MAYHEM ON MONDAYS

The shrinking world of publishing.

We've all been concerned over the shrinking world of independent bookstores, with our wonderful Books on Beechwood in Ottawa being the latest scheduled for closure (early in the new year). Also, there's the fact that the book sections in the large Chapters/Indigo chain appear to be shrinking in favour of more gift items...a trend that's been going on for a while now.

We've also heard about bankruptcies of various publishing houses over the past few years. Now there's another reason to be concerned with the news that Random House and the Penguin group, two of the largest publishing houses around, are talking merger.

So what's brought this on? Are they being prudent and looking at the future or are there money concerns for one or both at this point? A merger would certainly take care of that, making one major stronghouse in publishing with a lot of assets attached.

The downside of course, is what happens to the authors? And, the readers? The'A' list authors have no need to fear, I'm sure, but what about the others? Those working hard at making a name for themselves and the resulting sales? And those trying hard to get a toe into the publishing ranks? What will become of them?

Publishing their own e-books, you say? I'm certain that will be the route the majority will take. But I still mourn the inevitable loss of a large variety of authors available in print. And what about the reader? Those who don't have and won't ever own an e-reader? Those who already have favourite authors they're following, who might suddenly not be in print any longer? Less choice cannot be a good thing.

Of course, this may not happen but in this quickly changing world of publishing, we know that the status quo is never a sure thing.

What are your thoughts about it? Is there any way this can be a good thing? Or is it writer -- and reader -- beware?

Linda Wiken/Erika Chase

A KILLER READ
Berkley Prime Crime, now available
READ and BURIED, coming Dec., 2012, available for pre-order
www.erikachase.com

CRIME ON MY MIND

Let's get downloading...

Further to Vicki Cameron's post on Wed., which was further to an earlier blog done by me, let's talk a bit more about e-books. We all know how popular it's becoming to turn out an e-book, for fledgling authors and the seasoned ones, too. But how do you launch them when there's nothing to wave around, sell or sign?

We faced that dilemma with the recently published The Whole She-Bang, the short story anthology from Sisters in Crime Toronto, edited by Janet Costello. Of course, we had the lead of the Toronto gals when it came to planning the launch. And, there was a print version available, a print-on-demand.

However, the four of us in the Ottawa area did some humming and hawing before coming up with the idea of a Downloading Launch. I must admit, we weren't original with the thought. But also, we had the ideal location in order to throw such a bash. A branch of the Ottawa Public Library, complete with free Wi-Fi for attendees.

We went through the usual introductions and readings, then came the moment of truth...would most people opt to buy the print copy or would they whip out their e-readers and hook into Amazon or Smashwords to purchase an e-version at just 99 cents? (It's now also available through Chapters for Kobo.) Elizabeth Hosang, one of our authors, was prepared to walk anyone through the logistics but, maybe not so much to our surprise, no one took advantage of the opportunity. They chose the print books instead.

The moral of the story...we can't avoid the electronics, even though I continue to champion print...so what a great way to embrace it. But have those print copies handy, too. And, I've been told, there is a way to sign an e-book...but that would mean I'd have to learn a whole new computer technique. Not this week!

Linda Wiken/Erika Chase

A KILLER READ
Berkley Prime Crime, now available
READ and BURIED, coming Dec., 2012, available for pre-order
www.erikachase.com

WICKED WEDNESDAYS

Launching an e-book

So much has changed in the publishing world recently that it's hard for an old scribbler like me to keep up. But the biggest change, surely, is the recent move to e-publishing. Paper books are still being produced but if you believe the pundits, the prognosis isn't good.

Last year, for the first time, e-books outsold the printed variety. Right now most books by established authors are available in both formats. But how long can that last? The panel topics at Bouchercon and other recent mystery conferences reflect enormous uncertainty around the future of books.

