News and Notices from the Writing Trenches #76…
Item: Hachette v. Amazon fallout? Not much seen, actually. I bought a copy of Michael Connelly’s The Burning Room, though. This ebook cost me $3.99, I think, but it’s now listed at $4.99. In either case, that’s in the “sweet spot” between $2.99 and $4.99, the latter price not bad for a new book of this length. So…maybe the fallout will be subtle, with Hachette and other Big Five publishers realizing that they must sell ebooks at reasonable prices in order to compete—no one wants to pay almost the hardbound price for an ebook these days. And, to benefit from Amazon’s domination of the ebook market, the Big Five have to change their business models in order to survive too. Changes in author royalites also coming?
Item: Deaver’s experiments continue. Prolific author Jeffery Deaver, like James Patterson, has more money than God, so he can afford to experiment with us mere mortals. First, he writes a garbage-dominated rendering of a 007 adventure (literally and figuratively). His next experiment was writing a book in reverse; I stopped after the first two (last two?) chapters, disgusted with the whole idea. Now he’s come out with The Starling Project, a book that’s not a book, at least traditionally speaking, because it’s only available as an audio book (most audibles have a book version). With voices from Alfred Molina and friends (and maybe sound effects?), is this the future? If so, indies will be priced out of the competition.
Only the likes of Deaver and Patterson can personally afford (or generate financial backing for) such projects. Deaver’s other books are released by Penguin (now part of Random House) (he still lent his name to Preston and Patterson’s SWAT assault in the Amazon v. Hachette controversy), so I suspect that Gunner Publications is part of some Big Five pubber too, but I can’t confirm that. In any case, this book sounds like a throwback, not a step forward! It reminds me of those old radio shows—I love them, by the way—but Deaver’s only really notable book is Garden of Beasts. (Did he steal the idea for Lincoln Rhyme from that old TV show Ironsides? The TV show aired from 1967 to 1995 and the first LR book, The Bone Collector, appeared in 1998. I don’t particularly care, but the LR-series became more formulaic and gimmicky than Patterson’s Alex Cross series and Preston and Child’s Pendergast series.)
In any case, I won’t be buying this latest experiment, especially with its $19.95 price tag (I’m not an Alfred Molina fan either). I can buy many ebooks for twenty bucks. When will they learn? (Sour grapes? Maybe. Who wouldn’t like to have Deaver, Patterson, or Preston’s money, though?)
Item: The future of books? I commented above that audiobooks without accompanying real books might become a trend. But why not videobooks? Today we might call them films or movies, but will rich authors like Deaver just start jumping directly to screenplays, hiring actors like Alfred Molina to play their characters? I always had the mantra that a movie was better when it came from a book. (If you read my review about the movie Gone Girl, you’ll understand why I had to modify that precept: a good movie often comes from a good book. Gone Girl and No Country for Old Men are examples where the adjective “good” was essential but missing. Tinker, Tailor… is an example where both book and movie were good. Hollywood rarely makes a bad book into a good movie, but it’s quite successful in destroying a good book.) Multimedia books might be the coming fad. I’ll not participate in that revolution, thank you.
Item: Writing posts. Mine are for readers and writers. I hope you enjoyed the last two…a bit of reminiscing on old detective novels and movies and a bit about extending the hard-boiled definition to minimalist writing. I try to make my posts about writing unconventional, candid, and irreverent. I have no obligations to any publisher, agent, or corporate sponsors (I now include some Irish business sites in my recommended list of links, though). You’ll get my honest take on the state of the industry (here too in this newsletter) as well as my opinion on what’s needed to improve your writing.
My (completely voluntary!) job here is to be honest and entertain you, dear reader, with my posts and books. I have the luxury of not having to make a living writing, so I can praise and insult as I see fit, whether it’s in my prose or here in these posts. My first mantra: readers rule. The corollary: if you don’t like it, don’t read it. (For this blog, of course—and for my books, for that matter—feel free to tell me and others what you think, though. I read comments to these posts; occasionally I even read my book reviews—when I need to do some PR and marketing, for example. On the other hand, you’ll help other readers by commenting and writing your own reviews of books.)
Item: The Collector. Sorry you missed the Great Pumpkin’ Promo—it’s back to its original price. The link will take you to the book’s Amazon page and its first Amazon review, but you can read the original here and get to know the reviewer too, who captured the essence of this new entry into the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series,” now the featured series on my website (“The Chaos Chronicles Trilogy,” my dystopian version of the Foundation sci-fi series, is still around, of course, but no one seems to be that much into hard sci-fi these days?). Want a free copy? My usual policy applies: you’ll receive a free copy of this ebook in return for an honest review—until my reviewing budget is depleted, of course.
Item: Coming soon! Mary Jo Melendez (née María José Melendez), ex-USN Master-at-Arms, finds a good security job in the Silicon Valley. A stalker follows her there from New Jersey, though, along with a few Russian and U.S. agents interested in her past adventures. The protagonist of Muddlin’ Through manages to overcome these odds and find love, putting the loss of her Romani lover behind her. I don’t have a title yet, but the book is headed for final editing and will be released early next year, assuming I survive these holidays. Keep it in mind as something to read during those cold winter days that are coming to most of us (or beach reading in the Southern Hemisphere).
In libris libertas…
