Lee Goldberg

The Mail I Get – Sell My Show Edition

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I get a lot of emails from complete strangers with TV series they want me to help them sell. This one is typical:

I am coming into Los Angeles on a trip. If you are free this week, I would like to buy you lunch. I have created a TV series I think you would like. All the scripts are written so all you have to do is sell it.

Is that all? Here's another:

I enjoyed reading your Successful Television Writing book. I have read everything on the subject and yours is superior. I am a writer from Vermont, new to Hollywood, with a fully written TV series in my back pocket. Is there any chance I could buy you lunch some time? XYZ and XYZ are my mentors, if you need references.

If he read my book, then he'd know this is not the way to get your series sold. Not only were the two people he used as references not friends of mine, I'd never heard of either one of them. Turns out one of the guys is among the six credited writers on a Big Tentpole Superhero Movie, the other is a guy who wrote Saturday morning cartoons in the 70s. As mentors go, though, they aren't doing a great job. The first thing they should have told him is not to hit up complete strangers to help you sell your series…and certainly not a guy who hasn't succeeded in getting a series of his own on the air. 

Here's another one, from a "an actor/writer who resides in the Bible belt of the USA":

For the past year I have been working on a series I want to pitch to network. I had an agent that was going to help me out. She asked a producer friend to read the short sizzle script. Producer said it was defiantly worth shopping around, next thing I knew that agent was closing her doors. She couldn’t handle the stress of the biz. Now after talking to a producer in LA that says it is worth shopping around as well. Told to expand it into an hour drama instead of the 30 min one, and get together a budget. […]I’m currently trying to find a more flexible job in the industry so I can pursue my acting/writing career and looking for a mentor to guide me. I look forward to hearing from you.

I have been in the TV business for over twenty years and I have no idea what a "short sizzle script" is. Maybe I need a mentor to guide me. And if she's already talked to "a producer in LA that says it is worth shopping around," why isn't she busy shopping the project with him instead of contacting strangers like me?

Mr. Monk is a Mess

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Mr. Monk is a MessMy 14th and second-to-last Monk novel, MR. MONK IS A MESS, comes out today. It's a direct sequel to my earlier book, MR. MONK ON PATROL and it resolves, to some degree, the cliffhanger ending of that book. Here's the story…

No one likes to come home to a mess–least of all Monk and Natalie. But when they return briefly to San Francisco from an extended stay working as cops in New Jersey, Natalie discovers somebody has been sleeping in her bed. But this Goldilocks is not asleep. She's dead.

If that's not bad enough, investigators find marked money from a Federal sting operation stuffed under Natalie's mattress. Now her life is a real mess and she needs Monk's help to clean it up.

But Monk has problems of his own. His brother Ambrose is desperate to find Yuki, his missing lover, but his agoraphobia prevents him from leaving the house. Ambrose needs a man on the outside–and that man is Monk, who is torn, because he's glad to see her go.

As the two investigations begin, and the body count rises, it quickly becomes clear to Monk that Yuki has a dangerous past…and that they are pursuing a ruthless, cold-blooded killer that nobody would ever want to mess with…

It was a lot of fun to write, because the relationships between all of the characters were very much in flux, and it meant that Monk had to approach the world, and his cases, in an entirely new way.  It also made things more challenging, surprising and interesting for me, setting the stage for the final book in the series (well, at least the last one that I've written)  

I'll be signing the book on June 6th at the Barnes & Noble in Evansville, IN and June 14-17 at the International Mystery Writers Festival in Owensboro KY, and June 23 at Mysteries to Die For bookstore in Thousand Oaks, CA. I hope if you're near one of those places when I am signing that you'll stop by. 

The Mail I Get – No Comment Edition

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I got this today. All I have omitted is her address:

Dear Lee!

