MURDER BY SIX

 The Mystery genre has existed in its present form since Edgar Allan Poe published “The Murder in the Rue Morgue” in 1841 in Graham’s Magazine.  Novel length works follow with Emile Gaboriau exploring the boundaries of the genre in 1867. Twenty years later, Sherlock Holmes appeared in both short and novel length in The Strand Magazine. Mystery plays begin in 1896 with William Gillette in Secret Service and Sherlock Holmes three years later. Silent films featured the great detective. With the coming of sound Humphrey Bogart became Sam Spade. Radio programs have their stars: I Love a Mystery, Ellery Queen, The Shadow and many more. Television quickly adopted the detective with characters so famous they have become icons: Raymond Burr as Perry Mason, Peter Falk as Columbo, Angela Lansbury as Jessica Fletcher.

Mysteries have appeared in print, radio, television, movies, games, even comic books. These are the visible media. But today, a new revolution is taking place. Hundreds of new stories and novels of mystery, crime and suspense are being published every year. But many fans of traditional venues may not even know it is happening. Where? On the Internet. The eMystery is a new format for the genre that has been around since C. Auguste Dupin ventured into that room on the Rue Morgue to test his skills of ratiocination.

This article will look at the similarities and differences between the eMystery and traditional works, talk with the authors in this exciting new arena, look at the technology required, and offer a beginner’s guide to the world of electronic mystery publishing, a world that offers low-priced reading and in some cases, even free reading!

FREE FICTION?

Never before has so much free and low-priced mystery and crime fiction been available to those in the know. Stories, novels, even whole collections are available on the Internet. Ranging from the free e-magazines, personal websites and website collections to low-priced books on CD. It’s all there, if you know how to get it.

What do I need to access this new fiction? At its most simple level, the reader can access ezines (electronic magazines), electronic publishers and web collections with a computer with a modem and an Internet connection. Files can be read on-line or downloaded to your computer for reading. Many people like to print out the pages so they can read them with more flexibility. The more technologically advanced will download story files to their PDA or "palm pilots". These start at around $200. There are a number of other readers available as well such as Hiebook, MS-Reader, Palm Doc and Rocket eBook. The "Kindle" is Amazon's latest device, which doesn't house files inside but online.

There are a number of different types of file formats that the readers or your computer can use. The simplest is Text (.txt), which is basically, just as its name promises, text. Library projects like Gutenberg use this format. Another format is Hypertext (.html) which is the language that web pages are created in. Html can be read easily with your browser. Hypertext can use images, different fonts and have different colored backgrounds to make reading easier.

 One of the most popular formats is PDF (.pdf) from Abode Acrobat. This format looks like the professional page of a print book. It can hold images and other extras. The Acrobat Reader is free from Adobe’s website. These files take up more space and can be downloaded or purchased on CDs. Most ebook publishers charge around $4.00 for novels and collections. That’s a $10 paperback for less than half price.

 Access to free or inexpensive Mysteries. Sounds good, but how do the stories differ? Is it any different than the great mysteries in books and magazines? As Terri Schaefer, author of Summerland, points out: “eMysteries can touch upon subject matter that has been considered taboo or just plain undesirable by the New York titans.” Louise Crawford, author of the Blaize/Zoloski series, expresses this new-found variety: “Instead of only vanilla, chocolate and strawberry, readers will find hundreds of flavors to explore.”

 There is a saying that if it’s free, it’s not worth anything. The Internet seems to fly in the face of this sentiment. Most ezines are free. (There are some which are subscriber only. The subscriber is given a password to access new fiction.) Many classic books are now available free. Complete A. Conan Doyle, Edgar Allan Poe, and many less familiar names. The consequence of bearing no cost is that some think Internet stories and books are all trash. Gay Toltl Kinman, author of Middle Reader Mysteries, sees this as a natural evolution. “It’s the same criticism they had of the Gutenberg books. ‘Can’t be quality if the monks didn’t copy it.’ Knowing what I went through in the editorial process with Starlight and Clocktown, it ain’t low-quality. Both have good editors.”

