My Blog

Getting Tough II

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I’ve had lots of emails from people asking me what the new requirements are for publishers to be recognized by the Mystery Writers of America. They will be posted soon, but here are a some of the new additions/changes:

1. If you are a writer seeking Active Status membership, your publisher must have been in business for at least two years, except for new imprints by an established publisher.

2. Your publisher, within the past five years, may not have charged a fee to consider, read, submit, or comment on manuscripts; nor may the publisher, or any of the executives or editors under its employ, have offered you or any other authors self-publishing services, literary representation, paid editorial services, or paid promotional services.

3. Your publisher, if also an author, must publish at least five other authors per year, none of whom may be an employee of the company, a business partner, or a relative of the publisher.

4. Your publisher must not be engaged in the practice of wrongfully withholding or delaying the payment of royalties to authors. 

Mr. Meeting

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I arrived in Berlin on Monday night and spent much of Tuesday, a holiday here, working on my MONK book and taking naps. Victoria Beckham was on my Sunday night  British Airways flight from L.A. to London…she was  looking for homes in Southern California in the $40 million range, or so the stewardesses told me. I was standing behind her on the way out of the plane. She has two of the fakest, hardest-looking breasts I have ever seen…not that I spend my time leering at boobs all day. But hers stood out. Literally. I could have hung my jacket on her nipples. Apparently the media noticed, too.

Yesterday was  the first day at work…I arrived  at 8:30 am and didn’t leave the office until almost 11 . The day was packed with meetings. My line producer, business affairs exec and I were on the phone to L.A. at 9 pm  to negotiate with agents for some of our lead cast (I almost fell asleep twice during the day, thank God for Diet Coke). I have more meetings today, casting on Friday, and then the weekend will be spent in my room working on production rewrite of the script (to incorporate changes  for the budget, locations, shooting schedule, etc.)  and my MONK book. On Monday, more casting and, at the end of the week, a trip to Munich with my department heads to make a presentation to the network on the look/feel of the show. And then on to Paris for more casting for one particular role.

My Bags Are Packed, I’m Ready to Go…

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I am off today for Berlin, where I will be staying until FAST TRACK is finished, which will be some time in mid-July. It’s going  to be a busy and exciting time…and I will try to share it with you whenever I can.

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We have offers going out to some American actors on Monday and casting for the other principal parts continues in Germany, France and the U.K. over the next week or so. And, of course, there’s all the prep work that’s still on-going to make our May 23 start date.

In the midst of all of that, I have to finish my fifth MONK novel, MR. MONK IN OUTER SPACE, and come up with the plot for MONK #6 (don’t be surprised if it ends up being MR. MONK GOES TO GERMANY) and teach another Writers Room course for Action Concept & MediaXChange in charming Lohr. At least all of that activity will keep me so busy that the weeks without my family will pass quickly. My family is joining me in mid-June and after the movie wraps, we will probably go to France for a couple of weeks to visit my in-laws.

So consider this my last state-side post for a while…

Saturday at the Festival

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Tod_and_laura_lippman It was a beautiful day for book-browsing, book-buying, and schmoozing at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books.  I vowed not to buy any books, so of course I bought so many I had to make three trips back to the car. Among my signed book purchases: YOU SUCK by Christopher Moore, KIDNAPPED by Jan Burke, KISS HER GOODBYE by Robert Gregory Browne, LOS ANGELES NOIR,  and THE DAYS IN THE HILLS by Chris_and_leeJane Smiley. I chatted with lots of authors, including Joseph Wambaugh, T. Jefferson Parker, Cara Black, Laura Lippman  (that’s her on the left with my brother Tod), Jan Burke, Jerrilyn Farmer, Steve Cannell, Denise Hamilton, Terry Erdman (author of the "Official MONK Episode Guide") Kevin Roderick, Barney Rosenzweig, Ron Hogan, Eric Lax, Brett Battles, Robert Gregory Browne, and I stalked Daniel Woodrell some more. Laura Lippman admitted to me that when she met Woodrell on Saturday, she turned into a complete "fangirl" and couldn’t speak (my brother Tod, who witnessed the encounter, confirms her account). I saw Mike Farrell Mike wandering around — the way he looks now, he could play Jimmy Carter in a TV movie. Sean Penn was roaming around, too. I spoke to an actor who has played villains in lots of TV shows, including some of mine, but I couldn’t remember his name. I saw Phil Rosenthal, creator of EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND, standing in line at the Green Room buffet behind a guy who won the Nobel Prize and a Los Angeles Times Book Award last night.  Tod thought it was tacky of the Nobel guy to mention his prize in his Book0102068384000 Award acceptance speech. If I won the Nobel Prize, I’d find a way to bring it up in every conversation, even in the drive-thru line at McDonalds ("Of course I’d like to supersize that Quarter Pounder meal…I won the Nobel freakin’ Prize"). I ended my day with a signing at the Mystery Bookstore booth with Christopher Moore, who shared with me some of his Hollywood misadventures. Tomorrow I head back to Germany for three months to shoot FAST TRACK…

