Aug. 15, 2015
Today I made a costly mistake--costly to my peace of mind. I clicked on Amazon and looked up the status of The Red Squad, almost certainly the last novel I will write. It had been available as an E-book for some time. Last week the printed version, what some of us think of as a real book, became available as a trade paperback. It is set in 1950, the height of the Communist scare, when the NYPD (and most major cities) had red squads assigned to root out subversive cops--and never mind due process of law. In my story a rookie cop is ordered to romance the daughter of a suspect who happens to be the best known and admired cop on the force, to get in close enough to find the evidence needed. A story of love and betrayal. The book was printed less than a week ago, but already, I saw today, it is being offered at a discount by four firms, one of them in England. All claim to have the book in stock. What's going on here? What to do? Call Amazon? In today's world I'd be on the phone all day, pushing buttons, waiting on hold, talking to clerks in Madras who answer with impenetrable accents. But I must do something. If I have learned anything over my long career, it is that a writer must protect himself at all times, because nobody else will.
Aug. 15, 2015
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