My Blog

Would you rather be an enlightened barista or a working writer?

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My brother Tod did an interview with the Association of Writers and Writing Projects blog about his approach to running the low residency MFA program in Creative Writing & Writing for the Performing Arts at the University of California, Riverside. This brief excerpt pretty much says it all: 

Caleb J Ross: You said something at last year’s AWP which stuck with me. Paraphrased, of course, you said that you teach your MFA classes like an instructor of any trade program might, with the end goal of providing financial opportunities for the students. This seems like a radically different approach than most MFAs which may instead focus on non-definable, creative signposts to gauge student success. First, am I expressing your idea correctly? Second, how is this goal compromised by a low-residency program, if it even is?

Tod Goldberg: Pretty close. Essentially my philosophy is that if you’re in an MFA program, your goal isn’t to become the most well-read person on earth with a handful of literary quotes at your disposal at all times, it’s to be published. It’s to be produced. Graduate programs in creative writing are some of the few that seem entirely esoteric because they don’t seem to be training you for anything tangible, apart from maybe being a particularly enlightened barista, because, well, that’s frequently the case.  But I think that has to change. Being a professional writer is a job. And if you want to write books, or write screenplays, or write poetry, simply for personal edification, you certainly don’t need an MFA program to do that. But if you want to become a professional writer, I think an MFA program can and should be a clear stepping stone in that direction. Most aren’t. Most entirely eschew the idea of life after the MFA — in fact, most programs tend to herald your acceptance into the program as the “making it” part of your writing career, which is silly. It’s school. It’s what you do afterward that makes a difference…

 

Agent Scams

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Victoria Strauss at Writer Beware offers an excellent primer today on how to spot, and avoid, literary representation scams. As it turns out, the sample solicitation she's using was sent by Dan Grogan, an ex-employee of Jones Harvest, a two-bit and particularly sleazy vanity press. Clearly, Dan learned from the best. Here's some of Victoria's warning signs to watch out for:

– Cold-call solicitation. Reputable agents will sometimes directly approach an author whose work they've seen and liked (and if so, will reference that work). But they don't rely on mass email solicitation to build their client lists. 

– Multiple punctuation and spelling errors, both in the email and on the agency's website (missing apostrophes, "summery" for "summary," etc.). A literary agent should be able to write error-free English–and to proofread it once it's written.

– Claims of experience that can't be verified. There are more of these on the agency's website. Alleging "long term relationships with particular publishers and editors" or "connections in the film industry, publishing companies, and multi-media marketing companies" are meaningless without specifics. A real agent with real experience who wants to tout that experience will say exactly what it is (see, for instance, the staff bios at the Nelson Literary Agency, or those at the Waxman Agency).

– Promotion of services irrelevant to literary representation.Reputable agents help guide their clients' careers, but they don't typically double as "public relation [sic] representatives." And see this page of the agency's website, where they claim, among other things, to be able to provide an ISBN, list clients' books on Amazon, and "Copyright your work with the Nation [sic] Library of Congress." These are services important for self-publishers, but not relevant to authors expecting their agents to sell their books to reputable trade publishers. (And wouldn't you hope your agent would know that your work is copyrighted from the moment you write it down, and that what you do with the US Copyright Office–not with the Library of Congress–is register it?)

– A critiquing service for a fee. The publishing world is changing, and reputable agents are more and more branching out into other areas–including the provision of various paid services (I'm planning a post on that in the near future). However, offering a paid service to a potential client is a conflict of interest–never a good thing–and if you're cold-call soliciting that client, it suggests that maybe shilling the paid service is your main objective. 

Zach Is Back

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51uNaXDXFYL._SS500_ Back in the 1990s, my friend Zachary Klein wrote three terrific, widely-acclaimed mystery novels about substance abusing PI Matt Jacob ("Still Among the Living," "Two Way Toll," etc.) and then disappeared from the book scene. Until now. He's back with a new blog...and soon his out-of-print books will be showing up again on the Kindle (and, I hope, the unpublished fourth book in the series will follow, too). Here's an excerpt from his first blog post…

Creating fiction has always been crucial.  Imperative, really, to keep my mother from slamming my ass with the telephone or frat paddle.  To juke the rabbis in the Brooklyn Mirrer Yeshiva when they’d catch me in Greenwich Village or reading Playboy(just for the interviews, of course).  Unfortunately my verbal dancing wasn’t always successful since I got thrown out before high school graduation.  But no serious damage.  I’d done well on the New York State Regents and had been accepted at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, before the toss. (Actually, everyone from the yeshiva did well. They made sure the collective marks were always high enough to keep their accreditation.)

 

 

Announcing Top Suspense

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Here's the press release announcing TopSuspense, which just went out to media outlets this week.

Navigating the Sea of E-Books

Nine top suspense authors join forces to promote quality e-books www.TopSuspenseGroup.com

 The e-book market is exploding. With over 700,000 e-books currently available and hundreds more added every week, it’s growing increasingly difficult to distinguish quality books from those that are unedited and written by inexperienced authors.

