A Writer's Life

The Mail I Get

My agent got an email from a MONK fan who thinks it's time for me to make a big change in my books. She writes, in part:

I wish Mr. Goldberg in his upcoming Monk books would actually start to lay off some of the OCD aspects of Monk. I think it interferes with the detective aspects of the story which are always brilliant.

Uh-huh. Interesting comment. What would Monk be without his OCD? Certainly not a character people would want to read about. I don't think she realizes that what makes Monk so special is his OCD...how he copes with it and how it gets in the way of his detective work, his personal life, etc. Not only that, it's his OCD that allows him to see the details, the things that are "out of place," that others miss. Sorry, Ann, I'm afraid the OCD is here to stay.

Santa Royale

The HMSS blog tipped me to this terrific spoof of the CASINO ROYALE pre-credits and opening title sequence.

Lonesome Sales

I read Larry McMurtry's slim and meandering memoir LITERARY LIFE, which had some interesting anecdotes here and there, but overall I thought it was a big disappointment. I was hoping to learn a lot more about his approach to writing and the evolution his novels, many of which are among my all-time favorites. But there was one fact that he shared that I found quite surprising:

Lonesome Dove was my tenth novel, my eleventh book. I had been publishing books from the early Sixties to the mid-Eighties before producing a book that came close to selling five thousand copies, a feat nearly achieved by All My Friends Are Going To Be Strangers, which came out just in time to profit from the flare of interest produced by the popularity of The Last Picture Show. [Lee here:  McMurtry is referring to the movie adaptation, not the novel]

My lack of rising sales might have been easier for Simon and Schuster to tolerate if I had, along the way, been producing exceptional reviews, but, in the main, I attracted no reviews. [...] The lack of interest in my books continues to this day.

It's unbelievable to me that McMurtry's early books -- classics and personal favorites like The Last Picture Show, Leaving Cheyenne, Movin' On, and Horseman Pass By (which became the movie HUD) -- didn't sell anywhere near as well as, say, a men's action-adventure paperback like .357 Vigilante. That's just wrong. 

When McMurtry says his books still don't inspire much interest, he seems to be referring to reviews from major publications and not sales (my guess is that his books sell well, if not spectacularly). You'd think an author who has won the Pulitizer Prize for his fiction, and an Oscar for his screenwriting, would certainly merit as much critical attention as typical Michael Connelly book receives. But apparently McMurtry doesn't...and I sure don't know why. Do you?

Just Like the Mail I Get

My old high school buddy Christine Ferreira sent me this hilarious email exchange, which comes frighteningly close to many that I've had with people who'd like me to work for free. Here's an excerpt:

From: Simon Edhouse
Date: Monday 16 November 2009 2.19pm
To: David Thorne
Subject: Logo Design

Hello David,

I would like to catch up as I am working on a really exciting project at the moment and need a logo designed. Basically something representing peer to peer networking. I have to have something to show prospective clients this week so would you be able to pull something together in the next few days? I will also need a couple of pie charts done for a 1 page website. If deal goes ahead there will be some good money in it for you.

Simon

From: David Thorne
Date: Monday 16 November 2009 3.52pm
To: Simon Edhouse
Subject: Re: Logo Design

Dear Simon,

Disregarding the fact that you have still not paid me for work I completed earlier this year despite several assertions that you would do so, I would be delighted to spend my free time creating logos and pie charts for you based on further vague promises of future possible payment. Please find attached pie chart as requested and let me know of any changes required.

Regards, David.

TV Main Title of the Week

Good Stuff

I read Walter Kirn's novel UP IN THE AIR not too long ago and he had some lines of description that I wish I wrote... lines that made me want start writing something, anything, just to be writing. Here are a few:  

Two months ago she teased me into bed, then put on a showy, marathon performance that struck me as rehearsed, even researched [...] Now and then I'd catch her in the middle of a particularly far-fetched pose and see that it wasn't appetite that drove her but some idea, some odd erotic theory.

[...] in a suburb that might have been squeezed from a tube.

Old tailors love me. They tell me I remind them of men from forty years ago.

[...]becoming one of those women who need make-up not to highlight their features but to create them.

My call is passed from computer to computer and then to a person who only sounds like one.

She looks like a girl in her twenties who's been aged by an amateur movie makeup artist using spirit gum for wrinkles and sprinkled baby powder to gray her hair.

His face is soap opera handsome. Full lips. Sleek forehead. A scar on his chin to remind you he's male.

I manage to be brotherly to her merely by sitting nearby and shedding heat.

He's reading Dean Koontz with a squinting intensity that Koontz just doesn't call for and must be fake.

Everything and Nothing

 Two things got me thinking today about the challenges of adapting a book to the screen -- my friend John Rogers' blog posts on the subject and the movie UP IN THE AIR, which I loved.

I've written a few adaptations over the years, some filmed (eg. Rex Stout's "Champagne for One," "Prisoner's Base" ) some not (eg. Mary Higgins Clark's "The Lottery Winners," Aimee & David Thurlo's Ella Clah novels), some filmed after they were taken over by others (eg. Marv Wolfman's "Blade"), some based on my own books (eg ".357 Vigilante" and "Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse,")  and some inching tantalizingly towards production (Victor Gischler's "Gun Monkeys"). 

Some of my favorite book-to-movie adaptations include JAWS, GET SHORTY, GREAT EXPECTATIONS, TERMS OF ENDEARMENT, THE CIDER HOUSE RULES... and now, UP IN THE AIR. You can learn so much by watching the movies and then reading the books (or vice versa, of course).*

What all of my favorite adaptations have in common is that the screenwriters made major departures from the source material and yet still captured the essence of the books and what made them great. Often, the movies actually improve on the source material. JAWS is a good example of that...and so is UP IN THE AIR. 

Major changes from the book are inevitable and necessary. For one thing, you're telling a story in two different mediums. As a result, the biggest changes often have less to do with artistic concerns than they do with the realities of production. If you're doing a movie, and not a six hour mini-series, you're going to have to make some hard choice about what to drop and what to condense. To do that, you have to sit down with the book, strip everything away and find the true heart of the story... and then build backward from there, keeping only those characters, moments, and plot strands from the book that support the essence of the tale. Your job isn't to transcribe the book to film (which is what the first HARRY POTTER movie felt like to me), but to write a great movie. In many ways, the book becomes inspiration, rather than something you should follow with slavish devotion. That's especially hard for authors adapting their own books to pull off (read John Irving's excellent memoir of his CIDER HOUSE RULES adaptation for a glimpse at that...and he managed the feat brilliantly). 

Whenever I adapt a book, I read it first for pure pleasure and then afterwards ask myself if I liked it or not...and, if so, why? What is the story? What makes it special? What are the defining moments? What is the author trying to say? What is the tone? 

If I'm adapting the book for a movie, I also ask myself what are the three acts? 

If I'm adapting the book for a TV pilot, I also ask myself, what is the franchise and what are the conflicts that can generate episodes every week?

