Good News-Bad News

 by Thomas Kies

The good news first. It was officially announced this week that I am now working with a new publisher.  I’m thrilled to be working with Level Best Books who has agreed to publish two of my novels, Exit Signs and Murder Point, and a third book that I’m currently working on. 

Exit Signs was written as crime noir and takes place in a cold and snowy winter in upstate New York, in particular Buffalo, the Finger Lakes, and the Adirondack Mountains.  Neophyte detective Jamie Barefoot is assigned to investigate a two-million-dollar life insurance claim.  The problem for the insurance company?  There’s no corpse.  But Jamie does find government fraud, corporate intrigue, hit men, and seduction along the way. 

Murder Point is a Geneva Chase mystery that takes place primarily on the coast of North Carolina on a barrier island. She’s on the trail of artwork stolen from the Isabel Gardner Museum, a heist from over thirty years ago where none of the paintings have ever surfaced.  While investigating, she’s caught in a hurricane and one by one, people are being murdered. 

According to their website: Founded in 2003, Level Best Books is the publisher of crime fiction novels and short story anthologies. Well-regarded by readers and reviewers, stories published by Level Best have won the Agatha, Anthony, Macavity, Derringer, and Robert L. Fish Award for Best First Short Story presented at the Edgar® banquet. Level Best short stories have also been recognized as Best and Distinguished Mystery Stories by the editors of the Best American Mystery Stories series.

Level Best Books is a traditional, royalty-paying publisher with world-wide distribution and in-house marketing support. Headquartered outside of Washington, DC in the historic city of Frederick, Maryland, Level Best also has offices in Boston, Massachusetts and London, England.

I am so proud to now be known as a "Bestie". 

So, that’s the good news.  There have been some stories this week that haven’t been so good for the written word. The New York Times reported this week that the mass market paperbacks that I grew up with are the latest dinosaur to go extinct.  

At one time, they were ubiquitous.  You could find them everywhere, drug stores, supermarkets, airports, train stations. But you would rarely find them in libraries because they were cheaply made with thin paper and bindings that were glued, meaning that, under the right circumstances, the books would simply fall or pull apart. 

But because they were inexpensive and small that made them successful.  I recall getting my reading fix by plunking down sixty cents for a copy of the latest James Bond novel, or a mystery by John D. McDonald, or Stephen King. And the covers of those paperbacks were usually illustrated by a woman in distress or taking off some article of clothing. 

They were small enough to easily fit into your backpack or the pocket of your jacket.  So you could sneak a copy of Valley of the Dolls into your Junior High School without being detected.

Why are they going the way of the passenger pigeon?  Consumers aren’t buying them as often.  They’re buying e-books or the trade paperbacks.  “We follow the consumer,” said Dennis Abboud, the chief executive of ReaderLink. “In the case of mass markets, the consumer spoke. They were just done with it.”

And then there was the story about the Washington Post laying off 300 journalists, which includes trashing their sports section and their book reviews.  Not to sound snarky, but the owner, Jeff Bezos, managed to find the money to bankroll the “documentary” called Melania.  Including production and marketing, he spent nearly $70 million with $28 million going directly to Melania.  

According to some reports, he spent between $45 million and $55 million on his wedding in Venice last year. I guess my invitation must have gotten lost in the mail. 

Is it possible he's pivoting his attention to his Blue Origin space company, working on those NASA lunar contracts? Currying favor with government decision makers, perhaps?

All in all, I'm putting that behind me this afternoon and I’m going to raise my glass to Level Best Books.  I’m looking forward to working with them.  But I’ll also grieve for the mass market paperbacks and, once again, mourn the slow death of newspapers.