I'm one of four Ottawa short story writers who have contributed stories to an anthology produced by Sisters in Crime Toronto Branch. The Whole She-bang will be an e-book. You may have read Janet Costello's blog in this spot on Monday about how the anthology came about and the decision to make it electronic. There will be a few print-on-demand copies available for those who haven't made the jump to Kindle and co. but primarily it's an e-book, downloadable onto all readers for the princely sum of ninety-nine cents .

The question the four Ottawa contributors are now struggling with is how in the world do we launch an e-book? It feels like we're breaking new ground here. Normally, book launches involve book stores to sell the books. But what do you do when there are no "books" to sell?

We've decided that instead of a traditional launch we'll have a Download Party at the Greenboro Branch of the Ottawa Public Library, 363 Lorry Greenberg Drive on Wednesday, October 24 at 7 pm.

Bring your e-readers and join Elizabeth Hosang, Sue Pike, Madona Skaff and Linda Wiken (the Mystery Maven herself.) We can promise plenty of refreshments, readings and the usual kibitzing. If you don't have an electronic reader, Elizabeth will show us how to download books onto our laptops. Do come. We'd love to see you there!


Sue Pike has published a couple of dozen stories and won several awards including an Arthur Ellis Award for Best Short Crime Story. Her latest, Where the Snow Lay Dinted appeared in the January issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. Sue and her husband and an opinionated Australian Shepherd named Cooper spend the winter months in Ottawa and the rest of the time at a mysterious cottage on the Rideau Lakes.

CRIME ON MY MIND

Say it isn't so!

The Fifty Shades of ka-ching has struck again! In an early morning CBC radio interview today, a book columnist from Toronto was discussing the erotification (did I make this word up?) of the classics. Imagine! Jane Austen's beloved Pride and Prejudice now presented with eroticism leaping from its pages. I can think of nothing sadder.

Surely there are enough hot historical romances, many x-rated, on the shelves at the moment. Why resort to re-writing the classics? Money, that's why. They're in the public domain; E.L. James of Fifty Shades fame is accumulating royalties as fast as Rowling; and, everyone wants a piece of that pie. In other words, no...nothing is sacred anymore.

One fact that was pointed out, however, was with e-books, trends are exploited much faster. In traditional publishing, anyone writing to take advantage of a trend might find that trend has changed by the time the novel is published.

Not these days. With e-books, riding the trend is just a short formatting away. Is this good or bad? Will we hit the point of over-saturation with each trend? Will we run out of trends at this rate?

Do we care?

I do. If you can't be creative enough to write your own novel then better stick to your day job. Just leave the classics alone!

Linda Wiken/Erika Chase

A KILLER READ
Berkley Prime Crime, now available
READ & BURIED, coming Dec., 2012
www.erikachase.com

MAYHEM ON MONDAYS

Spring has sprung!

A blog I was reading earlier triggered today’s thoughts. It’s spring! Time for new beginnings. And rather than mention a certain wedding I attended, I’m back to writing topics.

I’m thinking of new beginnings for older books. Those ones that have gone out-of-print or may never even have met a publisher. Everywhere you look, authors are turning these wonders into e-books and the reading public seems to be snapping them up.

The Ladies’ Killing Circle decided to give it a go and put together Little Treasures last year. It’s a collection of our short stories from the very first LKC anthology, The Ladies’ Killing Circle. We went the easy route and hired publishing whiz Donna Carrick to handle to technical side, a decision we’re still patting ourselves on the back for. While many choose to do the entire process on their own, none of us has the time nor inclination (read ‘technical knowledge’) to tackle the task.

We’re now contemplating producing another but that decision requires a few more glasses of wine.

What a great way to breathe new life into stories that have long been forgotten. There’s an entire new readership out there theses days and tons more books with which to compete. Little chance those earlier backlist or stand-alones would have a chance if it weren’t for e-books.

And I say that, even after spending a frustrating week with my Kobo. I know, I may one day embrace the new technology but for now, it was expedient but not particularly pleasing.

I’d be interested in hearing your e-book experiences. Hope they all start out with the phrase, “I made tons of money doing this.”

