My Blog

Zooty is a Hooty

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Victoria Strauss has exposed another scam…but this one is more insipid than most.

If you have a good manuscript, and
are unable to get published, Zooty and Flappers will publish your work
as an ebook and CD. Readers will be allowed to down-load your book
free, and give it a report and rating. If the rating is good, your book
will be removed from the free section, and offered for sale…When your
book has sold the required number, it will be sent along with a reader
and sales report to agents who are AAR members in good standing.

According to the Path to Publishing page (worth reading in its entirety, but don’t be drinking any liquids while you do), the "required number" is 10,000 copies.

UPDATE 1-30-2008:  Zooty founder Domenic Pappalardo has responded to Victoria, accusing her of being a minion of Satan. He writes, in part:

For
the past several weeks, Zooty and Flappers has come under attack by
several  groups.  The inner-net has allowed Satanic writers to reach
children of all faiths in the safety of their home, and to slander all
who speak against them. Some hide their writing under the guise of
SiFi.  Is their new Bible, "The Awakened City?"  authored by Victoria
Strauss.

[…]Ms Strauss is the editor of Writers Beware, which she uses to silence all who speak against her following. She has supported
claims that Mr Pappalardo is a deceptive scam? None of which has been
backed with any fact. The true reason for her attack and that of her
followers?. She has spread the word via her blog at, "writers beware
blog."  Was this a protection for Jean Lauzier? (co-founder of
"Storycrafters," a chat room (Storycrafters blog).

It is well
known that Mr Pappalardo is for the unification of all who believe in a
single God. Satan has always been a force to divide and destroy.

Dell Hell

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Dellxpsm1330
I used to be a loyal Dell owner and an enthusiastic cheerleader for their products. They used to make great machines and they backed them up with top-notch customer support.

Those days are gone.

About two months ago, I bought a XPS M1330 laptop because its light, its fast, it was well-reviewed  and it’s a Dell, which I associated with quality. I took it out of the box and before the day was over, the stickers on the back — which say "XPS" — had peeled off. I called Dell and asked for new stickers. But rather than sending me stickers, they sent a service man to my house who had to replace the entire back panel of my machine. Two days later, the stickers fell off again. I should have seen that as a warning sign.

A week or two later, and a day before going to Europe, I turned on my machine and couldn’t access the operating system. I spent three hours on the phone with their support people…but they couldn’t solve the problem nor could they tell me the cause. They only had one solution: reformat the hard-drive and re-load all my software. It took me an entire day to do it and it was a nightmare. 

On the airplane to Germany, the computer crashed (a blue screen "physical memory dump") and rebooted. And every day after that, at some point, the computer would crash and reboot again. I called Dell, spent more hours on the phone, and they couldn’t find a solution. Their best guess was that it was a problem with my Norton 360 software. I called Norton and they said it was clearly a hardware problem.

So,  I lived with it, backing up constantly. This weekend, within hours of arriving in New York on another business trip, my XPS crashed again.  Only this time, I couldn’t access the operating system. I called Dell and after another two hours on the phone, the baffled and frustrated support guy sought advice from a senior supervisor who told him  that this was a common problem
with XPS M1330 motherboards made on the same date as mine. SO WHY THE HELL DON’T
**ALL** THE SUPPORT PEOPLE KNOW THIS!?  WHY IS IT SOME BIG FRIGGIN’ SECRET? They could have saved me and
their employees hours and hours on the phone just by sharing this information with all their support people.

Those were lost hours that I didn’t spend with my family or working on my books. It was time flushed down the toilet for no reason except Dell’s ineptitude and disorganization.

I was furious. It was at that moment that they lost me, a loyal customer for ten years, someone who has bought four desktops and six laptops from them (for myself and my family).

I demanded that they replace my computer. They said they couldn’t do that, but that they would send a tech to my house to replace the motherboard and hard-drive on the one that I have …and the back panel with the missing stickers.

The tech came over today and spent a few hours installing my new motherboard and hard-drive…but they gave him the wrong back panel, so he has to come back tomorrow. So that’s two days I have to sit around the house waiting for the tech and being here while he works. More lost time. More lost productivity. All because Dell doesn’t know how to make computers or support their products any more.

I won’t be spending another moment in Dell Hell.

