Month: May 2005

Important Message from The International Confederation of Rangers

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Stlgrangers3There are a significant number of fans who would like to see a feature film version of SPACE RANGERS with the original cast. We never got the final episode we deserve due to political issues at the network.  The fans are uniting around this very important cause. We have already designed the movie poster. Look for our full-page advertisements in Daily Variety,  Starlog, Adult Video News and Highlights for Children.  You can make a difference!

Tod the Starmaker

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Brace yourself… here are two posts in a row pegged on my younger brother Tod, the literary novelist and teacher. Or should I say, star-maker. Two of his students have won big-time publishing contracts…and it ain’t with PublishAmerica.

First there was  Lorna Freeman, who landed a three-book deal with Del Rey for her fantasy novel COVENANTS, which became a bestseller.  She signed at the Festival of Books last year and Tod was so proud, I think he pushed her book more than his own.

Now there’s  Eduardo Santiago, who has just sold his first novel TOMORROW THEY WILL KISS to Little Brown.

The moral of this story? It pays to take Tod’s UCLA course.  Hell, I may take it.

Colonial Fan Force

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My brother Tod saw the latest STAR WARS movie and in his musings about the morons who camped out at the wrong theatre for the last few weeks, his thoughts naturally turned to the folks at the Colonial Fan Force.  Who are they? They are the diehard BATTLESTAR GALATICA fans who spent thousands of dollars on full-page newspaper and magazine ads clamoring for a feature film version of the original series with the original cast...even though the show had already been revived as a SciFi Channel miniseries with an all-new cast.

The miniseries begat a new BATTLESTAR GALACTICA series, which has turned into a great show  (far, far, FAR better than the original) and is big hit. And Richard Hatch, one of the stars of the old series, has seemingly
betrayed the Colonial Fan Force cause by taking a recurring role in the
new show.

Bsgdvdad8uzSo where does that leave the dedicated soldiers of the Colonial Fan Force? Have they given up their campaign, satisfied now that the show is back and doing well? I thought I’d check in on them and see.

Well, it’s not enough that BSG is back and a hit. They’re purists, my friends. They are still pining to see Herb Jefferson and Laurette Spang in space-age corduroy…but they’ve given up on seeing a big-screen version of the original series. Now they’ll settle for a  direct-to-DVD movie.

"There are still a significant number of people who would like to see a reunion movie based on the original 1978 series… there are still viewers waiting to see the original series concluded… The universe and DVD collections are big enough to hold both the new series and the made for DVD adventure of the original series!"

They are launching a "grass-roots" campaign to make their dream a reality.  They’ve already designed the DVD box, so they are way ahead of the game.   

They are imploring their Fan Force to distribute their flier at coffee shops, comic book stores, Star Trek conventions, Falafel huts, Jews for Jesus volleyball games, tupperware parties,   tattoo parlors, Scientology meetings, dog kennels, plastic surgery clinics, bass fishing competitions, bar mitzvahs, Jenny Craig Diet Centers, any place people congregate and share the undying, passionate dream of bringing back the original BSG with the original  cast.

If you can’t send them a check, considering giving them your old car, truck, or recreational vehicle. I’m sure they’ll even come and pick it up for you.

(Click on the picture for a larger image… and to download to pass out at your next major family gathering)

Good Advice

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Legendary western novelist Richard Wheeler used iUniverse, free of charge, to reprint some of his out-of-print novels through the Authors Guild "Back in Print" program (I did the same thing with MY GUN HAS BULLETS).  He has some good advice for aspiring authors who are thinking about self-publishing their novel.

The quality of a book usually has little to do with its sales numbers at
vanity presses such as iUniverse. Through the Authors Guild back-in-print
program, I have put ten successful reverted novels back in print through
iUniverse. These were all published by reputable NYC houses, including
Doubleday, M. Evans, and Forge (Tom Doherty Associates). One won a Spur Award.
Most were well reviewed.

The annual royalties I receive from iUniverse for all ten titles is around a
hundred dollars. Why? Because iUniverse is at bottom a printer, not a publisher.
It only minimally performs publishing functions, such as editing, copyediting,
and marketing. Nonprofessionals who take the vanity press route are deluding
themselves if they think they are being published, when all they are achieving
is a printing of their material.

I know of no shortcuts: if you can write something powerful and potentially
profitable, you have a chance. If you regularly attend genre fiction
conferences, you will have a good opportunity to meet editors and agents and
make your work known to them.

