Happy 2016

2015 was a great year, and 2016 will be even better

My modest goals as a writer: Write and sell two novels and two short stories every year. I started that practice in 1982, and I completed two novels and ten short stories that year while working a full-time job as a hotel manager. I also served thirty days on active duty as a Chief Warrant Officer with the U. S. Army Reserve. I sold one of those two novels the following year, and the other novel sold in 1985. Four of the ten stories saw print by 1984, and the other six were gobbled up by small press magazines before 1990.

I continued writing two novels and ten short stories each year through 1994. I sold eight novels and fifty-six short stories during that twelve-year period. All eventually appeared in print.

Most went out of print before the start of the new Millennium, although several of my short stories continued to be reprinted in anthologies from Pinnacle or in translations appearing from foreign publishers in various European and Asian languages.

When I returned to writing fiction in 2012, I had the same goal: write two new novels and two new short stories each and every year. I completed Abandoned and Deviants in 2012, Winds and Darkness in 2013, Light, Icepick, and Spilled Milk in 2014,and Meat Cleaver, Axes to Grind, Running Out of Time, and Pinking Shears in 2015. I sold Abandoned and Deviants both in 2014 (Eldritch Press published Abandoned in March 2015 and Damnation Books still hasn’t set a definite pub date for Deviants). Crossroad Press brought out new digital editions of The Devil Made Me Do It, Claw Hammer, and Daddy’s Home in 2014, and they published Pickaxe, Icepick, Pinking Shears, Axes to Grind, Meat Cleaver, and Running Out of Time in 2015.

Three of my short stories appeared in print in 2015. “Dolls” was published in Weirdbook 31 in September, “After the Fall” was published in the Fall 2015 issue of The Horror Zine, and “Who Knows What Evil Lurks” was revised for the August 2015 issue of Pulp Adventures 18.

2015 was very good year.

2016 promises to be even better.

The Devil Mad Me Do It Again and Again, a new short fiction collection containing twenty stories previously-published in anthologies and magazines,  should be out by March.

I’m putting final revisions on Sledgehammer, the latest novel in my Instruments of Death series. Impossible is an sf thriller, part of my Under the Gun series. I’m working on sequels to Spilled Milk, Winds, and Daddy’s Home. Come Hell and High Water is a supernatural thriller about the End of Times. And Final Exam is an exciting forensic science novel with an aging female pathologist who is teamed with a retired detective to teach criminology at a State University. When faculty members become targeted by a serial killer, two over-the-hill sleuths and a handful of students must track down the killer before they become victims themselves.

I’m also experimenting with first-person present tense in short fiction.

2015 was a busy year for public appearances and autographing, and 2016 promises to be even busier. I’m already committed to attending MidAmericon II in KC, Thrillerfest in NYC, Bouchercon in New Orleans, Stokercon in Vegas, and Wiscon, World Fantasy Con, and Windycon in the Midwest.

I wish all of my friends and fans the world over a very Happy New Year. I look forward to seeing you in person in 2016.

My Debt to the Small Press

Many of us sf, suspense, and horror writers owe a debt to the small press.

Those of us who began our careers in the last half of the twentieth century—specifically, the 1970s, 1980s, or 1990s—honed our craft by writing short stories. We had grown up reading pulp magazines and paperback anthologies, and what we aspired most to be in life was a paperback writer who wrote short stories and fast-paced serialized novels sold on newsstands or through subscriptions.

Our heroes had ascended the ladder of success via early short stories published in the pulps: Ray Bradbury, Robert Bloch, Robert Heinlein, Henry Kuttner, C. L. Moore, Leigh Brackett, Andrea Norton, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Fritz Leiber, Fredrick Pohl, Isaac Asimov, H. P. Lovecraft, and countless others. Zane Grey, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Max Brand, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and even Faulkner and Hemingway and Stephen King wrote many short stories for magazines. Seeing one’s own name on a by-line in a magazine was the gold-standard of success.

