Carole Douglas - Cat in a Zebra Zoot Suit

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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 cat aclysmic 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 C atnap 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:

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Carole with the late Midnight Louie Jr.

ML III appears in the half-moon window

CAROLE NELSON DOUGLASis the award-winning author of sixty-two novels in the mystery/thriller, women’s fiction, and science fiction/fantasy genres.

She is noted for the long-running Midnight Louie, feline PI, cozy-noir mystery series ( Cat in an Alphabet Soup, Cat in an Aqua Storm , Cat on a Blue Monday, etc.) and the Delilah Street, Paranormal Investigator, noir urban fantasy series ( Dancing with Werewolves , etc.). Midnight Louie prowls the “slightly surreal” Vegas of today, narrating interlarded chapters in his alley-cat noir voice. Delilah walks the mean streets of a paranormally post-apocalyptic Sin City, fighting supernatural mobsters with Louie’s wile, wit and grit.

Douglas was the first author to make a Sherlockian female character, Irene Adler, a series protagonist, with the New York Times Notable Book of the Year, Good Night, Mr. Holmes , and the first woman to write a Holmes spin-off series. Her award nominations run from the Agatha to the Nebula, including Lifetime Achievement Awards from RT Book Reviews for Mystery, Suspense, Versatility, and as a Pioneer of Publishing for her groundbreaking multi-genre work. She has won a clowder of Catwriters’ Association first place Muse awards, and is a four-time finalist for the Romance Writers of America’s Rita award in four different categories.

An award-winning daily newspaper reporter and editor in Minnesota, she moved south to write fiction full-time and was recently inducted into the Texas Literary Hall of Fame. She does a mean Marilyn Monroe impersonation, collects vintage clothing and homeless cats, and enjoys Zumba, but has never danced with werewolves. (That she knows of.)

Visit Carole at www.carolenelsondouglas.com

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