Lee Goldberg

The Mail I Get

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I get a lot of interview requests from students doing papers and reports. I usually answer their questions. But this request, which came on Tuesday night, was an exception:

I am a student, who is
writing a report on Science Fiction Novelists. I would really appreciate it if you responded
ASAP, considering the fact that my paper is due Wed (tomorrow).  Can I ask you these questions? If they are too personal, I
completely understand. But, they MUST be included in my paper.
  • What is your salary?
  • What is your typical day like when working?
  • What college is recomended for writers/science fiction writers?
Also, it would be very helpful if you could
tell me where I could contact other writers ASAP.

I told him that a) I don't write science fiction novels, b) he shouldn't have waited until the last minute to contact the writers that he needed to talk to and c) that no, I wouldn't give him any contact information so that he could impose on my friends.

Huh?

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Fasttrack-393
I just received the Canadian DVD release of my movie FAST TRACK: NO LIMITS…but I don't understand the teaser line on the cover:

Fast…Furious…No Limits. If Time is Money, What's Your Quarter Mile?

What does that mean? How is that supposed to entice me into renting/buying the DVD?

The movie is now also available on DVD in China,  Japan , Australia , Thailand and Spain... as well as many other countries (but not yet in the U.S.). You can also find DVDs of FAST TRACK on Ebay.

The name is Geek, Lee Geek

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I’m sitting in the Habit burger joint after seeing the first showing of the new Bond film. I am order #007…how’s that for fate?

I don’t see why the critics have been so hard on this movie…I liked it. I just wish there was more of the Bond theme and less frenetic cutting of the action sequences.

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

Worse Ratings Are Worst Enemy’s Worst Enemy

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Variety reports that NBC has canceled MY OWN WORST ENEMY after the series notched its worst ratings yet this week. The Christian Slater spy drama will halt production after wrapping their ninth episode, which they are shooting now. 

Meanwhile, ABC is mulling whether or not to pick up PUSHING DAISIES, though showrunner Bryan Fuller vows to continue the show as a comic book if the ax falls.

“The idea would be to finish out the season’s story arcs in comic
books,” Fuller said during a “Inside the Writers Room” night at the
Paley Center for Media Tuesday evening.  The comic would likely be
publshed by DC because “Daisies” is produced by DC’s corporate sibling,
Warner Brothers.  

The purpose of the comic book series would be “to satisfy the fans
and ourselves, to finish up the stories we’d love to tell” and to
“clear the slate for a movie” Fuller said.

Book Worming

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My brother Tod does an amazing impersonation of KCRW's Bookworm host Michael Silverblatt. His impersonati0n is SO good, it's even amazing in print:

Silverblatt: Tod, I am struck by the power in
your prose, the way words tumble from the page like mercury, like
Jupiter, like Pluto, once a planet, but no more a planet, now just a
bit of stardust, like your words, floating, inexorably, through, time.
And yet, I find that your words are also like play-dough, in that when
I eat them I find them at first…salty…yet…plain…and I found
myself yearning for…bite…verve…only found in the works of people
like Rilke, like Rick Springfield, whose girl, while Jessie's, was, in
fact, no longer, like Pluto. Yes?

Me: I'm just happy to be on the show, Mike.

His account of his trip to the Vegas Valley Book Festival is pretty funny, too.

Reusable Man-Tits

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EmpathStorm
The Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Books bloggers have caught Harlequin using the same cover image over and over again:

"In a failing economy, it becomes essential to any business to recycle
and to seek alternative means to cut costs. Such as? Stock imagery!
Hey, when you find a hot image with expansive man-titty, you work that
for all it is worth. "

Or you just change the heads.Souls

My First Time

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You can watch the SPENSER: FOR HIRE episode "If You Knew Sammy," the first produced teleplay by me & William Rabkin, here. It's absolutely free and features future movie star William H. Macy in a supporting role, which he would reprise in our sequel episode, "Play it Again, Sammy" (which was a back-door pilot).

Vanity Press Trickery

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The wonderful Writers Beware blog led me to this excellent list of tricks vanity presses use to con desperate, and gullible aspiring writers into believing that they are "real" publishers…which also double as rationalizations the suckers use to convince themselves that they haven't been swindled. Among them, the myth that if a publisher doesn't accept all submissions (eg. Tate), and pays a token advance (eg. PublishAmerica), they aren't a scam.

2. Misconception: Vanity presses don’t pay advances.

While
vanity presses are supported primarily by the money that writers pay
them, the less-than-honest vanities try to pass themselves off as real
publishers. One way to do so is to pay advances (or claim to do so).

Now,
how to be an advance-paying publisher and still make a profit from
writers? Well, the advances could be very low. For instance, $1 per
author, non-negotiable. The publisher could also pay – or claim to pay
– advances to some authors but not others. Maybe you’ll get it, maybe you won’t.

They can afford to pay you the $1 or the $100 because they know they will make it all back in the money they make off of you and your family buying copies of your own book…which, in fact, is their actual business. They make are in the "selling books to authors" business.

Rebooting the Reboot

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The rebooted KNIGHTRIDER is getting a reboot. Half the cast — Sydney Tamiia Poitier, Yancey Arias and
Bruce Davison — has been let go and the concept is being tweaked to make it closer to the original series. Showunner Gary Scott Thompson says:

 "We're moving away from the
terrorist-of-the-week formula and closer to the original,
making it a show about a man and his car going out and helping
more regular people, everymen."