But television killed most of the markets for short stories, especially pulp-style stories. Smart writers migrated to screenwriting (Richard Matheson, William F. Nolan, Harlan Ellison, C. L. Moore, Leigh Brackett, William Faulkner, and Raymond Chandler were only a few of the more successful screenwriters who got their starts in the pulps). Motion pictures and television shows were really only short stories in disguise. I view television as the modern reincarnation of pulp magazines

As the number of magazine markets dwindled, new writers sought alternate ways to get their stories into print. Fan fiction thrived, and Amateur Press Association APAs—mimeographed or photocopied hand-stapled magazines—achieved significant circulations. Distribution or sales in the hundreds and even thousands provided ways for new writers to get their fiction into print and their names known.

Some amateur publishers became semi-pros, paying ½ cent or a penny a word, almost as much as early pulp magazines had offered half-a-century earlier.

Semi-professional publishers became known as “The Small Press” because their distributions and pay rates were too small to attract professional writers.

Today many of those small presses are called “Independent Publishers” because they aren’t owned or controlled or distributed by one of the Big Five International media conglomerates.

Cemetery Dance Publications, Dark Regions Press, Gauntlet, American Fantasy, and 2AM Publications began as small press publishers of magazines. David B. Silva began The Horror Show as a small press magazine in the 1980s. Dave was a writer himself, and he created a vehicle for new writers—as well as a place for big names like Dean Koontz, Robert R. McCammon, and up-and-coming Joe R. Lansdale—to showcase short stories. Dave achieved newsstand distribution, a consistent quarterly publication schedule, and professional-quality covers and print production. When the First Gulf War glued Americans to their television screens to watch play-by-play CNN or Fox News coverage of the war, sales of newspapers, magazines, and books declined and didn’t recover. Dark Regions, 2AM Magazine, Weirdbook, Pulphouse, Deathrealm, and The Horror Show folded. Only Cemetery Dance survived as a continuously published magazine.

The digital revolution in publishing has seen a rebirth of the small press. Dark Regions Press, Cemetery Dance, and Gauntlet produce exquisite numbered and lettered hardbounds and trade paperbacks. They publish short story collections and novels. I support all of them by buying and reviewing many of their books.

I have supported the small press since the 1970s. I reviewed the small press under my own name and under my Irwin Chapman pseudonym for three decades. I served as the Grievance Officer for the Small Press Writers and Artists Association in the 1980s. I have contributed stories to most of the small press magazines over the years, and many of those stories (along with some of my stories that appeared in anthologies from major publishers) will soon be collected into a new short story collection entitled The Devil Made Me Do It Again and Again.

When Eldritch Press announced in the HWA newsletter that they were actively seeking novels and would pay a professional advance and royalties, I sent them a proposal for Abandoned, the first novel in my Winds-series of Supernatural Thrillers. They replied immediately, and I sent them the full manuscript. They accepted within a week and sent me a written contract that was more than agreeable. In exchange for an advance, royalties, and a one-year reversion or renewal agreement, Eldritch would publish Abandoned as a trade paperback, a hardcover, an e-book, and an audio book. They hired a pro artist to design a dynamite cover.

I informed my then-agent who was very displeased. Two professional publishers had expressed interest, but both were taking their time to make an offer. I withdrew Abandoned from consideration, and my agent and I parted ways.

Michael Randolph, the publisher of Eldritch Press, agreed to hurry the trade paperback into production so the title would be available at the World Horror Convention in Atlanta in May. We agreed on a March 1, 2015 publication date. Abandoned actually appeared on March 3, 2015, and copies were for sale at WHC. Michael said he wanted to wait to release the e-book, hardcover, and audio book until we could get advance publicity into place.

Eldritch Press never did do any publicity, nor did they publish a hardcover or audiobook. I did push Michael into publishing an e-book version at the end of summer.

I recently heard from other Eldritch authors that Michael closed Eldritch Press on November 18. The Eldritch Press website has vanished, along with the Eldritch Press Facebook page. Copies of Abandoned are no longer available for sale on Amazon.com.

