A Writer's Life

The Show Must Go On

Don't be fooled by the title of Douglas Snauffer's new book, The Show Must Go On: How The Deaths of Lead Actors Have Affected Television Series...this is not a lurid or gossipy book but rather a serious, well-researched, detailed reference work about the business of television.

On the surface, the book is about what happens to a TV show when one of its stars dies, covering the impact of the calamity from every angle. But that death is just one part of the story. Douglas Snauffer, author of the exceptional Crime Television, gives us the full picture of the show, before and after the tragedy that may (or may not) have ultimately defined that series in TV history. Each chapter offers an in-depth look at the creation, development, production, and history of an individual series. It's that detailed examination of each series -- backed by interviews with all the key players in front of, and behind -- the camera that gives this book it's real value.

This book is a must-read for anyone who wants to know how TV series are created, written and produced...and why some succeed while others fail.

Work Work Work

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you've probably noticed that I haven't been posting as much lately. That's because I've been hard at work writing an action movie, an international co-production that is presently scheduled to be shot before the end of the year in Europe and China. 

For the last few weeks,  I've been toiling on various drafts of the detailed beat sheet but, if everything goes according to plan, I will start writing the screenplay in the next week or so. That will give me about four weeks to write the script which for me, coming from years in episodic TV and armed with a ridiculously detailed beat sheet, feels like plenty of time (we'll see if I feel the same way once I'm in the thick of it). 

While I await the official greenlight, I will go back to writing MR. MONK IS CLEANED OUT, my next Monk novel, which I had to mostly set aside while I concentrated on the film. This morning I re-read and edited what I've written so far, so I'm ready to plunge back in. I've also got the galleys for MR. MONK IN TROUBLE arriving tomorrow that need to be proofed in the next two weeks. 

It's nice to be busy! 

In the midst of all this, my Kindle arrived last night and I've only just started to play around with it, but I'm beginning to see already why it has become so popular. I'm looking forward to reading a novel on it to really get a feel for it. That probably won't happen until I hop a plane on August 12 for Owensboro, Kentucky to be a guest at the International Mystery Writers Festival.

ROCKFORD Revived

Variety reports that HOUSE creator/showrunner David Shore has been tapped by NBC/Universal and Steve Carrell's production company to revive Stephen J. Cannell's THE ROCKFORD FILES. It's no surprise that they approached Shore for the coveted gig...he's a TV A-lister who tried to spin-off a Rockf0rd-esque character from HOUSE last season.

"It's one of the shows that made me want to become a writer," Shore said. "I had no interest in adapting any old stuff, but this was the one exception."

Shore's just starting to think about an approach to bring "The Rockford Files" into the present day, but he intends to stick with the basic foundation of a private eye in L.A. just trying to make a living.

"What makes 'Rockford' timeless is that he's vulnerable, he's flawed. He's used to hustling and getting hustled," Shore said. "Sometimes he's a hero and sometimes he runs away."

The hard part won't be getting the script right...it will be finding this generation's equivalent of  James Garner to the play the part. (Is George Clooney still a movie star?) 

Spy News

Variety reports the very good news that Steven Spielberg's next movie might be a new adaptation of Donald Hamilton's MATT HELM books. The Paramount project has been in development at various studios for decades, but apparently a script by A-list screenwriter Paul Attanasio that's closer to Matt Damon's BOURNE IDENTITY than Dean Martin's campy 1960s Matt Helm movies has everybody excited. 

And in other lit spy-to-film news, Ron Howard has signed on to direct the movie adaptation of Robert Ludlum's PARSIFAL MOSAIC from a script by David Self.

Book Reviews

Elmore Leonard has often said that his writing was deeply influenced by the works of Richard Bissell.  Curious,  I searched for a copy of Bissell's work...and I am glad I did. And after reading HIGH WATER, a tale of a first mate on a Mississippi steam boat during an epic flood, it's easy to see the influence Bissell has had on Leonard's approach to character and dialog. Bissell has that same naturalistic, funny, amiable way with characters, whether they are "good guys" or "bad guys," that makes even the most minor players in the tale memorable and interesting. His plotting is loose and yet surprisingly powerful. And his eye for the telling details is sometimes astonishing in their simplicity and truth. I can see why Leonard, as a young writer, was impressed, and why he adopted some of the same techniques. HIGH WATER is well worth reading, not only for insight into Leonard's writing style, but on its own considerable merits. I loved it and look forward to devouring Bissell's other work.

I went from that pleasurable surprise to a real disappointment. I really wanted to like Kate Christensen's TROUBLE, because I have heard great things about her work in the past. But from the first chapter, I knew I was in trouble, and not the kind she had intended. The characters are literary constructs rather than characters, totally unsympathetic and unrealistic in just about every way. From the moment her heroine, a shrink in a decaying marriage, describes herself by looking at her reflection (a tired cliche and a surprisingly lazy gimmick for a PEN/Faulkner award winner to employ), and decides to dump her husband as a result, things go downhill fast.

Her decision to leave her husband is the impetus for everything that happens in the book, so it's important that we, as readers, buy into it and are invested in her and her journey. But the decisive moment is so unreal, so oblique, and the guy she is talking to at the time is such a caricature, that the crucial moment of reader investment in the heroine doesn't happen. And never does. I wanted to like her, or at least to care, but I never did. It doesn't help that what follows her introduction are pages and pages of exposition meant to establish what is, at heart, a contrivance. I never believed the relationship between Josie and her world-famous, rock star friend, nor did I care about her journey of self-discovery through sex. Her adventures are laden with exposition, contrivance, and stilted conversations that feel so written, so self-conscious, that it's maddening rather than entertaining. My advice: skip this and try one of Christensen's earlier works.

My REVIVALS Revived...And Revived Again

My 1993 book TELEVISION SERIES REVIVALS is back... in trade paperback (as I mentioned last week) and now in a Kindle edition. I have no idea if Kindle users are interested in non-fiction, TV references books...but I figured I had nothing to lose by finding out. If it looks like they do, I may make my book UNSOLD TELEVISION PILOTS available for the Kindle, too, though that might actually take some time and effort on my part.

