Antiques Roadshow – Behind The Scenes

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47122533 If, like me, you're a fan of the Antiques Roadshow, Marsha Bemko's book provides a fascinating peek behind-the-scenes. And even if you're not a fan, but simply love antiques, Antiques Roadshow: Behind the Scenes is full of great anecdotes and tips that will help you in your collecting. And if you aren't a fan of the show, or an antique collector, but are a student of television, you'll find this book packed with interesting producing info on the making of a reality series. There aren't many books about TV shows that can satisfy on so many levels and also be a pleasure to read — but this one succeeds.

The book is written by AR's executive producer, who tells you how the series evolved, what you should (or shouldn't) bring to have appraised, how they decide which cities to visit and which appraisals they will put on the show. But that's not all. Bemko gives you deep background on all of the popular appraisers… and, as a bonus, gets them to share some tips on how to hone your own collecting skills. No book about AR would be complete, or satisfying, without a recap of some of their most memorable moments — fleshing out what happened before, during, and best of all, after the appraisal. This is a breezy, informative and highly entertaining must-read for Antiques Roadshow fans.

Murder on the Boob Tube

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41MvsvCsbML._SS500_  I love TV reference books, but John William Law's MURDER ON THE BOOK TUBE is, to put it bluntly, terrible in every way, factually worthless and devoid of any fresh information or thoughtful insights. The listings are superficial and generic to the point of uselessness and riddled with typographical errors and inept sentence structure.

Here are some examples from his listing for MANNIX. The typos are his, not mine:

"The show started off one one path, but changed courses after the first season and never strayed much after that."

"With less than spectacular ratings in season one, the changes were hoped to bring new live to the fledgling series"

"The showed featured an unsolved MANNIX case and use flashbacks of the original series along with present day Mannix back on the case"

And here's another example of his poor writing and proofing skills from his listing for IRONSIDE. Again, the errors and lack of punctuation are his, not mine:

"While the original series took place in San Francisco, little of the show was actually filmed there with some early location filming of the actors in popular locations and the footage would be intersperse through-out the season."

And, finally, here's an example from his listing for ELLERY QUEEN:

"At one point there were rumor's the younger Hutton might reprise his father's most famous character for a TV movie, but the closest he came was as the star of his own mystery series based on another famous detective when Timothy Hutton starred in A NERO WOLFE MYSTERY in 2001-2002."

The author hasn't done any meaningful research, hasn't interviewed anybody, and the "rare photos" he uses are merely amateurishly cropped, black-and-white scans of TV Guide covers. It's embarrassing and not worth $1, much less $14.95.

You Can Become a Kindle Millionaire, Part 19

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MY GUN 3  This was another record month for my Kindle sales. Sales were up across the board — in March, I sold 1360 books, in April I sold 1798, and this month I sold 1919. I earned $1415 in April and this month I earned $1543.

THE WALK continues to be my bestselling title. I sold 629 copies in April and 720 this month. 

THE MAN WITH THE  IRON-ON BADGE is a distant second, with 234 copies sold, exactly the same number as last month. How bizarre is that? 

GUILTY, one of my re-branded VIGILANTE novels, moved up to #3 with 184 copies sold compared to 125 last month. 

There was one bit of troubling news…MY GUN HAS BULLETS went from selling 264 copies last month to 166 this month… I have no idea why sales plunged by 100 copies. That's a dramatic drop. I may need to try a new cover and see if that will stop the slide.

This will be the last month of Kindle sales under the old royalty system. Starting July 1, my royalties will go from 35% to 70% of each sale. I can't wait.

Craptastic Sammy A-Go-Go!

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It doesn't get much more craptastic than this — Sammy Davis Jr. sings the theme to "My Mother The Car," one of the worst sitcoms in television history. What the hell was he thinking!?

UPDATE 5/30/2010: YouTube has blocked my clip, so  here's another one… and this one is even better. You can actually see Sammy performing the song with dancers on his TV show!

But wait, there's more! Here's Sammy singing the theme to "The Jeffersons"

And, in case you missed'em before, here's Sammy singing the themes to KOJAK, HAWAII FIVE-O, MARY HARTMAN, CHICO AND THE MAN and MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW

Bookwhirl Still Can’t Sell itself

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Two years after I trashed Bookwhirl, they've responded. Boy, they move fast. I am obviously dealing with marketing professionals. Here's their no-holds barred response:

Author Lee Goldberg once published an article about BookWhirl.com. He entitled his post, BookWhirl Can't Even Sell Itself. Published last August 2008, the article features Goldberg’s first and only impression about BookWhirl.com.

But contrary to Lee Goldberg’s first impression, we, at BookWhirl.com strive for excellence in the best way that we can to provide assistance to self-published authors. Despite negative reviews, BookWhirl.com continues to sufficiently address and accommodate online marketing needs. With cost-efficient marketing tools, self-published authors are given the chance to efficiently market their books even on a shoestring budget.

Powerfully persuasive stuff. But then again, that's the hallmark of Bookwhirl. And once again, they get to show off their brilliant promotional skills…proudly touting that they "sufficiently address and accommodate" the marketing needs of their clients. Wow, that's mighty impressive. It's not easy finding a publicist who is sufficient, is it? They also go on to showcase their exceptional grasp of English and grammar, too:

BookWhirl.com is continuously improving and ironing the quality of its business communications. BookWhirl.com is grateful to its consumers who have extended their commendation on the improvement of our customer communications.

Back in September 2009, despite my negative blog post about them, the sufficient publicists at Bookwhirl contacted me again with a sales pitch:

Hi Lee,

A pleasant day to you.

This is Melissa Adams, a Marketing Consultant of Bookwhirl.com.

