A Writer's Life

Me Down Under

Elizabeth Farrelly of the Sydney Daily Herald is a frustrated Kindler. Whenever she goes searching for books, she gets sent to people like me...and my Mom.

You can't search alphabetically, and much as Amazon vaunts its relationship with publishers you can't get Pete Dexter or Tim Winton or A.A. Gill and if you search Carl Hiaasen you get three Lee Goldberg westerns and a self-helper called Active Senior Living.

I don't think I've written any westerns (besides bits of MR. MONK IN TROUBLE), but it's still nice that she remember me in the midst of her Kindle woes.

The Mail I Get

I need your invaluable expert advice. I'm going to pitch to a network in several weeks. It's my first time doing this so while I have the treatment ready, how would I present and package the actual treatment in terms of putting each copy in binders, have covers on each copy, etc. Thanks Lee.

I never do anything fancy. I just print out the pitch, black-and-white, no fancy graphics or fonts, with a cover page that has the title and byline centered, and the date and my contact info (or agent, or studio, depending on the auspices the meeting was arranged under) in the lower right. I staple the upper, left hand corner of the document and turn it in.

Wideman on Lulu

There's been a lot of hype and talk over the last few days about National Book Award finalist John Edgar Wideman self-publishing his latest collection with Lulu as the inaugural author in their VIP Publishing Program. But what has been left out of the discussion, at least until the Los Angeles Times story today, is that his son Daniel is a Senior Product Manager with Lulu, which explains a lot about how they snagged the acclaimed author. My guess is that Wideman got his books published for free, or at a very low rate, in return for allowing Lulu to use him to publicize and market their new (and pricey) VIP Publishing service, which is aimed directly at previously published authors. But you will notice that none of the Lulu blogs, interviews or press materials mentions Wideman's personal connection to the company and any role that may have played in his decision to go with them. 

TV Main Title of the Week

A Commercial I Don't Skip Past

This commercial makes me laugh every time I see it.

The Mail I Get

I recently got an email from a debut author looking for some touring advice. She wrote, in part:

My debut novel is coming out in May, and I'll be spending all of June traveling around the country, visiting bookstores and book clubs. My schedule is anchored by reading/signing events at key bookstores, with private parties and book club meetings in the local areas around them. As I finalize my schedule, I notice I have a lot of downtime on weekday daytimes. Obviously, most people are at work then, so there's not much to do [...] Besides bookstore drop-ins, what are ways for a traveling writer to make productive professional use of those weekday daytimes?

Write. Or relax. If you haven't done a book tour before, you will find that it is exhausting. If you want to be at your best for those evening signings, talks, etc., you need some down time. I also find that writing keeps me mentally "centered" when I'm traveling, especially if I'm hitting several cities over a very few days. It can become a blur. It's also nice to do a little sight-seeing...it might spark ideas or scenes in your next book.

But if you are intent on maximizing your promotion time, try to call ahead to each city and arrange a lunch or breakfast with a newspaper reporter or local blogger. Or try to arrange a radio or tv interview with a local station. If all else fails, you can help spread good will (and positive word of mouth) by offering to talk to a local high school or college English class...or at a local library.

Lie to Me

 Authors talk a lot about the power of hand-selling, how a bookseller's positive recommendation of a book means more than all the self-promotion, blogging, and twittering you can do. That's because customers trust that booksellers are knowledgeable and well-read...and that they are sharing an honest opinion when they recommend a title and are telling the truth when they say a book is particularly popular with their customers. But that could change if independant booksellers follow the sleazy example set by the Boulder Bookstore, where the booksellers are being paid off to recommend certain books and to claim a book is a "local favorite" when, in fact, they haven't read the books and they aren't local bestsellers:

The “Recommended” section at the Boulder Book Store, an independent bookseller in Colorado, features a mix of titles and genres. And also: a mix of distribution models. Among the traditionally published works on display stand a smattering of print-on-demand titles — many of them being sold on consignment by authors from the Boulder area.

They’ve paid for the privilege. The store charges its consignment authors according to a tiered fee structure: $25 simply to stock a book (five copies at a time, replenished as needed by the author for no additional fee); $75 to feature a book for at least two weeks in the “Recommended” section; and $125 to, in addition to everything else, mention the book in the store’s email newsletter, feature it on the Local Favorites page of the store’s website for at least 60 days, and enable people to buy it online for the time it’s stocked in the store.

