Quote from: Brentski on September 07, 2023, 11:18:45 PMHello all! It's my first post, glad to be here.
I am the author of The Crypto Mine Cypher and wanted to address comment/concerns about public domain.
First off, I have read all of the original texts of the first 38 books (as well as the whole of the revised 58 book canon - multiple times each) I'm not claiming to have deep or special knowledge, but I have the basics covered.
As prep for this book, I reviewed the first three books of the original texts and made note of characters, locations and businesses mentioned. Con Riley is in The Tower Treasure, FWIW. The Conan Doyle estate is a good case study as they even sued people for how Holmes was characterized, saying changes in his views towards women did not manifest in print until later works that were still in copyright. Interestingly, they didn't sue Enola Holmes author/publisher until the Netflix production was announced - deep pockets I suppose.
Anyway, I have made every effort to 'color within the lines', even to the point of not using characterizations of the cast that were not part of the original (now public domain) texts. In some cases I am reverting to previous versions of the characters, in others I will be introducing novel variants of personality.
Most interesting absence in my novel - Gertrude Hardy. Her first appearance is in The Missing Chums, so she is verboten until 2024. Not to worry, there is a place for her at Hardy Investigations (which is Fenton's middle-sized business in my series).
As far as this being canon, of course I agree that is not. Canon is canon. This is (I hope) an interesting aside. I have done my best to make the book 'feel' like the old canon, but at the same time it is set in modern day and I have made character changes - with Joe being the chief example. I'll be previewing the first five chapters out on my Substack in the lead up to release on 01OCT23. I hope you will give them a go. If you like them, I believe you will enjoy the whole book. If you don't, then don't bother any more with it!
The book will be available to USA only, precisely because of copyright differences. I'm curious if anyone knows if (and which) the books are PD in other countries. If you do think they are, can you provide an official reference so I can be certain of the standing? As regards access via Substack to the sample chapters - I'll have to look into if I can geo-limit access. At a minimum I should disclose the PD status, but perhaps I'll have to abandon this release method... Ugh!
Anyway, this post is too long already. Last thing - I will be discussing the creation process, character changes, tools I used, etc. on my Substack. New posts weekly on Fridays. You can view all my posts for free on the site, and/or subscribe to recieve them via email.
Thanks and take care,
-Brent
Quote from: Brentski on September 08, 2023, 10:56:11 AMThanks to tomswift2002 for giving me the heads-up on the worldwide distrubution of the preview chapter - saved my bacon.
As my marketing plan involved building toward the release with chapter excerpts, and these are now impossible, I've decided to move the release of the book up to 12SEP23. Amazon and B&N should reflect this change in the next day or two. Previews should be available when the titles go live. I've reduced the price of the book to $0.99 from now (when change becomes effective) until 01OCT23.
I pulled the chapter one sample from Substack. (Boo) But I've also published an update, article and preview of the table of contents and a piece of interior art on Substack. https://bayportmysteries.substack.com/p/and-so-it-has-come-to-this (Yea)
I'll now attempt to be quiet and stop spamming the forum.
-Brent