Crime Writers of Color

BOOKS HELP

 

Thank you for your interest in our books!

Please note that our book catalog is not meant to include all crime fiction by all authors of color. Books are a selection of works authored by or featuring contributions by one or more members. All books displayed have been requested to be included by at least one of the book’s authors.

Default Navigation and Display

By default, all books in the catalog are displayed. Books are classified within one or more categories, including an Upcoming Releases section that contains books not yet published but available for preorder, a Recent Releases section that contains books released within the past six months, and sections for each subgenre and race/ethnic category within the Crime Writers of Color book catalog. Race/ethnic category designations are based on the identity of the book’s key characters, not the author’s own identity. Within each category, books appear in random order except for within the Upcoming Releases and Recent Releases sections, which are sorted by publication date with the newest books appearing last and first respectively. In general, the book's ebook release or publication date is used, although this may vary by title. Books not displayed on the front page can be accessed by clicking or tapping the left and right arrows that appear when needed at the bottom of each category listing.

Clicking or tapping on a book cover will open the book's detail page. This page includes more information about the book in question as well as links to certain retail stores where the book may be available for purchase. Clicking or tapping on the author’s name will search the CWOC catalog for additional books by that author. If available, author website and social media icon links will display beside their name.

At times a special banner may appear at the top of the books page. Clicking or tapping on an author name within the banner will return all of the books available in the catalog by that author or one of their known pseudonyms.

Search and Display Options

Search and display options can be expanded or hidden by clicking or tapping on the Search and Display Options section header located above the start of the book display. When a custom search is performed, the All Books Found category will appear at the top of the results. This section includes all of the books that fit the criteria input.

Search options include the following:

  • Search. This general search option is always visible and searches for a match of all included words within the title, author, book description, ISBN, subgenre, and race/ethnic category name. Multiple search criteria can be included, with the results combined, by separating each search term with a semicolon followed by a space ("; " without the quotes) or by including the word "or" between search values. The search is not case sensitive, common diacritics are normalized, and certain punctuation marks and stop words ("a," "an," "and," "how," "in," "the," "what," "where," and "with") are ignored.

  • Earliest and Latest Release Dates. The earliest or latest release or publication date of books to display. These should be input in the format of mm/dd/yyyy, although m/d/yyyy is likely to work as well. Some browsers will automatically provide a calendar picker. If an invalid date is input, it may return unexpected results or be ignored.

  • Title, Author, and Keyword. A phrase, word, or partial word that must be contained verbatim in order for the book to display. Title searches look for a match within the book’s title, Author searches look for a match within the author's or authors' name(s), and Keyword searches look for a match within one of four fields: the title, author, book description, and ISBN. Book description is typically from Amazon as captured when the book was first added to the catalog. While this search is not case sensitive, it is literal in every other sense. Special characters, accented words, hyphens, and spaces contained within a book's title, author, and/or description must exactly match the criteria input in order for a particular book to be returned. Multiple search criteria can be included within each field, with the results combined, by separating each search term with a semicolon followed by a space ("; " without the quotes). For example, performing a Keyword search on "Chinese; Korean" will return all books where the title, author, or description include the word "Chinese" or the word "Korean" (not case sensitive).

  • Subgenres (left checkbox column) and race/ethnic categories (right checkbox column). Selecting no categories is the same as selecting all of them. By default, a book that falls into any of the selected categories will be displayed. However, if the “Only show books that fit into ALL (versus any) of the selected Subgenres and Race/Ethnic Categories” checkbox is checked, the book must fit into all of the selected categories in order to appear with the search results. This type of search works best if only two selections are made (for example, when looking for Suspense and Thrillers that also feature Black/African American key characters) since it is unlikely a single book will fit into more than a few categories. When the "Only show books..." checkbox is checked, only the All Books Found and, if appropriate, Upcoming Releases and Recent Releases sections will be displayed.


Display options include the following:

  • Books per category to display without scroll. Determines the number of books per category that will be displayed on the front page before scrolling (using the left and right arrows that appear when needed below each of the category listings) is required to see more titles. If this is set to zero (0) or a non-number, no scroll is assumed. By default, this is set to six books.

  • Sort by release date. If checked, books displayed beneath every category header will be sorted by release or publication date, from latest to earliest. By default, this box is not checked and books are displayed in random order except for within the Upcoming Releases and Recent Releases sections, which are sorted by ascending and descending release date respectively.

  • Click cover for. Determines the page that will open, in a new browser tab, when a book cover is clicked. Book Details opens the book’s detail page. The other options will open the book’s page on the selected retail store, provided the book is available on that retailer. For Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Bookshop.org, a search will be performed if a direct link to the book page is not available. For the other retailers, the book's detail page listing all of the available retail stores will open if a direct retail link to the selected store is not available. In addition to the Amazon marketplaces included with the drop-down options, different Amazon country stores can be reached by performing a search on Amazon US, modifying the URL returned to append the two-character country code of a valid Amazon store after the "redirect=amazon" snippet (ex. change "redirect=amazon" to "redirect=amazonin" to reach Amazon's India store), then following the URL to refresh the results returned.


The Find and Get Books buttons operate the same and will execute the requested search. One of these buttons must be clicked or tapped before any search criteria and display options are reflected on the books page.

The Reset Form button clears out all search criteria and resets the display options to their defaults.

Saving and Printing

While search results cannot be saved, specific search and display requests can be bookmarked for future access. To do so, simply input your desired search criteria, click or tap Get Books, and copy or bookmark the URL of the page that returns. Any search criteria input will be included within the page URL. However, please note that search requests with specific subgenres and/or race/ethnic categories selected may stop being accurate at some point in the future. Categories are numbered for search purposes, and the numbering scheme may change with the future addition or removal of categories.

Printing from the books page is not supported at this time. You are welcome to download the book/author catalog spreadsheet (choose File - Download) if you have the need to save or print catalog data.


Questions or suggestions? Let us know at crimewritersofcolor@gmail.com.