Here's the press release announcing TopSuspense, which just went out to media outlets this week.
Navigating the Sea of E-Books
Nine top suspense authors join forces to promote quality e-books www.TopSuspenseGroup.com
The e-book market is exploding. With over 700,000 e-books currently available and hundreds more added every week, it’s growing increasingly difficult to distinguish quality books from those that are unedited and written by inexperienced authors.
That’s why nine established, professional authors have formed Top Suspense Group, a site where readers are guaranteed to find top-notch, award-winning authors in multiple genres who deliver a great e-reading experience in their dozens of highly-acclaimed books.
"Readers can count on us," acclaimed author Max Allan Collins explains. "Every member of our group has already made his or her mark on genre fiction, whether it's noir, crime, mystery, thriller, horror or Westerns, and in some cases, several of these genres."
Top Suspense authors have each:
- Published multiple novels with traditional publishers
- Won or have been nominated for major literary awards
- Been internationally published
- Received critical acclaim from national publications
Many of the authors have graced the national bestseller lists and have had their work produced or optioned for film (the Oscar winning “Road to Perdition”) and television (the Emmy winning “Monk”). Our authors include:
Max Allan Collins · Bill Crider · Lee Goldberg · Joel Goldman · Ed Gorman · Vicki Hendricks
Paul Levine · Harry Shannon · Dave Zeltserman
This unique site provides a one-stop-shop of quality suspense fiction. As the e-book market continues to flood and overwhelm readers, Top Suspense will remain a succinct guide to quality, professional e-books written by today’s leading authors.
I think this is a great idea. I imagine more sites like this will start popping up as more traditionally-published authors move to self-publishing.
Lee,
I hope this new venture works out well for you and the other authors.
I understand your viewpoint with regard to the slushpile. As a former print journalist, I had many of the same feelings as “citizen journalism” came along.
Do I think journalism is done better by folks that actually studied in college and did as a profession? Absolutely.
Ultimately, I think fiction writing is different. I think the reading public should decide what’s good and what’s not. You’re right in that there will be a lot of crap published. But for every thousand pieces of garbage, you’ll find an author that’s worth reading that most likely would have been ignored under the old system.
Remember, cream will rise to the top. When enough published authors like yourself leave to self-pub, they’ll come knocking on your door with better financial offers than you were getting before.
In the future, I think publishing houses will serve mainly as marketing and promtion helpers.
It will be interesting to find out.