 Carla Ledbetter, author of Blue Moon responds enthusiastically: “INCORRECT! My publisher, and many that I know of, have the same, or stricter quality writing standards than most traditional publishers. They reject as many as 98% of submissions. Their books are high quality, well-written books. This is one of the reasons I chose DLSJ press from all the electronic publishers I researched.”

 Barbara Quinn, winner of the Writer’s Digest and NWC awards, and author of the eSuspense novel, Hardhead, denies the rumors: "That sounds like a lot of ivory tower publishing industry nonsense to me. The e-world is no different than the regular world.  You need to seek out quality, and it does exist.  You've got to kiss a lot of frogs to find that prince. People always fear change, even if it's good for them.  In time, people will come to accept ebooks."

“Yes, there is a lot of garbage out there but so does the print industry,” says Brian Lawrence, author of Knyght & O'Day from Gemini Books. “Unfortunately many of the publishers either have poor taste or don’t bother to screen in the interest of building a list of titles. The reader needs to find those publishers that publish the books they like and find those authors they like. Not really different from the print industry.”

One tool that may help ebook shoppers is the epublishing awards. The EPPIE is given by EPPRO (Electronically Published Professionals). The EPPIE is given to ebooks in many genres including Mystery. The Frankfurt eBook Award was a similar award but was discontinued in 2001. There are other awards given out by websites and organizations. For instance ALL ABOUT MURDER gives out the BLOOD DAGGER AWARDS.

EZINES

 In the old days of the Pulps there were dozens of detective and mystery magazines. Today we have only three professional ones: Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and a few specialty mags like The Strand revival. Since the paying markets have shrunk so drastically, it means hundreds of excellent stories do not make it into these magazines, with their narrow editorial perimeters, their stables of veteran writers who take the lion’s share of space. Where do the rest of the stories go? Some are published in ezines. An ezine is an electronic magazine, published at a website. New zines appear and disappear all the time.

 But will the reader find stories worthy of their time on the Internet?  Ezines vary from professional quality to small press beginners. Nick Andreychuk is a short story writer who publishes in both print and electronically. His story “James Foot is Dead” won the Grand Prize in Over My Dead Body’s "Cola Caper Mystery Contest". Of eMysteries he says: “When the material is of equal quality, the only significant difference is reading off a screen versus reading off a page.”

The real revolution in e-media is the accessibility. Let’s say its 2AM. You’re catching the 6 AM flight. The book stores are closed. You don’t like the over-priced books at the airport. You fire up your computer, download ten to twelve books into your Palm Reader and you’re off. No crowds, traffic or bad weather. You’re reading!

 Here are the best places to find classic Mystery fiction (and other kinds too) for free:

ABOUT.COM - http://classiclit.about.com/
ARTHUR’S CLASSIC NOVELS - http://arthursclassicnovels.com
BARTLEBY - www.bartleby.com/index.html
BIBLOMANIA - www.bibliomania.com/
BYGOSH - www.bygosh.com/
GASLIGHT - http://gaslight.mtroyal.ca
GOOGLE BOOKS - http://books.google.com/
GUTENBERG - http://gutenberg.net/find.shtml
INTERNET ARCHIVES -http://www.archive.org/
HARROLD’S STUDY LINKS - www.harrold.org/rfhextra/books.html
MANYBOOKS.NET - http://manybooks.net/
MUNSEY'S– http://www.munseys.com/
ONLINE BOOKS - http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/authors.html
ONLINE LITERATURE - www.literature.org/authors/
PAGE BY PAGE - www.pagebypagebooks.com/authorlist.html
PULP.NET - http://thepulp.net/

Here is a list of quality, long-lasting websites.

CRIME SPOT - http://www.crimespot.net/Category1index.php
THE MYSTERY READER- http://www.themysteryreader.com/
NOIR ORIGINALS - http://www.allanguthrie.co.uk/
OVER MY DEAD BODY - http://www.overmydeadbody.com/