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Frequently Asked Questions |
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Lucinda Surber and Stan Ulrich share the work of maintaining Stop
You’re Killing Me!
We both love to read and noodle around
on our computers when we aren’t out terrifying the trees. |
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- How do authors get listed on SYKM? Why don’t you list a certain author?
- Do you list self-published authors?
- What
do the abbreviations mean?
- How do I find the author/character I am looking for?
- I’m traveling to (wherever). Can you suggest
some books set in that locale?
- I like (this author/style), can you recommend
another author I would like?
- When is (author) going to come out with a new book?
- The title I was waiting for disappeared. Where did it go?
Why does the date on the release keep changing?
- The author I’m looking for has vanished.
Where did that page go?
- Why do you list a book as
published in (one year) when everybody knows it was published in (another
year)?
- Why all the links to Amazon?
- Why aren’t all the titles linked to Amazon.com?
- Where can I find videos, DVDs, e-books, and audio books?
- Do you list mysteries for children and young adults?
- What’s the difference between a short story
and a novella?
- Where do you list uncollected short stories and anthologies?
- How can I find out-of-print books?
- Have you read all the books listed on the website?
- What is that crazy logo?
- How can I support the Stop,
You’re Killing Me! website?
- Who is Bonny Brown?
- Who are Lucinda Surber and Stan Ulrich?
| How do authors get listed on SYKM? Why don’t you list my author? |
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The genesis of SYKM was the desire to read books in order, series or non-series, so we focus on authors who have several books to list. Generally we put authors with only one or two books on a “watch list” until they have more titles scheduled for publication.
We get many suggestions by email, from authors, readers, publishers, and publicists. The more information you provide, the more likely it is that a new author will be considered — while we add a few hundred authors each year, we get a thousand or two suggestions annually. There are thousands of historical authors we don’t have listed, and with the burgeoning self-publishing options in recent years, there will continue to be thousands and thousands of living authors we don’t list.
When requesting that we add an author, please put the author’s name in the subject line, and tell us why you like her/him. It helps if you can give a cite to the author’s webpage, tell us about the books you’ve read, and flesh out the series characters and why you like them. |
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| Do you list self-published authors? |
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Yes, a few, but the vast majority of self-published titles listed at SYKM are written by already established print authors. |
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| What do the abbreviations mean? |
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CSI: |
crime scene investigator |
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DI: |
Detective Inspector |
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PI: |
Private Investigator |
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nln: |
character with no last name |
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APA: |
also published as |
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AKA: |
also known as |
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[SS]: |
short stories, including novellas |
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[NS]: |
non-series, stand-alone |
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[YA]: |
young adult |
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[r]: |
reprint from hardcover or earlier paperback |
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[s]: |
simultaneous hardcover and paperback release |
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post: |
posthumous, published after the author’s death |
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| How do I find the author/character I am looking for? |
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At the top of each page is the alphabet. Click the letter for the
last name of the author or character you are looking for. Use the -nln-
link for characters with No Last Name. Or you can try our Search page. |
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| I’m traveling to (wherever). Can you suggest
some books set in that locale? |
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Use the Location Index to
find books set in locations all over the world. |
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| I like (this author/style), can you recommend another
author I would like? |
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Visit our Read-Alikes section.
You will find suggestions arranged by similar authors and categories. |
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| When is (author) going to come out with a new book? |
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We continually check for new releases and post them on the New
Releases in Hardcover and New Releases
in Paperback. Sign up for our Newsletter to
receive information about new books by email. |
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| Why do you list a book as published in (one year) when
everybody knows it was published in (another year)? |
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For your convenience, sort of. For example, Barnard’s “Death
of a Literary Widow” was originally
printed in the UK in 1979 as “Posthumous Papers”; the
US edition was printed in 1980 as “Death of a Literary Widow”.
Our general practice is to list US titles first and indicate other
titles following “APA” (also published as). However, to maintain the correct order of the titles, we list
the earliest publication date, regardless of the original
title. When there are
two (or more) titles for an item, you can assume that the first one
is the US title, although there are exceptions. If the gap between
publication dates is two or more years, the date after the US title
will be in square brackets: [date]. |
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The title I was waiting for disappeared. Where did
it go?
Why does the date on the release keep changing? |
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No, you haven’t lost your mind. They really are changing
or disappearing. We report anticipated publication dates based on
information at Amazon.com, publisher and bookshop newsletters, and
author websites — we don’t just make this stuff up. But
publication schedules change. We usually won’t list a title
unless it has an ISBN assigned to it and is set for publication within
the next nine months. On rare occasions, just to keep things interesting,
we’ll list
a forthcoming title based on an author’s statement, even if
there is no ISBN yet. And sometimes a book shows up in print while
we still list it as forthcoming, but who’s going to complain
about that? |
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| The author I’m looking for has vanished.
