Yesterday I got a phone message from “Jamie Brown” at Brokers AB, a “literary agency,” informing me that four major publishing companies wanted to buy my book for $250-400K. All Brokers AB wants in return is a 12% commission on the sale. Wow, how exciting! I googled Brokers AB, and learned they also do business as “WGA Publications,” and even have the audacity to list the Writers Guild of America website as part of their company. They are based in one of those “WeWork”-type shared offices in Oxnard, CA. I called them back today… and played along for a while before questioning their entire, idiotic scam. Here is the entirety of the phone call.
EIGHT VERY BAD NIGHTS is here!
It’s pub day for the short story anthology Eight Very Bad Nights: A Collection of Hanuhhah Noir, which includes my nasty novella “If Were a Rich Man,” featuring Ray Boyd, the “anti-Reacher,” a character I introduced in my collection Crown Vic.
The other ten stories in Eight Very Bad Nights are by James D.F. Hannah, David L. Ulin, Ivy Pochoda, Nikki Dolson, J.R. Angelella, Jim Ruland, Liska Jacobs, Gabino Iglesias, and Stefanie Leder, and my brother Tod, who edited the book and wrote the foreword.
This is the first time Tod and I have been in a book together…and it’s perhaps the first time you can clearly tell by our stories that we’re brothers. I’m sure if we swapped bylines on his story and mine, nobody would notice the difference. But you can be the judge of that.
The reviews for the book have been terrific, but of course I’m especially happy about the ones that call out my story for special attention…
“My favorite story in Eight Very Bad Nights is Lee Goldberg’s “If I Were a Rich Man,” featuring his anti-hero Ray Boyd tracking down a bundle of stolen cash during Hanukkah. Boyd plays all the notes just right and even falls into a honeytrap with both eyes open. Of course, everything works out for Boyd and the trip is a blast.” Dark City Underground
“Tod Goldberg’s titular story as well as brother Lee’s “If I Were a Rich Man” — the latter involving a Jewish ex-con, now a dementia patient in a retirement home in Merced — bring on the funny while being wildly observant.” Los Angeles Times
Fair warning… “If I Were a Rich Man” is a sharp and crude departure from my other fiction. It’s full of violence and explicit sex. So if you’re looking for the kind of stuff I wrote with Janet Evanovich, or for Monk and Diagnosis Murder, you are going to be disappointed and, perhaps, offended.
I got a great surprise!
I got a wonderful surprise this week from my publisher acknowledging a milestone I reached back in April…and I have you to thank for it!
The “Stellar Literary California” Scam
Today I got an unsolicited call from a “business consultant” at “Stellar Literary California” offering me a literary agent and self-publishing services. His pitch quickly disintegrated without much prodding. My favorite part was when he tried to convince me that he was calling from California….and not the Philippines or somewhere like it.
I did say one thing in the conversation that wasn’t true…not that this putz would know the difference: you don’t get 100% of the royalties if you publish through KPD. What I should have said is that there is no upfront charge for formating, interior design, or a basic cover. (Sorry my disheveled appearance and the crumbs on my face… I was writing & munching popcorn when I got this call and rushed to return it).
You can learn more about “Stellar Literary” at Writer Beware
Scaring Myself: The Challenges of Writing a Dual Time-Line Thriller
My thriller Calico, out this week in a new paperback and deeply discounted ebook editions, is both a contemporary police procedural…and a traditional western set in 1883. What the two storylines share is a body, buried in a shallow grave in California’s desolate Mojave desert.
I’d been thinking about the story for years… but put off writing it because I had too many contractual commitments and not enough time in-between them to do it. Those are lies, of course, excuses I told myself to justify not writing the book.
The truth is, the story terrified me. Thrillers are hard enough to write without trying to balance two time-lines and, on top of that, two wildly different genres (actually, three genres, but talking about that would be a spoiler).
The challenge of telling two connected stories, one in the past and one in the present, is making sure the reader isn’t ahead of the characters in either time-line. Because if you fail, it will kill the suspense and the mystery. There will be no surprises. Yet, you also don’t want to withhold information from the reader, because that would be cheating. The trick is knowing when to cut away from on time-line to the other, so the reader is never quite sure how much they really know. Maintaining that delicate balancing act throughout the story is the sweet spot because, if you can pull it off, it creates a palpable tension that generates excitement… the thrill in thriller.
You also have to create two protagonists, one in each time-line, that the reader will find equally compelling and that will anchor the reader so they can endure the shifting POVs. In Calico, those characters are Beth McDade, a disgraced ex-LAPD cop, seeking redemption as a San Bernardino County Sheriff’s detective in the Mojave Desert in present day…and, in 1882, it’s unskilled wanderer Ben, desperately trying to survive in a silver mining camp located in a scorching, dry, desolate hell-scape. Ben’s choices in the past will have a profound impact on Beth’s life over 135 years later, when a homicide investigation will either redeem her… or destroy her.
