Robert Galbraith’s The Silkworm publishes this summer and will sell a bazillion copies—not because Robert Galbraith wrote it, but because J.K. Rowling did.
Rowling revealed Galbraith was a pseudonym—nom de plume, for those of you in New York City—she used when writing The Cuckoo’s Calling, the first in her series of non-wizard thrillers.
The book sold poorly until the media unmasked Rowling, and then the crime novel made more money in a year than the United States did collecting taxes.
I have no problem with J.K. Rowling churning out bestsellers. God bless her. But why keep up the Galbraith charade after her cover’s blown?
There are a myriad of different reasons writers employ pennames:
They have serious jobs (e.g., university provost, four-star Army general, vice president of the United States) and write titillating vampire sex adventures on the side and don’t want to be discovered and embarrass their bosses.
Their lives are threatened by nefarious or moronic people (e.g., Iranian mullahs, Mexican drug cartels, vice president of the United States) and must protect their identities.
Their publishers request it to prevent over-saturating the market with too many titles under the same name. This is apparently the reason Stephen King wrote under the penname Richard Bachman. (That over-saturation theory is bunk because James Patterson doesn’t use a penname and will have released two new instant best-sellers by the time you finish reading this sentence.)
There’s the school of thought that female authors aren’t taken as seriously as crime fiction authors as male writers, and assume pennames to fight this notion.
Rowling’s reason at the time of the discovery, according to published reports:
“Being Robert Galbraith has been such a liberating experience. It has been wonderful to publish without hype or expectation, and pure pleasure to get feedback under a different name.”
Okay, I get that. Rowling realized (correctly) that she could slap her name on a book titled Restoring Norwegian Garbage Scows and it would top TheNew York Times bestseller list without anyone reading one word. And chances are there’d be some butt-kissing reviews to follow because she’s J.K. Rowling. She wanted honest feedback, something she thought impossible under her real name. The penname worked for a time, and while The Cuckoo’s Calling garnered some positive reviews, it didn’t sell. (I thought the whole point of becoming a commercially successful author was to write something that catches on, build up your brand, and make a career out of it.)
Rowling was reminded that it’s difficult starting out. You write what you feel is a good book, it gets praise, but few people buy it. But Rowling has a unique way to turn her sales around: admit she wrote the book. That’s not the case for the vast majority of authors.
Now she’s back to releasing a book with Robert Galbraith on the cover. But why? The jig is up! You’re not fooling anyone. Please, drop the Galbraith. If J.K. really wants to extend this experiment, she’d assume a new penname and write another mystery unrelated to The Cuckoo’s Calling. Otherwise, what’s the point? It’s not like the vice president’s hot on her trail.
Anyone who has ever struggled to find a literary agent or a publisher has invariably come across a company called Publish America (PA). If you click the link, you’ll see the company has renamed itself America Star Books. Writer Beware, which is part of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association, pointed this out earlier this year.
I won’t get into Publish America’s sordid history. Writer Beware and numerous other watchdog websites cover the bases. Just google “Publish America” and “Scam” and prepare for your blood to boil. Essentially, they pass themselves off as traditional publishers, dupe starry-eyed authors into signing with them, only to find out their promised books are poorly edited, not available in brick-and-mortar stores (despite carefully worded claims to the contrary), and absurdly overpriced (e.g., $25 for a 130-page softcover book). The company then bombards the author to buy copies of the book to sell to family and friends. That’s how PA makes money: readers don’t find the books and buy them, the authors are brow-beaten into purchasing them and then beg local stores to carry them (which seldom happens). It’s a travesty that numerous people have fallen for this–despite PA’s countless schemes that can be discovered by a Google search.
My day job recently required me to research the publishing industry, in general, and I was happy to do it given my interest in the business. In so doing, I came across something that PA pulled a few years ago that prompted me to say out loud “That’s predatory.” Here it is:
Screen grab of deceit; it’s no longer on PA’s website.
For those of you who can’t read it, here’s what it says under product description, courtesy of the LA Times:
“We will bring your book to the attention of Harry Potter’s author next week while our delegation is in her hometown, and ask her to read it and to tell us and you what she thinks. Tell her what you think: in the Ordering Instructions box write your own note for JK Rowling, max. 50-100 words. We will include your note in our presentation for her!”
