On Other Blogs

What Happens When TV Happens…

by

Ever wonder why a pilot doesn’t sell? There are a lot of reasons… and screenwriter John Rogers talks about the ones that doomed his WB pilot GLOBAL FREQUENCY.

What happened? TV happened. Even Mark Burnett (who was pretty cool, AND can kill
you with his thumbs) couldn’t beat it this time. Despite having some great
execs, and even testing pretty well, we got hit by a change of network
presidents in the middle of the shoot. I know, every guy in the industry just
instinctively winced when I said that. David Janolari was a gent about it, but
between some differing creative visions and network/studio gunk, all the best
intentions in the world weren’t going to get us there.

Also, in
completely honest retrospect, what the hell was I thinking? It’s a show about
how the institutions around us have failed us, and we live in a world of chaos
and death, held back only by borderline sociopaths. The HAPPY ending is our hero shoots an innocent man
in the face. Oh yeah, slot us right in after Gilmore Girls.

iUniverse CEO Speaks… Again

by

This seems to be POD/Self-Publishing day on my blog.  Pod-dy Mouth hosts a lengthy Q&A with iUniverse CEO Susan Driscoll. There are quite few interesting quotes. Here’s one:

If an author isn’t traditionally published then his/her title is not likely to get stocked nationally on bookstore shelves. Anyone who tells an author otherwise isn’t telling the truth.

You have to admire her honesty on that score. As she did in her letter to my blog, Susan once again tries to sell iUniverse as "a stepping stone to traditional publishing" success rather than a "vanity press" for people who can’t get their work published any other way.

iUniverse gives authors a way to quickly and affordably publish a book so that
the author can test market the book and can determine whether he/she likes doing
the marketing. Those that succeed will get picked up by bookstores and perhaps
by traditional publishers.

That’s where she loses me.  I don’t buy that reasoning for paying hundreds of dollars to self-publish your book.  She calls it the "all-important author platform," which is her attempt to refresh and re-imagine the age-old vanity press come-on/false hope:  the very slim possibility that you can become a bestseller on your own or that you will attract a "real publisher" with your self-published book.

Sure, it happens. People occasionally win the lottery, too.

All her talk about the importance of author self-marketing is essentially saying this:  iUniverse prints your book… and that’s it. You have to do all the rest. You have to create awareness and demand.  And if you manage, against all odds,  to somehow sell thousands of copies of your vanity press book, then a real publisher might take notice. 

That isn’t the "all-important" first step or, as she calls it, "author platform."
Writing a good book is the all-important first step. The second one is finding an
agent. The third one is selling the book. The fourth is getting out and marketing it as best you can (very different, by the way, than the kind of marketing you have to do to move a vanity press POD title that isn’t available in bookstores). The fifth is starting to write your next book.   The combination of those five steps is what I would call "the author platform."

In my opinion, self-publishing your novel is a frantic and foolhardy last
resort… a desperate gamble with very, very, very little chance of success.  It’s not a platform…it’s another charge on your credit card bill.

That said, I think  iUniverse has a lot to offer someone interested in self-publishing non-fiction or self-help books. In that case, I think you have a realistic potential for success, especially if publishing your book goes hand-in-hand with giving seminars and teaching classes.

I also think iUniverse is a great way for instructors to provide their own "textbooks" for their students as opposed to having them buy bound xerox copies of their articles and essays.

And iUniverse offers a second lease on life for previously-published books that have fallen out-of-print.  It’s not lucrative…but it offers readers hard-to-find books in handsome new editions and provides a few extra dollars to the authors that they wouldn’t otherwise see from used book sales.

Finally…

by

…somebody is airing reruns of HARRY O and SPENSER FOR HIRE, two of my favorite (and little seen) PI shows. Set your Tivos, folks, because TVSquad reports that later this month TVLand is celebrating Warner Brothers Television with a marathon thatalso  includes 77 SUNSET STRIP and LOVE SIDNEY.

Is that a new RWA rule in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?

by

Booksquare reports that The Romance Writers of America have passed a new rule barring the national and chapter websites from linking to authors with certain objectionable images or words on their bookcovers or on their sites/blogs.

… it’s pretty clear
the Board has never once, in their entire lives, taken a gander at the average
romance novel cover. If so, they’d realize they have just eliminated 99.9% of
all covers:

With respect to all RWA programs and services, the following shall not be
depicted or represented: exposed male and female genitalia, exposed female
nipples, cunnilingus and fellatio, hands or mouth covering naked female breasts,
naked or g-string-clad buttocks, and beastiality. The following words: cock,
cocksucker, cunt, fuck, motherfucker, shit, and tit, will not be
displayed.

The president of RWA has clarified this regulation, saying this means (and we
quote):

. . .if we wish to retain our charter with RWA, we will no longer be able to
show jacket covers that don’t meet the standard and we can’t even link to the
websites of those authors who might show their own covers, have excerpts that
include certain language, or lead to the publisher’s website.”

So if their rules say they can’t link to any site that has the words cock,
cocksucker, cunt, fuck, motherfucker, shit and tit, then they can’t even publish this rule on their own site since, by definition, it means printing the words cock,
cocksucker, cunt, fuck, motherfucker, shit, and tit.

That said, I’d like to belong to any writers organization progressive enough to have the words cock,
cocksucker, cunt, fuck, motherfucker, shit, and tit in their rules for anything.  I’m pretty sure there isn’t a rule in the Mystery Writers of America or the Writers Guild that includes the words cock,
cocksucker, cunt, fuck, motherfucker, shit, and tit, but I think there should be.  Imagine what DEADWOOD would be like without the words cock,
cocksucker, cunt, fuck, motherfucker, shit, and tit. Or Harry Potter.  Or our National Anthem.

