I know, I know. I told you that my brand-new novella, Keller’s Fedora, would be on sale May 10. Well, that day has come and gone, as days are wont to do, and you haven’t seen the novella, and neither has anybody else. Copy editing took a little longer than planned, and so did cover art, but I have to say I think it was worth it.

Innit pretty? It’s not on sale yet, but it will be in a matter of days. Once it’s out there, I’ll make sure y’all know about it. But in the meantime I thought I’d tell you about some other Keller stories that I’ve just published on Kindle. They’re not new—but they’re new to the eWorld, and may be new to you.

Four of the five Keller books—Hit Man, Hit List, Hit Parade and Hit Me—are episodic novels. (Which stands to reason, as Keller’s is an episodic existence: he takes a job, he makes his plans, he does his work, and he goes home even as the object of his attentions is cooling down to room temperature. End of episode.) Most of these episodes started life as novelettes or novellas, with many initially published in Playboy, and that seems to be a natural length for Keller. Over the years I’ve Kindle-published Keller in Dallas, Keller’s Therapy, Keller’s Horoscope, Keller’s Adjustment, and Keller on the Spot, and all have been steady sellers.

Inspired by the prospect of Keller’s Fedora, my Goddess of Production and Design came up with new covers for all of these, while I readied three more Keller tales for first-time ePublication: Keller’s Homecoming, Keller’s Designated Hitter, and Keller the Dogkiller. They’re $2.99 apiece; Kindle Unlimited subscribers can borrow them free of charge.

You know, I could have sworn I saw one for 99¢…

That would be Keller in Des Moines, and it’s the opening sequence of the one Keller book that’s not episodic in structure, Hit and Run. That’s the fourth book in the series, and it’s a thriller with a single continuous story arc. This way you can get a very inexpensive taste of the book, and decide if you want to read the rest of it.

So much for Keller. Now let me say a word or two about Kindle.

In recent years I’ve published ebooks on all the major platforms—Kobo, Smashwords, Apple’s iBooks, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, and Amazon’s Kindle. Increasingly I’ve found it distinctly advantageous to take my work down from other platforms and render it exclusive to Kindle. My Keller stories are all  Kindle-only, and so are all the titles in the Collection of Classic Erotica (18 so far, with more to come) and most of those in the Classic Crime Library.

This is a source of annoyance to Nook and Kobo owners, who understandably resent the idea of having to buy another gadget. There are, however, several ways to read Kindle books without owning a Kindle, and not everyone’s aware of them—so perhaps I can be of service.

1. Get a free Kindle app and read books on your desktop or mobile device. Completely free, and couldn’t be simpler. You can read on your PC or Mac, and the experience is a healthy cut above most computer-screen reading. I read everything on my Kindle, which suits me fine, but people I know swear by the Kindle app for their iPads. And for years now my eldest daughter, a heavy reader, has done most of her reading on her iPhone.

2. Try Kindle Unlimited free of charge for 30 days. Every book of mine that’s available exclusively for Kindle is automatically available to Kindle Unlimited subscribers—completely free. With KU, you can borrow any eligible book and keep it as long as you want. (You’re limited to ten books on your KU shelf at any one time, but all that means is you have to give one back to borrow another.) The charge for all this access is $9.99 a month, and if you do a lot of reading you’ll come out way ahead. But the best way to find out if KU is for you is to take Amazon up on their 30-day free trial offer. Just click the link and Bob’s your uncle. (In the next month you could read all my Keller stories, including Keller’s Fedora, and all those erotic classics and classic crime novels, and then wave bye-bye without spending a cent. Of course, the Amazonians figure you’ll stick around—and I suspect they’re right.)

I dunno, LB. You’re trying to get us to pick up something free so that we can use it to read your books for free. And you’re the one paying to send out a free newsletter. That’s a whole lot of free. Shouldn’t you be trying to sell us something?

You’ve got a point.

Okay, how this? The latest title in the Collection of Classic Erotica, and it came within a hare’s breath of making it into the Classic Crime Library. Because it’s a caper novel, a dark savage tale about an armored car holdup and the lives that go straight to hell around it. If The Girl with the Deep Blue Eyes is James M. Cain on Viagra, as my film agent called it, then this one is Gentleman Jim Thompson on that same happy blue pill.

So what’s Four Lives at the Crossroads doing in the Collection of Classic Erotica? I asked myself the same question, and decided that its hefty erotic content dictated the call. I’ve edited it some—this is its first publication in any form since 1962—but the editing necessary to suit it to the Classic Crime Library would have been exhausting, and I found myself likening the enterprise to putting lipstick on a pig.

Lipstick or no, it’s a pretty good read—and if you’d prefer to have it in printed form, you won’t have long to wait. It and all its Classic Erotica comrades will soon be available in handsome paperback editions. The ebooks are all $2.99 apiece; the paperbacks will be higher—all that paper and ink, don’t you know—but still reasonable, with $9.99 the likely price point.

Happy now? I’ve given all of y’all something to buy.

But suppose I sign up for Kindle Unlimited? Then I can read it for free, can’t I?

You can indeed, and I can’t thank you enough for pointing that out to me. I’m out of here, and I won’t be back until Keller’s Fedora is available at an Amazon website near you. Which should be very soon…

Cheers,

PS: As always, please feel free to forward this to anyone you think might find it of interest. And, if you’ve received the newsletter in that fashion from a friend and would like your own subscription, that’s easily arranged; a blank email to lawbloc@gmail.com with Newsletter in the subject line will get the job done.

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