I created a spreadsheet to track the two time lines…as well as the key plot moves/reveals which, if given away too soon or too late, could ruin the entire book. I also used the spread sheet to get a sense of the pacing, of when it would be the right time, emotionally or thematically, to shift time periods, to keep the narrative momentum moving at warp-speed.
Beyond telling a two-track story, I wanted to take the two genres (actually three) and, while delivering on the familiar tropes, also subvert all the baked-in cliches and expectations. So, I gave myself another delicate balancing act to perform: delivering a true police procedural and a western (and that other genre I’m not revealing), while also de-constructing them to create something new.
And if you’re crossing genres, and time-lines, it’s essential that you maintain the same tone and pacing across them both, so it doesn’t feel like two different books, but one relentlessly engaging thriller.
Calico was the hardest book I’ve ever written (out of nearly 40) but, in some ways, it’s been the most creatively rewarding. I’m glad I took the risk. Because I believe if I don’t occasionally scare or challenge myself, I’m going to fail anyway – because my writing will become formulaic and complacent.
I hope you’ll read Calico… and that you’ll let me know if my high-wire act worked…or if I hit the ground with a sickening splat.
Calico is out in paperback!
VIDEO: My acclaimed thriller CALICO is now out in paperback… and the price of the ebook has been slashed to $6.99! Get your copy now.
Six Common Scams Aimed at Writers
Lately, I am getting swamped by email and phone with publishing scams…which is a mistake, since I am an experienced, published author. Their primary targets are self-published, inexperienced, and desperate writers, who are easy to sucker. Here are six common scams and how to avoid them.
1. If any agent asks you to pay upfront for representation or “publishing services,” it’s a SCAM. Reputable agents make their money by getting a 10-20% commission from your work (the percentage depends on whether it’s for Hollywood or print).
2. If any TV program or podcast asks you to pay to be a guest, it’s a SCAM. Reputable TV shows *never* ask for money…and don’t pay you to appear, either (with the exception of paying your travel and hotel if they need you to come to New York or L.A., for example, but it’s exceedingly rare in this age of Zoom etc).
3. If any celebrity podcast wants to pay *you* to be a guest and/or wants to access your Facebook page for a live event, it’s a SCAM.
4. Don’t submit your book to any so-called “literary awards” competition that charges an entry fee, especially any with a city title in their name like the Los Angeles Book Awards, Paris Books Awards, London Books Awards, etc., it’s a SCAM. The vast majority of reputable awards, from organizations like Mystery Writers of America, Western Writers of America, International Thriller Writers, Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, etc. do not charge a fee. (I can think of only three exceptions — the Romance Writers of America, the Crime Writers of UK and Crime Writers of Australia all charge entry fees, and they shouldn’t).
5. Do not pay for reviews from any publication (Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, Midwest Book Review), nobody in the industry takes the paid reviews seriously and using one to tout your submissions to an agent or publisher marks you as an amateur hungry for praise. It’s a SCAM and those industry trade publications should be ashamed of themselves for doing it. Kirkus and Publishers Weekly seperate their “legitimate” reviews from their “paid” reviews by putting them in different, monthly sections of their magazine. I think the Kirkus one is called “Discoveries” and the PW one is called “Booklife.” As an incentive to pay for Booklife reviews, PW occasionally selects one to feature among their legitimate reviews.
6. If you get a call or email out of the blue from a studio, talent agency, or supposedly a big company like HBO or Disney, that wants to option the movie or TV rights to your book, and maybe even offers you a huge amount of money, but first wants you to pay to produce a “pitch deck” or “theatrical trailer,” it’s a SCAM.
Finally, always Google the name of the company or individual that’s hitting you up with this incredible offer… and check Writers Beware before you act on anything. If someone claims to be a big producer or director, check their credits on imdb…usually they don’t have any or they don’t even exist… or, if they do, they could be pretending to be that real individual. Contact the “famous” or “reputable” person or their agent directly, not with the contact info you’ve been given, but through contact info you’ve found on your own for their agent, office or production company, to see if the person reaching out to you is the real person or a fraud.
The “Our Film Agency” Scam
Today I got a voice mail from “Our Film Agency” letting me know the exciting news that HBO Max is offering me $250,000 for the film rights to my book TELEVISION SERIES REVIVALS. Pretty amazing, huh? Especially for a non-fiction reference book published years ago! So I called them back and left a message…and then they called me back a few minutes later, this time claiming to be Columbia Pictures. Here’s a video of my conversation with the inept scammers.
Roger Corman, RIP
I’m sad to hear about the passing of Roger Corman. William Rabkin & I worked for him in the late 1980s/early 1990s on an unmade TV series version of LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS for the USA Network (that’s a long story in itself). He was cheap, but he paid us on time, treated us well and was a wonderful, creative collaborator. But for me the best part of the experience were the anecdotes from his career that he shared with us along the way.
