Sue Grafton and the indies

By about 1990, Sue Grafton was already well known as the author of a series of very successful crime novels, each of which began with a letter of the alphabet. Thus, "A" is for Alibi appeared in 1982, "B" for Burglar in 1985, and so on.

In 1990 I attended a crime-writers conference at which Ms Grafton gave a good humoured and well balanced speech to the usual dinner. And although I never read any of her books I assumed from that point on that she was, by and large, a pretty good egg.

So it was with some surprise that, in the last week or two, I have seen reports that Ms G was sounding off about self-publishers (indies) in the digital age, and generally making out that they were a goddamn nuisance and morally defective to boot.

And now... Seems the lady has listened to those who abused her as a result of her rash comments. She has admitted that, prior to opening her mouth on this subject, she hadn't know what she was talking about (which we already knew), and that she was sorry to have spoken so precipitously (which we knew she would be, in due course).

Richard Curtis has the story and some sensible comments to add.