Getting Medieval

The Body on the Bench

I wrote a little piece for The RapSheet on Dorothy B. Hughes' novel The Body on the Bench. She's one of my fav noir authors, so do check out what I had to say.

Amazon vs Macmillan--Updated

Okay. Now it's personal.

Amazon has been in a pricing war for a while by charging their e-books at the rock-bottom price of $9.99. And some of you have loved it. Who wouldn't? Buying books by your favorite authors for your Kindle, the Amazon e-book reader (that won't let you buy from other e-stores. Can you say "monopoly"?) at cheap prices. Ah, but only the first few are cheap. As soon as you are all hooked, the prices will all go up. You knew that, didn't you?

Amazon CEO Steve Besos is fond of saying that after the book is in print it costs nothing to make it an e-book. Well, costs of printing aside, there is editing both by the editor and copy editors (and the editor deals mroe with content, shaping a book so that it's the best read possible, not just cutting stuff to make it shorter), marketing, book cover deisgn, and...um...let me see. I know there's someone else...oh yes! The friggin' author! The person who created the whole darn book to begin with. Yeah, we'd also like to be paid. And 10% of $9.99 isn't going to go very far, especailly when it's released at the same moment as the $24.95 hardcover. Amazon takes a loss at the $9.99 price, which means it's about selling Kindles. Prices would eventually have been raised on e-books and now they can conveniently blame the raise in prices on the publishers. 

Now Macmillan, the parent company of quite a few big publishers, namely Henry Holt & Co., Tor/Forge, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and St. Martin's, has been arguing with Amazon for some time on this issue. Well today, Amazon pulled all the Macmillan titles from their site. Did you notice the last publisher in the list there? St. Martin's? That's my publisher. So if you go to Amazon and look up Veil of Lies or Serpent in the Thorns, their pages are still up, but you can't buy from Amazon. You can only buy "new" copies and used copies from third party sellers.

Now in order for books to be published--ie, publishers make money and therefore publish new authors--they have to be paid for the books they produce. If you buy used books none of the money you pay is going to the publisher and consequently to the author, who get their money from the publisher for all new books sold, no matter where they are sold. I don't know who these third party book sellers are who are selling books "new" on Amazon but I'm also uncertain as to whether they are actually new and monies collected go to the publisher.

Now, I'm pretty sure this brouhaha is temporary, but in the meantime and for all time, I have removed my amazon links. If you wish to buy my books, may I recommend that you first go to your favorite neighborhood independent bookseller. If you are lucky enough to have an independent mystery bookseller nearby, even better. To find some, go to Indiebound.org. If not that, then toddle on over to Barnes & Noble (forget Borders. They don't have my book. They don't carry a lot of St. Martin's authors. That's an entirely different issue.) If you prefer to order online, your friendly neighborhood bookseller probably has an online store. So does Barnes & Noble. Please go there for your next purchases. Amazon's choke hold on the market of e-books is only the beginning. Soon they will wish to dictate to publishers what books to publish. We can't have that.

If you'd like to read more, read the story in the LA Times which links to the story in the New York Times.

Here is an update from the CEO of Macmillan published in Publisher's Weekly:

To: All Macmillan authors/illustrators and the literary agent community
From: John Sargent

This past Thursday I met with Amazon in Seattle. I gave them our proposal for new terms of sale for e books under the agency model which will become effective in early March. In addition, I told them they could stay with their old terms of sale, but that this would involve extensive and deep windowing of titles. By the time I arrived back in New York late yesterday afternoon they informed me that they were taking all our books off the Kindle site, and off Amazon. The books will continue to be available on Amazon.com through third parties.

I regret that we have reached this impasse. Amazon has been a valuable customer for a long time, and it is my great hope that they will continue to be in the very near future. They have been a great innovator in our industry, and I suspect they will continue to be for decades to come.