The Mail I Get - Mr. Monk Edition

MR. MONK AND THE DIRTY COP was released two weeks ago, so perhaps that's why I've been getting deluged with Monk-related emails lately. Here's one I enjoyed:

I am a BIG fan of your books- I have read every Monk Book (except the latest), every Psyche book (except the latest), and I have all the Diag Murder books (I've read the first two).[...] In MONK IS MISERABLE they refer to events in the TV episode MONK CAN"T SEE A THING. Hence that episode takes place in the same universe as your novels. AH-HA, the events of MONK AND THE FIREHOUSE are similar, so whichever one came second, Monk or Natalie or someone should have said WOW- This is JUST LIKE our other case.

This is, of course, a silly plot point.

[...]Diag Murder and Monk novels are in the same universe since they both interact with the same detective in Hawaii. Monk and Psyche novels are in the same universe since Natalie meets with a people who help out quirky deteritives and one of them is clearly Gus (though he is not named). The novels and TV shows take place in the same universe. Gus's Uncle who thinks that Gus is Psychic watches alot of TV. He mentiosn the TV SHOW Diagnosis Murder.

AH-HA- in the Psyche universe Diagnosis Murder is a TV show. So it can't be real.

This is, of course, a silly plot point. 

The fact that I noticed these things and am writing to you about them is an immense compliment.

...which is exactly how I took it. Here is how I responded: 

You have a keen eye! Here are some trivia for you.  William Rabkin writes the terrific PSYCH novels. We wrote an early episode of PSYCH together...and we wrote the "Mr. Monk Can't See a Thing" episode of MONK which was, of course, based on my book MR. MONK GOES TO THE FIREHOUSE. 

Ian Ludlow is a character who also appears in the DIAGNOSIS MURDER and MONK books....and Ian Ludlow the pseudonym I wrote under in the early 1980s.  Is your head spinning yet?

I got some other nice notes. Here's a sampling:

I'm thrilled you are continuing the Monk book series. It always frustrates me when "stars" (who have wanted to be famous all their lives) hit paydirt with a huge success ... and then can't seem to quit fast enough because they need to conquer new lands or whatever. As much as I hate to see the Monk TV series end, I'm thrilled I can still buy new stories in the book series. If anything, they are far better than any TV episode ever was. Thank you.

I assured him that the end of MONK has nothing to do with the stars being unappreciative of their success and the interest of their viewers. Quite the opposite. They have been doing this show for over 100 episodes and I suspect that they want to end while they are still at the top of their game (as did the stars of CHEERS, SEINFELD, MARY TYLER MOORE, MASH, NEWHART and lots of other shows). I think it also takes some guts to walk away from success rather than milking something until it withers away. That said, I share his sadness, too, that the show is ending.

Here's one more from the email bag:

I wanted to take a brief moment to express the enjoyment my family has found in your Monk novels. We have all been fans of the TV series since its inception, yet we have only recently discovered your novels via Amazon.com. I ordered all of them last week and I, along with my wife and 14-year old son, are in the process of reading them now. Your novels are a seamless transition from the TV series, and I can pay no higher compliment than that. It’s great to know that Adrian Monk will continue to crack cases for the SFPD even after this final season concludes on USA Network.

It's emails like that one hat keep me going on days when the writing isn''t going so well. Finally, I got this one today:

I just read 'Mr. Monk is Miserable'. I didn't know there were Monk books (AND Diagnosis Murder too), I'm in heaven. Anyway, in chapter 26, at the end of Natalie's description of her time with Stottlemeyer interviewing victims of Chalmers' ID theft activities; there is a sentence that reads "The captain managed to prove that Le Roux's theory about Barlier's scheme was right." Isn't it supposed to say Chalmers? If it is not a typo and it is supposed to say Barlier can you please explain why, because I'm a bit confused.

I haven't answered that guy yet...it has been so long since I wrote the book, I can't remember the details of the plot and I just don't have the energy to re-read it again so I can give him the right answer. Then again, I hate to leave an error uncorrected...

TV Main Title of the Week

Odds and Ends

I spent yesterday at the San Diego Comic Con, where I talked shop with writer/producer Bill Freiberger and the terrific novelists of  International Association of Media Tie-in Writers, like Max Allan Collins, Scribe Award winner James Rollins (pictured witih me on the left) and  my old friend and Scribe Award winner Bob Greenberger, who was an editor at Starlog back when I was writing for the magazine in the 1980s. I think it's been 20 years since I've seen him.  Afterwards, I grabbed an early dinner at a faux Irish pub with TV writer/producer Phoef Sutton and my brother Tod. We had a great time sharing anecdotes about our experiences in TV and publishing. I really have to get out more with other writers because it always reinvigorates me.  

This morning I received the latest issue of the Mystery Readers Journal, which is chockful of articles, including one from me, about Los Angeles as a setting for mysteries. Other contributes include Gregg Hurwitz, Kris Neri, and Wendy Hornsby.

I decided to spend some of my Kindle royaltes from The Walk and My Gun Has Bullets on -- what else? -- a Kindle. It should arrive next week in time for me to take it on the plane to Owensboro for the International Mystery Writers Festival, where I will be moderating a panel with my friends Sue Grafton and MONK writer/producer David Breckman. 

Scribe Award Winners Announced

The 2009 Scribe Awards were handed out a ceremony and panel at Comic Con in San Diego on Friday. Participants included James Rollins, Max Allan Collins, Tod Goldberg, Matt Forbeck and Keith R.A. DeCandido, who was honored as this year's Grandmaster for excellence in the field. The winning books are marked with asterisks.