Where did that page go? |
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In an effort to make the Author Index pages easier to use, we have
started a “Dormouse” section
for authors who published only one book at least five years ago.
The author pages are still there, accessible by clicking the • at
the end of the Author alphabetical index at the top of each page. |
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| Why all the links to Amazon? |
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When you use one of our links to make purchases at Amazon.com,
we get a very small percentage of the sale price, which helps support
the maintainance of this site. So if you don’t buy directly
from your local independent bookstore, please use our links! Also,
Amazon provides a brief synopsis of most books as well as reviews
to help you decide which books are right for you. |
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| Why aren’t all the titles linked to Amazon.com? |
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We usually don’t provide links for books that are out-of-print
and/or very expensive on the used book market. And, of course,
we don’t link to books that haven’t been printed in
English yet, although in the interest of completeness, we like
to provide the full list — for example, see Anne
Holt or Viktor Arnar
Ingólfsson. Also, sometimes we are way behind and don’t
want to delay uploading a page until the links can be added. You
don’t
need them anyway, if you are heading off to the library or your
local
mystery bookstore. |
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| Where can I find videos, DVDs, e-books, and audio books? |
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We list mainly books and audio books.
If you are interested in Kindle books, you can
find many of them at Amazon’s
Kindle Book Page or
by following book links and looking for other “editions.” It would be fun to list movies
made from the books we catalog, but that is a project for another
day (or year). |
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| Do you list mysteries for children and young adults? |
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Not really. We do list some Young Adult titles on
pages of authors who mainly write adult mysteries.
Visit Lucinda’s
Bookworm
for Kids website for recommended mysteries for children
and young adults. |
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| What’s the difference between a short story
and a novella? |
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We mark novellas and short stories based on a somewhat fluid dividing
line. Generally, a short story won’t be longer than 50 pages, and
a novella up to about 100 pages. Of course, words per page vary,
and we can’t sit around counting words, so generally we rely on the
publishing information. We don’t distinguish between novelettes and
short stories, however. Sometimes a title may be characterized as
a novella of up to 120 pages or so, if it is included in a collection,
whereas if it were published separately, we’d list it as a
novel. |
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| Where do you list uncollected short stories and anthologies? |
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We don’t. It would be a wonderful thing for the completist,
but we focus on books. It is said that Edward D. Hoch has written
nearly 1000 short stories — we leave those catalogs to others.
On rare occasions, we’ll list a novella relating to a series character,
but not otherwise. |
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| How can I find out-of-print books? |
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Amazon.com has a out-of-print service. Just search
on the title in a search and often there is information about their
service on the title’s page. We almost never provide an ISBN1 link
to an out-of-print book, although a book may go out-of-print without
us knowing about it. Here are some other online resources we’ve
used: Abebooks and Alibris.
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| How can I support the Stop, You’re
Killing Me! website? |
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Tell all your friends about us! Print our flyer and
take it to your book group or local library. Email us when you find
errors so that we can fix them. If you use one of our links to
make purchases at Amazon.com
we get a very small percentage of the sale price of anything you
buy. |
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| Have you read all the books listed on the website? |
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No, but we are trying — if only we had more time. As a long-time
SYKM user, Stan tended to latch on to an author’s series and
doggedly read everything in order, which, with the likes of Rex Stout,
Ed McBain, and Arthur Upfield, can take a while. Since we assumed
responsibility for the website, Stan has gone from a “vertical” reader
to a “horizontal” reader — typically reading the
first books of a whole bunch of different authors before even thinking
of reading the second in a series. Lucinda reads two or three times
faster than Stan, so she can read a lot more of them, but still not
over 60,000 titles, at least not right away. |
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| Who is Bonny Brown? |
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Stop,
You’re Killing Me! was created
by Bonny Brown in 1998. She had to give up maintaining the site
in April 2006 because of health reasons. Here is Bonny’s
description of the site: “I love a good mystery! When I
find new authors, I want to read everything they’ve written.
I like to go back to the beginning title and follow the development
of a writer’s work.
With the exception of Sue Grafton and her alphabet series, it can
be difficult to find an author’s first book. So I have searched
online and in reference books to list the books featuring series
characters in the order written.” |
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| Who are Lucinda Surber and Stan Ulrich? |
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We were introduced to
Stop,
You’re Killing Me! by Lucinda’s
father Floyd
Surber and found it an invaluable resource for exactly the reason
Bonny created the site. We both love to read and noodle around
with our computers. We’ve been responsible for
Stop,
You’re Killing Me! since
April 2006. |
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