On Other Blogs

The Living DEAD

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TheDeadMan_FINAL4

The early response to THE DEAD MAN has been enthusiastic and extremely positive. Here's a sampling from the blogosphere.

The Post-Modern Pulps blog says:

 Mix one part lurid crime thriller, one part Stephen King-esque weird supernatural horror, add in a dash of colorful sex and a few sprinkles of gratuitous violence, then shake well over ice and pour into a tall frosty mug of icy death. You've just mixed up Lee Goldberg and William Rabkin's new short novel series, THE DEAD MAN.

The Man-Eating Bookworm Blog says:

THE DEAD MAN: FACE OF EVIL is a tight, well written, supernatural thriller. Right from the first page I was hooked, drawn into an intriguing story that kept me turning the pages until I was finished.[…]FACE OF EVIL satisfies all on it's own, while being a terrific opener that promises a epic tale to come. I'm excited for the next book

Right What You Know blog says:

This was another book that I read during my lunch break. Please don't tell my boss, as I read more of this on the first day than my lunch break technically allowed. Needless to say this book is far too engrossing for its own good. I highly recommend reading it when you have more than a half hour lunch break. Face of Evil can be regarded as a stand-alone novella, but it does set things up nicely for more to come. This is primarily a thriller with aspects of horror, with a generous smattering of the paranormal. I'm not really a horror fan, I don't really need those details, but here it isn't overriding and the paranormal/horror aspects add nicely to the tension. […]I can't wait for the rest of this series.

And Jaime Anastasiow blogs:

This was a hold your breath, fly by the seat of your pants, page-turner. And every time I turned the page there was a new surprise. Very much in the style of Stephen King: the natural and supernatural exist in the same realm.

Thanks to all of those bloggers, and to the many others I didn't mention here, for your great reviews!

The Fall of the Paper Curtain

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Mba1 This week marked an astonishing turning point in the publishing industry. USA Today published it's usual list of the top 150 bestselling books…but for the first time, they included self-published work in their calculations. Kindle Nation founder Stephen Windwalker calls it the "fall of the Paper Curtain." As if that wasn't amazing enough on its own, it wasn't just that a self-published author cracked the list…but that the same author managed to get seven titles on it. Self-published author Amanda Hocking's books placed 16, 24, 31, 81, 133, and 146 on the list, outselling authors like Stephen King and Nora Roberts. Here's what Windwalker predicts will be happening very soon: 

  • One way or another, the fact that USA Today has opened its "bestseller list" gates to the great unwashed population of ebook and self-published authors will force the New York Times to do the same, lest its bestseller list be rendered irrelevant.
  • Once the Times and other rags allow self-published books on their bestseller lists, they will have to start publishing reviews of self-published books.
  • The prediction made here just a few weeks ago, that an indie author would be inducted by early 2012 into the "Kindle Million Club" alongside James Patterson, Stieg Larsson, and Nora Roberts, will prove to have been ridiculously conservative. Regardless of when Amazon makes the announcement, Hocking will pass the million-copy mark in Kindle books sold by the first day of Spring this year, and she will be joined by another dozen indie authors before the arrival of Spring in 2012.

 

Getting Dirty On Her Own

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The-dirty-girls-social-club Author Alisa Valdes-Rodriquez is walking away from St. Martin's Press and self-publishing the third book in her hugely successful DIRTY GIRLS SOCIAL CLUB series in both e-book and print formats. She say, in part:

The Dirty Girls Social Club was published through St. Martin’s Press and sold more than half a million copies. The second Dirty Girls book, Dirty Girls on Top, also with St. Martin’s, came in just under that. When I did the math, I realized I’d only have to sell 100,000 copies on my own to earn what I’d made for six times the sales with a major publishing house. If I sold the same number of Dirty Girls books as I’d sold in the past, meanwhile, I’d be…a goddamned millionaire. A goddamned millionaire in control of her own career and destiny.[…]While I will continue to go with big publishers for my young adult books (I am under contract with Harper Collins for three books right now) I am very curious to see how the Dirty Girls experiment goes for me. I suspect it will go well enough to merit a national tour, which makes me think I should probably start taking pilot lessons now.

