My Blog

Good Advice

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Legendary western novelist Richard Wheeler used iUniverse, free of charge, to reprint some of his out-of-print novels through the Authors Guild "Back in Print" program (I did the same thing with MY GUN HAS BULLETS).  He has some good advice for aspiring authors who are thinking about self-publishing their novel.

The quality of a book usually has little to do with its sales numbers at
vanity presses such as iUniverse. Through the Authors Guild back-in-print
program, I have put ten successful reverted novels back in print through
iUniverse. These were all published by reputable NYC houses, including
Doubleday, M. Evans, and Forge (Tom Doherty Associates). One won a Spur Award.
Most were well reviewed.

The annual royalties I receive from iUniverse for all ten titles is around a
hundred dollars. Why? Because iUniverse is at bottom a printer, not a publisher.
It only minimally performs publishing functions, such as editing, copyediting,
and marketing. Nonprofessionals who take the vanity press route are deluding
themselves if they think they are being published, when all they are achieving
is a printing of their material.

I know of no shortcuts: if you can write something powerful and potentially
profitable, you have a chance. If you regularly attend genre fiction
conferences, you will have a good opportunity to meet editors and agents and
make your work known to them.

The vanity press alternative is a printed book, not a published book. It will
supply you with the illusion that you are a published author. But it is only an
illusion. Go for the brass ring. Stretch yourself, discipline your work, get up
at five and write and write and write.

I think he’s absolutely right.  My experience with iUniverse has been a good one… but I didn’t use them to self-publish a novel. 

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Zorro

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My friend Paul Quarrington, a wonderful novelist himself, reviews Isabel Allende’s Zorro in this weekend’s Globe and Mail.

This is a book rife with coincidence, love at first sight, pirates,
secret societies — hey, it’s a book where a guy can put on a mask,
draw a little moustache on his face and fool people who have known him
all of their lives.

And it is hugely enjoyable. It appealed both to the sober-sided book
reviewer that I am and the bespectacled, television-viewing lad that I
was. I have been missing this kind of thing for 40-odd years; it seems
simply not to be around. We have lost our appetite for narratives of
frolicking farfetchedness and preposterous implausibility.

His review was so much more fun to read… and revealing about the book… than the dull piece in the LA Times Book Review a few weeks ago. Although Paul puts himself into the review in a big way, Mark Sarvas’ big gripe about LA Times book reviewers, at least he doesn’t do it to tell everyone which Ivy League university he went to or mention the books he’s written. Besides, Paul is lively and funny, something LATBR writers rarely are. They much prefer being somber, dull, and self-important.

(By the way, Paul’s non-fiction, very funny book on fishing, FISHING WITH MY OLD GUY,  is a classic…whether you like to fish or not. We  worked together on the first season of MISSING up in Toronto and I must have imposed on him to sign a dozen copies of the book for my family).

The Book is Done

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I finished writing MR. MONK GOES TO THE FIREHOUSE and sent it off to the publisher, the studio, and the showrunner on Friday…ten days before my deadline. You can read it in January.  As much as I enjoyed writing that book (and proving to myself I could write a book that fast), it’s going to be very nice to have a free weekend to do whatever I want, which will be…

…playing with my INport, a device that allows me to transfer my old LPs and cassette tapes to .wav and .mp3 files.

…finishing Meg Wolitzer’s novel THE POSITION.

… getting hamburgers and shakes at The Habit with my daughter and going swimming.

…cleaning up my office, organizing my desk and paying bills.

…catching up on the TV shows I recorded on Tivo last week in my mad rush to finish the book.

…starting to plot MONK #2, which is due in early September and will be published in July 2006.

Snore

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I guess my books and TV shows must put people to sleep. I got this spam email today:

Hi,

I took a look at your site a couple of hours ago…and I want to
tell you that I’d really love to trade links with you. I think your site has
some really good stuff related to my site’s topic of pillows and would be a
great resource for my visitors.

In fact, I went ahead and added your site
to my Pillows HQ Resource Directory at
http://www.pillows-hq.com

Is
that OK with you?

Can I ask a favor? Will you give me a link back on your
site? I’d really appreciate you returning the favor.

Thanks and feel
free to drop me an email if you’d like to chat more about
this.

Best wishes,

Steve

I’ll be emailing Steve right away, because there’s nothing I enjoy more than chatting about pillows.

How Not To Get a Blurb

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A self-published author sent me a generic email asking me to read his book and blurb it. I’ve taken out his name, and the title of the book, as a courtesy:

I am  about to launch the XYZ novels, which are
legal/crime thrillers. I would love to get a blurb from you for the first novel
in this series, XYZ.  I have attached the first few chapters for
your review and will be happy to send the full book upon request.  I
thoroughly believe that you will find this book compelling and will be proud to
have your name associated with it, otherwise I wouldn’t intrude upon your
valuable time.

