Me at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books
As usual, I had a fantastic time at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. I got to talk with so many writers, including Hannah Dennison, Brett Battles, Denise Hamilton, Gregg Hurwitz, John Wirth, Jane Smiley, Doug Lyle, Paul Levine, Cara Black, Joseph Wambaugh, Gary Phillips, Megan Abbott, Alex Espinoza, Cecil Castellucci, Tim Maleeny, Robert Gregory Browne, and Robert Dugoni, to name just a few. I also talked to tons of readers and bought a bunch of signed books, including "Model Home" by Eric Puchner, "Up in the Air" by Walter Kirn, and "A Bad Day for Sorry" by Sophie Littlefield. Here I am with my brother Tod and William Rabkin at the Mystery Bookstore booth.
And here's Christopher Rice, me, and Joseph Wambaugh.
And here I am with Todd Reynolds, who is going to be one of the stars of the short film I am shooting in Owensboro KY this fall.
I moderated a panel with Gayle Lynds, Christopher Rice and David Corbett and it went great. It was a nice mix of laughter, good advice, and knowledgeable observations about the craft and business of writing. I think we had as much fun as the audience. I hope I get to moderate another panel next year.
The Clock is Ticking and the Hands Are Dripping Blood
Marty McKee talks about my book .357 VIGILANTE #3: WHITE WASH (now available in a Kindle edition under the title PAYBACK) He didn't like it as much as the earlier books in the series, but still found some things to enjoy. He says, in part:
The book's highlights are its action sequences, which work very well, even though some of the villains' motivations seem weak. When Macklin is introduced in the first chapter while tinkering with his new gadget-equipped 1959 Cadillac, I turned the pages in great anticipation waiting for him to use that sucker (which he does in a bloody scene that could have come right out of an Executioner novel).
The Bookfest is Here
The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books is this weekend and I'll be there all day Saturday, hosting a panel at 3 pm (with Chris Rice, Gayle Lynds, and David Corbett) and signing books at 11 a.m at the Mystery Bookstore Booth with my friends Chris Rice and Megan Abbott, my brother Tod, my longtime writing partner Bill Rabkin, and some guy named Wambaugh. You can find the entire Mystery Bookstore signing schedule here.
Mansfield, Here I Come
As you read this, I am on my way to Mansfield University in Pennsylvania, where I will be speaking, teaching and signing over the next few days. This came about through a program at the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, which sends industry professionals to schools all across the country to share what they know about the TV biz with the next generation of writers, producers, and directors. I'm really looking forward to meeting the students, the professors, and the community…and I shall report back to you on my experience there.
You Can Become a Kindle Millionaire, Part 17: The Bet
The following is an email exchange between me and Joe Konrath earlier this month:
TO: LEE GOLDBERG
FROM: JOE KONRATH
If I were you, I'd rename all the .357 Vigilante books getting rid of ".357" and "Vigilante" in their titles. The new covers should be generic–maybe a gun or some sort of weapon as the central image–but they should also tie together as a brand. And they should be done by an artist. Maybe a friend (you must have graphic artist friends) or maybe you can hold a contest on your blog. I'm convinced your covers and titles (which scream "Men's Action") are holding back sales of this fun series.
TO: JOE KONRATH
FROM: LEE GOLDBERG
I'm not sure that changing the covers for .357 VIGILANTE (or the titles) will help. The books are what they are — pulpy, mens action adventure novels from the 1980s. That is their appeal…and their drawback.
TO: LEE GOLDBERG
FROM: JOE KONRATH
Give me $XYZ. I'll give it to my graphic artist to redo the covers for the Vigilante books. Let me retitle them and do the product descriptions, and I bet your sales go up at least 25% in a two month period (compared to your last two months of sales.) If they don't, I'll give you the $XYZ back, and you get the covers for free. That's how sure I am those books will sell with the right packaging.
TO: JOE KONRATH
FROM: LEE GOLDBERG
You have a deal!
So I sat back and let Joe have his way with my books. Here's the original cover for .357 VIGILANTE:
And here is what he did with it:
Here is the original cover for .357 VIGILANTE #2: MAKE THEM PAY:
And here is what he did with it:
Here's the original cover I cobbled together for .357 VIGILANTE: DIE MR. JURY, an omnibus collection of all four .357 VIGILANTE books:
Here's the revamp I did for it last month:
And here's what Joe did:
It's only a little past mid-month, but already it's clear that he's won the bet and his repackaging is a success.
Last month, 357 VIGILANTE sold 59 copies or about 2 copies a day. This month, with the new title and cover, it has already sold 46 copies, or about 3 copies a day. It remains to be seen whether that pace of sales will continue for the rest of the month. But wait…
.357 VIGILANTE #2: MAKE THEM PAY sold 39 copies last month and now, with the new title and cover, it has already topped that by selling 43 copies. But wait…
.357 VIGILANTE #3: WHITE WASH sold 23 copies last month. So far this month, with the new title and cover, it has sold 27 copies. But wait…
.357 VIGILANTE #4: KILLSTORM sold 14 copies last month. But with the new title and cover, it has sold 48 copies. That's right, the sales have more than tripled and the month isn't over yet. But wait, it gets even better…
.357 VIGILANTE: DIE MR. JURY sold 20 copies last month and now, with the new title and cover, it has sold 47 copies…the sales have more than doubled and the month isn't over yet. What's really surprising about this bump is that the book is priced at $4.99, making it the most expensive of my previously published/out-of-print titles on the Kindle. They aren't buying it because it's cheaper than everything else out there…I believe they are doing it because they think they are getting a great deal, four books for the price of one, a point Joe hammered home on the new cover far more effectively (and clearly) than I did on the old ones.
