E.C.McMullen Jr.

1. ON WHAT GROUNDS - by Cleo Coyle (up from #2 in June)
2. THE MYSTERY METHOD: How to Get Beautiful Women Into Bed - by Mystery, Lovedrop, and Neil Strauss (down from #1 in June)
3. THE BEST AMERICAN MYSTERY STORIES 2007 - edited by Carl Hiaasen and Otto Penzler (unchanged since June)
4. THE LONDON EYE MYSTERY - by Siobhan Dowd (unchanged since April)
5. MYSTERY OF HISTORY VOL. 1 - by Linda Lacour Hobar (new to the top ten)
6. DEAD UNTIL DARK - by Charlaine Harris (new to the top ten)
7. FRENCH PRESSED - by Cleo Coyle (down from #6 in June)
8. TWO-MINUTE MYSTERIES - by Donald J. Sobol (returns to the top ten)
9. DON'T MURDER YOUR MYSTERY - by Chris Roerden (down from #8 in June)
10. THE MYSTERIES OF HARRIS BURDICK - by by Chris Van Allsburg (returns to the top ten)

Mystery
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1. THE DIRTY SECRETS CLUB - by Meg Gardner (new to the top ten)
2. FEARLESS FOURTEEN - by Janet Evanovich (down from #2)
3. DEVIL MAY CARE - by Sebatian Faulks (unchanged since June)
4. GOOD PEOPLE - by Marcus Sakey (unchanged since June)
5. THE BLADE ITSELF - by Marcus Sakey (unchanged since June)
6. THE BOURNE SANCTION - by Eric Von Lustbader (new to the top ten)
7. THE ASSASSIN - by Stephen Coonts (new to the top ten)
8. SAIL - by James Patterson (new to the top ten)
9. DANIEL X - by James Patterson (unchanged since June)
10. CHASING DARKNESS - by Robert Crais (unchanged since June)

FEO AMANTE

THRILLER
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THRILLER
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From Douglas Allen Rhodes
SEX AND MURDER
(FeoNote: Who the hell is Douglas Allen Rhodes? Glad you asked!) He is a former Marine, an ex-convict, and an alumnus of Kent State University. By his current age of 32, his work has been published in the online literary magazine Why Vandalism?, and his first novel Sex and Murder is available from Wild Child Publishing.

From his new novel, SEX AND MURDER - Robert Parker always knew he was a killer - he just needed to let it out. Stuck in traffic behind a driver who won't even attempt the speed limit, he realizes the time has come. In the grizzly act of that first murder, Robert is born anew. An artist of death and slaughter, he begins to ply his trade in earnest, growing bolder with each new victim.

Warned by an enigmatic stranger that he's left too much of a trail, Robert begins a cross-country flight from justice, leaving a slew of bodies in his wake. Along the way, he encounters a host of deviants, killers, and criminals, all of whom seem to steer him towards the one man who holds the key to Robert's next evolution.

From G. Wells Taylor
BOOKS FOR NOTHING AND THE HORROR FOR FREE
TORONTO, ONTARIO - (July 2/08) Horror author G. Wells Taylor is giving free copies of the popular first book in the Apocalypse Trilogy, WHEN GRAVEYARDS YAWN, to all visitors at wildclown.com or gwellstaylor.com to celebrate the upcoming release of the second book in the series, The Forsaken, and to announce his break from the traditional publishing industry.

"You don’t have to be a marketing genius to see what's happening. The number of book stores is declining, and those that are left are offering fewer titles with a very short shelf life," Taylor said of his decision to break with traditional publishing methods. "The longer a book sits in a store, the more it eats into a corporate publisher’s quarterly profits. The sky is falling on the old business model."

In 2001, friend and Chief Information Officer for a large national law firm, Richard Van Dyk suggested Taylor move to the Internet. "Taylor and I have had an ongoing dialogue for decades, sometimes aggressively so, on where print media was going and what form it would take. I think in the end we were both reasonably accurate and what is available now is the best of both the digital and hardcopy formats catering to readers, not a publisher’s quarterly financial requirement."

Taylor’s initial move online led to disappointing relationships with print-on-demand companies. "They weren’t embracing the technology and freedom of the new marketplace. Instead, they were building an expensive electrical shadow of the old business model," Taylor said, which prompted him to sever those ties and bring his printing rights home.

Meanwhile, Van Dyk saw the growing conflicts in technology regarding patents and copyright and the opportunities presented by the mass duplication and distribution of digital works. From this he formed an idea for a business model that he then presented to Taylor. All Taylor had to do was agree to give away one of his life’s works. "Taylor has a franchise of material that is deserving of so much more attention than any publisher has given him. The entire publishing industry, be it music, movie or books, is trapped in an unsustainable business model and unable to view digital media as an opportunity, and those producing content suffer."

Using print-on-demand technology and sidestepping expensive traditional distribution methods, Taylor is able to re-release all of his titles at affordable prices for order directly through his web sites as paperback or E-book download. Without the unjustified extra costs of outmoded distribution networks, the consumer can pay half the price for paperbacks and E-books.

"This works so well because readers are already used to ordering books they can’t find on bookstore shelves," said Taylor. The new business model is a win-win situation. No longer forced to view publishing through the narrow focus of the corporate status quo and its diminishing choice in titles and authors, the consumer is free to visit the author directly on the Internet to sample or purchase his books.

"This isn’t just the future. It’s a future we can make for ourselves," said Taylor of writers and the new model versus the old.