Like several of my colleagues at FinePrint Literary Agency, I read manuscripts and partial manuscripts entirely as electronic files. It saves paper and allows for carrying around a tremendous amount of reading material in about four ounces of metal and plastic. I take your manuscripts and turn them into Palm OS-readable .pdb files via Documents-to-Go (version 8.0; with the upgraded versions they've removed this handy feature).

Right now, on my trusty little Palm Tungsten E, my e-reader of choice for the past five years or so, there is list of the following filenames for several requested partials in my eReader Pro program:

* First50pages.pdb

* FirstSixtyPages.pdb

* Partial.pdb

* Prepared for CLindsay.pbd

What do these partials all have in common? (Come on, now. Think hard!)

THAT'S RIGHT! Not one of the file names is even remotely close to the title of the actual manuscript.

In October, 2004, at the Bouchercon suspense conference in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, a group of writers celebrated their common interest by creating the International Thriller Writers organization. In fact, before I realized what was happening, I found myself elected (along with Gayle Lynds) as the co-president

A lot happened since then. Our membership grew from around 80 to 350, with combined international book sales of over one billion. We organized strands of thriller panels at the 2005 Left Coast of Crime and Bouchercon events (this had never been done before). We arranged for an Internet Thriller Writers Newsletter. We spread the word to our members about advanced marketing techniques that are cheap but amazingly effective. We compiled a major upcoming anthology, THRILLER: STORIES TO KEEP YOU UP ALL NIGHT, that Mira Books will publish in June of 2006. Mira will also host a gala International Thriller Writers cocktail party at the 2006 Left Coast of Crime conference in Bristol, England. At that time, we’ll announce the nominees for our ITW thriller awards. Plus, there’ll be several thriller panels. Lots of things are happening.