Then I re-read the book and highlight the key plot moments, the best lines of dialog, and any prose that sets the tone, establishes the theme, or reveals an important detail. At the same time, I also write a broad outline of the story as it exists in the book.

Next, I sit down and decide what the story is that I want to tell. Who are the central characters? What is the essence of the book? And then I write my own outline. Once I am happy with that, I go back and pluck out key lines of dialog or description that I want in the script. And then I start writing.

With "Ella Clah," a CBS pilot, Bill Rabkin & I decided that the most intriguing conflict in Aimee & David Thurlo's series of books was in the heroine's backstory: a female, Navajo FBI agent caught between two worlds, two nations, two ways of life. In the books, she's an ex-FBI agent who leads the Major Crimes Unit of the Navajo Police... so by keeping her an FBI agent, we made a major deviation. But we didn't end there. We gave her a male, Hispanic partner with some cultural conflicts of his own. And we resurrected a character who was killed off before the story started in the first book: Ella's father, a Navajo preacher, who drove around the Rez spreading the gospel, much to the shame of Ella's brother, a traditional Indian medicine man. We did it because we thought those conflicts would give us lots of interesting stories. Ultimately, instead of adapting "Blackening Song" or one of the other Ella Clah novels, we ended up writing an entirely new story but kept the characters true to who they were in the books. The pilot didn't sell, but I'm pleased to say that the authors were as pleased with the adaptation as we were.

With Victor Gischler's "Gun Monkeys," I streamlined everything, dropped the hero's entire family (and the subplots that went along with them), condensed events, and created an entirely new third act that I hoped stayed true to everything that I, and thousands of readers, loved about the Edgar-nominated book. At first, Victor was stunned by the changes but after getting over the surprise, he discovered that he actually really liked what I did (or at least that's what he tells me).   

What I'm leading up to with all this is that I think UP IN THE AIR is a brilliant adaptation, one that aspiring writers can and should learn from. And yet, in many ways, it's not an adaptation at all. Let me explain...  

Walter Kirn's book is about Ray Bingham, a charming yet emotionally remote guy who spends 322 days a year in the air, going from city-to-city firing people, and is on the verge of reaching a million domestic frequent flier miles, something that only a few others have ever attained. Oh, and he's also a motivational speaker reluctantly facing the prospect of going back home for his sister's wedding. Beyond that, and maybe a dozen lines of dialog, screenwriters Jason Reitman & Sheldon Turner scrapped everything else. Instead, they started from scratch with only the basic premise as a foundation.

It was a brave creative decision. And, I believe, also a necessary one. 

They stripped the book down to its narrative studs --- its unique voice,  its attitude, and its central character. They created a much stronger narrative spine and added two new characters -- a young woman at Ray's company who tags along with him on the road because she believes that his job can be done better via webcam and a traveling saleswoman much like himself who offers him no-strings-attached sex and might just be the soul-mate he never knew he was missing. 

As different as UP IN THE AIR is from Walter Kirn's book, I would argue that it's a loyal adaptation, a pure distillation of the story's soul that is perfectly suited to the medium in which its being told. In many, many ways, I think the screenplay is a vast improvement over the book. The screen story is more focused, Ray Bingham is more sharply defined, and yet the message, the tone, and the unique point-of-view of the book remain the same.

In the end, virtually nothing from the book made it on the screen. And yet, I would argue that everything from the book is there.  And, if you are a writer, accomplishing that contradiction is something to be admired.

UPDATE: I just saw Jason Reitman, who directed UP IN THE AIR, and his father Ivan Reitman, who co-produced it, interviewed together on Charlie Rose... and the story they tell of how the film was developed is very, very different than the one reported earlier in the press. Neither one of them mentioned the earlier scripts by Sheldon Turner and Ted Griffin, nor that Ivan was initially going to direct the movie for Dreamworks before Jason got involved.  That said, it was interesting to hear Jason talk about the adaptation. His approach, not surprisingly, is to take what he needs from the source material to make a good movie...and go where-ever his inspiration takes him from there. I forgot to mention earlier that his adaptation of Christopher Buckley's THANK YOU FOR SMOKING is every bit as good as this one and is another terrific example of how to do it right.

===============

*let's not forget the great TV series adapted directly from books,  like DEXTER, TRUE BLOOD, REBUS and MORSE (and, dare I say it, NERO WOLFE). You can learn a lot from them, too...even the ones that aren't directly based on the books, but rather the character or the franchise, like BONES, WIRE IN THE BLOOD, and many of the episodes of MORSE. When developing a book into a pilot/TV series, you have an even bigger challenge than you would simply adapting it for a feature. Not only do you want to be true to the essence of the book, and build a three-act structure into the tale, but you also have to develop an open-ended franchise, and the strong central conflicts, that together will become the narrative engine capable of generating 100 episodes. BONES did that brilliantly...so did DEXTER. 

The Los Angeles Times Loves My Brother

The Sunday Los Angeles Times Book Review gave my brother Tod an early Christmas present today. Their rave review for his short story collection OTHER RESORTS CITIES is already up on their website. Here's an excerpt: 

Goldberg, whose previous books include the novel "Living Dead Girl," a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the story collection "Simplify," is a master of presenting the dark matter of the human psyche in beguiling, sometimes fantastic, inventive ways. This collection gleefully introduces uninitiated readers into Goldberg's richly comic voice and his continued preoccupation with our potential for violence and self-deception.[...] The restraint, lyricism and deceptive simplicity of the story's architecture astounds with its heart-rending resonance. What Goldberg taps into most beautifully is the impulse to retreat from the chaotic complexity of the world, the ubiquitous temptation to inhabit the pristine model-home lives of our dreams.

Is there another Los Angeles Times Book Prize nomination in Tod's future? I wouldn't be surprised.

Incompetence

 It's only 12:45 and already I've encountered more incompetence than I can take in one day. First, I went to Office Depot to get a few reams of their brand of copy paper. I had a coupon for 15% off on each ream. So I picked up a box containing three reams of their brand. When I went to the counter, the clerk told me the box didn't qualify because the coupon was only good for reams of paper. 

"The box contains three reams," I said. 

"But they are in a box," she said.

"But it's still three reams," I said. "It says so right here on the side. There's even an illustration."

"You have to go back and bring three reams of paper to the counter."

"It's the same thing," I said. "Can't you just ring me up for three reams?"

"No, because the box is cheaper than getting three individual reams."

It turns out that, with my discount coupon, the difference in cost between the box of three reams and three individual reams was a wash.

"So, in other words, the discount coupon doesn't offer any discount at all," I said.

"It does if you were going to buy three reams separately instead of in a box."

"Why would you want to do that?"

"To get the discount," she said.

When I got home, my copy of Adobe InDesign CS4 arrived. I immediately installed it on my desktop computer. Or at least I tried. Midway through the installation, I got the error message:  

Setup has encountered an error and cannot continue. Contact Adobe Customer Support for assistance.