As compelling as his personal endorsement of his own book is, that’s not a good enough reason for me to read his novel.  In fact, this solicitation is a classic example of how to not to get an author to read your book. For instructions on how to do it right, check out author Gregg Hurwitz’s checklist of dos-and-don’ts for blurb pitching.

TVWriter.com

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Still more mail today:

What do you think of  TVwriter.com? Is that a good place to learn the ins-and-outs of screenwriting?

This is what I wrote a while back in a comment on John August’s blog when someone asked the same question:

To be honest, I think people
would learn a lot more about the craft of writing visiting John August’s site
than tvwriter.com, which seems geared entirely towards publicizing Larry Brody’s
writing workshops and contests where applicants win the opportunity to have
their scripts optioned by “The Cloud Creek Institute For the Arts” and
representation by “the legendary Terry Porter Agency.” I’ve never heard of
either one of them, though Predators and Editors 
recommends against the Porter agency, which they claim charges a fee to read
submissions.

Searching for “Search”

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I don’t what what it is, but Friday seems to be a big day for email. Here’s one I got today, which read, in part:

Television series air and are eventually canceled.  What
happens to them?  Obviously I wouldn’t be asking if I weren’t interested in
a particular series.

"Search," an adventure series that aired in
1972 lasted one season and has never aired since.   Do you
have general knowledge of what might of happened  to a series such as
Search?

Any information that you
might be able to provide that would assist  someone like myself in finding
out more about the disposition of the  series, or how to be able to maybe
have the opportunity to actually view  the episodes once more would be
invaluable.

The simple answer is that cancelled shows end up in a film vault somewhere. Unless the series had enough episodes to syndicate (which SEARCH didn’t), and there’s a real demand to see the reruns (which there isn’t), the show will just stay on the shelf forever.  There are literally thousands of series like that, and not all of them are one-or-two season flops. . There really is no opportunity for fans to get episodes, except bootlegs from collectors. There’s some room for hope…the success of TV show collections on DVD have given some obscure old shows new life. Whoever thought you’d be able to buy the complete DUSTY’S TRAIL (and who would want to?) Whether SEARCH will ever come out on DVD remains to be seen…but there are a lot of other, better known and more successful shows in the Warner Brothers vault that are likely to come out first.  I’m still waiting for SPENSER FOR HIRE…   

Lose Pounds the iUniverse Way

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Today I received this email, which I’m assuming is in response to my post "iUniverse By The Numbers."

Is it bad writing that prevents a POD book from selling or many other factors? I challenge you: an established, tradional,  successful writer to submit something you wrote to a POD and when it doesn’t sell
will it be because of bad writing?

Additionally, everyone allows for the fact even a POD publisher is going to have 2-3 successful books per year. Well, when  you consider there are at least 100 POD outfits that means they are publishing  300 books per year that are worthy of being published. The problem is not with  the concept of POD.  The problem is there are too many PODs with limited ethical and quality standards. Imagine if there was one POD publisher that alone printed the previously mentioned 300 books.

I wonder a hundred years from now, will the reviewers of history look upon the likes of  Monk and Dick Van Dyke as highly as you view your works.
Furthermore, how many bad books gain success simply because of the stature of the author (Clinton,Fisher,Grisham) and the correct  marketing plan. Correctly done, a book with 200 completely blank  pages could become a top seller.

I think we both agree one of us is living in a Dream
World. We simply disagree on who it is.

Sincerely,
John S. Meade

I’m not sure why John is so angry with me. I guess the story told by the iUniverse stats was a very rude awakening for him.  Let’s tackle his points one by one:
 

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iUniverse By The Numbers

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Publishers Weekly posted a very revealing look at iUniverse in this week’s issue. It should be a real eye-opener for aspiring writers who actually believe they will sell any books by going the self-publishing route. Out of  18,000 books iUniverse published in 2004, only 83 titles sold at least 500 copies and a mere 14 showed up on the shelves of Barnes & Noble.  That’s the reality, folks.

2004
18,108: Total number of titles
published
14: Number of titles
sold through B&N’s bricks-and-mortar stores (nationally)
83: Number of titles that sold at least 500
copies
792,814: Number of copies
printed
32,445: Number of copies
sold of iUniverse’s top seller, If I Knew Then by Amy Fisher

2003
15,028: Total number of titles
published
7: Number of titles
sold through B&N’s bricks-and-mortar stores (nationally)
76: Number of titles that sold at least 500
copies
700,930: Number of copies
printed
10,186: Number of copies
sold of iUniverse’s top seller, The Sweater LetterbyDavid
Distel
$299: Cost of iUniverse’s
lowest-cost publishing package (includes one book)
$799: Cost of iUniverse’s most expensive
publishing package (includes 10 books)
$199: Cost of a basic press kit
$1,500: Cost of book publicity service, which
includes media pitches