Hard-Boiled Fiction Series Debuts Online, Bucks System--Sure

PRLog (Press Release) - Feb. 27, 2013 - CHICAGO--Local author Ben Solomon is bucking the system. His hard-boiled detective subscription series recently debuted on the web. No publishing house. No marketing studies. No hint of a traditional approach to publishing. "Sure, there weren't any lousy focus groups," Solomon says. "I just began writing, the series developed, and the subscription site became a logical progression of the work."

The series stars an unnamed private investigator in an unnamed, bygone era in an unnamed, but darn obvious, big city. According to Solomon, "It's a throwback, sure. Full of mugs, molls, rods and rotgut. It's a wide-open period setting where the hero never ages and the landscape never changes." In the series premiere, the plot encompasses two killings, blackmail and adultery, and the hero gets himself conked out no less than twice--both times coming to in Cicero. The site's motto: "Old-school detective fiction." Subscribers receive three short stories every month (ranging from 5,000-9000 words), available for download in the e-format of their choice: epub, mobi and PDF. Solomon says, "So far so good. Everything's running jake."

"I've never seen this done before," Solomon claims, but he's no upstart author. His stories and columns have appeared in everything from regional literary publications to Chicago Parent Magazine and Hollywood Online. "But I've always had to make a living as a working stiff. So why not take a flyer with The Hard-Boiled Detective? I'm no commercial success, yet, so I can afford to let it fly."

Story previews and subscription information is available at thehardboileddetective.com.