Crime Expert BURL BARER. Edgar Award Winner and NYT Bestselling Author

What's so Funny?

  The Art of Comedy: Getting Serious About Being Funny
Paul Ryan is funny. Paul Ryan is clever. Paul Ryan  is an expert on funny -- and comedy is serious business, and as such it is best left to trained professionals.

Paul Ryan is seriously funny, and a trained professional who trains others in the Art of Comedy.  If you have ever wanted to be funny, or understand what the difference is between "being funny" and "doing funny," I seriously suggest you buy, read and enjoy Paul Ryan's book, The Art of Comedy. I know it is not true crime, or about The Saint, but it is a book that you will certainly enjoy.

LIONS FOR LAMBS/ I'M NOT THERE

OMG!  This was another non-stop movie marathon weekend. First, I'm Not There, featuring Cate Blanchett  (among others) filling in for Bob Dylan in scenes re-created from the classic documentary, Don't Look Back. Cate is incredible -- and whomever was her body movement coach deserves special mention. She has Dylan's body movement's down perfectly.


Next, we watched Clint Eastwood and Gene Hackman + E.G. Marshall kick cinematic ass in ABSOLUTE POWER. If you missed this one, go rent it.

Then, every bit as yakkity-yak long-winded blah blah boring as you've heard, LIONS FOR LAMBS made you want to slap Robert Redford for not having the good sense to cut about fifteen minutes of his own screen time out of this exasperating film. It is like one of those "educational films" they used to show in high school with stilted unrealistic dialog -- primarily in Redford's scenes, despite some unexpected and clever one liners.
Meryle Streep is wonderful, and Tom Cruise is great -- but even these talents can't save a movie that does nothing, goes nowhere, and fails to engage.  WAR IS BAD. POLITICIANS ARE SCUMBAGS. THE AMERICAN MEDIA GAVE UP BEING THE WATCH DOG AND BECAME THE LAP DOG OF POLITICS. See, you read that all in a few seconds and you didn't need to buy a ticket, pay for parking, and listen to people drone on for hours.

HEAD SHOT KILLER PAROLED

Andrew Webb, featured killer in my book HEAD SHOT has been paroled. Actually, he's been out now for a couple years. He was a model prisoner, and everyone thought he was a dandy chap. One Washington State Prison employee who knew him recently contacted me and said:  "Andrew told me the story of how he wound up in prison, and it sounded good. Then one day I stumbled upon your book, HEADSHOT. I read it and was stunned to find out the REAL story! His story and your story did not have much in common. Yours was true."

THE POWER OF TELEVISION

"I seen you on the dog wisperer and just had to tell you i thought you were very handsome and sexy i know this probley sounds crazy but just thought i would tell you and would love to chat with you sometime..."

Good for the ego?
Damn right, and this time it wasn't from a 47 year old male math teacher in Vermont.

WHY THE WRITERS ARE ON STRIKE

PUBLISH AMERICA -- AN INSIDE VIEW

Publish America has had more than its share of bad press and is often termed a Vanity Press. Recently, however, I heard from a very pleased PA author who has never paid a cent to have his books published, although he has probably spent more money on ink cartridges to print his ms., and on gasoline to make it to his book signings, than he has made in royalties He does acknowledge that his sales are in the hundreds, not in the thousands or tens of thousands, that they pay 8% on the first 1000 books, and at his current sales rate, it may take him three years to sell 1000 books, but he is happy, who am I to rain on his literary parade? 

Here is what he had to say:

I submitted my first book and it took a year for it to go through the process. The editor made numerous changes in grammar errors that my program did not acknowledge. Do they use a program that is better than Word, I don't know. When I submitted my second book (after it had been edited my someone with a degree in English locally), I tried to use the express option to get it out quicker. But it didn't happen because the editor found too many grammar errors, so it was held up from quick release.

My books are listed on online bookstores such as Amazon, Barnes and Noble, etc. As for being on the shelves of bookstores, yes they are. Every book signing that I have done, the store has ordered the books for me to sign. If you go into any Hastings that I have done a book signing at, you will find my books on the shelf. If they sell out (which does happen) they will order more, even if I'm not coming back to their store any time soon. The only exception are the stores like Barnes & Noble. These big stores do not carry a lot of unknown authors works because they couldn't possibly have enough shelf space. But you can walk in and they will order the book.

