Richard,
Re your comments below:
"Fortunately, there is a publishing niche for PI writers at
places like Quiet Storm, UglyTown, and Back Alley. If you are
devoted to the genre, and really want to write it, there are
places to get published. You just have to be willing to give
up niceties like large advances, widespread distribution, and
print runs in the tens of thousands. You should also probably
forget about making a significant amount of money. Writing
the PI series these days is very much a labor of love."
Very few first-time novelists of ANY kind of mystery get
large advances, widespread distribution, or print runs in the
tens of thousands.
That said, it is misleading to suggest that ONLY small
publishers take PI fiction. St. Martin's continues to be
supportive of the PI genre, and Five Star, a division of Gale
that publishes genre hardcovers primarily for library sales
(taking up where Doubleday left off after shutting down its
"Crime Club" and "Doulbe D Western" lines) has, in very
recent times instriduced such traditional PI's as Michael
Black's Ron Shade, Tom Keevers's Mike Duncavan, and our own
Charles Ardai's Edgar-nominated John Blake.
And at least one recent PI debut that did get the fantasy
trifecta of large print runs, large advances, and great
distribution was John Connelly's first Charlie Parker
novel.
The traditional PI novel isn't dead. It's not even
slumbering. It's certainly much more ubiquitous and much more
healthy now than it was in the early '80's when Bob Randisi
founded PWA primarily to get the PI novel noticed again. At
that time, virtually no one was getting hardpvers published
except Pronzini, Block, and Michael Collins. Suffice it to
say that there are a lot more now.
JIM DOHERTY
RARA-AVIS home page: http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/
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