As some of you know, I’ve been making many of my early books eVailable, starting with a collection of 16 crime novels. These were all with Open Road through the end of last year, and they’re now reformatted and all gussied up with new uniform covers—and gathered together as the Classic Crime Library.

They look so nice and have been getting such a good response that I decided to bring them out as paperbacks, in uniform 5×8 editions at the lowest possible retail price. You know how publishing anything has always taken forever and a day? Well, times have changed, as I’m probably not the first person to tell you, and now you can drop the word forever from that sentence. The process is surprisingly quick and easy, and I’m pleased to report that 11 of the CCL titles are now there to be collected and cherished and, yes, read—in handsome paperback form.

What about the other 5 titles?

They’re already in paperback, published by Hard Case Crime. Sometime down the line I might publish Classic Crime Library editions of them—if Hard Case agrees, and if the demand seems to warrant it. But the others, the Elegant Eleven, have not been available in paperback for ages, and I’m delighted to be able to put them out there.

I suppose they’re expensive. I mean, they look expensive.

Well, I’m glad to hear they look it, but they’re not. Three of the books are a little longer than the others, and the higher production costs dictated a price of $11.99 for Ariel and $10.99 for Not Comin’ Home to You and Passport to Peril. All the rest are pegged at $9.99. That’s more than the Kindle ebooks, which are just $2.99 across the board. But we kept prices as low as we could, and I think they’re a good value.

So where do I find them?

They’re still so new that they can be hard to find. Once the Amazon algorithms get things sorted out, there’ll be a single page for each title, with both the ebook and the paperback listed thereon. But it takes time, and right now many of the editions are still on separate pages, and it can be a hassle ferreting them out.

So let me make your lives a little easier. I’ve gotten in touch with my Inner Ferret, and here are all 16 titles, in numerical order, with Amazon links to each edition:

1. After the First Death. Paperback  Kindle

8. Not Comin’ Home to You. Paperback Kindle

9. Lucky at Cards. Hard Case paperback Kindle

16. Ariel. Paperback  Kindle

Whew! Quite a list. And that’s the complete Classic Crime Library, right?

For now. There’ll be a few more titles, but not for several months.

The links are all for Amazon. Is that the only place I can find these books?

As far as the ebook editions are concerned, at the moment these six titles are Kindle exclusives: Ariel, Cinderella Sims, Deadly Honeymoon, Passport to Peril, The Specialists, and You Could Call It Murder. The bad news is you can no longer get them for Nook or Kobo or iBooks; the good news is I can run special promotions for them, like the recent Passport to Peril giveaway. And, if you’re a Kindle Unlimited subscriber, you can read as many of them as you like at no cost whatsoever.

But I’d feel guilty doing that. Wouldn’t I be cheating the author? Wouldn’t you get mad at me if you found out?

Um, think this through, okay? If I didn’t want you to borrow the book via Kindle Unlimited, would I sign on for the program? I’m delighted to have y’all read the books this way. Just because it doesn’t cost you anything doesn’t mean I don’t get compensated. I do, and whilecan’t deny it’s a very slow way to get rich, I’ve never found a fast way. So if you read a lot, a Kindle Unlimited subscription is a genuine bargain—and I’m all for it.

Let me get this straight. You’re saying everybody wins.

I know, it’s hard to get your mind around the concept, isn’t it? As I said, six of the CCL titles are Kindle Select, yours to borrow as a KU member. I suspect that’ll be true of all of them before too long. Whether or not we like it, Amazon is where business is being done these days, and while I’ll likely keep some titles on all platforms, most of my ebooks are destined to be Amazon exclusives.

And there are more books coming, as ebooks and paperbacks as well. Look for uniform editions in future months of all the Jill Emerson titles. Look for another library of Classic Erotica—and the covers of these are gonna be gorgeous. Many were formerly available from Open Road, but some are titles I’ve never reprinted, books that haven’t been available in any form since their original editions half a century ago.

I get out of breath just telling you about it.

With excitement? Or exhaustion?

A little of each. I’ll wrap this up now, and either get back to work or go lie down. While I work it out, it’s your turn. Look over the list, click on some links, and see what looks good to you.

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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