Friday Morning Directions to Your Nearest IHOP

That's right--the kitchen is closed until after the New Year. It's going to take that long for the crew to come in and get rid of all of the blood spatter anyway. And those chalk marks don't come off as easily as you think they might. Besides, the kitchen manager (that's me) has got a serious laundry list of items to tackle while out on holiday--including getting ready for a book tour for novel number two, and all the related items--and I do not expect any new trends in POD to occur during this time anyway.

Reviews will continue each week, though not necessarily on Monday. There is always treasure to unveil here at the Mouth.

So things may be light, but once my hangover from the New Year is over (let's say, on the 5th) we'll be back with a banner wrap up of the first 50 POD books (there are only a few slots left) and the beginning of selection for the Needle Awards. 2006 will be a big year here, indeed.

So, how about one more P5 for the road:

(1) THE DIDYMUS CONTINGENCY: 9,165 6
(2) SUFFER IN SILENCE: 10,808 5
(3) WAITING FOR THE WORLD TO END: 13,122 5
(4) GOLEM: 38,943 5
(5) THE CIRCLE OF SODOM: 67,671 5

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What is the dream of almost every author? To see your novel/memoir/etc. turned into a movie. This is even more of a dream for a POD author (as in, "dude, you are dreaming.")

Well, it is a dream-no-more for POD author Jeff Edwards. His novel, TORPEDO (published by iUniverse), has recently been sold to Hollywood. Here is the deal info from Publishers Marketplace:

Retired U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer and Anti-Submarine Warfare Specialist Jeff Edward's TORPEDO, optioned by Paul Sandberg (The Bourne Supremacy), by Don Gerrard of The Bookworks.

This is a real movie deal, by real players in the industry. If the option turns into an actual film, expect this book to be snatched up by one of the big, money-grubbing, our-bottom-line-is-more-important-than-literary-merit-or-we-would-have-purchased-this-book-before-it-became-a-movie traditional publishers.
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And it must be the holiday season, because we have not one but two POD to traditional publisher conversions to tell you about today. Here is the other:

Patrick Heron's THE NEPHILIM AND THE PYRAMID OF THE APOCALYPSE, self-published in Ireland and an Amazon Top 10 title, an investigation of end-times prophecies and their relation to recent world disasters, to Gary Goldstein at Citadel, in a nice deal, by John Talbot at Talbot Fortune Agency (USCOM).TV and DVD rights to Grizzly Adams Productions.

This book was self-published and available in America through Xulon. Currently ranked 1,593 at Amazon.
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Well, Happy Holidays, everybody. Looking forward to a massive and exhausting 2006. Try not to drink too much on New Years.

Unless, of course, you just got your last rejection from all the publishing houses. Then it's time to drink up!

Treasure awaits next week.