Current Affairs

Becoming Someone Else

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Lewis Perdue and Paul Levine are just a few of the authors who have referred me to the Wall Street Journal piece on novelists who have to adopt pseudonyms to stay in print.

Now that retailers can track books sales speedily and efficiently with
point-of-sale technology, the entire publishing world knows when an
author’s commercial performance takes a dive. For these unfortunate
scribblers, such a sales record makes it hard to get good advances and big
orders from bookstores. So some are adopting an unusual strategy: adopting
an alias — even one of the opposite sex…

Two decades ago, the book industry largely relied on guesswork as it decided
what to publish and sell. Editors could keep promoting promising authors,
even if sales were weak. When they finally wrote a "breakout" title, their
catalog of older books would become valuable.

These days, publishing
veterans talk about "the death spiral" of authors’ careers. A first novel
generates terrific reviews and good sales, but with each succeeding book,
sales get weaker and the chains cut their orders until they don’t stock any
at all.

"You’re only as good as your last book’s sales to much of the
retail  market," says New York literary agent Richard Pine, a principal in
Inkwell Management LLC.

This practice of authors having to change their names to defeat the computers at the chains has been going on for some time. For example, Gar Haywood became "Ray Shannon" and hasn’t made a secret of it.  Neither has Jeremiah Healy, who lately has been writing books as "Terry Devane." Terrill Lee Lankford,  a frequent commentor here, tells WSJ that he resisted pressure to follow their example.

Terrill Lee Lankford’s literary agency was urging him to take a pseudonymeven before his book, "Blonde Lightning," hit the shelves this summer. He
declined the advice. His earlier title, "Earthquake Weather," was a
critical, if not commercial success. But since it wasn’t a big seller,
orders from bookstores for the follow-up were lackluster. Mr. Lankford’s 
editor at Bertelsmann AG’s Ballantine imprint was enthusiastic about the
sequel but the author’s agency said his name was a liability.

Mr.
Lankford says switching monikers is unethical. "If somebody didn’t like my
book under my own name it would be wrong to sell another book to that person
under a different name," he says. "Just to defeat the computers at Barnes
& Noble and Borders isn’t a good reason for doing this."

He may not think so, but author Reed Farrell  Coleman isn’t taking a chance. His next book will be written by "Tony Spinosa."

Say Goodbye to I

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Variety reports that NBC has acquired an option to buy  PAX,  which was recently rechristened The I Network (presumably the "I" was for endless "Informercials").

NBC U paid $25 million for an 18-month option to buy the "family-friendly"
broadcaster in a deal that gives the network control over the fate of the
company owning the largest group of TV stations in the nation.

As part of the deal, founder Lowell "Bud" Paxson will step down as CEO and
become "chairman emeritus"; NBC U biz
development chief Brandon Burgess will become chief exec of Paxson.

NBC Universal can’t acquire Paxson under current FCC ownership limits, but
the option can be transferred to other parties, allowing NBC to shop for a
strategic partner for Paxson, be it a studio, a conglom
without TV assets or a new media company such as Yahoo! or Google…

How the network once known as Pax-TV will change depends on who comes forward
as a partner in the venture. That partner could be a cable company with content
aspirations, a satellite TV company looking to expand local programming, or a
conglom without stations, such as Time
Warner.

"This transition is just the beginning of the evaluation process," said
Burgess. "Today is the beginning of allowing interested programming partners to
come and talk to us."

It’s not so much the network that appeals to NBC (or anybody else, especially in its current incarnation) but the station group that Paxson owns. So don’t to see SUE THOMAS F.B.EYE 0n NBC any time soon.

Gorman on the Big Screen

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Variety reports that Ed Gorman’s novel THE POKER CLUB is finally coming to the screen.Tim McCann will direct from a script by Johnathon Schaech and
Richard Chizmar.

This tale of suburban violence focuses on four buddies who discover and
accidentally kill a burglar — who may not be alone — in the kitchen during
their weekly poker night. Their lives and the lives of their families are
forever changed by the difficult choices they must make. A January start date in Manitoba is
planned for "Poker."

Way to go Ed! I’m getting in line at the AMC right now.

You Can’t Cash Acclaim at the Bank

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Jennifer Weiner talks on her blog about the plight of author Mary Gaitskill, a widely acclaimed novelist and a National Book Award finalist. But acclaim, as the NY Times reports in their piece on Gaitskill, doesn’t always translate into money. Gaitskill barely scratches out a living and is deeply in debt.

