Posted By Maximus on 23 May 2012 06:42 AM

Otherwise, can one write a book based on a series he doesn't give a shit about? Would that not show through their writing? 

Guess not always.

And yes, it's a flat fee for service. Which includes all editions of the work, audio, digital, film rights (ha, ha), etc.

 

Speaking of audiobook rights. Graphic Audio released audiobook version of this book. http://www.graphicaudio.n...laces-of-light.aspx.

I am sure Graphic Audio has streamlined the book. In fact I just finished a Rogue Angel book where they cut 1/4 of the book, changed 40-50% of the dialogue, and even added an extra scene. Book was barely five hours.

Yet they let customers believe that all their products are unabridged. In fact they lied to someone on facebook. I hate this false advertising.

Posted By vcoolwater on 23 May 2012 01:47 PM
Speaking of audiobook rights. Graphic Audio released audiobook version of this book. http://www.graphicaudio.n...laces-of-light.aspx.

I am sure Graphic Audio has streamlined the book.

Apparently some might consider this an act of mercy.

I have a hard time being upset by it. They are not unabridged books on tape, they are audio adaptations presented essentially as a radio play complete with music and sound effects. For an audio book that is simply text being read aloud, I expect the text to be identical. For a radio play adaptation, I don't see it any differently than a film or television adaptation. Accommodations for the medium happen.

I have no problem with the books being abridged. I have problem with them not being upfront about it. They should post on their website that some of the books are abridged or they are adaptations of the book. They are fooling their customers into believing that the books are unabridged, when in actual they are cutting 2-3 chapters of story. In fact, they try to avoid letting their customers know that they abridged the books or they cut parts out. This is exteremly low and deceptive.

Some people only buy unabridged books. In fact when I started listening to Graphic Audio, I throught I was listening to the book unabridged with it being act out. I was surprised when I found out they cut 2-3 whole chapters of story.

Posted By AP on 23 May 2012 02:44 AM

Posted By Maximus on 22 May 2012 06:40 PM

But c'mon! If the writer cares, (as it appears you did, despite your self-proclaimed burn-out), and still managed to churn out solid adventure after solid adventure, then does it not therefore falls upon the writer to either give up, or churn out a 'decent' script every once in a while?

Maximus,

You don't get it. A writer-for-hire and a writer-for-royalties (someone producing original, proprietary work) are completely different species. Even if Boot wiped his butt with DL 18 times, he has done nothing to be ashamed of. I realize this may be crushing news, but in this kind of arrangement you aren't the author's audience. The only audience for a writer-for-hire is the chucklehead at the publisher who is passing out the contracts. And at GE that person probably hasn't read one word of the DL books. Bottom line: a writer-for-hire doesn't care how his books sell because it won't increase or decrease his pay or get him fired. A writer-for-hire doesn't care if he pisses you off for the same reason.

 

As for my product at GE, I think I already explained that I have OCD. The only way I could've written worse books was to go on medication.

 

AP,

With all due respect to you who know the industry, I think your burnout is still present, and that is sad. But you don't get it...whether you are writing-for-hire, or writing-for-royalties, the audience has to be readers. Without readers books are indeed toiler paper. If you write uninspired stories, the readers see that and (most) readers won't continue their investment in you and eventually you won't get rehired.  I'm guessing GE uses some sort of performance metric to measure the revenue being generated by their writers-for-hire.

Or is that what you are trying to explain to us...that it doesn't matter how much more we demand Chuck Rogers compared to complaining about Andy Boot...the mindless readers are still buying whatever the machine puts out?  Where we assume we're driving off buyers of an episode with our scathing (yet truthful) reviews - that is not affecting any performance metric that GE execs care about?  Is DL such a small component of their revenue stream they don't notice or care?

 

Posted By Timbermountain on 23 May 2012 06:51 PM

AP,

With all due respect to you who know the industry, I think your burnout is still present, and that is sad. But you don't get it...whether you are writing-for-hire, or writing-for-royalties, the audience has to be readers. Without readers books are indeed toiler paper. If you write uninspired stories, the readers see that and (most) readers won't continue their investment in you and eventually you won't get rehired.  I'm guessing GE uses some sort of performance metric to measure the revenue being generated by their writers-for-hire.

Or is that what you are trying to explain to us...that it doesn't matter how much more we demand Chuck Rogers compared to complaining about Andy Boot...the mindless readers are still buying whatever the machine puts out?  Where we assume we're driving off buyers of an episode with our scathing (yet truthful) reviews - that is not affecting any performance metric that GE execs care about?  Is DL such a small component of their revenue stream they don't notice or care?

