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10/31/2008

...and still reading Asian mysteries.

After the initial effort of creating this site, I had to get back to what I do for a living (which involves computers, too). However, I managed to read three Jake Needham novels and post reviews of them.

I still have not had a chance to mine the wonderful source of information on the Asian mystery that appeared in some past issues of The Mystery Reader's Journal, a publication by Janet Rudolf. At least a couple of the authors and works mentioned in those issues have completely disappeared, and if the site you're currently visiting can accomplish anything, preserving at least mention of said books would be a great goal.

Recently, the fact that Google settled with book publishers over its scanning activities brings great hope to likelihood of preservation of books that are no longer profitable to publish. Only time will tell, of course—as much as a hundred years of it! But even that time will pass, and we'll see what we know then about what went on now.

Posted at 7:45 PM by Michael Robert Broschat | Category: Musings | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

9/1/2008

Who reads this stuff?

Various stimuli have led me to think about the audience for Asian mysteries—who's reading them?

Certain groups leap to mind. Although quite obvious, you have to start with the group of readers, period. I've taken a survey, quietly, of the people around me, and the number of people who read for pleasure is quite small. I have been aware for years that among readers, some consider mysteries frivolous and not worth the time it takes to read them.

So, who among mystery readers will read Asian-flavored mysteries?

I can start with my own group—Baby Boomers. Of the readers among them, those most likely to read Asian mysteries are those who have had some sort of contact with Asia. In my own group, that's quite a few, but I doubt that it is great among Baby Boomers at large. In my opinion, Americans don't travel much. Certainly, not like Europeans, many of whom travel to Asia regularly. I have seen indications that some Asian mysteries are appearing in French before English.

Colin Cotterill has some pictures of a recent book tour throughout the US, and in one he is pictured in front of the audience to whom he had spoken. Most are female, and the average age is, well, retirement age. He got a kick out of the fact that no one had read any of his books before. Probably, no one had heard of him, and had come because he was that month's speaker. That is certainly fine. I can't count how many writers or musicians I have encountered unexpectedly. I guess the point of a speaking tour for writers is just that—try to make a connection with people who haven't known about you. Bring them into the fold.

In a case like that, I suspect that previous interest in Asia is immaterial. If you are sufficiently impressed by someone. you're willing to read whatever she has written.

What about Asians living in the US, UK, or other English-speaking area? I happen to know several, and I've done another informal survey. Resident Asians born in Asia don't read (in English) for pleasure. The ones I know all have to read technical books, but they turn to their native language, if they read for entertainment. There are wonderful exceptions. I remember lending the Korean wife of a college classmate my copy of John Barth's Sotweed Factor, a difficult book for native English speakers to read (written as it is in 17th century English). She loved it. I have "forced" a couple Chinese friends to read a book or two in the mystery line. I guess they finished.

What about their kids—children born in the US or, at least, reared within the American culture? I just happen to know three well enough to ask. They are aware that some among their group will eventually seek to discover their roots, but it hasn't happened to these young people yet. They're American, fully and completely, and of course just what that even means isn't the same as it meant when I was their age. There are plenty Things Asian in American culture now to make folks comfortable who've grown up with such things in their family.

And of course each Asian mystery reflects the viewpoint of its author. A book by Qiu Xiaolong cannot feel the same as a book by Lisa See, who is culturally American. Does that make one better than the other? Of course not. But one might appeal to a particular reader while the same reader doesn't care for the other.

In short, it's a mystery who reads mysteries, and Asian mysteries in particular. I guess when it comes down to it, the numbers have to talk. You either sell enough books to make a living or you don't. Cotterill notes on his web site that he was selling an average of 2.5 books a month from his Thai home, and had begun to think of yet another career change. Then, an American publisher picked up his Laotian detective series, and he now makes his living as a writer of Asian mysteries. Luck, pure good fortune.

Posted at 7:36 PM by Michael Robert Broschat | Category: Musings | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

8/17/2008

Is it in print or isn't it?

I think I knew that when I created the category "In Print" within the books listing it might be difficult to know. Certainly, the status changes over time. But so many of the books I had in mind are so old that I wanted to give some indication of how easy it would be to find a book that interests you.

I'm preparing the author site for Chris Moore, a Canadian expatriate living in Thailand, and prolific author. I mention in a previous blog entry that his work has been re-introduced in North America, and that Amazon was giving away the first book in the Vince Calvino series (there are currently nine) in its Kindle format.

