Current Affairs

The Mystery of Mark Wonder

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Psycho I love this kind of stuff. James Reasoner stumbles onto an obscure private eye series , featuring the adventures of Mark Wonder, written by one writer but under two different names. Negative20of20a20nude

Author Warren Murphy sort of did the opposite… he wrote two book series featuring the same insurance investigator and his Asian girlfriend but gave the characters different names. One series was called DIGGER, the other was called TRACE, and they both became the basis for the TV series MURPHY’S LAW,  starring George Segal, which was my first staff job.

UPDATE (7-18-2005) James Reasoner’sliterary investigation into private eye Mark Wonder continues with another twist. This time the author is the same (Eric Thomas again) only now it’s the PI whose name changes. In STRIP FOR MURDER, Mark Wonder becomes Christopher Sly. Stripformurder

Self-Annointed Blog Royalty

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Screenwriter Paul Guyot, who recently launched his own blog, talks about the dangers of becoming, or getting too close to, the self-annointed blog royalty in the mystery community.

There are some people out there who have become such a dominant part of the blogosphere, especially within the mystery community, that they are literally defined by their blogs. Their blog presence is who they are. Without their blog they would be just another nameless, faceless part of the horde. And this kills them.  Because deep down, nobody wants to be just a blogger.  So, to compensate for this secret frustration, they immerse themselves in their blogs – becoming as well-known and prominent as they can be. And for the ones that attain this recognition they begin to believe they actually are special.

The mystery all those bloggers will be blogging about this week is which bloggers he’s talking about…

Animal House

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There were two stories in the LA Times today about sexual misconduct involving cops in the San Fernando Valley’s Devonshire division. In one case, two cops were nailed for getting blowjobs from strippers while on-duty and, in another,  a veteran officer was arrested for molesting boys in a youth program. 

In the first case, the wife of one of the cops wrangled a notorized confession from him that she later turned in to authorities after her husband beat her up.

"This case is unusual on multiple levels," said Deputy Chief Michael Berkow, head of the Professional Standards Bureau, which includes Internal Affairs. "It is unusual for officers to commit on-duty sexual misconduct. But even more unusual when a wife has her husband confess to sexual misconduct, has it notarized, keeps it an extensive time and then turns it over to us."

Sarah vs Janet

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Several years ago, author Sarah Strohmeyer wrote a novel and got into trouble with Janet Evanovich, who found it necessary to bring in lawyers to resolve the situation.  Now, inexplicably, Sarah has blogged about her version of what happened, painting herself as this innocent, adoring, respectful author and Janet as an egotistical, irrational bitch…

Sarah’s comments about Janet were picked up by blogs everywhere and she’s continued to flog her story on DorothyL, a discussion list for mystery readers, writers, and booksellers.

To her credit, Janet has taken the high road and remained out of the fray. But it bothers me to see people trashing Janet as if the story Sarah is telling is undisputed fact. It isn’t.

I don’t know Sarah, and I have nothing against her. But I have to ask myself what the point is of flogging this highly self-serving version of events now (repeatedly) and what she hopes to gain from it.

I should say right now that I’m biased…Janet is a friend of mine, I like her a lot, and I don’t like seeing her unfairly trashed. Remember, there are two sides to every story. Sarah is flogging one  version… don’t assume it’s gospel simply because Janet hasn’t countered with her side of things (and if she did, you might not like Sarah very much). 

UPDATE: Janet asked me to post the following message on DorothyL in response to Sarah’s latest post:

I met Sarah Strohmeyer ten years ago when she came to my house to interview me for a local paper.  It’s my understanding that during that visit I inspired Sarah to write about Bubbles.  I’m flattered to have made this small contribution to Sarah’s success and wish her the very best.

Janet Evanovich

As you can see, she’s a classy lady. 

Obscure TV on DVD

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There’s no logic behind the TV shows that are turning up on DVD. Is the world really clamoring for the complete "The Joey Bishop Show," "Dusty’s Trail," "The Doris Day Show," "Highlander: The Raven," "Baa Baa Black Sheep," "Beastmaster," "Doc," "That’s My Mama," "Guns of Will Sonnet,"  "What’s Happening?" and "Earth 2?"

