Prime members.

An eighth book is JWW’s piece de resistance. It’s DIFFERENT STROKES: How I (Gulp!) Wrote, Directed, and Starred in an X-rated Movie. It defies description, so I won’t even try. And it’s priced a little higher, at $6.99.



But you can get it for free. From this moment on, and for the next several days, Different Strokes will be yours at no cost whatsoever at these sites: amazon.com, amazon.de, amazon.es, amazon.fr, amazon.it, or amazon.co.uk. Just click on the link, then click on the web page, and Bob’s your uncle.

Oh, go ahead. Do it now, get those clicks in. The rest of this can wait…

#

Oh, good. You made it back. I’ve a few more items to call to your attention, and I’ll number them to give this report the illusion of structure...

I don't want to take up too much room here on Goodreads. Click here to read the rest.

Fifty Shades of Free...

FREE FOR ALL:

Starting in a matter of hours, at 3am Eastern time on Saturday, June 30, you can download my short story, "Welcome to the Real World," absolutely free.

The story's one that was written too recently for inclusion in Enough Rope, my omnibus collection. It's a golf story, and its sole appearance in print was in Otto Penzler's golf anthology, Murder in the Rough. It's one of the dozen Stories From the Dark Side I recently enrolled in Amazon's Kindle Select program, and that means I get to give it away.

And that's what I'm doing. This is not sheer altruism on my part; it's my wistful hope that you'll like the story enough to sample some of its dark-side fellows. But I won't feel betrayed if you don't. What I'm aiming at right now is the highest possible number of free downloads while the deal lasts.

The story's free for three 24-hour days, and the window doesn't slam shut until 2:59am Eastern time, Tuesday,July 2. It's a Kindle exclusive, but you don't need to be a Kindle owner in order to take advantage of it. A free Kindle app, readily available from Amazon, will enable you to read Kindle books on your Mac or PC, iPhone or iPad or Android, and almost anything else. (And at least two enterprising fellows figured out how to read Kindle-only books on his Nook; scroll through the comments that follow this recent post. While you're at it, you'll see the full list of Stories From the Dark Side.)

I should add that the offer's good worldwide. Here are links to Amazon's overseas sites: UK and Commonwealth France Germany Italy Spain

FREE FOR SOME...

ALMOST FREE...

ALMOST FREE IN LB'S BOOKSTORE...

I've truncated this post so as not to take up too much Goodreads space. There's a lot more; click here to read it!

I'll be brief...

When I hear those words, I generally figure the speaker's good for another hour and a half, minimum. But I really will be brief. Just a few points to cover:

1. The Hard Case Crime / Subterranean Press double volume of Strange Embrace and 69 Barrow Street, two early pseudonymous efforts of mine, no sooner came off press than the publisher ordered another 2000 copies. The books should ship June 25-6. They may all be spoken for—the pair of cover paintings by Robert McGinnis does make the book hard to resist—but mystery specialty booksellers should have copies, and I believe Amazon is still taking pre-orders.

2. For years now, Jerrold Mundis's Break Writer's Block Now! has been the bestselling item in LB's Bookstore. At the prodding of my occasionally annoying assistant, I've dropped the price from $14.99 clear down to $5.99. That may be all you need to know to order this invaluable little book, but I've plenty more to say on the subject, newly posted on the A Few Words for Writers page.

3. Bookstore titles keep coming (as we add new ones) and going (as you snap them up). We held the special price of After Hours at $4.99 until the last one was sold, and I hope you were able to get a copy. We still have a good supply of The Specialists at $4.99. Several of our $9.99 Large Print books sold out right away, so we cracked another box and put up some new ones. The hardcover first edition of The Burglar Who Studied Spinoza drew a lot of orders when we dropped the price to $9.99; that's prompted us to offer another special, one that deserves a number of its own:

4. The Burglar in the Rye is the favorite Bernie Rhodenbarr book for a lot of people; it's the one with our hero acting on behalf of a writer who might remind you of J. D.Salinger, with an ex-girlfriend who might remind you of—oh,never mind. We've had it listed at $24.99, reasonable enough for a signed hardcover first, but we're overstocked and I've just dropped the price—as of this moment, actually—to $9.99.

5. Last week's free one-day Kindle download of an Ehrengraf story got a good response, and the complete eBook of 11 stories, Ehrengraf For the Defense, is selling at a gratifying pace. You can expect more free downloads from time to time; just Follow LB's Blog and you'll always know what's coming.

And that's a wrap. See? I told you I'd be brief...

LB