#1 New York Times Bestselling Author & TV Producer
If you missed my live, interactive webcast last week, now you can catch the archive version. I've posted the first half of the show, where I talked about MONK with my special guest David Breckman (writer-producer-director of MONK), in three parts on YouTube or you can download it here. Unfortunately, there were technical problems at the studio and the second half of the live show, where I talked about my movie FAST TRACK, wasn't recorded.
My friend Stuart Kaminsky died today. I really don't know what to say, so please forgive me if I ramble a bit. Stuart was not only a wonderful writer, he was a wonderful human being. He was unfailingly kind and supportive to his fans and his fellow writers. I was both.
I first met him decades ago when I was a kid and a fan of his Toby Peters books, which I saved up to buy through the Mystery Guild (and wrote in each one "This book belongs to Lee Goldberg and Not You). I wrote him a fan letter and he wrote me back, and that started a correspondence that lasted off-and-on as I went from being an aspiring writer to a professional one. 
We became friends. He was one of the first writers to blurb me and gave me a lot of great advice over the years (and I was ridiculously honored, and thrilled, the first time he called me for advice on something. Actually, that never wore off). We've been produced together (NERO WOLFE) and published together (HOLLYWOOD AND CRIME) and worked together on various MWA committees over the years. The last time I saw him was a year ago in Kentucky, where he was staging an original Sherlock Holmes play at the International Mystery Writers Festival. We spent a week together and his boundless enthusiasm energized the whole event. That was the thing about Stuart, he never lost his love and his passion for writing…and it was contagious. I will miss him very, very much.
(The photo on the upper left is Bob Levinson, Stuart and me at the International Mystery Writers Festival last year. The picture in the lower right is me, Jan Burke and Stuart at the 2002 Edgar Awards. You can click on the images for a large view)
After inexplicably holding up the book for over a month, Amazon has finally made available the Kindle edition of my long out-of-print novel .357 VIGILANTE #3: WHITE WASH.
Now ALL of the VIGILANTE novels I wrote back in the mid-1980s have been released, including the never-before-published fourth book, which got caught up in the publisher's bankruptcy. (All the books are also available at Smashwords and Scribd for those of you with other e-readers or who would like to download a PDF)
Here's the back-jacket copy on WHITE WASH:
A Clock Is Ticking — And the Hands Are Dripping Blood!
A red-leathered sadist with a hunger for black victims is talking the streets of Los Angeles — leaving a trail of rapes, tortures and mutilations, which threaten to engulf the city in racial violence. And he's calling himself…Mr. Jury.
Now vigilante Brett Macklin, the real Mr. Jury, is hitting the killing ground with just seventy hours to hunt down the deadly impostor and clear his name. All he has to do is take on an army of fanatical white supremacists, stop a news-hungry reporter from digging too deep into his past, and save a tough black cop from being buried alive.
Time and luck are running out.
"As stunning as the report of a .357 Magnum, a dynamic premiere effort […] The Best New Paperback Series of the year!" West Coast Review of Books
I just got back from EB Live Interactive Webcast to promote my MONK books and the DVD release of my movie FAS T TRACK. It was the first time Expanded Books has tried to pull off this feat — a live web broadcast integrating text chats, live Skype webcam calls, in-studio hosts, pre-recorded clips, music, graphics, and virtual sets. And they asked me to be their guinea pig.
Although there were a few technical glitches, made worse by my fumbling attempt at being a host, I thought it was a lot of fun. And scary, exciting, and embarrassing. My guests were MONK writer/producer/director David Breckman (who was in studio with me) and FAST TRACK star Andrew Walker and technical advisor Sam Barer (both via Skype webcam). My other guests were the people who called in by Skype webcam during the broadcast. I felt a little like an inept Ted Koppel, talking to people "face to face" in New York, Los Angeles, Seattle and Montreal…while also taking questions sent by "chat" (though my chat monitor kept blacking out).
I have no idea how it turned out…I am supposed to be getting a copy of the show soon and I will post it here. My wife says it was a little rough, and at times I was fumbling, but overall it was fun and it seemed like we were all having a good time, and that compensated for the technical glitches. I'm eager to hear what you thought of it.
But what I found most exciting was the potential of this new technology. It's possible now for someone to have their own live talk show on the Internet…with guests from all over the world on camera …and with the full participation of the virtual audience in ways television doesn't allow (the closest comparison is talk radio). And for a fraction of a TV budget.
It will be interesting to see what happens after Expanded Books works out the kinks….they could really be on to something here beyond promoting authors and their books.
My friend Raymond Benson talks to Buzznews about what it was like to pick up where Ian Fleming & John Gardner left off as author of the Bond novels from 1997-2002. Here's an excerpt:
How did you go about laying the groundwork for your incarnation of James Bond?
Raymond: I was told by IFP (Ian Fleming Publications) that I could "use or ignore" anything that the other continuation authors (Amis, Pearson, Gardner) had done. I didn't contradict anything Gardner did, I just changed a few things back, like the whole "Captain"/"Commander" thing and the gun Bond uses.[…]Basically, the Bond continuation novels should not be taken as an extension of the series that was before it…. they are separate series by individual authors… the only thing we really need to be faithful to is Fleming’s universe. After all, if we were REALLY being a continuation, then Bond would be in his 90s by now.
