OLD GOLD — Edgar Award Winning Wendy Hornsby's Early Classics, Ready For Your E-Book Pleasure

Early works by some of our best, current crime writers have been out of print for years. But times are changing. Many of these highly praised novels are available again as e-books and or trade paperbacks. “Old Gold” is a periodic blog feature that focuses on these reissued treasures. Here's Wendy Hornsby’s story in her own words.

I love used bookstores.   For a few bucks you can fill your arms with treasure:  new authors to try, old favorites to meet again.

There came a time when my own books began to show up in used bookstores.  It always tickled me to find them.  It still does.   Every author should be happy to see a book remain in circulation in any form.  There is a great investment of time and heart and soul in the production of those pages.  How painful it would be if those books entirely vanished from view.

  

Enter the brave new world of e-books, a used bookstore by other means.  For about what I’d pay at a used bookstore, I can fill up my e-reader with new discoveries and, if I may, Old Gold.

It took me about a minute to understand that if I could convert all my out-of-print titles to e-books, they need never go out of print again.  My problem, as always, was time.  Do-it-yourself electronic re-publication, even with a hired “producer,” can be complicated, fussy, somewhat costly, and very time consuming.

Last fall, MysteriousPress.com, partnered with Open Road, offered to publish my backlist in every e-format out there; God bless Otto Penzler.  My only hand in the process was to send hard copies of the books.

  

At Christmas, Otto sent me note to take a look at www.MysteriousPress.com.  And there they all are, five books in the Maggie MacGowen series and the two Kate and Tejeda books, all with bright new covers, as pretty as can be.   A happy day.

To borrow from Baron von Frankenstein, “They live!”

Edgar Award winning author Wendy Hornsby is the author of nine mystery novels and many short stories.  The Paramour’s Daughter, from Perseverance Press, is her most recent book.  For further information see www.WENDYHORNSBY.com.