Robert Arthur Novels
60th Anniversary Editions
Dear Friends and Fans of The Three Investigators Series,
I’m happy to announce that, after a fantastically bizarre and labor-intensive four weeks, new paperback editions of my father’s ten Three Investigators novels have finally been successfully published on Amazon. Unfortunately, as I write this post, only three of the novels have also been published as e-books, and I’m beginning to wonder whether the other seven will ever be permitted to join their papery brethren.
Before Steven and I set the so-called “Review” process in motion, he and I had no idea that Amazon’s KDP division is widely understood to be the most inefficient, maddening, frustrating, illogical, non-responsive, and Kafkaesque company on the face of the earth.
Even though the new paperback editions and the new e-book editions are absolutely identical – including in their legal histories – the Amazon KDP system appears to regard the publication of e-books as if each one were a trip to the headwaters of the river the company is named after – without maps or compasses or even a medieval torch.
This seems to be the result of KDP’s business model, in which the so-called “Content Review Division” is actually an AI operation answerable to no one – not even the hopelessly ineffectual employees in its own “Customer Support Division” – and to which writers are never able to communicate more than once with the same human being in any division.
Although I very much wanted to wait to make the announcement about the new editions until after the e-book problem had been resolved, I simply can’t keep arguing with a computer algorithm that sends me an apology every five days, then goes discreetly silent when I respond.
My father once published a story in Weird Tales called “Ghost For A Night” in which he referred to a ghost – engaged in a brawl in a bar called “Dinty's Den” – as a “misty visitant” and I have to tell you, I wish I could read a story by my father about the misty visitant lost in the machine of cyberspace on the river of despair known as Amazon.com.
Although he didn’t write all that many of them, Dad was brilliant at that kind of story - the kind in which human hubris about its whiz-bang machines leads to an all-too-predictable – but somehow still shocking – story ending.
The one good thing that has happened is that after another Herculean struggle, I finally managed to get someone at yet another division, “Amazon Author Central,” to let me set up a proper Author Page for my father, and the new editions have now been linked to that page – although it’s possible that when you get there, you will, at first, see only the three books published as both e-books and paperbacks.
The books you’ll see at once are The Mystery of the Stuttering Parrot, The Secret of Skeleton Island, and The Mystery of the Fiery Eye, and I would urge any of you who would eventually like to own all ten of my father’s Three Investigators novels as e-books to buy the three that are already available. While I can’t be certain of anything in Amazon World (where Hal is always saying “I’m sorry, Dave…” , and where the cute little dinosaur from Jurassic Park is always about to start spitting acid in your face) it seems at least possible that some preliminary sales of the three e-books that are already up and running will trigger a change of heart in the all-powerful Algorithm God, and God Central will deign to release the other seven e-books into the world.
As for the paperbacks, they are not only gorgeous, but the first new English-language editions to be published anywhere in the world in over twenty-five years.
I would guess that just about everyone who subscribes to this Substack probably already has my father’s novels in paperback form - perhaps in addition to hardcovers - but since all of the new editions, in both versions, contain end notes written by me and Steven, some of you may find it fun to have books you can hold in your hands with not just great new covers (and new paper!) but also with what Amazon refers to as “additional content.”
Also, if you have young friends or relatives between 8 and 14 years old, it might be nice to give them a brand-new paperback set of your own old faves.
In the hopes that it will simplify your life, instead of giving you a lot of separate URLs, I am going to give you the URL to the “Robert Arthur Author Page” below. The so-called “Special URL” doesn’t seem to work even slightly, most of the time, so I’d try the boring old non-special URL, below, if I were you.
https://www.amazon.com/author/robertarthur.
https://www.amazon.com/stores/Robert-Arthur/author/B0D3691VF3
If you link to my father’s Author Page, you will find that the seven books which have not yet been approved as e-books are visible if you simply scroll down the page to the section which is labelled “Books.” You can also click on the link “All Books.”
Just so you know, the plan for the new Three Investigators series is still to start posting chapters of The Mystery of the Abecedarian Academy in early September (with the first four chapters posted one a week for four consecutive weeks) and then to actually publish the book on October 1st – but after the surreal (and unbelievably time-consuming) experience I just had with Amazon, Steven and I are planning to move the focus of our attention to a different publishing platform, right from the start - one that can get our books on Amazon, but that will also put them into catalogues and distribute them to libraries and bookstores.
This post comes with a warm welcome to all the new subscribers who signed up in the last six weeks, and with thanks to all the old subscribers who helped the new subscribers find this site. If you still have it in you (and are not as worn out as I am!) please forward this announcement on to anyone you think might be interested in either my father’s classic books or the new books which are to come.
With thanks and best wishes,
EAA