It is those decades that concern me now, as I am sure they concern you. In the ink-on-paper world we sell books to retailers far and wide on a business model that provides a level playing field, and allows all retailers the possibility of selling books profitably. Looking to the future and to a growing digital business, we need to establish the same
sort of business model, one that encourages new devices and new stores. One that encourages healthy competition. One that is stable and rational. It also needs to insure that intellectual property can be widely available digitally at a price that is both fair to the consumer and allows those who create it and publish it to be fairly compensated.

Under the agency model, we will sell the digital editions of our books to consumers through our retailers. Our retailers will act as our agents and will take a 30% commission (the standard split today for many digtal media businesses). The price will be set for each book individually. Our plan is to price the digital edition of most adult trade books in a price range from $14.99 to $5.99. At first release, concurrent with a hardcover, most titles will be priced between $14.99 and $12.99. E books will almost always appear day on date with the physical edition. Pricing
will be dynamic over time.

The agency model would allow Amazon to make more money selling our books, not less. We would make less money in our dealings with Amazon under the new model. Our disagreement is not about short term profitability but rather about the long-term viability and stability of the digital book market.

Amazon and Macmillan both want a healthy and vibrant future for books. We clearly do not agree on how to get there. Meanwhile, the action they chose to take last night clearly defines the importance they attribute to their view. We hold our view equally strongly. I hope you agree with us.

You are a vast and wonderful crew. It is impossible to reach you all in the very limited timeframe we are working under, so I have sent this message in unorthodox form. I hope it reaches you all, and quickly. Monday morning I will fully brief all of our editors, and they will be able to answer your questions. I hope to speak to many of you over the coming days.

Thanks for all the support you have shown in the last few hours; it is much appreciated.

All best, John

Literary Salon with Janet Rudolph

I feel a little like I've made it. I was invited to Janet Rudolph's Literary Salon. Janet is the head honcho for the Mystery Reader's Journal. Many mystery readers read her journal for articles by mystery authors and if they are lucky enough to live in the Berkeley, CA area, they can come to her literary salons held in her home and meet them.

Janet had a spread of sweets, savory, and wine. Just what book buffs need. There were eleven in attendance in her charming home in the winding hills above Berkeley, and I gave my usual spiel, which entails my getting up and swinging weapons about. It's a crowd pleaser. I answered questions about Crispin, about me, about writing, about publishing and everyone seemed to have a jolly good time.

But what was also a highlight of this part of our trip, was meeting--in the flesh!--one of my online critique buddies. This is a group I've been with almost since day one, some five or six years. We got together from Sisters in Crime online and only communicated through email or through snail mail, but never in person and never even on the phone. Well, I finally met one of them for the literary salon: Ana Brazil (below). One of three great ladies without whom I could not get my manuscripts in shape. Thank you guys! It was good to meet you, Ana! At last!   

I appear to be holding court at the salon. And that's Guppy Gigi there first on the left.

 

 

 

 

 

Ana Brazil--critiquer extraordinaire--and me.

More Santa Rosa Highlights

I usually don't do this on this blog, but since I'm on a little vacation I want to share some of the highlights with you. In the last post we had a shot of the house used in the Alfred Hitchcock classic "Shadow of a Doubt." But that's not the only place we saw. A few wineries were on our agenda and while at one winery we heard about a cheese factory. We like that, so I investigated and onward we went.

The Joe Matos Cheese Factory is in the middle of the wine country down a long, muddy driveway, past a bunch of muddy cows, who no doubt supply the milk for the cheese, and into a muddy courtyard between a delapidated barn and a storage building. On that storage building there is a modest sign that says, "Cheese Factory." When you open the door a claxon sounds to let someone know you are there. There's an old glass counter with a big wedge of cheese in it, a cash register, and an open door with a peek into the cheese drying room where the big wheels of cheese--only the one kind, Portuguese St. Jorge, a mild medium cheese--are stored. The place smelled of mold, and not in a good way. But finally, a young woman emerged who spoke little English but who gave us each a nice slice to try. It was really lovely. $7 a pound. We bought two.

 

Santa Rosa has what they call their Rural Cemetary and I can't pass up a cemetary with granite monuments and lots of creepy moss, so here are a few pics.

