I’m Giving Away THE WALK

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The_Walk_FINAL (2) When THE WALK came out in hardcover seven years ago, nobody noticed it. I figured that was the end…but 15 months ago, I re-released it as an ebook. It was an immediate success and has sold nearly 12,000 copies so far and is still going strong.  

I want to introduce THE WALK to the next wave of new Kindle, iPad, and Nook owners this holiday season… and to do that, I’d like send you a FREE COPY of the novel in whatever eformat you prefer (epub, PDF, txt, html, etc). Here’s all that you have to do:

  1. 1. Send me an email at lee@leegoldberg.com with the subject FREE WALK BOOK and give me your name and the address of your website or blog (don’t have one? That’s okay. Read on).

    2. 2. Agree to post a review, positive or negative (but with no spoilers!) on your blog, website, Goodreads page, Facebook page, or the Amazon listing for THE WALK by Christmas Day. (You don't have to buy the book on Amazon to review it there, you only need to have an account). 

    3. Email me a copy of the review or a link to the post.

    This offer is limited to the first 100 people who respond by November 30.

    UPDATE 10-27-10, 5:14 pm: I've given away thirty books already…so if you're interested, you'd better hurry!

Starlog Daze

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John Zipperer's Weimar World Service Blog has a long and interesting interview with my friend Carr D'Angelo about his days as an editor for STARLOG, a magazine I worked for a lot as a freelancer back in the early 1980s. Reading the article brought back a lot of memories. Here's an excerpt:

ZIPPERER: Tell me a bit about what it was like to work there. How much control did editor David McDonnell have over the magazine – i.e., did he have a lot of freedom to plan it the way he wanted, or were the publishers heavily involved? How much influence did you have?

D‘ANGELO: The magazine was definitely working according to Dave's plan at that point editorially. Generally, working with the possible movies and TV shows that were coming out that would fall under our domain, Dave would assign a writer to do an article or usually a series of articles on the upcoming project. In my opinion, I think we generated too much inventory on certain projects. Since we were always working months ahead, it would sometimes happen that a movie came out, flopped and we still had two or three articles coming out. That sometimes made the magazine feel behind the curve.

The magazine was designed to be a mix of the new and the old, and that was its strength and weakness.

I remember the overkill. On a typical movie, I'd write a "set visit" piece, then write individual articles about each star, the director, the screenwriter, and often the special effects supervisor or production designer (or both!) as well.  It was great for freelancers like me… it meant that one day of interviews on a film set could lead to six or eight articles for STARLOG (at a mere $200 each). But that didn't count the additional income I could earn by reworking the same quotes into new articles for the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, the San Francisco Chronicle,  or other potential buyers.  

It was hard, low-paid work, but I loved it and learned an enormous amount about the movie and TV industries. And I picked up some valuable work habits, and writing skills, that continue to serve me well to this day.

 

Remaindered Raves

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Bill Crider has some nice things to say about my short film "Remaindered" on his blog today:.

This twenty-minute film is funny, sharply observed, and very well put together. It might be a low-budget production, but it doesn't look it. The actors are having fun, and Goldberg gets the most out of every shot.

I'm pleased to say he's not the only author who enjoyed the movie. Here's some of the other post-Bouchercon feedback that we've received:

“REMAINDERED is brilliant! Hilarious, suspenseful, with booksigning sequences that induce PTSD… bravo! And the music was great, too,” Barry Eisler, bestselling author of “Hard Rain.”

“REMAINDERED was such a hoot. I loved everything about it and had so much fun. More awesomeness from Lee Goldberg,” Sara Gran, author of “Dope” and “Come Closer.”

“REMAINDERED was so well done on some many levels,” Naomi Hirahara, bestselling author of “Blood Hina.”

“The story was great and the actors were outstanding,” Joel Goldman, author of “No Way Out.”

“I loved REMAINDERED!” Daniel J. Hale, co-author of “Red Card.”

“I enjoyed REMAINDERED immensely,” Hal Ackerman, author of “Stein Stoned” and co-chair of the screenwriting department of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television

“One of the highlights of Bouchercon – the world mystery convention – was watching Lee Goldberg's independent film REMAINDERED. If it comes to a film festival near you, don't miss it. It rocked the house,” Julie Kramer, author of “Silencing Sam.”

“A marvelous script. Haven't heard that much out loud laughter from an audience in a long time,” Robert S. Levinson, author of “Ask a Dead Man.”

