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Q2: Can I buy copies of your new books on the website? Q3: But I want a signed copy of the new book... Q4: Can I send you a book and have you sign it for me? Q5: Could you send me a list of the Matthew Scudder books so that I can read them in order? Q8: Will you read my book and give me a quote? Q9: Are you always this surly? Q10: What do you like to read? Q11: Do you publish a newsletter? Q12: I didn't get a newsletter last month. How come? Q14: I don't know why I signed up for your newsletter. How do I get off the list? Q16: What's this Travelers Century Club you mention in the newsletter? Q17: Are you available for speaking engagements? Q18: Where can I find your bio? Q1: When are you going to write another book about Bernie
Rhodenbarr? About Matthew Scudder? About Keller? About Tanner? About Chip
Harrison? About those five clowns in THE SPECIALISTS? About... Here's the answer: I don't know. I have, in fact, no idea whatsoever. I rarely know what I'm going to write next, and, on those rare occasions when I think I know, I'm generally wrong. Which is fine with me---if I'd wanted a world of schedules and certainties I'd have gone into some other line of work. You might think that asking the question, or otherwise campaigning for a book about your favorite character, would help speed things up. If so, you don't know me very well. Contrarian that I am, such appeals are likely to be counter-productive. I'll probably write more about Bernie and Matt and Keller, and possibly out some of the others as well, but I don't know when. When I know, you'll know. Q2: Can I buy copies of your new books on the website? A2: As a general rule, you can't. When a book's widely available from online and brick-and-mortar bookstores, you won't find it for sale in LB's Bookstore. What you will find is books that are out-of-print, small-press publications that are hard to find, and reading copies of titles that might prove elusive. And all of these will be signed. Q3: But I want a signed copy of the new book... Q4: Can I send you a book and have you sign it for me? A4: Sorry, but the answer is a very firm no. I do a fair amount of touring, and will sign books on such occasions, but I have a strict policy against letting people send me things to sign. I never sign them, and rarely return them. Q5: Could you send me a list of the Matthew Scudder books so that I can read them in order? A5: It's on the website. In the BOOKS section, all of the series are listed in the chronological order in which the books were written. Or, simpler still, look in the front of a recent book. Right before the title page you'll see what publishers call the ad card. I'm not sure why they call it that, as it's neither an ad nor a card, just a list of other books by the author. The ad cards of my hardcover books list all my titles, with the series books in order. The ad cards of paperbacks generally list only the titles offered by that publisher---there is, after all, a question of space---and again, the series are in chronological order. Q6: Are they going to make a film/TV series/interactive video game featuring Matthew Scudder/Bernie Rhodenbarr / Evan Tanner? Any plans? A6: There are always plans, and it's rare indeed that anything ever comes of them. If I announced the current status here, I'd have to update this page monthly. Properties are optioned, options lapse, and life goes on. If anything actually looks as though its going to get made, rest assured I'll trumpet the fact in the newsletter. Q7: I wrote a book / story / play / ransom note. May I send it to you
for criticism / help in getting it published / your personal edification? Q8: Will you read my book and give me a quote? A8: I'm afraid not. I got out of the blurb biz a couple years back. Q9: Are you always this surly? A9: Well, I wasn't actually trying for surly. Maybe it's the questions. Ask me something else. Q10: What do you like to read? A10: I don't read as much as I used to, and I don't finish every novel I start. (For the first 35 years of my life almost I never left a book unfinished. Thank God I got over that...) Recently I've particularly enjoyed historical fiction, when it's really well-written. (Much of it isn't.) Favorites are the Shaara Civil War trilogy (Michael's Gettysburg novel, The Killer Angels, and his son Jeff's prequel and sequel), Thomas Flanagan's Irish trilogy (The Year of the French, The Tenants of Time, and The End of the Hunt), and, most recently, Stephen Harrington's The Gates of the Alamo. A longtime favorite author is John O'Hara, and another is Walter Tevis. Within the crime fiction genre, I never mention names at the risk of making enemies of those I don't name. But I'll stretch a point and recommend Donald E. Westlake, who's been doing this as many years as I have, and who's been my friend all those years. And in all that time the man has never written a bad sentence. Of course he's young yet. Give him time... Q11: Do you publish a newsletter? A11: I do. It's electronic, free and worth every penny - and produced on an irregular schedule so be patient. Just click newsletter. Fill out the fields (we keep mailing lists for many different countries so it's important that you let us know where you're located or you won't always get the right newsletter). Check the box "I want to receive mailings from LawrenceBlock.com." Hit "Join