French Connection Deux

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CinemaRetro has an excellent post on the making of THE FRENCH CONNECTION II, which took French_connection_ii
place in France. In the midst of production, director John Frankenheimer called reporter/novelist Pete Hamill to do an emergency rewrite on the script:

[When Frankenheimer] called me from Marseilles, asking me to help, I said I would
try to get there within two days. "Why not one?" he said, and laughed
nervously. I never asked why he called me. Someone hand-delivered a script to
my place in New York and I read it on the plane. John, at that
time, had a major problem. He had already shot nine days of the existing script.
He had developed a reputation for going over budget, so had no flexibility. He
couldn't re-shoot what was already in the can. That gave me a
problem too, since I had to write around the existing pieces, which, as always,
had been shot out of order. It was like working on a jigsaw puzzle.

It's not a very good movie, certainly not compared to THE FRENCH CONNECTION. Years ago, I read the FRENCH CONNECTION II novelization, which had a very different ending than the movie. 

SPOILER ALERT.

In the movie, Popeye Doyle runs along the Marseilles waterfront, trying to keep up with the bad guy, who was escaping on a yacht. Popeye eventually gets a clear shot and shoots the bad guy on the boat.

In the novelization, if I recall correctly, there's a convoluted ending involving a powerline and the bad guy getting electrocuted in a bus.

Is the New TV Season DOA?

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TV critic Tim Goodman of the San Francisco Chronicle thinks so:

NBC's "Chuck" and "Life" haven't exactly lit up the Nielsens – so much for all that Olympics hype – and ABC's entire Wednesday night line-up, from "Pushing Daisies" to "Private Practice" to "Dirty Sexy Money" was essentially DOA when it premiered last week. If it doesn't improve
substantially tonight – and odds are that it won't – ABC is going to be forced to either cancel series or drastically alter its schedule. That's not what you want to hear with the opening bell of the fall season still ringing faintly in everyone's ears.

Poor "Pushing Daisies" did horribly last week – laid out even by the dreadful "Knight Rider," which shouldn't even be on television. And the network can't claim one
of their favorite excuses – less people are watching television – since
more than 70 million watched the vice presidential debate last week.
The people are out there. Thanks to the financial crises cratering our
economy, those people are even at home. They're sitting right there! On
the couch! But guess what? They don't like the network leftovers. Hell,
they don't even like former hits, like "Heroes." The trajectory of that series? Down. How far down? Down.

James Poniewozik of Time Magazine agrees with him.

So we've pretty much established that nobody's watching anything this season.
New shows are middling at best in the ratings, relaunched shows like
Chuck and ABC's Wednesday have cratered—even hits like House and Grey's
are not doing so hot.

[…]The conclusion? After the writers' strike, viewers didn't want a
"do-over." They wanted a clean slate. They wanted to forget most of
what they were watching before and see something brand-new, that would
remind them why they missed TV. They still want brand new. And it looks
like they will end this season still waiting for brand-new.

Speaking of "brand new," I saw MY OWN WORST ENEMY and thought it was a great pilot. I have no idea how they are going to pull it off as a series, but at least it wasn't a re-tread of a 1970s show, or a remake of a British program, or another grim procedural.

Can’t Get it Up

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The Erotic Romance & Epublisher Comparison blog (EREC) takes a look at publishers' sales figures for a handful of erotic ebooks:

Averages are based on at least 5 in print books by at least 3 different authors.

AVERAGE FIRST MONTH SALES
[updated September 28, 2008]
Ellora's Cave–715 copies (25 books)
Samhain–229 copies (18 books)
Loose Id–210 copies (49 books)
Amber Quill–203 copies (9 books)
Liquid Silver–189 copies (13 books)
Torquere–121 copies (14 books)
Cobblestone–84 copies (31 books)

AVERAGE TOTAL SALES IN THE FIRST YEAR
[updated September 28, 2008]

Ellora's Cave–796 copies (25 books)
Loose Id–468 copies (49 books)
Amber Quill–684 copies (9 books)
Samhain–515 copies (18 books)
Liquid Silver–167 copies (13 copies)
Torquere–101 copies (14 books)
Cobblestone–252 copies (31 books)

AVERAGE TOTAL SALES FOR BOOK OUT FOR ONE YEAR OR MORE

[updated September 28, 2008]

Ellora's Cave–1206 copies (24 books)
Loose Id–765 copies (49 books)
Amber Quill–832 copies (9 books)
Samhain–586 copies (18 books)
Liquid Silver–533 copies (13 copies)
Cobblestone–485 copies (31 books)
Torquere–330 copies (14 books)

If I'm reading these figures correctly (I suck at math), then the average Ellora's Cave author in this sample is selling a mere 50 books a year, an Amber Quill author 92. If this sample is representative of erotic ebooks sales as a whole, and that's a big if,  the figures are pitiful for authors looking to establish a readership or to make any money. Even so, EREC finds encouragement in these numbers, which they say represent a steady uptick in erotic ebook sales over previous years.

UPDATE: I'm an idiot. When I said I suck at math, I forgot to mention I also suck at reading comprehension. I apologize for my obvious ignorance. Here's an explanation of the first year erotic ebook sales numbers from a reader:

The "average" in question is an
arithmetic mean. So the average EC book is selling 796 books a year. I
thought that was fairly clear but I live and learn. Whether that is
enough for any given author is up to them once the info is made
available.

