New Books: The Girl Who Wanted to be Sherlock Holmes by Bill Crider

When Ed Gorman graciously invited me to write a little piece about The Girl Who Wanted to be Sherlock Holmes, my direct-to-Kindle YA novel, I was forced to think about why I published it in the first place. It wasn’t because I expected fame and fortune to follow immediately, even though I must admit that reading about Amanda Hocking’s millions of sales might have been a motivating factor. Somehow, though, I don’t think my sales will approach hers. Or anybody else’s for that matter. What it comes down to is that I did it for fun.

Here’s the story. I wrote the book some years ago and sent it to my agent, who supposedly loved it. Little did I know that my agent had pretty much quit agenting, at least for me, and that he wasn’t even sending the book out. I found out he’d really retired when eventually a manuscript was returned to me because someone had found it lying outside the door of his deserted office. Imagine my surprise. At any rate, I pretty much gave up on any projects at all for a year or two. I had to fulfill a contract for a Sheriff Dan Rhodes novel, and I wasn’t sure what I’d do after that. Everything else got shelved.

Eventually I decided to look for another agent, and I got a good one, but she doesn’t handle YA material. I never sent her a copy of Shirley Holmes. It just gathered figurative dust (and some literal dust, too). Then, not long ago, I got it out and read over it and found I liked it as much as ever. I’d always wanted to write something along the lines of the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books I’d loved as a kid, and this was it. But nobody was ever going to see it unless I did something about it. It occurred to me that the easiest thing to do would be to put it on Kindle. And I did.

So far I’ve gotten several e-mails about the book, mostly to let me know that the cover bites the moose. Obviously I’m no graphic designer, and my Photoshop skills are about the same as those of one of my cats. (The other cat is much better at it than I am, but she doesn’t work cheap.) I’m looking into the possibility of a different cover. Maybe if I get one, the sales will climb, but Amanda Hocking isn’t looking over her shoulder, believe me.

At any rate, the book is out there if anybody wants to read it, and if I become rich and famous as a result of this post, I’m going to cut Ed in for 10%.