On Other Blogs

Run Screaming from the POD People

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Novelist Joe Konrath has an excellent post today explaining the financial reasons why paying to have your book "published" by POD vanity press is a really, really bad idea.

Let’s do the math. You’ve got to give the bookstore a 40% discount.
So you’ll sell them the books for $11.40 each. That leaves you with a
$5.70 profit per book. Not bad. But out of that comes the Happy Press
Package fee, the printing cost, shipping the book to bookstores, and
the effort to just get the bookstores to carry you (an effort that
traditionally published authors don’t have to make.)

Also figure in a 50% return rate.

If
you get 1000 books into stores, and sell 500, you’ll make $2850.
Subtract the $5700 (the cost of printing 1000 books at the 70%
discount) and subtract the package cost ($5000 for all the set up fees.)

You’ve only lost $4900, selling 500 books.

If you sell 2000 (which means you’ll have to ship 4000) your total cost would be:

$5000 set-up package
$22800 book printing costs
minus $11400 profit

Which means you’re losing $16400.

What a deal!

You’ll Never Go Wrong with Harry

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I’ve never read a bad book by Harry Whittington. Ed Gorman posted an appreciation of Whittington’s A NIGHT FOR SCREAMING on his blog today.

You want twists and turns? You want to be knocked out of your seat not
three but four times in about the last forty pages? You want to change
your politics and take up with a chick with Hooters and run away to the
sunny beaches of Indiana and hold yur breath for six days? Well, this
slender little novel with one of the truly classic cover paintings will
make you do all those crazy things and more. I promise.

This is an example of taking a familiar set-up and turning it into
a novel you’ve never read before. I’m in the process of outlining it
now. I want to see how he did it.

What I find fascinating about this post isn’t the rave for Whittington — Ed has done that before and he’ll do it again. It’s the idea that Ed, the acclaimed author of countless mysteries, westerns and thrillers of his own, is outlining Harry’s novel for himself.

It just goes to prove that a true professional writer knows there is always more to learn about their craft — and that the best way to do it  is to never stop reading, appreciating, and studying what other writers have done.

Ten Pages a Day or Die

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Author Nancy Martin talks about the importance of making deadlines in the book biz.

Sure, I had excuses when I was late. Death in the family. Moving
twice in twelve months. Sick kids. Husband’s midlife crisis. The dog
didn’t eat my homework, she died in a slow, messy, heart-breaking way.
And did I mention I broke a tooth, had a lump in my breast and
developed shingles all in the same month last year?!?

But publishing waits for no woman’s mammogram.

I know how she feels. Even with two broken arms and a TV series to write/produce, I worried about delivering my book on time  — but some how met my deadline.  The problem is, I’ve made it  impossible for myself to ever miss a deadline. What excuse could possibily top two broken arms?

A Rawboned Novel of Primitive Love!

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Over the weekend, novelist Bill Crider scanned the delightfully lurid covers of nearly 200 of his vintage paperbacks, many of them by Harry Whittington (under a variety of names).  I don’t know what I like more, the illustrations or come-ons like these:

"He used two women to feed his brute cravings."

"The sultry story of pagan revelries, lonely men, and a native girl."

"Her luscious body was used as a man trap"

"Faceless, he might be a devil or saint…but he had the lusts of a man."

Press Tour Madness

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The winter press tour, when the nations TV critics descend on L.A. for press conferences and parties, has started and Matt Zoller-Seitz and Lisa De Moraes are writing about the madness. De Moraes writes:

Winter TV Press Tour 2006 had not begun auspiciously.

More
than 100 of the Reporters Who Cover Television, from around the country
and even Canada, descended on Loopyville West this week to spend two
weeks discussing Ideals and the Future of Television at the gorgeous
old Ritz-Carlton, Huntington Hotel.

It was a homecoming of
sorts for the group, which for a decade had held its semiannual confab
at the Huntington, chatting up suits and celebs in freezing ballrooms
by day, dining on the networks in the Horseshoe Garden at night —
followed, weather permitting, by a little late-night viewing from room
balconies of TV celebs swimming and engaging in other activities in the
pool.

But, as with so many other beautiful relationships —
Brad and Jen, Jessica and Nick, Renee and Kenny — this one began to
crumble and about three years ago reporters decided to take their
business to a hotel across the street from a Hooters in Hollywood.
Monday night, at the National Geographic Channel Check-In Party, they
celebrated their return to the site of so many happy, happy times.

The
next morning the tour officially got underway when Billy Ray Cyrus and
his 13-year-old daughter, Miley, got up onstage to hawk their new
Disney Channel series, "Hannah Montana." It’s about a girl who, unknown
to her fellow students, lives a double life as pop singer Hannah
Montana, entertaining legions of prepubescent fans with songs written
by her manager-dad.

It’s hard to focus on Ideals and the Future
of Television after you’ve just watched a clip of Billy Ray Cyrus —
who will now try to do for the Neo-Prince Valiant with Tips and Streaks
what he did in the ’90s for the mullet — singing:

I like to sing,

I like to dance,

But I can’t do it with poopy in my pants.

Billy Ray said he swore after doing Pax’s "Doc" he’d never do another
series but decided to audition for the "Montana" role after reading the
script because "it all begins with what’s on the page."

Uh-huh.

(Thanks to Alan Sepinwall for the heads-up)