It's another attempt to separate aspiring, self-published authors from their money. The bookstore is offering the self-published authors shelf-space for a small fee, which would be laudable if it wasn't coupled with misleading the public into thinking the books were actually read by the bookseller and popular among their customers.

And for the self-published, print-on-demand author, it's one more check to write on top of what they've already paid for the book to be published, what they paid to buy copies of the book to resell, and what they paid to have them shipped. Add to that what the bookstore is charging to stock and dishonestly "recommend" the title as a "local favorite," there is slim chance the author will ever make a dime on his books...

To be fair the Boulder Bookstore, what they are doing is giving self-published authors a chance to get their books on a store shelf...something few bookstores are willing to do. And booksellers charging publishers for store placement isn't entirely new: Barnes & Noble and Borders charge publishers for front-of-store placement and prominent displays. However, and I may be wrong about this, the big bookstore chains don't charge publishers a fee to have their books "recommended" or falsely listed as a local bestsellers. But whether B&N does it or not, that doesn't make accepting pay-offs to deceive customers any less sleazy and shameful.

Photo of Boulder Book Store by Jesse Varner used under a Creative Commons license. Thanks to Richard Wheeler for the heads-up on the article.

TV Main Title of the Week - Special Lady Blue Edition

Below is a fan-created main title for LADY BLUE, the short-lived series starring Jamie Rose.

And here is the actual main title of the show.

TV Main Title of the Week

Booking

I schlepped out to the 31st annual Paperback Collectors Show & Sale in Mission Hills as I do almost every year. It seemed to me that there were fewer dealers today than in years past and that the selection wasn't as good. Even so, I managed to find a few books I couldn't live without...

RATHER A VICIOUS GENTLEMAN, FOR MURDER I CHARGE MORE and OF ALL THE BLOODY CHEEK by Frank McAuliffe (and then discovered, when I got home, that I already had two of the books!)

TILL IT HURTS by Nick Quarry (Marvin Albert)

24 HOURS TO KILL by James McKimmey

HORSEMEN FROM HELL by Homer Hatten (whom I never of, I just liked the title and the jacket copy)

SOUND OF GUNFIRE by Frank Bonham

DEATHS LONG SHADOW by Jay Barbette (Bart Spicer)

There was a guy with a very bad toupee showing people pictures of his naked girlfriend -- which I thought was strange until I overheard another guy, apparently in his late 50s, lamenting to a dealer that he wasn't buying as many books now that "he'd become a father for the first time late in life" and his new wife, "an ex-Playboy centerfold ten years younger than me," was demanding more of his attention. I walked away before he could whip out a nude photo of her, too. I don't carry around a nude photo of my wife to show people. In fact, I don't have any nude photos of her at all. I should discuss that with her tonight. 

Charles Willeford With A Dolphin

 There's a story behind the shame I share with Jessica Alba... 

My good friend Ernie Wallengren co-created the NEW ADVENTURES OF FLIPPER for Samuel Goldwyn Jr.. Ernie was brought in, if memory serves, to rewrite a previous script/format by another writer that didn't win over Goldwyn. So Ernie wrote the pilot, shot it in Florida, and wanted Bill Rabkin & I to come in as producers for the series. We'd just come off of THE COSBY MYSTERIES and were looking for a job...but we really didn't want to do the show. But we owed Ernie big time, so we went in with him to meet Goldwyn and talk about the show. Goldwyn told us that he wanted the  show to be  "like a Charles Willeford novel, but with a dolphin."  Ernie had no idea who Willeford was, but Bill & I did, so we played along, fighting laughter all the way. After the meeting, Goldwyn told Ernie we were perfect for the show...but by the time they were ready to make a deal with us, we got a gig on SEAQUEST and bowed out. Ernie didn't mind us going to another show, he knew it was better for our careers and our bank accounts, but he insisted we find him someone else to take our place...so we recommended our friend Terry Winter, who we'd worked with on COSBY and who was desperate for a gig. Ernie signed him up right away. 