Writers Digest Completely Sells Out

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The  77th Annual Writer’s Digest Publishing competition has become another self-publishing scam. The contest is sponsored by Outskirts Press, the self-proclaimed "gem of custom book publishing."  The grand prize is $3000 in cash, a "free diamond publishing package from Outskirts Press," and a three-day trip to New York to meet with four  editors and agents  (if they are in the same league as Outskirts, you’d better bring your credit card). All the winners will be published in a special book by, you guessed it, Outskirts Press, which is probably hoping that the naive winners will spend their award money on copies. And all it costs you for a chance at this once-in-lifetime opportunity to be suckered by a vanity press is $15.

They shouldn’t call this the 77th Annual Writer’s Digest Publishing competition…they should call it the Writers Digest  Publishing Contest To Lend False Legitimacy to the Vanity Press Scam Artists Who Advertise in our Magazine….but I guess that title is too long. And accurate.

UPDATE: Brent Sampson, the CEO and "publisher" of Outskirts Press, responds in the comments below. He says, in part:

Writer’s Digest could have chosen any company to be the sponsor of
their Writing Collection. The fact that they chose Outskirts Press
demonstrates that they recognize our benefits, and they’re in a
position of knowing.

That’s exactly what bothers me. WD should know better than to let a
vanity press sponsor a writing contest under the Writer’s Digest name…which just illustrates just
how little credibility they have left as a magazine that’s dedicated to
the best interests of writers. If Writers Digest cared at all about writers, they
wouldn’t accept advertising from predatory vanity presses or allow one to sponsor their writing contest (and offer a
publishing package with the company as a "prize"). Writers Digest should have found a real publisher to sponsor the contest…or not have a sponsor at all.

Outskirts Press is not a
publisher. They are a printer. They aren’t making dreams come true…they
are taking advantage of the
gullibility and desperation of aspiring writers and, if WD had any
integrity at all, they would have nothing to do with them.

MWA’S Definition of “Self-Published”

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The Mystery Writers of America has revised the language of their definition of "self-publication" for membership application, publisher approval, and Edgar eligibility. The changes were made for greater clarity and specificity. 

“Self-published”
or “cooperatively published” works include, but are not limited to:

 a) Those works for which
the author has paid all or part of the cost of publication, marketing,
distribution of the work, or any other fees pursuant to an agreement between
the author and publisher, cooperative publisher or book packager;

b) Works printed and
bound by a company that does not sell or distribute the work to
brick-and-mortar bookstores;

c) Those works published
by a privately held publisher or in collaboration with a book packager wherein the
writer has a familial relationship with the publisher, editor, or any
managerial employee, officer, director or owner of the publisher or book
packager;

d) Those works published
by companies or imprints that do not publish other authors;

e) Those works published
by a publisher or in collaboration with a book packager in which the author has
a direct or indirect financial interest;

f) Those works published
in an anthology or magazine in which the author is also an editor, except an
anthology or magazine for which the author is a guest editor.

g) Those works published
in an anthology or magazine wherein the author has a familial relationship with
the editor or publisher.

Proudly Displayed

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The first MWA board meeting of 2008 was a significant one — the board unanimously approved revisions to the membership criteria and Edgar submission rules that clarify the current language and close some loopholes that have come to light in the last year (for instance, the rules now explicitly apply to “book packagers” ). We also clarified the Edgar eligibilty of foriegn-published books. I’ll post the details when I get home tomorrow and have access to a computer again.. After the meeting, we went to steak dinner at Bobby Van’s. The restaurant won the American Academy of Hospital Services’ International Star Diamond Award in 2006 and an award from Wine Spectator for best wine selection in 2003. I know that Bobby is very honored by the awards because the certificates are proudly displayed above the urinals in the Men’s Room. Afterwards we went to the bar at the Algonquin and toasted the roundtable…and then I returned to the hotel to worry about the writing I’m not doing because of my damn dell.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

New York, NY

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My Dell laptop crashed on my first night in NY…this is the second time this has happened, and I had to spend 2 1/2 hours on the phone with Dell before they, too, were convinced that my computer had, indeed, crashed again (this brings my total time spent on the phone to customer support to seven hours since I bought this computer). So they are sending a guy out to my house next week to replace the motherboard and the hard disc, which means I can’t do any writing this weekend (I am posting this on the hotel computer).

