In the Trades Today

Everwood Nevermore

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The CW has leaked it’s fall schedule… and it doesn’t include EVERWOOD or REBA.  The sked will reportedly be a mix of old favorites from UPN (VERONICA MARS, AMERICA’S TOP MODEL, ALL OF US, EVERYBODY HATES CHRIS, GIRLFRIENDS) and The WB (GILMORE GIRLS, 7th HEAVEN, ONE TREE HILL, SMALLVILLE, SUPERNATURAL) and the new shows PALM SPRINGS (a soap from Kevin Williamson), RUNAWAY (Donnie Wahlberg is on the run for a crime he didn’t commit), and the GIRLFRIEND’s spin-off THE GAME. The CW didn’t pick-up the WB-developed AQUAMAN, surprising industry pundits who considered it a done deal, since the project was from the folks behind SMALLVILLE.

UPDATE: Les Moonves blinked… and instead of paying 20th Century Fox a $20 million penalty for not picking up REBA (which the late WB had previously renewed for two seasons)… he’s decided to bring back to the show for midseason. Meanwhile, for some reason PALM SPRINGS has been renamed HIDDEN PALMS…which sounds kind of clunky to me.

Romance Author Wins Libel Case Against Authorhouse

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Publishers Weekly reports that a Kansas court has ordered Authorhouse, the POD vanity press,  to pay $230,000 to romance author Rebecca Brandwynne, who was libeled by one of their books, which was written by her ex-husband.

According to court documents, AuthorHouse published Paperback Poison: the Romance Writer and the Hit Man by Gary D. Brock, with his current wife, Debbie Brock, in November, 2003. Some of the more incendiary claims in Paperback Poison
include allegations that Brandewyne broke laws, committed adultery,
plagiarized several of her books, and hired a hit man to kill her
ex-husband, the book’s author.

[…]The Kansas jury ruled for Brandewyne even though AuthorHouse’s
contracts state that the publisher assumes no legal responsibility or
liability “for any loss, damage, injury, or claim to any kind or
character to any person or property” in publishing the works of its
clients. Jay Fowler, an attorney for Brandewyne, maintained that the
“contract does not absolve AuthorHouse of their responsibility.
AuthorHouse published the book, put it on the Internet, did everything
a publisher does. They’re responsible for publishing this book without
vetting it first.”

One of the more interesting aspects of this story is what it reveals about the "success" of self-published POD titles.

Fowler said that AuthorHouse claims 74 copies of Paperback Poison
in total were printed, 21 were given to the author, three were sold,
and the company destroyed the 50 copies they had remaining in stock
after receiving complaints about the book from Brandewyne and others.
“But that book’s still out there,” Fowler said. “Sometimes, [the online
seller] says the book is published by Lightning Source, sometimes
1stBooks, sometimes AuthorHouse. But it all flows back to AuthorHouse.”

Seventy-four copies were printed. Twenty one of those were sold to the author. Only three copies were actually sold to readers. Wow.  No wonder so many aspiring authors flock to these vanity presses. Who wouldn’t pay hundreds — or even thousands — of dollars for a chance at that amazing print run and distribution?

This story just goes to prove what anyone with common sense already knows: that vanity presses make all their money from the authors, not from selling books to readers…and that there is no editorial oversight of any kind.

UPDATE: The folks over at POD-dy Mouth have another perspective on the story:

If in fact, Authorhouse loses on appeal (I’m not a lawyer; I’m just assuming), imagine what that would do to the world of POD?

S-l-o-w- i-t- d-o-w-n.

And
you thought regular publishing was slow! Guess what will happen if (for
lack of a better term) non-publishing professionals have to vet these
books? 

Eye on Dramas

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CBS has reportedly picked up 3LBs (about brain surgeons), WATERFRONT (about the crooked mayor of Providence RI), SHARK (with James Woods as a celebrity attorney-turned-prosecutor), SMITH (a crime drama from the POV of crook Ray Liotta), and JERICHO (about a small town that survives the apocalypse). The word is that KING OF QUEENS, NEW ADVENTURES OF OLD CHRISTINE,  and CLOSE TO HOME have also been renewed. Oddly, no mention yet on the fate of THE UNIT, though I assume it’s being picked up.