When you did the novelizations for the movies Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough and Die Another Day … What did you have to do to fit the stories into the reality and you'd already spun?
Raymond: With the first one, "Tomorrow Never Dies", I tried to fit it in with the continuity after "Zero Minus Ten," my first Bond novel, and mentioned that 007 had been to Hong Kong etc…. but then after that I realized it wasn't worth the trouble. EON didn't care about the novelizations fitting in with my original books, and neither did IFP . They were treated like separate entities, just tie-ins to the respective movies, which is what they were. I don't consider the three novelizations part of my "oeuvre", so to speak.
I have been working on my MONK novel MR. MONK IS CLEANED OUT under the mistaken belief that it's due November 30. Well, I happened to glance at my contract yesterday to double-check when the outline for the next MONK book is due…and discovered the outline for Book #11 is due November 30…and that CLEANED OUT is due November 1. I have four less weeks to write the book than I thought I did. Yikes. My editor is great, she's got no problem with me turning the book when I thought it was due, but I am a stickler for deadlines and I am going to do my best to turn it in on time.
But what really bothers me is how I could have made such a dumb mistake to start with. What happened to my brain? What was I thinking? Or, better yet, why wasn't I thinking?
Meanwhile, this has been, and continues to be, a busy week. I've had lots of pitches, meetings, and non-career stuff to attend to. This Sunday, Oct 4, I'm speaking and signing at the West Hollywood Book Festival and then doing an interactive webcast at 6 p.m to promote MR. MONK IN TROUBLE and the DVD release of my movie FAST TRACK: NO LIMITS. I am really excited about the live, interactive webcast, which is the first event of its kind (at least as far as we know). I'm sure there will be glitches…it's inevitable when you are doing something brand new, relying on all kinds of technology, sites and services working together in-sync, but it's bound to be fun and interesting for me (and I hope for you) no matter what.
I've also received tons of weird, unusual, and idiotic emails this week…at some point, I will get around to sharing some of them with you.
The folks at Maverick Entertainment have created this ad for the Oct 4, 6 p.m. interactive webcast, where I will be talking, and taking your questions, about the movie FAST TRACK and my MONK novels (Click on the image for a larger view). I’ll be posting more details here over the next few days on how you can participate.
Gerard Saylor, librarian at the ND Fargo Public Library in beautiful downtown Lake Mills, Wisconson, really likes MR. MONK GOES TO GERMANY and my buddy Scott Phillips' COTTONWOOD as you can see in his YouTube review, recorded in the soon-to-be-demolished library annex.
I'll be hosting a Live Author Chat/Webcast on Sunday, Oct 4 at 6pm PST…talking about my latest MONK book, MR. MONK IN TROUBLE & the Oct. 6 DVD release of my movie FAST TRACK: NO LIMITS. The cast of FAST TRACK is also scheduled to participate. But best of all, ANYONE ANYWHERE can join in by going to:
http://live.expandedbooks.com/lee-goldberg
Or you can talk to me, and everyone else who is watching, VIA WEBCAM…all you have to do is send an email first, with your Skype username, to:
info@expandedbooks.com
Expanded Books will connect you via Skype so you can participate in the show….and be seen by people all over the world.
Live Author Chat is a new service from Expanded Books that uses cutting-edge video streaming and television technology to broadcast author chats in real time, via the web. Each chat is a fully produced and customized live webshow where up to four people can communicate with each other simultaneously via video webcam while many more participate via chat and tens of thousands
worldwide can watch. The conversation happens in real time, while the Expanded Books team directs the show from their studio in Los Angeles. You can expect a lively conversation between me at home, fans on webcams, and chat participants, while the directorial team switches between the four multiple webcams, book covers, clips from MONK & FAST TRACK, and much more. I hope you'll watch…or, better yet, take part in the fun!
UPDATE 9/26/09: We are doing a live test run of the broadcast this Sunday, Sept. 27 at 4 pm PST. Here's the link:
http://live.expandedbooks.com/channels/3/with_player.
You are welcome to log in …or send your Skype username to info@expandedbooks.com to participate by webcam.
I was stunned today to stumble on Ed Gorman's unexpected tribute to my novel THE MAN WITH THE IRON ON BADGE. He says, in part:
Iron-On is a book that will keep you laughing and smiling all the way through. If you have any affection for the private eye novel, this book should be required reading because in addition to gently spoofing the form it is a story so rich in character and story twists it's truly masterful.[…]But more than the comedy, the beautifully designed plot and the snapshots of La La Land–more than any other element in the book, it's Harvey's voice you'll remember. There's a workaday universality to it that gives the novel its wit and insight and truth.
Thank you, Ed. I'm truly flattered. It is my favorite book of all the ones that I've written. I hope that it's published in trade paperback someday…and does well enough to justify a sequel.