#1 New York Times Bestselling Author & TV Producer
Authors talk a lot about the power of hand-selling, how a bookseller's positive recommendation of a book means more than all the self-promotion, blogging, and twittering you can do. That's because customers trust that booksellers are knowledgeable and well-read…and that they are sharing an honest opinion when they recommend a title and are telling the … Read more
From the MWA: The Board of Mystery Writers of America voted unanimously on Wednesday to remove Harlequin and all of its imprints from our list of Approved Publishers, effective immediately. We did not take this action lightly. We did it because Harlequin remains in violation of our rules regarding the relationship between a traditional publisher … Read more
I have been working on my MONK novel MR. MONK IS CLEANED OUT under the mistaken belief that it's due November 30. Well, I happened to glance at my contract yesterday to double-check when the outline for the next MONK book is due…and discovered the outline for Book #11 is due November 30…and that CLEANED … Read more
Yesterday, I talked about how Josh Olson wrote a great piece explaining why he won't reading your script…and that, on the same day that I read his article, I had an experience that proved him right. Here's what happened. A stranger wrote me: I have a great idea for a TV series…oops, you've heard that … Read more
I know a lot of screenwriters who can sympathize with Josh Olsen, who wrote a column in the Village Voice about all the reasons why he “will not read your fucking script.” He writes, in part: Which brings us to an ugly truth about many aspiring screenwriters: They think that screenwriting doesn’t actually require the … Read more
I hate it when we're asked to vote for new WGA officers and board members. We get inundated with mails, each side attacking the other, and then we get that bulging election packet, with its candidate statements, candidate rebuttals, rebuttals of rebuttals, rebuttals of rebuttals of rebuttals, the non-candidate statements, the rebuttals of non-candidate statements, … Read more
The folks over at the Western Fiction Review have a great Q&A interview up with author Joseph A. West, who wrote those terrific GUNSMOKE tie-ins a few years back. Lately, he's been writing the Ralph Compton books as a work-for-hire writer and his comments about that will give you some insight into what it's like … Read more
This article originally appeared in Mystery Scene Magazine back in 1997. I thought I'd repost it here to mark the publication of the Kindle edition. An awful lot of people in the television industry see shrinks. Those who don't, write novels. Well, that's my theory, any way. I figured it was either write a book, … Read more
My acclaimed, long out-of-print debut novel MY GUN HAS BULLETS is now available on the Kindle with a terrific new cover by my sister Linda Woods (I wish the book had this cover when it first came out). And this new edition wouldn't be possible if it wasn't for Dan Williams, who volunteered to scan … Read more
I am 15 days into my Kindle experiment and here are the results so far… Today, THE WALK is ranked #901 in the Kindle Store and: #18 in Kindle Store > Kindle Books > Fiction > Action & Adventure #21 in Kindle Store > Kindle Books > Fiction > Horror #28 in Kindle Store > Kindle Books > Humor THREE WAYS TO DIE – 38 copies sold @ $.99. My royalties: … Read more