The short film is not yet available to the public — we've submitted it to a bunch of festivals around the country and are waiting to see how that plays out first. However, if you are a blogger or print reviewer and are interested in receiving a screener, you can contact me at lee AT leegoldberg.com for a download link or a DVD.

UPDATE 10-24-10: Paul Bishop also blogged about REMAINDERED today and he said, among other things:

"Remaindered is a smooth piece of business – not only crisply directed and acted, but with a sense of humor that resists the temptation to go over the top offered by the film’s content.

Remaindered taps into the nightmare known to many writers, the sophomore slump – when the follow-up book to a bestselling debut novel goes in the tank. In Remaindered, our intrepid author is trying to survive his sophomore slump by schlepping a third novel – this time self-published – through a series of signings in small backwoods venues because nobody else wants to give the book shelf space or attention – nobody else that is except the author’s biggest fan.

Remaindered is a hoot, a low budget production with a big heart and exceptional values. A twenty minute film that keeps you holding your breath until it explodes with laughter.

Thanks so much, Paul!

My Brother Tod is Funny

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This week my brother Tod wrote what may be his funniest Letters to Parade column ever.  Here's an excerpt.

…Elizabeth Chambers, hailing from Los Angeles, CA, and presumably reading Parade in the LA Times, as I do, has a question that made me realize that the reason people end up voting for complete fucktards like Sarah Palin is that they don't realize politicians aren't fictional characters. You see, Elizabeth is very curious about that nice young President we have…on THE EVENT:

"Blair Underwood is great as President Elias Martinez on NBC's The Event. Does he have any political experience in real life?" 

Jesus fucking Christ on a bed of wild rice, Elizabeth. Do you really think you somehow missed out on the two terms Blair Underwood spent as a United States Senator? Or what about when he was a Congressman? Or those years when he was Attorney General? Personally, I'll never forget what it was like meeting Blair Underwood when he was just a state Senator –this was during his downtime after his seven year stint on LA Law ended and before he landed his next role four minutes later. I knew then that one day he would eventually either be President or at least play the President in something. He just had that gravity, you know? But then when he was on The New Adventures of Old Christine a few years ago, I was like, whoa, he's just a school teacher in this! Well, he was a school teacher on the show, and, of course, was the Dept. Secretary of Defense, too, but, anyway, I just felt like he was selling himself short. 

For fuck's sake. I mean it. People this stupid shouldn't be allowed to watch television. It's clearly not good for them and thus it's not good for America and, thus, it's bad for the Jews.

 

I Want to Suck Your Eblood

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Draculas01c Joe Konrath, F. Paul Wilson, Blake Crouch and Jeff Strand have collaborated on DRACULAS, an original novel for the Kindle. It's yet another intriguing Konrath e-book experiment. He wrote about it all on the Huffington Post. He said, in part:

"Draculas" will be exclusive on Kindle for a year, as a favor to Amazon since they've been so helpful. But those with other brands of ereaders will be able to buy "Draculas" from Amazon and convert it to the format of their choice with free ebook software like Calibre or Stanza. We have instructions for doing this on our website, www.draculasthebook.com. We also plan on doing a print release later in the year, using Amazon's CreateSpace.

Since professionalism is essential, we hired a cover artist and an ebook formatter. A publisher providing these services takes 52.5% of an ebook's cover price, and the retailer gets 30% through the agency model. That leaves only 17.5% for the author. By absorbing these sunk costs ourselves, we're able to earn the full 70% royalties and not have to share them with anyone. Though we're splitting the profits four ways, we're each earning only slightly less per copy sold (51 cents each) than we would on one of our own paperback books (64 cents each), and still only charging the reader $2.99.

The book is 80,000 words and also contains 80,000 words of extras, like the 700 emails the authors sent back-and-forth while writing this book in just eight weeks. If the book is a success, which I suspect it will be, it could lead even more published authors to try self-publishing an original ebook…even as they continue to write novels for major publishers. Judging by the conversations I had at Bouchercon, lots of writers are already considering this, seeing it not as an all-or-nothing alternative, but as an additional revenue stream. I'm one of them. But more on that later…

The Mail I Get

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I got home from Bouchercon and found this email waiting for me.

Fan of Monk the series, don't care at all for your books. 

What about a spinoff? Randy and Sharrona got married, right.  Why not do a show about them and his new job.  I think this would be a good idea especially with all the special guests.  Randy was a good detective with Barney personality and Sharrona was a good investigator/assistant.  I can see a lot of good shows for them.  Don't forget Benji-Hawaii trip episode. 

