Melbourne | 2 of 3

Today we have more photos to share around Melbourne.

On Sunday, we headed to St. Kilda, a suburb of Melbourne, to check out the weekly street market. It wasn't really our style (more touristy, less stylish) and definitely didn't compare to Glebe Market in Sydney. But, we were happy to be by the beach and to check out the endless pastry shops in St. Kilda!

- Julia

We went to the top floor of the mall to get a free view of the city (this photo was taken through the windows of the Apple store). 

On the tram, headed to St. Kilda. 

St. Kilda Esplanade Market

Luna Park.... St. Kilda's iconic amusement park. 

The pastry shops were endless... and they were all along one street. Who eats all this cake?!

One pastry would have been big enough to share, but we couldn't narrow it down so we ordered three!

Coffee rum roula. 

We fell in love with Grill'd burgers in Sydney, and couldn't resist having it once more in Melbourne.

I absolutely love the fun painting and writing on the walls of the restaurant. 

The Emperor is moving...

It's been a slow week here in Sherman Oaks, the weather has been overcast since Sunday and as the joke goes; "everyone is calling their therapist". Besides the Ghostkeeper news I also have made a deal with a bookstore company in Winnipeg, Manitoba for Emperor of Mars.

As most of you know (I wonder how many times I've said that?) Emperor of Mars, or EOM was originally a screenplay I wrote in 1989 and it was almost made into a film several times, with the money falling out at the end.

Then a friend of mine suggested I novelize it and so I did. It came out just before Christmas 2011 and did "brisk" sales, meaning ok but not really as much as I hoped.

That changed a few weeks ago when I decided to go back to Manitoba where I grew up to visit my parent's graves, among other things. Then my friend Nicole in Winnipeg finally had her book published through McNally/Robinson, a book store company with bookstores in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and New York.

Nicole's book was based on her experiences with internet dating and the book combines her experiences, some of which are quite remarkable and a general guide as to how to work the internet dating scene, some of which is not very pretty. I've attached her link in the materials area.

Nicole strongly suggested I contact them and I did. To my surprise they were enthusiastic and eager to work with me. It helped that my book was set in Manitoba and thus made it easier to get it into their store.

In the course of a week, we made a great deal, I get 60%, they get 40%. The catch is that I purchase my books in the U.S. as the cost of printing in Canada is almost 3 times as high. And at $15.95, I'd be getting less than $2 a book.

So the next thing is the "book launch", which I dread. I've seen too many of those things where an unknown author sits at a desk waiting for someone to buy their book. As the saying goes; "I'd rather have hot needles poked in my eye". I think "Jack" said that.

However, the company assures me they will do their end of the publicity and in fact, are doing quite a lot. They will make the posters, set up the table, invite guests and do newspaper ads among other things.

In short, it's quite amazing how they can put these things together even down to coffee and tea and desserts.

I still dread doing it, but am getting a good amount of support from several cousins I have there as well as friends, so maybe it'll be harmless.

And all I hope for is to sell at least 5 books,  usually the average is 9. Thus is the fate of the beginning writer and after 32 years of writing screenplays and more if you count the other writings I did, none of it matters now.

Now I am the "new author". I asked if they can say "writer" but they think "author" is standard.

By the way, I will be posting all the time, in fact I'm making a video of what I'm calling the "First Last Roadtrip" for my legendary Ford Explorer with 225,000 miles on it.

And it's a "2-fer" as well as I will also be selling Ghostkeeper DVD's to the people at Deer Lodge, who have requested some for themselves and for selling to hotel guests at the hotel where the film was shot.

So, it's gonna be a busy trip and at the price of gas, a little costly. But interesting.

Melbourne | 1 of 3

We heard a lot of good things about Melbourne before we even got there. We've heard it mentioned more than once that it reminds people of Seattle. We were very excited to see what Melbourne had in store for us. 

The one thing that stands out a lot is the contrast. Melbourne has a lot of cool buildings-- one may be a geometrically shaped modern building and right next to it is an intricate gothic style cathedral. There was an awesome clean modern plaza where people where enjoying music and across the street was a grungy graffiti alley. Every wall, staircase, and garbage can is covered in graffiti. It was amazing to see. I think that is a big reason why we liked Melbourne so much, it's got a little bit of everything. And all the people just seemed so cool. I felt like there were more young people than elderly in Melbourne. And in a way it did remind me of Seattle a bit but a much hipper/rebellious/warmer Seattle.

We've got a few more posts coming up of our adventures in Melbourne but here are some random photos in and around the downtown area.

-Yuriy

Breakdancing on a busy street.