That’s why nine established, professional authors have formed Top Suspense Group, a site where readers are guaranteed to find top-notch, award-winning authors in multiple genres who deliver a great e-reading experience in their dozens of highly-acclaimed books.

"Readers can count on us," acclaimed author Max Allan Collins explains. "Every member of our group has already made his or her mark on genre fiction, whether it's noir, crime, mystery, thriller, horror or Westerns, and in some cases, several of these genres."

Top Suspense authors have each:

  • Published multiple novels with traditional publishers
  • Won or have been nominated for major literary awards
  • Been internationally published
  • Received critical acclaim from national publications

Many of the authors have graced the national bestseller lists and have had their work produced or optioned for film (the Oscar winning “Road to Perdition”) and television (the Emmy winning “Monk”). Our authors include:

 Max Allan Collins · Bill Crider · Lee Goldberg · Joel Goldman · Ed Gorman · Vicki Hendricks

Paul Levine · Harry Shannon · Dave Zeltserman

 This unique site provides a one-stop-shop of quality suspense fiction. As the e-book market continues to flood and overwhelm readers, Top Suspense will remain a succinct guide to quality, professional e-books written by today’s leading authors.

 

You Can Become a Kindle Millionaire, Part 20

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I've got a new guest post up on Joe Konrath's blog charting my Kindle experience…and the complete change in my thinking about ebooks. A lot of what I'm saying there you've already read about here, so let's cut to the chase:

This January, if sales continue at the current pace, I will sell about 3100 books this month and earn $6600 in royalties.

That’s a 166% increase in sales and a whopping 751% jump in royalties.

In just one year.

On out-of-print books that I wrote years ago that were earning me nothing before June 2009.

If those sales hold for the rest of the year, I will earn $77,615 in Kindle royalties, and that’s not counting the far less substantial royalties coming in from Amazon UK, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble and CreateSpace.

Even if my sales plummet tomorrow by fifty percent, I’ll still earn about $38,000 in royalties this year…and I’d be very, very happy with that.

My most profitable title, in terms of hours worked and pages written, is THREE WAYS TO DIE, a collection of three previously published short stories. In print, it’s a mere fifty-six pages long, but it’s selling 24 copies-a-day on the Kindle, earning me about $1500-a-month. That means I could potentially earn $18,000 this year just from those three short stories alone.

That is insane.

But what would be more insane is if I took my next, standalone, non-MONK book to a publisher instead of “publishing” it myself on the Kindle.

That’s right. I’d rather self-publish. This from a guy who for years has been an out-spoken, and much-reviled, critic of self-publishing. But that was before the Kindle came along and changed everything. I was absolutely right then…but I’d be wrong now.

Yes, it's happened. I have become a complete convert to self-publishing and the Kindle. But do I recommend it for you? It depends. I go into more detail in the post on Joe's blog, so check it out.

A Harvest of Broken Promises

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I've written a lot over the years about Brien Jones and his sleazy vanity press Jones Harvest (most recently, I blogged about his hilarious offer to turn your book into a screenplay). Now Bonnie Kaye's Jones Harvest Victims Blog has posted an open letter from Donna Hamilton, one of Brien's former employees, to the poor suckers who paid him to publish their books. It reads, in part:

Please know that it was always my intention to do an honest job for the authors that I worked with. I know how much your hard work means to you. I also know how hard you worked for the money that you invested to receive publishing and promotional services that you expected to be provided—especially when I promised you that the work you paid for would be done. At the time I sold you these services, I truly believed that you were paying for legitimate services that were being provided by the owners of the company. When I realized this wasn’t the case, I made the decision to leave.

Donna provided the authors with her email and phone number if they would like to talk some more with her. I applaud her honesty and I hope she is also talking to the Indiana Attorney General, who shut down the infamous Airleaf/Bookman vanity press, where Brien worked for years and acquired all of his valuable  "publishing experience" before starting Jones Harvest.

 

Edgar Award Nominations Announced

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Mystery Writers of America is proud to announce on the 202nd anniversary of the birth of Edgar Allan Poe, its Nominees for the 2011 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, honoring the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction and television published or produced in 2010. The Edgar® Awards will be presented to the winners at our 65th Gala Banquet, April 28, 2011 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, New York City.