Just a thought.

             Nancy
I'm a fan of readers, don't care at all for you or your dumb ideas. What about next time you write to someone, you don't start off by insulting them? Just a thought.

 

Bouchercon Day 3

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Sara Gran, me, Scott Phillips Another lively day at Bouchercon… it started with a panel on the legacy of Robert B. Parker. My fellow panelists were Joseph  Finder, Dick Lochte, Mark Coggins, Declan Hughes, and Russel McLean. The panelists and the audience seemed to really enjoy it.  Afterwards, a guy came up to me and said "You look like the most hated politician in San Francisco… but now that you're standing, I see that you're fatter."

I thanked him.

The panel was  followed by a signing. A woman asked me to sign her program and, as I was doing so, she said "I really enjoyed your books back  when they were good."

I thanked her, too. Oh, these dumb comments remind me of one that came up when I was "in conversation"  with William Link. A guy in the audience stood up and asked Link "When you created COLUMBO, how much were  you influenced by Huckleberry Finn?"

"Not at all," Link said.

"This brings up an interesting question," I said. "When you created MANNIX, how much were  you influenced by CATCHER IN THE RYE?"

Link was still laughing about the Huckleberry Finn question  today when I signed with him after the Parker panel.

After the signing,  I grabbed a sandwich at Boudin and got a little writing done…then hung out in the bar for a while, talking with David Hewson, Bill Crider, Lynn Sheene, Doug Lyle, Christa Faust, Robert Ward, and probably a dozen others throughout the afternoon. 

But the highlight of the day  and the conference for me was the screening of my short film REMAINDERED tonight. The room was packed with authors, editors, agents, booksellers and fans. And they all seemed to love  it. I couldn't have asked  for a better  first screening. It really was the perfect audience for the film. I just wish the cast and crew could have been there to enjoy it with me. 

The screening  was followed by a lively Q&A and then I headed up to the bar, where I talked ebooks and the future of publishing with Penguin/NAL senior editor Sandra Harding…and later with Mulholland  Books editor John  Schoenfeller and agent Josh Getzler. I also caught up with Sara Gran, Scott Phillips, Joe Konrath, Cameron Hughes, Megan Abbott, Allison  Gaylin, and several other authors.

All in all, it was a terrific Bouchercon for me. I'm so glad that I  came up for it. 

(Pictured: Sara Gran, me, Scott Phillips)

Bouchercon Day 2

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Starr Highes Goldberg Gagnon I started my day by making a pilgrimage to Kayo Books, one of my favorite bookstores on earth, and spent an hour browsing their amazing stock of pulp novels. I bought some old westerns then walked down to the Hyatt, where I ran into Daniel Woodrell as soon as I walked in the door. The two of us went to the Boudin Bakery and had a terrific conversation over a long, leisurely  lunch. Sourdough and Woodrell, a perfect combo.

After lunch, I spent an hour chatting with various authors before participating in a panel on ebooks. CJ West did a remarkable job moderating, especially considering how big  the subject is, how obnoxious I am, and how many authors there were on the panel…me, Boyd Morrison, Wendy Hornsby, Gary Phillips, Bill Fitzhugh and David Hewson. The audience was very engaged…and I think if the panel had a weakness besides me, it was that we didn't have nearly enough time to field all the questions (I continued answering questions on the topic for much of the afternoon, not that I am any sort of expert). We could easily have filled two  hours on the topic. David Hewson, by the way, is hilarious. 

I didn't attend any other panels. I spent the rest of the afternoon talking to fans and with authors (like Joel Lee david ellis konrath Goldman, Declan Hughes, Jason Starr, Michelle Gagnon, Steve Hamilton, DP Lyle, etc). In the early evening,  I attended the Penguin author party,  where I met Scott Brick, the voice of 1000 audiobooks…and then went  out to a terrific dinner with David Ellis, his wife, and Bill Rabkin at the Empress of China. On the way back, we ran into Dick Lochte and Gar Anthony Haywood and spent the walk back talking about ebooks and what a great guy Steve Cannell was.  The rest  of the night was spent at the Lee Child's Jack Reacher party…where I chatted with Lisa Lutz, Robin Burcell, Vince Keenan, Alafair Burke, Parnell Hall, to name just a few folks.

I'm having a grand time and am looking forward to screening REMAINDERED tomorrow….

(Pictured: Jason Starr, Declan Hughes, me, Michelle Gagnon. And in the other picture, from yesterday, me, David  Ellis and Joe Konrath)