My name is Inna. I am from Russia. I am very happy write the letter to you!! I am in love in you and your creative!You help me survive when i was in trouble. First I would like to thank you for enjoing you give by writing. Your books realy give relax and happy to readers!!!!You know the best crime book  i read  was called "Face of Evil". So unexpected final!  When i feel bad i think about the work and i fell good myself. It was very very exiting!!!But that would be beautiful to read in in your native language))) Thank you very-very-very much for my the happiest houres with your book!!!!!!  I just want to thank!!! I am a big fan of crime  books sinse i met yours!!! And  now study english for read your book in english!!!I have been studing english for year. I am trying read the book in  english  but only with a diccionary. Bur i have goal and i will do it!!!! I going to know english as a first language))))).Your creative made my life better. I think in the way more positively. By the way there is not much yours book in Russia:((((((i would love to read all your works!!! your creative inspire me very much!!! Thank you for all!!! You are wonderful writer!!! You have so nice name! I saw your photo. You are the most handsome man!!! I wish i live in your country. Then i could meet you and speak with you one day).You are sinshine for me. I respect you very much! When i feel i dont understand an english tense or rule i go to your blog and watch cover of yours works. And i feel how it inspire me!!! Well i believe i will speak fluently english one day)))I would like to ask you for autograph. If you can please send me signed paper please))))) I will be the happiest persone in the earth!!! Thank you for your time. It is very important to me you have read this letter)Please write more so interesting books!!! I would happy to give your work to my child one day. 

Have a nice day.

Best wishes.

Helth, love and happy!!!

my address is XYZ

Big Apple Bound

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I'm heading off today to New York City…Amazon is sending me there to attend Book Expo America, the big publishing industry trade show, and meet booksellers, librarians, reviewers and reporters. I love attending the show. I've only done it a few times, and I've always had a great time and come away with tons of galleys. This time, though, I want to control myself and try not to grab every galley that I see. 

After that, I head off to Kentucky, where I will be directing a music video featuring my friend Matt Branham performing his kick-ass Dead Man Theme. I'll be working again with my good friends at Firelight Entertainment Group, the production team behind my short film Bumsicle, which will be premiering at the International Mystery Writers Festival on June 16 in Owensboro. We've got a terrific group of people working on the video… including actors Silvio Wolf Busch, Misty Sisco, Aaron Taylor and Alex Booty and the special effects make-up team at Eriksen Services.  

I'll report back from NYC and Kentucky on my adventures…. 

Dictator Tate

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Those lovely people at Tate Publishing, the sleazy vanity press, are in the news again, this time over president Ryan Tate's firing of 25 employees,and the circumstances surrounding the action, and for threatening financial ruin to any others who dare to speak about the company's plans to outsource their operation to the Philippines.

Tate Publishing President Ryan Tate said the company is opening an office in the Philippines, but denies there are any layoffs planned. He said the 25 workers who lost their jobs Thursday were terminated for breaching confidentiality agreements in their employment contracts after leaking rumors about the outsourcing.

[…]In a recording of an employee meeting held this week obtained from a Tate employee by The Journal Record, Ryan Tate threatened to sue staff members and file liens against their houses and cars if they violated their employee contracts by talking to the media or sharing information about the company on Facebook and Twitter.

In the recording, Ryan Tate said he would fire 25 production workers after no one came forward to take responsibility for the anonymous email sent out to employees on Sunday that decried the rumored layoffs.

“Good people are going to lose their jobs – it’s not fair,” Ryan Tate said in the recording. “It’s not right, but that’s the reality of the situation. Jesus himself is the perfect mix of mercy, grace and justice. I have probably failed you in that I have been a little too lenient and a little too on the side of mercy and grace and not on the side of justice.”

At the meeting, Ryan Tate then went on to say several employees had already been named as defendants in a $7.8 million lawsuit for breaching their employee confidentiality agreements. A search of state and federal court filings revealed that no such litigation has been filed as of Thursday, a fact Ryan Tate later confirmed. 

What a great guy…and such a fine example of the Christian values he espouses and ueses to selling his outrageously over-priced and utterly worthless vanity press "services." His behavior in the 17 minute recording of the meeting is truly appalling and shows his true colors…you can hear it in its entirety on the Journal Record site. 

The Mail I Get – How Not To Solicit A Blurb Edition

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I get a lot of strangers asking me to read and blurb their books. What astonishes me is how little effort they put into personalizing their message or making their books sound even the least bit interesting. Here are some examples:

I'm a big fan of your work and preparing to publish my debut novel.  XYZ is 88k words in the mystery/suspense genre and in PDF form now.  A blurb from you would mean the world to me.  If you're amenable, I'll forward the MS to you. 

Oh, well, since it's 88,000 words, I must read it! I love books that are 88,000 words, especially if they are in PDF format. 

I have written a new book XYZ that I am doing indie and need recommendations from famous authors and you are well known. You don't even have to read the book and you will benefit from my sales because readers of my book will then search out yours, so its a win-win. 

So I should blurb a book I haven't read to reap the benefits of the exposure I'll get from being associated with a self-published novel by someone no one has ever heard of.  That's a damn persuasive argument. How could I resist?

