#1 New York Times Bestselling Author & TV Producer
My short story REMAINDERED is now available on Amazon for a mere 49 cents.
Whether you are a bestselling author or a writer toiling in mid-list obscurity, your books will eventually end up remaindered to the bargain bin at Barnes & Noble. The fear, of course, is that your career will eventually end up remaindered, too. I got the idea for this dark-comic mystery while actually living the humiliating booksigning experience that opens the story….
So my 11-year-old daughter gets home from her "Human Growth and Development" class at school and has some questions about sex.
"Why does a man’s thingie have to get so big?" she asked.
"So he can get his sperm inside of a woman and fertilize the egg," I said.
"Couldn’t he just mail it to the woman so she could put it in herself?"
Author Wesley Britton’s terrific interview with my Uncle Burl Barer is now up on Roger Moore’s official website. Britton is the author of the great book SPY TV and my Uncle Burl is the author of the Edgar Award winning THE SAINT: A COMPLETE HISTORY, CAPTURE THE SAINT, and THE SAINT movie novelization, THE MAKING OF MAVERICK, as well as a slew of true crime books.
USA Today reports that writer/producer J. Michael Straczynski is successfully self-publishing collections of his BABYLON 5 scripts through a P.O.D. company. The article suggests that this represents a turning point for P.O.D. self-publishing:
"There’s always been something of a stigma to print-on-demand, that it
was just a form of vanity publishing that could never produce financial
returns of significance," Straczynski says. "The B5 books are the first
to change this in a big way, showing that a writer can make as much or
more as with a major company."[…] the first seven
volumes of The Babylon 5 Scripts of J. Michael Straczynski appear to be
among the top-selling titles, with fans snapping up more than 18,000
books since October. Each volume — with seven scripts plus production
notes and new introductions — runs about 450 pages.At about $40 apiece ($30 in the first week of release), Straczynski
expects $1.5 million in total sales from the 14 planned volumes.A large chunk will go to CafePress, the company that prints and ships
each book.
I’m not surprised he’s having some success. But does it represent the future of P.O.D. self-publishing? No. But it is an example of one of the rare cases where P.O.D. self-publishing can pay off and I’ll tell you why.
Unlike 99.9% of the people attempting to self-publish, Straczynski essentially has a presold item. He’s selling scripts based on a long-running TV series that he wrote and created and that has been seen by millions of people all over the world. The show is continues to be seen in reruns and on DVD and has a huge cult following that’s primed to buy his book.
The same can’t be said of an average person trying to sell his novel as a self-published, P.O.D. title. His underlying property hasn’t already been exposed and promoted to millions of people. His book isn’t riding on the advertising and promotion of TV reruns and sales of DVD box sets. There isn’t a fan base already eager to buy the book.
Straczynksi has all that. Most people don’t.
There are many writer/producers who could do the same thing and probably enjoy similar success. There’s just one problem…one that the reporter for USA Today glossed over. In most cases, the writer-producers don’t have the right to self-publish their scripts from their TV shows and movies — those rights are retained by the studio. I’m assuming that Straczynski had to license the right to publish his scripts from Warner Brothers, which means the studio is getting a hefty fee and a percentage of any of his sales.
Unfortunately, there are aspiring authors who will be swayed by Straczynski’s unique experience and will get suckered by POD companies as a result.
Variety reports that writer-producer David Milch and HBO have agreed to wrap up DEADWOOD with a pair of two-hour movies. HBO balked at renewing the very expensive western (reportedly nearly $5 million an episode) and paying to hold the 20 regular cast members until Milch could produce new episodes (he’s added a second HBO series to his committments).
For Milch, keeping "Deadwood" alive in some form
saves him having to prematurely end the show or work with a truncated
fourth season of six episodes, which HBO had initially offered. He is said to have worked with the network over the
weekend to give "Deadwood" a proper conclusion."I am thrilled that we were
able to figure out a way to continue," Milch said in a statement. "No
one was ready to let go of the show, and I’m really glad we’ve found a
way to proceed that works creatively."
I drove my 11-year-old daughter to school this morning. We were just about there when she groaned.
"Oh no, I just remembered. We have ‘Human Growth and Development’ today. And it’s right before recess!"
"So?" I said.
"Dad, I have a snack at recess."
"I don’t see the problem."
"How am I supposed to eat after hearing about people putting their thingies into thingies? It’s disgusting."
I don’t think I need to worry any time soon about her competing with her friends to give the best blowjobs.
It’s been a big week for my sisters Linda Woods & Karen Dinino and their book VISUAL CHRONICLES. First, Rosie O’Donnell raved about their book on her blog (let’s hope she brings a copy with her onto THE VIEW) and then my sisters made an appearance at ArtBar in Santa Ana, where they signed books with fellow artist & author Angela Cartwright, best known as Danny Thomas’ daughter on MAKE ROOM FOR DADDY and one of the Robinson clan in LOST IN SPACE. Can an appearance on THE TODAY SHOW be far behind for my celeb sisters?
There’s a fascinating, hilarious and informative conversation between Larry David and Ricky Gervais up on You Tube and collected at Sound of Young America.
(Thanks to TV Squad for the link)
I got this email from "Bigby" today:
Lester Dent, the pulp writer who created Doc Savage
(and I believe wrote all or most of the Shadow stories) and God knows how many
others once gave his formula for any 6000 word pulp story… which is EXACTLY
the four-act structure for TV. He even breaks those six thousand words into four,
1500 word acts…Absolutely fascinating.
Bigby is right. Dent’s formula reads almost exactly like the four-act structure of an episodic teleplay. For example, here is how Dent describes the first 1500 words of a story:
That’s pretty darn close to what the first Act of any episode has to accomplish. The first Act sets up the central conflicts of the story: what the hero has at stake, what others have at stake, what his goals are and the obstacles that prevent him from achieving his aims. Dent says much the same thing, only in a different words ("He
tries to fathom the mystery, defeat the menace, or solve the problem."). Dent’s advice is worth taking — whether you are writing a thrilling short story or a spec episode of a TV show.
Here’s sneak peek at the rough cover for HOLLYWOOD AND CRIME, the new anthology edited by the prolific Robert Randisi (author of over 400 novels!). My contribution to this anthology, which comes out in February, is a short story entitled "Jack Webb’s Star." My friends Max Allan Collins, Stuart Kaminsky, Michael Connolly, Paul Guyot, Dick Lochte, Gary Phillips and Gar Haywood are just a few of the other authors who have contributed stories, all of which feature at least one scene at the corner of Hollywood & Vine (Les Roberts, whose name is featured on the rough cover, unfortunately has had to bow out).