Bizarre Question: The Sequel

The same woman who asked me yesterday if I knew any agents who specialized in "jewish psychic detectives" approached me again today as I was signing books after my screenwriting panel with April Smith, George Mastras, Donald Bain, and Derek Haas.

"Do you know of any agents or producers who are looking for screenplays about a university called Griffin University — but I have to change the name to a different university because there is a Griffin University — that lures in the most creative students only to kill them because they are on a secret mission to eradicate creativity in the year 2310?"

"Yes, I do," I said.  "Unfortunately, the agents and producers who specialize in scripts about universities with secret plans to eradicate creativity already have so many scripts about universities with secret plans to eradicate creativity that they just aren't taking any more."

"Are they set in 2310?"

"A lot of them are," I said. 

"Oh, that's a shame," she said and looked over at screenwriter Derek Haas, sitting a few seats down from me, signing books. He co-wrote WANTED (the movie with Angelina Jolie), 3:10 TO YUMA, and DECEIT.  I am very jealous of him.

"Do you think that he might know of producers who are still looking for screenplays about a university with a secret plan to eradicate creativity in 2310?" she asked.

"He definitely would," I said. "You should go ask him."

When I left the conference a few minutes later, she was talking to him and he looked as if he was in pain. I won't say that I ran out of the hotel, but I was moving very quickly.

Bizarre Question of the Day

I am at Left Coast Crime and a woman just asked me "do you know any agents who specialize in Jewish psychic detectives?"
"No," I said. "But I am curious why you asked me."
"You're Jewish and you write Monk."

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

The Man with the Iron-On Badge Kindle-fied

Badge2 “As dark and twisted as anything Hammett or Chandler ever dreamed up […] leaving Travis McGee in the dust.” Kirkus, Starred Review

 My favorite, and most acclaimed book, THE MAN WITH THE IRON-ON BADGE, is now available in a Kindle edition. Up until now, this Shamus Award-nominated novel has only been available in a hard-to-find, out-of-print, hardcover edition.

It’s about Harvey Mapes, a 26-year-old security guard who spends his nights in a guard shack outside a gated community in Southern California, reading detective novels, watching reruns, and waiting for his life to finally start. He gets the chance to become a “private eye” when a homeowner asks Harvey to follow his wife. The only problem is, Harvey has learned everything he knows about detective work from mystery novels and “Magnum PI” reruns. Harvey quickly discovers that the difference between fiction and reality could be fatal.

Here’s just a sampling of the critical response:

“Approaching the level of Lawrence Block is no mean feat, but Goldberg succeeds with this engaging PI novel. Publishers Weekly 

“A wonderfully fresh voice in the mystery genre, Goldberg will delight fans of Janet Evanovich and Robert Crais,” – Rick Riordan, author of “Percy Jackson & the Olympians”

“Lee Goldberg bravely marches into territory already staked out by some fierce
competition–Donald Westlake, Lawrence Block, the early Harlan Coben–and comes out virtually unscathed.” The Chicago Tribune

“Goldberg has a knack for combining just the right amount of humor and realism with his obvious love for the PI genre and his own smart ass sensibilities. THE MAN WITH THE IRON ON BADGE is a terrific read. Goldberg is the real deal and should be on everyone’s must read list.” Crimespree Magazine 

The Man With The Iron-On Badge is a quick, fun read with a satisfying and unexpected ending. Harvey Mapes is a hero I hope we see in a sequel.” — Phillip Margolin, author of “Gone But Not Forgotten”

You Can Become a Kindle Millionaire, Part 14

Three Ways to Die1  Joe Konrath recently changed the covers for some of his weaker-selling Kindle books and saw his sales shoot up overnight. He suggested that I do the same thing for some of my books and I am following his advice. I just changed the covers for my short story collection THREE WAYS TO DIE and DIE, MR. JURY, my compilation of the four .357 VIGILANTE novels. I'm very curious to see if he's right.

I've also updated THE WALK to include the first three chapters ofDie Mr Jury1l   Joe's novel THE LIST… and MY GUN HAS BULLETS to include a chapter of his book SUCKERS.  He's done the same for me. It will be interesting to see if this cross promotion boosts both of our sales. It could be a month or two, though, before we see a spike, if there is even going to be one, since lot of folks download books as impulse buys and then don't get around to reading them for quite a while.

I have to hand it to Joe, he has been the trailblazer when it comes to exploiting all the possible potential out of selling books on the Kindle. And he's been right more than he's been wrong…and has had the success to prove it. He's on track to earn more than $40K this year in Kindle royalties from stuff that was in a drawer. 

But he's also realistic. He offers some very sobering advice on his blog this week to aspiring authors who think they can follow in his footsteps and by-pass entirely the struggle to get an agent and have your book bought by publisher. Bottom line: you probably can't.