I disabled all my antivirus software, made sure no other applications were running, rebooted the computer, and tried again. Same problem. So I went to the Adobe website to see if they had any articles or FAQs dealing with my installation problem. They didn't. So I called customer support and got a guy in India with an accent so thick that it was nearly impossible to understand a word he said. I made him repeat everything, which seemed to piss him off. On top of that, he couldn't understand anything I was saying, which pissed me off. It took us a half hour  just get through my name, address, phone number, etc. When I finally told him my problem, he made me repeat the error message...which, of course, he got wrong. So we spent another ten minutes going through it, letter by letter, word for word. When that was done, he put me on hold so he could talk to an advisor. When he got back, he suggested that I go to the website for help.

"I did that already," I said. "That's why I called you."

"And that didn't resolve the problem?"

'Oh yes, it did, I just decided to call you for fun."

"I'm glad we could help, sir."

"I'm joking. Of course it didn't resolve my problem. That's why I am calling you."

He put me on hold to talk to an advisor. When he came back, he told me he had a solution. He told me to go to the Adobe website.

"I've already done that," I said.

He gave me a web address. I typed it. It led to an article on the Adobe website that had nothing to do with another piece of software on a different operating system.

"That article doesn't deal with my problem," I said.

"Have you already gone through the steps in the article?"

"No, because it's about a different piece of software on a different operating system."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I am," I said. "Do you know what software we are talking about?"

He put me on hold to talk to an advisor. When he came back, he suggested that I go to the Adobe website.

"We just did that," I said.

He gave me a different web address that led to a different article. At least this one dealt with my software...but still on a different operating system.

"Do you personally have any idea how to solve my problem or not?" I asked.

"No, I do not," he said.

"What about your advisor?"

He put me on hold ot talk to an advisor, then came back.

"No, he doesn't know either," he said. "You should try the steps in the article."

"But it's about Windows XP and I am on Windows 7."

"It's the best we can do at this time," he said. "Have I resolved your problem?"

"Oh yes, everything is much better now."

"I'm glad we could help," he said. "Have a nice day."

I gave up. I've managed to install the software on my laptop but not my desktop computer. But what is the point of calling customer support if the support personnel don't know anything about the software they are supporting?

Green Screen is Everywhere

You have to see this eye-opening compilation video that shows how inventively and frequently green screen is being used on TV, and not just for big effects sequences, but simple walk-and-talks down a residential street.

Mr. Monk and and the Epinion

 Mark Baker at epinion has given MR. MONK IN TROUBLE a thumbs-up. He says, in part:

I often found myself laughing out loud or at least chuckling and smiling as I went through the book. But it isn't all laughs. Mr. Goldberg always does a great job with these characters, and he allows us several moments that are very touching and even enlightening about them. They continue to be real people very recognizable to fans of the TV show.

[...]I have enjoyed these books so much, I don't completely feel like I've lost Monk yet.

Thanks, Mark!

Go See Avatar

 It doesn't matter whether you're into science fiction or not, if you love movies, you have got to see AVATAR. Even if you don't love movies, go see it. Visually, AVATAR is the most amazing thing I have ever seen in a movie theater. At first, the 3D feels like a gimmick...you're very aware of it and the glasses. Even the initial shots of the blue creatures look like typical CG. But once the movie gets to Pandora, you are immersed in a spectacular world and you will totally forget the technology that got you there. The images on screen are stunning, detailed, and utterly convincing...and the 3D puts you right into this make-believe world in a way that no other movie ever has before. It doesn't matter that the script and characters feel achingly familiar (think DANCES WITH WOLVES with blue aliens), or that the villains are one-note, one-dimensional cliches in an astonishingly fresh, 3D wonderland.  What you're seeing is so amazing, that the serviceable, on-the-money dialog and predictable characters are irrelevant. It's an experience. It's not just the 3D that's incredible, it's the realism of the computer-generated world. Every leaf, every drop of water, every machine, every creature, looks like a real thing, not some computer-rendered object. The blue aliens actually look as if they are made of flesh-and-blood instead of code. This movie is a monumental step forward in film-making that you have to experience. AVATAR is going to make a trillion dollars...and it deserves ever penny.

TV Main Title of the Week

Kindle Virtual Stocking Stuffers

 You've bought a Kindle as a Christmas present for that special someone. Now all you need are some good, cheap books to take it for a "test read." Look no further, my friend. My 2004 novel  THE WALK is now available in a $1.99 Kindle edition. Here's the dust jacket copy:

It's one minute after the Big One.  Marty Slack, a TV network executive, crawls out from under his Mercedes, parked outside what once was a downtown Los Angeles warehouse, the location for a new TV show. Downtown LA is in ruins. The sky is thick with black smoke. His cell phone is dead. The freeways are rubble. The airport is demolished. Buildings lay across streets like fallen trees. It will be days before help can arrive.

Marty has been expecting this day all his life. He's prepared. In his car are a pair of sturdy walking shoes and a backpack of food, water, and supplies. He knows there is only one thing he can do ... that he must do: get home to his wife Beth, go back to their gated community on the far edge of the San Fernando Valley.

All he has to do is walk. But he will quickly learn that it's not that easy. His dangerous, unpredictable journey home will take him through the different worlds of what was once Los Angeles. Wildfires rage out of control. Flood waters burst through collapsed dams. Natural gas explosions consume neighborhoods. Sinkholes swallow entire buildings. After-shocks rip apart the ground. Looters rampage through the streets.

There's no power. No running water. No order.

Marty Slack thinks he's prepared. He's wrong. Nothing can prepare him for this ordeal, a quest for his family and for his soul, a journey that will test the limits of his endurance and his humanity, a trek from the man he was to the man he can be ... if he can survive The Walk. 

"Harrowing and funny..."
—Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine 

"Lee Goldberg's hard-to-classify but not-be-missed The Walk, set in the aftermath of a major Los Angeles earthquake, pokes fun at the TV industry in the midst of disaster..."—Jon Breen, The Year In Mystery and Crime Fiction, 2004  

There are also a bunch of my previously out-of-print novels available now on the Kindle, including MY GUN HAS BULLETS, BEYOND THE BEYOND,  and my very first book .357 VIGILANTE, all priced at $1.99.

Snail Lady

If I wrote about a character doing this, nobody would believe it:

She collected snails, liking their portable hiding place and the impossibility of telling which was male and which was female. She traveled with snails in her luggage and kept hundreds at home. If she was bored at dinner parties, she might get a few snails out of her purse and let them loose on the tablecloth. As she didn’t eat much, she was often bored at dinner parties.

The woman being discussed is Patricia Highsmith.

Where To Find the Oldest Magazines on Earth

 It' s not unusual to see magazines that are a year or two old in the waiting room at the doctor's office. But that's nothing compared to what Alan Barer found in the waiting room at Eisenhower Medical Center in Palm Springs:

On the low table was a copy of the magazine, Palm Springs Life.

Flipping through I glanced at the obligatory page of the movers and shakers at a charity costume gathering. There dressed in western garb with toy six-guns at her sides was cousin Jan.Knowing that Jan had moved from the valley a few years ago, I checked the date.