I came across your book, “Mr. Monk is Miserable” and I find it very interesting. Our company, Bookwhirl.com is really interested to help you in promoting your book/s online because we find out that your book/s deserves to be recognized.

As a Marketing Consultant, what I can do is to offer you a strategic marketing optimization that will help you strengthen the marketing punch of your book/s and eventually in the future this will help increase your book sales, and at the same time, increase the popularity of your book/s since we can send this out to thousands or even millions of people which are your target potential buyers.

The right time for you and your books in achieving the attention and recognition that is so rightfully deserved has come. You have the book, we have the Marketing Tools.

Please let me know the best way to contact you. You may also simply reply to this email or call at my toll free number X XXX XXX-XXXX. I’d be grateful to give you more information about this.

Please visit our website at www.Bookwhirl.com for more information.

Hope to hear from you soon.

Melissa Adams

Consultant

Marketing Services – BookWhirl.com

Toll Free: 1 (877) 207-1679 ext 323

Fax No. : 1 (800) 852-4249

Email : madams@bookwhirl.com

Info@Bookwhirl.com

www.Bookwhirl.com

I replied:

You can't even write a coherent paragraph, with proper verb/tense agreement, and you think you can promote my books?

They contacted me again a month later with yet another pitch. I saved that message, too.

Hi Lee Goldberg,

A pleasant day.

I’m Rabbie Allen, a Marketing Specialist of Bookwhirl.com www.bookwhirl.com

I came across your book entitled, “.357 VIGILANTE: DIE, MR. JURY”. We are interested to promote it and we’d like to help you reach out up to 5,000,000 individuals and let them know about you and your passion for your work.

If you are interested, please provide me the best way to contact you or you may give me a call at XXX-XXX-XXXX or you may simply reply to this email. I’d be grateful to give you more information about this.

Hope to hear from you soon.

Rabbie Allen

Consultant

Marketing Services – BookWhirl.com

Toll Free: 1 (877) 207-1679 ext 318

Fax No. : 1 (800) 852-4249

Email : rallen@bookwhirl.com

Info@Bookwhirl.com

www.Bookwhirl.com

I replied:

Here's a free piece of advice from a professional writer: don't start trying to sell yourself as an expert in promotion until you've mastered basic English. You already have a reputation as know-nothing con artists…now you are becoming known as fools.

They clearly did not take my advice.

Two Crooks Elmore Leonard Would Appreciate

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I absolutely loved the story in today's LA TIMES about the insider trading scam cooked up by an inept Disney secretary and her dimwit boyfriend, both of whom could be characters in an Elmore Leonard novel.

The Disney secretary, Bonnie Hoxie, and her boyfriend, Yonni Sebbag, sent anonymous letters to three dozen hedge funds offering them an advance peek at the Mouse House's quarterly earnings report. The hedge funds immediately called the Feds, who sent a couple of undercover agents out to make a deal with Hoxie and Sebbag.

Federal authorities arrested the couple early Wednesday morning and charged them with criminal wire fraud in what experts described as one of the more ham-handed attempts at insider trading in memory.

[…]Sebbag told undercover agents that he was "looking to build a strong business relationship" and that "I don't think we will get caught if we stay discrete [sic] and careful." 

[…]Sebbag allegedly said he wanted "to make a lot of money" and asked for their guidance in opening an offshore bank account to avoid detection. 

[…]"This is the insider trading equivalent of the bank robber who drops off the demand note and comes back in an hour to pick up the money," said Robert A. Mintz, a former federal prosecutor who is a partner at McCarter & English in Newark, N.J. "It's mind-boggling that somebody would even try to get away with something like this."

When the Illiterate Rule

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Garrison Keillor fears for the future of book publishing in this new age where anybody can be "published." He says, in part:

Call me a pessimist, call me Ishmael, but I think that book publishing is about to slide into the sea.[…]if you want to write, you just write and publish yourself. No need to ask permission, just open a website. And if you want to write a book, you just write it, send it to Lulu.com or BookSurge at Amazon or PubIt or ExLibris and you've got yourself an e-book. No problem. And that is the future of publishing: 18 million authors in America, each with an average of 14 readers, eight of whom are blood relatives. Average annual earnings: $1.75.

He's right. Anybody can "publish" a book now, whether they can write or not. I got some evidence of that today. Several prominent authors have been spammed by a self-published "writer," and I use that term very lightly in this case, named Irene Matthews. Here's her note:

Hello how are you? PublishAmerica will be at the book expo with many book's from new author's my book will be among them. Title Dark Island by Irene Matthews. It's a pirate adventure like no other before it with twist's and turn's and an ending that no one saw comming, enjoy.

At first I thought the email had to be a fake, but then I saw the listing for her book at PublishAmerica:

I have been writing since I was 13 years old and really enjoy writing. I write poems, love stories, horror, adventure, etc. All my life I always wanted to write a wonderful book and finally my dream has finally came true thanks to alot of wonderful people who believed in me. I knew one day that my dream would come true one day, and to never ever give up. Since I was little I always had a love for pirate movies and stories, plus I always loved vampire stories and movies, I also believe dreams do come true and mine did come true.

If anybody ever needed proof that PublishAmerica is a scam, or that there's good reason for Garrison Keillor's fears, the publication of this book is it.

The Booksigning Song

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Here's my friend author Parnell Hall's classic, and painfully true, ode to booksignings, "Signing in the Waldenbooks," which is nearly as well known and beloved as his many books. He's been singing his very funny song at conferences and booksignings for years…so long, in fact, that he's still plugging away and Waldenbooks isn't (I think I first heard him sing it at a Left Coast Crime conference in Boulder Colorado in 1996).