Category Archives: Publishing

THE MORALITY OF PRICING

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There’s been a lot of web chatter lately about what I’d call the morality of book pricing.

The loudest noise, with perhaps the widest ramifications, came last year when the Justice Department accused Apple and the Big Five publishers of conspiring to raise e-book prices. In its war with Amazon for consumer dollars, Apple, according to the Justice Department, had colluded with the publishers to keep the prices of their new e-books well above Amazon’s uniform pricing of $9.99.

A few of the publishers folded quickly and agreed to pay the government substantial penalties. The others and Apple decided to fight but eventually folded as well, or in Apple’s case, lost badly.… Go Away!

MY FRIEND ELMORE LEONARD

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As it has for most booklovers, both readers and writers, this week has been a sad one for me. We lost Elmore Leonard at 87 this week, for my money the greatest crime novelist of our time. Beyond his greatness as a writer, Dutch was a good man and a good friend. I had not seen him in a few years, and I certainly would not claim any special bond or connection. Many others were much closer to Elmore. But there is also a sense in which he was a special friend to all writers, with his terrific 10 Rules of Writing and, perhaps even more so, as a model of the devoted, unpretentious and wonderfully productive artist and craftsman.… Go Away!

EPIC PRISON SCAM VS. EPIC GENDER WAR, Part 2

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Last time I spent most of a lengthy post on John Grisham’s hot new one, The Racketeer and promised a comparison of sorts with Gillian Flynn’s super bestseller, Gone Girl. (If you want to catch up first, please click here.) One of the things these books have in common is the timeless power of good storytelling.

Yes, I guess by now we’ve all read about the Flynn book’s inventive plotting, fascinating (and unreliable) narrators, rich themes and savvy style. And let me say up front, I liked much of it and for those very traits that so many others have noted.… Go Away!

EPIC PRISON SCAM VS. EPIC GENDER WAR, Part 1

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Sorry, if you’ve dropped by here at all this year, you’ve found the same damn self-serving post day after day, week after week, month after month. And so you probably concluded that I was either dead or too busy to blog. Fortunately it was the latter.

I’ve been putting the finishing touches (always a treacherous trap for me ) to a couple of new crime novels, in what I’m calling The detroit im dyin Trilogy. So more about these new books later.

Right now I’d like to offer some thoughts on two novels that have battled lately for those coveted top spots on the NY Times hardcover bestseller list: John Grisham’s recently released legal thriller The Racketeer and Gillian Flynn’s still wildly popular gender thriller, Gone Girl.… Go Away!

DON’T HIDE YOUR LIGHT UNDER A BUSHEL

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Okay, far be it from me to argue with a classic old saying that apparently goes all the way back to Matthew (5:14-16) in the New Testament:

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

The problem is we live in the Era of Snow-Blindness, a time when all of us are enveloped by the digital blizzard, with screens of all sizes shimmering in every corner and the Net buzzing insistently in our pockets.… Go Away!

WHY I DISAPPEARED

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Kristine Kathryn Rusch, one of our most prolific and important bloggers on the business of writing and publishing, recently wrote a lengthy 3-part series of posts titled, “Why Writers Disappear.” There is something in it for just about every writer, and it certainly caught my eye, because, after all, I am a writer who, about 40 years ago, disappeared.

Kris starts by listing a dozen reasons why writers disappear and then goes into considerable detail on each of those reasons. Of course, I quickly scanned through the list, searching for one or more that might match up with my own experience.… Go Away!

PLEASED AND GRATIFIED

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If you’re a writer, you know there may be nothing as pleasing and gratifying as a warm word of approval from someone whose opinion you deeply value. Well, yes, sufficient book sales to allow full-time work on the next book is also pretty cool.

I’ve been fortunate enough to experience the former, though not the latter, but what was that line from the incomparable Fran Lebowitz? Something about an author’s premature death from insufficient praise?

So today I came across a review of my novel The Obsession from a woman I greatly admire, Victoria Best, perhaps better known as the blogger Ms.… Go Away!

BUYING BOOK REVIEWS

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Suddenly two weekends ago (8/25-26)…

All those contentious words flying around the web for weeks on the subject of book reviews (Too nice? Too nasty? Not worth the trouble?) got trumped. In a sprightly expose in the New York Times with the irresistible title, “The Best Book Reviews Money Can Buy,” David Streitfeld caused a firestorm of comments (331 the last time I looked) by describing a handy little service that once was available but is no more.

The brainchild of a guy named Todd Rutherford, a shrewd entrepreneur with a convenient conscience, GettingBookReviews.com opened for business in the fall of 2010.… Go Away!

THINGS HAVE CHANGED (Part 3)

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So this is the third and last installment of this series…

In Part 1 and Part 2 I’ve been asking, are Murder in the Synagogue and Squelched: The Suppression of Murder in the Synagogue irrelevant, ancient history?  If not, why not?

So how common is what Prentice-Hall did to Murder? As I recount in Squelched, soon after the publication of Murder, I heard directly from two prominent literary agents on the subject. The very successful Julian Bach gestured at his office window overlooking 48th Street and told me, “Look, this 20-square-block area of Manhattan is the publishing establishment in this country, and they’ve all had their experiences like this.”… Go Away!

THINGS HAVE CHANGED (Part 2)

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Last time…

I wrote about my books Murder in the Synagogue and Squelched: The Suppression of Murder in the Synagogue and ended by asking what, if anything, their fate 40 years ago might add to the conversation we’re having about the Great Shift in publishing these days. You can catch up with that post here.

One of the things people say after reading Squelched is that so many of the details are reminders of things past. For example, the size of the advance Prentice-Hall gave me for writing Murder: $8500 back in 1966 when Puzo got five grand for what turned out to be one of the best-selling novels of all time.… Go Away!

THINGS HAVE CHANGED

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Oh, you’ve noticed?

Yes, a pretty common observation from those interested in books and publishing these days. But I’ve got a story about the Great Shift that’s a bit unusual and might shed a different light.

It was 1970—I know, people still lived in caves back then, but stick with me for a moment—a big year for me with the publication of Murder in the Synagogue, my true crime account of the killing of Rabbi Morris Adler in a suburban Detroit temple on Lincoln’s birthday, 1966. An assassination it was called, one of several, you may remember, in those turbulent years.… Go Away!