I can't believe it — Writers Digest has published an article that is truly useful to aspiring writers. They list 28 agents who are open to new submissions for representation. This seems to be a list of genuinely reputable and well-connected agents…at least judging from the three or four names that I recognize (one of them represents my brother).
Books
Brand Awareness
The raves keep coming in for my buddy Axel Brand's new book THE HOTEL DICK. Axel is the pen name of a very successful author stepping into a new genre (hence the new moniker). Library Journal says:
With a narrative voice reminiscent of Dragnet's Joe Friday and a spot-on 1940s style that subtly slips modernisms into the smooth, often humorous telling, Brand has written a sound period piece featuring Lt. Joe Sonntag. Sonntag maintains a cool approach when movie star Spencer Tracy appears to be the only viable suspect in the murder of a hotel detective. The plot is as devious as any of Donald Westlake's and hard-boiled enough to please Bill Pronzini fans. The end result is pure entertainment.
And author & reviewer Bill Crider loved it, too:
Sontagg is a detective who wouldn't
fit into today's world of hotshot crime-solvers, but his dogged
approach gets the job done. It was great to read a book like this one,
an effective throwback to another era that still feels fresh and new.
fit into today's world of hotshot crime-solvers, but his dogged
approach gets the job done. It was great to read a book like this one,
an effective throwback to another era that still feels fresh and new.
It's great to see Axel's first hardboiled detective novel doing so well.
The Mail I Get — What Happens After You Turn In Your Book?
Charmi congratulated me on turning in MR. MONK AND THE DIRTY COP and asked:
Out of curiousity, how much work will you still have to do on it? At this point in writing Monk novels, do you get many change requests from the editor? Or, can you pretty much consider this "done"?
I'm sure that's a question a lot of you have, so here's what I told her:
I usually don't get any major notes from MONK creator Andy Breckman or my editor, so the next step will be to go through the copy-edited manuscript. That's basically my own manuscript sent back to me, all marked up, after my editor and the copy editor have gone through it, spotting typos, punctuation errors, inconsistencies, awkward phrases etc. They will make suggestions on the page for corrections, changes and clarifications. They will also suggest trims or places where I might want to go into more detail…but the choice is mine. For the most part, it's very minor stuff and I get through it very quickly. It's also my last chance to do any rewriting that I want to do for creative reasons…which usually only amounts to a line or two, here and there.
A month or two after that, I will receive the typeset galley, also known as the advance proofs, which is basically an unbound version of what the final book will look like. The editor, copyeditor and I read through it for errors (although we inevitably miss two or three big ones, much to my embarrassment) and send it on to production.
At that point, my job on the book is done…if you don't count promotion (like going to book signings, attending conferences, speaking at libraries, etc.)
Mr. Monk and Finished Manuscript
I just turned in my manuscript for the eighth Monk novel MR. MONK AND THE DIRTY COP, which will come out next summer. This is the first Monk
novel in several years that wasn’t written on several different computers in
various cities, countries, and modes of transport. I wrote it all at my desk at home.
I'm going to try not to think about the next Monk book for a few weeks. The outline isn't due until mid-November and I honestly have no idea what it will be about.
I will use the freed up Monk time to work on my next "standalone" novel, which I haven't started writing yet….though I have a file with a very rough, very broad outline, some relevant newspaper clippings, and some notes to get me started.
But not this week. I have some pitches to prepare for and I want to give myself a break to maybe read a book, catch up on the new fall TV shows, and go to sleep at a decent hour.
The Fine Print of Self-Publishing
Mark Levine has just published the third edition of THE FINE PRINT OF SELF-PUBLISHING. I was a fan of the first edition and this one is even better. Particularly useful are the updated and expanded examinations of the various self-publishing companies, their services and their contracts.
Anybody who is thinking about self-publishing must read this book first. Even authors who aren't interested in self-publishing will come away, as I did, with a deeper understanding of publishing contracts and what the various clauses actually mean for you.
I strongly recommend this book.
