#1 New York Times Bestselling Author & TV Producer
You can't find the three seasons of "Spenser: For Hire" or the two seasons of "Harry O" on DVD…but you can find "The Oregon Trail," "Big John, Little John," "Threshold," "The Bionic Woman (2008)" and "Conviction," all flops that lasted 13 episodes or less. Do not get the TV-On-DVD business at all. Was anyone clamoring for "The Oregon Trail?"
I put myself through UCLA writing for the The Daily Bruin (along with future X-FILES producer Frank Spotnitz) and freelancing for local and national publications. I also ended up writing a few sleazy novels under the pen name "Ian Ludlow," but that's another story.
What got me thinking back to those days was a blog post by John Zipperer , reviewing the February 1983 issue of Starlog, which was a milestone for me because it included my interview with Star Trek II screenwriter Jack Sowards — and my first sale to Starlog Magazine. I would end up writing hundreds of articles for Starlog (maybe it was less, but it sure felt like hundreds!) over the years that followed, but I can still remember how thrilling it was for me to get that acceptance letter from Dave McDonnell who, as it happened, was just starting what would be end up being a nearly thirty year career as managing editor of the magazine.
It wasn't just a way to put myself through school…it was my real education. What I learned from all the screenwriters, directors, network executives, producers, studio heads and actors that I interviewed for Starlog, Newsweek, American Film, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and other publications shaped the career I have today. They taught me what I know.
I am still amazed at all the people I got interview…like George Lucas, William Friedkin, Richard Donner, Lorenzo Semple Jr., Robert Zemeckis, Richard Maibaum, Wes Craven, Peter Hyams, Stephen J. Cannell, Steven Bochco, Richard Marquand, Glen Larson, Tom Cruise, Roger Moore, Roy Huggins, Johnny Depp, Fred Silverman, John Lithgow, Brandon Tartikoff, Grant Tinker, Bud Grant, Norman Lear, Martin Landau, Gene Roddenberry, Kurt Russell, John Korty, Paul Verhoeven, Harlan Ellison, Irvin Kershner, Dan Curtis, Wolfgang Petersen, William Shatner, Timothy Hutton, Roy Scheider, Michael J. Fox, Roger Corman, Ray Bradbury, Darren McGavin, Chevy Chase, John Carpenter, W.D. Richter, Raquel Welch, to name just a few (some of whom, like Cannell, Silverman, Huggins, Larson, Corman, Hutton and Scheider, I would later end up working with as a writer/producer. Only two of them, Cannell and Huggins, remembered that we'd met years before when I was a reporter, but that's because I interviewed them multiple times).
And I knew how lucky I was even as it was happening. I still have many of audio cassettes from those interviews. One of these days I should get around to digitizing them before they erode away forever…
I’m one of the 100 authors who contributed a chapter to 100 MUST READ THRILLERS the latest book from the International Thriller Writers, which comes out in July. It’s not too soon to preorder your copy from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or directly from Oceanview Publishing. My chapter, by the way, is on Trevanian’s “The Eiger Sanction.”
My 4 1/2 hour video interview with legendary TV producer Glen A. Larson is now up at the Archive of American Television site. It’s also up on YouTube, were I snagged this introductory clip:
This was my best month of Kindle sales since I began this venture in June. This month I sold about 1360 books and made about $975 (click on the image for a larger view of my royalty statement as of 9:47 pm, March 31st)
I sold 575 copies of THE WALK, earning $420, which is actually slightly down from February, when I sold 573 copies in 28 days, but it's still my best-selling title.
My friend Joe Konrath, who did amazingly well this month, strongly urged me to drop my new covers for MY GUN HAS BULLETS and BEYOND THE BEYOND because he felt they were the reason my sales weren't so good. So I took his advice and temporarily restored the original covers. The result? MY GUN sold 167 copies in February with the new cover (or roughly six copies a day) and sold 204 this month (or roughly seven copies a day) with the old cover. BEYOND sold 85 copies this month (about 3-a-day) and sold 73 this month (about 2 copies a day). My take? It's a wash. Even so, I'm thinking about creating two new covers for the books and seeing what happens.
Joe also suggested that if I dropped the Jack Webb cover for THREE WAYS TO DIE and replaced it with something bolder, I would see sales go up. Last month, I sold 140 copies of THREE WAYS, or 5-a-day. This month, with the new cover, I sold 201 books, or 6.5 copies a day. My take? It's up, and I like the new cover better anyway, so I'm sticking with the change.
The spike in sales this month came from releasing the Kindle edition of THE MAN WITH THE IRON ON BADGE mid-month, priced a $2.99, a dollar more than my other books. I sold 160 copies, earning $166.95. What's encouraging about this is that I earned more selling 160 copies of BADGE than I did selling 204 copies of MY GUN, which was priced a dollar less. It tells me that raising my prices to $2.99 across the board in July to take advantage of Amazon's new royalty rate may actually increase my profits rather than reduce them.
