Lee Goldberg

.357 VIGILANTE: DIE, MR. JURY

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Face and logo9 All of my out-of-print .357 VIGILANTE novels, including the never-before-published fourth novel KILLSTORM, have been compiled into one Kindle edition — .357 VIGILANTE: DIE, MR. JURY. 

This is the complete saga of Brett Macklin, a one-man army fighting a war on terror on the streets of Los Angeles in the mid-1980s…

.357 VIGILANTE #1

.357 VIGILANTE #2: MAKE THEM PAY

.357 VIGILANTE #3: WHITE WASH

.357 VIGILANTE #4: KILLSTORM

"As stunning as the report of a .357 Magnum, a dynamic premiere effort […] The Best New Paperback Series of the year!" West Coast Review of Books, 1985

You can also find the compilation on Smashwords and Scribd in multiple e-formats.

The Mail I Get

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Those incompetent hucksters at Bookwhirl are back. This week they cold-called a major, A-list novelist I know, offering him their inept "services." The guy who called my friend, who is a household name, sounded like someone from Dell Customer Support in India and had no idea who he was speaking to.

Even though I have repeatedly trashed Bookwhirl here on my blog, today I got a solicitation from them. It was from "Marketing Consultant" Melissa Adams, who apparently hasn't mastered English yet:

I came across your book, “Mr. Monk is Miserable” and I find it very interesting. Our company, Bookwhirl.com is really interested to help you in promoting your book/s online because we find out that your book/s deserves to be recognized

And that's the most coherent paragraph in her pitch. Imagine how dumb and gullible someone would have to be to hire these dimwits. I wrote her back and suggested that she take a few English courses before trying to portray herself as an expert in promotion.

How Did I Miss This?

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Glorianna Arias, aka Lady Sybilla, the delusional fanficcer who plans to self-publish her own TWILIGHT novel entitled RUSSET NOON, has launched a blog where she's sharing chapters from her upcoming, craptastic opus…

"The reason we continue to move forward with the publication of Russet Noon as a paperback novel is because we are confident that there are no grounds for a lawsuit. We do not intend to make a profit from this venture, and any books we publish will be given out for free. The only difference between Russet Noon and other Twilight fanfics is that Russet Noon will be a free paperback novel."

What she meant is that she no longer intends to make a profit from the book…but she once did. Arias was taking orders for the book on her website and on ebay until word got out about it. 

But this story keeps getting better…and weirder. Arias has announced that she's going to self-publish a "tell-all" book entitled LADY SYBILLA'S MANIFESTO: THE TRUTH BEHIND THE 'RUSSET NOON' CONTROVERSY. 

You will be able to find the book online and in the gift shops of  mental hospitals nationwide in January. 

I can't wait.

.357 Flashback

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Cover Title Text Vigilante 4a I’ve created Kindle editions of my out-of-print, 1985 paperbacks .357 VIGILANTE #3 WHITE WASH and .357 VIGILANTE #4 KILLSTORM …but it will be another six or seven days before they’re “live” on Amazon.  

So in the meantime, I have posted the entire VIGILANTE series, in multiple e-book formats, on Smashwords and in PDF format on Scribd. Here are the links:

.357 Vigilante #1 by Ian Ludlow
Smashwords / Scribd

.357 Vigilante #2 Make Them Pay Smashwords / Scribd

.357 Vigilante #3 White Wash  Smashwords / Scribd

.357 Vigilante #4 Killstorm  Smashwords / Scribd

This is the first time KILLSTORM has been available anywhere on earth. Pinnacle Books, the original publisher of the .357 VIGILANTE series, went out-of-business on the eve of the book’s scheduled publication in 1986. Although the cover painting was completed, and the book was typeset, it never went to press. I couldn’t find a copy of the galley, so I scanned my original manuscript, written back in 1984 while I was still a UCLA student. It’s a relic from the past, full of dated references to the politics, culture, and technology of the time…not to mention all the cliches of the men’s action/adventure fiction that Pinnacle was churning out. But don’t let that stop you from buying it!

