Books - Page 18 of 118 - Lee Goldberg

Eisler & Hocking

March 23, 2011 by Lee Goldberg

The news this week that Barry Eisler snubbed a $500,000 publishing deal to self-publish and that self-pub phenom Amanda Hocking is negotiating a $1 million+ deal with a publishing company has created a lot of discussion among authors, agents, editors and pundits. Even Hocking herself has weighed in with her reasoning:

I'm writer. I want to be a writer. I do not want to spend 40 hours a week handling emails, formatting covers, finding editors, etc. Right now, being me is a full time corporation. As I said before in my post – Some Things That Need to be Said – I am spending so much time on things that are not writing.

I like writing. I even like marketing, especially when it comes to interacting with readers. And I don't mind editing. I just don't want to run my corporation, because that takes away from writing and everything else that I actually enjoy doing.

Booksquare offered some interesting analysis, crediting both authors for making shrewd moves based on their unique situations in the publishing universe.

Eisler and Hocking are making the right choices, but, if you were to corner me in a bar and ask me which author is following the right path right now, I’d say Eisler.

He’s taking a riskier path, for sure, and there is no guarantee. His history suggests he has some talent when comes to calculated risks. And while he’s burned some publishing bridges, he also has a track record in the industry.

Hocking, however, is more of a publishing dark horse. She’s done the indie thing amazingly well. I cannot over-emphasize how critical this is, and how well she’s done it. But there is a gap between indie publishing (especially self-publishing, without a lot of professional editorial input) and corporate publishing.

The biggest challenge, and the reason I’m putting my money (virtual because the husband hates it when I bet cat food dollars) on Eisler is that the publisher who signs Amanda Hocking today will likely not have a book on the shelf before 2012, more likely 2013. Note my nouns.

The Hocking zeitgeist is right now. Her audience is right now. Her moment is right now. Can this buzz be sustained a year or more? Can her audience be engaged for that long? Yes, if she’s continually giving them the books they want…at the price point they want.

What's interesting to me is how many editors and pundits still don't see how fast things are changing, in many ways for the better, for writers in this new, digital landscape. The media that covers publishing…Publishers Weekly, Publishers Lunch, The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, etc… seem to be even slower to get this than the publishers are. Some of the coverage of Eisler and Hocking, and the ways the economics, sales, and distribution of self-publishing have changed in the last twelve months, has been totally inept.

The Game Has Changed

May 1, 2013March 21, 2011 by Lee Goldberg

My friend, the huggable spy, Barry Eisler has announced that he's walking away from a $500,000 advance from St. Martin's Press to self-publish his books. Eisler explains his thinking in a long and fascinating interview with — who else? — his buddy Joe Konrath:

I know it’ll seem crazy to a lot of people, but based on what’s happening in the industry, and based on the kind of experience writers like you are having in self-publishing, I think I can do better in the long term on my own.[…]I’m not the first example, though I might be a noteworthy one because of the numbers I’m walking away from. But there will be others, more and more of them.

He's right. Just a few weeks ago, Terrill Lee Lankford made headlines by rejecting a high, five-figure deal. By now, the publishers must be doing so much head-scratching that they have no scalps left.

But the reason established authors are doing the previously unthinkable — saying no to big-money advances — is simple. In exchange for that advance, the publisher is, essentially, buying the book out-right and forever (since it's unlikely to ever go "out of print" with the advent of ebooks) and yet are only offering a 25% royalty on ebooks.

But ebooks cost almost nothing to produce. There's no printing, no warehousing, no distribution. The only costs are editing, formatting, and cover art. So why give authors so little? The truth is, what the author will get is even less than 25%, as Barry and Joe explain:

Barry: […] a 25% royalty on the net revenue produced by an ebook equals 17.5% of the retail price after Amazon takes its 30% cut, and 14.9% after the agent takes 15% of the 17.5%.

Joe: Yeah, that 25% figure you see in contracts is really misleading. Amazing, when you consider that there’s virtually no cost to creating ebooks–no cost for paper, no shipping charges, no warehousing. No cut for Ingram or Baker & Taylor. Yet they're keeping 52.5% of the list price and offering only 17.5% to the author. It’s not fair and it’s not sustainable.

Which is why we are going to see more and more A, B and certainly C-list writers opting to forgo publishing contracts in favor of self-publishing.

Where does this leave print publishers? Domestic print publication will become for an authors a nice ancillary market, much the way audio and foreign editions are now, where limited rights are sold for a negotiated fee. The benefits would be distribution to brick-and-mortar stores (those that are still left). Or perhaps, as one blogger predicted, a retailer like WalMart or B&N might make exclusive deals with authors to sell the print editions in their stores.

But even in that negotiation, authors will have strong, self-publishing alternatives to help them leverage the best possible deal.

I found that out for myself this weekend. I was astonished to find the CreateSpace print editions of my self-published ebooks available for sale at the Virginia Festival of the Book alongside my Penguin-published MONK books…and being gobbled up by readers.