 

If GE authors got fired because readers on this site hated their work, how did Boot manage to write 18 DLs? If you are guessing GE is organized enough to have a "performance metric" by which it measures individual author product you are guessing wrong. They don't even know how many books sold until a year or more after publication. Figure in another year of lag time between an author turning in a ms and publication, and an author could have contracts for five or six more books before the results from the first one even comes in. And then it's another year (with three more completed books already in the pipeline) to see if the author has improved!  GE is a stable of ghosts, a bad book here and there averages out over time, and more important than having stinkers in the mix, GE has to have finished books to drop into the printing schedule--which is actually Harlequin's enormous printing schedule. If there aren't books for the slots, the whole system falls apart.

What I am telling you is just that: you have no power to influence anything at GE. Nothing you do or say is going to change anything. Posters on this site have been complaining about exactly the same things (a tape loop of grievance) since the site first appeared, what, 12 years ago? The GE imprint is such an insignificant part of the Harlequin Enterprises, Inc. revenue stream that nobody in charge of that global octopus gives a damn what happens to it. 

The only GE author who ever had a dog in the fight you are describing (original work, building and holding an audience) was Mark Ellis.

P.S.: How you can long distance diagnose burn-out when you don't know me from shit?

Al makes some very good points. And GE is indeed a very small cog in the Harlequin marketing wheel. But rest assured that there is a bottom line regarding sales figures. If GE products don't meet that bottom line or dips below, GE will close its doors. .

Given how quickly Room 59 came and went (which is a shame, I really enjoyed the series), I gather there must me some kind of minimum sales threshold to keep a series going. I expect Deathlands is cruising on a fair amount of momentum at this point, though.

Posted By Wordsmith-reprise on 24 May 2012 12:12 AM
Al makes some very good points. And GE is indeed a very small cog in the Harlequin marketing wheel. But rest assured that there is a bottom line regarding sales figures. If GE products don't meet that bottom line or dips below, GE will close its doors. .

Sure Cathy, but you're talking about the imprint's total sales, or total sales of a particular series, not the sales of individual authors' work in a series. There is no bottom line for that.  The good, the bad, the ugly, it all gets averaged in.

Posted By AP on 23 May 2012 08:21 PM

The only GE author who ever had a dog in the fight you are describing (original work, building and holding an audience) was Mark Ellis.

And even then...

Posted By )3az )3aziah on 22 May 2012 11:28 AM
My copy arrived yesterday and I must say i am finding it oh so hard to continue to read this one. Line after line of pointless dialogue telling us the thought processes involved with scratching your arse, oh the tedium. Andy boot has done himself proud with this one.

On a side note, Ryan and J.B visited the Mesa Verde canyons in Road Wars, why didn't they remember this fact and just make for the way in that they knew from the last occasion? Maybe because in Andy Boots world they never did visit it simply because he has never read the book...

Jim

I skimmed the rest of this book after finding myself reading the same line several times over, such was the lack of attention this book holds for the reader. Looking back now, only some 24hrs since the last page, I can hardly recall the story at all.

I disliked the method he chose to write this, it was disjointed and lacked any sort of oomph!! Andy Boot can write a good story but not a Deathlands one. His over expressive way of explaining every minute detail of a characters thoughts appears to have been used here to pad out an all but empty tale that I am guessing he based off of the "pied piper" tale of old.

2/10 and only for the verbose writing style.

 

Jim

 

Well Victor Milan, you're up for the next two!

 

God let him PLEASE knock it out of the ballpark...

These reviews are disheartening. I actually just received this in the mail today after waiting for it all month, hence why I was on-line looking for reviews and stumbled across these forums. Especially after the awesomeness that was Hell Road warriors.

This turned up last week but from all the "rave" reviews I think its going to the very bottom off my "to read" pile.

Posted By SP on 25 May 2012 06:15 PM
These reviews are disheartening. I actually just received this in the mail today after waiting for it all month, hence why I was on-line looking for reviews and stumbled across these forums. Especially after the awesomeness that was Hell Road warriors.

Don’t bother to read it.  In fact, just throw it away.  Save yourself the aggravation.

I really love Deathlands and look forward to each book, but this one is painfull to read.

I just finished hellbenders. It wasn't that bad. But you folks are making it real hard for me to even start the new book....

 

Is it as bad as salvation road? or worse?

 

Salvation Road is far from Boot's worst book - it wasn't even that bad, IMO, just a little slow. Hellbenders was marginally better, only in that it had more action.

Here's something I learned from reading several of Boot's books recently: for some reason, he thinks that the LeMat has one ball chamber, instead of nine (not only that - he actually had Doc fire both chambers at once one time). Dedication to writing a good story aside, if you really cared about what you were doing, you would at least do the minimal amount of effort to get the details correct, right? I could understand missing something that happened 20 books ago, but this is information that you can find on the internet in 10 minutes. Since firearms feature strongly in DL books, it seems like you'd want to get those details right in any case.

Salvation road is one of his worst In my opinion. And you know what opinions are like...

 

The thing is I really enjoy a lot of Mr. Boot's work. I also feel that when he has to write more then 2 in a sequence that possibly he is burnt out on DL in general. As the pace is slow as mollases with generic barons and the endings abrubtly end suckingly.