Steve

   I have now updated the blackhorsewesterns.com site with the June-August offerings. You may find it of general interest, since various topics like library distribution and author rewards are touched upon in the content, and these apply as much to mystery as other light fiction.

         Best as always,

            Keith (aka Chap O’Keefe)

   Thanks, Keith. I recommend the site highly to everyone who’s reading this, especially if you’re interested at all in the current state of genre fiction. Topics include:

1. The present market for western fiction. (Black Horse, an imprint of the UK publisher Robert Hale, is one of the few lines still committed to westerns, putting out 8 to 10 a month.)

2. Plot or Not? A long panel discussion by several Black Horse writers concerning how much plotting should be done ahead of time.

3. News and events in the world of western fiction.

4. An interview with Ray Foster, who as Jack Giles, had to regain most of his memory after a stroke before he could start writing again.

   One telling (and rather discouraging) paragraph came up in the panel discussion, which I’ll quote in full:

    “Most fiction writers are back to being, like many Victorian forerunners, hobbyists, part-timers. As BHW publisher John Hale has pointed out, ‘I am only too well aware of the low rewards to authors on these westerns, particularly in the light of continuing inflation. However, the sad fact is that if we had to pay more we would have to stop publishing them. Writing westerns for us really has to be regarded as a labour of love.'”