GENERAL FICTION 

BEST NOVEL—ORIGINAL 
**CSI: HEADHUNTER by Greg Cox 

BURN NOTICE: THE FIX by Tod Goldberg
CRIMINAL MINDS: FINISHING SCHOOL by Max Allan Collins

BEST NOVEL—ADAPTED 

**INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL by James Rollins

DEATH DEFYING ACTS by Greg Cox

THE TUDORS: KING TAKES QUEEN by Elizabeth Massie

THE WACKNESS by Dale C. Phillips 
THE X FILES: I WANT TO BELIEVE by Max Allan Collins 

SPECULATIVE FICTION 

BEST NOVEL—ORIGINAL 

**STAR TREK TEROK NOR: DAY OF THE VIPERS by James Swallow

GHOST WHISPERER: REVENGE by Doranna Durgin
RAVENLOFT: THE COVENANT, HEAVEN'S BONES by Samantha Henderson 

STARGATE SG-1: HYDRA by Holly Scott20& Jaime Duncan

BEST NOVEL—ADAPTED 

**HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY by Bob Greenberger
THE MUTANT CHRONICLES by Matt Forbeck 

STAR WARS—THE CLONE WARS: WILD SPACE by Karen Miller
UNDERWORLD: RISE OF THE LYCANS by Greg Cox 

YOUNG ADULT—ALL GENRES 

BEST NOVEL—ORIGINAL 

**PRIMEVAL: SHADOW OF THE JAGUAR by Steven Savile

DR. WHO: THE EYELESS by Lance Parkin

DISNEY CLUB PENGUIN: STOWAWAY! ADVENTURES AT SEA by Tracey West 

BEST NOVEL—ADAPTED 

**JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH 3D by Tracey West 

IRON MAN: THE JUNIOR NOVEL by Stephen D. Sullivan
THE DARK KNIGHT: THE JUNIOR NOVEL by Stacia Deutsch and Rhody Cohon

THE GRANDMASTER AWARD 

KEITH R.A. DeCANDIDO

(Pictured above: Max Allan Collins, Matt Forbeck,  James Rollins, Stacia Deutsch, Tod Goldberg, Keith R.A. DeCandido, Robert Greenberger and Nathan Long)

You Can Be a Kindle Millionaire, Part 7

Can you tell a book by its cover?

The original, St. Martin's Press cover for my 1997 novel BEYOND THE BEYOND was horrible. It was a giant penis bursting out of a TV set against a piss-yellow background. I'm not kidding. You can see it here. I know for a fact that it killed sales. I was sent on a national book tour and everywhere I went, the booksellers said "we can't stick that book in our window, there's a penis on the cover!"

So when I did the Kindle edition, I asked my talented and wildly creative sister Linda Woods, a professional artist and author (Journal Revolution: Rise Up & Create! Art Journals, Personal Manifestos and Other Artistic Insurrections), to design a new cover in the same style as the one she designed for the Kindle edition of my first book, My Gun Has Bullets (which also had a horrible St. Martin's cover when it was first published). BEYOND THE BEYOND is a sequel to MY GUN HAS BULLETS, so I thought some consistency was a good idea. Isn't that what branding is all about?

But while the Kindle sales for MY GUN HAS BULLETS have been brisk, the sales for Beyond the Beyond are flat. The culprit? I think it was the cover...again. It mayhave looked too much like the cover for My Gun Has Bullets and might have been confusing people into thinking it was the same book. 

So Linda has tweaked the cover for me. It's the one on the right. It will be interesting to see if a new cover makes a difference... 

Then again, maybe it's the book that sucks!

Nude Classics

Could somebody tell me what a naked woman has to do with FRANKENSTEIN? Or Tom Sawyer? 

You Can Become a Kindle Millionaire, Part 6

Here are my Amazon Kindle sales figures and royalties for July as of today at 5:49 pm. All the titles are priced at $1.99, except for THREE WAYS TO DIE, which sells for 99 cents (Click on the image for a larger view):

I sold 444 copies of THE WALK and 54 copies of THREE WAYS TO DIE in June. If sales continue as they are, I'll fall a little short of those numbers this month (and far short of the Kindle sales enjoyed by Joe Konrath and John August, the authors who inspired me to do this). Even so, it's found money for an out-of-print book and a collection of three, previously-published stories.

Encouraged by even those small numbers, and with nothing at all to lose, I added Kindle editions of my out-of-print novels MY GUN HAS BULLETS on 7/14 and BEYOND THE BEYOND on 7/17.  It's too soon for me to draw any conclusions about how they are selling.

Good News

I have no AC and no hot water at home today...but at least I have no shortage of good news. 

My editor just told me that MR. MONK AND THE DIRTY COP was in the top ten bestselling hardcover mysteries at Barnes & Noble last week. So I guess I can afford all the workers in the house today.

And I've just learned that my 2008 movie FAST TRACK: NO LIMITS, which has been broadcast, screened or released on DVD everywhere in the world but here, is finally coming out on DVD in the U.S. in October. The trailer has had 275,000+ hits on YouTube, so I guess there's an audience for it.

A Chat in Lori's Cafe

There's a Q&A interview with me up at Lorie Ham's No Name Cafe. While you're there, you can browse interviews with folks like my friends Lee Child and Jan Burke. Here's an excerpt from the interview with me:

Café: How long have you been writing?

Lee: When I was ten or eleven, I was already pecking novels out on my Mom's old typewriters. The first one was a futuristic tale about a cop born in an underwater sperm bank. I don't know why the bank was underwater, or how deposits were made, but I thought it was very cool. I followed that up with a series of books about gentleman thief Brian Lockwood, aka "The Perfect Sinner,” a thinly disguised rip-off of Simon Templar, aka "The Saint." I sold these stories for a dime to my friends and even managed to make a dollar or two. In fact, I think my royalties per book were better then than they are now.

TV Main Title of the Week

This and That

For the last month, I've been home alone with the dog while my wife and daughter were visiting the in-laws in France. On Monday, a day before my family was set to return, our water heater cracked and flooded several rooms in our house. I spent much of Monday and Tuesday dealing with the plumbers, insurance adjusters, and disaster-cleanup people. My weary family came home Tuesday to a bunch of a torn-open walls, half-a-dozen fans going, and no hot water. For the last few days, we have been dividing our time between our house and a nearby hotel, where we have been showering. Insurance is covering most of the clean-up and repairs (and the hotel, of course), but it has still been an enormous inconvenience. We'll have hot water on Tuesday...but today we uncovered more water damage today, so the disaster crew opened up more walls and more fans were brought in. 

In the midst of all this, I had two pitch meetings last week...one face-to-face (a pilot pitch), and one over Skype to studios overseas (a feature pitch). I don't know how the pitch here turned out, but the overseas pitch was a home-run. It's for an international action movie, a co-production between a European studio and a Chinese studio. The movie will be shot in Europe and China. We closed my deal on Friday and I've spent the last few days plotting the story in detail for another meeting this week...when I could get the greenlight to write the script. It's all happening very fast...and I like it that way. It reminds me of network television. 

