E. C. (Gene) Ayres Blogspot

As an author, I have had a long and complicated love and hate affair with eBooks, and know this will sound self-serving, but my first mystery novel, Hour of the Manatee , was the very first book ever published in electronic format. It happened like this: I'd been doing a reading of my second Tony Lowell Mystery, Eye of the Gator at a Barnes & Noble bookstore in St. Petersburg, Florida, when a man came up to me afterwards and made me an offer I couldn't refuse. His name was Don something (real name best forgotten in any case) and he claimed to have invented the first eBook reader. Moreover, he had a working model to prove it. The year was 1997. What Don wanted was a book that had some public visibility to convert onto his reader as a demo, and my first book, as a national book award winner and still selling well, would suit his purpose perfectly, and I could see no down side at the time. So I agreed. Don's business plan, such as it was, was to publish eBooks in mini-

With apologies to my readers, it has been a long time: one year, to be exact, since my last posting. I have been busy, mind you. My Italian publisher Newton Compton Roma contracted another book, as second in a new series featuring investigative reporter Jake Fleming, who, in my prior book, Il Libro Segreto di Shakespeare , discovered evidence pointing to another author of the Shakespeare Canon (and no, it was not Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford). I am still seeking an English language publisher, which is a unique situation to be in indeed, given that this book has been published (under my pseudonym John Underwood) in seven languages, to date. The last time this has happened was For Whom the Bell Tolls , by Ernest Hemmingway. Not that I am claiming peerhood with Hemmingway, but that is a fact. Meanwhile, a true hero of mine (granted, I am a professional iconoclast) has resurfaced, literally, and I consider this very good news indeed. Richard of York, the last of the Plantagen