Unbelievably, the magazine was over twenty years old.

The woman he is referring to, by the way, is my Mom, Jan Curran.

How To Be The Saint on a Limited Budget

Many thanks to the Davy Crockett Almanack for leading me to The Tainted Archive, and their post on "How to Emulate THE SAINT On A Limited Budget." The tips include:

3- You must maintain an air of mystery. To truly emulate the Saint you must create an aura of unpredictability around yourself. Always get up and hour or so before your young lady and sneak out, not returning sometimes for weeks on ends. Never say where you've been and always counter questions with other questions such as, 'has a bald oriental man been around looking for me?' or 'Life's too short. Let's go eat oysters and sip bubbly.' Another way to become an enigma is to jump up, asking if it's the police every-time the doorbell rings. When you do this slip a hand into your suit pocket as if you are reaching for a non existent gun. Whilst it is understood that some of these things will be difficult for a married Saint - it can still be done. Simply carry out the steps listed above but prepare yourself for divorce proceedings. Disappearing for weeks on end has been known to annoy certain wives.

The Girl Who Played with Cliches

I hated THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO. I thought it was a boring, cliche-ridden, bloated mess. The Lisbeth Salander character was, by far, the best thing about it...unfortunately,  the story centered primarily on Michael Blomkvist, a thinly disguised, idealized version of the author himself and the magazine he founded. It's an awful book.

 The only reason I read the sequel, THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE, is because so many people told me it was a much better book than TATTOO...and that it would make me understand the phenomenon. To some degree, they are right. The first third of the book is centered on Salander and her adventures abroad and back in Sweden...which actually are a lot of fun to read, if you can get past all the cliches (more on that in a minute). Salander is a great character that's stuck, unfortunately,  in two lousy novels.

The instant Michael Blomkvist returns, and even before he takes the spotlight, the book becomes overwhelmed with dull exposition (which is repeated endlessly, telling you the same facts over and over and over again), ridiculous coincidences, and pointless scenes that neither move the story forward nor reveal character. The characters become so thin that calling them "cardboard" would be giving them more substance and depth than they actually have. As if this wasn't punishment enough for the reader, the cliche-count radically increases as the book slogs on until it seems like there's one in every paragraph. Here are just a few of them:

"Nutty as a fruitcake"

"Go jump in a lake."

"he's pulling my leg."

"too many irons in the fire."

"out like a light."

"keep it under our hats."

"like a hot potato."

"you're clutching at straws."

"afraid he'd spill the beans."

"the penny dropped." 

"she's a loose cannon."

"cool as a cucumber."

"fight tooth and nail."

"kept her nose clean."

"fly in the ointment"

And so it goes, on and on, one dusty old cliche after another. By far the most used cliche in the book is "Hung out to dry/hang out to dry." It was used a dozen times before I gave up counting. I doubt these are Swedish cliches, so I blame the translator for being a lazy hack...and his editor for not doing his job.

This is a truly terrible book on just about every level. That said, it's marginally better than TATTOO by virtue of the first third.

TV Main Title of the Week

The Voices in Our Heads

There's a terrific interview with my brother Tod over at The Writers Inner Journey. Here's an excerpt:

"That I am able to ruminate on these rather dark issues for great lengths of time is somewhat disturbing in that I think the difference between what is clinically considered insane and what is clinically considered a writer isn’t that different—we both have voices in our head for prolonged periods of time and, occasionally, have intense conversations with them—but I think the only time I’ve been frightened by an idea was when I didn’t think I knew how to write it or wasn’t confident in my ability to do the story justice."

The Ladies Room

 My super-talented and creative sisters Linda Woods and Karen Dinino, authors of the wildly acclaimed, bestselling VISUAL CHRONICLES and JOURNAL REVOLUTION, have just published a new art book, which is sure to please their droves of devoted fans, who seem to idolize "the seesters" (sadly, the brothers, Tod and myself, have no such following). 

The book is called Meeting In The Ladies Room: Reflections Of Women In A Room Of Their Own and its a collaboration of photos and essays by a wide variety of creative women, including Rosie O'Donnell, Jann Arden, Amanda Palmer, Jen Foser and SHeDAISY. Here's the scoop:

What do you see when you look in the mirror? What do you think about when you are alone? What's the best ladies room you've ever been in? Whether you are an idolized celebrity or a struggling single mother, the ladies room is where you create your make believe, and where you face your reality. Join 68 brave women from around the world for an empowering look in the mirror and a meeting in the ladies room.

My sisters' fearless, humorous, no-rules approach to life and art has been featured on THE VIEW, in  magazines and newspapers nationwide, in other people's art books, and at every single one of our family gatherings. They don't go anywhere without their cameras around their necks...not even to go take a pee, as this gorgeous and remarkable book proves.   

The publisher is offering a special $10 discount off the cover price until December 31st. To get the savings, enter the code below at check-out.

Orders from the US (using US $):   GREATGIFT
Orders from UK (using UK £):   GREATGIFT2
Orders from EU (using EU €):   GREATGIFT3
Orders from AU (using AUD $):   GREATGIFT4

Be sure to check out the book preview!

Flop Pilot Bonanza

Warner Brothers is making some hard-to-find busted pilots available for sale on DVD exclusively from their site. The $19.95 titles include Irwin Allen's CITY BENEATH THE SEA, Gene Roddenberry's GENESIS TWO and PLANET EARTH, and  Andy Griffith's two "Sam McNeill" movies - WINTER KILL and DEADLY GAME (the concept was later reworked in two, one hour-long, ADAMS OF EAGLE LAKE flop pilots). They've also got some cool stuff like the pilots for the short-lived series MAN FROM ATLANTIS and THEN CAME BRONSON.  It's a real bonanza for TV geeks like, well, me.

The Man Who Produced UNCLE

My four-and-a-half hour, 1997 video interview with Norman Felton, the producer of THE MAN FROM UNCLE and DR. KILDARE among many other classic shows, is now up in several parts on the Archive of American Television site and on YouTube.  Coming soon: my interviews with Lorenzo Semple, Jr. and Glen A. Larson.

Preying on Dreams

Author Laura Lippman, who will be MWA president next year, commented on her blog about the reaction among self-published authors to MWA's decision. She wrote:

As the incoming MWA president, I have no voting rights, no role in policy-making. I am the happiest little figurehead you ever did see. But I served two terms on the board and I know how much work board members put into the organization. I also feel genuinely sad that so many self-published writers feel slighted by MWA's policies.No, it's not about merit. It's about professionalism. And while being paid for one's work isn't the only way to be professional, it's an awfully good way to start.

[...]I can't persuade people that MWA's policies are not the equivalent of censorship, that MWA isn't trying to prevent anyone from publishing, much less trying to block their right to self-expression. I'm not sure I can even persuade folks inclined to think differently that self-publishing is not synonymous with vanity publishing. No matter what I say, there are going to be some self-published writers -- differently published? -- who insist that I belong to MWA because I'm scared of a true free market, in which I would have to compete with all writers, not just those chosen by the -- take your pick of adjectives -- insular, out-of-touch, arrogant mainstream publishing industry.

