A Cautionary Tale

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The LA Times reported today about the tragic downfall of screenwriter Eric Monte… a story that could serve as a cautionary tale for both TV writers and vanity press authors. The once high-flying comedy writer, who had a tumultuous relationship with the Industry even during his heyday, is now living in a homeless shelter. Two big lessons from the article — stay away from crack cocaine and don’t flush your money down the vanity press toilet:

A year of crack cocaine abuse robbed him of money,
dignity and a circle of Hollywood friends. Attempts to sell a
self-published book drained the last of his savings.[…]

With $10,000 from a "Good Times" movie option, Monte self-published a book, "Blueprint for Peace." In it he wrote that peace could be achieved if humanity followed seven basic principles: merge all  nations into one, stop manufacturing weapons of war, adopt one  universal language, eliminate money as the medium of exchange, abandon  the concept of land ownership, abandon the concept of inheritance, and  control population growth. Monte rented a booth at last April’s Los Angeles Times Book Festival,  but he failed to sell a single copy of his book.

"I just have to figure out how to market it," he says. "I know that as  soon as it starts selling, it will sell for 1,000 years."

Temptation

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This is a long post… so feel free to scroll past if you don’t have time to kill.  This week, I ran smack into an ethical dilemma and it was all thanks to this short email from a complete stranger:

Charles Willeford’s GRIMHAVEN. Looks like you expressed interest in it in a blog  a couple of years ago. Still interested?

Yes, I replied, of course I was interested. GRIMHAVEN is Willeford’s unpublished Hoke Mosely novel, his dark and self-destructive follow-up to MIAMI BLUES, his break-out hit. GRIMHAVEN  reportedly turned Hoke into a sociopath who murders his children. Willeford’s agent wisely counseled him that it would be career suicide to submit that book to his publisher and that, instead, he should bury it and write something that would capitalize on the success of MIAMI BLUES, rather than piss all over it. Willeford took the advice and wrote three more great Hoke novels before his death. But like all Willeford fans, I’ve been intensely curious about the book. The few people I know who’ve read it say it’s Willeford at his best and worst.

So hell yes, I want to read it.

A day or two later, I got another  email from the stranger. This time the note was longer, chatty, friendly, and full of tantalizing comments about the book ("it’s a viscerally sickening read, alright (I’ve got two girls), even if it has a certain internal consistency and simplicity"). 
He went on to talk about how he bought a xeroxed copy of the manuscript some years ago from a "bootlegger" for a mere $20 and that he came across  "some asshole" selling the same photocopy for $200 on the Internet. 

But I figure that it’s something the world should have, so I scanned and OCRed it, and after being distracted from it for about six months I’m finishing up the proofreading.  Right now I’ve got 200 tiffs and 200 individual-page text files, and once the proofing is done I’ll concatenate it into a single text file.  So the question is this:  What’s the best way to get it out to the people who want to find it?  Is there a torrent tracker favoured by traffickers of bootleg manuscripts?

Yes, I wanted to read GRIMHAVEN…but the idea that someone would take an unpublished manuscript that didn’t belong to him and distribute it all over the planet made me queasy…as did the idea that he thought that I would help him do it.

But why shouldn’t he think so? After all, didn’t I jump out of my seat when he offered me the book? Didn’t that make me just the kind of guy he thought I was? While I was wrestling with these uncomfortable questions, another email showed up from him:

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Movin On Up

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I stopped by a Barnes & Noble today and while I was there I noticed that my latest DIAGNOSIS MURDER book was spine-out in the mystery section. So what did I do? I turned them cover-out and took half of the  books to the New Release section in the front of the store. It’s a silly, amateurish thing to do, but I couldn’t help myself. I knew my books were unlikely to sell in the depths of the mystery section with just their spines showing… and I just couldn’t leave them to die.  I was delighted to get home and discover I’m not alone… novelist PJ Parrish does the same thing.

So I go into my local supermarket a while back to hunt and gather and
lo! there on the paperback rack is my book. As Martha says, it’s a good
thing. But alas, I am down on the bottom, wedged between the horoscope
books and a romance with a really creepy cover. I curbed my cart,
looked around to see that no one was watching, and promptly moved my
modest stack of five books up to the No. 5 slot, bumping James
Patterson down to No. 9.

