#1 New York Times Bestselling Author & TV Producer
Novelist James Reasoner just finished writing another book today... his 177th. And he’s still going strong.
I need to write two or possibly three outlines, but I’ll have the next book
started in a few days.
Reading his blog, and seeing his average tally of about 22 manuscript pages-a-day, I feel so unproductive.
Not only has Paramount remade the movie THE BAD NEWS BEARS, but Posterwire (the wonderful movie poster blog) reports that they’ve remade the movie poster, too.
Ed Gorman reports that he will now be sharing his terrific blog, Ed Gorman & Friends, with famed western author Richard Wheeler…and that Jon Breen, Jack O’Connell and Terrill Lee Lankford will continue to offer occasional posts as well. Wheeler’s first post is an interesting story about an established novelist’s foray into self-publishing in the days before print-on-demand made it easy.
In the 1970s my friend Stanley Gordon West wrote a splendid novel called Amos.
It was about a man in a nursing home who fought its corrupt and sinister
administrator. It was successfully published by Houghton Mifflin and became an
Emmy-nominated TV drama starring Kirk Douglas. (It was the reason Kirk Douglas
became an advocate of reforming old-people’s homes.)Then a funny thing
happened, one of those maddening things about the houses in New York. West was
unable to place another novel with an established publisher. For years he
patiently wrote novels, had various agents submit them, and was steadily turned
down. A few years ago he took another route. He organized his own company,
Lexington Marshall, and published one of those novels that had been rebuffed in
New York. ..
You’ll have to visit the blog to find out what happened next.
The folks at Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Novels dissect three of the worst romance book covers ever… and have a lot of hilarious, wicked fun doing it.
Personally, I think what this cover really needs is Dick Van Dyke.
Author SL Viehl shares the royalty statement on her latest paperback. The book is doing well and she has every reason to be thrilled and proud. But if you’re an aspiring writer, the numbers will be an important reality check for you about the kind earnings/sales a successful (as opposed to bestselling) author can expect. You should also check out the nitty-gritty of novelist Alison Kent’s recent royalty statement and author Ian Irvine’s excellent article on how publishing works. The chart below, which I posted back in February, is from his article:
Table 1: What you get in your hand after agents’ cuts, per book
| COUNTRY | HARDCOVER** | TRADE PAPERBACK** | MASS MARKET PAPERBACK | |||
| Pre-tax Price | Your share ($A) | Pre-taxp Price | Your share ($A) | Pre-tax Price | Your share ($A) | |
| Australia | $A40.50 | $3.44 | $A27.33 | 2.32 | $A18.13 | 1.54 |
| Britain | £17.99 | 3.21 | £12.99 | 2.32 | £7.99* | 1.07 |
| USA | $US25.95 | 2.52 | US14.95 | 1.45 | $US7.99# | 0.62 |
* Exch. Rate 0.38, royalty 7.5% to 20K, Aust publisher 20%, Aust agent 15%
# Exch. Rate 0.70, royalty 8% to 100K, Aust publisher 20%, Aust agent 15%
** Trade paperback and hardcover royalties 10%
Over on my brother’s blog, he’s talking about the lynch mob that’s going after Paul Ruditis for his book RAINBOY PARTY (and he quotes a column from a wacko at Jewish World Review, which sure as hell isn’t this Jew’s world. This is the same nutcake who wrote "In Defense of Internment: The Case for Racial Profiling in World War II and the War on Terror" Need I say more?).
RAINBOW PARTY takes its title from high school parties where girls compete to give the most blowjobs to boys…and the boys compete to get the most head that they can. Clearly, this isn’t the latest Nancy Drew, though if a guy is gonna win this, he’s got to be a pretty Hardy Boy. I haven’t read the book, so I can’t say how graphic it is, or if its age-appropriate for teenagers. Be that as it may, I was struck by the Amazon review that Tod quotes:
Don’t buy it unless you’re going to burn it, May 25, 2005
Reviewer: PAUL C. FRY (Cleveland, OH USA) – See all my reviews 
One reason that I’m giving this a lousy review because I’m a parent.
I’ve got two boys so far; I don’t want either of them giving or getting
oral sex when they’re teenagers. Or ever for that matter.
