My Blog

Mr. Monk and the Bon Mots

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MM_in_Trouble.revised

I'm pleased to say that two more positive reviews for my MONK books have come in. One is from book critic Debra Hamel, the creator of the incredible Twitterlit feed (which tweets memorable first lines from books), who really liked MR. MONK IS MISERABLE. She says, in part:

As usual with this series, Mr. Monk is Miserable offers readers a winning combination, a good mystery wrapped in humorous dialogue and occasional bits of pathos. I am impressed by how consistently enjoyable the Monk books are.

My friend Ed Gorman got a few chuckles out of MR. MONK IN TROUBLE. He says, in part:

Lee Goldberg's story is rich with lore about the old Gold Rush in general and mining towns in particular. It is equally rich in Monk lore. I can't think of any other mystery character who makes me laugh out loud as often as Monk does. And in the current novel Monk is loopier than ever. Thank God.

Thanks Debra & Ed!

Call of the Mild

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9780451228765 William Rabkin's  hilarious CALL OF THE MILD, his latest original PSYCH novel,  is now out at bookstores everywhere. Here's the skinny:

Shawn Spencer has convinced everyone he's psychic.

Now, he's either going to clean up-or be found out…

Shawn Spencer has always hated the wilderness-by which he means anything outside the delivery radius of his favorite pizza place. But Psych has been hired to solve a baffling case of industrial espionage, and the only way to catch the spy is to join their client's bonding retreat-a grueling seven day backpacking mountain trek.

But when one of the campers turns up with a bullet in the head, Shawn and Gus soon realize that sheer cliffs, rampaging bears, and freeze- dried pineapple aren't the greatest threats they face…

How can you resist? Go out and buy it now.

Book Fest Revisited

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I just discovered that audible.com is selling a recording of my panel discussion with authors Stephen J. Cannell, Craig Johnson, Jan Burke, and Robert Dugoni at last years Los Angeles Times Book Festival for $5. I haven't heard it yet, but people said nice things about it and I'm sure it will kill the time pleasantly next time you're stuck in a traffic jam or if you're burning calories on a treadmill. 

You Can Become a Kindle Millionaire, Part 11

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S640x480  Author April Henry has started making her out-of-print books available on the Kindle and has some great short-cuts for authors who haven't made the leap yet. Here's an excerpt from her blog:

What you need 

-An Amazon account, which you already have if you have bought something from Amazon.

-The words. With luck, you still have the Word file that you submitted to your publisher. And again, with luck, they had you make changes on the file and re-send, rather than someone at the publisher someplace making changes. I’ve been proofing my old Word files before I post them on the Kindle. Nothing like not looking at something for five plus years to see typos.
And if you don’t have the words? You can scan in the book or manuscript […]For one book, I used blueleaf-book-scanning.com and because I didn’t ask for anything fancy and didn’t ask for my book back, it only cost $12.15, plus $4.75 to mail them the book. Then they emailed me a word file.

A cover image. My husband made me some new ones, using photos from istock.com. The photos were inexpensive, and my husband worked for free.

Her covers look really good, her books are priced right, and she got an established reputation as a mystery/thriller writer. I think her Kindle editions will do real well.

Last month was my most successful yet on the Kindle...THE WALK led the pack of my out-of-print titles, selling 515 copies. As of today, I've sold 116 copies of THE WALK, and the other titles are selling briskly too, so it looks like January could be pretty good month. It's not a pot of gold, but it's found money. Since May, I've earned a little over $3000 in royalties from the Kindle on out-of-print titles that were earning me nothing, so I can't complain.

William Johnston Named Tie-In Grandmaster for 2010

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IAMTW’s GRAND MASTER SCRIBE AWARD,
THE FAUST, GOES TO THE GENRE’S MOST
PROLIFIC PRACTITIONER,
WILLIAM JOHNSTON

 The International Association of Media Tie-In Writers is
bestowing The Faust, its Grand Master Award for excellence, to author William
Johnston, the writer of over a hundred tie-in novels and the most prolific
practitioner of the craft, it was announced today by organization co-founders
Max Allan Collins and Lee Goldberg.  

William Johnston 2008  Johnston was born in Lincoln, Illinois, in 1924.  He joined the Navy in 1942 and served in the
Pacific.  He worked as a disc jockey,
advertising executive, magazine editor, and PR man before his writing career
took off in 1960 with The Marriage Cage, a comic mystery that earned him
a Best First Novel Edgar Award nomination from the Mystery Writers of America. He
followed that book with a slew of pulp titles for Monarch Books, ranging from
light comedy (The Power of Positive Loving) to medical romance (the Doctor
Starr trilogy) to soft-core erotica (Save Her for Loving, Teen Age Tramp,
Girls on the Wing). 

