Mystery Melange

It's getting harder and harder for any individual author to be heard above the roar of hundreds of thousands (some say millions) of books published each year, between traditional publishing and self-publishing. (Bowker estimated that last year alone, more than 300,000 self-pubbed titles were issued.) Authors have to be more creative than ever before, and one group has banded together to form Killer Thrillers, a web site that promotes and sells their eBooks. As the site's recent press release notes, these aren't just any authors, they include 22 award-winning, bestselling, and internationally published thriller authors committed to bringing high standards and professional quality to their self-published works. Killer Thrillers authors include Brett Battles, Raymond Benson, Sean Black, Robert Gregory Browne, Blake Crouch, Karen Dionne, Timothy Hallinan, Katia Lief, CJ Lyons, Bob Mayer, Grant McKenzie, David Morrell, Boyd Morrison, J.F. Penn, Keith Raffel, J.D. Rhoades, Jeremy Robinson, L.J. Sellers, Zoë Sharp, Alexandra Sokoloff, Mark Terry and F. Paul Wilson.

Coming up March 8-10, 2013, there will be a weekend of crime writing courses titled "Crime and Publishment" at The Mill Forge Hotel in Scotland. The sessions with writers include Matt Hilton (author of the Joe Hunter series), Sheila Quigley (author of seven novels including Run for Home), and Allan Guthrie (award-winning author and co-founder of publisher Blasted Heath). In addition, budding authors will get the chance to pitch their novel directly to an agent.

Harrogate hosts the Theakstons Old Peculier crime writing festival, a celebration of the best crime writing in Europe and beyond, with competitions and panel discussions. The 2013 Harrogate festival program has been released, with Val McDermid once again taking over the Chairman duties. This is full circle for her, as she chaired the very first Harrogate Festival years ago, only this time she'll be joined by Kate Atkinson, Charlaine Harris, Susan Hill and Ruth Rendell as special guests.

Early registration for Thrillerfest is also open for next year, with special guests including 2013 ThrillerMaster Anne Rice, 2011 ThrillerMaster R.L. Stine, T. Jefferson Parker, and Michael Connelly. As usual, the event will also incude CraftFest, with NYT bestselling authors sharing their secrets on the craft of writing, and AgentFest, with over 50 top agents and editors in the business on hand to hear your pitches.

The Q&A roundup this week includes a "killer conversation" with two of the best-known Mikes in crime fiction, Michael Connelly and Michael Koryta. The pair visited Atlanta last week for the Decatur Book Festival and spoke with CNN. Also, author and publisher of Hard Case Crime, Charles Ardai, spoke with the Crime Fiction Lover blog about his fascination with pulp fiction and more; and Danish author Jussi Adler-Olsen answered seven quick questions for BookPage.