And yet, where are the shows I’ve done? Where are those lost classics  "She-Wolf of London," "Murphy’s Law," "Likely Suspects," "Deadly Games," "Cosby Mysteries," "SeaQuest," "The Highwayman," "Cobra," "Diagnosis Murder," and, of course,  the complete "New Adventures of Flipper" starring the teenage Jessica Alba?

On the other hand, some real gems are coming out… I was thrilled to learn from the folks at TVSquad that all 26 episodes of the classic sitcom "Buffalo Bill" are coming to DVD in September.

Now if they’d only put out "Harry O," "Spenser For Hire," "The Night Stalker,""Search,"  "The Rockford Files," and "Maverick"…

You Don’t Know Jack

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Cynthia Potts discovered Jack:

Jack is a magazine by fanfic writers, designed to showcase homoerotic fiction.
And even they don’t want any fanfiction! But the kicker: To submit, you have to
have been a fanfic writer at some point.

Translation: We only want lazy
thieves to contribute to our magazine. People who don’t see a problem with
stealing other writer’s work and perverting the intent of the story. It helps if
they’re so clueless that they don’t know the stealing is wrong, but are actually
proud of the theft.

This seemed just too bizarre to be true. But it’s for real.

Welcome to JACK, an ezine of original homoerotic fiction written by Fanfiction
Writers. The staff of JACK firmly believes in the artistic validity of textual
erotica. Our goal is to create a zine that reflects our enthusiasm and love for
homoerotic (both male/male and female/female) literature while also showcasing a
wide range of talented authors…

…The only requirement for our authors (beyond writing good fiction and being of
legal age) is that you must have written fanfiction at some time. Links would be
appreciated. Submit all stories in plain text format in the body of an email to:
keystrokepress@gmail.com with
JACK Submission in the subject header. Because of virus concerns, all
attached files will be deleted unread.

So fanfiction really is practice for writing…if you want to write for an online magazine featuring homoerotic stories. 

Chicks Dig Movie Bootleggers

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The LA Times reports that Johnny Ray Gasca was convicted yesterday of seven criminal counts relating to his bootlegging of movies and flight from justice. One major piece of evidence against him was his diary, where he bragged that he made $4000 a week illegally taping movies with his camcorder. Gasca, who defended himself, explained the journal this way:

In a deep voice with a thick Bronx accent, Gasca told the jury that the journal
was a work of fiction written to impress girls.

"And I gotta tell you,"
he told the 12-member jury, "it worked."

I can just imagine the scene. Gasca goes up to a girl in a bar.

"Hey, baby, I’m a movie pirate."

"Really? Where’s your eyepatch?"

"I don’t have an eyepatch," he says, "but I keep a journal. Would you like to read it?"

"Sure," she says.

He takes out his journal, opens it up to key page, and shows it to her. She reads it, looks up at him, and says breathlessly:

"You sat in a movie theatre and taped THE CORE off the screen with a camcorder?"

He nods and, in doing so, redefines suave.

"That is so hot. I-I-I,"  She grabs the bar and shudders. "Oh God, I just climaxed thinking about it. Take me home, now, so I can make love to you all night."

"I have a better idea. I have my camcorder with me," he whispers. "What do you say we go to the AMC and tape SPY KIDS?"

She shudders again. "Stop. Torturing. Me. I don’t think I can take much more of this, you incredibly hot, bootlegging stud…"

Pros and Cons of POD

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The Sacramento  News & Review ran an interesting, and very balanced, article about the pros-and-cons of Print-On-Demand publishing (ie "vanity presses").

there’s a difference between the POD printing technology–which has many
uses–and POD publishing. In recent years, a number of companies have begun to
offer POD publishing services to authors who want to see their books in print
but haven’t been able to interest a traditional publishing house in their work.
These writers often turn to companies with names like AuthorHouse, iUniverse and
Xlibris to publish their books for them. For a fee, which varies depending on
the level of marketing, editing and other services the author selects, POD
publishers will set up the book and print copies as they are ordered.

Wales, who published his first novel with AuthorHouse, makes a distinction
between using a POD publisher and self-publishing. “The basic difference,” he
said, “is that when you use a company like AuthorHouse or iUniverse, they are
the publisher. That means they own the ISBN [International Standard Book
Number], and all payments for the book get channeled through them.” But because
the author has paid for the publication, and the company has no input into
content other than banning obscenity or pornography, according to Wales, “those
companies are vanity presses.”