Linda Wiken/Erika Chase

A Killer Read
Berkley Prime Crime, now available
www.erikachase.com

WICKED WEDNESDAYS

Wading through the e-TBR!

I have to admit, my Kobo sits on the shelf most days. And sits. And I pick up yet another paper book to read whenever I get the time to do so.

I've bought a few books for the Kobo, quite a variety actually. The Paris Wife by Paula McLain was the first; and then Not the End of the World by Kate Atkinson, The Villa Triste by Lucretia Grindle, Half-Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan to name a few. I doubt I'll get to them at any time other than when I'm traveling.

But that hasn't stopped me from also ordering any number of mysteries that are offered free from Amazon.com and listed daily on such digests as Omnimystery. Some are by authors I know; others attract me because of the plots. At some point, I hope to read them, also.

There are just so many e-books available these days and I don't enjoy wading through the on-line sellers' website trying to find what's new and more importantly, something I want to read. I'd much rather go to my favourite independent bookstore and walk along the shelves, pulling out the occasional book to have a look through. It's a ritual for me. Like enjoying my morning espresso.

Of course, I'll order my book, A Killer Read, as an e-book, just to have it. Just as I bought Little Treasures by The Ladies' Killing Circle, even though I've read the short stories many times over. And they'll travel with me and my Kobo.

But at home...give me a paper book any day!

Linda Wiken/Erika Chase
A Killer Read coming April, 2012
from Berkley Prime Crime
www.erikachase.com

TUESDAY BRINGS TROUBLE

The authors who launch...

Sue Pike blogged a couple of weeks ago about Peggy Blair's upcoming book launch for her first novel, The Beggar's Opera. It will be held on Thurs., Feb. 16th in Ottawa and promises to be anything but ordinary. Her book is set in Havana and she's bringing the sounds and tastes of Cuba to this event. She's also not doing a reading! What next?

All kidding aside, it sounds like a great affair and I'm looking forward to buzzing it on my way to choir. But Peggy's plans got me to thinking about other launches, my own among them. It will be in April, a joint launch with Vicki Delany and her latest Klondike Gold Rush mystery.

I thought this was going to be relatively easy. I've planned many launches for and with authors over the years. But perhaps it's time to re-visit the old model and try for some creative flair. Thanks a lot, Peggy!

Vicki -- we'll talk!

The other launches I started wondering about are for authors with e-books. If that's your only format...what about the launch? Or will you even have one? Here again, it could be very creative -- no signing of a book cover but something else? Or is it strickly on-line, a blog party perhaps?

I haven't heard of an e-book launch but I'm sure they happen. Maybe you've even taken part in one. In this new age of publishing, what happens to the traditional book launch? Any suggestions?

Linda Wiken/Erika Chase
A Killer Read coming April, 2012
from Berkley Prime Crime
www.erikachase.com

LADIES' KILLING THURSDAYS

Lost and Found

For an author, short stories are a wonderful experiment in new ideas, voices, themes and settings. Because they are about a 20th of the length of a novel and take about a month to write rather than a year, the author feels free to try on new personae and venture into new storytelling techniques and characterization that would be too risky in a 300-page novel. My novels tends towards the dark and complex, but in short stories I have tried out humour, lived inside the head of a comatose patient and a small child, and traveled to unfamiliar, exciting locales. Short stories are rejuvenating and invigorating, like the palette cleansers between heavy courses in the literary life of a writer.

My very first published short story, the poignant, disturbing “Secrets of the Night”, appeared in 1995 in the inaugural anthology of The Ladies’ Killing Circle,

itself entitled THE LADIES’ KILLING CIRCLE. And what an exciting moment it was! I remember when Linda Wiken, then the owner of Prime Crime Mystery Bookstore in Ottawa and herself a member of the Ladies Killing Circle, phoned to say the first shipment of books had been delivered to the store from the publisher. It was a blustery, wet day in November, but I leaped into my car and drove down right away. The thrill of opening that book to see my name in print for the very first time is a feeling I will never forget. Since then, I have had the privilege of having eight short stories published in the seven Ladies Killing Circle anthologies, and have become a member of that deadly circle myself, but the thrill never fades.