And here's an explanation of the figures for ebooks out for a year or more from another reader:

EREC has received information on sales for 24 seperate EC titles.
Averaging out those sales for the 24 books (total number of all 24
titles sold divided by 24) equals, on average, an EC book sells 1206
copies in its first year. 

Thank you both for the corrections. I stand corrected (and embarrassed).

That said, the numbers are still pitiful compared to even the worst selling print titles. Erotic ebooks have to go a long, longway before they are competitive with print or make much financial sense for writers (though ebook writers keep insisting that it's the "wave of the future," though the e-tsunami is sure taking it's time getting here from tomorrow). That's assuming, of course, that the writers of erotic ebooks want to make any money, which I suspect isn't as important to them as simply getting their work out there. But even on that level, 1200 people isn't much of an audience. If eyeballs are all those writers care about, they could reach far more people simply by posting their erotic fiction on a blog.

So This is Why I Spent Three Hours Yesterday Organizing my iTunes Library…

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Author Donna Andrews is on deadline and procrastinating.

I'm only one day behind where I want to be on the book.  I'm
chugging along, slowly but steadily.  But my writing avoidance
behaviors are in full bloom.

One of the most common writing
avoidance behaviors is nesting. Cleaning, organizing, and tidying. 
It's not just me; a year or so ago, a writer friend reported a
bafflingly  sudden and uncharacteristic urge to clean her desk. . . her
office . . . perhaps her whole house.  Several of us asked if,
perchance, she was on deadline.  Of course she was.  You may tell
yourself that you can write better in a tidy office; you may claim that
you're thinking about your book while dusting, mopping, scrubbing, and
sorting; you may even be telling the truth.  But never try to fool
yourself that these sudden domestic urges aren't writing avoidance.

I know exactly how she feels. Last night I "cleaned up" my iTunes library and playlists and when I looked up again, three hours had passed. I've also been obsessive about trimming our trees. I think it's because I'm nervous about actually starting to write the "standalone" book that I've been noodling with in my mind for months…

I'd start to write it at this very moment but I have to Twitter somebody, make some more connections on LinkedIn, and clean out my office closet first…

Talking to a Blogger is Treason…

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…at least that's what the execs at the Los Angeles Times think about employees who pass info to the excellent LA Observed blog, which reports:

According to multiple sources at the Times, new publisher Eddy
Hartenstein has been calling it "treason" for employees to share
information with LA Observed. Now, it's easy to dismiss his rhetoric as
beginner jitters — history has seen plenty of media publishers who
naively try to muzzle the journalists who work for them, only to learn
that it can't be done. (Never mind that it's antithetical to why the
paper exists.)

[…]So take precautions — use your personal email, our PO box,
or pick up the phone — and don't presume they aren't watching. And be
assured that I will continue to report accurately on the Times with
your help and, as always, will never divulge my sources.

UK Prosecutors Target SickFic About Real People

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Article-1066435-02DCB4E400000578-703_233x439
There's a whole sub-culture of fanficcers who get off writing fantasies about famous people having sex with one another and others. You know, stuff like Leonardo DiCaprio giving Jude Law an education in male coupling or the Spice Girls re-enacting their favorite sex scenes from "The L Word." The authors of this kind of SickFic argue that because they are writing and distributing stories about fictional sex between "public figures," it's okay. Well, prosecutors in the U.K don't think so. They think it's obscene and a violation of the law. The Register reports:

The legal world is buzzing at the announcement last week of the
prosecution of 35-year-old civil servant Darryn Walker for the online
publication of material that Police and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS)
believe to be obscene.

This is the first such prosecution for written material in nearly
two decades – and a guilty verdict could have a serious and significant
impact on the future regulation of the internet in the UK.

The case originated in summer 2007, when Mr Walker allegedly posted a work of fantasy – titled Girls (Scream) Aloud – about pop group Girls Aloud. The story describes in detail the kidnap, rape, mutilation and
murder of band members Cheryl Cole, Nadine Coyle, Sarah Harding, Nicola
Roberts and Kimberley Walsh, and ends with the sale of various body
parts on eBay.

The piece was brought to the attention of the Internet Watch
Foundation, whose remit includes the monitoring of internet material
deemed to be criminally obscene: they in turn handed details over to
the Police.

The case goes to trial on March 16, 2009 in Newcastle. Other newspapers report that Walker wrote the story under the pseudonym "Blake Sinclair" and posted it on Kristen's Collection, SickFic site that also includes a "Real Person Fic" about raping and mutilating Britney Spears.Article-1066435-02DF55C700000578-300_468x286

I'm sure that the Organization for Transformative Works, which thinks that writing and distributing this kind of swill is a God-given "fannish right," and Dr. Robin Reid, the creative writing instructor at Texas A&M who writes and champions "Real Person Slash" (her favorite SickFic fantasy is Viggo Mortenson and any male actor in Hollywood) will be watching this case very closely. A conviction could lead to a long overdue crack-down on this garbage.

Absolutely Scary

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L8893479006_6587
The wave of British TV series remakes on American networks is continuing. Variety reports that Fox is developing a U.S. version of  "Absolutely Fabulous" set in Los Angeles. Christine Zander, a writer for "Saturday Night Live," will write the script and exec produce with Mitch Hurwitz, Ian Moffet and the original creator/star/producer Jennifer Saunders. This is not the first time a U.S. network has tried an Abfab redo.  Roseanne Barr and Carrie Fisher teamed up for a U.S. version ten years back for ABC but it went nowhere.