Publicists Who Can’t Publicize Themselves
I got this spam email not long ago from Brian Feinblum at Planned Television Arts, a PR firm (the typos are his):
I saw you and your books listed in a directory at this past weekend’s
Book Expo. The only mystery for mystery authors to solve is: How can you secure
effective publicity for your books? I am happy to say we have a solution. Planned Television Arts is the nation’s largest and oldest book promoters. As such we invite you to send info about your most recent or
upcoming book and we can customized a plan that world for you.
If their "customized plan" and PR savvy is anything like their customized emails, it’s a wonder they are still in business. Milton Kahn is another one. I got a spam email from him recently. Here’s the first line:
I would
like to make you aware of my public relations company as I feel I could be a
perfect fit in helping you promote and publicize your current or upcoming book
on a national level.
What a grabber, huh? If that’s his idea of a compelling lead, imagine what he could do for me! My check is in the mail, Milt.
Getting off to See the Wizard
Dorothy rolling in the hay with the Scarecrow? C’mon, we all know they wanted to get naked together. That’s just one of the bizarre, fanfic couplings that Fleshbot has , um, uncovered on LiveJournal.
"D-Dorothy?"
Dorothy looked quickly over her shoulder, but her
own movement against her hand caused to moan loudly again as her eyes
met the Scarecrow’s.Without a conversation, or her needing to persuade him, he came over between her thighs and kissed her thoroughly.
Dorothy
was surprised to feel his cloth mouth feeling rather erotic on her
mouth, making her even more wet than she was before he walked in.She grinded her hips against his straw structure, and even that felt right.
She looked up at him with frustrated eyes, "I want you inside me."
“I Don’t Think We’re in Los Angeles anymore, Toto.”
The New York Times reports that fat is sexy is Mauritania, where women force feed themselves to put on pounds.
A 2001 government survey of 68,000 women found that one in five between ages 15 and 49 had been deliberately overfed. And nearly 70 percent – and even more among teenagers – said they did not regret it.
[…]Other cultures prize corpulent women. But Mauritania may be unique in the lengths it has gone to achieve its vision of female beauty. For decades, the Mauritanian version of a Western teenager’s crash diet was a crash feeding program, designed to create girls obese enough to display family wealth and epitomize the Mauritanian ideal.
Centuries-old poems glorify women immobilized by fat, moving so slowly they seemed to stand still, unable to hoist themselves onto camels without the aid of men’s willing hands…
Belated Congratulations
…to Michael Daniels, one of the students in my "Introduction to TV Writing" class at UCLA Extension, who has landed a job as a staff writer on the CW series ONE TREE HILL. I’m not surprised at all. The goal of the class (a course which is also taught by writer/producers like Matt Witten and William Rabkin) is for the students to complete a beat sheet that they can use to write their TV episodic spec script. But Michael grasped the concepts so quickly, and his first draft beat sheet was so good, that I told him to set aside the class assignments and just go right to script. Writing a script isn’t part of the class, but I thought if he did anything else he’d be wasting his time and money. His script was terrific…and at the end of the session, I advised him to stop taking classes…he was already as good as any professional TV writer I knew. It was time for him to get his work out there in the marketplace. Within a few weeks, his spec script landed an agent at a top agency and he was being sent out on pitches. He didn’t land any freelance gigs…instead, he got right on staff. That accomplishment alone should tell you how good this guy is. I have no doubt that Michael will rise quickly through the ranks and will be running his own show in the not-too-distant future. I just hope he remembers to thank me when he wins his Emmy…
Civilization
I found an Internet cafe in Fontainebleau, so I can finally connect to the outside world. My novel MR. MONK AND THE TWO ASSISTANTS comes out on Monday, but I have already started receiving emails from people who bought the book as early as last Thursday. I look forward to hearing your comments about it!
This is the first book I’ve written that I haven’t been around to see published…so if you want to send me pictures of the book on display at a store near you, I would appreciate it. That way, I can vicariously enjoy the feeling of publication. I will post some of the photos here.
bois-le-roi
Greetings from the tiny village of bois-le-roi france, where i am visiting my mother in law. She has no internet acess or even a computer, so I am attempting this post with my blackberry (thank god there is cellular coverage here or I’d be cut off from the outside world). FAST TRACK wrapped on Sunday (the day was spent on second unit and insert work). The wrap party went into the wee hours of Monday morning and then I hit the road to France with my family. We stopped in Heidelburg, Nuremburg, and Strasbourg among other places along the way. It was nice, but I was exhausted. I have been sleeping a lot the last few days (about 10 hours a night!) and going on long walks, thinking about the next monk book. I am trying to relax a bit but it is taking some effort. I am eager to get in the editing room..but I have to wait for the director’s cut first. I haven’t read a book in ages, so once the monk outline is done, that’s next on my to-do list.
Mr. Monk and the Rave Review
The Monk superfans at the Monk Fun Page have given MR. MONK AND THE TWO ASSISTANTS a rave review. They say, in part:
Since we’re now on the fourth novel you might expect the plots and characters to begin to blur a little, but the opposite is true. Each book is delightfully unique. Maybe it’s just me, but I see more depth and substance in
this novel than in the first three, which were all solidly entertaining in their own right. The exploration of the two relationships between Monk and his assistants is fascinating. The novel touches on the similarities, the differences, the humor and the evolution of both relationships. Great stuff.