Here’s the cover for my first MONK novel, "Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse," which comes out January 3. (CLick on the image for a larger view)
#1 New York Times Bestselling Author & TV Producer
Here’s the cover for my first MONK novel, "Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse," which comes out January 3. (CLick on the image for a larger view)
Congrats on the new cover. It’s always an exciting moment, no matter how many times it happens…
And the first one in the series — that’s great.
Now I can’t wait to read it. Couldn’t it come out sometime other when the second half of the season will start? 🙂 And how will I make it until January?
Mark
Ditto all of the above. I can’t wait either. Cover looks great.
Lee i know this doesn’t have to do with this post but I just have a question for you, if you don’t like idea of fanfiction how come you write books based on tv series .. isn’t it the same thing…creating stories based on characters that were invented by another author (eg. your monk book). I understand one is legal and one is not but it’s still the same principle.
It’s a natural question to ask. And it has been. A lot. I’ve answered this question about 1000 times already — in detail — in the various fanfic discussions on this blog. Please look there.
Nice cover. Who knows, you might actually convince me to buy a book based on a tv series *g*
You know, Lee, I’ve asked that question before and never seen the answer either. Could you point to one of the 1000 times so we don’t have to search the entire blog, please.
Mark
Mark and Fanficter:
http://leegoldberg.typepad.com/a_writers_life/2005/06/the_difference_.html
Thank you, Dean. I’d forgotten I’d written a blog entry about it. But what’s not in that entry is another key point… tie-ins are written with the the creator/author/license-holder’s consent and creative involvement. Paramount reads my DIAGNOSIS MURDER books and approves them before they are published. I have a very close relationship with Andy Breckman, creator/exec producer of MONK, and I run everything I do past him first. Because these are not my characters.
What’s unusual about these tie-ins is that I also have a close connection to the two series themselves (as an exec producer/writer on DM and as a writer on MONK).
It’s not a bad cover, but I wish they could have somehow worked a Big Dick into the scheme.
If that answered the question the way I meant it, I missed it.
Whatever. We don’t need this post going to the fan fic debate, too.
Looking foward to Monk in January.
Mark
I’ll check this one out. The odd thing about novelizations, for me, is that they never quite feel “right” to me. I can view the exact same characters and ideas that the novelist viewed and yet “see” them differently.
But then I’ve never read a novelization by someone who was actually a creator of the show, so I’ll be interested to see how I react. I do love Monk…
And yes, very cool cover.
A slight clarification, JD. A “novelization” is a screenplay adapted into novel form. In other words, a writer takes the screenplay and adapts it into a book, using the dialogue and story and fleshing out the details. A “tie-in,” which my DM and MONK books are, is an original story using characters from a TV show, movie, cartoon, etc.
And I wasn’t the creators of DM or MONK… Joyce Burditt created DM and Andy Breckman created MONK.
Lee–I was surprised the MONK cover seems to show him uncharacteristically torsion-testing a spider web or hand-washing the window of a scummy apartment that I lived in during the 1970’s. Do you have any input on cover art?
–john–
Nope.
If a Monk tie-in novel were written by just about anybody else, I’d laugh at it. But considering that it’s from Lee… well, I still might laugh, but I might actually read it, too.
Oh, I know you weren’t the named “creator” as such. I was using it in the sense of one who contributed to the creation of a show, rather than the offical title of “creator.” Please don’t sic the union on me 🙂 .
And thanks for clarifying for me re: novelization.
Elsewhere in his weblog, Lee Goldberg wrote: “Of course, it helps that I’ve written one and a half novels (so far) in Natalie’s voice, so I feel a special connection to her.”
Does that mean that these “Monk” novels are written in the “first-person-Natalie”?
Yep. the novels are written from Natalie’s point of view. I thought getting inside of Monk’s head would ruin the fun, so I decided to go the time-tested Sherlock Holmes/Nero Wolfe route and write the books from the POV of the assistant.