In the midst of all this, I've had to temporarily set aside my MONK book, which I must get back to next week as well, no matter what happens with the movie script. But I am over 100 pages into it, so I'm feeling pretty secure that there won't be a problem meeting my deadline. Afterall, I wrote MR. MONK IN OUTER SPACE while I was writing, producing, and shooting FAST TRACK: NO LIMITS in Germany...and I completed DIAGNOSIS MURDER: THE WAKING NIGHTMARE while I was writing & producing the TV series MISSING...with two broken arms. The truth is, I do my best work under pressure. 

Why I Wrote BEYOND THE BEYOND

This article originally appeared in Mystery Scene Magazine back in 1997. I thought I'd repost it here to mark the publication of the Kindle edition. 

An awful lot of people in the television industry see shrinks. Those who don't, write novels.

Well, that's my theory, any way.

I figured it was either write a book, or go into psychoanalysis. Writing a book seemed like a better alternative, since you can actually make a few bucks while you sit and whine about how crazy the business is and what the craziness does to you.

I wrote my first novel, My Gun Has Bullets, while writing/producing a really terrible, syndicated action show. In that book, a good, decent cop named Charlie Willis is gunned down by a lunatic TV star on her way to a sale at Neiman-Marcus. To cover up the crime, the studio buys him off by making him the star of his own action series. But things go bad when someone loads his prop gun with real bullets and he kills his guest-star. I trashed everything and everyone that drove met nuts about the TV business...and there was a lot, having written and/or produced such series as Hunter, Baywatch, Spenser: For Hire, Cosby Mysteries and Diagnosis Murder, to name a few.

I felt a lot better after I wrote the book.

But I didn't get around to writing the sequel, Beyond the Beyond, until a couple years later, when I became a writer/producer on SeaQuest. Within weeks, I was getting email death threats from deranged fans, including one lady who was enraged weren't consulting her for advice or staying true to the "fanfic" (fan-written, self-published fiction). Another lady, calling herself an "Admiral in the United Earth Oceans," was convinced one of the characters in the show was in love with her.

Of course, it reminded me of what the actors and writers on Star Trek must go through (which I knew well, since many of my friends have worked on the show). And that reminded me that a spin-off of Star Trek was the cornerstone of a new television network. And that made me think about the whole Star Trek phenomenon...and the emergence of new TV networks...and the consolidation of media empires.

Before I was a TV producer, I worked as a reporter covering the entertainment industry beat for Newsweek, Starlog, American Film, Electronic Media, and Los Angeles Times Syndicate, among many others. During that time, I wrote extensively about the birth of the Fox Network and was the first person to break the story that Paramount was reviving Star Trek as an all-new, syndicated series. So I already had a lot of background in both the business of TV and the business of Star Trek and had given this stuff some thought before.

Suddenly, I felt a book taking shape...

What if someone bought a studio decided to use it to launch a new network? And what if the cornerstone of that new network was a revival of cult, 60s science fiction series – with an all-new cast? How would the lunatic fans and original cast react?

There was a story there...and I also had a lot more personal demons to exorcise now, too. And I was fresh from my experience on SeaQuest.

In Beyond the Beyond , Charlie Willis is now a special security officer for Pinnacle Pictures. When the studio revives the cult series Beyond the Beyond as the launching pad for a new network, two forces fight for control of the show, a vicious talent agency that uses blackmail, torture and murder to keep its clients on the A-list, and a homicidal legion of rabid fans led by an insane actor who thinks he's in outer space.

The publisher calls it a dark/comic thriller about TV. But I'll tell you a little secret: most of it is true, drawn either from my own experience or those of my friends in the TV business.

And like the first book, I felt great after I finished it... though somewhere out there a shrink is going hungry because of it.

Beyond the Beyond is back

BEYOND THE BEYOND, the sequel to MY GUN HAS BULLETS, is now available in a Kindle edition!

"The hilarious follow-up to Goldberg's witty debut, My Gun Has Bullets...Beyond the Beyond skewers the entertainment business, which Goldberg knows well," Oline Codgill, Knight-Ridder Newspapers.

"As in his riotous novel My Gun Has Bullets, TV writer/producer Goldberg once again bites the hand that feeds him, laughing all the while. Inspired silliness," Publishers Weekly

Ex-cop Charlie Willis handles "special security" at Pinnacle Pictures. His job: to protect the studio and its stars, to stop scandals before they explode, to keep the peace in the land of make-believe. When Pinnacle revives the cult, 1960s TV series "Beyond the Beyond" as the cornerstone of a fourth network, two powerful forces fight for control of the show-a talent agency that uses blackmail, torture, and murder to keep its clients on the A-list, and a homicidal legion of rabid fans led by an insane actor who thinks he's in outer space.

Editorial Reviews:

"Goldberg uses just about everything he can think of to send up the studio system, fandom, Star Trek, Trekkies, agents, actors... you name it, he'll make you laugh about it." Analog

"An outrageously entertaining take on the loathsome folkways of contemporary showbiz," Kirkus Reviews

"Mr. Goldberg has an observant eye and a wicked pen!" Washington Times

"Beyond the Beyond reads like a modern-day Alice in Wonderland set against the venal world of the TV industry. It's wonderfully revealing and uncannily accurate," Vancouver Sun (Canada)

"Some of the easily recognizable actors, agents and producers who are mercilessly ribbed may find it hard to crack a smile at the author's gag-strewn prose, likewise those seekers after politically correct entertainment. But the rest of us should have no trouble....the novel's satiric slant is strong enough to have an effigy of Goldberg beamed into outer space at the next Star Trek convention," Los Angeles Times

"Pinnacle Pictures has decided to revive a 25-year-old cult sci-fi TV show called Beyond the Beyond, but somebody keeps killing off the new cast. Is it the Hollywood agent who eats human flesh? The aging actor who still thinks he's a starship captain? The fans who live only to attend conventions? This sharp roman a clef goes where no Hollywood satire has gone before-altering just enough facts to avoid the libel courts but still smacking of a certain je ne sais Trek. It probably won't make Goldberg, a television writer and producer (Baywatch, Spenser: For Hire, seaQuest), the most popular boy on the Paramount lot, but it's a stingingly funny novel just the same. " 
-Entertainment Weekly 

"An outrageously entertaining take on the loathsome folkways of contemporary showbiz." 
-Kirkus Reviews

"For the most part, this is a pleasant fantasy and a harmless escape, but there could be a fringe group out there almost exactly as Goldberg describes them in outlandish detail. It all could be true. It works hilariously. Don't miss Lee Goldberg's Beyond the Beyond. It's one to beam up!" Mark Levine, Ventura Star-Telegram

Television Series Revivals...revived

Did Gilligan and his fellow castaways ever get rescued? Is Dr. Marcus Welby still making house calls? Is Marcia Brady single? What kind of father did Beaver Cleaver grow up to be? Those burning questions and many, many more about your favorite TV characters are answered in my book Television Series Revivals:  Sequels and Remakes of Cancelled Series, which examines every TV series remake and sequel produced from 1955-1992.