I know from experience that the time, money, and energy required to sustain small press operations makes it impossible to live one’s own life. The burden can seem unbearable. If the small press publisher is also a writer, he or she has no time for his own creative writing. Family life goes to hell. Constant demands from authors and distributers destroy perspective. There is simply never enough time for one person—or even a small part-time staff of several people—to do everything required to acquire, edit, format, publish, market, distribute, and publicize multiple books. Necessary accounting for taxes and royalties eat up time and money. Communicating with authors and artists, negotiating contracts, and marketing published and soon-to-be-published works can become a real nightmare.

I don’t know if that happened to Michael Randolph at Eldritch Press. I only know that Michael is no longer communicating with me and Abandoned has gone out of print.

Over the years, I have had 43 stories and novels accepted by small press publishers that never made it into print. At least Eldritch Press actually published Abandoned, and they did a decent job. If I had waited for a major publisher to produce Abandoned, it would still be in production. At my age, I can’t afford to wait.

So, thank you Michael Randolph and Eldritch Press for publishing Abandoned in a timely manner. I wish you well.

And thank you Crossroad Press for wanting to produce a new edition of Abandoned. As soon as I have it edited and I’m certain the rights have reverted to me, Abandoned will be available as an e-book.

I will continue to support the small press whenever and however I can. Despite the temptation of large advances, I can’t afford to wait years for major publishers to bring out my new titles. I owe a debt to the small press for rushing many of my titles into the marketplace. I intend to pay that debt.

 

 

I'm in Ecstasy!

Today was the official publication date of Winds: A Novel, and I’m ecstatic.

I began writing Winds (working titles “Whispers on the Wind” and “Written on the Wind”) in 1979. The first draft featured Philip Ashur, the main protagonist of a planned series of supernatural fantasies I tentatively titled “Cast Away Stones”. Over the next 35 years, Philip Ashur evolved into the villainous behind-the-scenes manipulator you’ll meet in Winds.

Ashur could astral travel. He learned the precious secret more than 8,000 years ago in the Indus Valley. Philip Ashur wasn’t originally a bad man. In his own way, he was quite heroic. Like all mortals, however, Ashur wanted a way to not only prolong his life but to accumulate incredible knowledge and wealth he could take with into his next lives. Ashur’s fatal flaw was he didn’t care what he had to do nor whom he had to hurt to accomplish his goal. I sought to follow Ashur’s quest for immortality, omniscience, and omnipotence through multiple reincarnations. I think I have done that in Winds. Spoiler alert: Ashur will return next year in Stones.

I pitched the idea to my agent Barbara Puechner in 1989. Barb said she thought Stones and Winds would be my break-out novels. She encouraged me to continue developing those stories. But, she said, editors wanted me to also produce the kind of horror and police procedurals I was already known for, and that’s what I did.

I worked on Winds and wrote a few short stories for anthologies and magazines while Barb took time out to deal with family and personal health issues. Gretta, my wife, also had family and personal health issues in the early to mid 1990s, and I experienced my own health crisis and close brush with death in 1996 and 1997. I didn’t try to find another agent nor attempt to market any of my novels on my own when Barbara Puechner died. I had nearly fifty novels—science fiction, fantasy, horror, westerns, and mysteries—in various stages of completion when Gretta died in January of 2012. If I wanted to see any of those novels in print before I also died, I needed to get busy. I completed twenty 100,000 word novels and began work on several more between January 2012 and November 2015.

4 agents and six respected editors expressed interest in my work, but none wanted to tackle the Winds series. David Niall Wilson at Crossroad Press agreed to reprint my previously published horror novels and short story collections, and David said he also wanted to publish all of my original horror and police procedural novels. I revised those manuscripts and Crossroad Press has been successfully publishing them as e-books for the last two years.

Eldritch Press published Abandoned, the first novel in the Winds-series, in March 2015. I pitched Abandoned as a stand-alone novel to several small presses, and Eldritch was the first to offer me a contract. I wanted to see how Eldritch marketed the book before I offered them the rest of the Winds novels. I’m glad I waited.

