#1 New York Times Bestselling Author & TV Producer
I got this email today:
Greetings – I am looking to purchase 5 text link ads on neilgaiman.com/journal/
Each ad is two to three words in length and can be placed anywhere on your page as long as the ads are visible on the majority of pages on your website. I would be willing to pay for 3 months of advertising up front. Would you be interested?
I haven’t been feeling like myself lately…but I’m pretty sure that I’m not Neil Gaiman.
As you know by now, I’m a major TV geek… so I’ve just snagged my copy of THE "12 O’CLOCK HIGH" LOGBOOK by Allan Duffin and Paul Matheis, which tells the inside story behind the novel, the movie and the TV series. I’m looking forward to reading it, and Bill Carter’s DESPERATE NETWORKS, when I have some free time again…
Publishers Weekly reports that a Kansas court has ordered Authorhouse, the POD vanity press, to pay $230,000 to romance author Rebecca Brandwynne, who was libeled by one of their books, which was written by her ex-husband.
According to court documents, AuthorHouse published Paperback Poison: the Romance Writer and the Hit Man by Gary D. Brock, with his current wife, Debbie Brock, in November, 2003. Some of the more incendiary claims in Paperback Poison
include allegations that Brandewyne broke laws, committed adultery,
plagiarized several of her books, and hired a hit man to kill her
ex-husband, the book’s author.[…]The Kansas jury ruled for Brandewyne even though AuthorHouse’s
contracts state that the publisher assumes no legal responsibility or
liability “for any loss, damage, injury, or claim to any kind or
character to any person or property” in publishing the works of its
clients. Jay Fowler, an attorney for Brandewyne, maintained that the
“contract does not absolve AuthorHouse of their responsibility.
AuthorHouse published the book, put it on the Internet, did everything
a publisher does. They’re responsible for publishing this book without
vetting it first.”
One of the more interesting aspects of this story is what it reveals about the "success" of self-published POD titles.
Fowler said that AuthorHouse claims 74 copies of Paperback Poison
in total were printed, 21 were given to the author, three were sold,
and the company destroyed the 50 copies they had remaining in stock
after receiving complaints about the book from Brandewyne and others.
“But that book’s still out there,” Fowler said. “Sometimes, [the online
seller] says the book is published by Lightning Source, sometimes
1stBooks, sometimes AuthorHouse. But it all flows back to AuthorHouse.”
Seventy-four copies were printed. Twenty one of those were sold to the author. Only three copies were actually sold to readers. Wow. No wonder so many aspiring authors flock to these vanity presses. Who wouldn’t pay hundreds — or even thousands — of dollars for a chance at that amazing print run and distribution?
This story just goes to prove what anyone with common sense already knows: that vanity presses make all their money from the authors, not from selling books to readers…and that there is no editorial oversight of any kind.
UPDATE: The folks over at POD-dy Mouth have another perspective on the story:
If in fact, Authorhouse loses on appeal (I’m not a lawyer; I’m just assuming), imagine what that would do to the world of POD?
S-l-o-w- i-t- d-o-w-n.
And
you thought regular publishing was slow! Guess what will happen if (for
lack of a better term) non-publishing professionals have to vet these
books?
CBS has reportedly picked up 3LBs (about brain surgeons), WATERFRONT (about the crooked mayor of Providence RI), SHARK (with James Woods as a celebrity attorney-turned-prosecutor), SMITH (a crime drama from the POV of crook Ray Liotta), and JERICHO (about a small town that survives the apocalypse). The word is that KING OF QUEENS, NEW ADVENTURES OF OLD CHRISTINE, and CLOSE TO HOME have also been renewed. Oddly, no mention yet on the fate of THE UNIT, though I assume it’s being picked up.
Ron Hogan posts a scathing "anti-cozy" quote from Otto Penzler that didn’t make the final cut in Sarah Weinman’s Publisher’s Weekly article on the "tension" between mysteries and thrillers:
"I think noir writers are writing the very best books they know how to write. They may fail; there are terrible noir
writers out there. But the cozy chick lit stories are cynical, in the
sense that an editor says, this is the guideline, this is what I want
you to write… Look at how many really good-selling female traditional
cozy writers there are, with cats solving crimes and people taking an
afternoon off during a murder investigation to shop at Prada. I don’t
think those are writers who are stretching. I don’t think they’re
trying to write anything of enduring quality. I think they’re writing
to sell books, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but you don’t have
to take it seriously as literature, and I don’t."
