You know, here at the Crime Scene people ask questions all the time. Some of them are pretty intelligent. Others are, well, a little bizzarre. This page should answer most of the questions you have about the site. And if it doesn't feel free to email us on comments@crimescenescotland.com and you never know, your question could appear in this hallowed little hall of fame.

Who are you? Crime Scene's staff is fairly small. You can find out the answers to your questions back on the about us page. Also you can see info there on a few of the authors who work we've been proud to publish.

Why are you doing this? Because we can. Seriously, we love crime fiction and we want to provide a forum for a few new voices in the genre. Believe me, no one here's doing it for the pay. Because there isn't any!

Why Crime Fiction? Why not? Well, there are a lot of spec fic webzines out there and while I've had my writing published in a few, my second passion is crime fiction. There are a wide variety of stories to be told in crime and mystery fiction. Sure, I like my hardboiled and tough as nails crime, but then you have your cosies and your locked room mysteries and your moral tales and all forms of stories. What makes crime fiction is the element of law breaking. How that law breaking occurs is up to you (A crime story doesn't even have to have a body!).

Why haven't you replied to my request/submission/booksearch which I sent via the form? (UPDATED - 10/08/03) Weeeeeelll... The answer to this is simple - the forms weren't working! These days we no longer do booksearches anyway, I'm afraid - but if you did send one via the old forms then feel free to write and tell me at the usual addresses! If I haven't responded to a submission please resubmit via the new email type method (see guidelines page for more details) because as I said earlier the forms were a waste of time because they only seemed to function fifty percent of the time - the new email addresses (and the autoresponders) seem to be working. Which is good.

Hey, what happened to the booksearches and second hand catalogue? Crime Scene is changing. We were always based on our audience and mostly people wanted to see a more ezine like stance from us. Also, we were initially set up to be the online arm of a second hand bookshop but a few things happened and the venture went belly up. Its too time consuming for us to do these things part time, sadly. Sorry about that.

How do you decide which stories and articles to use? Its all down to personal taste. That's about the best we can say. There's no formula to it. Its just down to what we feel might work and what we feel won't. We have a weakness for the more hardboiled, but other works will always get a look in if they're well written or intriguing. That's about the best I can say. It is never a reflection on the work, however. We give everything as fair a shot as we can. Not right for us means exactly that. So if we reject your work (and we'll usually provide a reason) then dust yourself down and maybe try subbing it elsewhere. Maybe what we say might make some sense and allow you to redraft it for someplace else.

Hey, what's with the bad language in the stories? Sorry, folks. I don't censor the stories. I don't like gratuitous swearing, but if it fits the tale I don't mind. Take the first story we published, "That's Life", as an example. The characters are the kind of people who'd use foul language and, imo, the language was part of the joke. We're sorry if we've offended you, but you can choose not to look at the this site.

When's the message board coming? That's been a bone of contention since we started this. HOWEVER, we now have a community at Yahoo! So click on the community link and get your butt on over there to talk with fellow fans of crime fiction, take part in our polls and generally have a few yuks!

What's with the pictures of the books down the side of some pages? We're linked to Amazon.co.uk through an affiliate program. I thought that you might be looking for a crime fix our second hand selection just can't provide, so I thought we'd give you a guiding hand where to find them (Yeah, and the money earned through the affiliate program helps pay for the upkeep of the site). If you don't see anything that tickles your fancy there's an Amazon search box on the front page, too. Just to help.

Hey, your spellings all over the place, man! Some of the stories have American spelling. This is because they've been submitted by Americans. Me, I usually choose British spelling because I'm Scottish, so the site is ocassionally a mishmash. Hope it doesn't grate too much.

Hello, I'm inquiring if you do book reviews. If so, I'd love to get my mystery [insert book title here] on the list. Absolutely! We'd feel very honoured if you want to lay your head on our critical chopping block! If anyone else has any inquiries along the same lines, and they don't mind Russel (or one of his cohorts) looking at your work, then email us direct on crimeshop@aol.com. We'd love to do this on regular basis (BTW, we did accept the person who wrote this and as soon as we get the review copy through it'll be up the next available issue). Crime Scene's about encouraging readers to try something new in crime fiction so this is something we'd love to actively encourage. In fact, even if you just want to promote your book with a lovingly written article about why its the bee knees we'd be happy to consider publishing that!

Have viagra, amphetamines and other prescription drugs delivered direct to your door overnight! Contact our doctors now! No thanks. We don't like Spam here at Crime Scene. In fact it makes us very angry and believe us, you wouldn't like Russel when he's angry.

Will we ever get to see Douglas? Not for the forseeable future. His girlfriend has put an embargo on all images. Apparently she owns the copyright to the man. And we're too terrified to argue with that.

Dear Web Administrator, I think our sites share the same audience and invite you to check out my site. Yours sincerely, web administrator, www.norelationwhatesoevertoyoursite.com We at the Crime Scene have no problems with links to related sites or even sites we just like. But if anyone dares send a dear "web administrator" salutation (look around the site, you'll get our names) or doesn't tell us anything about their site or asks us to link to a site they think "shares the same target audience" when in fact their site sells snorkelling holidays in outer Elbonia we will invent nasty names for them and ignore their mail completely.

You rejected my story/article/opus and I don't agree with your reasons. Read it again. No. Once we make a decision that decision is final. Our reasons are our own. They may not make sense to you but then your decisions don't make sense to us. If you have significantly reworked a rejected story to the point that it may be right for us again you can try us, but once we reject something it'll take a lot of work on it before we'll change our minds. If we give you reasons for rejection you take or leave them but they might give you better luck on the next market. We would, of course, be delighted if you submit something else that might be more to our taste. Unless you wrote us a petulant letter like the one above. In which case we say dust yourself and take the punches like a man/woman/small furry animal.

Hey, buddy, what's with these frickin' ads? We have to make money, folks, so, yes Crime Scene has joined a few advertising affiliation programs. So if something interests you, please click on it and, in the case of amazon especially, order something. All we want is enough to stay online and keep bringing you the quality crime fix you've come to expect.

Who was Rebecca Simpson and why is she gone from the staff pages? Rebecca is a dear friend who helped us out in the early days doing proofreading, checking links and making sure we didn't fuck up too much. Sadly she got a life and couldn't do it so much any more but she is still a supporter of the site and a dear friend. The decision to remove her from the staff pages was taken because she wasn't actually associated with the site in anything other than enthusiasm any more.