Visits both to Amazon and also to Chris Moore's sites show that the situation is vastly more complex than that. First, Amazon only offers that first novel and the latest. Perhaps, the rest of the series will follow soon. So, are the rest out of print? Not if you go to Moore's own site, evidently based in Thailand. There, you can buy any of his books (he is a prolific writer, and has several more books than the Vince Calvino series). But there's a catch. You will pay air freight from Thailand to wherever you live. The Vince Calvino series will cost you about US$40 a volume, paperback.

I read the Amazon announcement as a kind of scout. Someone (be it Amazon or Moore's publisher) is going to see whether there's enough interest to justify re-publishing the books. And, of course, the Kindle connection is that this re-publishing can be esentially free for the publisher, if they choose only the e-text approach. The ebook I downloaded for free the other day (it's really good, by the way) is now $8, which is pretty common for a new-ish book. $10 is the most common price for fiction, and older works often run about $4.

I think we're in the midst of a publishing revolution. Moore, himself, seems to be sticking to a print paradigm, but it's just got to have limited appeal.

By the way, reading the user comments on some of Moore's books is an exercise even more interesting than is usual. There is evidently a significant expatriate community in Thailand, and they read these books, too!

Posted at 8:19 AM by Michael Robert Broschat | Category: Musings | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

8/13/2008

Another Thai detective!

I'm sitting here browsing my Kindle as I finish lunch, and in a newsletter from Amazon that I never knew existed (I usually just connect to download my next book), there's not only an announcement that the Thai detective novels of one Christopher Moore are about to be published in North American for the first time (he's done ten), but that the first one is free (until 15 August). I pushed the download button, and there it is.

Will update the Thai section, when I have a chance...

Posted at 11:38 AM by Michael Robert Broschat | Category: New discovery | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

8/12/2008

Finding an eBook reader

I'm a complete convert to the eBook concept, and I was even before getting my Amazon Kindle. I remember going to a convention on the technology a few years ago, and realizing at that time that what we needed was a device not physically unlike a book, and a small book at that.

We've got them now, and as I set out to search the web for various ebooks to report on, I stumbled upon a Wikipedia article on the subject:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebook_reader

The article doesn't cover every possible device (I had encountered one before I found the Wikipedia article, and it's not on that list), but it's a good start.

I think that Kindle and Sony are the two big commercial successes. My friend Mary Carroll swears by her Sony, but I got my Kindle from Amazon (which conveniently handles its own store of ebooks), and I'm happy, too.

I presume that most of the other offerings are both cheaper and also display generic texts. For example, Random House offers the John Burdett series of Thai detective novels in an "ebook format." Because they're also available on the Kindle, I didn't need to look more closely at what Random House is offering, but it was a good sign.

Posted at 8:22 PM by Michael Robert Broschat | Category: Musings | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

8/11/2008

How easy to disappear

I'm preparing a list of Asian mystery novels and their authors, by poring through three relevant issues of The Mystery Journal (Janet Rudolph, http://www.mysteryreaders.org/). One article, listing the four novels of an American who wrote police procedurals during and about the 1990s in China, seemed especially exciting, and would be fun to compare with the novels of Qiu Xiaolong, who is from and writes of Shanghai. But not only could I not find any book by this author in print, but Amazon (owner of a serious used book finding service) lists no book by this author. My conclusion (and I will investigate further) is that during the past ten years, this man's work has effectively disappeared. Was it bad? I'll find out, eventually, but I doubt it.

When I discovered Lisa See (through Snow Flower and Peony in Love), I saw that her first three novels were mysteries featuring a wonderful female detective and set in modern China. The first two were out of print, so I had no choice but to buy the third (and, perhaps, final) volume in the Liu Hulan series and start there. Fortunately, and probably because of Ms See's success with Snow Flower, the first two novels were reprinted. Not only that, but they have appeared in Kindle form, which is especially gratifying to me. But what if Snow Flower hadn't been a big success?

As noted under the Biggers collection, the Charlie Chan books are all out of print (and understandably so), but anyone of reasonable determination can find copies of these once popular novels. The same might not be true of less successful books, although the wonderful book finding services, such as ABEBooks, of the modern Internet make possible searchs that only wealthy people used to be able to conduct.

We'll try to note—for posterity if not ourselves—any works in our genre that seem worthy of remembering, but it's sobering to imagine how many might have been written over the last, say, thirty years but are gone from living memory.

Posted at 7:14 PM by Michael Robert Broschat | Category: Musings | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

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