This much I can say: MWA didn't change the game. Harlequin did. All the organization did was apply its existing policies to Harlequin's changing business model. And if you can't see how Harlequin's pay-to-publish program is designed to prey on writers and their dreams -- well, then I'm not really sure that you're cynical enough to write crime fiction.

TV Main Title of the Week: Extra FAST TRACK Edition

Mr. Monk and the Strong Start

The hardcover of MR. MONK IN TROUBLE and the paperback of MR. MONK AND THE DIRTY COP were both off to very strong starts in sales last week. TROUBLE hit #9 on the Barnes & Noble mystery hardcover list and #35 on the Borders hardcover bestseller list. Meanwhile, DIRTY COP hit #38 on Borders mass market mystery bestseller list,  #3 on the B&N mystery mass market list, and  #31 on B&N's overall mass market bestseller list. Thank you so much, Monk fans!

Yes, Standards Exist

Author Sandra Ruttan has blogged at length on numerous sites about her problems with the MWA taking an ethical stand against Harlequin's business practices. She writes, in part:

However, in all of this, do you notice what isn’t discussed? What is and is not eligible is determined by guidelines involving advances and ethical treatment of authors. Nobody’s talking about the caliber of writing, the quality of the books.

She's absolutely right. Because no professional writing or performing organizations bases their membership on subjective judgments on the quality of a person’s work. The MWA, SFWA, RWA, Horror Writers Association, Writers Guild of America, Screen Actors Guild, Directors Guild, Authors Guild, etc. all use a set of objective criteria to determine who qualifies for membership and which companies qualify as approved (or, in the case of WGA, SAG, DGA, as signatories). The only time they use quality of the work as criteria is in bestowing their awards…all of which are for work produced, published or performed by individuals and organizations that met their criteria.  

Her beef, and one echoed by many self-published authors (which she is not, btw),  seems to be that professional organizations have professional standards and not everyone can meet them. That’s true. It’s also true of professional organizations in every other field. She went on to say, in the comments to her initial posts:

It’s the authors who had no part whatsoever in this business decision, who a week ago were “legitimately” published who are now no longer with an approved publisher, when not one single thing about the writing, contracting, editing and production of their book has changed that I’m thinking about.

Those authors are unaffected. They remain active members and their books are eligible for Edgar consideration. Only those novels contracted with Harlequin after Dec. 2 are affected by the decision. 

If Sandra is truly concerned about the welfare of authors, I would hope that she would be as troubled as MWA, RWA, SFWA, and HWA are by the unethical conflict of interest inherent in the integration of Harlequin’s traditional publishing program and their pay-to-publish venture.

Sandra casually dismisses ethical concerns as irrelevant and something that the MWA, SFWA, RWA and HWA shouldn't be bothering with. I think she's wrong.

It’s my belief that the strong stand taken by these organizations will be a wake-up call to other publishers considering pay-to-publish ventures to avoid unethical conflicts-of-interest and to keep their traditional and pay-to-publish operations separate (as Random House did with Xlibris). If publishers maintain this separation, it will be far less likely that writers will be taken advantage of…and will go into pay-to-publish agreements with a more accurate view of what they are getting for their money. In the end, isn’t that good for everybody?

Sandra goes on to say that she feels that the quality of the books should be the one and only standard across the board.

And when it comes to awards, damn straight the number one concern should be quality of the books, not who published them.

Let’s take that thought one step further. Not every movie that's produced is eligible for an Oscar. There are very strict rules regarding which films qualify for consideration and which don’t (for instance, direct-to-DVD movies do not qualify, even if they are better than anything in the theatres). Should all movies, regardless of who makes them, where they are screened, or any other consideration, be eligible for an Oscar?

The same is true of Emmy awards. There are very strict rules about eligibility there, too. Should everything shown on a television screen, regardless of whether it was on a major broadcast network or not, be eligible for an Emmy?

The WGA awards are only open to scripts written under WGA contract. Does she believe those awards should be open to anybody who has written a produced script for anybody?

I'm sure you can see what I am getting at. The MWA is not alone. Professional organizations have professional standards…for membership, for approved auspices, and for their awards. That’s the way it is.

TV Main Title of the Week

As if Harlequin Wasn't In Enough Trouble

 Harlequin seems to be tripping over itself lately with one public relations blunder after another. First, they start up a vanity press program and use the editors of their traditional publishing imprints to recommend it to all their rejected authors. As if that wasn't bad enough, they've just re-released a series of vintage pulp paperbacks from their archives...but edited out anything they thought might be too sexist, racist, or politically incorrect for a contemporary audience.  The editor of the project, Marsha Zinberg, says:

Remember, our intention was to publish the stories in their original form. But once we immersed ourselves in the text, our eyes grew wide. Our jaws dropped. Social behavior—such as hitting a woman—that would be considered totally unacceptable now was quite common sixty years ago. Scenes of near rape would not sit well with a contemporary audience, we were quite convinced. We therefore decided to make small adjustments to the text, only in cases where we felt scenes or phrases would be offensive to a 2009 readership.

Naturally, this idiotic censorship hasn't gone over well, especially considering how sexually explicit, violent and sexist Harlequin titles can be nowadays. Vintage paperback collector Steve Lewis, a well-known historian of old pulps, was justifiably outraged. He wrote:

This business of sheltering our eyes from things you think might offend us now is absolute nonsense. Who do you think we are, a bunch of weak-kneed sissies? Even if it makes us uneasy every once in a while to look at our past, history IS history, and it’s ridiculous to try to cover it up. Please do us a favor, and keep publishing your X-rated romance novels, and leave the mystery and noir genres well enough alone. You say you’re delighted to have been able to reprint these books. I think you should be ashamed of yourselves, trampling on the work of others, especially when (as far as I can tell) it’s been done without their permission.

Another collector of vintage paperbacks wrote:

Are these slap-happy bitches kidding? So I suppose it might be fine to edit out, or even re-shoot, scenes of guys smackin’ dames and dolls in The Big Sleep or a Robert Mitchum classic? How about The Big Valley, that S/M TV western? Does this also include spanking? Do no Harlequin romances contain rough sex where women like to be slapped during a hard bang, or have rape fantasies in the dark hearrt of the urban sprawl?

Yet another collector wrote:

Had Harlequin finally decided not to reprint material it deemed offensive, I wouldn't have minded - more adventurous publishers might have taken the relay and it was just fine. But this is not what Harlequin chose to do, instead they decided to butcher books from another era to make them palatable to modern readers deemed too stupid or too sensitive to tackle "hot stuff" from the past.

Why bother reprinting vintage paperbacks if you are going to butcher them first? Isn't the charm, popular appeal, and historical significance of the books that they do reflect that grammar, writing styles, and social attitudes of a different time? Did they really think that censoring the books would be a selling point? Oh, wait, I get it.. they were hoping to tap that vast, under-served audience that has been waiting for somebody to publish censored, vintage paperbacks.