I predict her experiment will be a big success…because she's clearly shrewd, determined, enthusiastic and has a strong, pre-existing platform that she worked hard to build. Even if she sells only a tiny percentage of what she did with St. Martins on her first two Dirty Girls books, she will still make a fortune.  But even if it doesn't work out, which I doubt, she's wisely keeping one foot in the professional publishing world with her YA novels. This is one very smart lady.

Valdes-Rodriquez and Terrill Lee Lankford  are just the first in what I am certain will be a wave of professional authors opting to self-publish rather than accept the 25/75 e-royalty split or a pitiful mid-list advance (for which they will be essentially giving up rights to their books forever).

Spinetingling Interview

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Spinetingler Magazine has a long interview with me today on e-publishing. My thoughts on the subject have changed a bit since I did the interview but probably aren’t new to any of you who’ve read my blog, but even so, here’s a taste:

But have publishers been slow to adapt? Absolutely. Are they pricing ebooks too high? In some cases yes, but I don’t necessarily believe that the arbitrary $9.99 figure set by Amazon makes financial sense for publishers or authors…not while there are still hardcovers and paperbacks being published. The $2.99 price point makes a lot of sense for self-published authors like Joe and me…but does it make sense for Michael Connelly’s latest book from Little Brown? I don’t think so.

There’s no question that publishers should definitely be giving their authors a much bigger ebook royalties…and they will. It’s inevitable. But right now, publishers are in a state of total confusion and terror. They don’t know what to do…Borders is on the verge of collapse, Barnes & Noble is closing stores, ebook sales are exploding… it’s akin to what radio was facing when television came along. So they are trying to cut costs, pruning the midlist, firing editors, hunkering down and waiting out the storm. How they will emerge afterwards is anybody’s guess at this point.

It’s naive to think, though, that James Patterson or Janet Evanovich or authors in their stratosphere are going to be walking away from traditional publishing any time soon…they benefit enormously from the infrastructure and reach those companies provide. You can’t compare what A-list writers get from traditional publishing to what mid-list writers are experiencing. They are different universes. And it’s naive to think that big publishers, or printed books, are going to disappear. I’m sure the ebook world will, like the print world, continue to be dominated by the big publishers and the big authors (the big players in radio became the dominant players in TV, too). But there is more opportunity now for individual authors to take charge of their own careers. That said, it would not surprise me if Amazon, and eretailers like them, eventually institute some kind of filtering system to deal with the deluge of self-published work that they are being hit with. The slush pile has gone digital…and it’s going to be overwhelming, for Amazon and for readers, to wade through it all.

Just Say No

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Author Terrill Lee Lankford announced on his blog that he has just walked away from a big advance from a major publisher on his next book over the outrageous 75/25 e-book royalty split…and is going to self-publish instead. He says, in part: 

What this “sizable advance” now looks like to me is a very expensive loan. I have been watching the e-book revolution carefully for the last two years and it is clear to me that by 2012 everything we have thought about traditional publishing will be history. The bookstores know this. The publishers know this. And some of the writers know this. But I have a feeling not everyone has gotten the memo yet.

[…]
So I have no choice but to go full indie here. You heard me. I am walking away from a potential traditional publishing deal and joining the ranks of the self-published.[…]
This is a huge gamble for someone in my position. I am not prolific. My habit has been to publish two books every seven years or so. That time was approaching and I was hoping that I had found a new home with this editor and publishing house. But I can’t sign away my financial legacy to my children in this fashion, however small it may be.