The readers saw no difference between my self-published novels and my published ones (granted, I hired a professional cover artist and formatters, so they looked very slick). But I am seeing a difference: much higher royalties and more money in my pocket. And if I, a mere mid-list author, is seeing that, imagine how much better a guy like Barry could do.

But you won't have to imagine it. Soon you will be able to see it for yourself. Barry's new John Rain novel, The Detachment, will be self-published by Father’s Day. My prediction — it will be a huge Kindle bestseller.

Floored and Flattered

May 1, 2013March 16, 2011 by Lee Goldberg

Bruce Grossman at Bookgasm praised THE DEAD MAN today, saying, in part:

THE DEAD MAN: FACE OF EVIL, a short novella from the very prolific authors Lee Goldberg and William Rabkin, is the first step in an intriguing series, for which this lays the groundwork. […] I've not seen a writing tandem like this since the glory days of Richard Sapir and Warren Murphy.

We are extremely flattered by the review. The comparison to Sapir & Murphy means a lot to us. We were not only big fans of the "Destroyer" novels, but we had the good fortune of working with Warren Murphy many years ago on the TV series "Murphy's Law," which was loosely based on his "Trace" and "Digger" novels. We have remained friends, and admirers, of Warren's ever since.

More Suspenseful Authors

March 16, 2011 by Lee Goldberg

Naomi Hirahara, Libby Fischer Hellmann and Stephen Gallagher have joined Top Suspense, and you can read some amusing & informative interviews with them on the Top Suspense blog. Here's an excerpt from the interview with Stephen:

TSG: What are your influences?

A mixed bunch of American pulpsters and British postwar thriller writers; I'm particularly drawn to novelists who demolish all barriers between low and high art for the sake of a thrilling tale. I like good contemporary suspense and I also like a great historical, as long as there's a streak of darkness in it.

TSG: Your muses?

The ghosts of Arthur Conan Doyle, James M Cain, Gavin Lyall, and all the dogs I've ever owned, and the woods we've roamed in while I worked out my stories.

TSG: Your first sale?

An adaptation of my first radio serial. Radio drama was the first and most valuable step in my education. Unlimited landscapes with a tight focus on plot and character.

TSG: Your biggest, most memorable thrill as a writer?

Driving down to Santa Monica in October 2008, seeing a giant billboard advertising one of my TV shows while the trail for another played on the car's radio. In a convertible it would have been a perfect moment; in a rented Hyundai it was still pretty good.

Amazon Spotlights THE DEAD MAN

May 1, 2013March 8, 2011 by Lee Goldberg

Amazon is featuring the story behind The Dead Man original book series today on their Kindle blog:

I grew up loving those "men's action adventure" paperback novels of the 60s, 70s, and 80s…series like The Destroyer, The Ninja Master, Nick Carter: Spymaster and The Death Merchant. You could find them in finer supermarkets, gas stations, 7-11s and bookstores everywhere. They were the male equivalent of Harlequin romances, though the only romance was often between a man and his AK-47.

The books were short and tightly-written, with hard-boiled heroes, outrageously sexy women, and gleefully over-the-top plots. Nobody would ever mistake them for great literature, but they were enormous fun to read…and to write. I know, because I broke into publishing in the mid-1980s writing one of those series–357 Vigilante by "Ian Ludlow"–while I was still in college.

Sadly, the "men's action adventure" series novels are virtually extinct now, early victims of the narrowing of the paperback marketplace.

But the Kindle offers the perfect medium for the revival of the genre..

Please spread the word. Amazon was kind enough to offer me the opportunity to post on their blog and I want to thank them by bringing as many new readers to their blog as I can!

Midlist Becomes the E-List

March 6, 2011 by Lee Goldberg

Daily Finance reports that the shuttering of Borders, and the dire situation facing bookstores in general, make it even harder for mid-list authors to break-through, much less even stay in print. A Borders sales exec says that even if the company manages to survive, mid-list authors are facing doom.

· Borders will likely be even more cautious about investing in midlist authors. While their new loans from GE Capital will allow them to finance, among other things, the purchase of new stock, Borders is not in any position to gamble. They're likely, in my opinion, to skipmore midlist titles than usual and to only spend their money on names they know they can sell. This will be exacerbated by the aforementioned store closings.

· Publishers may offer lower advances, especially on midlist titles.The industry has depended on Borders as a major market for new titles. If the publisher can't trust Borders to take a sufficiently large number of copies of a given title, this will factor into their profit and loss statements. As a result, they may advance less money to authors in order to increase the odds that any given acquired title will earn out.

Publishers are going to double-down on their bestsellers and their established, successful franchises — and so are bookstores. That's already the case at the biggest booksellers of all, the big-box general retailers like Wal-Mart, K-Mart and Costco, where mid-list authors are already barely represented on their limited shelf space.

It's no wonder that more and more midlist authors like me are opting to self-publish — which can be far more lucrative, and far less risky, that a publishing contract, especially if you can get back the rights to your backlist.