The book, which was originally published in hardcover in 1993 by McFarland & Co., is now available in a $16.95 trade paperback edition from iUniverse through the Authors Guild's Back-in-Print program (and at no charge to me).

The sequels and remakes of nearly one hundred shows, from ADAM-12 to WKRP IN CINCINNATI, are examined in detail and include airdates,  cast lists and production credits. There's also a special section on animated revivals and sequels, like STAR TREK and GILLIGANS ISLAND. 

Here's what Booklist had to say about the book:

Have you ever wondered what happened to the castaways on "Gilligan's Island"? Many people have, and that is why producers, directors, and actors come together to revive canceled shows for reunion specials, feature films, or whole new series. Television Series Revivals is a compilation of information on the various mutations original series have undergone since cancellation. "Star Trek" is a good example of this phenomenon. It originally aired on network television in the late 1960s. Due to the immense popularity of the show in reruns and its cultlike fan clubs, the series was revived, first as a cartoon series, then as a series of motion pictures, and finally as a new series, "Star Trek: The Next Generation."

Entries are arranged alphabetically by original series title. Each entry follows the same format: the air dates and network of the original series; a plot synopsis for the revived series, film, or special; background information on the show; the title of the new show; its network and broadcast date. Information about each show came from a variety of sources: releases, reviews, and periodical articles. Plot synopses may be a bit confusing as the author combines the plots of all revivals, sequels, or remakes into one narrative. For a series such as "Eight Is Enough," which was followed by "Eight Is Enough: A Family Reunion" and "An Eight Is Enough Wedding," it is difficult to tell where one story line leaves off and another begins.

For a series to be included in this volume it must have featured continuing characters and have been in cancellation for at least one year, not simply on hiatus. Certain kinds of shows are not included: those based on literary characters (e.g., Sherlock Holmes); anthologies (with the exception of "Twilight Zone" and "Alfred Hitchcock Presents"), variety shows, and game shows.

An appendix listing "Animated Revivals" and a bibliography of related titles round out the work. The index includes show titles, actors, and producers and directors. Black-and-white photos of cast members are provided for some shows.

As long as television viewers express nostalgia for the shows they once watched, producers will continue to revive them. Public library customers and librarians will find Television Series Revivals a useful and entertaining volume.

My Gun Has Bullets

My acclaimed, long out-of-print debut novel MY GUN HAS BULLETS is now available on the Kindle with a terrific new cover by my sister Linda Woods (I wish the book had this cover when it first came out). And this new edition wouldn't be possible if it wasn't for Dan Williams, who volunteered to scan the book...and he even cleaned up the formatting problems. Thank you, Dan!

Here's the book-jacket copy (which hasn't shown up yet on the Amazon listing):

The Mob is bringing its style of doing business to television. They don't cancel TV series. They kill them.

When Beverly Hills Police Officer Charlie Willis pulls over a speeding Rolls Royce hell-bent for Neiman Marcus, he’s surprised to see Esther Radcliffe, the geriatric star of the TV series "Miss Agatha," behind the wheel. He’s even more surprised when she guns him down and keeps on driving. A few hours later, he wakes up in the intensive care unit…to find a William Morris agent, a network president, and the head of Pinnacle Studios standing at the foot of his bed. They have a proposal for him: in exchange for conveniently forgetting who shot him, they’ll make him the star of his own series, "My Gun Has Bullets." So Charlie trades in his real badge for a fake one…and so begins an uproarious but deadly romp through the wonderful world of TV make-believe…with real bullets. To make it to sweeps week, Charlie will have to survive two homicidal stuntmen, a rabid celebrity dog, a hit man-turned-producer, a psychotic old lady, a sex-crazed blackmailer, and vicious ratings…with only a stunning, leather-clad "Baywatch" beauty to help him. 

“It will make you cackle like a sitcom laugh track. Goldberg keeps the gags coming right up to the end.”—Entertainment Weekly 

"It's Bullets Over Baywatch!" USA Today “A very funny novel…a pinch of Carl Hiaasen, a dash of Donald Westlake, and a heaping portion of avarice and inanity Hollywood Style. It’s boffo!”—Thomas Gaughan, Booklist

 "'My Gun Has Bullets' takes aim and hits the bull's eye of all good satire -- the truth," Howard Gordon, Executive Producer, "24"

"Lee Goldberg has written a winner!" —Stephen J. Cannell, executive producer/creator "The A-Team," "21 Jump Street," and "The Rockford Files."

"'My Gun Has Bullets' has an outrageous, laugh-til-you're-sick scene seemingly on every other page." —Dan Petrie Jr. Oscar-nominated screenwriter of "Beverly Hills Cop" 

“A rousing send-up of everything and everyone in the world of show-biz.”—Judith Kreiner, The Washington Times 

"Hilarious, suspenseful, action-packed...its band of merry, and not so merry, homicidal maniacs may be the greatest cast ever assembled," Warren Murphy, Edgar Award winning author/creator of the "Remo Williams: Destroyer" series

"The giddiest debut of the year!" Kirkus Reviews

More TV on the Big Screen

It seems like every week someone is dusting off an old TV show and developing it for the big screen. Last week it was TJ HOOKER, this week it's THE BIG VALLEY. Variety reports:

The 1960s television Western that starred Barbara Stanwyck is being adapted into an independent feature by Kate Edelman Johnson and Daniel Adams through their Panther Entertainment banner.