He also has a warning for mid-list authors who are seeing new publisher interest in their dormant backlist…

In the meantime a lot of the little folks who just want to see print again are probably going to be seduced by new interest from publishers. I have a feeling there is going to be a tidal wave of cheap purchases by the publishers hoping to tie up as much material as possible at these usury rates. And then how much will your “platform” be worth? If you are just another name in a list of hundreds fighting for attention on a giant slate of titles you will have handed in your work cheap, with no way of getting it returned to you. Yes, that’s right. E-books don’t go out of print, so if you don’t fight for time limits, your work will be lost to you. Permanently.

I think we are going to see more and more authors, those who haven’t become household names, doing the math and making the same decision that he has.

Gumming up the Plumbing with Your Old Underpants

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Charlie Wendig has written a hilarious… and genuinely insightful…post about the justifiable stigma attached to self-publishing and how to avoid it. Here's a taste:

I (and I’m sure other capable writers) have noticed and noted that self-publishing bears a certain stigma. With the term comes the distinct aroma of flopsweat born out of the desperation of Amateur Hour — it reeks of late night Karaoke, of meth-addled Venice Beach ukelele players, of middle-aged men who play basketball and still clutch some secret dream of “going pro” despite having a gut that looks like they ate a basketball rather than learned to play with one.

Self-publishing just can’t get no respect. This is, of course, in contrast to other DIY endeavors.[…]This is in part because it’s a lot harder to put an album or a film out into the world. You don’t just vomit it forth. Some modicum of talent and skill must be present to even contemplate such an endeavor and to attain any kind of distribution. The self-publishing community has no such restriction. It is blissfully easy to be self-published. I could take this blog post, put it up on the Amazon Kindle store and in 24 hours you could download it for ninety-nine cents. It’s like being allowed to make my own clothing line out of burlap and pubic hair and being allowed to hang it on the racks at J.C. Penney.

That last line just killed me. And it's not even the funniest bit in his post. What's great is that he doesn't just take cheap shots at bad, self-published writers the way, say, I would.  By using strong examples, he clearly and hilariously illustrates the many cringe-inducing mistakes made by aspiring writers and, at the same time, offers solid advice on how to avoid "gumming up the plumbing with your old underpants."  It's a very entertaining read, whether you're a writer or not.

Mr. Monk on the Road Raves

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MR MONK on the Road (1)

Two rave reviews for MR. MONK ON THE ROAD just came my way, both from long-time fans of the books. Debra Hamel at Bookblog says, in part:

Goldberg’s books aren’t only about the crimes. More important are the series’s wonderful characters. The development of Monk and Natalie’s relationship over the series makes for many sweet moments, but in this outing the focus is on Ambrose’s interaction with Monk and Natalie and with the world at large. As usual in the series, there is some very funny dialogue. Usually this is centered on Monk’s abhorrence of all things unsanitary, but Ambrose’s social ineptitude also makes for some funny lines. I really enjoyed this one and the series as a whole, and I’m hoping the books never stop coming. 

Ed Gorman liked it for a lot of the same reasons. He says, in part:

Lee Goldberg has cast the new and extremely enjoyable Monk book as a picaresque adventure.[…]I’ve given up trying to rank the Monk books. I’ve read them all and think they each have different pleasures to offer, which is a tribute to Lee’s savvy as a writer. But I have to say that putting both the Monks in a RV with Natalie-take-no-crap-Teeger has got to be the funniest premise yet. A truly hilarious read with a surprise shout-out to the movie “Duel” coming out of nowhere. Among many other surprises.

Thank you Ed and Debra for the great reviews and the continued support!

Would you rather be an enlightened barista or a working writer?

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My brother Tod did an interview with the Association of Writers and Writing Projects blog about his approach to running the low residency MFA program in Creative Writing & Writing for the Performing Arts at the University of California, Riverside. This brief excerpt pretty much says it all: 

Caleb J Ross: You said something at last year’s AWP which stuck with me. Paraphrased, of course, you said that you teach your MFA classes like an instructor of any trade program might, with the end goal of providing financial opportunities for the students. This seems like a radically different approach than most MFAs which may instead focus on non-definable, creative signposts to gauge student success. First, am I expressing your idea correctly? Second, how is this goal compromised by a low-residency program, if it even is?

