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No Horror For Owen King
From: www.writerswrite.com

" The Associated Press reports that Stephen King's younger son is now an author himself. Owen King has just published a novella novella entitled We?re All In This Together, which is described as "an imaginative and absurdly humorous tale of political partisanship run amok, laced with quirky characters whose bizarre behavior offers an object lesson in the perils of zealotry." What, no ghosts, demons or possessions? Apparently not.

To Owen King, 28, this reflects a desire to cut his own path and see his work accepted or rejected on its merits. But an even stronger motive, he said, is to dispel any assumption that he is writing in the same genre as his father.

"I don?t think it?s fair for Stephen King fans to be deceived, and I know I?m a Stephen King fan," he said in an interview outside the Bangor Public Library. "The last thing I want to do is to present something as ?Stephen King, Part II,? and have it be something that?s a big disappointment."

He considered using a pen name, but was put off by the idea of going by an alias when meeting people or having a go-between handle details of his professional life. The prospect seemed too complex and too weird. ....King acknowledged that his book is grabbing more attention than would a first-time effort by a writer without comparable lineage, but he seems to have made a conscious effort not to capitalize on his father?s fame.

"I think the model that I look at is someone like Jakob Dylan, whose dad is obviously every bit if not more famous than mine," King said. "He?s a guy who sought to build a career on his own, doing something that?s a little bit different than what his father does."

"This is an unusual way to have your ashes spread, and it's a large gathering because (my father) knew a lot of people," his only son said, referring to the use of a 153-foot "cannon" to scatter the writer's ashes and the some 300 invited guests. "But what it comes down to is this is saying goodbye to my dad's ashes."

"This is the last time that all of his friends are going to be getting together to say goodbye to him - and that does not mean it's all going to be weeping and gnashing of teeth, but it's going to be sad because from here on out, we're going to have to come to terms in our own way with the fact that he's gone."

"He is not Duke in Doonesbury. He's not a cartoon character. He's not a drug-addled guy wandering around Las Vegas," Juan Thompson said. "Primarily, he's a serious guy, a writer, and someone concerned about the Constitution."

Best-selling author Dan Brown has won a court ruling against another writer who claimed Brown's book The Da Vinci Code copied elements from two of his books, Brown's publisher, Random House, said on Friday. Brown avoided $150 million in damages author Lewis Perdue had sought in a legal ruling that also characterized his blockbuster book as an "intellectual" work.

Perdue had claimed The Da Vinci Code, which has 36 million copies in print worldwide, infringed the copyright of his novels Daughter of God and The Da Vinci Legacy. Perdue sought $150 million damages and asked the court to block distribution of the book and a movie of The Da Vinci Code that is in production by Sony Pictures.....

....Judge George Daniels of U.S. District Court in New York made a detailed analysis of the plots of the two books, as well as Perdue's earlier work, The Da Vinci Legacy, which shares some elements with his later novel. "A reasonable average lay observer would not conclude that The Da Vinci Code is substantially similar to Daughter of God," Daniels wrote in his summary judgment.

The group's First Amendment committee had narrowly voted to give Miller the prize for her dedication to protecting sources, but the full board has now voted to not accept that decision, based on its opinion that her entire career, and even her current actions in the Plame/CIA leak case, cast doubt on her credentials for this award.

The group's president, Jack El-Hai, posted an explanation on an internal list-serve yesterday, noting the opposition from the rank and file, and also mentioning two other reasons for the unanimous vote:

* "A feeling that Miller's career, taken as a whole, did not make her the best candidate for the award."

* "Divided opinions on the board over whether her recent actions merit the award."

I met Slominski at the recent book convention in New York. He was there researching the best way to market his new novel, Princess and the Bean, and had come to a conclusion all wannabe authors should heed: "I think what's really clear," he said, "is that writing the book is the easy part." Selling it is another story altogether.

And he went on to prove it. The engineer from Virginia recently e-mailed me some numbers he had crunched - and while even Slominski would admit they're highly speculative, they're still fun to consider. Slominski bases his calculations on two numbers:

? 195,000 - the number of books published in 2004 (including self-published titles), as reported by industry researcher R.R. Bowker.

? 5 percent - the percentage of "successful" authors, defined as those who make a living on their books alone. Slominski found that figure on the Web site of Rick Frishman, respected media consultant and co-author of Guerilla Marketing for Writers and Guerilla Publicity.....

....Slominski then makes a few other logical leaps of faith. He assumes that a person's career lasts 20 years, that the pool of successful authors neither expands nor contracts (a reasonable, and even optimistic, assumption, given that the number of books bought each year is either flat or declining, based on which study you read) and so on.

So - drum roll - what are the odds of living off your prose? According to Slominski: 1 in 380. Or, if you tweak the numbers to allow for a range of error, 1 in 200 to 1 in 500.