Court Rules in Rowling’s Favor
Deadline Hollywood reports that a New York court has ruled in favor of Warner Brothers and J.K. Rowling in their lawsuit against RDR books, a publisher attempting to cash in with an unlicensed, unauthorized Harry Potter "lexicon" that drew heavily from Rowling's work. The Judge determined that the book, which he barred from publication, did not qualify as "fair use" and violated her copyright.
J.K. Rowling today issued the following statement: "I took no pleasure
at all in bringing legal action and am delighted that this issue has
been resolved favourably. I went to court to uphold the right of
authors everywhere to protect their own original work. The court has
upheld that right. "
at all in bringing legal action and am delighted that this issue has
been resolved favourably. I went to court to uphold the right of
authors everywhere to protect their own original work. The court has
upheld that right. "
The New York Times reports that Steven Jan Vander Ark , the creepy fan (pictured on the left) who wrote the book, still lives in a dream world. He told the Times that he'd like to have a chat with Rowling some time:
“I have been a huge fan of
the Harry Potter series and Ms. Rowling for 10 years; that’s not going
to change,” Mr. Vander Ark said by telephone on Monday from his home in
Brighton, England. “We had a disagreement about the definition of a
particular book. It was a legal disagreement. I would rather that it
wasn’t personal.”
[…]For now, however, Mr. Vander Ark has his sights on his next Harry
Potter project: his book “In Search of Harry Potter” is scheduled to be
released next month. It is a memoir of his travels to locations similar
to the ones described in the Rowling books.
You might wonder why I think he's creepy…beyond the fact that he tries to look like Harry Potter and actually believes Rowling would want to chat with him. Here's an example from the trial, as reported by the Times.
Like a true fan, Mr. Vander Ark treated even Ms. Rowling’s
assertions that he had made mistakes as wonderful revelations rather
than embarrassments.
When [David Hammer, the lawyer for RDR Books] told him that Ms. Rowling
had testified on Monday about the etymology of “Alohomora,” an
unlocking spell, Mr. Vander Ark — who had been sequestered during her
testimony — blurted, “Oh, really?”
In her testimony, Ms. Rowling
said Mr. Vander Ark’s link between the spell and the Hawaiian “aloha”
was “errant nonsense,” explaining that it actually had come from West
African dialect.
“That’s exciting stuff for someone like me,” Mr.
Vander Ark said from the witness stand. “Did she happen to mention
which dialect?”
Any day now this goof is going to tattoo a lightning bolt to his forehead…if he hasn't already.
UPDATE: A reader reminded me of these examples of Vander Ark's creepiness and cluelessness from the New Yorker:
Last summer, at a “Harry Potter” convention in Toronto, a fan named
Steve Vander Ark made a similar mistake when he dared to compare
himself to Joanne (J. K.) Rowling. “It is amazing where we have taken
‘Harry Potter,’ ” he said to a crowd of dedicated “Potter” fans. Many
readers dislike the epilogue in the final book; Vander Ark urged them
to disregard it entirely, and even invented his own spell to do so
(“expelliepilogus”). “Jo’s quit, she’s done,” he told the audience.
“We’re taking over now.”
Steve Vander Ark made a similar mistake when he dared to compare
himself to Joanne (J. K.) Rowling. “It is amazing where we have taken
‘Harry Potter,’ ” he said to a crowd of dedicated “Potter” fans. Many
readers dislike the epilogue in the final book; Vander Ark urged them
to disregard it entirely, and even invented his own spell to do so
(“expelliepilogus”). “Jo’s quit, she’s done,” he told the audience.
“We’re taking over now.”
[…]From the witness stand, Vander Ark directed beseeching glances
toward Rowling, who was sitting a few yards away, but she slowly shook
her head. After several hours of intense questioning in front of his
idol, Vander Ark broke down and cried.
“I really wish we had had a different kind of meeting,” he said
later. “There were a couple times I kind of gave her a half-smile. She
didn’t smile back.”