You can’t use the words cock,
cocksucker, cunt, fuck, motherfucker, shit, and tit, but it’s okay to use the following words and phrases instead:
his throbbing maleness, adoring his gargantuan manhood,  heavenly cave
of feminine delight, give me some of that hot monkey love,  butt hole pirate, poop,
and swelling bosom.

I guess they won’t be linking to my site. I don’t use the words  cock,
cocksucker, cunt, fuck, motherfucker, shit, and tit, but I’ve got a big Dick on the cover of most of my books.

UPDATE : My brother Tod has some thoughts about this new rule, too, the one that forbids certain images and words like cock,
cocksucker, cunt, fuck, motherfucker, shit, and tit, though he doesn’t use cock,
cocksucker, cunt, fuck, motherfucker, shit, and tit anywhere in his post (which is a word that, incidentally, is an acceptable alternative for cock)
   

We Can’t All Be James Reasoner

by

Some writers (like the book-a-month man James Reasoner) can finish a book and, the very next day, start writing another one.  I need a week or two to decompress…but I always feel guilty about it. Apparently, I’m not the only one.  It seems even first-time novelists are afflicted with this sickness. HelenKay Dimon sold her first novel to Kensington last month and now…

Now…..pfffft. 

It’s been more than 3 weeks – okay, it’s been 4 weeks…whatever motivation kept me writing almost daily through rejections and
while I learned some sense of craft disappeared in a giant poof of
nothing the first week of May.

So, it’s time to start over.  Time for new goals.  Time to … concentrate on writing and, you know, all those things
that helped to get me published in the first place.  One might call
this the quest to find my lost motivation.  I call it what must happen
starting this evening.  It’s time.  It’s past time.  Next project…..

I feel for her, I really do. She’s being so hard on herself…and for what? Taking a short writing vacation.

It’s okay to take a little time off from writing, to bask in the glow of the finished project, to relax and regain your creative strength before embarking on the next book. At least that’s what I always tell myself  while, at the same time, feeling like a lazy ass bum for not writing.

Tod on Self-Publishing

by

My brother Tod has used the letter posted here today from iUniverse CEO Susan Driscoll as a  starting point for his ruminations on self-publishing.

Publication is not a birthright. If you are being rejected by every agent and
publisher in the land, save for those who want you to pay them for your work,
it’s time to take a hard look at what you’ve created. Art for art’s sake is
fine, but if this is the career path you choose, at some point you have to ask if what you’re creating is, indeed,  marketable.

The Book-A-Month Man

by

Uber-prolific writer  James Reasoner, author of 177 books (probably 178  by the time you finish reading this post) answers some of my questions about how he works on his blog today. But get this:

Over the course of my career, I’ve averaged about eight books a year. Last year was my most productive year ever, with twelve books and about half of another written. If I keep up my current pace I may beat that by a little this year.

Wow.  And I whine about how hard it is to write four-a-year.

The name is Goldberg, Lee Goldberg 2

by

The slick James Bond site MI6 is celebrating the 20th anniversary of A VIEW TO A KILL and has posted my interview with screenwriters Richard Maibaum and Michael Wilson as part of the celebration

Meeting Richard Maibaum was a very big deal for me and had an enormous impact on my life.

I was (and am) a big James Bond fan.  At the time, I was an 18-year-old kid on his way to UCLA to attend college…and putting himself through school as a freelance journalist (mostly doing phone interviews so no one would know how old I was).  I chose UCLA because it was near the film and TV industry and I wanted to learn as much as I could about both.

As soon as I arrived in L.A, I made up a target list of writer, producers and directors I admired and wanted to interview for articless (I know I could do them for the UCLA Daily Bruin if no where else).  The two names at the top of the list were Richard Maibaum and Steve Cannell.

I don’t remember how I tracked Maibaum down, but with my heart pounding with fear, I called him at home and asked if I could interview him for the UCLA Daily Bruin. Not only did he agree, he insisted that I come over for lunch. I nearly fainted.

Richard was a sweet, lovely man…and so was his wife. He showed me around his house (including a closet decorated with James Bond wallpaper) and shared some momentos he’d collected doing the films. He was delighted that someone was taking an interest in how the 007 films were written (in fact, I would later discover that my interview…not the one reprinted at MI6… was the first significant, detailed discussion with him any journalist had ever done. To this day, I see quotes from the lengthy article have been lifted without attribution books about the movies).

We spent six hours together that first day…and many hours together after that in person and on the phone.  He became my friend and an unofficial mentor.  Not only did Richard give me the confidence to approach other artists I admired (snagging the interview with him gave me the confidence to go after everybody else on my list…and I nearly all of them!), but he encouraged me to try screenwriting myself. 

The article itself was a financial and professional success for me — it won a college journalism award from Rolling Stone magazine (that came with a $1000 check, a HUGE amount of money for me at the time), a Society of Professional Journalists award for college journalism, and I sold it to STARLOG magazine as a two-part interview. That story led to many other freelance assignments, for STARLOG and other publications, writing about the Bond films…including an all-expenses-paid trip to London (my first!)  to cover the opening of THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS and interview the film-makers.

I remember how proud I was…and Richard, too… that years later we were able to walk the picket line together during the 1988 WGA Strike as  fellow professional screenwriters. It was a big moment for me…and one I will never forget. I like to think, in some small way, it was a special moment for him, too.

I don’t think Richard Maibaum ever got the appreciation and recognition he deserved for writing a dozen 007 movies.  It wasn’t in his nature to seek the attention… but consider his achievement:  How many screenwriters today have been nearly as successful or stuck with a single franchise for as long as he did? He was a terrific writer and very nice man. I miss him.