The Mail I Get – Career Advice Edition

question-markI get lots and lots of questions asking for career advice from readers. Here are a few that came in recently.

Q: Wanted to ping you for some advice, if you don’t mind.  I think I’m ready to live by my pen/keyboard starting this summer. My house is already paid off, I’ll have about a year’s worth of savings in the bank, and I’ve figured out the costs of healthcare and retirement already. This is a new world for me, as I’ve been in a stable job in corporate America for the least 22 years, so it’s a big jump and one that I’m excited about but also nervous as well. I’d like to make sure I understand all the pro’s and con’s to be sure my exit plan from Intel is solid. From your perspective, what are the risks/benefits and if you were about to make a decision like this, what are some of the things you’d want to have in place prior?”

I’ve been doing this my whole life… so I am probably the wrong guy to ask for transitional advice.  The pros and cons are basically that you have to be entirely self-motivated and relentless about generating work & opportunities for yourself. You have no boss to drive you…and no company’s resources to back you up. It’s your own time and money. You’ll need to surround yourself with top professionals … lawyers, accountants, agents, copyeditors, etc…. that you can trust to handle your business affairs. And you will have to be a harsh task master on yourself to keep churning out material and drumming up new business. Don’t expect to succeed overnight. It’s going to take a while.Get Answers Button

Q: Since you’re a Tv producer cant you view my Tv show script and break it into the Tv biz? I mean I’m just carious.”

No, I can’t.

Q: I’m 42 years old and live in NYC.  Because of some personal issues I dealt with in my twenties and thirties, I’m a late bloomer. […] I would appreciate it if you could give me some straight talk about whether or not I am too old to consider a career in TV writing. I work as a copywriter, and I understand the next step is to work hard on specs for my portfolio. However, if the opportunity has passed because of my age, I would rather let go and focus on something else.”

Age has nothing to do with it if you write an incredible, kick-ass spec screenplay and episodic sample. But I would be deceiving you if I said ageism isn’t a issue in TV. The networks and studios do favor the young, so if you’re good, but not great, your age will knock you out of the running. But if the development execs love your scripts, they will look past a few gray hairs.

The Mail I Get

Tied In Cover 6-22-2010I get variations on this question every day from writers eager to write tie-ins based on TV shows. Here’s one that came in this morning:

 I have recently purchased your book “Tied In” in order to learn more about the fascinating world of tie-in novelization. I’m a writer myself, having published, to date, one novel and a group of short stories (some of which are included in Amazon Best-Selling lists) and have always wanted to someday write a tie-in novel. I have never been able to discover though how to do it, so when I saw your email at the beginning of the book for questions I knew I had to message you.

I’ve for a while wanted to write a tie-in novel for my favorite show, Being Human on the SyFy channel. I’ve been with the show since day one and I feel I could write a book that is true to the show. But my problem is I don’t know how to gain the necessary rights to do so. How would I manage to request and then prove myself that I am capable to write a book based on the show? I’m not certain if this is covered in your book, but I felt a direct answer would help me best.

I’m afraid that it’s very unlikely that you’ll be able to get the opportunity to write BEING HUMAN tie-ins. You’d have to license the rights from the studio/production company, which is a very expensive proposition…and unless you are a proven author, and have a publisher behind you, they won’t be interested.

Almost all tie-in book projects are initiated either by the studio or a publisher. The studio will contact publishers and say the rights to a particular series are available for license at X price…and several publishers might bid on the project. Or a publisher will contact the studio and seek a license to publish novels based on a particular current or past series or film. Once the license deal is completed, then the publisher will look for an author to write the books…and, in most cases, it’s someone they have worked with before or who has established a reputation as someone capable of doing the job.

Speaking of tie-ins, there was a great article published today about the “lost art” of writing novelizations. It’s worth checking out.

The Mail I Get

Author Joel Goldman
Author Joel Goldman

I didn’t get this email…my good friend Joel Goldman did. But it was so wonderful, that I had to share it with you, typos and all:

Hi Joel… I pulled up best suspense thrillers on Amazon & you jack Davis books pooped up… I was really getting intoJacks stories, planning on contining thru all your novels… Just as I have thru Jack Reacher… But alas, you make some dumbass comment about Fox News in The Dead Man & you just lost a customer…. MSNBC??? You are as biased and diluted as some of the criminals in you novels… Good luck to you with those blinders on… Oh yeah… Make no mistake… I’m well educated, female, self employed, buy my own insurance & undoudtedly make a comparable income to yours… Put that in you liberal MSNBC cigar & smoke it… Hope your getting consistently laid with that small penis…