Fortunately PA was called out on this fraud and JK Rowling’s people got involved, claiming the promotion was bogus, and the ad got yanked. (I hope nobody paid for this service; I’m guessing someone probably did.)
PA pulled variations of this scheme using other celebrities: Stephen King, Tom Hanks, Oprah Winfrey, among others. PA’s attorney’s response to JK Rowling’s cease and desist order further exposes these hucksters. The justification was Rowling lives in Scotland, we’re gonna be in Scotland, and since we’re here, let’s just show up unannounced and knock on JK’s door and show her 100 different books written by people who don’t know any better and who actually think JK will jot a few notes in the margins. Oh, and if JK’s not home, we’ll drive by her estate and lob a box of books over the gate with a letter attached: Check these out, please!
I literally sat at my computer at work with my jaw dangling open. How could a company do this to its own authors? Easy: people are gullible.
Most clear-minded people would look at that ad, think, “Wait, they’re actually going to get JK Rowling to read a few sentences of my book, render judgment and offer suggestions? That’s bullshit.”
Sadly, there’s always going to be a segment of the population that believes this type of garbage, and there will never be a shortage of charlatans peddling it. Certainly there are people who are satisfied with PA’s services. God bless ’em. I hope they are.
PA was sued two years ago, and like almost all legal wrangling, it could be years more until there’s some resolution. (Update: apparently this suit was dismissed.) It’s likely why PA changed its name. Speaking of names, it’s always nice to put a face to them. So, thanks to YouTube and PA posting their own propaganda, here are a few of the folks who are taking advantage of people who sincerely hope they’re on the verge of achieving their dreams.
I was once stung by a publisher that wasn’t on the up and up with me, so I’m naturally wary of publishing houses, in general. Once bitten, twice shy. While I can’t relate to the exact circumstances in which wronged PA authors find themselves, I know what it’s like to see a dream temporarily dashed. I hope these folks find a way to get back their rights, and keep trying to get published in a way that satisfies them.
I don’t know the following individual, but his story is one of many, and I genuinely feel terrible for him. But this is what PA does to people:
Writer’s Digest’s Chuck Sambuchino (follow him on Twitter if you aren’t—go now!) tweeted an Open Culture piece chronicling Stephen King’s 20 rules for writers.
Many of you have seen them. Some (like me) might be seeing them for the first time. And while I agree with most of them, one rule stands out as a tad unrealistic for the Joe Lunchbox writer:
10. “The first draft of a book—even a longone—should take no more than three months, the length of a season.”
(Insert sound of record player needle abruptly scratching black plastic.)
Three months?
(I can think of one author who’s able to write one in even less time: James Patterson’s Rule #1 for Writing: The first draft of a book—even a long one—should take no more than three seconds, the length of time since the debut of the latest Alex Cross novel. Hah!)
Here’s where Stephen King and I part ways. Do you think it took Stephen three months to write the first draft of The Stand? Maybe it did. I’m assuming Stephen, at that point in his career, had nice advances and steady royalties and could devote himself to full-time writing.
And good for him! Most of us strive for that. I know I do.
But a sizeable chunk of us have full-time jobs and we write before work. Then we pick up our toddler from day care after work, make his dinner while he insists on watching Frozen for the 187th time (sorry, that’s my wife watching Frozen; my boy likes Monsters University), entertain him for three or four hours (which seem like 10 hours some nights) until his bedtime. We try to adhere to Rule #7 and read. And then we squeeze in more writing. And we’re tired at that point but we write anyway, not because we have to, but because we enjoy it.
Let’s look at it mathematically: Writer X types 2,000 words a day. Let’s multiply 2,000 by 30 (days in a month). That’s 60,000 words for an entire month of nonstop writing. Multiply that by three months (I’m actually using a calculator even though I really should be able to do this in my head; I am not kidding) and you get 180,000 words.
Do you know how many pages that is?
Neither do I. Give me a second to figure it out. (Let’s assume that 90,000 words is 300 pages. Now, 90,000 multiplied by 2 equals 180,000 words, or 600 pages.)
Hang on! Famed physicist Stephen Hawking just emailed me this equation to get a better idea!
GIVEN: X = 2,000 words, Y = 30 days, Z = 3 months, C ≠ 90ª
SOLVE: X² • Y(30+π) ³ ÷ Z¾ • (c‰ + ♣) = Pages
What the hell is this?!