Attracting the attention, and the wrath, of his hero is a surprise for
Vander Ark, who at the age of fifty maintains the air of a serious
child, with a mushroom-cut head of hair parted in the middle. A
self-described “massive ‘Star Trek’ fan,” he wrote a book, in the
nineteen-eighties, called “The Complete Encyclopedia of Star Trek the
Next Generation Season One,” and sold forty copies.
That's 40 more than he's going to sell of his Harry Potter Lexicon.
Mr. Monk and the Foreign Covers
Here are some covers from the foreign editions of my MONK books.
What I don't get is why on the Polish cover they spell my name correctly, but they change "Andy Breckman" into "Andy'Ego Breckmana." Can anybody explain that one to me?
Frank Sinatra Dies Hard, Baby
One of Frank Sinatra's best dramatic performances was as NYPD Detective Joe
Leland in the gritty cop thriller THE DETECTIVE, which was based on the Roderick Thorpe novel of the same name (the movie also starred Lee Remick, Jaqueline Bisset and Robert Duvall). Thorpe wrote a sequel called NOTHING LASTS FOREVER, again featuring Det. Leland…only this time, most of the story unfolds in a Los Angeles skyscraper taken over by terrorists. Sound familiar? It should. The book was adapted into the movie DIE HARD. So, in other words, Bruce Willis took over the role originally played by Frank Sinatra (can you imagine him swinging from the Fox Tower screaming "Yippee Ka-yaa Motherf****r"?). This is old news, but news to me nonetheless… I only just stumbled on it today, going through some old books of mine. It was like discovering that Sean Connery wasn't the first actor to play James Bond on screen (Barry Nelson was) or that Peter Falk wasn't the first Columbo on TV (Bert Freed was)…
It Was Hard Enough Writing The Book, Do I Have to Sign It, Too?
Margaret Atwood took the high-tech approach to avoiding the book tour — she created a machine that would allow her to sign books in distant locations from the comfort of her living room. Now a publisher is taking a decidedly low-tech approach — they are hiring people to sign books for the authors. The Guardian reports:
They have posted an advert on the listing site, Craig's List,
inviting a team of part-time workers to fake the signatures and get
paid in cash for the privilege.
inviting a team of part-time workers to fake the signatures and get
paid in cash for the privilege.
The advert says it is looking for
14 people who can do a blitz of false autograph signing on behalf of
two unnamed co-authors of a newly released, and equally anonymous,
book. "You will need to be able to copy the look and style of both
author's signatures," it says.
[…]The advert says the fake signing, to be held in Los Angeles, will run
over two days at eight hours a day. Each signing will take 15 seconds
or less, and at that rate the team of 14 could sign up to 53,760 copies.
People Are Raving About Axel’s New Dick
My buddy Axel Brand just got a rave review from Library Journal for his debut novel THE HOTEL DICK:
With a narrative voice reminiscent of
Dragnet's Joe Friday and a spot-on 1940s style that subtly slips
modernisms into the smooth, often humorous telling, Brand has written a sound
period piece featuring Lt. Joe Sonntag. Sonntag maintains a cool approach when
movie star Spencer Tracy appears to be the only viable suspect in the murder of
a hotel detective. The plot is as devious as any of Donald Westlake's and
hard-boiled enough to please Bill Pronzini fans. The end result is pure
entertainment.
Dragnet's Joe Friday and a spot-on 1940s style that subtly slips
modernisms into the smooth, often humorous telling, Brand has written a sound
period piece featuring Lt. Joe Sonntag. Sonntag maintains a cool approach when
movie star Spencer Tracy appears to be the only viable suspect in the murder of
a hotel detective. The plot is as devious as any of Donald Westlake's and
hard-boiled enough to please Bill Pronzini fans. The end result is pure
entertainment.
Axel also got a rave from Kirkus, who said, in part:
Brand's debut unfolds in leisurely fashion, with many detours. His noir
style effectively combines muscle and cheek, and Sonntag is an
appealingly laconic sleuth.
style effectively combines muscle and cheek, and Sonntag is an
appealingly laconic sleuth.
I haven't read the book yet myself but I am sure, knowing Axel, that it deserves all the acclaim it has been getting.