Somehow Dead I Well May Be has been long listed as one of National Public Radio's "Killer Thrillers". I say somehow because unlike every other book on the list Dead I Well May Be isn't even in print anymore. Well done Simon and Schuster! It is nice to be nominated by NPR though; a few years ago I voted hard for Ella Fitzgerald on their list of greatest female singers of all time. If you want to vote for me you can do so over at NPR here. Of course you can also go over to NPR to vote for someone else too. There are a few interesting choices on there. Slainte.
Friday, July 16, 2010
Killer Thrillers
Somehow Dead I Well May Be has been long listed as one of National Public Radio's "Killer Thrillers". I say somehow because unlike every other book on the list Dead I Well May Be isn't even in print anymore. Well done Simon and Schuster! It is nice to be nominated by NPR though; a few years ago I voted hard for Ella Fitzgerald on their list of greatest female singers of all time. If you want to vote for me you can do so over at NPR here. Of course you can also go over to NPR to vote for someone else too. There are a few interesting choices on there. Slainte.
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45 comments:
I put in a vote for you which I'm sure will be the kiss of death for getting you a place in the top 100. I'm betting that none of my ten vote-getters lands in the top. It'll all be Stephen King and Lee Child.
Done and done.
Interesting choices indeed.
Naomi
It seems a little odd to me that you can vote more than once. Doesnt than mean that Stephen King will easily win? All it takes is a copule of his fans to vote 1000 times each. For their awards Spinetingler Magazine did it so that you couldnt vote twice from the same IP address.
Anyway thanks for the vote, I appreciate it.
I voted, and included Dead I Well May Be as one that I voted for.
Lots of Stephen King; I voted for The Shining, but The Dark Half, a much better book wasn't on the list.
I liked seeing Patricia Highsmith on the list.
Matt
Thanks man.
Alan
Whats great about Highsmith is that her style doesnt date in the slightest. Its cool, smart and economical. I love it.
Thanks for the vote.
Okay, I'll go vote, but boy does it frustrate me that DIWMB is not in print here The Serpent's Tail editions would do just dandy if they could be distributed here.
Seana
Two years I've been asking everyone at Scribner to either print the book or give me the rights. They tell me that it would be too expensive to print off a few more copies. Meanwhile they gave Audrey Niffenegger a five million dollar advance for "Her Fearful Symmetry", a book which has a three star review average on Amazon.com and currently resides at #3310 on their best seller list. Penny wise pound foolish as my old gran used to say.
I know it's not your fault. Unfortunately, even a bookseller who wants to sell books apparently has no input to offer in this case, as at least in our part of the world, they have not had reps who would relay anything back up the chain for a long time--for various reasons that are not entirely their own fault they've barely managed to show up and sell their own line.
I just found a contact link to Simon and Schuster, the parent company here if anyone wants to request the book's reprinting in a polite and diplomatic way. You could mention the NPR long list as a reason.
I just don't understand why Dead I Well May Be is out of print. Don't. Get. It.
Something will have to be done.
And I don't understand why The Big O didn't make it to paperback. I mean, I know what happened. I just don't understand what the hell they were thinking.
Got it done and I was wondering about voting more than once.
DIWMB isn't in print anymore..? That's sucktacular.
Voted. That's a good field to be in but I think DIMWB can hold it's head good and high. Nice to be listed alongside James Ellroy, I'd have thought.
Talking of which, I read Blood's a Rover on holiday and was relieved I enjoyed it, because I'd found The Cold Six Thousand unusually heavy going.
Done it too.
Seana
Well its a little bit my fault. If I had written a more commercial book it would still be in print.
Dec
It just makes the books all the more precious while they're here. Or, er, something.
Glenna
If you want to. I voted for Ella Fitzgerald Chicago style.
David
Its funny I had a similar reaction but flipped. That is, I struggled a bit with Blood's A Rover (esp when they went to the Dominican) whereas I found Cold 6000 to be fantastic. I wasn't really convinced by the women in Blood's A Rover either. Still, a good big holiday read I'll bet.
Phil
Thanks mate.
So they were making a movie at the end of our street on the beach in front of the St Kilda lighthouse.
De Niro is in town so just in case it was him I took the kids down, and although it wasnt De Niro it was David Wenham lying on the beach doing some scene. Wenham played Faramir in Lord of the Rings which for our family is bigger than Bobby D. He seemed like a very nice guy.
I didn't know you could tell how nice a guy was from watching him lie on a beach, but I'll take your word for it. Sounds like a fun outing.
DIWMB is commercial enough. Of course there's the crowd that just wants to read Patterson, but I've got to say that in my experience, the overall mystery audience is a pretty literate bunch. Besides--there's a lot of action in this one for everybody else.
If you run into DeNiro, ask him if he'll make the movie for you.
Naomi, it will be all Stepehn King and Lee Child only when the voters run out of Stieg Larsson. I'm not sure the reading publics have a great attention span.
I'm dubious about lists also, but if this gets Dead I Well May Be into more readers' hands, I say subvert the democratic process and vote hundreds of times.
P.S. Richard Stark's Slayground is an interesting, surprising and worthy inclusion on the ballot.
==========================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Mine must be broken...I can only vote once, and I didn't even use all 10 of my votes.
Glenna
Yeah my ten votes are used also and I didnt even vote for me yet which was completely idiotic yet somehow typical of my life.