The Mail I Get – My Life is a Movie Edition

Everybody thinks their life is a movie or TV series. That’s why every screenwriter I know gets unsolicited emails from strangers urging them to write their life story because it’s so unique, tragic, bizarre or compelling. And then you get pitches like this from “Louis”:

Hello I hope you can help in putting my story into script,hopefully into film ,story starts 1970,to 2013
Story starts out in holland amsterdam  goes all over the world in the magic bus trade,,,if you know what I mean
Had real estate company family friends all over the world then paridise would tumble over the years
All with brotherhood and company of peace and love ,along the lines of mr nice ,,story our story
Has  more action  the good bad and unfortunate circumstances,, that’s life I hope to hear from you
Cheers

Yeah, that’s life, Louis…but not one you’ve given me or any other screenwriter a reason to care about. There’s no hook. You haven’t sold the one thing a writer cares about — the story. Everybody has a life, what makes yours so special that a screenwriter would devote a year or more pitching and writing it, that would make a studio spend $30 million to produce it, and that would make a moviegoer to pay $15 to see it?

The Mail I Get – Free Book Edition

File0917Apparently, I am in the business of writing books and TV shows and giving them away, at least judging by the mail I’ve received this week. Here’s one about my book Unsold Television Pilots 1955-1989.

Hi Mr. Goldberg,

Thanks for producing an excellent book on a subject that is ignored. Question: Is there another book that adds to this edition? If so could you send me a complimentary copy? Thanks for your time.

I haven’t written a sequel. But even if I had, what makes him think I’d send him a free copy? I guess the same thing that makes this Monk fan think I’d answer his request:

I love your Monk books but my library doesn’t have them all. They are missing Mr. Monk is Miserable, Mr. Monk on the Road, Mr. Monk on Patrol and Mr. Monk Gets Even. Please send them to me at XYZ so I can read them.

Clearly, I’ve been working under the mistaken impression that the way this writing business works is that I write books and that people buy them. Maybe it’s all those free ebooks on Amazon that makes readers think that authors are just in this for fun and make money some other way.

The Mail I Get: Lee Goldberg Books in Chronological Order

I got this email from Lynn Donahue today:

I just discovered you while browsing on Amazon! I read an excerpt from  “Watch Me Die” and was amused enough to put it on my wish list. Which is a pretty big deal, really. It takes a lot to shove the mouse allllll the way up to the corner and click “add” when I’m smoking,  drinking coffee and coughing on cue when work calls. Whew! Luckily, I can multitask like an octopus on crack so you made it into my wish list!  However, before I start my Lee Goldberg journey, I’m wondering if there  is a chronological order to the books?

Not all of my books are series, so it’s not necessary to read them in chronological order. But here you go, Lynn, the Lee Goldberg Books in Chronological Order:

0316 Goldberg ecover JUDGEMENTThe Jury Series (aka .357 Vigilante) (mid-1980s).
Judgment
Adjourned
Payback
Guilty

Unsold Television Pilots 1955-1989 (1990)

Science Fiction Film-Making in the 1980s (with William Rabkin, Randy & Jean-Marc Lofficier) (1995)

Dreamweavers: Fantasy Film-Making in the 1980s (with William Rabkin, Randy & Jean-Marc Lofficier) (1995)

Television Series Revivals (1995) (republished in 2009 as Television Fast Forward)

The Charlie Willis Series
My Gun Has Bullets (1995)
Dead Space (aka Beyond the Beyond) (1997)

 

The Diagnosis Murder Series (2003-2007)
The Silent Partner
The Death Merchant
The Shooting Script
The Waking Nightmare
The Past Tense
The Dead Letter
The Double Life
The Last Word

The Walk (2004)

Watch Me Die (aka Man with the Iron-On Badge) (2005)

Successful Television Writing (with William Rabkin) (2007)

The Monk Series (2006-2013)
Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse
Mr. Monk Goes to Hawaii
Mr. Monk and the Blue Flu
Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants
Mr. Monk in Outer Space
Mr. Monk Goes to Germany
Mr. Monk is Miserable
Mr. Monk and the Dirty cop
Mr. Monk in Trouble
Mr. Monk is Cleaned Out
Mr. Monk on the Road
Mr. Monk on the Couch
Mr. Monk on Patrol
Mr. Monk is a Mess
Mr. Monk Gets Even

The Dead Man Series (2011-)

