#1 New York Times Bestselling Author & TV Producer
Here’s the cover for the sixth DIAGNOSIS MURDER novel, which will be out in February 2006. The cover quote at the top, which is the same one they used for DM #5: THE PAST TENSE (which will be out this August) will change. They will be using one from Janet Evanovich instead.
I started writing the second MONK book today…and whenever I get stuck, which is about every five minutes, I glance at the just-arrived cover of MR. MONK GOES TO THE FIREHOUSE to remind myself that I’ve been in this exact same situation before. That’s one reason why I keep a few of my published books, and the tentative covers, amidst the mess on my desk…as little visual and tactile reminders that whatever creative woes I am experiencing today I have experienced before and not to lose confidence. All that whining aside, what do you think of the cover?
…somebody is airing reruns of HARRY O and SPENSER FOR HIRE, two of my favorite (and little seen) PI shows. Set your Tivos, folks, because TVSquad reports that later this month TVLand is celebrating Warner Brothers Television with a marathon thatalso includes 77 SUNSET STRIP and LOVE SIDNEY.
Booksquare reports that The Romance Writers of America have passed a new rule barring the national and chapter websites from linking to authors with certain objectionable images or words on their bookcovers or on their sites/blogs.
… it’s pretty clear
the Board has never once, in their entire lives, taken a gander at the average
romance novel cover. If so, they’d realize they have just eliminated 99.9% of
all covers:With respect to all RWA programs and services, the following shall not be
depicted or represented: exposed male and female genitalia, exposed female
nipples, cunnilingus and fellatio, hands or mouth covering naked female breasts,
naked or g-string-clad buttocks, and beastiality. The following words: cock,
cocksucker, cunt, fuck, motherfucker, shit, and tit, will not be
displayed.The president of RWA has clarified this regulation, saying this means (and we
quote):. . .if we wish to retain our charter with RWA, we will no longer be able to
show jacket covers that don’t meet the standard and we can’t even link to the
websites of those authors who might show their own covers, have excerpts that
include certain language, or lead to the publisher’s website.”
So if their rules say they can’t link to any site that has the words cock,
cocksucker, cunt, fuck, motherfucker, shit and tit, then they can’t even publish this rule on their own site since, by definition, it means printing the words cock,
cocksucker, cunt, fuck, motherfucker, shit, and tit.
That said, I’d like to belong to any writers organization progressive enough to have the words cock,
cocksucker, cunt, fuck, motherfucker, shit, and tit in their rules for anything. I’m pretty sure there isn’t a rule in the Mystery Writers of America or the Writers Guild that includes the words cock,
cocksucker, cunt, fuck, motherfucker, shit, and tit, but I think there should be. Imagine what DEADWOOD would be like without the words cock,
cocksucker, cunt, fuck, motherfucker, shit, and tit. Or Harry Potter. Or our National Anthem.
You can’t use the words cock,
cocksucker, cunt, fuck, motherfucker, shit, and tit, but it’s okay to use the following words and phrases instead:
his throbbing maleness, adoring his gargantuan manhood, heavenly cave
of feminine delight, give me some of that hot monkey love, butt hole pirate, poop,
and swelling bosom.
I guess they won’t be linking to my site. I don’t use the words cock,
cocksucker, cunt, fuck, motherfucker, shit, and tit, but I’ve got a big Dick on the cover of most of my books.
UPDATE : My brother Tod has some thoughts about this new rule, too, the one that forbids certain images and words like cock,
cocksucker, cunt, fuck, motherfucker, shit, and tit, though he doesn’t use cock,
cocksucker, cunt, fuck, motherfucker, shit, and tit anywhere in his post (which is a word that, incidentally, is an acceptable alternative for cock)
Some writers should be forbidden by law from using metaphors. This example of a felony metaphor abuse was perpetrated in today’s New York Times by Thomas Friedman, author of THE EARTH IS FLAT.
Indeed, there is a huge famine breaking out all over India today, an incredible hunger. But it is not for food. It is a hunger for opportunity that has been pent up like volcanic lava under four decades of socialism, and it’s now just bursting out with India’s young generation.
Some writers (like the book-a-month man James Reasoner) can finish a book and, the very next day, start writing another one. I need a week or two to decompress…but I always feel guilty about it. Apparently, I’m not the only one. It seems even first-time novelists are afflicted with this sickness. HelenKay Dimon sold her first novel to Kensington last month and now…
Now…..pfffft.
It’s been more than 3 weeks – okay, it’s been 4 weeks…whatever motivation kept me writing almost daily through rejections and
while I learned some sense of craft disappeared in a giant poof of
nothing the first week of May.So, it’s time to start over. Time for new goals. Time to … concentrate on writing and, you know, all those things
that helped to get me published in the first place. One might call
this the quest to find my lost motivation. I call it what must happen
starting this evening. It’s time. It’s past time. Next project…..
I feel for her, I really do. She’s being so hard on herself…and for what? Taking a short writing vacation.
It’s okay to take a little time off from writing, to bask in the glow of the finished project, to relax and regain your creative strength before embarking on the next book. At least that’s what I always tell myself while, at the same time, feeling like a lazy ass bum for not writing.
