Cat In A Zebra Zoot Suit

Tailpiece

Carole Nelson Douglas on Where

Midnight Louie is Going…or Not

Some readers have been fretting in recent years that arriving at the Z book in Louie’s Alphabetical adventures means saying “Goodbye”. We were flattered. We were also worried about reassuring readers in a New Media world where book format, distribution, and sales has changed, changed utterly in just a few years.

First, the next book is Cat in an Alphabet Endgame.

Well, doesn’t that mean “the End”?

It means the end of the alphabet titles, but not of Louie and his world. Now, because of cataclysmic changes in the publishing industry, books don’t need title signals to the order in which they were written to be read.

After Louie debuted in Catnap, not wanting to imitate an established, hugely successful cat mystery series’ title format, I used Pussyfoot for my next title. (This is admirable ethics, but very bad marketing.) In fact, I refused to use the publisher’s proposed title sequence as “too close,” but did come up with a format with “cat” in it. By then, I realized that the series would unreel like an ensemble-cast TV series that lasted several seasons. So when the publisher accepted Cat on a Blue Monday, I realized the titles could continue with an internal alphabet on the color (or pattern, later) word.

That solved a problem of book marketing then. Mysteries series couldn’t be numbered, because if every title was not currently on the store shelf, readers wouldn’t pick up a series at Book Four, say. And all books sold on shelves, not websites. For a lovely long while my Midnight Louie and Irene Adler series occupied two entire shelves at the chain bookstores. Then chain stores started stocking fewer books. (Independent bookstores offered book-savvy clerks to advise readers about book order, but began to suffer from the Big Box competition.)

As Crimson Haze and Diamond Dazzle came out, readers began noticing the internal alphabet, just another fun little “clue” they figured out. Meanwhile, I was constantly explaining that the alphabet started with the second letter on the third book, after Catnap and Pussyfoot. I suggested to the publisher that we combine the first two books under a new “A” title, Cat in an Aqua Something. They graciously took a hard look at doing that, but the combined “A” book would be too long to market at a low-enough cover price.

Then came ebooks and bookselling websites. All of an author’s books were on virtual “shelves” together. Authors whose print books would have eventually moldered into forgotten dust now had a “literary legacy” with copyrights that would last for seventy years after their deaths.

I took this as time to tidy up the things that “can’t be helped” in the way traditional publishing worked. Catnap in eBook became Cat in an Alphabet Soup. Taking that as a “foundation” title, I changed Pussyfoot to Cat in an Aqua Storm, after the car Temple drove when the series began. Cat on a Blue Monday now fit in place. And I had an extra “concluding” book after Cat in a Zebra Zoot Suit to wrap up the continuing personal storylines and crime plots, Cat in an Alphabet Endgame.

As for Louie and me, we’re looking forward to exploring a reimagined world where the old remains in place but fascinating new characters and cases show up. Louie’s a veteran at this, having debuted in the first category romance quartet (with mystery) and then moving to this mystery series when, as I found myself searching for a way to explain to a library audience recently, I came up with “he was violated by a romance editor”. We all laughed hysterically. The fact is forty percent of his narration went to the cutting-room floor, without me being notified.

I used to say you can do that to me (because worse violations have happened in publishing), but you can’t do that to a twenty-pound alley cat who thinks he’s Sam Spade.

But even Louie can’t reinvent himself single-handedly. Only readers can do that. Thank you all for your support of the long journey Louie and company have made. The four human protagonists have all been forced to reexamine their family origins and issues and their own misconceptions and flaws so they can reconcile their pasts with the present, and their futures. Louie’s cat family has made the journey too. Few authors are permitted, given the ups and downs of a publishing career, to finish such a long series.

It you think this sounds like “Good-bye,” it is really a way of saying, Hang on, the best is yet to be. In all of our lives.

Is Midnight Louie your kind of cat?

Carole has been dragging home rescue cats since she was old enough to walk. Louie is based on a survival-savvy cat someone else rescued, but Carole helped find him a home. If you like Louie and his books, let everyone know by posting a review at your favorite online retailer and sign up for ML’s Scratching Post-Intelligencer newsletter.

Visit Carole at:

carolenelsondouglas.com

www.wishlist.com