"Her life is not easy," said Knight Landesman, Ms. Gaitskill’s friend and the
publisher of the magazine Artforum. "There have been good reviews, but that does
not translate into dough. She has not been offered the cushy faculty job at
Princeton. The work has been too raw, and that’s why this has been, really, such
wonderful news."

Gaitskill’s financial troubles were a shock to Weiner, a bestselling novelist herself who considers the author a major influence.

Gaitskill was one of the writers who made me believe that I could be a
writer, too, and her characters, while creepy, live and breathe on the page. If
she’s in debt and living in a doom room trying to write over the noise of
Britney Spears, there’s something wrong with the modern-day patronage system
that I always figured was working pretty well.

I recommend both Weiner’s post and the NY Times article to all aspiring writers — many of whom have unrealistic expectations about what they can expect once they are published.  Sadly, Gaitskill’s story is far more common than Weiner’s.

King Kong Tie-Ins

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Galleycat reports that Pocket Books is going ape for King Kong Tie-ins.

Anybody can put out a novelization for their blockbuster film, but Peter
Jackson had bigger plans for King Kong: He came up with a
backstory that’s been turned into an official prequel, King Kong: The
Island of the Skull [by Matthew Costello]. As Rod
Lott writes in Bookgasm, "Kong himself does not appear, not even in a
cameo. His name is whispered, his face is crudely drawn, but the ape never rears
his giant, ugly head." Still, Lott found it entertaining enough, and a cut above
the usual tie-in.

There will also be a novelization, by Christopher Golden, as well as two behind-the-scenes picture books (The Making of King Kong
and The World of King Kong), and sci-fi writer Karen Haber will be edit
Kong Unbound, "in which various writers will discuss "the history and
legacy of the most famous ape in Hollywood and his continuing impact on pop
culture and modern filmmakers."

Google Yourself At Your Own Risk

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Bestselling author Tess Gerritsen googled herself the other day and was stung by what she found.

Any writer who succumbs to the temptation of checking out what others are saying
about her books should be warned that what’s out there on the internet ain’t
always pretty. After eighteen books and twenty years in this business, I should
know better than to go searching for more reasons to drive myself crazy, but
what else is a masochist supposed to do in her spare time?

While you’re at it, stay away from Technorati and Blogpulse, too. Occasionally, I make the mistake of googling or blogpulsing myself and I’m always sorry I did. Do I really need to know all the different ways fanficcers and "Real People Slash" whackos would like me to fuck myself? No.

I also see a lot of outright lies and falsehoods — people accusing me of doing or saying something I never did or said. As infuriating as that is, I try to resist the strong temptation to refute every one of them (which would take hours, and draw me deeper into the cesspool, so I don’t bother).  It’s just not worth the time or effort.

But what attracts me to those Me Me Me searches, besides a raging ego, is that sometimes I will stumble on a positive review or an interesting discussion about my books, TV shows, or blog posts that I wouldn’t have discovered otherwise. Still, every time I type my name into one of those search engines I do so knowing I probably won’t like what I see…and vow never to do it again.

Until tomorrow.

Montgomery Simplifies

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David Montgomery reviews my brother Tod’s book SIMPLIFY on his site today. And he likes it.

Short story collections are nearly impossible to review, especially in
anything under several hundred words. (How do you comment generally on a book
that contains twelve different stories that vary in plot, theme, quality, etc.?)
Still, there are a few observations that one can make about Tod Goldberg’s
Simplify. The stories are sharp and insightful, many of them dealing
with issues emerging from childhood. The writing is often funny, even when it’s
painful, and always to the point, with keen dialogue and a strong voice.
Finally, the stories on the whole are powerful, provocative and a pleasure to
read. The title entry, in particular, is a minor masterpiece.

Reese Reckons

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The Book Standard reports that Reese Witherspoon will star in a movie adaptation of Jeff Long’s novel THE RECKONING.

The story centers on a photojournalist who arrives in Cambodia to cover the U.S.
military search for the remains of an American pilot shot down during the
Vietnam War.  Ted Tally (Red Dragon, The
Silence of the Lambs) penned the screenplay, which is out to directors.  Witherspoon will produce the project along with Type
A’s Jennifer Simpson.  Long’s
book was published by Atria in July 2004.