Between the vanity press venture and this censored book line, I have to wonder... is Harlequin truly oblivious about why people object to censorship and unethical conflicts-of-interest? Or are they fully aware of the the issues... and just don't care?

Widespread Positive Reaction to MWA's Action

The reaction to MWA's delisting of Harlequin has been overwhelmingly positive. I wish I could share with you the dozens of emails I've received from authors, many of them published by Harlequin, expressing their support for the MWA's action. But here's just a small sampling of the positive reaction from authors around the blogosphere... 

Author John Scalzi wrote:

Good on the Mystery Writers of America for keeping Harlequin’s feet to the fire on this.

Author Jackie Kessler offered an excellent analysis of Harlequin CEO Donna Hayes' letter to the MWA...

DellArte Press is still a Harlequin imprint — one that **Harlequin is steering rejected authors toward**. You are still telling these rejected authors that even though their manuscripts are not good enough for you to pay them, they are good enough for them to pay you.

....and Kessler applauded the MWA's actions.

bravo to MWA, which is standing behind its authors. The group spells out very clearly exactly why Harlequin’s actions have gotten it delisted — and further kudos for the organization making it extremely clear how Harlequin broke the rules

Author Maya Reynolds was also bothered by the ethical issues raised by Harlequin's pay-to-publish operation.

It simply is not kosher for Harlequin to reject writers while at the same time referring them to its self-publishing arm. Furthermore, it is inappropriate for Harlequin to imply that their editors will be "monitoring" the self-published releases with an eye to possibly offering a contract with a traditional Harlequin imprint. This is not an arms-length relationship. It offers false hope to writers while benefiting the Harlequin bottom line.

Author Nick Kaufmann writes:

The Mystery Writers of America (MWA) has stepped up as the first to put its money where its mouth is over the Harlequin Horizons/DellArte Press debacle [...] It's interesting to note that MWA's actions, quite appropriately, offer protection from consequence to Harlequin authors who signed contracts before this nonsense began.[...]It's a ballsy move, taking the delisting of Harlequin from threat to reality, and I applaud MWA for it.

On Twitter, author Stacie Kane wrote:

I applaud the MWA for this; not because it doesn't effect me but because it DOES effect ALL OF US

Author Laura Kinsale tweeted:

HQ's reply to MWA splainin self-servin "shiny innovative new book industry, where YOU pay US" makes me ill. Truly ill.

Prior to the MWA's decision being announced, literary agent Kristen Nelson says that she voiced her concerns about the pay-to-publish program directly to Harlequin editors:

one editor did try out the spiel about how publishing houses need to shift models in this bad economy but I wasn’t having any of that. I said vanity publishing was predatory—plain and simple and that needed to be understood. That Harlequin had a reputation that they are now putting in jeopardy and that the writers organizations had every right to speak out strongly as their whole purpose is to protect writers.

Not surprisingly, the strongest criticism of MWA's action has come from self-published and vanity press authors. For example, Henry Baum writes:

What’s so troubling about this is that the traditional publishing mindset has won the “battle” this week. And there shouldn’t even be a battle. The move by the MWA to drop Harlequin from its roster is particularly infuriating. It’s like they see the creeping influence of self-publishing and want to bat it down.

The MWA, SFWA, RWA, and HWA -- all of whom strongly condemned how Harlequin's pay-to-publish venture is integrated into their traditional publishing business -- aren't threatened by writers who've paid to be published.  What these organizations are concerned about is a vanity press industry that preys on the desperation and gullibility of aspiring authors and publishing companies that engage in unethical and predatory publishing practices.

No Limits to the Praise

Novelist James Reasoner said some very nice things on his blog about my movie FAST TRACK: NO LIMITS, which is now out on DVD. He said, in a part:

Katie needs money to save her garage, and her only real hope is to win a series of races with her cars. (She doesn’t drive herself, just provides the cars and takes part of the purses when they win.) Throw in more cops, some gangsters, a nasty villain, assorted bank robberies, beautiful women in skimpy outfits, several races, and a handful of really spectacular stunts, and you’ve got a highly entertaining action/adventure movie.

Most of the cast is European, but the two leads are American (Erin Cahill as Katie) and Canadian (Andrew Walker as Mike). Everybody does a good job, the script has some funny lines and several very effective dramatic moments, and the stunt drivers really steal the show. I don’t know if Lee has any more of these in the works, but if he does, I’ll watch ’em, you can count on that.

Thanks so much, James!

Mr. Monk and Mayhem

There's a Q&A interview with me today over at the MAYHEM & MAGIC blog about me and my latest MONK novel. Here's a peek:

Lee, tell us about a bit about your latest book and your writing schedule

[...]My writing schedule isn't set in stone. I basically work on my books whenever I am not working on a script, or vice-versa. I have about four months to write each book, so I write anywhere and everywhere I can put pen to paper (or fingers to a keyboard). No matter what I am writing, I tend to do my best work between 8 pm and 2 am. Don't ask me why...my brother Tod is the same way.

Will you be guest speaker at any mystery conferences this year?

I'll be attending Left Coast Crime in L.A, the 3rd Annual Forensic Trends: Psychiatric & Behavioral Issues Conference in Las Vegas, the International Mystery Writers Festival in Owensboro KY, Bouchercon in San Francisco, and the Professional Pierce Brosnan Impersonator Convention in my living room.

Capture The Saint

Burl Barer's CAPTURE THE SAINT, the first all new adventure of the famous Simon Templar since 1983's SALVAGE FOR THE SAINT, is finally available in a Kindle edition. The novel, approved by the Leslie Charteris estate, finds the Robin Hood of Modern Crime pursuing dangerous criminals and beautiful women with equal passion.

Sparkling wit, grand adventure, high style -- Burl Barer's CAPTURE THE SAINT brings back Simon Templar in all his glory.

MWA Delists Harlequin

From the MWA:

The Board of Mystery Writers of America voted unanimously on Wednesday to remove Harlequin and all of its imprints from our list of Approved Publishers, effective immediately. We did not take this action lightly. We did it because Harlequin remains in violation of our rules regarding the relationship between a traditional publisher and its various for-pay services.

What does this mean for current and future MWA members? 

Any author who signs with Harlequin or any of its imprints from this date onward may not use their Harlequin books as the basis for active status membership nor will such books be eligible for Edgar® Award consideration. However books published by Harlequin under contracts signed before December 2, 2009 may still be the basis for Active Status membership and will still be eligible for Edgar® Award consideration (you may find the full text of the decision at the end of this bulletin).

Although Harlequin no longer offers its eHarlequin Critique Service and has changed the name of its pay-to-publish service, Harlequin still remains in violation of MWA rules regarding the relationship between a traditional publisher and its various for-pay services. 