He doesn’t want his kid to ever have oral sex? And never give it? Makes you wonder what poor Mrs. Fry’s sex life has been like (let me say here and now that when my daughter is an adult, I want her to have as much oral sex from her lover or husband as she would like. You go girl!). But Tod talks all about the evils of oral sex, so I won’t belabor the point. What Tod didn’t do, and what I’ve done, is check out Mr. Fry’s Amazon wish list. Most of the titles are right-wing political stuff and bible-related books like Scripture Matters: Essays on Reading the Bible from the Heart of the Church, They Think You’re Stupid: Why Democrats Lost Your Vote and What Republicans Must Do to Keep It, The New Faithful: Why Young Adults Are Embracing Christian Orthodoxy, Swear to God : The Promise and Power of the Sacraments, Ten Things You Can’t Say In America, and Lord Have Mercy: The Healing Power of Confession. But he’d also like you to get him the CD Sonic Bullets: 13 From the Hip by Bambi Molesters (I kid you not!).
Is it any wonder he wants to buy a book to burn it…and prays that his boys never have to endure a blowjob? Or, God forbid (literally, I suppose), that they should ever have to orally pleasure their wives’ milky womanhoods?
The James Bond site MI6 is celebrating the 20th anniversary of A VIEW TO A KILL by giving my old articles about the movie (written for Starlog and the LA Times Syndicate among others) a slick, new presentation. First up is an interview I did with Roger Moore. Soon they’ll be posting my visit to the set… as well as some of my other 007 coverage.
My God, has it really been 20 years? I can’t believe I’m old enough to have written anything 20 years ago.
For his novel WHISKY SOUR, author Joe Konrath did over a hundred drive-by signings last year (that’s bookstore-speak for dropping in to sign stock without an official booksigning event scheduled) In some cases, he found himself driving for hours to sign three copies. Not the best use of his time. So, for his new mystery, he visited an Indiana book distribution warehouse and "handsigned" 3000 copies books. He tells the story today on his blog. Was this four-hour warehouse signing a better use of his time than visiting one-on-one with various booksellers? Who knows. He’s certainly getting more signed books into the marketplace than he would have personally visiting stores on a book tour…but is it the signed books that count, or the personal interaction with sellers and customers?
I’ve got a lot of writing I have to do today…but I can’t seem to focus. I’m sooo distracted by this burning question: Where did Lindsay Lohan’s breasts go? (Click on the pictures, from Good Plastic Surgery, for larger images, no pun intended)
SciFi author Orson Scott Card angered a lot of Trekkies a few weeks back by writing that STAR TREK sucked. Not just ENTERPRISE, the whole Roddenberry franchise. Unsatisfied with alienating that huge percentage of scifi fans, now he’s probably infuriating legions of STAR WARS talifans by saying the Jedi, and their ideals, are extremely screwed up…even evil.
The Jedi may claim to be in favor of democracy, but in fact they function as a ruling elite, making their decisions among themselves. They occasionally submit to the authority of the legislature, and they seem to respect the rule of law, though whose law it’s hard to say. By and large, however, they decide among themselves what they’re going to do and when it’s OK to break the law and defy the civilian authority.
They are, in fact, utterly anti-democratic, like a militia that owes nothing to civilian authority…
…So instead of looking at the storyline of Episode III as a conflict between good and evil, you could read it as a conflict between the entrenched aristocracy trying to preserve their monopoly on power, and an ambitious upstart, who is determined to break that monopoly and take control for himself. The only reason we don’t see it that way is because the other side is so
much more evil. But the body count left behind by Jedi knights is — or should be — disturbing.
He’s not the first person I’ve heard say this. I was stuck in traffic the other day and heard a commentator on NPR make a very persuasive argument that the Jedi were the true villains of REVENGE OF THE SITH ("The flawed despotism of the Empire is better than the aristocratic smugness of the Jedi.")
As I watched REVENGE OF THE SITH, I might have paid more attention to the values of Jedi vs those of the Sith if the movie wasn’t so dull. Somewhere between STAR WARS and REVENGE OF THE SITH George Lucas forgot how to be funny, entertaining and lively. God, I missed Han Solo. Sure, the effects are astounding…it’s a shame the rest of the movie has all the drama, emotion, and humor of an HOA meeting.
(Thanks to S.L Viehl for pointing me to Orson Scott Card’s essay)