Adams will direct the pic from his own script, whose storyline was developed with series creators Louis F. Edelman and A.I. Bezzerides. Plot borrows elements from the show’s pilot and several episodes.

I don't see the point of reviving the show...it's not as if it has a huge following. It would make far more sense to give the big screen treatment to more well known TV westerns like GUNSMOKE, HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL, or BONANZA (which BIG VALLEY essentially ripped off).

TV Main Title of the Week

Bowen on Bowen

My good friend Rhys Bowen has a new book out, ROYAL FLUSH, so I've invited her to talk about it here (and give me a day off):

Thank you so much for inviting me, Lee. We share a lot of background in common.

My first professional experience was with the spoken, rather than with the written word. Right out of college I was lucky enough to be one of 30 graduating students chosen from 3000 applicants to join the BBC in London. And after stints doing everything from playing requests for a housewives’ morning show to the night shift as announcer on the World Service I managed to get the assignment I wanted in radio drama. What a medium that was! No scenery, no glamorous stars to distract the audience, only the spoken word to convey tension, emotion and sense of place. It is a media of cooperation—a joint assignment between listener and writer to create a world. As one small listener once said, “I like radio because the scenery is so nice.”

I agree with her. There is no stage set as wonderful as the one you create in your imagination, no actor as handsome as the one your mind assigns to the sexy voice. And as for tension—what could be more scary than the sound of a door creaking open and then slow footsteps getting closer and closer…

I started off at the bottom—making the spot sound effects. Yes, this was the good old days when a lot of the sound effects were made live on mike. We were a little past the coconuts for horses’ hooves days, but still we were called upon to invent the strangest sound effects. I once had to come up with a sound for a guillotine cutting off a head. So what did I do? I ran a knife down an iron bar and into a cabbage, then dropped the cabbage into a basket. It sounded so real you could actually hear the bones breaking.

After I’d been in drama for a while I rose to studio manager and I found that I was coming up with ideas of my own. I wrote a radio play, and with the bravado of a 22 year old, I walked into the head of drama’s office and gave it to him. He called me in two days later. He liked it and he was going to produce it. As easy as that! More radio plays followed, then I tried my hand at TV drama. New challenges there—how to reveal character in a few words and actions, how to get characters in and out of a scene, how to mix dialog and action.

Everything I learned has served me in good stead as a writer of mystery novels. I am highly aware of the power of words.  I still think of my novels in terms of scenes rather than chapters. I am still very aware of pacing, when to cut away from a scene, and I rely on dialog to reveal character, create setting and carry forward plot. I am a huge proponent of show not tell and I have learned to involve all five senses to make an era come alive.  I’d love to produce my new Royal Spyness book as a radio play—it’s called Royal Flush and in it my heroine Lady Georgiana (34^th in line to the throne and penniless) is sent home in disgrace to the Scottish Castle. I’d have gone to town with the sound effects—the wind whistling down the corridors and flapping the tapestries and moaning in the chimney—the footsteps echoing across the great hall, the sounds of a grouse hunt on the moor… but the rising of a monster from the loch and the sound of someone falling from a mountain when a rope breaks—they’d be more of a challenge! 

This is Why Ken Levine Wins Emmys

Ken Levine's blog post today isn't just a brilliant satire of Aaron Sorkin's distinct style...it's also great writing. I loved it. Here's a taste:

EXT. KAUFFMAN STADIUM -- NIGHT

THE MANAGER, LEO, TROTS OUT TO THE MOUND TO TALK TO BELEAGURED PITCHER, DANNY (THERE’S ALWAYS A DANNY). THE BASES ARE LOADED. THE CROWD IS GOING NUTS. IT’S GAME SEVEN OF THE WORLD SERIES.

LEO

You can’t get a good lobster in this town.

DANNY

Last I checked we were in Kansas City.

LEO

4.6 billion pork ribs sold every year and 18.9 tons of beef consumed annually since 1997 –

DANNY

They like their beef, what can I tell ya?

LEO

But you’d think just for variety’s sake.

DANNY

I can still throw my curve.

LEO

For strikes?

DANNY

I’m not throwing enough?

LEO

I’ve seen more lobsters.

DANNY WALKS TO THE ROSIN SACK, GIVES IT A SQUEEZE, DECIDES TO KEEP WALKING. HE AND LEO NOW WALK OUT INTO CENTER FIELD.

DANNY

It’s just that… LEO

What? Kathy?

DANNY

No. Cabs. There’s no cohesiveness on this team. After road games, 25 cabs for 25 players. There used to be a thing called “the greater good”, forgoing your needs for the betterment of the team and community who looks to us for their identity and self worth. When I’m trying to save a game I’m really trying to save a factory. If baseball is a metaphor for life, then responsibility is its first cousin simile. And Kathy.

LEO

That’s a “1” on your back and not a “2”.

DANNY

I can’t help it. She knocks my sanitary socks off.

"Before I was a TV writer, I was a street poet..."

Screenwriter, novelist, and teacher William Rabkin reveals the method to his madness, and gives some good career advice to aspiring screenwriters, in an interview at Write On today. Here's an excerpt:

How important is diversification for a writer?

I’m a big advocate of diversification. Right now, all our markets are shrinking—not a great problem if you’re, say, the showrunner of Desperate Housewives. But for the rest of us, we’re watching TV staffs shrinking, original screenplay sales diving, publishing in serious trouble. We can’t know where the next opportunity is going to come from—so it’s best to make yourself available for as many opportunities as possible.

How can a writer best get his or her work noticed?

Write really well. Oh, and if you can show up in a sex tape with a celebrity, that would help, too.

The Big Step

My buddy Bryce Zabel is sharing his personal moonwalk memories...no, not more Michael Jackson hype, but how Neil Armstrong's first steps on the moon changed his life and his relationship with his father. 

Back on July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin kicked up their own moon dust when they became the first human beings ever to walk (or bounce) on the Earth's Moon. The world is probably evenly divided now between those who were alive when the Eagle landed in the Sea of Tranquility and those who weren't. I was. It was unforgettable, but not necessarily for the reasons you might think.