Namedropping

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Todwoodrellleee_3 Last night was the kick-off to the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. The festivities began at the Mystery Bookstore party in Westwood, where I caught up with Craig Johnson, Reed Coleman, Gary Phillips, Denise Hamilton, Chris Grabenstein,Victor Gischler, Sean Doolittle, Jason Starr, Gregg Hurwitz, Chris Rice, Mark Haskell Smith, David Corbett and Teresa Schwegel to name a few. Then it was on to the Book Awards and the after-party, where I ate lots of shrimp and yakked with Lee Lankford, Dick Lochte, Aimee Liu, Tom Nolan, Les Klinger and Aimee Bender, among others. But the highlight of the night for me was finally meeting Book Prize nominee Daniel Woodrell. I have been an admirer and penpal of his for years, but this was the first-time we met face-to-face. Galleycat’s Ron Hogan was kind enough to take a picture of my brother Tod, Woodrell, and me. Today I’m signing at the Mystery Bookstore booth with Steve Cannell and Christopher Moore, another long-time penpal of mine who I have never met. More on that later…

One of my all-time favorite emails

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I got this email today from someone who read DIAGNOSIS MURDER: THE LAST WORD and wasn’t too fond of it:

The reason why I like reading DM is because I enjoyed the television series.  I, too, did think your recent book was a little "dark".  I personally would prefer no changes and enjoyed reading about the one demensional tv character Dr. Sloan solving cases.  If I wanted to read a novel, I will buy James Patterson.

Getting Tough

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This morning the board of Mystery Writers of America, on which I serve, approved tough new guidelines for approving publishers (and, by extension, accepting books published by them for Edgar consideration and their authors for active membership). These rigorous new standards are the result of a lot of hard work by the membership committee, on which I also serve. I will be posting a link to these new standards soon, but I can say that they will result in an immediate end to the "case by case list of approved publishers." A publisher either meets our standards for professionalism… or they don’t. It’s that simple.

These changes were long overdue and I believe will do our industry and our membership a service by alerting authors to thinly disguised vanity presses, companies with a history of unprofessional conduct and/or serious conflicts-of-interest…and denying those companies the legitimacy of our implied endorsement. As any reader of this blog knows, this is a subject that I am passionate about.

But I want to stress that these new standards will in no way change the current membership status of any writers who became members as a result of being published by a company that falls off the list.

I Can Finally Stop Running from Police For a Crime I didn’t Commit…

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From the Times-Herald Record in Middletown, NY…

Man surrenders in break-ins, copper pipe thefts

Over the winter, Lee Goldberg, 24, broke into 23 bungalows at the former Lake House Hotel on Lake House Road in Woodridge, said Fallsburg police.

Cops say Goldberg ripped out copper piping from each on the bungalows, doing between $80,000 and $100,000 in damage. They say he got between 300 and 400 pounds of pipe, which he sold at Weinert Recycling in Liberty for a total of about $2,000.

Police say Goldberg also broke into another colony nearby, taking about 50 pounds of copper pipe, which he also sold.

Police said they’ve been looking for Goldberg for a while, and on Tuesday he turned himself in at the Fallsburg police station.

He was charged with 24 counts of third-degree burglary and single counts of third-degree grand larceny and second-degree criminal mischief, felonies. He was also charged with 23 counts of petty larceny, a misdemeanor. Goldberg was arraigned and sent to Sullivan County Jail without bail, pending an appearance in Fallsburg Town Court.

Police said more arrests are expected.

It’s going to be nice not to have to live in fear any longer.

Edgar Winners

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BEST NOVEL

The Janissary Tree by Jason Goodwin (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR

The Faithful Spy by Alex Berenson (Random House)

BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL

Snakeskin Shamisen by Naomi Hirahara (Bantam Dell Publishing – Delta Books)

BEST FACT CRIME

Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer by James L. Swanson
(HarperCollins – William Morrow)

BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL

The Science of Sherlock Holmes: From Baskerville Hall to the Valley of Fear
by E.J. Wagner (John Wiley & Sons)

BEST SHORT STORY

"The Home Front" – Death Do Us Part by Charles Ardai
(Hachette Book Group – Little, Brown and Company)

BEST JUVENILE

Room One: A Mystery or Two by Andrew Clements (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)

BEST YOUNG ADULT

Buried by Robin Merrow MacCready (Penguin YR – Dutton Children’s Books)

BEST PLAY

Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure by Steven Dietz (Arizona Theatre Company)

BEST TELEVISION EPISODE TELEPLAY

Life on Mars – Episode 1, Teleplay by Matthew Graham (BBC America)

BEST TELEVISION FEATURE/MINI-SERIES TELEPLAY

The Wire, Season 4, Teleplays by Ed Burns, Kia Corthron, Dennis Lehane, David Mills, Eric Overmyer, George Pelecanos, Richard Price, David Simon & William F. Zorzi (Home Box Office)

BEST MOTION PICTURE SCREENPLAY

The Departed, Screenplay by William Monahan (Warner Bros. Pictures)