One of the frustrating things about short stories, however, is that they are often published in magazines and newspapers that disappear with the passage of time. Since that first publication sixteen years ago, I have had almost thirty short stories published, but only a handful are still accessible to readers. Most are buried in magazine archives somewhere, hidden from even the most thorough Google search. And so it is with that very first story in the inaugural anthology. THE LADIES’ KILLING CIRCLE has been out of print for years, and until now a persistent reader had to scour the used book stores to get their hands on it. Lost in the passage of time was the award-winning story by Mary Jane Maffini entitled “Cotton Armour” and the wickedly funny twist on killing your husband in Vicki Cameron’s “Birdbrain”. Gone are stories by the unforgettable Audrey Jessup, founding member of the Ladies Killing Circle, as well as LKC members Joan Boswell, Linda Wiken and Sue Pike.

But no longer. The arrival of ebook technology has made lost stories accessible again, and we six members of the Ladies Killing Circle have decided to venture into this brave new but exciting world. We have spent the last couple of months packaging our original six stories, plus the story entitled “The Little Treasures” by Audrey Jessup, who died in 2003 but remains our mentor still. In her honour, we have named the mini ebook LITTLE TREASURES, and for most of us, it contains the first stories we have ever published. Truly milestones to be marked. The ebook will be out in all formats soon, and we are justifiably thrilled. Because apart from the joy of seeing our firstborns back in print, they are all damn good stories. So stay tuned!



Barbara Fradkin is a child psychologist with a fascination for how we turn bad. In addition to her darkly haunting short stories in the Ladies Killing Circle anthologies, she writes the gritty, Ottawa-based Inspector Green novels which have
won back to back Arthur Ellis Awards for Best Novel from Crime Writers of Canada. The eighth in the series, Beautiful Lie the Dead, explores love in all its complications. And, her new Rapid Read from Orca, The Fall Guy, was launched in May.

EBooking


Barnes & Noble says they sold a million e-books last Christmas. If you tried to use your WiFi that day, you probably noticed everything was slow, due to the high traffic volume. Naturally, on the same day, they sold zero regular books, as the stores were all closed. eBooks have been around for many years, so why this sudden leap into eSales?

Many people were waiting for the hardware to become useful, as in affordable, right-sized, and right-weighted. That seems to have finally happened, with the Sony eReader, the Kindle and the Kobo. Or everybody who was interested finally met someone who had an eReader, and got a personal report. Or many baby boomers are finding they need to get something with slightly larger print. Whatever the reason, the stars aligned and the eGods made it so.

We have a friend with a Sony, a Kindle, and an iPad, so we got a tour of the relative merits. After much discussion, we went with the iPad.

I love it. Yes, it was more expensive than a Kindle, but it can do so much more. It is like a stripped down laptop. It can surf the web. It can YouTube. It can bring my mail, and let me answer mail, but it won’t let me create an address book, so I can only reply to messages, or write to people if I know their email by heart. It can deliver books in seconds, and will let me adjust the font size, screen brightness, and choose either white paper or sepia.

Used to be I would have breakfast every morning and then go to my office, boot up, and wait for 5 to 20 minutes for my computer to go through its virus-checking, update pasting, and whatnot. Now I go to the kitchen, put the kettle on, start up the iPad, put the toast in, and before the toast has popped, I am reading my fantasy hockey team score and my email.

And then there are the apps. I immediately downloaded free Sudoku, free crossword puzzles, Freecell, a Tim Hortons finder, a Starbucks finder, a piano, a guitar tuner, several newspapers, a kick-the-can game, and air hockey. There is even an app that will listen to the music playing on your stereo for 10 seconds, tell you what it is, who the artist is, give you the lyrics, the chords, the artist’s bio, and by the way, do you want to buy this from iTunes right now? There is no end to the apps.

