Cold in the
Light was the third book I wrote but the first to be published. Invisible
College Press picked it up in 2002 an it sold modestly. Emphasis on the
modestly. This is despite the fact that I believe it was, and is, a really
strong thriller. I’m very proud of it.
In September
of 2017 I received word from Invisible College Press that they were closing
their doors, officially making Cold in the Light “out of print” as of October
2017. The question then becomes, what next?
I see two
possibilities: First, I could seek out another small press publisher who might
be interested. Second, I could self publish it. Frankly, because I believe it
is really good, I’d like to try another publisher who might have more marketing
sense than I apparently have. I’m going to take a bit of time to look around.
Another
issue that has arisen though is whether I should update the book. My writing
skills have, hopefully, improved since this book was written in the 1990s. I at
first just assumed I’d update and started going through it. A problem quickly
became apparent. The technology has changed dramatically since the book was
published. And not only that, but the geographic setting has changed. When I
wrote Cold in the Light, Highway 71 was the main route students took to get to
the University of Arkansas. That is no longer true.
My
alternatives then became, rewrite the tech and the geography, which will
require considerable work, or simply set the book in the past time in which it
was originally written. I already have times and days mentioned in the book so
I could easily establish a year. What do you think of the latter idea? Have you
read books like that? Do you care if a thriller is essentially set in the past? Or do you want your thrillers to be "torn from today's headlines?" Before I make any further changes to the
work I need to make this decision. Any feedback would be appreciated.
