Publication Plans
For the Three Investigators series
Dear Three Investigators fans,
With many thanks for your patience, I'm delighted to announce that Steven and I finally have a solid publication plan for the twenty-six books in the new Three Investigators series. After examining all possible alternatives, we've decided to publish the books ourselves, on a one-book-a-month schedule, starting in September or October of this year. Since traditional publishing takes forever, this will allow us to get the series into the hands of readers much more quickly.
At first, the books will only be available on Amazon, but as time goes on we hope to move the paperbacks into distribution through bookstores and to get the e-books up for sale on the Barnes and Noble website. The books will be published by our press, Hollow Tree Press, which we've set up as an LLC.
In addition, we've decided that in the four weeks preceding the publication of any new Arthur/Bauer Three Investigators book, I'll be sending out the first four chapters of that book, one each week, on this Substack. As of now, the plan is to send out Chapter 1 of The Mystery of the Abecedarian Academy on September 8, with Chapters 2, 3, and 4 to be sent out on September 15, 22, and 29, and the entire book to be published on Amazon on October 1st, but if things go well, we may be able to move the pub date up a month.
In the past, Amazon allowed readers to preview whichever parts of a book they wanted to, but in recent years it's been restricting those previews to the first chapter only. By letting Substack subscribers "preview" the first four chapters of a book before it's actually available for sale, I'm hoping to give everyone who follows this newsletter a real feel for the new novels, despite the preview restrictions on Amazon.
To be clear about this, I intend to keep this Substack free to everyone for the foreseeable future. Although Steven and I considered actually "publishing" the new Three Investigators series here, in the end we decided that almost any reader would prefer an actual book (or an e-book) to a series of newsletters.
The books will be available as both e-books and paperbacks, and if I can figure out how to do it, the e-books should be discounted for the first thirty days after their publication, to encourage everyone to keep up with the series as it gets published. (In addition to delivering satisfying stand-alone mysteries, the series contains ongoing stories about each of the main characters, as well as an overarching storyline about all of them together, so it will really make sense to read the books in the order in which they were written.)
And that's not all the news. Sometime in early-to mid-June – not very long in the future, now! – Hollow Tree Press will be publishing a 60th anniversary edition of my father’s ten Three Investigators novels, in their first-ever English-language e-book editions, and also in a new English-language paperback edition with a gorgeous set of covers.
The Secret of Terror Castle and The Mystery of the Stuttering Parrot were first published in 1964 and even though my father's other Three Investigators novels aren't having their 60th anniversary quite yet, we're going to be publishing new editions of Dad's other eight Three Investigators books at the same time. As with the new Arthur/Bauer series, at first the Robert Arthur titles will only be available on Amazon, but as time goes on, we hope to see the publication reach expanded.
I hope this all comes as good news to a very patient group of fans. Ever since we made the decision, about seven months ago, to step out of the traditional publishing model and into the far more flexible world that seems to be taking its place, Steven and I have been working all day, every day, getting all ten of my father’s classic novels and all twenty-six of our new novels publication-ready.
With our own books, that has meant doing a final re-write on all of them, and when we've both signed off on the final draft, abandoning our role as writers to take on the role of book designers, jacket designers, copy editors, and publishers.
With my father's books, while we haven’t had to re-write anything, obviously, we have written end notes for each book – end notes in which I share some inside knowledge about my father, but which should also serve as a general guide for young readers who are meeting the classic Three Investigators series sixty years after it was first created. We hope adult fans will also find them interesting.
In a week or two, I should be able to send you a JPG of the wrap-around dust jacket for the new edition of The Secret of Terror Castle, and also the URLs that will allow you to pre-order the e-books of Dad’s ten Three Investigators titles. For some odd reason, the paperbacks can't be set up for pre-order, but I will let you know, separately, when they are actually up and running.
While I realize that most, if not all, of you who have signed up for this Substack are adults and therefore not part of what I understand is now called a “friend group” of young people, it would be great if you could forward this notice on to any adult friends who may also have read Three Investigators books when they were younger; to friends with middle-grade and YA-age children; and also to any young people you know (including students, if you are a teacher!) who might find Jupiter, Pete, and Bob good companions.
Anyone who signs up now for this Substack will get news directly from me in the future, and since I’ll be sending out the first four chapters of each new Three Investigators book before it is published, they can judge for themselves whether the new books are something they would enjoy reading.
With thanks in advance for whatever help you can give us with spreading the news about this project, and with all best wishes,
Elizabeth Arthur
