My Blog

Recommended Publishers

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A reader posed this question to me in an email:

I read your comments about Publish America, and so I thought I would write and ask what publishers you would recommend for an aspiring writer trying to get their first short novel published?

Reputable ones. It’s a simple as that.  Publish America isn’t one of them. They are a vanity press in disguise.

Here’s another piece of advice, since you’re asking: Don’t get involved with any publisher that asks you to pay to be published.  They should pay you, not the other way around.

I would also be extremely leary of  any publishers that are strictly print-on-demand. I’m not saying all the  non-pay-to-be-published POD presses are dishonest, far from it, some of their founders really love books and respect authors… but many of those "publishers" tend to be on very shaky commercial footing at best. Take what happened with Quiet Storm, for example.  On the other hand, Ellora’s Cave has become very successful and treats their authors well (though they have some of the most laughably horrible "covers" I’ve ever seen).

I’m No Help

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For some reason, Fridays is the day I seem to get the most blog-related email.  Here’s one from Kelly Cyr:

I read through your blog and find you extremely negative and cynical. You
also hold yourself well above the rest of us writers. Maybe you should find
another line of work. I don’t think writing suits you at all. Honey, I don’t
think you would be anyone enjoyable to be around at all. Go find another
occupation and get happier. The stuff you write only brings people down and
was of no help to me at all. 

I’ll share a secret with you, Kelly. I’m not half as talented as most of the writers I know and I live in fear that some day people are going to figure that out. You’re obviously way ahead of the pack on that one. 

But I have to correct you on a couple of other things:  I am the happiest guy you will ever meet. I am lucky enough to have a wonderful and supportive family, lots of friends, good health, and a career doing what I love (despite my obvious lack of talent).

I’m sorry that my work saddens you. If you came here looking for help with your career, your relationships, or your pursuit of inner peace, you definitely came to the wrong place. My blog isn’t an advice column and I’m not Walter Scott. This is my collection of rantings, ramblings, and opinions on this and that. Sometimes I answer questions, but I’m not here to help you sell your script, get your book published,  train your dog to fetch, discover spiritual enlightenment, or become multiply orgasmic (though I am told reading my DIAGNOSIS MURDER books helps a lot with that). I’m here because I’m procrastinating when I should be writing. Try my brother Tod’s blog instead or write a letter to Parade.

Easy Rawlins Going to HBO

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Variety reports that HBO Films is making a feature film version of Walter Mosley’s novel LITTLE SCARLET. Jeffrey Wright and Mos Def have been signed to star  though, in an unusual twist, it’s undecided at this point who will play PI Easy Rawlins and who will play Mouse, his sociopathic sidekick (Denzel Washington played Easy and Don Cheadle was Mouse  in the 1995 feature version of DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS). Mosley is writing the script himself and my friend Debra Martin Chase (who I worked with for two seasons on the Lifetime TV series MISSING) will produce.

Thingies III

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I’m the oldest of four children. My 11 year-old daughter suddenly
realized, in the wake of her "Human Growth and Development Class," what
this meant.

"Grandma had sex four times? I can’t imagine even doing it once!"

Showkillers

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I’ve said it here a couple of times before — Jason Gedrick and Eric Balfour are showkillers.  Apparently Alan Sepinwall, TV Critic for the Star-Ledger, agrees with me:

For professional purposes, Gedrick’s fascinating to me as the reigning
champion among active male Show Killers on television (Paula Marshall,
I believe, is the female titleholder at the moment), one of those
people who, year after year after year, winds up in a project that’s
destined to fail.

Alan analyzes each of Gedrick’s failures and offers his take on what went wrong.

24 coming to a theatre near you

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24 is becoming a movie. Variety reports that Fox has signed creators Robert Cochran and Joel Surnow, and my old friend Howard Gordon, to write the movie, which will be produced by Brian Grazer.

Execs at 20th should have a draft of the script in their hands by early winter, insiders said. Once they see the script — and look at ratings for the first few episodes of season six, which kicks off in January — they’ll be able to make a decision on greenlighting production of the film.

Under the most optimistic scenario, feature would be greenlit early next year and lense next spring and summer during the hiatus between season six and a likely seventh season of "24."