UPDATE 9-7-2009: It might be a little while longer before those two titles are available for the Kindle…Amazon has asked me to prove that I am, indeed, “Ian Ludlow,” and that I have the e-rights to the books. So I have to dig up my reversion of rights letter, which I got way back in 1995. I hope I can find it! I guess Amazon has really been stung by people uploading books that they don’t actually own…

Florida Sues Writers Literary Agency

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The Florida Sun Sentinel reports that the state attorney general has filed a lawsuit against Robert Fletcher, aka Writers Literary Agency, for defrauding authors:

The so-called Writer's Literary Agency used more than 20 websites and related companies to collect money from writers, who paid fees from $89 to $600 for critiques, editing and marketing of manuscripts, according to the Attorney General's Office.

The state's lawsuit says few books were ever sold as the result of company owner Robert Fletcher's efforts.

More than 175 complaints were filed from around the world about Fletcher, who admitted to having no background as a literary agent and to using at least 10 aliases in his businesses.

The lawsuit seeks to prevent Fletcher from future business ventures in the literary field, restitution for his victims and fines.

This is great news. You may recall that Fletcher unsuccessfully sued Writer Beware for exposing his activities. It would be nice if other state attorney generals were as aggressive about shutting down scam literary agents and vanity press "publishers." Even so, I'm hoping this will have a chilling affect on similar activities by others who prey on aspiring authors.

You Can Become a Kindle Millionaire, Part 9

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My third month of Kindle sales has ended (click on the picture of the Amazon Royalty Report for a larger image). 

My out-of-print novel THE WALK , priced at $1.99, is my biggest selling Kindle title (not including my MONK books, of course). I sold 444 copies in June and 373 copies in July. This month, I sold about the same, 380 copies, earning me a royalty of $266.  I have sold 1197 copies of the Kindle edition so far.

Sales have actually ticked up a bit for my short story collection THREE WAYS TO DIE.  I sold 69 copies this month at 99 cents each, for a royalty of  $24… that's up from 40 copies in July and 54 copies in June. So sales of both of my "premiere" Kindle titles have remained more or less steady.

In mid-July, I added two more of my out-of-print novels and one non-fiction book to my list of Kindle editions.

My novel MY GUN HAS BULLETS, priced at $1.99,  sold 65 copies this month, earning me a royalty of $45.50. That's down from last month, when it sold 95 copies in 17 days earning me $65 in royalties. The sequel,  BEYOND THE BEYOND, is also down, selling 21 copies as compared to 29 copies in 14 days in July. 

TELEVISION SERIES REVIVALS was only out for two days in July, selling 17 copies at $2.39 each, earning me  $14.28. In its first full month of sales, however, it sold a mere 16 copies, earning me $13.44. That's a steep drop…and yet its consistently listed as the #1 bestselling TV reference book in several Amazon categories (History, Direction & Production, Guides & Reviews) on the Kindle. Clearly, that isn't saying much.

This month, I made several more of my out-of-print titles available in the Kindle format. 

I added Unsold TV Pilots: The Greatest Shows You Never Saw on August 2, priced at $2.39. I've sold 28 copies for  royalty of $24.36. Those sales are pretty weak…and yet that book is consistently listed as the #2 bestselling book in three categories:  TV reference, TV direction & production and TV Guides & Reviews.  TV reference books clearly don't sell well on the Kindle.

I added a Kindle edition of my out-of-print 1985 paperback .357 Vigilante: #2 Make Them Pay on Aug 5, priced at $2.99.  I've sold 25 copies for a royalty of $25.26 . On Aug 19, I added .357 Vigilante #1, also priced at $2.99. I've sold 21 copies for a royalty of $22.05

All together, I earned $436.45 in royalties on my out-of-print books in August, up from $375 in July. As I've said here many times before, that's found money on material that wasn't earning me a dime before, so I am very content with those figures.

I intend to add the two remaining books in the out-of-print  ".357 Vigilante" series to the Kindle in the next month or so, even though, as you can see, there really isn't much of a financial incentive to do so. 