Flash forward six or eight months. SEAQUEST had been cancelled and I was having a friendly lunch with Ernie, who was miserable. He was complaining about how hard it was to come up with stories for his show. I told him to stop whining, it was easy -- I could come up with three stories for FLIPPER before dessert. So he said "Go ahead, smartass." So, just to be funny, I pitched "Cape Flipper," a dolphin take on Cape Fear.  A killer that Flipper put away comes back to settle the score. Ernie's face lit up. "You've got an assignment. I need it in four days." I laughed, because I was joking. Ernie laughed, because he wasn't. I tried to talk him out of it, but he was quick to remind me how much we owed him. (He'd hired us on staff on two series early in our careers).

I don't remember why Bill wasn't at the lunch, or what his reaction was when I told him we had an assignment to write "Cape Fear with a dolphin," but I do know he took the writing of the script in stride. I struggled with it. It was fun for Bill and hell for me. The only pleasure I got out of the show was that the bad guy is reading my book MY GUN HAS BULLETS in one of the scenes. 

We ended up writing a second episode of FLIPPER that was even worse (it was called "That's A Moray," which should tell you how awful it was), but I don't remember how that one came about.  All I remember is that Lois Chiles, the female lead from the 007 movie MOONRAKER, was the guest star. 

The only thing FLIPPER is memorable for is, of course, Jessica Alba. Ernie discovered her when she was twelve or thirteen and I have to give him credit -- even then, he knew that she was going to be a big star. He must have said it a hundred times. It was hard for me to see her potential from a FLIPPER episode,  but he saw her future very clearly. 

The Shame I Share with Jessica Alba

Here is the second worst thing I have ever written: the "Cape Flipper" (later retitled "Past Tense") episode of THE NEW ADVENTURES OF FLIPPER, which starred a young Jessica Alba. But Jessica and I are not alone in our shame. Emmy Award-winning SOPRANO's exec producer Terry Winter also worked on this little-seen show, which was set in Florida but shot down in Australia.

Sexually Active Senior Living

Who knew that retirement homes were a great place to pick up chicks? My Mom reveals the sordid truth in this short excerpt from her sequel-in-progress to  Active Senior Living, her fictionalized memoir:

I was sitting in the lobby lounge with my buddy Larry, just passing the time of day before we went in to dinner when Dale came over and sat down on my other side and began talking to me.

"Do you like movies?" he asked.

" Yes, " I said.

Dale was all smiles. " You know, they show a movie here every night upstairs in the media room. I could come to your apartment and get you and we could go together. How about if we do that tonight?"

" No thank you," I said.

" It's an hour before dinner. Let's go to the park. I still drive and my car is out in front. Come on," he said , reaching for my arm.

I pulled my arm away and said, " No, thank you, I don't want to go to the park."

Dale leaned in closer, as if he had a secret to tell me.  " Do you have a DVD player?"

" Yes, why?"

" I have a lot of movies. I could bring one to your apartment tonight. It's more fun if you watch a DVD with someone else. What time should I come over?"

" I'm not interested in watching a DVD with you," I said, leaning away from him.

" Well, then," he said, all smiles again, " Let's just go to the park together. They have benches and we could sit together and just enjoy the sunshine."

" My answer is still no," I said , hoping my tone showed that I had enough of his asking me to do something with him.

"What's your apartment number?" he asked. " I'll just come over tonight and we can visit or watch t.v. together."

"I'm not giving you my apartment number," I said , " I don't want you to come over so get that idea out of your head."

Larry who had been sitting quietly and listening to all this began to laugh. Dale looked at him, as if noticing him for the first time.

" And who are you?" Dale asked.

" I'm Larry and I don't want to watch a DVD with you, or go to a movie, or sit together to watch t.v. and don't ask me to go to the park, either."

Well, I burst out laughing at Larry's response to Dale.  Dale, on the other hand, didn't find it funny and stood up, putting his hand on my shoulder. " If you change your mind and you want to get together after dinner just give me a call. I'm in apartment 104."

And with that parting request he left the lounge area.

" I think you made a conquest, " Larry said.

We were still laughing as we headed in to dinner.

The Worst Thing I Have Ever Written

We were massively rewritten but still, I remain embarrassed and ashamed of my association with this horrendously awful show.

2010 Scribe Award Finalists Announced

The International Association of Media Tie-In Writers is pleased to announce the finalists for the fourth annual Scribe Awards, which honors excellence in the field of media tie-in writing for books published in 2009.  The winners will be announced at a ceremony to be held at Comic-Con International July 22-25 in San Diego.