Seana
Fair point. He might be a nutter. But he seemed ok.
If I see DeNiro I'll ask him if he's talking to me - bet he's never heard that one before.
Peter
You read that too? Very much a minority taste but I agree with you an interesting selection.
Slayground is good Stark/Westlake, maybe not his best, but damn, the man knew how to set himself a challenge, didn't he? And its inclusion on the list showed that the folks who compiled it thought carefully about what a thriller is.
I also like Ella Fitzgerald.
I don't think it's typical of your life, but I do think it might be typical of your self-promotion. But don't worry--you've got the fans out now. You can't influence them against yourself.
Okay, forget my previous strategy. If you run into DeNiro, give your kids copies of the book and steer them his way.
Adrian, there's a puzzling aspect to the book being out of print. Unless you signed a non-standard contract, If Scribner's don't have a 'commercial quantity' of your book in stock and will not reprint on your request, the rights revert to you on demand.
Cam
Yeah I wonder about that. I've been asking Scribner to bring out a POD edition of Dead for two years now (and I have the emails to prove it). I have asked my agent on more than one occasion if Scribner are now in breach because it looks like it to me.
Supposedly a POD edition will come out next month. (I've been hearing the next month story since November). If the POD is not done this year then I'm going to have to sue them.
However my agent tells me that some time this year they will produce a batch of POD's and keep them in a warehouse or make them available expensively on Amazon. No one at Scribner has told me this. In fact no one at Scribner has answered my increasingly pissed off emails since late last year. But I assume that my agent is right and a POD will happen because of the scenario that you suggest. They wont be bringing out a new edition or anything like that they'll just be producing a "commercial quantity" so that the rights dont revert back to me.
The last thing Scribner wants is for me to get the book back and for it to become a big seller with another US publishing house. That would be embarrassing.
I see five new copies are available on Amazon. Do you know whether retailers are told by the distributor that the book is out of print? You need to strike before the publisher offers an electronic version. I hope you won't mind my saying that agents don't always act in the best interests of authors. It is often easier to sacrifice the interests of a small client than to alienate some prick in a publishing house. After all, the agent has to sell other books to the said prick.
Cam
Those new copies are not from a POD. Just old "new copies".
The e license will hurt me. My agent feels that the active e license means that it would be harder for me to pursue an action. It hasnt really been tested in the US Courts and could cost me a fortune to pursue that angle. I agree to some extent. Yes its probably better to go soft shoe with Scribner for now but you know there's being patient and there's being an asshole.
My plan is to await developments but not indefinitely.
Adrian, sorry you're having so much trouble w/ your publisher. There's no excuse for them to not reply to your messages.
As I'm certain you are aware, DIWMB is available on Audible.com, which is where I got it. It's a great book, and a great narration.
I have no idea if the following is good or bad news for you: Audible.com is having a "paperback sale" with some items going for $5.95 USD. The list appears to be sorted by the author's first name, and The Bloomsday Dead is first on the list for $5.95!. I snapped it up!
It's funny you saying you won't await developments indefinitely, because from the bookseller's end, the limbo category which most books fall into when they aren't in print is OSI, or "out of stock indefinitely" rather than OP, or "out of print". I have to admit that I haven't thought much before about what kind of limbo this throws authors into, mainly because I assumed there was some fair way of handling it.
I've noticed that there are some Print on Demand books coming on to the market from publishers through the wholesalers, and the way that you can tell is that they are offered at a short discount. So in these cases, the cover price remains the same, but bookstores would be less likely to stock it as book discounts aren't the greatest at the best of times in comparison to most other retail items. However, nine times out of ten I assume they'd be happy to special order it, and of course stores would stock authors they like anyway.
Alan
Dont sweat it mate, if authors didnt complain about their publishers they'd have to start worrying about real problems. Jesus you should go to the bar at a writers festival and round about 1.30 in the morning all the publisher, editor and agent stories start pouring out.
oh yeah and although I dont get royalties from the audio books I'm really happy for Blackstone. Those guys know how to run a company, they really do.
Seana
Yeah its an unpleasant limbo existence but this too is a metaphor for life.
Or, er, something.
Hey, I've got my hardbacks (waiting for your signature) of DIMWB and all it's siblings. The entire series pure reading heaven,
far as I'm concerned. Should be graphic novelized, movied, etc.
Why it's not been so far is a mystery to me.
Patrick
Graphic novel would be so much fun to do, but alas I've had no takers.
I'm impressed with the inclusion of Dracula which I've always seen as thriller first, supernatural tale a distant second. I went out to buy a copy of it this weekend (mine is in a loft in London somewhere) and found hundreds of different vampire novels but not a single copy of Dracula.
That Mormon lady has an awful lot to answer for
What? No Dracula? It is such a great tale. So many levels.
What's this I read on Declan Burke's blog about DIWMB being reprinted?
Peter
I dont know what this is exactly. Dec broke the news to me. I was a bit surprised by the lack of cover, reviews, customer reviews and price and I wondered what exactly this was. I emailed my editor at s&s. His response has been what it was when I last inquired about this 6 months ago: nothing.
Such a charming business.
I voted while quietly pondering NPR's selection criteria. I doubt one of them was quality of language, which is one of the things I really loved about DWIMB.
Thank you Shullamuth and at least I got a vote from you which more than I got from me.
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