The vanity press alternative is a printed book, not a published book. It will
supply you with the illusion that you are a published author. But it is only an
illusion. Go for the brass ring. Stretch yourself, discipline your work, get up
at five and write and write and write.

I think he’s absolutely right.  My experience with iUniverse has been a good one… but I didn’t use them to self-publish a novel. 

Read more

Zorro

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My friend Paul Quarrington, a wonderful novelist himself, reviews Isabel Allende’s Zorro in this weekend’s Globe and Mail.

This is a book rife with coincidence, love at first sight, pirates,
secret societies — hey, it’s a book where a guy can put on a mask,
draw a little moustache on his face and fool people who have known him
all of their lives.

And it is hugely enjoyable. It appealed both to the sober-sided book
reviewer that I am and the bespectacled, television-viewing lad that I
was. I have been missing this kind of thing for 40-odd years; it seems
simply not to be around. We have lost our appetite for narratives of
frolicking farfetchedness and preposterous implausibility.

His review was so much more fun to read… and revealing about the book… than the dull piece in the LA Times Book Review a few weeks ago. Although Paul puts himself into the review in a big way, Mark Sarvas’ big gripe about LA Times book reviewers, at least he doesn’t do it to tell everyone which Ivy League university he went to or mention the books he’s written. Besides, Paul is lively and funny, something LATBR writers rarely are. They much prefer being somber, dull, and self-important.

(By the way, Paul’s non-fiction, very funny book on fishing, FISHING WITH MY OLD GUY,  is a classic…whether you like to fish or not. We  worked together on the first season of MISSING up in Toronto and I must have imposed on him to sign a dozen copies of the book for my family).

The Book is Done

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I finished writing MR. MONK GOES TO THE FIREHOUSE and sent it off to the publisher, the studio, and the showrunner on Friday…ten days before my deadline. You can read it in January.  As much as I enjoyed writing that book (and proving to myself I could write a book that fast), it’s going to be very nice to have a free weekend to do whatever I want, which will be…

…playing with my INport, a device that allows me to transfer my old LPs and cassette tapes to .wav and .mp3 files.

…finishing Meg Wolitzer’s novel THE POSITION.

… getting hamburgers and shakes at The Habit with my daughter and going swimming.

…cleaning up my office, organizing my desk and paying bills.

…catching up on the TV shows I recorded on Tivo last week in my mad rush to finish the book.

…starting to plot MONK #2, which is due in early September and will be published in July 2006.

Snore

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I guess my books and TV shows must put people to sleep. I got this spam email today:

Hi,

I took a look at your site a couple of hours ago…and I want to
tell you that I’d really love to trade links with you. I think your site has
some really good stuff related to my site’s topic of pillows and would be a
great resource for my visitors.

In fact, I went ahead and added your site
to my Pillows HQ Resource Directory at
http://www.pillows-hq.com

Is
that OK with you?

Can I ask a favor? Will you give me a link back on your
site? I’d really appreciate you returning the favor.

Thanks and feel
free to drop me an email if you’d like to chat more about
this.

Best wishes,

Steve

I’ll be emailing Steve right away, because there’s nothing I enjoy more than chatting about pillows.

How Not To Get a Blurb

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A self-published author sent me a generic email asking me to read his book and blurb it. I’ve taken out his name, and the title of the book, as a courtesy:

I am  about to launch the XYZ novels, which are
legal/crime thrillers. I would love to get a blurb from you for the first novel
in this series, XYZ.  I have attached the first few chapters for
your review and will be happy to send the full book upon request.  I
thoroughly believe that you will find this book compelling and will be proud to
have your name associated with it, otherwise I wouldn’t intrude upon your
valuable time.

As compelling as his personal endorsement of his own book is, that’s not a good enough reason for me to read his novel.  In fact, this solicitation is a classic example of how to not to get an author to read your book. For instructions on how to do it right, check out author Gregg Hurwitz’s checklist of dos-and-don’ts for blurb pitching.

TVWriter.com

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Still more mail today:

What do you think of  TVwriter.com? Is that a good place to learn the ins-and-outs of screenwriting?

This is what I wrote a while back in a comment on John August’s blog when someone asked the same question:

To be honest, I think people
would learn a lot more about the craft of writing visiting John August’s site
than tvwriter.com, which seems geared entirely towards publicizing Larry Brody’s
writing workshops and contests where applicants win the opportunity to have
their scripts optioned by “The Cloud Creek Institute For the Arts” and
representation by “the legendary Terry Porter Agency.” I’ve never heard of
either one of them, though Predators and Editors 
recommends against the Porter agency, which they claim charges a fee to read
submissions.