BEST NOVEL

Caught by Harlan Coben (Penguin Group USA – Dutton)
Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin (HarperCollins – William Morrow)
Faithful Place by Tana French (Penguin Group USA – Viking)
The Queen of Patpong by Timothy Hallinan (HarperCollins – William Morrow)
The Lock Artist by Steve Hamilton (Minotaur/Thomas Dunne Books)
I’d Know You Anywhere by Laura Lippman (HarperCollins – William Morrow)

BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR

Rogue Island by Bruce DeSilva (Tom Doherty Associates – Forge Books)
The Poacher’s Son by Paul Doiron (Minotaur Books)
The Serialist: A Novel by David Gordon (Simon & Schuster)
Galveston by Nic Pizzolatto (Simon & Schuster – Scribner)
Snow Angels by James Thompson (Penguin Group USA – G.P. Putnam’s Sons)

BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL

Long Time Coming by Robert Goddard (Random House – Bantam)
The News Where You Are by Catherine O’Flynn (Henry Holt)
Expiration Date by Duane Swierczynski (Minotaur Books)
Vienna Secrets by Frank Tallis (Random House Trade Paperbacks)
Ten Little Herrings by L.C. Tyler (Felony & Mayhem Press)

BEST FACT CRIME

Scoreboard, Baby: A Story of College Football, Crime and Complicity 
by Ken Armstrong and Nick Perry (University of Nebraska Press – Bison Original)
The Eyes of Willie McGee: A Tragedy of Race, Sex, and Secrets in Jim Crow South by Alex Heard (HarperCollins)
Finding Chandra: A True Washington Murder Mystery by Scott Higham and Sari Horwitz (Simon & Schuster – Scribner)
Hellhound on his Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr and the International Hunt for his Assassin by Hampton Sides (Random House – Doubleday)
The Killer of Little Shepherds: A True Crime Story and the Birth of Forensic Science by Douglas Starr (Alfred A. Knopf)

BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL

The Wire: Truth Be Told by Rafael Alvarez (Grove Atlantic – Grove Press)
Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks: Fifty Years of Mysteries in the Making by John Curran (HarperCollins)
Sherlock Holmes for Dummies by Steven Doyle and David A. Crowder (Wiley)
Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and his Rendevouz with American History by Yunte Huang (W.W. Norton)
Thrillers: 100 Must Reads edited by David Morrell and Hank Wagner (Oceanview Publishing)

BEST SHORT STORY

"The Scent of Lilacs" – Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine by Doug Allyn (Dell Magazines)
"The Plot" – First Thrills by Jeffery Deaver (Tom Doherty – Forge Books)
"A Good Safe Place” – Thin Ice by Judith Green (Level Best Books)
"Monsieur Alice is Absent" – Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine 
by Stephen Ross (Dell Magazines)
"The Creative Writing Murders" – Dark End of the Street by Edmund White (Bloomsbury)

BEST JUVENILE

Zora and Me by Victoria Bond and T.R. Simon (Candlewick Press)
The Buddy Files: The Case of the Lost Boy by Dori Hillestad Butler (Albert Whitman & Co.)
The Haunting of Charles Dickens by Lewis Buzbee (Feiwel & Friends)
Griff Carver: Hallway Patrol by Jim Krieg (Penguin Young Readers Group – Razorbill)
The Secret Life of Ms. Finkleman by Ben H. Winters (HarperCollins Children’s Books)

BEST YOUNG ADULT

The River by Mary Jane Beaufrand (Little Brown Books for Young Readers)
Please Ignore Vera Dietz by A.S. King (Random House Children’s Books – Alfred A. Knopf)
7 Souls by Barnabas Miller and Jordan Orlando (Random House Children’s Books – Delacorte Press)
The Interrogation of Gabriel James by Charlie Price (Farrar, Straus, Giroux Books for Young Readers)
Dust City by Robert Paul Weston (Penguin Young Readers Group – Razorbill)

BEST PLAY

The Psychic by Sam Bobrick (Falcon Theatre – Burbank, CA)
The Tangled Skirt by Steve Braunstein (New Jersey Repertory Company)
The Fall of the House by Robert Ford (Alabama Shakespeare Festival)

BEST TELEVISION EPISODE TELEPLAY

“Episode 1” – Luther, Teleplay by Neil Cross (BBC America)
“Episode 4” – Luther, Teleplay by Neil Cross (BBC America)
“Full Measure” – Breaking Bad, Teleplay by Vince Gilligan (AMC/Sony)
“No Mas” – Breaking Bad, Teleplay by Vince Gilligan (AMC/Sony)
“The Next One’s Gonna Go In Your Throat” – Damages, Teleplay by Todd A. Kessler, Glenn Kessler & Daniel Zelman (FX Networks)

ROBERT L. FISH MEMORIAL AWARD 

"Skyler Hobbs and the Rabbit Man" – Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine by Evan Lewis (Dell Magazines)

GRAND MASTER

Sara Paretsky

RAVEN AWARDS

Centuries & Sleuths Bookstore, Forest Park, Illinois
Once Upon A Crime Bookstore, Minneapolis, Minnesota

THE SIMON & SCHUSTER – MARY HIGGINS CLARK AWARD
(Presented at MWA’s Agents & Editors Party on Wednesday, April 27, 2010)

Wild Penance by Sandi Ault (Penguin Group – Berkley Prime Crime)
Blood Harvest by S.J. Bolton (Minotaur Books)
Down River by Karen Harper (MIRA Books)
The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Live to Tell by Wendy Corsi Staub (HarperCollins – Avon)