Now". Soon you'll receive an email from us requesting confirmation. When you get that email, click on the link provided and that's all there is to it. We now use a Double Opt-In mail service, Vertical Response, which guarantees that our newsletter is not spam. Your ISP should accept it easily. If you have ChoiceMail or a similar email safety software, you should program it to accept mail from both LawrenceBlock.com and VerticalResponse.com. Q12: I didn't get a newsletter last month. How come? A12: There are months when I don't get one out. But more often than not I do, and there are always bounces---some from e-mail accounts that no longer exist, but quite a few from accounts where the mailbox is over quota, or where some sort of spam filter has screened out and rejected the newsletter. And of course there are transmissions that go astray for no apparent reason. Unlike the Postal Service, which as I'm sure you know manages timely delivery of each and every piece of mail entrusted thereto, email now and then disappears somewhere in cyberspace. The good news is that I didn't have to put a 37-cent stamp on it, and that your subscription didn't cost a whole lot, either. In case you miss one, or think you might have missed one, we have the most recent newsletter available here. Q13: I got an email from you, and the text didn't make sense, and I was scared to open the attachment. What was that all about? A13: It wasn't from me. Some clowns out there seem to be cloning addresses, either for spam or virus dissemination. (It could be worse, they could be cloning themselves, and then there'd be even more of them spoiling the planet for the rest of us.) They can send you something that looks as though it's coming from LB@lawrenceblock.com, but it's not. I'm glad you didn't open the attachment. We never send the newsletter as an attachment, partly because people are understandably scared to open them, and partly because so often the damn things are difficult or impossible to open anyway, even when they're legit. You'll never get attachments from us---except possibly in one-to-one correspondence, in which case the attachment will be specifically referred to in the text. Rest easy. Q14: I don't know why I signed up for your newsletter. How do I get
off the list? Q15: Is it all right to forward your newsletter to my Aunt Caroline? And there's a paragraph I'd like to put on my own website---is that okay, or will you sue me for plagiarism and violation of copyright? A15: Hey, feel free. Forward, excerpt, copy in toto---whatever you want. But whatever you do, don't send a copy to that sorehead David mentioned earlier who wanted to unsubscribe... That's it for now, and---do I see another hand out there? Q16: What's this Travelers Century Club you mention in the newsletter? A16: A club for people who've been to 100 or more countries. Lynne and I joined as provisional members a while back---they'll take you when you've got 75 countries on your list. Q17: Are you available for speaking engagements? A17: Indeed I am. I enjoy them, too, but can't do too many because time is limited, and there are stretches of the year when I'm unavailable because I'm traveling for business or pleasure or holed up writing a book. (It's terrible how writing cuts into a person's time.) To book me as a speaker, just email me (LawBloc@aol.com) with the date and full particulars. My standard fee is $5000 plus hotel accommodations for trips that require travel; I make and pay for my own travel arrangements. I'll often reduce my fee dramatically for events in and near New York City. Q18: Where can I find your bio? "Lawrence Block's novels range from the urban noir of Matthew Scudder (All the Flowers are Dying) to the urbane effervescence of Bernie Rhodenbarr (The Burglar on the Prowl), while other characters include the globe-trotting insomniac Evan Tanner (Tanner on Ice) and the introspective assassin Keller (Hit and Run due June 24, 2008). He has published articles and short fiction in American Heritage, Redbook, Playboy, Cosmopolitan, GQ, and The New York Times, and 84 of his short stories have been collected in Enough Rope. In 2004, he became executive story editor for the TV series TILT. Several of his novels have been filmed, though not terribly well. His newest bestsellers are Hit Parade, his third Keller novel (July 2006 in hardcover), and All the Flowers are Dying (April 2006 in paperback), the sixteenth Matthew Scudder novel. Larry is a Grand Master of Mystery Writers of America, and a past president of both MWA and the Private Eye Writers of America. He has won the Edgar and Shamus awards four times each and the Japanese Maltese Falcon award twice, as well as the Nero Wolfe and Philip Marlowe awards, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Private Eye Writers of America, and, most recently, the Cartier Diamond Dagger for Life Achievement from the Crime Writers Association (UK). In France, he has been proclaimed a Grand Maitre du Roman Noir and has twice been awarded the Societe 813 trophy. He has been a guest of honor at Bouchercon and at book fairs and mystery festivals in France, Germany, Australia, Italy, New Zealand and Spain, and, as if that were not enough, was presented with the key to the city of Muncie, Indiana. Larry and his wife Lynne are enthusiastic New Yorkers and relentless world travelers." LB
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