Mr. Monk and the Reader’s Choice

ELLERY QUEEN MYSTERY MAGAZINE has just announced the winners of their Readers Choice Awards for the best stories of 2009 and I am stunned, and pleased, to discover my Artemis Monk story "The Case of the Piss-Poor Gold" made the list.

First place:
Mike Herron's "Dolphin Junction" tied with Doug Allyn's "An Early Christmas"

Second place:
Clark Howard's "White Wolves"

Third place:
Dave Zeltserman's "Julius Katz"

Fourth place:
Doug Allyn's "Famous Last Words"

Fifth place:
Doug Allyn's "The Valhall Verdict"

Sixth place:
Jack Fredrickson's "For the Jingle"

Seventh place:
Janvillem van de Wetering's "The Bleeding Chair"

Eighth place:
Lee Goldberg's "The Case of the Piss-Poor Gold
"

Ninth place:
Lou Manfredo's "Central Islin, USA"

Tenth place:
Brian Muir's "Dummy"

Congratulations to all the winners!

You Can Become a Kindle Millionaire, Part 13

Kiindle 2-28

My Kindle sales for February we up a tick from last month. THE WALK sold 573 copies in 28 days vs 536 in  31 days in January. MY GUN HAS BULLETS sold 167 copies and THREE WAYS TO DIE sold 136. Last month, BEYOND THE BEYOND, priced at $1.99, sold 71 copies so I lowered the price to 99 cents for February to see if I could jack up sales a bit…and sold 85 copies. I went from selling about 2 copies a day of BEYOND to 3, hardly worth the price cut,  so I'm going to raise the price back to $1.99. I debating whether to raise the price of THE WALK to $2.99 to take advantage of the new Kindle royalty formula…but I am afraid what I will lose in sales volume will not make up for the increase in my royalty per book. (Click on the image for a larger view of my full royalty statement) 

My overall royalties were $777 vs. $775 for January. If my sales continue at this pace, I could earn close to $10,000 this year from the Kindle. But thats nothing compared to how my friend Joe Konrath is doing. As of February 24, he'd earned $2750 last month in Kindle royalties on nine titles…if he keeps that up, he's going to earn $33,000 this year from Amazon on his out-of-print and previously unpublished manuscripts alone. Click on the image below to see his royalty statement in detail: 

Konrath

RWA Sells Out Writers

When Harlequin announced it was creating a vanity press, the Romance Writers of America took the extraordinarily courageous act of immediately delisting the publisher from their Approved Publishers list. The Mystery Writers of America, Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, and the Horror Writers Association quickly followed suit.

However, the RWA has since back-pedaled from that courageous stance. They have quietly revised the criteria for their Approved Publishers list to allow Harlequin to creep back on without changing the practices that got them thrown off:

As a professional writers association, RWA stands firmly against any attempts to directly solicit RWA members to pursue vanity/subsidy publishing or other author-financed forms of publication. Publishing programs (lines, imprints or divisions) that directly solicit or refer writers to subsidy/vanity or other author-financed means of publication will not be allowed to participate in RWA’s annual conference as a featured publishing program.

“Subsidy” or “Vanity” publishing means the production of books in which the author participates in the costs of production or distribution in any manner, including assessment of fees or other costs for editing and/or distribution. This definition includes publishing programs that withhold or seek full or partial payment or reimbursement of publication or distribution costs before paying royalties, including payment of paper, printing, binding, production, sales or marketing costs; publishing programs whose authors exclusively promote and/or sell their own books; and publishers whose business model and methods of publishing are primarily directed toward sales to the author, his/her relatives and associates.

Management from the lines, imprints or divisions listed below certified to RWA that they have read and understand the above statement. They have attested that the publisher, line, imprint, or division they represent does not and will not refer RWA members to subsidy/vanity or author-financed publishing programs.

In other words, the RWA doesn't mind if publishers refer writers to their vanity press and other "for-pay" editorial services as long as none of those writers are RWA members. But everyone else is fair game…and RWA will turn a blind eye to it. That's like saying "Sexual molestation is wrong, but as long as you don't molest my kids, and only molest other kids, that's okay with us, you're welcome in our home."

Clearly, this language was crafted specifically to create a loophole for Harlequin, which decided to "monetize their slush pile" by referring all rejected writers to DellArte, their vanity press partnership with Authorhouse.

This is a cowardly, sleazy way of dodging the Harlequin issue…and tacitly endorses predatory and unethical publishing practices. The RWA should be ashamed of themselves for betraying their principles and encouraging the exploitation of aspiring writers (and, potentially, future RWA members, assuming some vanity press scam doesn't bankrupt their savings and their dreams).

Meanwhile, Harlequin is still not considered an Approved Publisher by the MWA, SFWA, and HWA.  At least they are still standing behind their principles.