Uh-oh… I hear sirens. I hear gasps.
You MOVED your own books? You took over another author’s legitimately
won bestseller space? How crude, desperate and socially unacceptable!

Yes, I did it. I confess. I moved my books. And before you get all self-righteous, I know that are hundreds, nay, thousands of authors out there who do the exact same thing. But they won’t fess up.

Work vs Inspiration

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Chadwick Saxelid made an interesting point in one of his comments on a blog post here:

It is has been my observation that the most marketing focused writers
seem to be those that do work for hire or write with the lowest common
denominator in mind. We’re not talking about art, we’re talking about
product. Creating a marketable business model. (Remember, this is
coming from a guy who reads more product writing than he does art
writing. The product is more fun.) Even Mr. Goldberg has stated he
wouldn’t write another Harvey Mapes novel unless there was a for sure
sale. That’s market focused writing rather than art focused writing.
It’s sitting down and writing something that will sell, rather than
something that speaks from the heart.

Right now I am going through that very same struggle. Do I want to be a
"hack?" Someone that works for hire, that won’t write something he
couldn’t sell. Or do I want write from the heart? Spends hours, days,
weeks, months, or even years working on a project that, in the end,
only a handful of people might bother to read, no matter how hard I
might market it?

Now, Chadwick, is when you should create something from the heart, something that really drives you to sit down at the computer each day and write. Ultimately it’s that passion that what will make your book great, not a premeditated effort to write something you think will be "saleable"… because nobody really knows what will or won’t sell.

I wrote THE MAN WITH THE IRON ON BADGE on spec — I didn’t have a contract. It was truly a "passion project" for me, a story I was burning to tell. Then again, I didn’t have the DM novels or the MONK novels to do, only my TV work. I wrote BADGE in the time I now use to write the work-for-hire stuff.

But my life has changed since then and so have my professional obligations.   I would LOVE to write another Harvey Mapes novel, but since I have to make a living as a writer, the time spent on it would take me away from my paying work. I simply can’t afford to write another Mapes now, not while balancing my script committments and the work-for-hire novels (DIAGNOSIS MURDER and MONK).

Once you make the leap to professional, and you have contracts to honor, it gets harder and harder to find the "free" time to gamble on writing the passion projects you can’t be sure will ever pay off financially. Does that make me a hack? No, it makes me someone who has
professional and personal committments and needs to prioritize his time to best fullfill his responsibilities.

Showrunning

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Another day and another brilliant blog post from Ken Levine, this one on the fine art of Showrunning. I’ve run a few series — including one that starred a guy who didn’t speak English and got all his dialogue transmitted to him through a flesh-colored earpiece. Showrunning is the greatest job in the world…and the worst. It’s the most fun you’ll ever have in TV…and non-stop agony. But I think Ken sums up the experience very well:

People ask me what’s it like to be a showrunner. I tell them “did you
see the end of BONNIE & CLYDE?” It is a constant barrage of
problems coming at you from all directions[…]You need to be a psychiatrist, an accountant, a CEO, a personnel
manager, a Drill Sergeant, a Jewish mother, and work well under heavy
medication. Once you’ve satisfied those requirements then you can add
talent…but that’s optional.

My Book is Crap

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It’s nice to know that every writer, even the ones with lots of success, are still tortured by the same insecurities as the rest of us. Acclaimed mystery novelist John Connolly writes:

I can’t speak for other writers, but there is a wall that I hit during
the writing of every book. The point at which it occurs varies from
book to book, although it’s usually around the halfway stage or just
beyond it. I start to doubt the plot, the characters, the ideas
underpinning it, my own writing, in fact every element involved in the
process.

[…] You’d think that, by now, with eight books written, those doubts would
have become less intense. After all, I’ve been through it before. I
know that I’ve had these concerns about other books and in the end
those books have been written and published without bearing any obvious
scars from the turmoil that went into their creation. But there is
always that fear that this book, this story, is the one that should not
have been started. The idea isn’t strong enough. The plot is going
nowhere. I’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere along the way and now have
to try to find the right path again.