“They’ll set you up,” he said, “but they don’t have any sort of criteria for
what’s going to be published and what isn’t.” Wales initially went with
AuthorHouse (which was called 1stBooks at the time) because he’d had difficulty
finding an agent or publisher for his first book, a rather epic fantasy novel.
It runs more than 600 pages–more than 300,000 words–in length.

…Many would-be authors decline to use the editing services offered by POD
publishers–either because it costs extra or because they think, wrongly, that
editing isn’t necessary. Without the agents and editors of the traditional
publishing system to weed out the unprepared and unworthy, some really bad books
are out there.

The folks at Pod-dy Mouth (where I found the link to this article) exchanged emails with the reporter, Kel Munger, while she was writing the article. In one of them, the reporter said:

I’m genuinely torn between a
healthy respect for access to publishing for all and aggravation that so many
people think anybody can write a good book. It’s like saying anyone can be a
brain surgeon; it would be nice if it were true, but it’s just not so.

I recommend the article for anyone who is thinking about self-publishing their book.

No Rewrites, No Editing

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I remember reading an interview with Robert B. Parker somewhere where he said he doesn’t go back and rewrite his work…he just bangs it out and moves on.  Apparently, his books aren’t edited by his publisher, either. Bill Crider posts the evidence.

From Appaloosa,

p. 266: "The room was quiet and
noisy."

p. 238: "Bragg took a tan leather case out of his inside coat pocket. He offered a cigar to Bragg and
me."

DVDs Bring in Billions of Dollars… and What do Writers Get? Bupkis.

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Variety reported Friday that sales of DVD boxed sets  accounted for $2.8 billion in sales in 2004, up from $160 million in 2000, making TV shows "the fastest growing sector of the US vid biz."

The TV DVD sector account for 18% of  the US disc retail market last year…American shows dominate the DVD market not just in the US but in most Western European countries…

"In economic terms, this trend has been the equivalent for the Hollywood studi0s of striking oil in one’s own backyard, as they discovered lucrative new vehicles for exploiting brands they already own," according to the Screen Digest report.

What is the writer’s take of that gigantic windfall? About zero. Screenwriter John August crunches the numbers, using the DVD of his movie BIG FISH as an example.

the formulas used for home video residuals are based on videotapes, which are
relatively expensive to produce, and sell for a fairly low price. Technology
changes. DVDs are cheaper to produce, and sell for a higher price. But the
formula for paying residuals is still locked into the old paradigm. Studios make
a hell of lot more on each DVD they sell, but the writer (and actor, and
director) still get the same amount.

residualsA recent campaign
by the WGA East does a graphical breakdown of the numbers, but let’s take
Big Fish as an example. According to Video Business, its
MSRP is $28.95, but most people will pay less than that. Let’s say $20, which is
what you’d pay on Amazon. And Amazon is still pulling a 25% markup at that
price; it buys the DVD wholesale at $16.

How much does it cost to manufacture, package, distribute and market each
DVD? On average, $5.45. So the studio is making a profit of $10.55 on each DVD
sold. For Big Fish, that means Columbia/TriStar has made $21.1 million
profit in just one week. Of that, the writer gets the “point-one.”

The studios refuse to give writers, actors, or directors a bigger piece of DVD revenue, not even as little as 1%,  arguing they need  it all to 0ff-set losses in other areas. The income from TV shows on DVD, as well as movies on DVD, more than make up for any losses incurred by short-lived shows in primetime or films that tank at the box-office (In fact, the take from movies on DVD are often much, much larger than the box-office revenues)

For TV writers, DVDs are the future of reruns,  not syndication or foreign sales.
Experts quoted in the article predicted that US sales of TV shows on
DVD will reach $4.4 billion  by 2009.  Currently,  TV shows on DVD account for 30% of all DVD purchases in Western Europe, adding up to $2.1 billion in sales.

We caved on the DVD issue in this negotiation because the studios said there was no way they’d increase our take. They declared it a non-negotiable point. So we, and all the other guilds, settled for small bumps in other areas (and we wrangled a $37 million infusion of cash into our health fund, still a pittance compared to the revenue we won’t see from DVDs).

I think it’s imperative, for the future f the WGA and the financial security of writers, that we make getting a bigger share of DVD revenue a line-in-the-sand in the next contract negotiation…that we align ourselves with our sisters unions on this issue and  make it clear to the studios that we won’t accept no for an answer.