Writer’s Digest on How I Reclaimed My Rights from Multiple Publishers

 

Jeff–Saturday

The Odyssean challenges I faced in my decades-long quest to see my entire 14-book Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis series back in print would try the patience of a saint.  But I’m no saint, I’m a crime writer, and after more than a dozen years of back and forth with a half-dozen publishers, my journey has proven overwhelmingly worthwhile. I have my rights back and my complete Greece-based series is back in print in spanking new covers as of November 20, 2025.

Let’s start at the beginning…

Forty years ago, a friend suggested I visit Greece. She said I’d love it. She was right and for the past twenty years I’ve lived there longer than any other place on earth.  My love for Greece led me to abandon my life as a name partner in my own New York City law firm to live and write amid the laid-back lifestyle of Greece’s legendary Aegean island of Mykonos, a place I consider home and its people family.

When I started writing about Andreas Kaldis, I didn’t intend on becoming a chronicler of Greece’s trials and tribulations.  My original goal was to write a stand-alone novel telling the story of an island I knew intimately.  I wanted to talk about its people, culture and politics and chose the mystery-thriller format because it struck me as the best vehicle for exploring how a tourist island might respond to a threat to its new-found economic glory. 

My plans changed when Andreas effectively turned my debut novel, Murder in Mykonos, into Greece’s #1 best-selling English-language book, followed by attaining bestseller status across much of the United States. I’ve now published fourteen books in the series (more to come) and been honored by The New York Times as Greece’s thriller writer of record.

I owe a lot to Andreas, a second-generation cop and honest observer of his times who perseveres despite all that life and the system throw at him.  He’s intelligent, determined, shrewd and professional, with unfettered access to all levels of Greek society, be it the seamy underbelly of its degenerate bottom rung or the glittering lifestyles of its movers and shakers; a fearsome force in my collage of fast-paced novels probing Greece’s rich cultural heritage and enormously colorful present.  

Little did I realize in fashioning Andreas’ character and experience how much I would later call upon his fictional perseverance as inspiration in my real-life efforts to preserve his life story and my body of work in print.

 

In 2008, my debut Kaldis novel was published in Greece followed by the US, UK, and Germany; with a different publisher in each locale, some small, some behemoth.  By 2025 I had published fourteen Kaldis books with six different publishers, each with its own contractual form of “out of print” reversion clause. 

Those pesky clauses often lead to unhappy authors and serious differences of opinion with their publishers. Authors who claim their books are out of print want their rights back to go it alone or shop them elsewhere, and publishers are reluctant to give up their claim to potential streams of cash that require little if any further investment on their part.

As a lawyer I understand both positions. As an author, I JUST WANT MY RIGHTS BACK.

You might think my legal training offered me an advantage in negotiations.  I’m sure it did in some instances, but a far more significant factor in reaching a fair resolution proved to be each publisher’s institutional attitude toward the reversion of rights. 

In my case, all but one publisher agreed to revert its rights to me relatively soon after my incessant but courteous prodding led them to verify the facts I’d offered in support of my request. As for the one holdout, its intransigence for over a dozen years was a frustrating but minor inconvenience until one day it became a major one. That situation required a different approach.  One that had me seeking out someone higher up on the publisher’s decision-making chain of command who promptly saw the wisdom in avoiding a public kerfuffle.

Today, my entire series has found a new home and new life with Severn House.  It’s been quite a journey. But I’m happy where Andreas and I have ended up. Thank you, Severn House, soon to be part of Joffe Books … subject to due diligence.

––Jeff

 

MYKONOS AFTER MIDNIGHT

I’m ready to pass out cigars. The new baby arrives September 3^rd.  Can’t believe it’s already the fifth in the series.  The mother is doing fine, but she was somewhat surprised when someone named Kirkus wrote to say he’d had an advance glimpse of the soon to be with us little package and it “reads more like an Elmore Leonard caper than a whodunit.”  Mom swears she knew “whodunit” and it wasn’t that Elmore Leonard fellow (God rest his brilliant soul).

Elmore Leonard (1925-2013)

I think I’ll stop now and try to make sense.  Rather, I’ll let Publishers Weekly do it for me, “Siger’s satisfying fifth mystery featuring Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis… a complicated international plot that threatens to disrupt the easygoing, anything-goes life that Mykonos is famous for—keeps the reader engaged,” or maybe Chicago’s The Greek Star, “[Siger] has so profoundly captured the essence of Modern Greece and its people, you can’t believe he isn’t Greek.  The reader travels to Greece and is right in the center of the action… Siger is a gifted storyteller. His stories grab you and don’t let go.”

Blush, blush, blush. 

Honest, I am blushing, though you might not be able to tell as I’m still on Mykonos and won’t be back in the US on book tour for MYKONOS AFTER MIDNIGHT until November. 

However, I will be in Albany, New York to participate with some of my MIE mates in Bouchercon 2013 and announce MAM’s release with a little promotional surprise at the convention (our Murder is Everywhere Panel, “When in Rome,” kicks off the conference at 12 noon on Thursday, September 19^th).  After all, we must keep our publishers at least thinking we care about doing more than just writing our books. J  And in my case I’ve got the absolute best, most supportive publisher in the mystery world, POISONED PEN PRESS, with a special shout out to my nonpareil editor, Barbara Peters.

So, here’s a quick sketch of the new book, the one in which I return to my home island of Mykonos, scene of my debut novel in the series, Murder in Mykonos—followed by Assassins of Athens, Prey on Patmos, and Target: Tinos (if you’re going to do a BSP piece once a year, you might as well go all the way!):

MYKONOS AFTER MIDNIGHT begins with a legendary nightclub owner found bludgeoned to death in his Mykonos home.  In his lifetime he’d helped transform Mykonos from an obscure, impoverished Aegean island into a world-renown summertime playground for the world’s rich and powerful, and the Mykonian people into some of the wealthiest in Greece. 

All evidence points to obvious killers, but the murder has put long hidden, politically explosive secrets in play and drawn a dangerous foreign investor to the island.  Andreas Kaldis, feared head of Greece’s special crimes division, is certain there’s a far more complex solution to the murder.  Andreas’ quest for answers amid the entrenched cultural contradictions that give Mykonos so much of its magic, soon has him battling ruthless opportunists preying on his country’s weakened financial condition and learning that there is a high, unexpected price to pay for his curiosity.

He finds himself locked in war with a powerful, clandestine international force willing to do whatever it takes to wrest control of Mykonos from its old guard, no matter what the cost, no matter who must die.  It is a struggle of the sort playing out across much of Greece during this time of dire economic crises overrunning a society rooted in the past trying to catch up with the present. 

I’m very proud of this book.  I consider it true to the gracious words on my Kaldis series expressed by Marilyn Stasio of The New York Times when, in selecting Target: Tinos as one of her five picks for the beach in 2012, wrote: “Another of Siger’s thoughtful police procedurals set in picturesque but not untroubled Greek locales.”

I hope you’ll agree, but more importantly, ENJOY!

Thanks.  Our regularly scheduled programming will return next Saturday.

Jeff—Saturday