This happens to me, too…but less often if I have a strong outline to start with (though an outline  is no insurance policy against realizing 35,00o words into your book that it’s crap and you’re a complete fraud). In talking with other writers, I’ve noticed that the ones who hit the wall the most are the ones who make up their plot as they go along, preferring to be "surprised" by their characters and the turns in the story. Of course, this means the turns may lead to a creative dead end.  I don’t know if John outlines or not, but my guess is that he doesn’t.

UPDATE:  Author PJ Parrish is nearing the end of a new book and is experiencing night terrors:

The new book is almost done. First draft, that is. I haven’t read it
through since we started the thing months ago. I am afraid to. I have
this really bad feeling that it is a heaping, stinking, fetid, rancid
pile of crap. I dream about it now, this pile of crap, almost every
night, like Richard Dreyfus in "Close Encounters." I wake up in a sweat
over it. My only consolation is knowing that I feel this way with every
book. And that I am not alone.

So You Want to Direct…

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Emmy-award winning comedy writer Ken Levine shares the hilarious story of his first directing assignment. Here’s an excerpt: 

You never forget your first. I’ve now directed over 50 episodes of
television but none stand out like that maiden voyage. It was an
episode of WINGS in 1995 called “Portrait of a Con Artist as a Young
Man” (written by Jeff Richmond & Joyce Gittlin). The premise was
that addled mechanic Lowell (Thomas Hayden Church) makes these large
twisted pieces of metal that a museum director considers art. Comedy
ensues (despite my efforts). Tommy is a gifted comedian (the fact that
the rest of the WINGS cast was on suicide watch when he was nominated
for an Oscar notwithstanding). But he never reads a line the same way
twice. Nor does he move the same way twice. Forget matching problems, I
had no idea what the star of the show was going to say or do the entire
week. Kind of hard to interject the patented “Levine Touch” when that’s
the case.

[…] Filming begins. It starts with a thirty second pause then Tim Daly
calling out, “Say ‘action’, Kenny!” Helen (Crystal Bernard) brings the
birthday cake with lit candles to the table for Casey. It slips out of
her hands and she drops it. Cut! Fire marshals run out to the set. It’s
a twenty minute delay. Then Tommy decides to really improvise. I go out
into the stage and tell him nicely to do the line as written. Take two.
He does another line. I repeat my request. Take three. Yet a third
line. I go out to the Oscar nominee and tell him I will punch his
fucking face in if he doesn’t say the line as written. He does the line
right. No one can say I’m not an “actor’s director”.

 

I’m Done!

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I just this minute finished writing the final draft of MR. MONK AND THE BLUE FLU, my third book in the series, and had to tell somebody (everybody in my house is asleep already). I’m a week ahead of my deadline, so I will probably set the manuscript aside for a day or two and then read it again to make sure everything tracks. Or I may simply turn it in and be done with it.  Regardless, I won’t do anything with it until Monday.

The timing is perfect, because Bill Rabkin and I are about to start writing a freelance script for a hot new TV series (more on that later) and I won’t have to worry about finishing the book, too. I do have to start thinking about my eighth DIAGNOSIS MURDER book, though, which is due in three-and-a-half months…

So tomorrow I’ll do my little book-completion ritual. I’ll put my Murder Book (my binder of notes, outlines, photos, etc. related to the book) in a box in the closet and clean up my office, which tends to go to hell while I’m writing.

We’re Thinking Of You, Ed

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Eg
Please join me in wishing Ed Gorman the very best in his on-going battle with cancer. Today, Ed  suspended his blog to focus his energy on his writing and his health:

This will be my last post until at least fall. And maybe my last post
ever. Simply put, I have to get ready for my stay at Mayo in June and
that, along with finishing my novel, will have to be my primary
concerns. Thanks for all your support. My health doesn’t seem to have
changed but my oncologist says I should pay it more attention than I do.

We’ll miss your daily doses of wit, political commentary and author interviews… but we’ll eagerly await your new novel.

Joe Konrath: Anti-Christ?