Price of the book is a sore subject. Yes the books are priced what I feel a little bit over what most people would pay  Have I lost customers because of what they feel is too much to pay for an unknown author's work? I would say probably yes. But have I gained readers from those that have read the book and told their friends about, probably yes. Only 75 copies? The first year 105 copies sold,  only because I did few book signings. The second year, I increased my booksignings and the bookstores had sold 150 by June. These numbers do not reflect those books that I took to private book signings and such, which were another 200. If you sit around on your ass, yes you probably would sell 75 or less.

My book is in libraries. I have not had anyone tell me that they were not coded right, or that PA was considered a vanity press. (On this I will comment: One of the reasons that I selected PA to publish my work was because I did not pay them a single cent to have the book published. I had numerous vanity presses try to have me print with them, but I refused to go that route and still do.
I have signed 3 contracts with PA. Yes they hold the publishing rights for your book for 7 years.

I suggested that this author, quite a charming and dedicated fellow, consider making efforts to move his series to a publisher with a less "checkered" reputation.  His response was, not surprisingly, similar to the responses of almost every writer who has banged their literary head against the traditional  publishing wall:

Yes some day I would like to be published by one of those big companies in New York. But reality is that you cannot even talk to them if you are a writer. The "big" publishers will only take works that are submitted through agents. So you say "get an agent", I respond "have you ever tried to get an agent?"

"I have sent out hundreds of query letters to agencies asking them for representation. In response, none of them have said that my work isn't great, but its either: Not for them, They have too many clients at this time, They don't represent action/adventure, They don't represent romantic works, They don't represent scifi, They don't represent mystery, They don't represent horror, They don't represent new authors, They only take established authors, They only take authors referred to them by their published authors, They only look at works at conferences and the list goes on and on. Of course they wish me lots of luck, but the fact is that they do not take chances, which they feel that I am."

"PA doesn't publisize their authors: What book company does. I think the last TV commercial I saw for a book was L Ron Hubbard's Dyantics. Most of the time you don't know that a book exist until it is made into a movie, then you find that the book is a whole lot better than the movie was.
d. PA doesn't pay royalties: They only pay a one dollar advance to the author. Then they pay 8% for the first 1000, then % goes up with more sales.
It all comes down to this. I'm not paying anyone to publish my books. As long as my books are selling, I'm happy. The more I get out there and tell others about my books, the more sales happen."
---
What can I say?  My mass market paperbacks sell 50-100,000 copies per year. That doesn't make me rich, nor exceptionally famous. My least selling book is also my highest priced book -- $35.95 per copy -- but I wrote it back in 1993 and I still earn almost $1,000 a year in royalties from it for doing nothing except cashing the checks.  The fellow who is published by PA didn't pay to publish his book. He gets paid royalties. That makes him an author in my book, even if his publisher is a bit "iffy."  Hell, I've been there. I was paid $25,000 by NPI for the rights to MAN OVERBOARD when, it turns out, they were a vanity publisher for everyone except me! I was the only one being paid, everyone else paid THEM. When MAN OVERBOARD was under consideration for the Edgar, and actually nominated for an Anthony Award, I had to show proof that the book was NOT self-published due to the reputation of the publisher.  Once I established that I didn't pay a cent for it to be published, and that I was indeed paid an advance (a damn nice one, too), MAN OVERBOARD was accepted as a "valid entry" despite NPI being well known as a vanity press.  So, perhaps the moral of the story is, in part "You can't tell a book by its publisher/printer"

His frustration in getting an agent to rep his work, or a "New York Publisher" to consider his material is something, thankfully, that I have not encountered.  I've been damn lucky, if luck has anything to do with it.  Although, even agents I've worked with in the past have passed on representing various projects -- either because they are "overbooked," or they simply (and often wisely) don't see the project as economically viable or timely.

ANN RULE -- THE AUTHOR BESIDE ME

Ann Rule and Burl Barer. Yes, we know each other.

           

     I am often asked if I know
Ann Rule . Yes, Ann and I know each other, and we had a glorious time together a few years back teaching and mentoring at the Widbey Island Writers Conference.  She is a kind and gracious lady, and has always been most supportive and encouraging.  We both had books nominated the same year for the Anthony Award for the Best True Crime book. My nomination was for MAN OVERBOARD; hers was for DEAD BY SUNSET.  Ann's book won the award, and I was thrilled at my nomination.  Neither of us realized at the time that "we"  show up in each other's books.  Ann Rule's daughter appears in MAN OVERBOARD because she is a friend of one of the main characters.  My family appears in DEAD BY SUNSET because the victim worked for my brother's law firm. What are the odds of that?
I haven't seen Ann in some time as both of us are busy writing, touring, and investigating, but it is always a pleasure to share time and space with one of the world's most popular true crime authors and, more importantly, fine human being.

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Burl Barer