I am writing to invite you to review my book, XYZ, which I have just published on Amazon. I got your address from your “Top Reviewer” profile. Please let me know if you are interested.

I actually get a ton of emails like that one from aspiring authors…there must be a form somewhere on Amazon that they can fill out. I wonder how often it works in getting blurbs for them…

The Mail I Get

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I received this from an aspiring writer:

Sorry, but I just got taken at PublishAmerica because I was stupid and then I read your blog or whatever they call it. Would you please advise me how you got into publishing your books if not indie? Your publisher is Penguin and that's a high profile publisher but what about us little guys/girls who can't get their foot in the door. I wish you would mentor people because I have almost given up on being published, well I did have something in Playgirl about twelve years ago but that doesn't count because it was on a dare from a friend. My favorite Mr. Monk book is Mr. Monk in Outer Space if that helps grease the palm. Thank and have a great day. Carolyn

It's insanely easy now…so easy, that I have no sympathy for anyone who gets taken by obvious scams like PublishAmerica. 

You can get your book onto Amazon and the Kindle — worldwide! —and onto Barnes & Noble and the Nook for free. Yes, for free.  So besides your professionally copyedited manuscript, here is what you need:

1. A cover for your book. You can design one yourself, have a friend do it, or go to any number of talented cover designers out there.

2. Your book, in Word format, formatted into .prc and .epub formats (those are the files used by the Kindle and the Nook) and PDF (the file used for the trade paperbacks published for FREE by CreateSpace and Lulu). You should leave the formatting of your books to the experts or you'll regret it later.

3. Everything you need to know about uploading your books to Amazon you can find here. Everything you need to know about uploading your books to B&N you can find here 

4. Or you can skip steps 2&3 and go to www.Smashwords.com, which will do all of that for you in exchange for a percentage of your sales. I don't recommend that, however, since their automated formatting often makes your book look funky and ultimately that costs you sales. You will, however, need to use Smashwords to get onto the Kobo, Sony, and iPad ebook platforms…and for that, you will need a specially formatted Word file, from a professional formatter, that will cut down on the number of formatting errors Smashwords would otherwise create.

5. To create a trade paperback edition of your book, I would use CreateSpace,a print-on-demand service owned by Amazon. It will cost you nothing…CreateSpace takes their cut from each sale you make. If you let your cover artist and your formatter know that you also want to do a paperback edition, they can give you the special PDF files of the cover and the interior that you will need to upload to CreateSpace to do that.

Mr. Monk and the Happy Ending

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Mr. Monk is a MessMy seven year, three episode, fifteen book relationship with Adrian Monk has ended. I've just finished writing my last book in the series, Mr. Monk Gets Even, and I will be sending it to my editor next week after taking one last pass through it (don't despair — the book series may continue with another writer). 

My relationship with Monk has been long and wonderful. It began when  “Monk” creator Andy Breckman hired me and William Rabkin to write an episode of the TV series entitled “Mr. Monk Goes to Mexico,” which would end up being the first of three episodes we wrote for the show.

At the time, Bill and I were about to begin writing & producing the Lifetime TV series Missing and I was deep into writing the Diagnosis Murder novels, which were based on the TV series of the same name that we’d also written & executive-produced.

When Andy was approached by NAL about writing Monk novels, he declined the opportunity and recommended that I write them instead.  I took the assignment, which was an insane thing to do, since it would mean writing a new book by night every ninety days, alternating between Monk and Diagnosis Murder, while also running a TV series during the day.

That’s how much I loved Adrian Monk.

I kept up that brutal pace for two years before finally ending the Diagnosis Murder book series after eight novels.

Andy liked my first Monk novel, Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse, so much that he hired Bill and I to adapt it into an episode of the TV show. The episode, entitled “Mr. Monk Can’t See A Thing,” may be the first time in American TV history that a tie-in novel of a TV show has been adapted into an episode of the series….and by the author of the book, no less (if it’s ever been done before, we haven’t found it. And if it has been done, it’s obviously a rare occurrence!)

If it wasn’t for Andy’s enthusiasm and support, I doubt I would have written so many “Monk” novels or had so much fun doing them. He gave me his trust and the creative freedom to make the book series entirely my own, and for that I will always be grateful.

Mr. Monk Gets Even comes out in January…but Mr. Monk is a Mess, the second to last of my Monk novels, comes out in two weeks.