I spent Friday walking all over Manhattan, first to The Strand to browse the used books, and then to lunch with my editor, publisher and agent. I am pleased to report that the MONK books are doing very, very well and that there will likely be more to come after my current contract ends this Spring.  They are also very excited about the BURN NOTICE books from my brother Tod and the PSYCH novels from my writing partner Bill Rabkin. This time next year, Tod, Bill and I will be doing lots of signings together to promote our new books.

After the meeting, I went to a few more bookstores…and stumbled into a sale at Taschen, where I bought lots of big, heavy books that I had to lug around to Partners & Crime, which hosted a signing party for all the MWA Board members in town. I caught up with Joseph Finder, Lee Child, Harlan  Coben, Harry Hunsicker, Les Klinger, Louise Ure, Charles Todd and many more folks.  Everyone was very excited about the list of Edgar nominees that was announced yesterday and there was lots of discussion about the WGA strike. I got the latest on Lee, Joseph and Harlan’s pre-strike Hollywood adventures.

The party soon moved to a Chinese restaurant, where we gorged ourselves for a few more hours before Les and I decided to walk the 40 blocks back to our hotel. All in all, a long, fun, and exhausting day.

Today I won’t be getting nearly as much exercise. I’ll be locked in a board meeting all day and then tonight it’s another big dinner with the Board….and then tomorrow I return to L.A.

Mr. Monk and Surviving the Strike

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Jan252008_975_lg
The MR. MONK IN
OUTER SPACE is among half-a-dozen TV tie-ins (the others are C.S.I.,
HEROES, BONES, GOSSIP GIRL, etc.) featured in this week’s Entertainment
Weekly cover story "67 Tips to Survive the Entertainment Dry Spell."  Check it out!

The Jewless Jew

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My flight to New York was filled with orthodox Jews with the beards, the yamulkes, the hats, the whole deal. If we’d had a horse-drawn cart,  some milk and some cheese we could have staged the opening musical number from FIDDLER ON THE ROOF. 

Midway through the flight, I got up to stretch my legs and use the restroom. When I got out, I bumped into this young boy, maybe 12 years old, who looked at me and asked:

"Are you Jewish?"

"Yes," I replied.

He immediately ran back down the aisle to his father, who stood up, offered me his hand, and then started talking to me in Hebrew. Or at least I think it was Hebrew.

"I’m sorry, I don’t speak Hebrew," I said. "I’m not a practicing Jew."

"But you’re Jewish," he said.

"Yes, I am," I said. "Have a good trip."

I started down the aisle, but he wouldn’t let me pass. He said something else to me in Hebrew.

"I have no idea what you’re saying," I said. "I am a very Jewless Jew."

"Did you have a Bar Mitzvah?"

"Nope," I said. "And I don’t celebrate passover. And I had bacon for breakfast yesterday. I’m watching my carbs."

"Where are you sitting?" he asked.

"Up there,"  I said, gesturing to the front of the plane. And as he turned to look, I used the opportunity to slip past him and return to my seat. 

I settled in, and was starting to watch 30 ROCK on my iPod, when the guy, his kid, and a bearded man in a long, black coat showed up at my seat.

"This is our Rabbi," the guy said.

The Rabbi introduced himself, asked me my name, and the next thing I knew, they stuck a yamulke  on my head and started chanting something in Hebrew.

I began to protest, but then the kid started wrapping my arm with some kind of leather strap and I figured I’d just let them do their thing.  The guy put a card, written in Hebrew in front of me, and told me to repeat after him. I did, if only to get the whole awkward scene over with.

The people sitting next to me looked like they wanted to crawl under their seat and hide. I would have liked to join them but the Jewish kid had me lassooed pretty good.

The three Jews finished up, congratulated me on this very special day in my life, slipped a card in my hand and returned to their seats. The card had a photograph of a rabbi on the front and on the back there were illustrations of the steps  in something called the Mitzvah Campaign. I’m not sure, but judging by the drawing, I think one of the steps, Tefillin, had something to do with what they did to me.  You tell me. What was all that about?

To The Big Apple

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I’ll probably be scarce here over the next few days. I am leaving for New York on Thursday morning to attend the first Mystery Writers of America board meeting for the new year and my annual get-together with my publisher, editor and agent.

I’ll also be doing a booksigning on Friday night, 6-8 pm, at
Partners & Crime. If you happen to be in NY, stop by and say hello.

I’m back on Sunday…and then I have jury duty starting on Tuesday. But with the strike going on, it’s not like jury duty is going to cut deep into my work.