Poop Paper

May 1, 2013March 6, 2011 by Lee Goldberg

Now they are making stationery out of pachyderm poop. Obviously, this is going in my next MONK book. Here's an excerpt from the Los Angeles Times story:

Vijender Shekhawat's big break came while visiting a shrine near the Amber Fort in Jaipur, as he glanced down at the pile of elephant dung he had just failed to avoid. A struggling maker of handmade paper, he noticed that the texture of the plant-eating animal's manure was a lot like wood pulp.

Eureka! he thought. Pachyderm poop paper.

[…]Shekhawat, who believes he was India's first elephant dung papermaker when he launched the venture eight years ago, uses 3,300 pounds of droppings a week. The dung is first washed, then boiled with baking soda and salt to reduce the smell, beaten to a pulp, forced through a sieve and flattened into sheets. Drying takes a day to, during rainy season, a week.

At one point, Shekhawat fed the elephants turmeric hoping to create yellow paper. That failed. Now he adds organic dyes late in the process, including beet juice for red paper, dried pomegranate skins for gray and the castor oil plant for green.

He now produces 2,000 2-by-3-foot sheets a week, which sell as far afield as the United States and Europe.

Mr. Monk is a Reader’s Choice

March 5, 2011 by Lee Goldberg

My friend Dave Zeltserman just passed along the good news that my story "Mr. Monk and the Seventeen Steps" was the fourth-ranked finalist in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine's 2010 Reader's Choice awards. Here's the list of the Top Ten stories, as chosen by readers of the magazine:

1. Dave Zeltserman, "Archie's Been Framed" (Sept/Oct)
2. Doug Allyn, "The Scent of Lilacs" (Sept/Oct)
3. Doug Allyn, "Days of Rage" (March/April)
4. Lee Goldberg, "Mr. Monk and the Seventeen Steps" (Dec)
5. Brendan DuBois, "To Kill an Ump" (Sept/Oct)
6. Clark Howard, "Winter's End" (Dec)
7. Clark Howard, "Last Dance in Shanghai" (June)
8. Evan Lewis, "Skyler Hobbs and the Rabbit Man" (Feb)
9. Stephen Ross, "The Man With One Eye" (Dec)
10. Carol Biederman, "The Changelings: A Very Grim Fairytale" (Nov)

Also in the May issue, is Jon Breen's rave review for MR. MONK IS CLEANED OUT:

The latest hilariously funny and devilishly clever novel about TV's obsessive-compulsive sleuth Adrian Monk is an impossible-crime lover's delight. How could the driver of an otherwise empty, constantly observed vehicle be garroted? How could a Madoff-style Ponzi scheme operator under house arrest and constantly wearing a state-of-the-art tracking device leave his home to murder former associates? The best comic set-piece, in which the financially ruined Monk, having lost his consultancy job with the San Francisco P.D., becomes a supermarket employee, is also one of three self-contained mystery puzzles unrelated to the main plot.

Thanks so much, Jon!

Here's the trailer I made for "Mr. Monk and the Seventeen Steps."

Let’s Schmooze in the Writer’s Chatroom

May 1, 2013March 4, 2011 by Lee Goldberg

The Writer's Chatroom

http://writerschatroom.com

Chat with Dave Zeltserman and Lee Goldberg

Dave Zeltserman is the Shamus award winning author of JULIUS KATZ. His 'man out of prison' crime noir series features the novels SMALL CRIMES, PARIAH, and KILLER.

SMALL CRIMES was selected by NPR as one of the five best crime novels of 2008 and by theWashington Post as one of the best novels of 2008. PARIAH was selected by the Washington Post as one of the best novels of2009. Dave's novel THE CARETAKER OF LORNE FIELD is a finalist for a Black Quill Award for best dark genre novel of the year.

Dave lives in the Boston area with his wife,Judy, and after spending 20 years developing network management software for several of the world's leading technology companies, he now splits his time between writing crime and horror fiction and studying martial arts, where he holds a black belt inKung Fu. His upcoming crime novels include OUTSOURCED (Feb. '11) and THE ESSENCE OF MONSTERS (Fall, '11). OUTSOURCED has already been called a 'small gem of crime fiction' by Booklist and has been optioned by Constantin Film and Impact Pictures.

(See more of Dave's books here)

Lee Goldberg is a two-time Edgar Award nomineewhose many TV writing and/or producing credits include Martial Law, SeaQuest,Diagnosis Murder, Spenser: For Hire, Nero Wolfe, Monk and The Glades. His books include The Walk, Successful Television Writing, The Man With with The Iron-On Badge and the Diagnosis Murder and Monk series of original mystery novels.

As a TV development consultant, he's worked forproduction companies and broadcasters in Germany, Spain, Sweden, and theNetherlands. He currently serves on the board of directors of the Mystery Writers of America and is the co-founder of the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers.

(See more of Lee's books here)

Dave and Lee are both members of the Top Suspense Group. http://www.topsuspensegroup.com/

WHEN?

Sunday, March 6, 2011

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The Writers Chatroom at: http://www.writerschatroom.com/Enter.htm

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