Road Dogs is a Dog

I love Elmore Leonard's books. I did not love ROAD DOGS. It's a vastly inferior sequel to OUT OF SIGHT, LA BRAVA and RIDING THE RAP (it features characters from all three books). Nothing happens in this book. It's as if Elmore Leonard kept writing, waiting for a plot to occur to him, and when one didn't, he simply had a character pull out a gun, shoot some people, and he gave up. Leonard should have kept this manuscript in his drawer and waited until he actually had a story to tell. The central character in this book is Jack Foley, the bank robber from the great novel OUT OF SIGHT, which was made into the great movie starring George Clooney. Elmore Leonard must have really liked the movie, too, because he's turned Foley into a caricature of Clooney. Leonard has done a good job capturing Clooney on the page, I only wish he had a plot to go along with it. There's some nice dialogue and a few funny one-liners, but it's not enough.  This is may be the weakest, and most disappointing, book Leonard has written in his entire career. But hey, one stinker out of 42 books (many of them classics) isn't so bad.

Mr. Monk and the Plugs

My friend Dave McDonnell at Starlog.com plugged my new MONK book, as well as the new tie-ins by my brother Tod and my buddy William Rabkin, noting our long and twisted associations with the late, great STARLOG magazine. 

And the fine folks at The Monk Fun Page have given DIRTY COP a rave review. They say, in part:

Though the well-paced unraveling of the plot and the steady tone make the entire layout pleasing to read, it is the way the main characters and, maybe more importantly, the secondary characters jump off the page that make this Monk book most enjoyable. Stottlemeyer is particularly complex, the entire story is anchored around him, and never does his believability suffer because of it.

[...]In Dirty Cop, Monk is the best he has ever been. His obsessions are ridiculous yet maintain great continuity, a formula that nearly convinces the reader that the obsessions are not so illogical after all. Monk is also outright hilarious—more so than ever. His often painfully humorous and equally serious relationship with Stottlemeyer is golden; Monk admires him greatly but still manages to be completely clueless to Stottlemeyer’s feelings, yet Stottlemeyer never loses faith in Monk. It is a pleasure to read.

Thank you for the great review, KC!

Mr. Monk and the Kindle

The Amazon Kindle blog is featuring a post from Natalie Teeger today promoting MR. MONK AND THE DIRTY COP. Here's an excerpt:

The other day, Monk didn't have a case to work on and I didn't relish the idea of spending the day sitting around his house sorting out imperfect Wheat Chex from his boxes of breakfast cereal ("It will be fun," he said. "You'll feel like a kid again."). Instead, I talked him into going to this revival theatre in Haight-Asbury that was showing classic Hitchcock movies. Monk insisted on bringing a plastic seat cover because there was no way he was sitting on something a thousand other people had sat on before him. He also brought disinfectant and delousing spray. And gloves. And baggies to put his gloves in. And gloves to handle the baggies with the gloves in them. It wasn't easy getting all that stuff past the ticket-taker, but I flashed a smile and a little cleavage (very little...I don't have much to spare) and we got in. Once we were in the theatre, Monk had to sit dead center in an even-numbered seat. Luckily, the center seat wasn't an odd number or he might have asked me to move the entire row. Just when I thought we were home free, the movie turned out to be "The 39 Steps." The title alone was enough to drive Monk out of the theatre. But we stayed. It was everyone else who fled, irritated by his incessant whining about the title of the movie and the fact he gave away the whodunit it in the first five minutes.

The blog was sent to every Kindle owner this morning. It should be interesting to see if my Kindle numbers pop on DIRTY COP and, hopefully, THE WALK as well.  

TV Main Title of the Week

What's Next, Diagnosis Murder?

I can think of a lot of TV shows that would make great movies, but TJ HOOKER isn't one of them. But Variety reports that director Chuck Russell, writers Brent Maddock & S.S. Wilson,  and series creator Rick Husky are mounting  a big screen remake of the cheesy, 1980s  William Shatner series, which ran for four seasons on ABC. Hey, maybe they can get Chris Pine to play Hooker.

The Mail I Get - Monk Edition

I've received a lot of MONK mail this week. Here's a sampling. 

I just wanted you to know what your Monk books mean to me. I lost my mother on April 3rd and I can not tell you how heartbroken and emotionally distraught I am. [...]I never thought I would be laughing so soon. Your Monk books have helped keep me sane! I started with the OUTER SPACE book and from then on I was hooked. Thank you so much!

I was very touched by that email, and by this one, too:

Although it's impossible for me to know if you'll ever actually receive this e-mail, I simply had to say thank you for putting some real laughter back into my life. I just checked out your Monk book form our local library (Mr. Monk Goes To The Firehouse) and read it as quickly as time allowed. It's been a long time since I've had so many real, true belly laughs. This is a difficult economy for so many people - especially for us. [...] you have infused the book with compassion as well as kindness, especially in Natalie Teeger, as well as in the people who surround Monk. There needs to be more kindness in this world. Thank you for being tender in your portrayal of these characters. This is a very clever book and I will always appreciate the laughter you added to my days. Can't wait to read more and looking forward to my husband reading his book, as well.

I tell you, getting notes like that make all the difficulties that go into writing a book worthwhile. On the other hand, sometimes you get ones like this:

I just had to write you to tell you that your books are terrible, mainly because they are narrated by Natalie instead of Sharona or Monk himself and aren't funny and you had him drinking milk. What were you thinking!!!

And I get some unusual requests, like this:

Mr Monk has a lot of French fans, and I'm sure they would be happy to read your books! So I have a little question for you... I was wondering if you'll agree to let me do the French translation of your novels. Of course I'm not a professional translator, but I love writing stories since early childhood and I really love Mr Monk's universe.

And this:

Greetings, Mr Goldberg! I have a special request. My family and I are huge fans of your Monk books! I am embarking on a trip to South Korea [...]and I would love nothing more than a new Monk book to read on the plane. [...]I see that Mr Monk and the Dirty Cop comes out on July 7th, but my flight leaves on July 6th. [...]Any chance of getting you to send me an advance copy so I can have it in time(autographed maybe?)?

And this:

Could you do something in the Monk books involving people loving feet or people with dirty feet?

And this:

Please write a book where Monk goes to Brazil. I would be glad to help you write it.

But I also learned some things, like this:

Here's a weird fact: We know that the word "Adrian Monk" has 10 letters which is his favorite number. But if you convert the letters into the their corresponding number in the alphabet, you get 100! Weird, huh?