Current plan calls for the "24" feature to abandon the real-time conceit of the TV show, making Sutherland’s Jack Bauer, rather than the clock, the star.

This success of 24 couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of guys. I only know Joel Surnow and Robert Cochran casually… we all worked on shows for Steve Cannell at the same time so we bumped into each other a lot in the Cannell building and prepping shows up in Vancouver.  But Howard Gordon and I have known each other for twenty years.

I still remember when Howard was running both a fax delivery business and a SAT preparation course out of his Venice apartment. Two of his SAT instructors were Conan O’Brien and Greg Daniels, showrunner of THE OFFICE…who were writing partners and working on NOT NECESSARILY THE NEWS.

Howard and his then-writing partner Alex Gansa and Bill Rabkin & I all started out at the same time as freelancers on SPENSER FOR HIRE and grew up in the TV business together. 

Howard, Alex, Bill and I hung out a lot together during those earlier years but, as often happens, our lives got complicated and we saw each other less and less.  We all got busy on shows,  got married (though we all attended each others weddings), and three of us had kids. Now it’s been way too long since we’ve been in touch.  Even so, Bill and I carry on the tradition of naming a bad guy in every series we do "Gordon Gansa."

I’ve got to give Howard and Alex a call this week…

Remaindered

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My short story REMAINDERED is now available on Amazon for a mere 49 cents.

Whether you are a bestselling author or a writer toiling in mid-list obscurity, your books will eventually end up remaindered to the bargain bin at Barnes & Noble. The fear, of course, is that your career will eventually end up remaindered, too. I got the idea for this dark-comic mystery while actually living the humiliating booksigning experience that opens the story….

Thingies II

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So my 11-year-old daughter gets home from her "Human Growth and Development" class at school and has some questions about sex.

"Why does a man’s thingie have to get so big?"  she asked.

"So he can get his sperm inside of  a woman and fertilize the egg," I said.

"Couldn’t he just mail it to the woman so she could put it in herself?"

Not The Future

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USA Today reports that writer/producer J. Michael Straczynski is successfully self-publishing collections of his BABYLON 5  scripts through a P.O.D. company.  The article suggests that this represents a turning point for P.O.D. self-publishing:

"There’s always been something of a stigma to print-on-demand, that it
was just a form of vanity publishing that could never produce financial
returns of significance," Straczynski says. "The B5 books are the first
to change this in a big way, showing that a writer can make as much or
more as with a major company."

[…] the first seven
volumes of The Babylon 5 Scripts of J. Michael Straczynski appear to be
among the top-selling titles, with fans snapping up more than 18,000
books since October. Each volume — with seven scripts plus production
notes and new introductions — runs about 450 pages.

At about $40 apiece ($30 in the first week of release), Straczynski
expects $1.5 million in total sales from the 14 planned volumes.

A large chunk will go to CafePress, the company that prints and ships
each book.

I’m not surprised he’s having some success. But does it represent the future of P.O.D. self-publishing? No. But it is an example of one of the rare cases where P.O.D. self-publishing can pay off and I’ll tell you why. 

Unlike 99.9% of the people attempting to self-publish, Straczynski essentially has a presold item. He’s selling scripts based on a long-running TV series that he wrote and created and that has been seen by millions of people all over the world. The show is continues to be seen in reruns and on DVD and has a huge cult following that’s primed to buy his book.

The same can’t be said of an average person trying to sell his novel as a self-published, P.O.D. title.  His underlying property hasn’t already been exposed and promoted to millions of people. His book isn’t riding on the advertising and promotion of TV reruns and sales of DVD box sets.  There isn’t a fan base already eager to buy the book.   

Straczynksi has all that.  Most people don’t.

There are many writer/producers who could do the same thing and probably enjoy similar success. There’s just one problem…one that the reporter for USA Today glossed over. In most cases, the writer-producers don’t have the right to self-publish their scripts from their TV shows and movies — those rights are retained by the studio. I’m assuming that Straczynski had to license the right to publish his scripts from Warner Brothers, which means the studio is getting a hefty fee and a percentage of any of his sales.

Unfortunately, there are aspiring authors who will be swayed by Straczynski’s unique experience and will get suckered by POD companies as a result.