Johnston’s medical novels dovetailed with his first tie-in
assignments — original novels based on the TV series The Nurses, Doctor
Kildare and Ben Casey. Those books, published between 1962 and 1964,
were so successful that his next original medical romance, Two Loves Has
Nurse Powell, was presented as “From the author of Ben Casey.” 

In 1965, Johnston wrote an original novel based on the TV
comedy Get Smart. The book was a huge success, leading to nine more
novels over the show’s five-season history and making him the “go-to” guy for
sitcom-based tie-ins. He wrote books based on Captain Nice, Room 222,
Happy Days, Welcome Back Kotter, The Flying Nun, The Brady
Bunch, Nanny and the Professor, The Munsters, Gilligan’s Island, Bewitched,
The Monkees and F-Troop, among
others.

 But his TV tie-in work extended far beyond sitcom
adaptations. He wrote books based on Ironside,  Dick Tracy, The Young Rebels, The
Iron Horse, Then Came Bronson,
and Rod Serling’s The New People, to name a few. He even adapted the cartoon characters Magilla
Gorilla and Snagglepuss into books for children.   

Johnston also penned many novelizations, including the
pilots for the 1930s-era private eye series Banyon and the high school
drama Sons and Daughters. His feature film novelizations include Klute,
The Swinger, Echoes of a Summer, The New Interns, The Priest’s Wife, Lt. Robin
Crusoe USN  and his final tie-in project, Gore Vidal’s
Caligula (under the pseudonym  “William
Howard”). 2055-1  

After
retiring from fiction writing, he opened his own bar, which he operated for
many years. He currently resides in San Jose, California. 

The International Association of
Media Tie-in Writers (www.iamtw.org) is
dedicated to enhancing the professional and public image of tie-in writers,
educating people about the craft and business of tie-in writing, and to
providing a forum for tie-in writers to share information, support one another,
and discuss issues relating to their field. 

The Faust, the IAMTW’s Grandmaster Award, is named in
honor of Frederick Faust (also known as Max Brand) and is given annually. The
award recognizes a writer for their extensive and exceptional work in the
tie-in field. Past honorees have been Donald Bain, Alan Dean Foster, and Keith
R.A. DeCandido.

The Mail I Get

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My agent got an email from a MONK fan who thinks it's time for me to make a big change in my books. She writes, in part:

I wish Mr. Goldberg in his upcoming Monk books would actually start to lay off some of the OCD aspects of Monk. I think it interferes with the detective aspects of the story which are always brilliant.

Uh-huh. Interesting comment. What would Monk be without his OCD? Certainly not a character people would want to read about. I don't think she realizes that what makes Monk so special is his OCD…how he copes with it and how it gets in the way of his detective work, his personal life, etc. Not only that, it's his OCD that allows him to see the details, the things that are "out of place," that others miss. Sorry, Ann, I'm afraid the OCD is here to stay.

Lonesome Sales

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I read Larry McMurtry's slim and meandering memoir LITERARY LIFE, which had some interesting anecdotes here and there, but overall I thought it was a big disappointment. I was hoping to learn a lot more about his approach to writing and the evolution his novels, many of which are among my all-time favorites. But there was one fact that he shared that I found quite surprising:

Lonesome Dove was my tenth novel, my eleventh book. I had been publishing books from the early Sixties to the mid-Eighties before producing a book that came close to selling five thousand copies, a feat nearly achieved by All My Friends Are Going To Be Strangers, which came out just in time to profit from the flare of interest produced by the popularity of The Last Picture Show. [Lee here:  McMurtry is referring to the movie adaptation, not the novel]

My lack of rising sales might have been easier for Simon and Schuster to tolerate if I had, along the way, been producing exceptional reviews, but, in the main, I attracted no reviews. […] The lack of interest in my books continues to this day.

It's unbelievable to me that McMurtry's early books — classics and personal favorites like The Last Picture Show, Leaving Cheyenne, Movin' On, and Horseman Pass By (which became the movie HUD) — didn't sell anywhere near as well as, say, a men's action-adventure paperback like .357 Vigilante. That's just wrong. 

When McMurtry says his books still don't inspire much interest, he seems to be referring to reviews from major publications and not sales (my guess is that his books sell well, if not spectacularly). You'd think an author who has won the Pulitizer Prize for his fiction, and an Oscar for his screenwriting, would certainly merit as much critical attention as typical Michael Connelly book receives. But apparently McMurtry doesn't…and I sure don't know why. Do you?