My objective was to read a few free books to get the feel of it, see if I liked reading on a screen or if it hurt my eyes, always an issue when you have eyeballs that aren’t lined up properly. There were a heap of books to choose from. Only thing was, they were pretty old and/or boring. Walking by Thoreau. Walden Pond. Moby Dick. Gaak, I read Moby Dick in university and will not read it again. I started reading Winnie the Pooh, but interest soon faded and I found I was having more fun playing crokinole or bowling.

Finally, I downloaded The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan. It’s old, but it’s free. And I started enjoying the story, and totally forgot to notice if I liked the eReading experience or not. So I guess I do.

People who object to eReaders often say either they like the feel of a real book, or the hardware is not up to par, or eBooks are expensive.

The hardware is up to par now, all of the devices currently on sale. eBooks are cheaper than real books, but not dirt cheap. And who among you can deny paying the author for his/her work?

Yes, real books feel nice in your hand, the firmness of the cover, the crisp smoothness of the paper, the sound of the pages turning.

The iPad feels nice, too. It is silky smooth beyond imagining, is gently warm, and it will make page-turning noises for you if you want.

Nobody is asking you to give up real books entirely. Just find a little place in your heart for eBooks


Vicki Cameron is the author of Clue Mysteries and More Clue Mysteries, each of the 15 short stories based on the board game Clue. Her young adult novel, Shillings, appeared in 2007. Her stories appear in the Ladies' Killing Circle anthology series and Storyteller Magazine. Her young adult novel, That Kind of Money, was nominated for an Edgar and an Arthur Ellis.

LADIES' KILLING THURSDAYS

e-books and us


After reading Linda’s reflections on the value of critiquing groups in general and the Ladies’ Killing Circle in particular I must add that because of the group I have more than a dozen short stories and three novels published. Their frank and occasionally brutal assessments of my work inspired me to listen, learn and
internalize their comments. Now I’m afraid that all the critiquing groups in the world aren’t going to help most Canadian mystery writers.

Why this dire prediction? Because it’s looking more and more as if e-books are the future and Canadian small press publishers haven’t negotiated the terms to get our books on e readers.

In the US this last quarter both Barnes and Noble and Borders reported large losses. Along with Indigo/Chapters, these US stores have discounted best sellers, failed to promote the works of small publishers and devoted large sections of their stores to gift items that have nothing to do with books. In other words they’ve done everything they can to monopolize the market and make money but it isn’t happening. If these behemoths can’t do it, can’t sell books for a profit what will happen to books printed on paper and to bookstores?

E-book readers are easy to read and the books are half the price of their print counterparts. But if bookstores and books disappear we will all be poorer. There will be no trading books with friends, no donations of books to libraries, no bookcases filled with old favourites or with the books you read as a child.

Some categories may survive. Coffee table books filled with glorious photographs or paintings may not transfer well to e readers. Parents may still demand children’s books. It’s difficult to visualize curling up with a child and an e reader although among the multitude of aps on the Apple pad there are appealing children’s books. Perhaps a new larger size of reader suitable for picture books and coffee table books may be in the works.

Whatever the options it seems likely e-books are the way of the future.
Because small Canadian publishers have not reached an agreement about the publication of e-books our books are not there, are not available. If we are going to survive as writers, readers must have the option of downloading our books.
I know that small publishers with few employees have banded together to try to negotiate a deal to make this happen. Our survival depends on e-books.

Is there anything we can do? Any way that we can help?

Joan Boswell A member of the Ladies Killing Circle Joan co-edited four of their short story anthologies: Fit toDie, Bone Dance, Boomers Go Bad and Going Out With a Bang. Her three mysteries, Cut Off His Tale, Cut to the Quick and Cut and Run were published in 2005, 2007 and 2007. In 2000 she won the $10,000 Toronto Star’s short story contest. Joan lives in Toronto with three flat-coated retrievers.