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Edwardredwin
I got this email from a very successful and critically acclaimed mystery novelist I know (who gave me permission to post this as long as I removed his or her name):

How can you be friends with Joe Konrath? He’s the anti-Christ.  In his own way, he is as bad or worse than Lori Prokop. The advice he gives to aspiring writers is just terrible and, worse, he’s doing everything he can to undermine his fellow professionals. How, you ask? He’s perpetuating the myth that you should devote all or part of your advance to promotion, that you should devote yourself to making sure that the publisher makes money (even if it costs you).  What he’s doing is legitimizing the damaging corporate mindset that authors should pay for their own promotion without any investment or reimbursement from the publisher.  We’re supposed to live off our advances, not kick them back to the publisher for advertising and promotion. Joe’s latest moronic blog post was so infuriating I almost put my fist into my laptop screen. Of course his publisher loves him. But professional writers should fear him. He’s cancer.

After getting this email, I had to scoot right over to Joe’s blog to see what had pissed off my usually low-key buddy so much.  I think this is it:

My writing philosophy is simple: Make money for your publisher.

I do this by not only doing a lot of self-promotion, but by also
considering my audience even before I sit down to write a single word.

This means compromises. This means understanding the system writing
exists in (the publishing business) and weighing it against the many
reasons I wanted to become a writer.

Successful writers seem to understand this balance, and the
trade-offs required. They realize that their books are products as well
as art.

By ‘successful’ I mean that they are making money for their
publisher. You don’t have to be an NYT bestseller to do this. All you
have to do is earn out your advance.

You can earn out your advance by doing a lot of self-promotion, by
working closely with your publisher, by spending a lot of your advance
money on marketing, and by writing good books.

Let me start by saying I really like Joe. I think he’s funny, gracious, multi-talented,  and genuinely interested in helping his fellow writers. We don’t always agree, but that’s okay by me — I don’t always agree with my wife, either, but we still love each other.  Sure, I disagree with Joe from time to time, but that doesn’t diminish my respect for him or how much I enjoy his company.

I’ve always been awed by the incredible time and energy Joe puts into promoting his books. He visited something like 200 booksstores for "drop in" signings  during a promotional tour which, I believe, was paid for by his publisher. He does an amazing job getting his work noticed and I applaud him for it.

That said, I don’t agree with his frequently expressed philosophy that your job as an author is to make money for your publisher and  pump your advance into promotion. It’s nice if you’re in the financial position to do that (it’s what I did with many of my books), but most authors aren’t. They write to support their families and, from a business stand-point, it isn’t cost-effective for them to donate a significant portion of their advances to their publisher.

Joe frequently talks about how important it is to promote your books and assure that each title earns out.  For those not in the biz, "earning out"  simply means that you’ve sold enough books to earn back the advance against royalties that the publisher paid you. That doesn’t mean that once you hit that point you are making tons of  money, it just makes it more likely the publisher will buy your next book.

I agree that authors need to promote themselves and their work…and that you need to earn out if you’re going to survive in this business. But the publishers have a responsibility to do more than merely publish and distribute the book. They also have to advertise and promote. They can’t expect the author to shoulder most of that burden.

Or can they? More and more, it seems, publishers are  expecting authors to use their advances for promotion, pay for their own websites, and send themselves on tour … and if they don’t, they are seen as being "unsupportive" and "difficult to work with." And that is scary, especially with the midlist disappearing and advances shrinking. The advance is supposed to support an author while he works, not act as a replacement for corporate spending on advertising and promotion…it is NOT a replacement for the publisher’s advertising budget.

But if authors like my friend Joe keep advocating that  it’s the author’s responsibility to devote some or all of their advance for promotion, and authors and publishers buy into that thinking, we will see publishers spending less on advertising and promotion and earnings for authors shrinking even more.

I’m NOT saying authors shouldn’t promote their work — God knows, I certainly work hard to promote myself (take this blog, for instance). But I have to admit that Joe’s  "What have you done for your publisher today?" attitude often makes me cringe.  He makes up for it my making me laugh a lot, and with his many keen insights into the biz, so it evens out.

Your thoughts?

UPDATE:  Joe has responded in the comments below and also shares his views on his blog.

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