Let’s go with 600 pages for the sake of simplicity. We all have days when we exceed our word count, and days when we don’t. But even so, according to the never-wrong Wikipedia, the orignal printing of The Stand was 823 pages. I doubt Stephen wrote every single day over a three-month span to reach that page count. If he did, great! In no way am I trying to besmirch a writer who we all admire and hope to meet one day without the police being called to escort us off his property.
Three months isn’t enough time for some of us. I find it takes around five months for that first draft of a 300-page book. It might take you a few months longer. And if it takes you three months? Awesome!
Certainly if you’re committed to a project it will get done in a reasonable amount of time. But that time will vary depending on life’s circumstances.
So, am I off base? Or is three months realistic turnaround time for a writer with a fulltime job and typical adult responsibilities? How long does it take you?
AC/DC confirmed today that founding member and rhythm guitarist Malcolm Young is ill and will take some time away from the band. But let’s first talk about the band’s quasi-compilation album, Who Made Who.
Who Made Who, by every imaginable standard, is not AC/DC’s best album. The rock ‘n’ roll giants released it in 1986 as the soundtrack to Stephen King’s Maximum Overdrive. It offered one new song (the album’s title) and two instrumentals. Beyond that, it offered nothing but tunes from previous efforts. Many consider it a “greatest hits” album–but not the band. When reviewing AC/DC’s extensive catalog, Who Made Who reads as a footnote.
Not to me.
I was 11 when it debuted and wouldn’t be familiar with the band or album until high school. My introduction to AC/DC has been replicated the world over: I heard You Shook Me All Night Long, loved it, and asked “What band is that?” I eventually found the compact disc (Who Made Who) that had the song. (Had I known any AC/DC fans, they’d have commanded me to instead buy Back in Black, the band’s Sgt. Pepper’s, because it had the same song and nine other classics.)
I probably listened to YSMANL 1,000 times, as well as Shake Your Foundations, Hell’s Bells, For those About to Rock (We Salute You), and Ride On, a song featuring a singer who sounded nothing like the vocalist on the other tracks. Why? Who are these singers, anyway? Who plays the guitar and why is he dressed like a school boy? Where’d they come from? Australia? Really?
These are the questions people ask themselves while discovering their Band.
We all have our Band, the one that rises above all others. There are no ties. Your Band is like what cigarettes are to smokers. You have your brand and you rarely deviate. You might try other smokes, but will always return to that one familiar pack that clearly warns it will kill you one day.
AC/DC’s my Band and they didn’t use chemicals to addict me. It was music, one layer of lead guitar crunching along with rhythm guitar, accompanied by booming 4/4 drum beats and bass lines that sound the same on every glorious damn song they play. Yeah, the lyrics are sometimes oversexed to the point of silliness–but damn fun to sing when sober and nobody’s listening, or when drunk and everyone else is screaming them.
AC/DC fans know lead guitarist Angus Young duck walks around stage while playing a Gibson SG. His older brother, Malcolm, hovers in the back with a yellow Gretsch. Brian Johnson screeches like a Gatsby-wearing werewolf with laryngitis. Cliff Williams hangs back and picks his Fender bass, and lastly, but not least, Phil Rudd’s workmanlike pounding on his Sonor drum kit powers AC/DC’s distinctive sound.
Nothing’s better and louder than an AC/DC concert: September 6, 1996, I saw my heroes live for the first time in Philadelphia (and 11 more times since). I didn’t plan on doing it, but I raised my arms and screamed “Yeeeaaaaah!” when Angus ran onto the stage. It just exploded out of me.
Malcolm and Angus, transplanted Scotsmen, formed AC/DC in Australia in 1973. Brian wasn’t the band’s first singer. That was Bon Scott, the hard-living ladies man who died by misadventure (a pleasant way of saying he choked on his own vomit while unconscious) in 1980. AC/DC fans know all this. They know that Malcolm once took a hiatus from the band to kick the bottle (they also know that his nephew, Stevie Young, filled in for him during the 1988 Blow Up Your Video tour).
The names Simon Wright, Chris Slade and Mark Evans mean nothing to the casual AC/DC fan, but real ones can tick off which instruments those former band members played and when: Wright, drums, mid 1980s after Phil had a falling out with the band; Slade, drums, early 1990s after Wright joined Dio (Phil returned in the mid 1990s); and Evans, bass, mid 70s until being replaced by Williams.