Tod Goldberg: Pretty close. Essentially my philosophy is that if you’re in an MFA program, your goal isn’t to become the most well-read person on earth with a handful of literary quotes at your disposal at all times, it’s to be published. It’s to be produced. Graduate programs in creative writing are some of the few that seem entirely esoteric because they don’t seem to be training you for anything tangible, apart from maybe being a particularly enlightened barista, because, well, that’s frequently the case.  But I think that has to change. Being a professional writer is a job. And if you want to write books, or write screenplays, or write poetry, simply for personal edification, you certainly don’t need an MFA program to do that. But if you want to become a professional writer, I think an MFA program can and should be a clear stepping stone in that direction. Most aren’t. Most entirely eschew the idea of life after the MFA — in fact, most programs tend to herald your acceptance into the program as the “making it” part of your writing career, which is silly. It’s school. It’s what you do afterward that makes a difference…

 

Agent Scams

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Victoria Strauss at Writer Beware offers an excellent primer today on how to spot, and avoid, literary representation scams. As it turns out, the sample solicitation she's using was sent by Dan Grogan, an ex-employee of Jones Harvest, a two-bit and particularly sleazy vanity press. Clearly, Dan learned from the best. Here's some of Victoria's warning signs to watch out for:

– Cold-call solicitation. Reputable agents will sometimes directly approach an author whose work they've seen and liked (and if so, will reference that work). But they don't rely on mass email solicitation to build their client lists. 

– Multiple punctuation and spelling errors, both in the email and on the agency's website (missing apostrophes, "summery" for "summary," etc.). A literary agent should be able to write error-free English–and to proofread it once it's written.

– Claims of experience that can't be verified. There are more of these on the agency's website. Alleging "long term relationships with particular publishers and editors" or "connections in the film industry, publishing companies, and multi-media marketing companies" are meaningless without specifics. A real agent with real experience who wants to tout that experience will say exactly what it is (see, for instance, the staff bios at the Nelson Literary Agency, or those at the Waxman Agency).

– Promotion of services irrelevant to literary representation.Reputable agents help guide their clients' careers, but they don't typically double as "public relation [sic] representatives." And see this page of the agency's website, where they claim, among other things, to be able to provide an ISBN, list clients' books on Amazon, and "Copyright your work with the Nation [sic] Library of Congress." These are services important for self-publishers, but not relevant to authors expecting their agents to sell their books to reputable trade publishers. (And wouldn't you hope your agent would know that your work is copyrighted from the moment you write it down, and that what you do with the US Copyright Office–not with the Library of Congress–is register it?)

– A critiquing service for a fee. The publishing world is changing, and reputable agents are more and more branching out into other areas–including the provision of various paid services (I'm planning a post on that in the near future). However, offering a paid service to a potential client is a conflict of interest–never a good thing–and if you're cold-call soliciting that client, it suggests that maybe shilling the paid service is your main objective. 

Mr. Monk and the Scoop

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MR. MONK ON THE ROAD got a rave review today from the Gelati's Scoop blog. They said, in part:

This is probably the best Monk novel that Lee Goldberg has written by far, plain and simple, it's flat out awesome! […]Lee Goldberg has really taken the characters and fleshed them out more, gotten inside their heads, exposed their feelings and emotions on a level that hasn’t been done before, [giving] them a unique sense of self, where they stand with each other and the world, and a balance and symmetry that the characters have always craved but never had. This for me is the complete Mr. Monk novel: fun, tongue in cheek, over the top insanity mixed with equal parts mystery, action and an ending that ties everything up into a nice package.  

Thanks so much, Giovanni!