I REISSUED ANOTHER BOOK: Many years ago, I was writing the Musketeer’s Mystery series.  This series, inexplicably (!) didn’t survive some very odd marketing choices, such as having the first book out of print when the second and third came out, or having the cover of the third virtually identical to the first.  It survived even worse having the title logic broken and the fourth book having “the Musketeer’s” removed from the title.  (I have since reissued the series, and they’re doing fine even though book six is way overdue.)

The publisher, in a fit of the same brilliance responsible for the rousing commercial success of the first series, asked me to come up with a “craft” mystery proposal, in place of the sixth musketeer book.

This was somewhat of a quandary, since at the time, with two small children, my only craft was writing.  And though craft mysteries — what replaced cozies when the publishers arbitrarily declared them dead — were not my primary mystery reading, I’d read a few.  I know they were supposed to involve craft shows and the like, none of which I knew anything about.

In despair I turned to the only craft I’d really done since getting married: rehabilitating and refinishing furniture (because mathematician and writer money does not stretch that far.)  The result was Dipped Stripped and Dead, QUITE the silliest book I ever wrote.

And it sold.  Boy did it sell.  So I signed a contract for two more books.  Then when renewal came around I set the price so high they wouldn’t buy anymore, and waited for rights to revert.  (By then indie publishing was a thing, and I knew it.)

They finally have, and I just re-released the second book, A French Polished Murder. 

In a couple of weeks I’ll release the third, and then the fourth should be ready to go.  Again, these are VERY silly books.  But maybe silly is what we need just now.  (BTW the books are under Elise Hyatt, as the publishing house explained they wanted a “less ethnic” name than… Sarah A. Hoyt.  It is reasoning like this on the part of traditional publishing that made indie the success it is!)  And yes, there will be trade paperback versions in a couple of weeks.