Mr. Monk and the Fireworks

More MONK book reviews came in today. Author James Reasoner blogged about MR. MONK AND THE DIRTY COP, which comes out on Tuesday. He said, in part:

As always, Lee Goldberg has the voices of the characters down perfectly and spins his yarn in smooth, often funny, and occasionally poignant prose. The plot has just the right level of complexity. There are a lot of excellent tie-in novels out there (the level of writing in the genre has never been higher than it is right now), but the Monk books are some of the very best. Don’t miss MR. MONK AND THE DIRTY COP.

Thanks, James. Cynthia Lea Clark at Futures Magazine gave two earlier MONK books some love. She liked MR. MONK GOES TO GERMANY a lot. She said, in part:

Lee Goldberg continues his extension of the MONK television series with MR. MONK GOES TO GERMANY. [He] paints a perfect written picture of MONK. It is as if you are there with Monk, Natalie, and in this case Dr. Kroger.  I am a true fan, and Mr. Goldberg does not let me down! He is MONK perfect! [...] If you like MONK, you’ll love MR. MONK GOES TO GERMANY. It is well written, easy to read, and a great escape. Lee Goldberg has written another wonderful novel. Excellent!

And she liked MR. MONK IS MISERABLE just as much. Her comments included:

Monk, garbage, and murder what a combination! It works! [...] Goldberg has the nuances, the mannerisms, and the style down pat. His writing is so real and so vivid that Monk is right there with you, cleaning up after you and making sure you are holding Lee’s book at the correct angle! On a scale of 1 to 5. I give it a 5.

Thanks, Cynthia! 

You Can Become a Kindle Millionaire, Part 5

Okay, the first month of my Kindle experiment, inspired by the successes of Joe Konrath and John August on the platform, has ended. Here are the results.

From June 1-30, the Kindle edition of my 2004 novel THE WALK sold 444 copies @ $1.89 each, for $302.67 in royalties. As of today, I have sold 37 more copies for a royalty of $24.78 (I also raised the price a dime to $1.99 for the heck of it).

The book was also available on Smashwords, where I sold one copy, and Scribed, where I sold two copies, for combined royalties of about $4. Hoo-hah.

I have since pulled the book from both Smashwords and Scribd so that it's exclusively available on the Kindle. I've done that as part of a promotional effort by Amazon that will roughly coincide with the release Tuesday of the Kindle edition of my new MONK novel, MR. MONK AND THE DIRTY COP (I'll talk more about that in a later post).

I also released a collection of previously published shorts stories that I packaged for the Kindle under the title THREE WAYS TO DIE. I sold 54 copies @ 99 cents, earning a royalty of $18.90. I sold one copy of the collection on Scribd and none on Smashwords. It remains available on all three services. 

The only promotion I have done for these books are posts on this blog, my Facebook page, Twitter, and a few Amazon Kindle forums. 

I haven't spent a dime on this...but I have spent time.

What have I learned? 

Well, there's money to be made from your out-of-print work. Not a lot, but it's found money. THE WALK wasn't earning anything for me anymore and now it is. Pretty soon, it will have earned enough to buy myself a Kindle.

I wouldn't write an original novel for the Kindle. It just doesn't make any financial sense. But if you have an out-of-print novel, and you happen to have the copy-edited manuscript sitting on your hard-drive, it makes more sense to re-publish it for the Kindle than have it brought back in print for free as a POD title through the Authors Guild. You won't get rich doing this...but it also won't cost you anything. In essense, you have absolutely nothing to lose. And if the Kindle edition sells in huge numbers, it might help get your book  back-in-print (though I haven't heard about this ever happening for anyone). On the other hand, it could also limit your agent's efforts to sell other print editions of the book...which is why I haven't posted THE MAN WITH THE IRON-ON BADGE on Kindle, even though it is now out-of-print in hardcover.

I think there's no real money in "self-publishing" original novels to the Kindle if you aren't already an established name (which both Joe Konrath and John August are). You won't sell much, if anything, because you don't have a strong platform from which to promote your work. I'm not famous, but at least I have a little more recognition than your typical, unpublished author...and my Kindle sales so far aren't phenomenal or particularly lucrative. You could argue that THREE WAYS TO DIE is essentally a self-published, original novella...and it has tanked. I've sold 55 copies @ 99 cents each in total across all three web platforms this month for a royalty of less than $20. (Joe has an excellent post about the pros and cons of self-publishing here)

The one big advantage the Kindle platform has for self-publishing is that it's free and puts your book on the best bookselling website on the planet.  And It cuts the predatory, vanity presses with their outrageous fees out of the picture entirely. Good riddance! 

The "publishing" aspect of making your book available for the Kindle is not as easy as it seems at first. My manuscripts looked fine in the "preview" on the publishing page but turned out to be filled with formatting errors when actually seen on the Kindle. It took me a lot of time, and the generous assistance of some Kindle owners, to clean the manuscripts up. 

Smashwords and Scribd are also very easy to publish to...perhaps easier than Amazon...but if my experience (and Joe Konrath's) are any indication, your sales will be pitiful to non-existent. They just aren't in the game yet. Then again, they are free...so it costs you nothing to make your books available there as well. Just don't expect to make any money off of it.

So is this the future of publishing? 

I don't think so...the money just isn't there yet for authors or publishers. That's not to say it won't be in the future if the price-point for the Kindle, and products like it, drops considerably and millions of people buy them. 

Is it the future of self-publishing? 

Perhaps. It certainly has the benefit of being free to the author...at least for now. But actually selling copies will be a huge challenge. And in a broader sense, if there's a deluge of horrendous, self-published crap on the Kindle, it could actually turn readers away from risking money, even a few cents, on authors they aren't already familiar with. 

Right now the Kindle is a novelty, and users are eager for content...they're grabbing whatever they can, especially if it's under a buck or free... but if they get burned too many times by garbage, they'll be a lot more discerning about what they download, even for nothing.

That said, there are some unknown, self-published authors who are making decent money selling books on the Kindle...and I've interviewed a few of them for an article in an upcoming issue of the Novelists Inc newsletter (www.ninc.com). I believe, and so do many of them, that they are the exceptions rather than the rule. I'll share some of their experiences here at a later date.

I'll also report back on how THE WALK continues to fare as a Kindle edition.