MWA does not object to Harlequin operating a pay-to-publish program or other for-pay services. The problem is HOW those pay-to-publish programs and other for-pay services are integrated into Harlequin's traditional publishing business. MWA’s rules for publishers state:

"The publisher, within the past five years, may not have charged a fee to consider, read, submit, or comment on manuscripts; nor may the publisher, or any of the executives or editors under its employ, have offered authors self-publishing services, literary representation, paid editorial services, or paid promotional services.

If the publisher is affiliated with an entity that provides self-publishing, for-pay editorial services, or for-pay promotional services, the entities must be wholly separate and isolated from the publishing entity. They must not share employees, manuscripts, or authors or interact in any way. For example, the publishing entity must not refer authors to any of the for-pay entities nor give preferential treatment to manuscripts submitted that were edited, published, or promoted by the for-pay entity.

To avoid misleading authors, mentions and/or advertisements for the for-pay entities shall not be included with information on manuscript submission to the publishing company. Advertising by the publisher's for-pay editorial, self-publishing or promotional services, whether affiliated with the publisher or not, must include a disclaimer that it is advertising and that use of those services offered by an affiliate of the publisher will not affect consideration of manuscripts submitted for publication."

Harlequin's Publisher and CEO Donna Hayes responded to our November 9 letter, and a follow up that we sent on November 30. In her response, which we have posted on the MWA website [NOTE: I HAVE POSTED IT BELOW], Ms. Hayes states that Harlequin intends as standard practice to steer the authors that it rejects from its traditional publishing imprints to DellArte and its other affiliated, for-pay services. In addition, Harlequin mentions on the DellArte site that editors from its traditional publishing imprints will be monitoring DellArte titles for possible acquisition. It is this sort of integration that violates MWA rules.

MWA has a long-standing regard for the Harlequin publishing house and hopes that our continuing conversations will result in a change in their policies and the reinstatement of the Harlequin imprints to our approved list of publishers.

Frankie Y. Bailey, 
Executive Vice President, MWA


MWA’s Official Decision: That because Harlequin's for pay publishing business violates MWA's rules for approved publishers, MWA takes the following action: First, Harlequin shall be removed from MWA's list of approved publishers upon the adoption of this motion; Second, that all current active status members of MWA whose status is based upon books published by Harlequin shall remain active status members; Third, that MWA decline applications for active membership based upon books published by Harlequin pursuant to contracts entered into after the effective date of this motion; Fourth, that books published by Harlequin pursuant to contracts entered into prior to the adoption of this motion shall be eligible for the Edgar® Awards, except that books published by DellArte Press shall not be eligible for the Edgar® Awards regardless of when such contract was entered into; and Fifth that books published by Harlequin pursuant to contracts entered into after the adoption of this motion shall not be eligible for the Edgar® Awards.

MWA's Executive Vice-President, and her or his designates, are directed to continue discussions with Harlequin in an effort to reach an agreement that would allow for Harlequin to be an approved publisher according to MWA's rules.

Harlequin Letter in Response to MWA Letters

Dear Ms. Bailey,

Thank you for your letter of November 30 and for the opportunity to address your concerns prior to your board meeting. 

Harlequin takes its relationship with the Mystery Writers of America very seriously. In response to your letters, I would like to share our perspective on the changing book publishing industry and Harlequin’s recent moves to keep pace with and lead innovation in our market. It is our hope that sharing our point of view will demonstrate our respect for the MWA and explain our motivation behind the launch of Dellarte Press.

Publishing models are changing and Harlequin needs to experiment within those models

We are sure you would agree that today’s book publishing industry is undergoing significant transformation. “Mega trends” affecting the industry include, but are not limited to, the questions raised by Google surrounding ownership of copyright, the rise of eBooks as a viable commercial format, and the swell of user-generated content throughout the Internet. Amazon’s growing influence in nearly all aspects of book publishing – from a book’s conception to its ultimate delivery in a reader’s mailbox – can be interpreted as a source of increasing pressure on traditional publishing models.

In the wake of these changes, self-publishing has emerged as a new force in the publishing industry, providing a forum for thousands of authors who would not secure a contract with traditional publishers. According to Bowker reports, 285,000 new titles and editions were self-published in the US last year, a number that exceeds the 275,000 titles published by traditional houses. Harlequin sees the rapid growth in self-published titles, up 132% since 2007, as validation that writers perceive self-publishing as a viable path to literary fulfillment. In recent weeks, Harlequin has heard from countless writers, either directly or via blogs, that self-publishing played an important, positive role in their writing careers. For example, Naleighna Kai, author of best-selling Every Woman Needs a Wife, posted the following in her November 28 blog entry:

"Self-publishing venues have made it easy for authors to get a book into print and into the hands of avid readers. There are a great deal of authors who started on that path and eventually swept into a lane which put them on the New York Times Best-seller’s list. Case-in-point, the Romancing the Stone series written by Catherine Lanigan writing as Joan Wilder, was on the NY Times for several weeks, then eventually made into a movie. Robert T. Kiyosaki was turned down by several major houses before he published his own book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, then hit it big on the NY Times list. Louise L. Hay’s self-published book, You Can Heal Your Life, was on the NY Times list for thirteen consecutive weeks. She went on to publish other powerhouses such as Wayne Dyer, Deepak Chopra, Suze Orman, Doreen Virtue, Sandra Brown, Tavis Smiley and many others. And it goes to show that what’s in, what’s popular, what’s perfect to publish with major houses is subjective."

"Self-publish, learn the industry, set some goals, build a name, then spread your wings. The people mentioned in this article inspired me to follow in their footsteps...I’m happy that I self-published first as it allowed me the opportunity to learn and grow."

Harlequin views its participation in Dellarte Press as an opportunity to participate in this space, supporting aspiring authors as they test the publishing waters. We feel compelled to respond to new publishing models and ensure that writers continue to see Harlequin as a leading publisher in the formats most relevant to them and their evolving readers.

Other publishers and writers associations are experimenting with self-publishing

Our competitors’ recent moves into self-publishing (e.g., Harper Collins via Authonomy and Random House’s past investment in Xlibris), encouraged us to look beyond our traditional publishing footprint. Given that Harlequin is a very small player relative to others in the Top 6 publisher ranks, doing otherwise would be foolish on our part. Fortunately, a number of writers’ associations have been supportive of these experiments. We are not alone in our acceptance of self-publishing, as evidenced by the following statement from the American Christian Fiction Writers we received on November 22, 2009 with respect to our Steeple Hill imprint.

"So many of the large publishing houses are extending self-publishing imprints that the boards of the ACFW have been forward-thinkers regarding our ever-changing industry. Because of this, I’m happy to say that I’ve been assured that ACFW has rewritten their Book of the Year contest guidelines so that authors of Steeple Hill books will continue to be able to enter the contest. In addition, as ACFW Conference Director, I’m pleased to tell you that we welcome the Steeple Hill editors at our conference, and hope that all of you will be able to attend."