You know you love a rock band when you feel like you know the members even when you don’t. You care about the music they produce, but you care more about the boys, as fans often refer to them. You hope they’re as cool in real life as they are on stage because it sucks when your one encounter with your heroes reveals they’re actually assholes. AC/DC, in my dealings with them as a journalist and fan, couldn’t have been kinder. I met all five when they did a record signing in New York City on the day of their Stiff Upper Lip release in 2000. I remember shaking Angus’ hand and that his palm and fingers were so calloused it was like gripping sandpaper. I informed Malcolm I was going to review the album for my newspaper but told him up front it wasn’t for a big publication. He was cool with it, said you gotta start somewhere, and wished me well. A few years later they played the Roseland Ballroom the night after being inducted into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame and I was literally front row, center, crushed against a gate holding back a horde of fans behind me. I covered for USA Today the boys kicking off their Black Ice world tour in 2008. And a few years after that, Brian came to New Jersey to sign copies of his autobiography. Again USA Today let me check things out, and it was the coolest day of work ever. Brian’s a jovial English chap. He didn’t let me down. See for yourself:
AC/DC fans got a sobering dose of reality this past week. Malcolm may (it’s not been disclosed) have suffered a stroke and it’s limited his ability to play guitar, and that he physically might not be able to record or perform again.
My first thought: I hope he’s okay. My second thought: what does this mean for my Band? It’s still unclear. Their website indicates they’ll continue to record. Brian said the band’s booked for a recording session next month in Canada and they’ll give it a go. Subsequent to that, AC/DC released a statement on its website saying Malcolm would be taking time off from the band. So, I don’t see how you can reconcile the two. Either he’s taking off (which I believe he is) or he’s going to Canada in a few weeks (I’m inclined to think he’s not). And if he’s that sick, he shouldn’t.
Any way you look at this situation, given Malcolm’s health and the age of the band members (Mal’s 61, the rest are in their late 50s or early to mid 60s), AC/DC’s winding down. Brian a few months back spoke of a 40th anniversary tour to accompany a new album, and I was thrilled to hear it, but also cognizant that it likely would be their swan song. Tuns out the swan might’ve already sung.
Angus gets the notoriety because of his onstage antics, but Malcolm’s the backbone and guiding force. He’s irreplaceable. No Malcolm, no AC/DC. I, like many fans, have done a lot of reflecting on what life will be like without our Band.
Would I like a new album and final tour? Of course. Would I rather see Malcolm recover, play with some grandkids, and live another couple of decades so he can reflect on what AC/DC has meant to millions of people?
Yes. No contest yes.
Get well, Malcolm. Whatever happens, thank you. Know that you’ve given us all we could ever ask for and that we’ll all ride on.
L to R: Phil Rudd, Malcolm Young, Angus Young, Brian Johnson and Cliff Williams; and my Band’s CD that started it all for me.
I couldn’t get into much detail involving the collapse of Dorchester Publishing but want to call attention to it here. This was my baptism-by-fire introduction to the publishing world. A first book deal in April 2010. Destruction of said deal in September 2010. Six months that began with jubilance and ended in misery.
Established Dorchester writers were never paid the thousands of dollars in royalty payments owed to them. Not only that, their contracted literary rights were in limbo. All things considered, I didn’t make out badly: I withdrew my manuscript and had my rights reverted to me over lack of payment. Others had to endure bankruptcy hearings and, eventually, if they didn’t get their rights back, Amazon offered to buy some of them. It was a mess.
There’s no way I can even begin to describe the crap at Dorchester without mentioning a particular writer who was royally screwed by them and painstakingly chronicled this royal screwing throughout the entirety of the screwing.
Courtesy: kobowritinglife.files.wordpress.com
Brian Keene is famous in the horror genre and will take his place among the greats next month during the World Horror Convention in Portland, Oregon.
Keene will receive the 2014 World Horror Grand Master Award.
Now, I have no idea what winning the Grand Master Award entails. Getting a hamburger carton that keeps the hot side hot and the cool side cool? A zombie chewing your face during a special guest appearance on The Walking Dead? A healthcare plan with affordable monthly premiums and a low deductible? (Probably not–especially the latter.) But as our brilliant vice president of the United States would say, “This is a big f*cking deal.”
