Generosity, Smart Marketing, Or Both?

You are a children's book author. You've been writing titles for quite some time and since you are prolific it's just the natural order of the universe that your books should inevitably fall out-of-print. You could bombard your old publishers to reprint your titles, if you liked, but how far would that really get you? You want to try something new. Something different. Something... something free.

If you are Hans Wilhelm you take your books and you put them online. As the PW article on this subject said:

His books have been translated into more than 20 languages and have reached an in-print tally of more than 35 million copies. Now Wilhelm has made nearly 100 of his out-of-print picture books available for fans to download free on his Web site . . .

"It is entirely logical," says the author of his decision to establish the Web site. "Books seem to go out of print faster and faster these days, often for reasons beyond our control and not always because they aren't selling well, and it is a pity that many powerful books are no longer available. I thought there is no reason why my out-of-print books should collect dust on a shelf when I could keep them alive. So I'm taking them out of retirement so that they can continue to give joy and pleasure to millions around the world."

Trend?

Backlist

Sometimes I wait a day to post hot news because if I blow my wad one day I may not have anything left of interest to display on another. Case in point, the fact that Ellen Raskin is hot property these days. I scouted out all the other blogs, didn't see a mention, and felt puh-retty pleased with myself. "Gee," says I, "I'll just pop on over to The Children's Literature Book Club and then begin editing my posts." Yeah, you guessed it. They totally beat me to the punch.

(please read the following in an overtly flowery voice of landed gentry)
Well played, Children's Literature Book Club. This round goes to you. Top drawer.

Here's the actual story:

Stephanie Owens Lurie and Mark McVeigh at Dutton have acquired five books by Newbery Award–winner and The Westing Game author Ellen Raskin in a major six-figure deal negotiated by Alex Glass and John Silbersack at Trident on behalf of the Raskin estate. The books include two new puzzle mystery novels: The Westing Quest, a sequel to The Westing Game, and A Murder for Macaroni and Cheese, a never-before-seen manuscript nearly completed at the author's death in 1984. The deal also includes the reissue of three backlist novels, Figgs & Phantoms, The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I Mean Noel) and The Tattooed Potato.

I'll repeat that for you. There's a freakin' sequel to The Westing Game out there and how many of us knew that off the top of our heads? No, it can't possibly be any good but I, for one, will certainly try to locate myself a copy ASAP.

And while I'm discussing reissues of old fabulousness, did anyone else notice that Andre Norton's works have been republished this and last year in paperback form without so much as a whisper of publicity? If you haven't read Lavender-Green Magic you've done yourself a disservice. Norton was one of the very few authors out there writing fantasy and sci-fi with African-American characters. So imagine my shock when I saw that Starscape (an imprint of Tor) has been faithfully republishing them with new covers and calling them "The Magic Books". Did I miss this announcement or did all of you know about it from the start? I'm not a huge fan of their cover art, but at least the books are getting out there again. FYI, folks.