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).

Blue-Eyed Devil is Wide-Eyed Awful

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Blueeyeddevil  I'm a big fan of Robert B. Parker's  early Virgil & Everett westerns (APPALOOSA,RESOLUTION, etc.) but the latest, BLUE EYED DEVIL, is Parker at his worst. For starters, it's hardly a book at all, more like a long short story fattened up with large fonts, three-page chapters, and lots of white space. 

Professional gun hands Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch return to Appaloosa, the setting for the first (and best) book in the series and spend most of their time sitting on one porch or another sipping whiskey and talking about how smart, skilled, capable, and all around marvelous they are. Occasionally, they get up and shoot someone. The plotting is episodic, improvised, and often inept. For example, at one point, their old friend Pony Flores, a inscrutable and wise half-breed Indian, shows up on the run from the law with his silent brother but isn't worried about being caught because, like Virgil and Everett, he's so damn good.

"Anybody on your trail?" Virgil said.

Pony shook his head.

"Only man can track Pony Flores," he said, "is me."

"Good," Virgil said.

But a few pages later, the law shows up looking for him anyway. Virgil quizzes the trackers.

"What makes you think he's here?" Virgil said.

"Folks in Van Buren spotted them, couple weeks back, heading south. This is the next town."

Virgil nodded.

So Pony's brilliant, untrackable method for eluding pursuers is to go in a straight line from one town to the next, making sure that he's seen.  But Virgil and Everett continue to regard Pony as a master tracker and eluder anyway.

An editor might have caught that bit of insipidness and, perhaps, also the half-dozen repetitions of the phrase "when the balloon goes up" throughout the book, but it's been a while since anybody has bothered editing Parker…and that disinterest and laziness continues even after his death.

Parker relies on all of his tropes in this book, repeating banter that I swear I've read in all of his books and lifting situations whole from previous entries in the series (for instance, once again Everett finds a sweet, warm-hearted, still beautiful hooker willing to have sex with him for free because she gets so hot hearing him talk about how competent and marvelous he and Virgil are)

Parker has succeeded in killing this series with his own disinterest the same way he did with the Jesse Stone books. Both series started out great and then he seemingly gave up making any effort, letting them become thinly-written and loosely conceived parodies of themselves. It's a sad thing to see and even more painful to read. At least it's over fast. I doubt BLUE EYED DEVIL is even 30,000 words.

I truly hope that the two upcoming SPENSER novels that Parker finished before his death are a return to form and not, as I fear, a sad coda to a once-great writer's career.

Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust

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Ashes-to-Ashes-last-episo-006  If you can't wait for the third season of ASHES TO ASHES, the sequel series to the worldwide hit LIFE ON MARS, to show up on DVD or come to BBCAmerica, this article from The Guardian newspaper will tell you in detail how it all ends in the final episode. It's a big spoiler, so think twice if you really want to know.

Personally, I thought this season was very weak story-wise, not nearly as compelling or as well plotted as previous seasons of either ASHES or LIFE. The show probably should have ended with a variation on this episode last season instead of limping pointlessly through seven more. 

That said, the final episode tied up the two series in a way the felt right and packed an emotional punch, even if the "reveal" was obvious and strongly telegraphed from the start…and I mean going all the way back to LIFE ON MARS. It was certainly a much better final episode than the atrocious American take, which revealed that all the central characters were astronauts in suspended animation on a journey to Mars to conduct a "gene hunt."   I kid you not.

I’m A Hot Chick

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Monk-chick  I've had a lot of unusual interview requests…but this was the first that came with the offer to name a chick after me.  So I answered a few questions for Project Chicken  Before the Eggs. Here's a sampling: 

What is the best advice an older relative or family member gave you?

My grandfather gave me two pieces of advice I have followed all of my life.
1). “It never hurts to be over-prepared, it always hurts to be under-prepared.” That’s why I always have a jacket with me, even if it’s 110 degrees in the shade, a habit which my daughter finds embarrassing.

2). “Never buy a car on time. That way, no bank can ever take it away from you and, if worse comes to worse, you can always live in it.” My accountant absolutely hates me for following that one.

I'm in good company in the chicken coop. They also have interviews with Judy Blume and Chris Bohjalian, among others.

Pickups and Letdowns

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This week, the networks announced their new fall dramas with the usual hype and hoopla. But what has been forgotten in all the attention is that most of the new dramas launched last season bombed, even those that pundits thought would be mega-hits (like FLASH FORWARD).  

The hour-long drama series cancelled this season include FLASH FORWARD, TRAUMA, THREE RIVERS, MIAMI MEDICAL, MERCY, THE FORGOTTEN, EASTWICK, THE DEEP END, HAPPY TOWN, PAST LIFE, MELROSE PLACE, and THE BEAUTIFUL LIFE.

In fact, not only did NBC's Leno experiment fail, but all of their new hour-long dramas tanked, too (along with such venerable dramas as HEROES and LAW AND ORDER).  

The only new dramas that have survived the primetime bloodbath are THE GOOD WIFE, THE HUMAN TARGET, NCIS: LOS ANGELES, LIFE UNEXPECTED, GLEE, VAMPIRE DIARIES and V.