And it is.
Who else has won this award? Think of the biggest names–I mean the most-recognized names in horror and its sub-genres. The people who made you want to write. Got a name? Yes, he/she has won it. (Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Anne Rice, the list goes on.)
I congratulate Brian at the start of my career and hope to meet and thank him next year if he attends WHC 2015 in Atlanta. (I hope to go.)
Why thank him? Entertainment from his books is the easy answer, but that’s not my primary reason. Brian, sometimes very passionately with his frustration laid bare for all to read, continually updated me and the world about Dorchester’s activities on his blog. Please, follow this link and set aside a good block of time to read about what he and other authors endured. No other source provided the detailed information that Brian did. He was one of the first people I began following on Twitter. (AHEM!)
Brian likely didn’t realize at the time of his Dorchester blogging what kind of crash course he was teaching me involving the seedy side of the publishing world. I know it’s out there now, and am constantly wary of it. It’s a lesson I wish I didn’t have to learn but am glad I did early because it made me stronger as a person, and more determined as a writer.
So, thank you, Brian. I do hope to meet you down the road to shoot the sh*t. In the meantime, have a blast next month taking your place among that most horrific of pantheons.
So, does this make me a horror writer? I honestly don’t consider myself to be one.
What is horror as a genre? Whenever I go into the local Barnes & Noble (sorry, there’s no independent bookstore near where live—gee, why would that be?) I can’t find a horror section. It’s lumped in with fiction/literature. (In fairness, thrillers are treated the same way, but they’re generally easier to define.)
I think true horror can be discerned by Justice Potter Stewart’s method of spotting porn: “I know it when I see it.” (No, I’m not suggesting there’s a moral equivalence here. I simply believe defining horror can be tricky.)
Salem’s Lot? Horror!
(Courtesy: the Internet)
Dead Until Dark? Hor—wait. I mean, there’s a vampire or two in it, but it’s not exactly scary.
Twilight? Not even close to being horror, despite all those pale-skinned blood suckers and shirtless Native American werewolves.
How do you define Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein? Horror or Science Fiction? I’d lean more toward the latter.
The inclusion of mythical monsters or supernatural elements doesn’t necessarily define a work as horror. Then it must be the feelings the stories generate within the reader. We get scared! But thrillers are scary, right? They inspire dread, too. Silence of the Lambs is considered a psychological thriller, and not horror.
Honestly, when someone suggests a book is horror, I immediately think overwhelming blood, guts and gore. But that’s simplistic. While it’s true horror can have heaps of gore, it’s not necessary to scare. (It’s like comedians using profanity to get laughs: Good stand-up comics don’t need to work blue.) Salem’s Lot lacked gore and ranks as one of my favorite books.
So what makes it an absolute horror novel to me?
The book must:
1. Consistently evoke feelings of terror/dread/hopelessness;
2. Convey a sense of ever-present creepiness;
3. Be set no further back than the 19th Century and not in the too-distant future (anything that’s set hundreds of years in the future and involves vampires [Justin Cronin’s The Passage] strikes me more as sci-fi/supernatural thriller than horror);
and contain at least one of the following:
A. Supernatural and/or undead creatures, humans, and/or entities (e.g., werewolves, zombies, witches, ghosts) that are deliberately written to be scary, vicious and predatory and not created to make teenage girls swoon. They’ll kill you if they catch you. (Sure, they might toy with you for a little while. But eventually you’re dead.) Vampires are supposed to be terrifying, dammit—not insipid Robert Pattinsons.
B. Non-supernatural killers (e.g., humans, wildlife, diseases not originating from outer space) tormenting innocent people, with as little police involvement as possible. Too many police officers or mysterious government agents gets you too close to thriller territory for me. Sure, police can be involved, but not in every chapter. It helps if the main protagonist isn’t an agent of the law.
True horror novels, to me, cannot involve extraterrestrial beings or technology, and cannot be set in the old West and/or involve cowboys. Sorry, you’re either too close to science fiction and/or westerns.
We all have our own standards by which we judge things. And when it comes to horror, the aforementioned ones are mine. But when you think about it, in the grand scheme of life this discussion is about as relevant as attempting to determine the greatest baseball player of all time (Babe Ruth).