Also cut were quotes from yours truly about tie-ins.
Novelist John Connolly disagrees with the Crime Writers Association’s decision to disqualify "translated" crime novels from competing for the Silver Dagger, the UK equivalent of the MWA’s Edgar:
To those of us with a slightly cynical bent, it seemed that the main
reason why this decision was made was because translated novels have
been doing rather well in the Daggers in recent years, and ruffling
some feathers in the process. After all, it’s hard enough to win a
Dagger without Johnny Foreigner coming along and spoiling the party.
Lots of nice British and American authors, who speak and write proper
English, would rather like a dagger for themselves, not to mention the
whopping £20,000 cheque that will find its way into the pocket of the
victor in 2006.
He also takes a swipe at fellow crime writer Val McDermid’s stance in support of excluding translations:
Val McDermid – usually a fairly sensible type – offered her support for
exclusion by pointing out that if Peter Hoeg’s rather wonderful Miss Smilla’s Feeling For Snow had been read in its American version rather than its English version, then it might not have seemed so wonderful after all.
Now there really are only three appropriate responses to this. The
first is “Huh?” The second is to enquire just where exactly she
acquired her degree in comparative literature. The third, meanwhile, is
to wonder exactly how much Danish she speaks and reads to enable her to
make this kind of judgement. Curiously, McDermid was also one of those
who provided approving quotes for Silence of the Grave.
She described it as “a fascinating window on an unfamiliar world”,
albeit the type of window that she and her colleagues were apparently
happy to see closed in order to facilitate the future marginalisation
of foreign authors.
I think it’s incredibly wrong-headed of the CWA to exclude translated works from award consideration. The Mystery Writers of America and even the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes regularly honor works of crime fiction from other countries that are published in English in the U.S. The CWA’s literary xenophobia doesn’t reflect well on their organization or the Silver Daggers.
NBC has cancelled "Joey," "Surface," "Four Kings," "Fathom," "E-Ring" "Conviction" and "Teachers." Entertainment President Kevin Reilly also said that Dick Wolf would be making changes at LAW AND ORDER and adding new cast members (does this mean Dennis Farina is on the way out?).
The International Thriller Writers have launched a slick web page touting their acclaimed THRILLER short story anthology, which features stories by the biggest names in thriller fiction. On the Thriller Thrillsite, you can listen to one free story each week…from writers like Alex Kava, Denise Hamilton, Lee Child, Heather Graham, Gregg Hurwitz, Gayle Lynds, Raelynn Hillhouse, David Morrell, Brad Thor, and James Rollins. You can even enter to win a copy of the book signed by all the contributors. What are you waiting for?
This week on TV…
On the season finale of GREY’S ANATOMY, one of the regualar doctors is shot. On the season finale of ER, one of the regular doctors is shot. (I’ve lost track of
all the doctors and nurses who have become patients in their own
hospital over the years on ER, but on GREY’S ANATOMY, I believe there
are now only three doctors who haven’t become patients…and they are
only in their second season)
On LAW AND ORDER, a cop wakes up and discovers a dead body in his apartment…and has no memory of what happened. On CROSSING JORDAN, a coroner wakes up and discovers a dead body in her home…and has no memory of what happened.
It’s bad enough that every show on TV these days seems to be called LAW AND ORDER or CSI…but now they all seem to be doing the same stories. It hasn’t been this bad since the season when every show had to do their take on Chandra Levy…
….is one of the reasons why God invented the "fast forward" button. What a snooze. It’s sad to see a once-great series end so badly (bad move airing the pilot first, it only illustrated how far the show has fallen). But TV Critic Alan Sepinwall got all choked up and so did Bob Sassone over at TV Squad, who went one step further describing the episode’s obvious and maudlin final scene:
Could you have wished for a more orgasmically satisfying ending? Beautiful.