The Dead Man: Face of Evil (2011) (with William Rabkin)
The Dead Man: Hell in Heaven (2011) (with William Rabkin)

King City (2012)

McGrave (2012)

hollywoodThe Fox & O’Hare Series (with Janet Evanovich)
Pros & Cons (2013)
The Heist (2013)
The Chase (coming 2/2014)

Fast Track (2013)

Ella Clah: The Pilot Script (with William Rabkin) (2013)

Anthologies
Fedora III (2004)
Hollywood and Crime (2007)
Three Ways to Die (2009)
Double Impact (2012) (includes the novels Watch Me Die and McGrave)
Three to Get Deadly (includes the novel The Walk) (2012)
Top Suspense (2012)
Die, Lover Die (2012)
Top Suspense: Favorite Kills (2012)
Writing Crime Fiction (2012)
Double Header (2012) (includes the novels My Gun Has Bullets and Dead Space)

The Mail I Get – Show Me The Short Cut Edition

George R.R. Martin
George R.R. Martin

Every day I get emails from writers asking me how to break into the TV business. Most of them are looking for a short cut (namely, by using me, my agent and my friends).  And most of the writers, it seems, have only a vague idea of what being a writer or producer really involves. They just like the idea of it. Take this email, for instance:

I am contacting you to ask if you can give me advice on how to be a TV writer. I discovered you on a WritersStore.com article in which you gave advice on how to break into the TV business.

My dream is to one day be an Executive Producer or Show runner for my own scripted show on television. However, I am not sure the correct route to achieve that dream. I understand that some people eventually have their own show by being a writer on many other scripted shows and working their way up. This is a path that I am reluctant to take because I am adamant about working on and putting out my vision. I am not really interested in contributing to other people shows or vision because I feel I have something unique to bring to television. Also, I have heard that some people get a TV show due to their work in the fiction world such as George R. R. Martin, the writer of Game of Thrones. I like this route better because he was able to keep his unique vision of his story without really compromising to any network or producer.

I have a lot of ideas and concepts; however, I don’t really know how to put together a cohesive story for the screen. Also, I understand to achieve any success in the film business it takes at least 10 years of hard work and networking. I was considering getting an online degree from Full Sail in creative writing or doing some kind of online writing program. What would you suggest I do considering all of this?

Do you think it is a good idea just to write a lot of short stories first as a way to get my work noticed by people? It bothers me that as of yet I have not been able to write any full length story of any kind. Can you give me advice concerning my questions? Thanks a lot.

There are so many misconceptions and bone-headed opinions in this email that I think the best thing to do is to tackle them one by one in the order in which they came up.

I am contacting you to ask if you can give me advice on how to be a TV writer. I discovered you on a WritersStore.com article in which you gave advice on how to break into the TV business.

Did you actually read the article? Because I answered almost all of your questions in it.

I understand that some people eventually have their own show by being a writer on many other scripted shows and working their way up. This is a path that I am reluctant to take because I am adamant about working on and putting out my vision.

No, that’s not the reason you are “reluctant.” You want to take a short-cut. What you don’t seem to realize is that a TV series represents a $100 million or more investment. Before a studio or network will hand you that money to “put out your vision,” you will have to earn their trust in your skill and faith in your creative vision. You earn that by proving you can write a script and produce a TV show. Which you do by working your way up. Alternatively, you can earn that trust by writing a blockbuster hit movie or perhaps writing several internationally bestselling books…but even then, they will probably pair you with an experienced showrunner…someone who has worked their way up and gained the necessary experience to run a show.

I am not really interested in contributing to other people shows or vision because I feel I have something unique to bring to television.

You don’t. There’s an old saying in TV: ideas are cheap, execution is everything. No one is interested in your ideas or your vision. Everybody has those. What’s rare is talent and skill. You may not be interested in contributing to other people’s shows or vision. Too damn bad. That’s how the business works. It’s not going to be re-invented because you a) are too full of yourself to follow established path or b) are too lazy to put in the work involved.

Also, I have heard that some people get a TV show due to their work in the fiction world such as George R. R. Martin, the writer of Game of Thrones. I like this route better because he was able to keep his unique vision of his story without really compromising to any network or producer.

game-of-thrones-season-4You like this route better because you think it’s a short-cut. It’s not. Because it’s a fantasy. I hate to break it to you, but George did his time working on other people’s shows (ie Beauty and the Beast, Twilight Zone, etc ) before getting a shot at writing his own pilots. He eventually left television and concentrated on his books. He is not running Game of Thrones, David Benioff and D.B Weiss are. Both of them, incidentally, worked their way up writing books, movies and TV shows for other people before getting this show.

