Sunday, August 8, 2010

Domino Effect of Ebook and Self-Publishing Debate




Until this morning I had not really given much thought to the possible domino effect of the changes taking place in publishing and the growing popularity of ebooks. Some of us have believed that regular print books would not go away, although a few companies might expand by offering alternatives, as some have already done, and that many authors might move away from relying on New York publishers and agents and go into self-publishing POD and ebooks.

Charles Ardai founder of Hard Case Crime is an author and a publisher. The Hard Case Crime website states "Hard Case Crime brings you the best in hardboiled crime fiction, ranging from lost noir masterpieces to new novels by today’s most powerful writers, featuring stunning original cover art in the grand pulp style."

Among their authors have been the works of Ed McBain, Richard S. Prather, Robert B. Parker, Mickey Spillane, Donald Westlake, Max Allan Collins, Stephen King and several other excellent authors. Noted cover artist Robert McGinnis has done a number of covers for Hard Case Crime including the just released August novel, Brett Halliday's MURDER IS MY BUSINESS.

I received an email from Charles today. For the past six years Dorchester Publishing, the company that announced this week they were giving up mass market paperback publishing, (read my previous blog) and moving into ebooks and limited trade paper publishing, well, Dorchester is the company who for six years has been printing and distributing the Hard Case Crime mass market paperback line.

So where does that leave Hard Case Crime? Temporarily it will affect their books, and already a delay of two of their releases, QUARRY'S EX by Max Allan Collins and CHOKE HOLD by Christa Faust. Regarding the release of the two books, Ardai stated, [They] "will not be coming out in October and March as planned. They will come out -- but probably not till sometime later next year." Ardai also mentioned two exciting upcoming books that will be announced soon.

So, the falling dominos ... and in this case, hopefully Hard Case Crime can stay standing and this is just a bump in the road for them. I'm sure Charles will be able to have things running smoothly before long.



In the meantime, the Hard Case Crime titles are available at Amazon.com and elsewhere. The last time I was in a Barnes and Noble there was a shelf of them.


~Linda

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