For instance, while giving us a tour of his Venice studio and pointing out sets that had been used dozens of times, he told us that he’d made so many movies that he had a recurring nightmare that he’d made one that he’d forgotten to release
“Did I release BODY CHEMISTRY 3 or was it SORORITY HOUSE MASSACRE 3? I wake up in a cold sweat & have to double check.”
During story meetings with us, sometimes he’d take out an electric razor and just run it over his face while he pondered a story point.
He also didn’t suffer fools. At one point in our 7000th notes meeting with an idiot network executive, Roger got so frustrated that he told her that the time it had taken us to get the bible approved, stories approved, and then two episodes written, he’d made and released eight movies.
The final straw on the LITTLE SHOP project was when the idiot exec asked us to underline the jokes and to put asterisks next to the ones that were social commentary. Roger was furious. He said something like, “if you need the jokes pointed out to you, you shouldn’t be in the movie business,” got up and walked out…and we walked out with him. In the elevator, he told us he was done, he’d never develop a TV series with a network again. He couldn’t understand how we could stomach working with such stupid, indecisive people. But he was kind enough to say how much he enjoyed working with us and that he was proud of the scripts we’d written.
Some years later, he did do a TV series… but he made it himself and then sold the final product to a cable channel as an acquisition.
Executive Producers of Showtime’s “The Chi” Acquire Screen Rights to Lee Goldberg’s bestseller “Malibu Burning”
I can finally reveal the news! ID8 Multimedia, led by industry veterans Derek Dudley and Shelby Stone, have acquired the screen rights to my thriller to “Malibu Burning.” Here’s the full story from the press release:
The high-concept, 2023 bestseller follows two Los Angeles County arson investigators who suspect that a massive wildfire raging through the Santa Monica mountains is part of an elaborate heist by a professional thief and his skilled crew. Dudley and Stone, producers on the TV series “The Chi” and “Horror Noir,” are set to executive produce the adaptation alongside Goldberg and talent manager Craig Dorfman.
“‘Malibu Burning’ embodies the pulse-pounding energy of classic cat-and-mouse thrillers like Heat, pitting a seasoned arson investigator and an ex-U.S. Marshal against a brilliant, charismatic thief trying to pull off an impossible score.” Stone said. “Derek and I are thrilled to bring this electrifying story to the screen.”
Dudley echoed Stone’s enthusiasm. “I am blessed to collaborate with Lee, Craig, and Shelby to bring ‘Malibu Burning’ to life. Lee is a prolific storyteller who creates novels filled with rich and intriguing characters. He has stuck gold again with this fast-paced, action-packed Robin hood heist in a raging inferno.”
Talent Manager Craig Dorfman brought the project to ID8. “I’ve been a fan of Lee’s since I read his 2018 bestseller ‘True Fiction‘ and my obsession continues to this day. I’m excited to work with this team on ‘Malibu Burning,’ which is full of fascinating characters, relentless action, and crackling dialogue.”
“I’m so lucky to be in business with such a creative, enthusiastic, collaborative, and successful team,” said Goldberg, who is repped for film & TV by Mitchel Stein of The Stein Agency and in publishing by Amy Tannenbaum of the Jane Rotrosen Agency. His novel “Ashes Never Lie,” a sequel to “Malibu Burning,” will be published in September. A third book is slated for Spring 2025.
With over 40 novels to his credit, among them the bestselling “True Fiction,” “Lost Hills,” “Calico” and a five-book collaboration with Janet Evanovich, Goldberg’s diverse portfolio also includes extensive television writing and producing credits, including “Diagnosis Murder,” “SeaQuest,” and “Monk,” and co-creating the Hallmark movie series “Mystery 101.”
Shelby Stone is a prolific, Emmy Award-winning producer with numerous projects in development, including “Hate to See You Go” starring Morgan Freeman and a new feature documentary from Oscar-winner Questlove (“Summer of Soul”) on Sly Stone. She is also an experienced executive, having run production companies for several high-profile stars, including Jamie Foxx, Queen Latifah and Common.
Derek Dudley is an industry veteran with a successful entertainment career spanning over three decades, shaping and managing the careers of music heavyweights such as acclaimed producer and record label mogul Jermaine Dupri and Academy Award winning artist, actor, author and social activist Common.
Craig Dorfman, whose client roster includes Lorraine Toussaint, Adrienne C. Moore, Joshua Malina, Patricia Richardson and Jabari Banks, is known for his keen eye for emerging talent and his adept management of established artists.
The next step is for the producers to attach a screenwriter, director and star to the project, which I hear they are hard at work doing right now. I’ve been sitting on the news for a while now, so it’s exciting to finally be able to share it with you. I hope to have more exciting news to share with you about one of my other novels as soon as the “powers that be” give me the ok.