I have a lot of ideas and concepts; however, I don’t really know how to put together a cohesive story for the screen.

If you can’t do that, why would anyone entrust you with $100 million to write & produce a TV series? That is why you need experience and skill…built over years of working in the business…because if you can’t put together a cohesive story, and have no idea how, you are not a showrunner or a writer. You are a development executive.

I was considering getting an online degree from Full Sail in creative writing or doing some kind of online writing program. What would you suggest I do considering all of this?

Yes, getting an education and some training in the field you’d like to enter would be a very good idea. Go back and look at the article of mine you supposedly read for more details.

Do you think it is a good idea just to write a lot of short stories first as a way to get my work noticed by people? It bothers me that as of yet I have not been able to write any full length story of any kind.

It should, especially given your grandiose notions of your own amazing talent. No, I don’t think writing short stories are the path to becoming a TV writer and showrunner. Short stories have nothing to do with TV writing and producing.

The Mail I Get – Big Fat Liar Edition

Reverse-mortgage-fraud-scamIf you’re fattening up your credits with fakery, I’m probably one of the last people you want to contact. This tale of lame fraud began as a typical, badly-written solicitation for a blurb with the usual flattery at the beginning (I’ve taken out anything that might identify the author). The miss-spellings, awkward sentence structure, etc. are all his:

Let me start by saying I absolutely hero-worship you!  I own every one of you Monk DVDs and I have one of my servers named after him. (The other one is Columbo.  Needless to say not a single hacker of a virus gets past onto Monk and Columbo.)  I have read 7 of your Monk books and the new one, The Heist, that you have written with Janet Evanovich.

I love, love, love your sense of humour and the way you weave your homour in so effortlessly.

I was delighted to find your email address and am writing to ask if you would, by some off chance, be kind enough to review my book, XYZ, is due out with publisher  XYZ, on the 6th of November.

It is literary suspense fiction, a psychological and legal thriller around an aching love story set in London and on the beautiful Scottish and South English coasts. I have injected some humour into it and would love your feedback.

SEE  MY BLURBS <link>

We should ask you to do the review it as a note to yourself in the first instance please since the book is being released only on the 6th of November. We can contact you when the book is published so that you could cut-and-paste your review on to Amazon.com.  I shall be happy to provide my publisher’s email address if you wish to provide the review to her.

I live in hope that I might hear back from you due some good karma.

I’m sure he’s regretting that hope now. Here’s what I wrote back:

Thanks for thinking of me, and for your kind words about my books, but I’m afraid I don’t have time to blurb your novel. However, I did look at your web page, where you advertise XYZ as an Edgar-nominated novel. I don’t see how it’s possible for the book to be Edgar-nomated, since it hasn’t been released yet. You also mention in your bio that you are an Edgar-nominated author.  So I looked in the MWA Edgar database, and could find no mention of you or your books. Were you nominated under another name for a different book?

I knew for certain that he was lying about being an Edgar Award nominee, but I was being polite and wanted to see how he’d explain himself.He immediately wrote back:

It is in the works and the web site is only in preparation for the release that is coming in a month. The applications have been made to MWA with a galley of the book.

He was obviously unaware that I was chair of the MWA membership committee, that I helped draft the Edgar submission rules, and that I’ve been an Edgar Awards chair and a judge. I am absolutely the wrong person to try to con on this subject. So I wrote back:

Applying for an Edgar award does NOT make you an Edgar nominee. An Edgar nomination is a great honor and highly coveted and you have not earned one yet. You need to remove the Edgar references from your site right away.

On your website, you also excerpt reviews of your book from the Washington Post and the Chicago Tribune. I have checked both newspaper sites and can find no record of the reviews. Are the reviews upcoming?

I knew that wasn’t the case, and that the reviews were fake, but I wanted to see how he’d try to talk his way out of this one. He shot back a quick reply, probably realizing by now that he’d made a big mistake contacting me and inviting me to look at his site:

Yes, from galleys.

While I was still reading that lame response, he immediately followed up with an email that he hoped would get me off his case.:

Mr. Goldberg: Don’t worry about the review. My publisher will handle the review galleys. I have to get permission from my publisher before presenting the galley for review and they have informed me I do not have permission too present it to you.