My brother Tod has used the letter posted here today from iUniverse CEO Susan Driscoll as a starting point for his ruminations on self-publishing.
Publication is not a birthright. If you are being rejected by every agent and
publisher in the land, save for those who want you to pay them for your work,
it’s time to take a hard look at what you’ve created. Art for art’s sake is
fine, but if this is the career path you choose, at some point you have to ask if what you’re creating is, indeed, marketable.
I received the email below from Susan Driscoll, CEO of iUniverse. It is presented here unedited. She has also kindly offered to let me interview her for a Q&A to be posted here in the future. If you have any questions you would like me to ask her (in addition to whatever occurs to me), please share them in the "Comments" to this post. Thanks!
Dear Lee,
I’ve been reading your recent postings regarding iUniverse. Having lived on both sides of the publishing
world-from my experience in traditional publishing and now as CEO of a self-publishing service provider-I have a unique perspective on the publishing business.
One very important correction to your recent posting (and I know that others have pointed this out): the number of iUniverse Star titles is 83 but the number of titles that have sold over 500
copies is many thousands. To qualify for the iUniverse Star program, authors must have sold 500 copies of their book, at least 50% of those through retail channels. If authors are committed to marketing their books and feel that the Star Program will help them enhance those marketing plans and increase book sales, they then apply. When considering titles, we ask
the same key questions that every editor and traditional publisher asks. Is it good? Will it sell? But beyond that we only select the titles that we feel will benefit from the advantages of being in the program. You can see that there are many criteria-promising levels of retail sales, the author application and commitment, and careful consideration by the Star Review Board. That means that there are far fewer books that reach Star than that sell 500 copies.
The reality of ALL publishing today is that authors are expected to be aggressively involved in marketing.
Traditional publishers will rarely pick up a non-fiction author who doesn’t have
a "platform," and new fiction titles have to be exceptional to even be
considered. By helping authors to self-publish their books, iUniverse gives them
a way to begin building a platform and honing their writing skills. The majority
of authors soon decide that they don’t want to play the marketing game and
that’s fine–they still have the enormous satisfaction of seeing their book in
print. Those authors won’t likely ever get a traditional book contract nor will
many care. It might sound corny, but
there are few accomplishments as great as writing a book and seeing it
published.
I haven’t been reading as much as I would like lately because I’ve been too busy writing, but I have managed to squeeze in a few books…
I devoured Ed Gorman’s WOLF MOON in one sitting. I really enjoyed it. The book came out a few years ago and it’s unlike any western I’ve read before. Think of it as western noir, with an emphasis on noir, though you wouldn’t know that from the standard "western" cover and "frontier" font. Sure, it takes place in the west and has all the expected genre trappings…but it’s the kind of tale Charles Williams, Harry Whittington, Dan J. Marlowe, Wade Miller, Vin Packer and Charles Willeford like to tell. Dark and violent. Grim and doomed. It’s about a bank robber who gets double-crossed, goes to prison, and seeks revenge. Sounds pretty standard but trust me, it isn’t. The hero of this book is an original…a guy who is literally rabid with revenge. I can’t help but wonder how the book
would have fared, and the attention it might have garnered, if it was marketed as a weird twist on a dark crime tale instead of western.
I also read Meg Wolitzer’s THE POSITION, about a couple of sex educators and the impact their JOY OF SEX-esque book has on their children. The book was well-written, clever, funny and insightful and yet, as a whole, unsatisfying and disappointing. I kept waiting for the story to start and it never did. I kept waiting to get involved and I never did. It’s basically a series of loosely connected vignettes without any real narrative drive.
Which brings me to Susanna Clarke’s JONATHAN STRANGE & MR. NORRELL. I’m mid-way through it (pg 390) and so far I am loving it. I find myself so involved in the book that I tote that damn thing with me everywhere (which is no small feat…the book is nearly 800 pages and I have a bum arm) and find any excuse at all to read. I’m sure a thousand folks have said this before me, but I’ll say it again… the book is basically HARRY POTTER for grown-ups. I hope the next 390 pages are as satisfying as the first!
I received this email today:
Last October, we alerted members that literary agent Nancy Ellis
(also known as Nancy Ellis-Bell) , formerly an agent in Litwest Group, had
settled a suit brought against her by Authors Guild member Raymond Barnett. Mr.
Barnett’s suit alleged that Ellis had failed to remit to him any of a $7,500
advance payment she’d received from Tarcher/Penguin on his behalf in December
2003.
We have now learned of a new judgment against Ellis, filed on April
26 in Mendocino County, California, for the wrongful retention of $19,000 of one
of her client’s funds. In addition, several other current and former clients of
Ellis have recently contacted us claiming that she has withheld advance and
royalty payments owed to them.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION SOUGHT: These are,
of course, quite serious charges, and we’ve assigned an in-house lawyer to
review all aspects of this matter. If you’ve been a client of Nancy Ellis and
have not yet contacted us, we urge you to do so. Please e-mail us at
staff@authorsguild.org or phone (212) 563-5904 and ask for Michael Gross.