 
 
 
 
  

Book Tour in Northern California

So I'm doing a little traveling just when California decides to have some rain. The trip up was a little wet as we white-knuckled it towards parts north, but the rain also creates a delightful landscape where everything is green and has that English countryside look about it. I know this will only last till about the end of March. Then everything turns golden brown and crispy. But for now, I can dream.

First stop was San Mateo to M is for Mystery Bookstore. What a charming downtown and what a great shop. Thank you Ed Kaufman and staff for your great hospitality. Here are a few shots of the event:

Owner Ed Kaufman examines my hardware.

After my stint in San Mateo it was on the road, heading for Santa Rosa for a couple of days of relaxing and wine tasting (okay, it's also my 25th wedding anniversary trip with the husband) and we saw this. Happy cows in California are towed cows.

While in Santa Rosa, I snapped the picture below of a house used in a Hitchcock film. In fact, the whole movie was filmed on location in Santa Rosa. They even filmed in this house, which they never ordinarily would have done, but it was during the war and materials were scarce. Which film was it, all you Hitchcock fans? Answer below.

"Shadow of a Doubt" with Joseph Cotton and Theresa Wright. Though for someone who is called the "master of suspense" I believe Hitchcock was in desperate need of editing. The first eight minutes of this film should have been deleted. It's all unnecessary prologue and takes away from the suspense of Joseph Cotton's character as he gets creepier and creepier.

Next stop, Berekely.

 
  

Left Coast Crime Nomination

Hey! I'm very excited. Serpent in the Thorns, my second Crispin Guest Medieval Noir, is nominated for the Bruce Alexander Historical Mystery Award.

Here is the list:

The Bruce Alexander … a historical mystery set before 1950, given at every Left Coast Crime Convention:
Tasha Alexander Tears of Pearl
Rhys Bowen In a Gilded Cage
Rebecca Cantrell A Trace of Smoke
Gary Phillips Freedom’s Fight 
Jeri Westerson  Serpent in the Thorns

The award is presented at the Left Coast Crime mystery fan convention which is in Los Angeles this year. See you in March!

Early Look At The Demon's Parchment

I'm very excited. Here is a first pass for the cover for my Crispin Guest number three, The Demon's Parchment. And here is the jacket copy for the novel:

"In fourteenth century London, Crispin Guest is a disgraced knight convicted of treason and stripped of his land, title and his honor. He has become known as the “Tracker” – a man who can find anything, can solve any puzzle and, with the help of his apprentice, Jack Tucker, an orphaned street urchin with a thief’s touch --will do so for a price. But this time, even Crispin is wary of taking on his most recent client. Jacob of Provencal is a Jewish physician at the King's court, even though all Jews were expelled from England nearly a century before. Jacob wants Crispin to find stolen parchments that might be behind the recent, ongoing, gruesome murders of young boys, parchments that someone might have used to bring forth a demon which now stalks the streets and alleys of London."

"Westerson’s third novel is a compelling read. Her illustration of issues that still simmer today is nuanced and sensitive, her characters will surprise and delight you, and her elegant prose will lure you in from the start. With The Demon’s Parchment, Westerson is at the top of her game." --Libby Fischer Hellmann, author of Doubleback; A Suspense Novel.

Look for a release date sometime this fall.

Life Reeked With Joy

From time to time, we come across the many attempts by college students to define the Middle Ages, possibly without ever having read about them. And professors love to make compilations of some of the detritus that end up on their desks. Here is a sample:

"During the Middle Ages, everybody was middle aged. Church and state were co-operatic. Middle Evil society was made up of monks, lords, and surfs. It is unfortunate that we do not have a medivel European laid out on a table before us, ready for dissection. After a revival of infantile commerce slowly creeped into Europe, merchants appeared. Some were sitters and some were drifters. They roamed from town to town exposing themselves and organized big fairies in the countryside. Mideval people were violent. Murder during this period was nothing. Everybody killed someone. England fought numerously for land in France and ended up wining and losing. The Crusades were a series of military expaditions made by Christians seeking to free the holy land (the “Home Town” of Christ) from the Islams."

And it just gets worse from there. See the article here for a laugh.