They’d informed him in the three minutes between our emails on a Sunday morning? Yeah, right. Not that it mattered. I wasn’t ready to let him off the hook yet. He was, after all, falsely claiming to be the author of an Edgar-nominated book that the Washington Post and Chicago Tribune had drooled all over. And that pissed me off. So I pressed on:

Do you mean that you’ve submitted the galleys for review…or that the Washington Post and Chicago Tribune have both reviewed the book in galleys and have sent you an advance peek at their to-be-published reviews?

I knew that wasn’t the case, either. But again, I was being outwardly nice about it. He, on the other hand, was scrambling. He replied:

They will publish the reviews on the right dates.
My website is not public until the date of publication either. It is just a work in progress for the publication date.

That explanation didn’t make much sense to me… and probably not to him, either. He’d been cornered and was not a good liar under pressure. So here’s what I wrote back:

I understand…but if you are directing potential reviewers and “blurbers” like me to a link to see the blurbs on your site, the blurbs should be real, not fake place-holders for the real reviews you hope to receive. It’s misleading.

BTW, your publisher is not on the list of MWA-approved publishers so your book is not eligible for Edgar award consideration. Your publisher needs to be vetted and approved by the membership committee before the book can be submitted for consideration.

He still wasn’t willing to admit his reviews were fake…or that he’d made a big mistake calling himself an Edgar-nominated author and his unpublished book as an “Edgar-nominated” novel. He wrote:

To clarify, the manuscript I sent was compiled my own working copy of the manuscript and not the actual galley from the publisher.
I have got a slap on my knuckles for being over-eager and enthusiastic to get into a discussion with you.

We are simply preparing things for the publication date.

We understand the requirements of the MWA. Thank you for your advice.

Here is some more advice:

1) before you contact an author for a blurb, make sure you have a well-written and coherent pitch letter.
2) Be sure you know all about the person you are contacting for a blurb. If you’re pretending to be an Edgar award nominee, don’t approach someone who used to be closely involved in the running of the Edgar Awards.
3) If you are pretending that your book has won acclaim from The Washington Post and the Chicago Tribune, don’t send your book to someone who has an internet connection and has heard of Google.
4) If you are plumping up your website with lies, don’t send a link to your site to someone who delights in ridiculing inept pitches and skewering liars regularly on his blog.

The Mail I Get – Foot in Door Edition

AFootInTheDoorEvery day I get emails from people asking me how to break into television. Here’s one that stood out this week…

I often find myself thinking that I have a “voice” that can be fine tuned into a television writing machine.  I was captain of my basketball team and voted biggest flirt and class clown.  I recently got in trouble for underage drinking at my buddy’s house and, even though I won’t get in a lot of trouble, still seem to find the funny in all of it.  As I sat on the floor of my friends house after receiving our Minor in Possession of Alcohol ticket, I couldn’t help but notice how nice the paper felt.  I didn’t think that this whole process will cost me hundreds of dollars, or how ashamed my parents were going to be, but about how silky the texture of this ticket felt.  I recently read your article on how to write a spec for an already running TV show.  It got me thinking that I can write in this industry.  Now I know that I need to craft my talent but I definitely have the self-motivation to succeed.  One of my favorite quotes is by Thomas Jefferson and he says, “I’m a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it”.  I believe in this 100%.  My question to you is, how does someone get their foot in the door of this business?

It requires more than a voice, or being a flirt, or appreciating the texture of a ticket. You need to have some writing skills and you have to learn the craft of screenwriting. It’s a good thing you’re willing to work hard, because you will have to. I’d start by taking a screenwriting class. You could also read Richard Walter’s book The Essentials of Screenwriting and my book Successful Television Writing for more tips.

The Mail I Get – Requests Edition

jennifer_anistons_house_is_a_finally_a_homeI constantly get requests from readers to send them things — mostly free books and signed photos. Here are two recent, odd examples (the names and other identifying info has been changed to spare the senders embarrassment):

Please send me a couple of your business cards signed and an autograph photo to XYZ . Could you please sign them to XYZ and date them? Well I will tell you a little about myself. I hope to one day to have a successful career in politics. I have four dogs named W, X, Y and Z. My favorite school subjects are History and Political Science. I was born in New York State…

I don’t know why he’d want a signed business card…or why knowing about his pets and the subjects he likes in school would convince me to accept his request. Then again, his request is a lot more reasonable than this one:

Can you please send me a picture of your home and car? I collect these pictures so I know how the authors that I read live and so I can picture it.

I can’t imagine there are many authors who have sent her pictures. But I’ve asked. And in the mean time, I’ve sent her a picture of Jennifer Aniston’s house and the Batmobile.