Category Archives: Writing

Screenwriting

MILIUS gets intimate at the Telluride Film Festival’s Backlot

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell

The Telluride Film Festival, presented by the National Film Preserve, has announced the official program selections for the festival’s 40th anniversary. Among the films being presented is MILIUS, Directed by Zak Knutson and Joey Figueroa.

MILIUS is a documentary about the career of one of the most legendary, influential, and controversial directors in Hollywood: John Milius. If there was ever a man who could write it to the page and blow it up onto the silver screen, it was Milius. One of the first Hollywood professionals to be a film school graduate, he was a contemporary of the likes of Spielberg and Lucas. He co-wrote the first two Dirty Harry films. He has written by credits for Apocalypse Now, Big Wednesday, Conan the Barbarian. Story by credits for Magnum Force, 1941, Extreme Prejudice, Geronimo. And he wrote the screenplays for Red Dawn, Farewell to the King, Jeremiah Johnson, Clear and Present Danger, and more. He directed Dillinger, the Wind and the Lion, Conan the Barbarian, Red Dawn, and more. He has produced six titles – including the upcoming Genghis Khan.

He has created a persona so recognizable, so larger than life, that it influenced John Goodman’s character Walter Sobchak from the Big Lebowski.

This documentary has been well received at every screening, with rave reviews from SXSW reviewers including Film Threat and Dirk Sonniksen of Smells like Screen Spirit.

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Dead Tree Books, eBook, Success Stories

Is Self-Publishing here to stay?

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell

This question was recently asked, and some mighty strange answers were provided:

“…Is self publishing here to stay? Hogwash. Self publishing will be here to stay when self published authors start showing up on Good Morning America or The View or the front page of the Huffington Post or Salon or the New York Times Book Review, and I don’t mean well known marketable authors who’ve jettisoned the mainstream publishers without which they’d still be a bunch of nobodies tweeting their asses off about their latest novel. Sure, once in a blue moon an “indie” author will break through into one of those venues, but the major publishers are still dictating what America reads. Go ahead, shoot the messenger…”

And:

“…Excuse me, I forgot this is an ebook group, so let’s add the ebook phenomenon to the print on demand phenomenon! You can publish an ebook for nothing too. Of course, with both ebooks and POD, you could pay a couple of hundred dollars for a professionally designed cover, and a few hundred dollars on up to an editor, and then you could pay I don’t know how much to a blog tour broker, and you could pay to have your book displayed on a web site promoting great reads to people looking for something to read…”

And:

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Dead Tree Books, eBook

Online retail book sales growth continues

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell

According to Tbe Bookseller website, Bowker is reporting another increase in online retail book sales.  From the article:

Online retailers, including Amazon, accounted for 44% of all book spending in the US in 2012, according to Bowker. The figure is up from 39% in 2011, while bookstore chains now account for less than 20% of book spending.

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eBook

Stephen Curry – Kindle surprise and disappointment

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell

In Occam’s Corner, hosted by The Guardian, Stephen Curry discovers that he really likes the Kindle.  From the article:

I thought I loved the physical feel of books too much to become enamoured of ebooks. I loved the heft, the smell, the touch of the paper, the firm but yielding resistance of the spine of a new paperback, the perfect cut of the pages that transforms a gathering of sheets — leaves that flutter easily between the fingers — into a near solid block. Comparisons are hard to find because there is nothing quite like a book. The intimacy of the tactile sensations, along with the joy of ideas and entertainment that are to be found between the covers of those that are well written, have combined to make the book an object not just of veneration — how many are scandalised to find second hand tomes annotated with a reader’s scratchings? — but of love.

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Dead Tree Books, eBook, Success Stories

Wait, WHAT? A self-published author turns down a publisher?

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell

Author Aubrey Rose recently wrote a blog post explaining why she decided to turn down an offer from Amazon Publishing’s Montlake Romance imprint.

Why would a self-published author turn down an overture from a publisher?  An offer that included royalties, even?

From her post:

“…Naturally, I was thrilled. A real publisher wanted my work! I chatted with her briefly on the phone and asked her a ton of questions: What kind of cover would they create for me? What promotions would they do? What control would I have over everything? Although I was excited to work with Amazon, I wanted to know that they would treat my book right. She told me my novel was a great read and very clean writing, and that she would love to “partner” with me in relaunching my book through Amazon’s imprint.

However, she couldn’t guarantee anything – from cover image to pricing to marketing…”

Ah, ha!  Well, that’s par for the publisher course.  But wait, there’s more:

“…The advance they offered was less than I had made in my first month of sales. As I looked through the Montlake catalogue, I saw a mix of breakout hits and complete flops, with some recent books that just had the worst covers imaginable for romance. And I would have to pull my book from every publisher except Amazon…”

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