I also started offering "preview chapters" of Joe's books THE LIST and SUCKERS in THE WALK and MY GUN HAS BULLETS (and he did the same for me) in an experiment to see if the cross-polination/cross-promotion gooses our sales. But it's way too early to judge how that test is working.
But I've accepted a challenge and a little wager from my buddy Joe, who is proposing a radical approach to boosting sales of my VIGILANTE novels. I'll tell you more about that development later…but it should be very interesting, as well as a lot of fun.
UPDATE: Romance writer Ellen Fisher shares her Kindle royalty report and her sales experience.
There's a new interview with me up on the Cinema & Fiction blog. Here's an excerpt:
Mystery, crime and detectives are a recurring element in your writing. What do you find so appealing about this type of writing?
I guess on a basic level, the great thing about mysteries is they have a lot of conflict and forward momentum. The story is driven by a need to solve the mystery — that gives you somewhere to go, a ticking clock, and built-in conflict.
You have written for TV and written novels. What do you think are some of the major possibilities and limitations of these different forms of writing?
As you say, they are very different kinds of writing. In scripts you have to show, not tell. Character and story have to be revealed only through action and dialogue. A screenplay is a blueprint, a working document for other professionals, like costume designers, location managers, and of course actors and directors. A book is very different. You can go into people's heads to tell stories and reveal character. You have to set the scene in great detail all the time. You are the director, the location manager, the actor and the director. You're creating a complete world with no limitations all by yourself. That can be exciting and daunting at the same time. I've encountered many screenwriters who simply can't write a book and many authors cannot write scripts. I've only met a few who can do both. They are different ways of telling a story and also different ways of thinking of story.
The finalists for the Derringer Award, honoring excellence in short stories, have been announced and it's great to see so many of my friends on the list. Congratulations to you all!
FLASH
"And Here's To You, Mrs. Edwardson," by Hamilton Waymire
Submitted by Kai Wehmeier
Published in the webzine *Big Pulp*, November 23, 2009
"Awake" by David Dean
Submitted by Art Taylor
Published in EQMM, July 2009
"Gutterball" by Stephen D. Rogers
Submitted by Stephen D. Rogers
Published in Woman's World Magazine, Sep 7, 2009
"The Right Track" by R.T. Lawton
Submitted by R.T. Lawton
Published in Woman's World Magazine, 10/26/09
"Unplanned" by Libby Cudmore
Submitted by Libby Cudmore
Published in Thrillers, Killers 'n' Chillers, August 2009
SHORT
"Identity Theft" by Robert Weibezahl
Submitted by Robert Weibezahl
Published in Beat to a Pulp, March 2009
"The Biography of Stoop the Thief" by Steven Torres
Submitted by Steven Torres
Published in Uncage Me!, July 2009
"The Hard Sell" by Jay Stringer
Submitted by Beat to a Pulp
Published in Beat to a Pulp, 2009
"The Right to Remain Silent" by Debbi Mack
Submitted by Debbi Mack
Published in Back Alley Webzine, August 2009
"Twas the Night" by Anita Page
Submitted by Anita Page
Published in The Gift of Murder, 2009
LONG
"A Stab in the Heart" by Twist Phelan
Submitted by Twist Phelan
Published in EQMM, February
"Famous Last Words" by Doug Allyn
Submitted by Larry Chavis
Published in EQMM, November
"Regarding Certain Occurrences in a Cottage at the Garden of Allah" by Robert S. Levinson
Submitted by Robert S.Levinson
Published in AHMM, November
"Snow of Bloedkoppie" by Berhard Jaumann (translated from the German by Mary Tannert)
Submitted by Richard Posner
Published in EQMM, August
"The Shipbreaker" by Mike Wiecek
Submitted by EQMM
Published in EQMM, March/April
NOVELETTE
"Adjuncts Anonymous" by B.K. Stevens
Submitted by Bonnie K. Stevens
Published in EQMM, June
"Julius Katz" by Dave Zeltserman
Submitted by EQMM
Published in EQMM, September/October
"The Last Drop" by R.W. Kerrigan
Submitted by EQMM
Published in EQMM, February
"The Pirate's Debt" by Toni L.P. Kelner
Submitted by Toni L.P. Kelner
Published in EQMM, August
"Uncle Brick and Jimmy Kills" by Allan Leverone
Submitted by Allan Leverone
Published in Mysterical-E
Elizabeth Farrelly of the Sydney Daily Herald is a frustrated Kindler. Whenever she goes searching for books, she gets sent to people like me…and my Mom.
You can't search alphabetically, and much as Amazon vaunts its relationship with publishers you can't get Pete Dexter or Tim Winton or A.A. Gill and if you search Carl Hiaasen you get three Lee Goldberg westerns and a self-helper called Active Senior Living.
I don't think I've written any westerns (besides bits of MR. MONK IN TROUBLE), but it's still nice that she remember me in the midst of her Kindle woes.