I Hate The WGA Elections

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Writers-guild-of-america-west-logo I hate it when we're asked to vote for new WGA officers and board members. We get inundated with mails, each side attacking the other, and then we get that bulging election packet, with its candidate statements, candidate rebuttals, rebuttals of rebuttals, rebuttals of rebuttals of rebuttals, the non-candidate statements, the rebuttals of non-candidate statements, and the endorsement ads. Accusations, counter-accusations, and counter-counter-counter accusations.

I don't bother with most of that crap. I read nothing but the candidates statements and make my decisions based on that, my personal knowledge (if any) of the individual candidates, and my own take on where the industry stands and what I believe the direction of the Guild should be. I do not vote according to slates. I vote according to a candidate's principles, experience, ideas, and vision. But most important of all, I vote. 

If you are a WGA member, I urge you to vote as well.

For what it's worth, here is who I voted for:

President: Elias Davis

Vice-President: Tom Schulman

Secretary-Treasurer: Christopher Keyser

Board Members: Patric Verrone, Howard Rodman, Carleton Eastlake, Dan Wilcox, Ian Deitchman, Linda Burstyn, Chip Johannessen, and Luvh Rakhe.

The Case of the Piss Poor Gold

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Big_0911EQMM My “novelette”  The Case of the Piss Poor Gold appears in the November issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, which is shipping to subscribers now and will be available at newsstands across the country next week. The story is an excerpt from my upcoming novel MR. MONK IN TROUBLE and is a “standalone” mystery featuring Adrian Monk’s ancestor Artemis Monk, an assayer in the California gold rush town of Trouble in the 1840s.  

The book is set in the present day, but Adrian finds some startling similarities between the murder he’s solving now…and some of the cases Artemis investigated. The story in EQMM is about one of those cases.

I had a lot of fun writing the “Western Monk” stories in the book…but I couldn’t have pulled it off without help from western pros like Richard Wheeler and Ken Hodgson, who kindly answered my dumb questions and reviewed my rough draft. I hope you enjoy the story now and the book in December!

UPDATE: As if that wasn’t reason enough for me to pick up a dozen copies of the magazine, I just learned that there’s a rave review for MR. MONK AND THE DIRTY COP in the same issue. Jon Breen gives the book three out of four stars and says, in part: “As in the TV series, sharp character comedy combines with ingenious and fairly-clued puzzle-spinning. Don’t miss Lt. Disher’s hilariously non-sensical variation on Sherlock Holmes’ ‘eliminate the impossible’ dictum.”

.357 VIGILANTE is back…run for your lives

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51-ySSZcRjL._SS500_ .357 Vigilante, the first book in my long out-of-print paperback series, is now available in a Kindle edition.

I wrote it under the pseudonym "Ian Ludlow" (so I would be on the shelf next to Robert Ludlum) back when I was a college student in the 1980s. The movie rights were sold to New World Pictures…and my career as a screenwriter was born. Alas, the movie was never made. Here's the scoop on the book:

A Man Can Only Take So Much…Before He Takes Revenge.

.357 VIGILANTE

He lost a father, a friend, a whole way of life…now he's looking for justice down the barrel of a gun.

Brett Macklin was a freewheeling son of sunny California, a collector of vintage cars and a connoisseur of beautiful women. But when his father is gunned down by a street gang, Macklin becomes something else — a deadly weapon against crime. He won't stop until he's wiped out the rapists and killers who have turned Los Angeles into a war zone.

"As stunning as the report of a .357 Magnum, a dynamic premiere effort […] The Best New Paperback Series of the year!" West Coast Review of Books

The sequel, .357 Vigilante #2: Make Them Pay is also available on the Kindle….and will soon be followed by the other books in the series.

Two Jews in Kentucky Part 5

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Here are some photos from the International Mystery Writers Festival…all taken by Bryan Leazenby. You can see more Festival photos here. The first photo below, taken after the Angie Awards show, is me with Sue Grafton. The second is David Breckman, writer/producer of MONK cleaining my podium with Lysol during the presentation.  The third photo is from the First Lady of Mystery dinner honoring Sue…I was the host for the event. That's me with Sue and Zev Buffman. And, finally, one more shot of me covered in BBQ at the opening of the Awards show (You can click on the photos for a larger view)

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