We are pleased that the International Thriller Writers association has also taken this view, as communicated to its members in the following recent statement:

"Although we don't plan to make a formal statement at this time, our position is that ITW doesn't intend to get involved in Harlequin's business. In addition, our members who are Harlequin/MIRA authors remain honored and valued ITW members with all the privileges and rights of membership. No ITW members are going to be expelled or denied awards because of actions taken by their publisher beyond their control--that would be contrary to our charter."

Amid the reaction from a small, but vocal, group of authors, it is easy to forget that Dellarte Press represents a small experiment relative to the size of the greater Harlequin organization. It may be worth noting that Ninc has elected to apply its membership criteria to specific publishing programs, not a publishing corporation as a whole. Specifically, Ninc informed us of the following change on November 24, 2009:

"As our Bylaws remain constant, we have amended the more detailed qualifications for membership, listed in the P&PM. These qualifications are now concerned not with the publishing corporation as a whole, but concentrated on the particular program within the corporate for which the current or prospective member writes novel length fiction."

Harlequin believes that its standing within writers’ associations should reflect the 1,200 titles that we publish under traditional models each year and not a separate and distinct publishing arm that represents a very small portion of our activity.

We believe in informed choice for writers

We believe that writers are best served when they make informed choices. As such, Harlequin’s rejection letter templates will soon be modified to encourage the author to consider the wide range of publishing options now available to aspiring authors including submitting to another house, resubmitting to Harlequin, ePublishing, self-publishing, or working with Dellarte Press.

In her November 18, 2009 article, Maddie James of the Romance Novel Examiner took the view that self-publishing rounds out a writer’s available choices:

"Whether an author chooses traditional print publishing, a digital publishing press, or self-publishing, is totally up to the author. The author knows where they are in their career, how they want to move their career forward, and what steps to take to do so. It would be unwise to omit exploring all of the options."

Harlequin wishes to help expand this range of options, alternatives about which writers must be well informed before making decisions. We think that your membership would benefit from improved understanding of these options, in large part because they are not going away. 

Harlequin has made substantial modifications to our Manuscript Critique Service and self-publishing programs

On November 9, 2009, Lee Goldberg, chair of your Membership Committee, expressed concerns about the Manuscript Critique Service referenced within eHarlequin.com’s writing guidelines content. As of November 30, 2009, our Manuscript Critique Service is no longer available and does not appear alongside the writing guidelines featured on our website.

On the matter of our self-publishing program, we have responded to our authors’ concerns by changing the program name so that it is clearly a separate business from Harlequin’s traditional publishing programs. 

Our request of the Mystery Writers of America

When your board meets to discuss Harlequin’s standing with the Mystery Writers of America, we ask that you consider the following:

(a) the inevitable change sweeping through the book publishing industry

(b) the prevalence of self-publishing, a business model already pursued by our competitors, and the growing acceptance of its role on the part of several mainstream writers associations

(c ) the fact that Harlequin publishes 1200 titles per year under our traditional publishing programs, including many writers who are members of your association, and that we do not believe they should be excluded from full status because of a small, separate business line with which we are experimenting

(d) the opportunity for writers to make informed decisions about their publishing options

(e) the modifications that we have made recently to our publishing programs.

With this context in mind, we ask that Harlequin remain on the MWA list of approved publishers. If the MWA decides it cannot recognize Harlequin as an approved publisher at this time, we strongly encourage the MWA to retain Harlequin authors’ eligibility for the 2010 awards while we continue this discussion, particularly because their books were published on a traditional platform before Dellarte Press launched. The Romance Writers of America has taken this position, a source of great relief to our writers. In addition, it may be helpful for you to know that the RWA board will discuss this matter in late January and you may wish to consider similar timing.

Thank you for the opportunity to share our view of the evolving book publishing industry and Harlequin’s place within it. We hope to have provided useful insight into the innovations driving publishing forward and growing the presence of writers in the marketplace. While self-publishing represents a small experiment within Harlequin’s much larger business, we are excited to offer talented writers a range of alternate paths to commercial success and personal fulfillment. I truly believe that we share a common goal of accelerating the careers of mystery writers, today and for many years to come.

Should you wish to hear more from Harlequin on this or any other matter, we would be pleased to cooperate in any way possible. Please let us know if you would find additional information on our publishing activities useful or if you would like me to speak with the Board and/or executive. 

Sincerely,

Donna Hayes
Publisher and Chief Executive Officer, Harlequin Enterprises Ltd.

"Mr. Monk In Trouble" in Bookstores Today

 My ninth original "Monk" novel, MR. MONK IN TROUBLE, is arriving in hardcover in bookstores everywhere today. This book was especially fun for me to write. It gave me a chance to dabble in westerns, something I've always enjoyed reading but, until now, had never tried writing before. The story in MR. MONK IN TROUBLE bounces between the 1850s and present-day, between Monk's ancestor Artemis Monk (an assayer in a California Gold Rush town) and the Adrian Monk that we know and love.

I did a lot more research than I usually do for a Monk book. I took a week-long road trip through some California gold rush towns, took a bunch of pictures, then read a lot of books on the Gold Rush and frontier life in general, and mining techniques in specific. Once I got down to the actual writing, I imposed on the kindness of novelist Richard Wheeler, who has written some of the best westerns ever, to read some early drafts of the western sections to make sure that I wasn't embarrassing myself. I am tremendously flattered that he enjoyed the final result. He left this comment on my blog the other day:

I read Mr. Monk in Trouble virtually nonstop and enjoyed every page. Lee Goldberg knows that the richest humor veers close to pathos, and that is one reason the novel succeeds so well. Who but Monk would hand out wet wipes to Trick-or-Treaters? Natalie is greatly put-upon by her boss, but responds with stoicism, humor--and love. Some of the fun here is that the book takes us into the past, where Monk's ancestor Artemis is an assayer in a mining district and deals with goldrush scalawags and swindlers with the usual Monkian genius. This is much more than entertainment

I am so glad that he liked it and I hope that you will, too. And if you missed MR. MONK AND THE DIRTY COP when it came out last summer, now you can grab the paperback. Here's what some of the reviewers had to say...  

"After seven previous tie-in novels, it's safe (if not fairy obvious) to say that nobody knows the world of obsessive-compulsive detective Adrian Monk better than novelist Lee Goldberg. But that doesn't mean he's become lazy or complacent. As MR. MONK AND THE DIRTY COP shows Goldberg is willing to take chances with the firmly established characters, and is still able to provide plenty of laughs and well-crafted entertainment." Alan Cranis, Bookgasm

"Sharp character comedy combined with ingenious and fairly-clued puzzle-spinning. [...]Don't miss Lt. Disher's hilariously non-sensical variation on Sherlock Holmes' 'eliminate the impossible' dictum." —Jon Breen, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine

I've enjoyed all the Monk novels. Monk is my all-time favorite comic detective and Lee Goldberg has honored him by writing some of the finest tie-novels ever conceived. These have a richness of incident and backstory and place that give them real depth. And for me MR. MONK AND THE DIRTY COP is the best one yet." —Ed Gorman