Based on these results, I quickly reworked the covers of MY GUN HAS BULLETS, THREE WAYS TO DIE and BEYOND THE BEYOND (retitling it DEAD SPACE) to take advantage of what I learned from the bet and from Joe's example.
What did I learn?
1. Your covers should have a clear, simple, striking image that will still pop out when the cover is reduced to the size of a postage stamp.
2. Your covers need to have a consistent, branded look.
3. Don't be afraid to experiment, to rethink everything about how your book is presented: the title, the cover art, the categories its listed under, the way you describe it, the way you've priced it. Just because your book has been posted, that doesn't mean it's been carved in stone and can't be altered. You need to adapt to find your audience. In other words, you can't just post your book on the Kindle and leave it. Your book will continue to need attention and, if necessary, updating to stoke sales.
You Can Become a Kindle Millionaire, Part 16
I've taken Joe Konrath's advice and have been tinkering quite a bit with my covers…and discovering that it makes a big difference in sales. Here was my original cover for MY GUN HAS BULLETS:
It was the dust jacket on my hardcover and I didn't own the rights to the art, so I asked my sister to create a new cover for me. I loved what she came up with. I thought it looked classy and professional. Here it is:
But I wasn't selling as many copies as I thought I could. I just assumed people weren't responding to the book. But Joe blamed the cover, he said it was too bleak, too busy, it didn't pop. So as much as I liked that cover, I put the old one up for a while. Sales went up slightly, which got me thinking maybe another change couldn't hurt. So I created a new cover myself using stock photos (which I licensed) and Microsoft Paint It…
And sales have shot up. I sold 204 copies of MY GUN last month and I am already up to 170 this month. That means I've gone from selling about six copies-a-day to ten. Encouraged, I've changed the cover and title of BEYOND THE BEYOND. Here's the original cover
Here's the second one I tried:
And here's the one I have now.
I sold 70 copies last month…and I am already up to 60 now. I am still not selling as many as I would like, but at least it's cropping up. The new cover has only been up for a few days, so it's too soon to tell how it will pan out.
Meanwhile, again on Joe's advice, I scrapped the cover of THREE WAYS TO DIE. Here's the original:
And here's the first version of the new one, which was up last month:
And here's what I've got now, which has only been up for a week or two:
In addition to spiffing up the cover, I also jacked up the price from 99 cents to $1.99. As of today, I've sold 109 copies…so I am on track to sell just as many copies as last month (207) but I'll earn more money. I think the new cover has a lot to do with it.
I've also played with the cover of THE MAN WITH THE IRON ON BADGE. Here's the publisher's cover:
Here's the first one I put up last month:
And here's the revised cover I've got up now.
I sold 160 copies in March, so far I've sold 145 this month. Sales are definitely up.
But that's not the whole story. All of this cover-tinkering was sparked by another experiment, also initiated by Joe, but I will tell you more about that later…
That said, this is shaping up to be my biggest Kindle month ever. As of 7 pm tonight, I have earned $810 in royalties. If sales continue at this rate, and that's a big if, I could reach about $1400 this month. But I will certainly top the nearly $1000 I earned in March.
Freelancing
Screenwriter Denis McGrath talks about his experience freelancing an episode of STARGATE: UNIVERSE.
While I was off over a month trying to generate my story, fixed in stone — all the other targets were moving, and moving rapidly. Earlier scripts were going through production drafts…characters were changing and evolving. Casting, and then shooting, revealed actors' strengths that meant that they got written to more. I had only the barest, fuzziest hold on some of the secondary characters. In a new show, things change rapidly in production, and when you're in the room you absorb those changes in small increments on a daily basis.
Eventually, I begged for more scripts, and got them, and being able to digest six or seven scripts, and see the characters on the page helped me writing my drafts.
It's hard to believe that freelancing was once the rule in TV, and still is in some places. It just packs more pressure on the one or two people who have to make all the stories line up. As a freelancer, my job with my SGU script was to get it to a point where somebody else could "take it over," and see it through production. The better I did, ideally the less they'd have to rewrite.
Except of course it never works out that way, especially in a show's first season. When you're three thousand miles out of the loop of the show that's developing on those soundstages, you just do the best you can, and hope that you don't cause somebody too much work.
It's always hard freelancing an episode of a brand new series, since nobody is entirely sure what the show is or who the characters are…not the showrunners, the studio, or the network. It's trying to hit a constantly moving target. I've done it a few times… on SLIDERS, PSYCH, and on an upcoming summer series I can't talk about yet. There's no question about it…freelancing is hard, but it's not that much easier writing a script for a show that's been on the air for a season or two. Yes, everyone knows the show (including you!)… but it's harder coming up with a story or character conflict that they haven't already done or have in development.
UPDATE: Here's another view on McGrath's freelance experience from the other side of the desk as SG:U producer Joseph Mallozzi saw it.
I Do Not Understand the TV on DVD Business
You can't find the three seasons of "Spenser: For Hire" or the two seasons of "Harry O" on DVD…but you can find "The Oregon Trail," "Big John, Little John," "Threshold," "The Bionic Woman (2008)" and "Conviction," all flops that lasted 13 episodes or less. Do not get the TV-On-DVD business at all. Was anyone clamoring for "The Oregon Trail?"