2010 SCRIBE AWARD FINALISTS

 BEST NOVEL (GENERAL FICTION)

AS THE WORLD TURNS: THE MAN FROM OAKDALE by "Henry Coleman" & Alina Adams

CSI: BRASS IN POCKET by Jeff Mariotte

PSYCH: A MIND IS A TERRIBLE THING TO READ by William Rabkin

BEST NOVEL (SPECULATIVE FICTION)

STAR TREK VANGUARD: OPEN SECRETS by Dayton Ward

STAR TREK: A SINGULAR DESTINY by Keith R.A. DeCandido

WARHAMMER: SHAMANSLAYER—A GOTREK AND FELIX NOVEL by Nathan Long

TERMINATOR SALVATION: COLD WAR by Greg Cox

ENEMIES & ALLIES by Kevin J. Anderson

BEST ADAPTATION (GENERAL & SPECULATIVE)

COUNTDOWN by Greg Cox

GI JOE: RISE OF THE COBRA by Max Allan Collins

THE TUDORS: THY WILL BE DONE by Elizabeth Massie

BEST YOUNG ADULT (ORIGINAL & ADAPTED)  

CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS by Stacia Deutsch and Rhody Cohon

BANDSLAM: THE NOVEL by Aaron Rosenberg

THUNDERBIRDS: DEADLY DANGER by Joan Marie Verba

GRANDMASTER: WILLIAM JOHNSTON

TV Main Title of the Week

Bizarre Question: The Sequel

The same woman who asked me yesterday if I knew any agents who specialized in "jewish psychic detectives" approached me again today as I was signing books after my screenwriting panel with April Smith, George Mastras, Donald Bain, and Derek Haas.

"Do you know of any agents or producers who are looking for screenplays about a university called Griffin University -- but I have to change the name to a different university because there is a Griffin University -- that lures in the most creative students only to kill them because they are on a secret mission to eradicate creativity in the year 2310?"

"Yes, I do," I said.  "Unfortunately, the agents and producers who specialize in scripts about universities with secret plans to eradicate creativity already have so many scripts about universities with secret plans to eradicate creativity that they just aren't taking any more."

"Are they set in 2310?"

"A lot of them are," I said. 

"Oh, that's a shame," she said and looked over at screenwriter Derek Haas, sitting a few seats down from me, signing books. He co-wrote WANTED (the movie with Angelina Jolie), 3:10 TO YUMA, and DECEIT.  I am very jealous of him.

"Do you think that he might know of producers who are still looking for screenplays about a university with a secret plan to eradicate creativity in 2310?" she asked.

"He definitely would," I said. "You should go ask him."

When I left the conference a few minutes later, she was talking to him and he looked as if he was in pain. I won't say that I ran out of the hotel, but I was moving very quickly.

Bizarre Question of the Day

I am at Left Coast Crime and a woman just asked me "do you know any agents who specialize in Jewish psychic detectives?"
"No," I said. "But I am curious why you asked me."
"You're Jewish and you write Monk."

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

The Man with the Iron-On Badge Kindle-fied

"As dark and twisted as anything Hammett or Chandler ever dreamed up [...] leaving Travis McGee in the dust." Kirkus, Starred Review

 My favorite, and most acclaimed book, THE MAN WITH THE IRON-ON BADGE, is now available in a Kindle edition. Up until now, this Shamus Award-nominated novel has only been available in a hard-to-find, out-of-print, hardcover edition.

It's about Harvey Mapes, a 26-year-old security guard who spends his nights in a guard shack outside a gated community in Southern California, reading detective novels, watching reruns, and waiting for his life to finally start. He gets the chance to become a "private eye" when a homeowner asks Harvey to follow his wife. The only problem is, Harvey has learned everything he knows about detective work from mystery novels and “Magnum PI” reruns. Harvey quickly discovers that the difference between fiction and reality could be fatal.