So don't believe all the hype you're hearing about the new crop of pilots and don't get too invested in any of the shows…because it's a safe assumption that most of'em will be gone and forgotten by this time next year.

SHAKEN Shakes Things Up

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Shaken_CoverArt  Joe Konrath is breaking new ground on the e-front yet again. Today Amazon announced that Amazon Encore is publishing SHAKEN, his latest Jack Daniels novel, first as a $2.99 ebook in October and then as a traditional trade paperback in February 2011. 

Up until now, Amazon Encore has only reprinted books that didn't make a big splash in their initial release and had fallen out of print. This is the first time they are publishing an original novel. 

Joe took the deal after Hyperion dropped the Jack Daniels series and no other publisher stepped up to publish the new book…and after his extraordinary success selling his other unpublished manuscripts as ebooks on Amazon. 

There's no doubt Amazon has noticed how well Joe's books are doing on the Kindle. From their POV, this deal had to be a no-brainer (though I suspect they would have liked to charge more than $2.99 but less than $9.99 for the ebook).  It certainly was a no-brainer from Joe's side. On top of that, Amazon will find no better cheerleader for the Kindle than Joe, which should lift up sales of all Kindle titles across the board as he works tirelessly to promote SHAKEN. In the Amazon press release, Joe says:

“My Kindle readers have been incredibly faithful fans and I’m excited to be able to release the Kindle edition of ‘Shaken’ several months before the physical version is available to purchase,” said Konrath. “Since it’s easier, faster and cheaper to create an e-book than it is a physical book, Kindle owners will get to read the seventh Jack Daniels before everyone else. The ability for authors to reach fans—instantly and inexpensively with a simple press of a button—is the greatest thing to happen to the written word since Gutenberg.”

He elaborated in on the deal, and why he took it, in more detail on his blog. He said, in part:

Traditional publishers had a chance to buy SHAKEN last year. They passed on it. Their loss. Their big loss. Their big, huge, monumental, epic fail.[…] I signed a print deal with a company that can email every single person who has every bought one of my books through their website, plus millions of potential new customers. I've never had that kind of marketing power behind one of my novels. I'd be an idiot not to do this.

I think it was only a matter for time before Amazon reached out to Joe to aggressively capitalize on his success instead of passively (they have been getting the lion's share of the money on his ebooks by doing nothing but hosting him). 

Joe is calling this deal a defining moment in publishing and so are his many fans. I'm not so sure that I'd go that far, but it was certainly inevitable. I think the only real difference between what Joe has been doing up with his ebooks and this Amazon Encore deal is that now he will have the full promotional might of Amazon behind him. As an e-venture, this will surely be a massive success, but as a print-publishing venture, I am not so sure. There's no doubt, though, that it's a win-win for Joe, who is bound to see the sales of his current slate of ebooks skyrocket as a result of the Amazon push for SHAKEN (including, ironically, the books still held by Hyperion).

UPDATE 5-18-2010: I woke up this morning to a bunch of emails asking me why this is a significant development in publishing. How is this any different, they ask, than what Joe is already doing self-publishing  his unpublished work on the Kindle?

In essence, Amazon Encore is a publisher that has picked up Joe's mid-list series from Hyperion. They are publishing the book first as an ebook then later as a trade paperback. The difference here is that the publisher is also the largest bookstore on earth and will put their considerable promotional and marketing might behind his book. But there's a bit more to it than that. Here's how Joe explained it in the comments section of his blog post:

"In this case Lee, it's a bit more complicated.

This bookseller is the number one online bookseller in the world, and they've created the number one dedicated ereading device.

Publishers need authors to write books, then booksellers to sell those books.

In this case, Amazon owns the bookstore, and the platform for the ebooks. And by cutting out distributors, publishers, and brick and mortar bookstores, they can offer a professional product faster and cheaper–and give the author better royalties–than a traditional publisher could.

In other words, Amazon is cutting out just about all the players in the traditional publishing industry, and directly connecting reader with author. 

If ebooks, and Amazon, continue to gain popularity, will there still be a need for the Big Six? Or would authors do better by either self-publishing, or dealing directly with the sellers of the new technology? I think this is pretty significant in the publishing world." 


UPDATE: Jason Pinter, author and former editor, shared his worries on The Huffington Post about what this deal means for the future. He said, among other things:

Amazon and other online retailers have made it incredibly easy to publish books on their servers. They give each author the ability to format books price them how the authors themselves see fit. There is certain freemarket sensibility here that is inspiring, and in a way each author becomes the proprietor of their own small business. However, I feel that the example of Konrath will inspire other, less successful and even less talented authors to publish their works online. They might see the Kindle as a bypass, a way to showcase their works that the Evil, Stupid Publishing Overlords in New York were too blind to realize are, in fact, literary masterpieces.

Now, publishing is not a perfect industry. And the examples of books that were rejected numerous times or even self-published that went on to become great successes are many. Because book publishing is a wholly subjective business–the only books that are published are the ones that editors truly love (let's ignore celebrity and cynical publishing). Many wonderful books are rejected because one or more editors simply didn't 'get' it. There are plenty of books I passed on as an editor that went on to be published to tremendous critical and/or commercial success. Every editor has their list of books that they kick themselves for having passed on. That is a flaw inherent in the system, only now it is easier than ever for authors to circumvent the system.