The Invaders Have Been Defeated

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It looks as though all three of the "aliens invading" series launched this season have died. CBS cancelled THRESHOLD at midseason, ABC has reportedly cancelled INVASION, and the buzz is that NBC is scrapping SURFACE.

If ABC cancels COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF (which is likely), then none of their new dramas from last fall will have survived. But not all the news is bad for ABC’s 2005-2006 dramas… the network has reportedly renewed WHAT ABOUT BRIAN, the mid-season show from JJ Abrams. 

ABC’s new dramas for next fall include TRAVELER (about college students framed for a terrorist plot),  BROTHERS AND SISTERS (a new Calista Flockhart show), and MEN IN TREES (about a lady shrink who moves to Alaska).

And 7th HEAVEN may not be in TV heaven just yet…the rumor is that the entire cast is returning for 13 more episodes on the CW, which pay 20th Century Fox a $20 million penalty for failing to honor the WB’s  full season pick-up of REBA, a sitcom that skews too old and rural for the new network.

Deadwood Dead?

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Variety reports that HBO has let their contractual options lapse on the cast of DEADWOOD, which begins airing its third season in a few weeks. This decision frees the cast to pursue jobs elsewhere,  which strongly suggests that HBO has lost interest in a fourth season of the show before the third season has even aired.

HBO insisted that conversations about future
cycles of "Deadwood" are ongoing, and Milch told the Boston Globe in
the April 30 issue that he had always planned to exit the series after
the fourth season; he has been reported as saying that he’d envisioned
each season as a year, and the actual Deadwood camp was destroyed at
the end of four.

"If a series is successful, the commercial
interest is in keeping it on, even after the creative interest is in
ending it," Milch told the Globe. "With ‘Deadwood,’ my intention is to
end at the end of the fourth season. I can’t speak for anyone else, but
that’s where I’m getting off the bus."

Meanwhile, Milch is busy developing his HBO "surf noir" series with author Kem Nunn. I’ll be sad to see DEADWOOD go…it’s one of my favorite shows.

“BJ Hooker”

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Variety reports that the life of singer/songwriter Billy Joel is being turned into BIG SHOT,  an hour-long episodic drama series for Showtime.  The first season will take place in the 1970s, tracking his career and his first marriage to his then-business manager Elizabeth Weber. The series will incorporate his songs and it’s promised that storylines will deal frankly with his subsequent marriages, car accidents, and alcohol abuse. 

This could be the beginning of a franchise for Showtime. If BIG SHOT works, you can count on seeing the series I WRITE THE SONGS (the Barry Manilow story) and SONG SUNG BLUE (the Neil Diamond story) real soon.

Pilot Pick-Ups

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TV Tracker, Variety and Nikki Finke are reporting several drama series pick-ups.

NBC has ordered HEROES (about ordinary people who have super powers), RAINES (Jeff Goldblum as a cop who speaks to the dead) and FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS, based on the movie…

The buzzword at ABC next season is "intertwined." They’ve greenlighted JJ Abram’s SIX DEGREES (about the intertwined lives of several New Yorkers), NINE (about several people whose lives are intertwined after spending 52 hours as hostages in a bank hold-up) and DAYBREAK (about a cop falsely accused of murder who races against time to clear his name and prevent another killing…presumably, he will also become intertwined).

Stargate SG1-3

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TV Squad pointed me to this Multichannel News article about the business behind STARGATE SG-1, which is shooting it’s 200th episode…and is the springboard for a LAW & ORDER/CSI/STAR TREK-esque franchise for MGM and SciFi Channel. Already, the studio is planning a second spin-off series (in addition to STARGATE ATLANTIS) and a feature film. What nobody mentions in the article (or anywhere else) is how much of STARGATE’s enormous revenue is going to Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin, the writer/producers/creators behind the original 1994 movie that inspired the TV series.