Here's just a sampling of the critical response:

"Approaching the level of Lawrence Block is no mean feat, but Goldberg succeeds with this engaging PI novel." Publishers Weekly 

“A wonderfully fresh voice in the mystery genre, Goldberg will delight fans of Janet Evanovich and Robert Crais,” - Rick Riordan, author of "Percy Jackson & the Olympians"

"Lee Goldberg bravely marches into territory already staked out by some fierce competition--Donald Westlake, Lawrence Block, the early Harlan Coben--and comes out virtually unscathed." The Chicago Tribune

"Goldberg has a knack for combining just the right amount of humor and realism with his obvious love for the PI genre and his own smart ass sensibilities. THE MAN WITH THE IRON ON BADGE is a terrific read. Goldberg is the real deal and should be on everyone’s must read list." Crimespree Magazine 

"The Man With The Iron-On Badge is a quick, fun read with a satisfying and unexpected ending. Harvey Mapes is a hero I hope we see in a sequel." -- Phillip Margolin, author of "Gone But Not Forgotten"

You Can Become a Kindle Millionaire, Part 14

 Joe Konrath recently changed the covers for some of his weaker-selling Kindle books and saw his sales shoot up overnight. He suggested that I do the same thing for some of my books and I am following his advice. I just changed the covers for my short story collection THREE WAYS TO DIE and DIE, MR. JURY, my compilation of the four .357 VIGILANTE novels. I'm very curious to see if he's right.

I've also updated THE WALK to include the first three chapters of   Joe's novel THE LIST... and MY GUN HAS BULLETS to include a chapter of his book SUCKERS.  He's done the same for me. It will be interesting to see if this cross promotion boosts both of our sales. It could be a month or two, though, before we see a spike, if there is even going to be one, since lot of folks download books as impulse buys and then don't get around to reading them for quite a while.

I have to hand it to Joe, he has been the trailblazer when it comes to exploiting all the possible potential out of selling books on the Kindle. And he's been right more than he's been wrong...and has had the success to prove it. He's on track to earn more than $40K this year in Kindle royalties from stuff that was in a drawer. 

But he's also realistic. He offers some very sobering advice on his blog this week to aspiring authors who think they can follow in his footsteps and by-pass entirely the struggle to get an agent and have your book bought by publisher. Bottom line: you probably can't.

TV Main Title of the Week

Mr. Monk and the Reader's Choice

ELLERY QUEEN MYSTERY MAGAZINE has just announced the winners of their Readers Choice Awards for the best stories of 2009 and I am stunned, and pleased, to discover my Artemis Monk story "The Case of the Piss-Poor Gold" made the list.

First place:
Mike Herron's "Dolphin Junction" tied with Doug Allyn's "An Early Christmas"

Second place:
Clark Howard's "White Wolves"

Third place:
Dave Zeltserman's "Julius Katz"

Fourth place:
Doug Allyn's "Famous Last Words"

Fifth place:
Doug Allyn's "The Valhall Verdict"

Sixth place:
Jack Fredrickson's "For the Jingle"

Seventh place:
Janvillem van de Wetering's "The Bleeding Chair"

Eighth place:
Lee Goldberg's "The Case of the Piss-Poor Gold"

Ninth place:
Lou Manfredo's "Central Islin, USA"

Tenth place:
Brian Muir's "Dummy"

Congratulations to all the winners!

TV Main Title of the Week

You Can Become a Kindle Millionaire, Part 13

My Kindle sales for February we up a tick from last month. THE WALK sold 573 copies in 28 days vs 536 in  31 days in January. MY GUN HAS BULLETS sold 167 copies and THREE WAYS TO DIE sold 136. Last month, BEYOND THE BEYOND, priced at $1.99, sold 71 copies so I lowered the price to 99 cents for February to see if I could jack up sales a bit...and sold 85 copies. I went from selling about 2 copies a day of BEYOND to 3, hardly worth the price cut,  so I'm going to raise the price back to $1.99. I debating whether to raise the price of THE WALK to $2.99 to take advantage of the new Kindle royalty formula...but I am afraid what I will lose in sales volume will not make up for the increase in my royalty per book. (Click on the image for a larger view of my full royalty statement) 

My overall royalties were $777 vs. $775 for January. If my sales continue at this pace, I could earn close to $10,000 this year from the Kindle. But thats nothing compared to how my friend Joe Konrath is doing. As of February 24, he'd earned $2750 last month in Kindle royalties on nine titles...if he keeps that up, he's going to earn $33,000 this year from Amazon on his out-of-print and previously unpublished manuscripts alone. Click on the image below to see his royalty statement in detail: