Backdoor Pilots

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Jaime Weinman writes today in MacLeans about the network practice of using episodes of existing series as “backdoor pilots” for new shows. It’s a way to save money on making a pilot. Since standalone busted pilots cost millions of dollars, have no commerical value, and will never air anywhere,  shooting them as an episode of an existing series allows studios to recoup their costs from the syndication revenue of a hit series. Tonight’s episode of BONES is one such episode.

The problem is, backdoor pilots usually end up being one of the worst episodes of whatever series is hosting them. That’s because the stars of the host series, by design, have to take a back seat to the stars of the pilot…and let’s face it, people aren’t tuning in to see the pilot characters, they are tuning in to see the characters they already know and love.  Weinman writes:

Networks and producers used to disguise the fact that that was what they were doing, because it might drive viewers away if they knew they were going to be watching a new hero. The usual spot to put this kind of episode was in the last episode of the season, which before the Season Finale concept took hold was often used for filler episodes: hence, Star Trek‘s Assignment Earth was the last episode of the second season, and Mary Tyler Moore ended its second season with a failed attempt to create a new show for Bill Daily.

The networks and producers can’t really disguise backdoor pilots — because they can’t function as pilots without being pilots, introducing us to the characters and franchise of the proposed show. But it’s a practice that has worked.

Some of hit shows that began as backdoor pilots (also known, some years back, as “nested spin-offs”) include Diagnosis Murder, NCIS, CSI: Miami, Maude, SWAT, Petticoat Junction, Laverne  & Shirley, Barnaby Jones, Empty Nest, Knots Landing, and Stargate: Atlantis. 

The many, many shows that have hosted busted, backdoor pilots include Magnum PI, Cosby, Spenser: For Hire, Star Trek, Vegas, Charlie’s Angels, Murder She Wrote, Smallville, House, and The Rockford Files (which had at least three!)

Bill Rabkin and I were the executive producers of Diagnosis Murder with Fred Silverman, the man who once ran CBS, ABC and NBC and was known as the “king of the spin-off.” Since Diagnosis Murder was a nested spinoff of Jake and the Fatman, which itself was a nested spin-off of Matlock, Silverman was a big believer in backdoor pilots and  insisted that we do at least one every season. Diagnosis Murder tried at least six of them that I know of and they all went nowhere.

We personally did three of them, including Whistlers, basically a tame Lethal Weapon with women, and The Chief, starring Fred Dryer as the leader of the LAPD. Here’s  the main title sequence for Whistlers:


and the sales pitch for The Chief:

 

We were very clever with how we structured The Chief as a back-door pilot…and it was the only one of the Diagnosis Murder backdoor pilots that actually had a shot getting picked up.

We wrote it as a tw0-hour, sweeps episode of the series…but crafted it in such a way that we could edit it down to one-hour and cut almost all of the Diagnosis Murder cast out of the show for internal sales purposes 

Fred Dryer was great in the part…and newcomer Neil McDonough had real star power. We were sure we were on to something. The two-hour movie was one of the highest rated shows of the week, #12 if memory serves, and when we had the one-hour version tested, the scores were among the best Fred Silverman had ever seen. Silverman was convinced we were a lock for the fall schedule.

Unfortunately, this was one of the rare cases where ratings and testing didn’t mean as much to the network as personality…nobody at CBS wanted to work with Fred Dryer (which begs the question, why did CBS let us cast him, and why did they pay the  “pilot breakage” on his salary for the guest shot, if they had no intention of greenlighting a series with him in the lead?). 

But Silverman wasn’t concerned. With the numbers and testing we had, and with Dryer’s successful track record with the hit series Hunter, he was convinced we’d have a sale in a matter of weeks with another network.  

We took it to every network and pitched it face-to-face to their presidents (that was the power of working with Silverman), and every one of them had some personal reason for not wanting to be in business with Dryer…and seemed to take great pleasure in passing on the project in the room to his implacable face.

As it turned out, a couple of years later CBS did a very simlar show (The District) with great success and a star reportedly as difficult as Dryer reportedly was (Craig T. Nelson)…and NBC ended up reviving Hunter for six episodes and discovered, or so we heard, that Dryer was even more reportedly difficult than he’d ever reportedly been before.

I guess we dodged a bullet. 

Amazon the Bookseller meets Amazon the Jungle

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Jim-16_lg My friend James Polster's out-of-print, 1987 comic novel A GUEST IN THE JUNGLE was just re-released by Amazon Encore, or as he explains it,  "Amazon the bookseller has recently decided to become Amazon the publisher and reissue my novel about Amazon the jungle." 

GUEST IN THE JUNGLE is about a Pittsburgh attorney named Whitehill who sets off on a South American vacation that he thinks will be a leisurely jaunt, hiking through the Amazon in his Brooks Brothers pants. But a sightseeing trip goes awry, leaving him stranded in the heart of the Amazon jungle…beginning a serious of outrageous, darkly comic misadventures.

James based the book on his own world travels. The snapshot on the left is from his own foray into the jungle. 

"It was taken by the anthropologist who had first contact with the tribe.  I never met him because he was killed by a coral snake (not that easy to happen, the snake has to get a really good bite) shortly after shooting this, about three months before I was taken in- by the guy who was with him when he was bitten," James says. "The anthropologist was also a marathon runner, and when he realized what had just happened, instead of staying in the cool river where he had slipped, his instincts kicked in and he started to run.  Pumped the venom all through his system."

His experience with Amazon has been fantastic…and they will soon be releasing his entire backlist, including BROWN and THE GRADUATE STUDENT over the next couple of months. Here's a Q&A with himself that he sent me. 

Q: After your world travels, you ended up in Los Angeles, a kind of jungle in its own right. What took you to L.A.?

A: I had an offer from Columbia Pictures, and a separate offer to write the screenplay for A GUEST IN THE JUNGLE.  I got the screenwriting offer because they knew about Columbia, and I got the Columbia offer because they knew about the screewriting thing.  So, I showed up in town with two jobs, neither of which I was qualified to do.

Q: In your second novel, BROWN, main character McGee Brown is a former sports writer turned amateur detective. Are you a sports fan as well as an adventure traveler? Any detective work in that daredevil past of yours?

A: I am a sports fan….I never was a detective, but I had an office in New Orleans that looked like something out of the Maltese Falcon, and a friend kept insisting we become detectives because of this.  

Q: Your newest novel, THE GRADUATE STUDENT, centers on the bizarre world of Hollywood with a little bit of jungle mystique mixed in… Any behind-the-scenes info you can share, either from Hollywood or the jungle?

A: Hollywood behind the scenes- It's all in the book.  Where else in the world can a bunch of daft people gather in a room to figure out how to spend millions and millions of dollars?  From the studio's old, secret staircase used to sneak starlets up to the casting couch, to Stallone's jokes, to the guy who taught one of the world's most powerful computers to be a screenwriter- so much of it is true. 

NY Publishers Terrified by Self-Pubbed Authors

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89ae81ad280f6c268da494c354a389bd2adeb542 The Wall Street Journal reports that cheap ebooks from self-published authors are making NY publishers wake up in a cold sweat…a notion that self-published authors used to fantasize about and that I've scoffed at (and ruthlessly ridiculed) for years.

But the advent of the Kindle, combined with Amazon  offering their sales platform to all-comers for free, has changed everything. Now that self-pubbed  fantasy has come true in a big, big way:

"[Amazon is] training their customers away from brand name authors and are instead creating visibility for self-published titles," one senior publishing executive who asked not to be identified, says of Amazon.

As digital sales surge, publishers are casting a worried eye towards the previously scorned self-published market. Unlike five years ago, when self-published writers rarely saw their works on the same shelf as the industry's biggest names, the low cost of digital publishing, coupled with Twitter and other social-networking tools, has enabled previously unknown writers to make a splash

Now it's actually possible for an author nobody heard of to become a millonaire within just a matter of months. I'm not exaggerating. Everyone talks about Amanda Hocking…but perhaps the most astonishing success story of all is John Locke.

Mr. Locke, who published his first paperback two years ago at age 58, says he decided to jump into digital publishing in March 2010 after studying e-book pricing.

"When I saw that highly successful authors were charging $9.99 for an e-book, I thought that if I can make a profit at 99 cents, I no longer have to prove I'm as good as them," says Mr. Locke. "Rather, they have to prove they are ten times better than me."

Locke earned $126,000 on 369,000 sales on Amazon in March alone. That's a huge uptick from the 75,000 he sold in January and the 1300 he sold in November.

Wait, let's think about that some more. 

John Locke went from selling 1300 books to 369,000 in four months. 

Holy.

Shit.

Anyone who thinks the e-book market has peaked isn't paying attention….and any midlist author who signs another pissant three-book contract with a NY publisher (or any publisher) should check themselves into a mental institution right away. 

Don't look for Locke to follow Amanda Hocking's footsteps and take a NY publishing deal. He says he's not interested, though he has signed up with a high-powered agent to field movie offers and deal with foreign publishers. She sums up the whole ebook marketplace very nicely: "This is a Wild West of a world," she says.

The Wit and Wisdom of Jonathan Hayes

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Jonathan Hayes My friend Alafair Burke has a terrific interview with my friend Jonathan Hayes up on Murderati. I first met Jonathan, a NY medical examiner and novelist, at Left Coast Crime in Hawaii and liked him instantly…he's one of those people you meet and, after about five minutes, feel like you've known them your whole life. One of my regrets about Bouchercon in SF this past year was that I didn't get a chance to spend some time with him. He's got a wicked wit, a fierce intelligence, and he's a hell of a nice guy, too. Jonathan has a new book out, A HARD DEATH, which you've got to read…

You are a fierce Facebooker.  Unlike many writers, you rarely even mention your books or your life as an author.  Instead, you really show your actual life through photos, music, and video.  What rings your bell about Facebook?

Yes, I am the bane of my publicist's existence – I'm frequently invited to comment on high profile killings on national TV, but always decline. I think it's inappropriate to hold forth on something so serious about which you only have third- or fourth-hand knowledge. All of us hate to be second-guessed; it's horrible to watch the jackals come out of the woodwork when a celebrity dies.

I've had a strong online presence for more than 20 years – I've had the same email address for all that time, and probably as many people call me "Jaze" as call me "Jonathan".

I find just about everything fascinating – seriously, I could get engrossed in an article about the history of cereal box typography design. As a result, I have the attention span of a magpie, regularly developing odd obsessions that are gushingly watered by the fountain of esoterica that is the Internet. And when I'm passionate about something, I want to share it, hear what other people think.  So I post it on Facebook, or on my Tumblr blog.

Right now, for example, I'm obsessed by a mostly West Coast niche subculture: girls and young women who've developed a style fusing psychobilly rock style (fringes, retro clothes, Sailor Jerry-style retro tattoos) with facial and body piercings, breasts plumped up by clothing or surgery, Hello Kitty-style kitschy accessories and My Little Pony hair colors borrowed from Harajuku in Tokyo. It's an odd look, a deliberate, almost angrily in-your-face miscegenation of Kiddie Cute and Hypersexualized Adult. I think it's less rock'n'roll than a new incarnation of rave style; that scene was characterized by a conscious infantilization that had kids drowning in brightly colored, deliberately oversized clothes, carrying animal-shaped backpacks and handing out candy while they chewed pacifiers. (Admittedly, those last two were to help deal with the jaw-grinding and clenching that are a side effect of the drug Ecstasy, but, still.)

Uh, here's my Facebook album for that – careful; depending on where you work, it might not be 100% safe for you.

I don't talk about my work work on Facebook because it's not appropriate; people died to make their way to me, and that should be private. This is one of the reasons I write fiction: to talk about the things I see, and the reactions they evoke, without betraying any confidence.

 

Bloated Writing Credit

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Soul-surfer-movie-posterI've done a lot of WGA credit arbitrations and can't imagine what the committee that judged SOUL SURFER was thinking. The screenwriting credits for SOUL SURFER are the longest I have ever seen…

Screen Story by Sean McNamara & Deborah Schwartz & Douglas Schwartz & Michael Berk and Matt R. Allen & Caleb Wilson & Brad Ganin based on the book by Bethany Hamilton, Sheryl Berk, and Rick Bundshuh

Screenplay by Sean McNamara & Deborah Schwartz & Douglas Schwartz & Michael Berk

And it's not what you'd call a very complex story, as opposed to say the ten-hour GAME OF THRONES, which has this screen credit:

Screenplay by David Benioff & D.B Weiss, based on the novel by George R.R. Martin

Or, say, INCEPTION, which had this screen credit:

Screenplay by Christopher Nolan

What was so daunting and complex about the story of  a girl whose arm is bitten off by a shark that it would require a team of seven credited writers to adapt and four to write? It boggles the mind.

Hot Sex, Gory Violence

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0348 Goldberg POD The Jury Series Final CreateSpace
Newsweek published this My Turn essay of mine back in mid-1980s, while I was still a college student and writing my JURY books, then called .357 Vigilante, under the pen-name "Ian Ludlow." Now that I have re-released the books, I thought you might enjoy it:

HOT SEX, GORY VIOLENCE

How One Student Earns Course Credit and Pays Tuition

My name is Ian Ludlow. Well, not really. But that's the name on my four ".357 Vigilante" adventures that Pinnacle Books will publish this spring. Most of the time I'm Lee Goldberg, a mild mannered UCLA senior majoring in mass communications and trying to spark a writing career at the same time. It's hard work. I haven't quite achieved a balance between my dual identities of college student and hack novelist.

The adventures of Mr. Jury, a vigilante into doing the LAPD's dirty work,  are often created in the wee hours of the night, when I should be studying, meeting my freelance-article deadlines or, better yet, sleeping. More often than not, my nocturnal writing spills over into my classes the next morning. Brutal fistfights, hot sexual encounters and gory violence are frequently scrawled across my anthropology notes or written amid my professor's insights on Whorf's hypothesis. Students sitting next to me who glance at my lecture notes are shocked to see notations like "Don't move, scumbag, or I'll wallpaper the room with your brains.

I once wrote a pivotal rape scene during one of my legal-communications classes, and I'm sure the girl who sat next to me thought I was a psychopath. During the first half of the lecture, she kept looking with wide eyes from my notes to my face as if my nose were melting onto my binder or something. At the break she disappeared, and I didn't see her again the rest of the quarter. My professors,  though, seem pleased to see me sitting in the back of the classroom writing furiously. I guess they think I'm hanging on their every word. They're wrong.

I've tried to lessen the strain between my conflicting identities by marrying the two. Through the English department, I'm getting academic credit for the books. That amazes my Grandpa Cy, who can't believe there's a university crazy enough to reward me for writing "lots of filth." The truth is, it's writing and it's learning, and it's getting me somewhere. Just where, I'm not sure. My Grandpa Cy thinks it's going to get me the realization I should join him in the furniture business.

Read more

I Wanna Get You Hooked…

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0316 Goldberg ecover JUDGEMENT …so, for a very limited time, JUDGMENT, the first book in the four-book JURY SERIES, is now just 99 cents. 

This is an ALL-NEW edition, completely reformatted and repackaged for 2011.

JUDGMENT is the classic action/adventure novel that was a runaway paperback sensation under the title ".357 Vigilante" back in the 1980s…and was immediately snatched up by New World Pictures for a feature film (that, sadly, never happened).

But that screenplay adaptation launched my partnership with William Rabkin and our careers as screenwriters, so this book will always hold a very, very special place in my heart.

This is the ultimate JUDGMENT, as it was originally meant to be, taken from the original, first-draft manuscript. 

Brett Macklin was a freewheeling son of sunny California, a collector of vintage cars and a connoisseur of beautiful women. But when his father is murdered by a street gang, Macklin becomes something else–a deadly weapon against crime, a relentless vigilante who won't stop until he's wiped out the killers who have turned Los Angeles into a war zone. 

And here are the other reformatted and repackaged books in the JURY series…

ADJOURNED

0317 Goldberg ecover ADJOURNED
PAYBACK

0318 Goldberg ecover PAYBACK

GUILTY

0319 Goldberg ecover GUILTY

And all four books in one:

0298 Goldberg ecover The Jury Series

The Jury Is In

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0298 Goldberg ecover The Jury Series (1) New for 2011! The Jury Series

From Lee Goldberg, the bestselling author of  THE WALK, comes all four of his acclaimed JURY novels..collected into one totally reformatted, repackaged, mega-sized, pulse-pounding, thrill-ride that will leave you breathless:

JUDGMENT * ADJOURNED * PAYBACK * GUILTY

The JURY SERIES is the complete saga of Brett Macklin, a one-man judge, jury, and executioner, fighting a war on terror on the streets of Los Angeles in the mid-1980s. Over 160,000 words/550 pages of non-stop action, wildly erotic sex, and wicked humor.

"As stunning as the report of a .357 Magnum, a dynamic premiere effort […] The Best New Paperback Series of the year!" West Coast Review of Books

The series, published in 1985, under the title ".357 Vigilante," was written by Ian Ludlow… a pseudonym for Lee Goldberg, who wrote the books while he was a UCLA student, under the supervision of his professor, novelist Lewis Perdue ("The DaVinci Legacy," "The Queensgate Reckoning," "Daughter of God," etc). Goldberg would later go on to write and/or produce such TV shows as "Monk," "Diagnosis Murder," "SeaQuest," and "The Glades" and write many more novels, including THE WALK and the best-selling "Monk" series of original mysteries. 

CRITICAL ACCLAIM FOR LEE GOLDBERG:

"A high-octane mystery that moves like a bullet-train!" New York Times Bestselling author Janet Evanovich

"Can books be better than television? You bet they can — when Lee Goldberg's writing them," New York Times bestselling author Lee Child

"Leaves you guessing right up until the heart-stopping ending," New York Times bestselling author Lisa Gardner

"Lee Goldberg can plot and write with the best of them," Mystery Scene Magazine

"Entertaining and ruefully funny," Honolulu Star Bulletin

"THE WALK is a magnificent novel — by turns hilarious, scary, sad, witty and ultimately wise on its judgments about the way so many of us live these days. And it's one hell of a page-turner, too," Author Ed Gorman, founder of Mystery Scene Magazine

"Harrowing and funny…" -Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine 

"With books this good, who needs TV?" Chicago Sun Times

"You'd be hard-pressed to find another recent work that provides so many hip and humorous moments," Bookgasm

Barnes & Noble 2.0

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The Nook might just save Barnes & Noble if they commit to becoming a Nookstore instead of a Bookstore…making ebooks the primary focus of their brick-and-mortar stores as well as their website.  That's the thesis of an interesting article from CNN Money. 

"Barnes & Noble didn't get into this market very early, but when they got into this, they got into this very smart," says Forrester research analyst James McQuivey about the company's ereader. "They went in with with both feet, quickly got a device on the market as opposed to picking someone to partner up with like Borders did, and when the firestorm in 2010 hit, they already had their device ready to go. Borders did not." (Pop quiz: Do you even know the name of the Borders ereader? It's called the Kobo. And it's nowon clearance for $60 at Borders stores that are liquidating.)

In fact, McQuivey thinks Barnes & Noble has a better than 50% chance of making the switch to digital if it becomes even more aggressive about its Nook hardware, software, ebook and accessory business. And there is room for growth. Based on a Goldman Sachs analyst report, the Nook business is on a hockey-stick growth curve, with sales going from $62 million in 2009 (the year the device launched) to an estimated $1.163 billion for 2012. Meanwhile, the book business — sales at brick and mortar locations — will decrease, according to the same estimates, from $4.37 billion this year to $3.95 billion for the company's fiscal year 2012.

In other words, the day is fast approaching when ebooks will drive B&Ns sales and paper books will be little more than colorful decor in their Nookstores. Or, as the article concludes:

Regardless of the path executives take, the Barnes & Noble of the future (if there is one, of course) will probably look nothing like it does today. The company could even choose to drop the name altogether and let Nook become the consumer-facing brand.