Man Meat Monday

Long and lean and hard...

Friday Funny

Little Bruce and Jenny are only 10 years old, but they know they are in love. One day they decide that they want to get married, so Bruce goes to Jenny's father to ask him for her hand. Bruce bravely walks up to him and says, "Mr. Smith, me and Jenny are in love and I want to ask you for her hand in marriage."

Thinking that this was just the cutest thing, Mr. Smith replies, "Well Bruce, you are only 10. Where will you two live?"

Without even taking a moment to think about it, Bruce replies, "In Jenny's room. It's bigger than mine and we can both fit there nicely."

Still thinking this is just adorable, Mr. Smith says with a huge grin, "Okay, then how will you live? You're not old enough to get a job. You'll need to support Jenny."

Again, Bruce instantly replies, "Our allowance, Jenny makes five bucks a week and I make 10 bucks a week. That's about 60 bucks a month, so that should do us just fine."

Mr. Smith is impressed Bruce has put so much thought into this. "Well Bruce, it seems like you have everything figured out. I just have one more question. What will you do if the two of you should have little children of your own?"

Bruce just shrugs his shoulders and says, "Well, we've been lucky so far."



Mr. Smith no longer thinks the little shit is so adorable...

Highest Paid Authors

Forbes recently ran an article listing the top 10 highest earning authors. The lead sentence: "Times may be tough for book sellers, but for Stephen King, James Patterson and Stephenie Meyer, the money keeps rolling in." Uh-huh. Times are tough for most authors, too. Just not these folks:

1. James Patterson
   
2. Stephenie Meyer
3. Stephen King
   
4. Danielle Steel
   
5. Ken Follett
   
6. Dean Koontz
   
7. Janet Evanovich
8. John Grisham
   
9. Nicholas Sparks
   
10. J.K. Rowling
    

Top on the list is James Patterson. From the Forbes' article:

Patterson's literary empire includes television, comic book and gaming deals. His foreign sales alone bring in well over $10 million a year. Patterson's e-books are posting respectable numbers, too. I, Alex Cross alone has sold 160,000 units digitally. Ironic, given that there's no computer in his home office--Patterson writes all his novels in longhand. To date he has published 51 New York Times best sellers.

I haven't read any of Patterson's books. I have seen a couple of the Alex Cross movies and really enjoyed them. (Plus I get a kick out of Patterson appearing on the TV series Castle.)

The article goes on:

Vampire romance author Stephenie Meyer ranks second this year. Her Twilight series has become such a juggernaut that despite not releasing a new title in 2009, she earned $40 million over the year. About $7 million of that came from movies adapted from the Twilight series. In June the third Twilight installment pulled in $175 million in its first six days, the most successful first week of any movie of 2010.

Let me just say that the majority of authors don't make anywhere near this amount of money. Most of us hold day jobs, struggle to pay the rent/mortgage and have bigger balances on our credit cards than we'd like. I don't dream about getting rich like these folks; I dream of the day when I can quit the day job and support myself with my writing.

Have you read these authors? What do you think of their writing?

Man Meat Monday

Is that an invitation? I think it might be...

Friday Funny

Dogs are so goofy! LOL

Buyer Beware

Publishers Marketplace recently pointed its readers toward an article in the Indy Star about yet another literary scam, this time based in Indiana. The Indiana Attorney General's office says at least seven written complaints have been received in recent days from authors who say they paid money to New Century Publishing, owned by David William Caswell--but didn't receive printed copies of their books.

The authors, who include several prominent Hoosier politicians and first-time writers from around the country, generally claim they lost between $1,500 and $10,000 in dealings with New Century and Caswell. Unfortunately for them, this is not Caswell's first run-in with the Indiana Attorney General. The State sued him twice, in 1990 and 2005, over consumer complaints related to his employment service companies. In both cases the courts ordered him to pay a total of $99,000 in restitution and fines. As of the date of the article, he's only paid $600.

The sad thing is that the red flags were out there. A Google search on New Century Publishing turned up a link to Yahoo Answers where a writer had asked for help. The response:

Red flag, a huge one, popped up when I read their website. They have a clear conflict of interest. While they insist they are not a self publisher or vanity press, because they offer all services of a traditional, mass market publisher, their authors are required to pay for their editorial and design services.

If that's not enough to convince you to avoid them (and it should be), I checked two of their featured titles and neither is sold at Amazon or Barnes & Noble's websites.

One of the first things I learned about publishing is that the money should flow TO the writer, not FROM the writer. (Yes, yes, there are some things a writer must pay for--website services, marketing, giveaway items such as pens, bookmarks, etc. Sometimes a writer may elect to pay someone to edit their manuscript--though I'm not sure that's the right step to take. A good critique group would serve you better and cost you nothing.) But to pay to actually get the book published...not a good idea. If an author is required to pay the publisher for any part of the publishing process--editing, design, marketing, distribution--then the publisher is NOT a traditional, mass market publisher. They are a vanity press, plain and simple.

For more on this, Victoria Strauss blogged about this last Monday on behalf of Writer Beware here.

Caveat emptor, let the buyer beware.

Man Meat Monday

Wow. Just...wow.