Looking on my previous posts for something new to write about, I found an old post I put up here in November. As you may recall (or if you just read it), I got a rejection from a publisher on the grounds that the idea I sent him was not new enough. So I immediately sent him a proposal for a book on a topic that I positively know hasn't been written about for nearly a hundred years. In case you're interested, it concerns the man who was regarded as New York City's top lawyer in the 1920s. He was known as "the Jail Robber," for his ability to keep his clients out of jail. One of his clients was Nicky Arnstein, who was the husband of Fanny Brice, the person whose life story was the subject of the musical play and movie Funny Girl. In Funny Girl, Nicky goes to jail for getting caught up in some scheme that he shouldn't have. Of course, he's really a good guy.
The truth is completely different. Nicky was accused of being a "mastermind" of a complex scheme to steal more than $5 million worth of stocks and bonds, and implicated in murdering one of the messengers who carried the stocks. How the Jail Robber took his case to the Supreme Court, and established a new legal precedent, is only one of the cases in my proposed book.
Well, the long and short of it is that I never heard from the publisher. Nothing at all, which is par for the course in the publishing world today, even though it's easier than ever just to send somebody a quick email saying you're not interested. So be prepared to be ignored if you're trying to sell a book. That's my tip for today.

Zhou Youguang, the man who developed the pinyin system of writing for China, died yesterday. He was 111. His obituary mentions that he published 10 books after he turned 100. Encouragement!

Incidentally, in my last post I mentioned sending a proposal to a publisher. He never responded, despite the fact that email makes it easy to send a stock rejection to writers' proposals. Agents frequently do this too. Does that indicate anything about the contempt they have for writers? I think so.

One of the many things that irritates me about the publishing world is that agents invariably tell you that when you prepare a proposal for a nonfiction book, you must include the titles of at least three recently published books that are similar to the one you're proposing. When I first saw this, some years ago now, I assumed it was to reassure publishers that your idea was original. But I soon learned that the opposite was the case: publishers are as insecure as a herd of sheep--or at least agents think they are. They want to be assured that other publishers have found your topic suitable enough to take the risk of publishing it.
So the other day I was pleased to get a rejection from a publisher to whom I'd sent a proposal. (As you probably know, it's extremely difficult to find a publisher who will even consider direct submissions from that lowest of creatures, the writer. Publishers want to be assured that some person calling himself or herself an agent has already approved of the work.)
Anyway this publisher replied quickly and praised the idea, but said he was turning it down because "there's not enough here that's new."
Wow. So I immediately sent him a proposal for a biography I've been working on for some time, but about which I knew that one of the my former agents would tell me, "Nobody has ever heard of this person." That's another rule: you can't write about anything that readers are likely to find unusual or different.
So we'll see what the publisher's reply is to this.

Saw a news report that scientists writing in the Journal Social Science and Medicine report that people who read books LIVE LONGER. People who read up to 3 1/2 hours a week were 17 percent less likely to die over a 12-year period than those who didn't read books. And those who read more than 3 1/2 hours a week were 23 percent less likely to die. So get off the Internet and pick up a book! Especially one that we wrote.

OK, so I found out that Blogspot has a word limit, and I reached it. But to continue...

You're supposed to be CREATING the material. (We artists like to feel we're creating, even if it's half a cent per word.) So I would strongly doubt I could churn out 3,000 words an hour.

No matter, because if you've read the preceding blog entry, you have probably already realized that the secret of making money in publishing is to provide services to those drudges, writers. I already knew it was more profitable to be an agent than I writer, but this now convinces me that writers truly are on the bottom of the publishing food chain. So there you are. Good luck.

I finally figured out how to make money in publishing, and I'm going to share it. I received an unsolicited email today offering me various publishing services for $15 each. Here's a sampling:

d) I can post an "author spotlight" for your book on a highly popular blog.

e) I can add 30 likes to your positive reviews on Goodreads. All likes come from unique accounts and multiple IPs.

f) I can add your book to 35 - 40 popular listopia lists by voting for them. All votes come from unique accounts and multiple IPs.
g) Do you have a free ebook in PDF format you want to share with the world? I can distribute your free PDF to 15 TOP QUALITY websites. These websites rank high in search engines and are considered to be authority sites for PDF sharing.
h) My BESTSELLER SO FAR: I will rate your book with as many stars you want on Goodreads, post 1 honest review, mark your book as 'read', become your fan and add your book to the listopia list of your choice.

 That's $15 apiece for those "services," OK? So for all 5 would be $75. He offers a discount if you want all of his services.

Now, then. Compare that with an ad I saw on Craigslist. I often check to see what kinds of gigs they're offering writers, since as you may know, I am a writer.
The ad is seeking people to write erotica for a "new publishing company," not named. They will send you an outline of what you're supposed to write--apparently just a chapter or two, since other writers will be working on other parts of the book. I guess they want to publish as quickly as possible, so why not have many people work on the books?
Anyway, here's the kicker: they're offering $.005 cents a word. That's half a cent per word. They say that rate is "as per Amazon that's the market rate now." I didn't know Amazon published market rates for working writers, but maybe I missed it. Now this "new publishing company" says you should be able to write 3,000 words per hour, and if you do the math that's a rate of $15 an hour. I think I'm a pretty fast typist, but I don't think I type that fast, and remember you're supposed to be CREATING

An award-winning independent film maker has approached Dorothy and me about making a film of IN DARKNESS, DEATH, our YA mystery that won an Edgar award. This would be exciting, to say the least, but experience has told us that interest in making movies is not the same thing as making movies. However, Larry (the film maker) has been sending us links to sites that tell us about the movie business. The latest one was a post by a man who has produced several movies, notably PRETTY WOMAN, the Julia Roberts movie where she plays a prostitute (highly glamorized prostitute, as you may recall.) Anyway this post is rather inspirational, not only for film-makers but for writers, so I thought I would post the link here, in case anybody feels the need for encouragement:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWh9Wgur9hI