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

 

I Have a Favor to Ask...

 

Jeff–Saturday

 

I’m quick to do favors for people, but not very good at requesting the same for myself.  I suspect it’s some sort of inborn thing.  Yet, I believe the moment has arrived for me to test whether the relatively small favor I’m about to ask of a large group of people gathers momentum, or sits alone like a stone, ignored and unloved.

 

Cue the violins and tearful community sobs.

 

Fourteen years ago, Poisoned Pen Press published Murder in Mykonos, the first novel in my Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis series. Over the years Poisoned Pen published eleven more in the series, all but the last under the inimitable editorial guidance of the legendary Barbara Peters. But with Barbara gone from PPP, and it under new ownership, I sensed the time had come to move on.

 

And I have. 

 

I’m pleased beyond words to announce that Kaldis #13, AT ANY COST, will be published on February 6, 2024, by SEVERN HOUSE, an imprint of Canongate Books. They’re a terrific team of people who’ve made me feel right at home from the very first words we exchanged.  But on February 6^th the rubber hits the road, and it comes down to selling books.  I want to do my new publisher proud by doing just that.

 

Since no time is more important for selling books than the Preorder Period, at the bottom of this post are links to where you can purchase AT ANY COST online today, and be doing me a very large, much appreciated favor in the process.

 

For those of you who’d like to know a bit more about AT ANY COST, and my declaring it to be my best Kaldis book yet might not suffice, here’s what the jacket copy has to say:

 

Greece is burning and Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis is determined to save his country from disaster.

 

Chief Inspector Kaldis is initially dismayed to be asked to investigate a series of suspicious forest fires that took place last summer. In Greece, forest fires are an inevitability, and he fears he and his team are being set up to take the political blame for this year’s blazes.

 

He quickly becomes suspicious, though, that the forests were torched for profit – and for a project on a far grander scale than the usual low-level business corruption. There are whispers on the wind that shadowy foreign powers intend to establish a surreptitious mega-internet presence on the island of Syros, with the intent to weaponize the digital world to their own dark ends.

 

Can Kaldis and his team stop the hostile foreign takeover of the idyllic island – or will the rise of the metaverse set not just Greece, but the whole world, on fire?

 

 

AT ANY COST is available for preorder purchase at these locations:

 

BOOKSHOP.ORG

BARNES & NOBLE

BAM!

AMAZON

 

Thanks,

 

–Jeff

Dominion Voting Systems One, FOX NEWS Zip

Jeff–Saturday

 

Much of the media coverage this past week on a settlement reached on the first day of trial in the Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox News defamation lawsuit, got under my skin. So much so, that I decided to blog about it. But in a parody roughly based upon Mark Antony‘s soliloquy at Caesar’s funeral in Act III, Scene II of Shakespeare’s (who else) “Julius Caesar.”

 

The gist of what prompted my displeasure was watching the talking heads at some of the more liberal news networks tearing into Dominion and its lawyers for daring to settle this lawsuit.  They would have preferred to see Dominion risk it all for the potential psychic joy many might find in weeks, if not months, of reporting on FOX stars and key executives badgered and roasted in court while fessing up to truths about lies they’d been telling for years.

 

Yes, that would have made terrific theater, but done nothing toward guaranteeing compensation for the victim.

 

It’s also unclear the extent to which any of that would affect FOX’s ratings dominance.  After all, FOX is said to simply ignore reporting on anything it doesn’t wish its base to know—such as, for example, the amount or even the fact of its settlement with Dominion!

 

Bottom line, I see this as an expression of Fox’s critics’ anger at missing out on watching their longtime ratings nemesis relentlessly chastened as it twists in the wind on someone else’s nickel.

 

But we’re not talking about nickels. To be precise, Dominion would be passing on FOX’s 787.5 million dollar offer of settlement, a/k/a more than three-quarters of a billion dollars, a/k/a $787,500,000.00

 

WOW, those numbers remind me of some of the digits appearing in my new contract with my new publisher—more on that later.

 

So, here’s what I see as Mark Antony’s likely take on the masterful job done by Dominion and its lawyers:

 

FOX, CNN, MSNBC, lend me your ears.
I’ve come to bury Dominion, not to praise it.
The evil that networks do lives on;
The good is oft interrèd with their brands.
So it may be with Dominion. Murdoch
Hath told you Dominion was litigious,
And to strike at FOX was a grievous fault.
But Dominion pursued on undeterred,
Doing battle with Murdoch and his son.
(Murdoch is said an honorable man;
The same as others claim to be at FOX),
So they do not need me to speak for them.
Our besieged champion Dominion does,
‘Cause Murdoch views life as sacrilegious
When not seen as an honorable man.
For he brought many viewers home to FOX,
Along with ratings that filled its coffers,
Launching bitter lies at Dominion’s heart.
While FOX’s competitors whined and bantered,

Dominion showed itself of sterner stuff.
Facing down Murdoch’s minions’s words and threats,
And claims to be an honorable man,
The court did see, behind Carlson et al,
Was Murdoch offering a kingly crown
To one who claimed in lies to have earned it.
Still, Murdoch stood in battle, toe-to-toe,
Until his sharp rebuke before the court.
But I speak not to explore Murdoch’s words,
Rather to reveal what I do now know:
All that we’ve learned we owe to Dominion,
Yet the media is faint in its praise.
Favoring schadenfreude over clear judgment?
Has envy driven their reason away?
Dominion did its job: FOX surrendered.

To beat FOX ratings is another’s job––

Requiring far sterner stuff than banter.

 

Bravo, Dominion and its legal team, on a job well done.

 

Now for the promised announcement.

 

I’m thrilled beyond measure to announce that Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis has found a new home at Severn House/Canongate Books and his next adventure (Book #13) will be released in February 2024.  It is set on Greece’s grand dame Aegean island of Syros–with New York City’s East Village in a supporting role–and features an ambitious cast of complex characters caught up in the most challenging societal issue of our time: the dark-side ramifications of Artificial Intelligence.

 

–Jeff