(Below is a trailer I did for a Monk book excerpt that appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine)

Joel Goldsmith

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Joel_goldsmith_01I'm deeply saddened to learn that composer Joel Goldsmith died earlier this week after a long battle with cancer. I was fortunate to work closely with Joel on two series — Diagnosis Murder and Martial Law.  

Bill Rabkin and I were big fans of his work, so when we took over Diagnosis Murder in the late 90s, we brought him in to reorchestrate the theme and revamp the score so the series no longer sounded like it was produced in 1964.  He did such a great job for us that when we were later hired to take over Martial Law, we brought him in to create a new opening title theme to replace the original Mike Post theme (which our star Sammo Hung loathed) and score the first episode to set the musical sound for our show.  He alternated scoring duties after that with John Keane and Corey Lerios & John DeAndrea. 

He was easy-going,  extremely creative, and one of the friendliest people I've met in the business. I always looked forward to our spotting sessions and knew he'd give us  cues that not only delivered what we needed, but would add levels to the action, comedy or character beats that weren't in the scenes before.

I'm a big TV theme nut, and we spent lots of time talking about our favorites. Naturally, many of mine — like Police Story and Barnaby Jones – were done by his father, Jerry Goldsmith. It couldn't have been easy for Joel to to follow in his father's considerable musical shadow….and I don't think he ever got the acclaim that he deserved. 

Joel and I lost touch with one another in the years since and I regret that. 

Here's Joel's reorchestration of the Diagnosis Murder theme….and his theme for Martial Law.

Home Again

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IMG_1280I just returned from a week away, a few days in Bethesda to attend Malice Domestic, and then a quick side trip down to Florida on some business (which I hope to be able to tell you about soon, but top secret for now).

I had an absolutely wonderful time at Malice, where I met some great people and received the Poirot Award which, as you can see from the photo, I guess I am supposed to use to serve tea to Jan Burke, their Guest of Honor. I finally met online friends Debbi Mack and Bill Peschel face-to-face and got to catch up with folks like Penguin/Putnam editors Sandra Harding and Ellen Edwards, and authors like Charlaine Harris (pictured with me on the right), Elaine Viets, Hank Phillippe Ryan, Parnell Hall, Dana Cameron, Elizabeth Peters, Christina York, Sharan Newman, Simon Brett, Chris Grabenstein, and Rhys Bowen.

Rhys was supposed to interview me on stage but tripped and cracked her hip on the first night. Some people will do anything to get out of being on stage with me.  I am pleased to report that Rhys was in her usual good humor despite her injury and, although she had to return home right away, she is recuperating well. She also won an Agatha Award, which I hope too some of the sting out of her injury.  Hank Phillippe Ryan took over for Rhys as my interrogator and we had a grand time.  IMG_1281

One of the highlights of Malice for me was participating with Simon Brett, Jan Burke, and Dana Cameron on Verena Rose's panel about the unusual fan mail we'd received. Simon and Jan read some letters that had the audience, and the panel, roaring with laughter (both pieces of mail, by the way, involved sexual fantasies, a very uncozy subject for Malice!).

On another panel I was on, a reader stood up and said to Halle Ephron: "Your book put me to sleep but I woke up to finish it."

Now there's a great compliment 🙂

And only at Malice would I have overheard snippets like this from authors at other tables as I ate at the Daily Grill on the first night: 

"Shes a great cover artist for animals but she is terrible with food." 

"I can use my own name when I write books about cats or cakes, but not for witchcraft."

"I have three names," another author added. "But I'm thinking of using a fourth for my pottery series."

And I heard another author lamenting that her vintage clothing ghost mystery came out at the same time as another author's vintage clothing ghost mystery, thus undercutting her sales. I have to admit that one surprised me. I  would have thought you could safely write a vintage clothing ghost mystery without worrying about another one being out there…or being published the same month as yours!

I took a few hours off to be a tourist, visiting the usual DC landmarks and the Spy Museum, and bought a few books at Politics and Prose, including one signed by Bill Clinton which, to be honest, I got just for the signature.  

My trip to Florida was great, too. While I did work in Orlando on SeaQuest, I was mostly on set so I still feel like I've never actually spent any time in Florida. And even that was way back in 1995, so it was nice to have a chance to reacquaint myself with the the state. I was able to spend lots of time with an old friend and do a little sight-seeing, too. I loved the beaches and the weather…and was stunned by the opulence and size of the waterfront homes that I saw. There's some astonishing wealth down there.  

Now that I am back, I am hard at work on my last MONK book, the DEAD MAN series, and getting geared up for the promotion of KING CITY, which launches in a few weeks.