Because Eldritch Press did little or no marketing, I revived the 2AM Publications imprint Gretta and I had founded back in 1985. 2AM published Darkness in June, Light in September, and Winds in October. Winds was still in the hands of a traditional publisher in May 2015. The editor loved the novel but the publisher saw no place in their list for a novel with a reincarnation theme. When I received their rejection, I was thrilled. 2AM would publish the novel. If Eldritch Press does not renew their contract for Abandoned, 2AM will publish a new edition of Abandoned late next year.

Likewise, the editors who have considered Spilled Milk for nearly two years without offering me a contract, are out of luck. 2AM Publications will publish Spilled Milk in November 2015.

Some people have cautioned me against publishing too many titles in a single year. When you’re 71 years old and have been writing novels for fifty years and few of your titles are in currently print, you don’t want to wait. And you sure as hell don’t want to use pseudonyms. Been there, done that. I want all of my new books to be published with my byline.

I write every day from 9 AM until 2 PM, and again from 10 PM until 2 AM. I produce at least a thousand words a day of fresh fiction. I write four novels a year with time to do revisions and minimal marketing. Writing has taken over my life.

Although I have had ten new novels appear in 2015, those novels were written long ago and recently revised. I have another forty novels—some in first drafts, many in second and third drafts, and a few in partials with detailed outlines and synopses—in progress. And I have one or two brand new novels on the drawing boards.

I also have a couple of hundred trunk stories I’ll get around to revising for magazines or short story collections.

I have no idea when Damnation Books will publish Deviants. That novel has been under contract for more than a year and no publication date has yet been set.

I have news for all the agents and publishers who said reincarnation doesn’t sell: Reincarnation is the next big thing, bigger even than zombies. During the twenty-plus years that I was a professional hypnotist and past-life regression therapist, I regressed thousands of people who discovered their own past lives. I was completely booked up at conferences, and even today I get people requesting past life sessions every week (I tell them to buy my books instead). True, there are many people who are turned off at the thought that their karma will follow them even after death. The main selling point of Christianity is forgiveness for one’s sins. The fact that one is responsible for one’s actions and must suffer the consequences for everything one does is reprehensible to those people. They’re entitled to their beliefs. I pity them when they stand before their God and must account for what they have done with their talents. They’ll be up the proverbial creek without a paddle. Crying “Forgive me for I have sinned” just ain’t gonna cut it.

Winds is fiction. It’s a suspense thriller. You can read Winds as a stand-alone novel or as part of a series. The same is true of Abandoned, Darkness, Light, Time, and Stones.

I did something completely different with Spilled Milk. Part of that forthcoming novel is written in first person from a female’s POV. Part of Spilled Milk is written in third person from male POVs. Like the rest of my novels, Spilled Milk is not for everyone. It’s filled with graphic depictions of rape, murder, and mutilation and is meant as a cautionary tale. If you’re offended by graphic violence, please do not read Spilled Milk.

Read Winds instead. Then read Darkness, Light, and Abandoned. You’ll be glad you did.

A Writer's Heaven

Rockford isn’t known for much that’s good. It’s called “Screw City” for a reason.

 

The Stockholm Inn is very good, and Maria’s Restaurant used to be good. The Ratskeller used to be good, too, and so was the Sweden House. The Stockholm Inn is still in business. The others aren’t.

 

Rockford is known for having an exceptionally high crime rate. It’s also known for having an exceptionally low literacy rate. Anyone see a connection?

 

Rockford used to be known as the “Second City”, second only to Chicago in size, culture, and amenities. Now Rockford has diminished to the fifth or sixth largest city in Illinois. Intelligent people abandoned the town in droves, and more leave every day. Rockford is going downhill rapidly, and no one knows how to apply the brakes.

.

 

Rockford used to support a viable community of writers, poets, artists, and musicians. Most have gone elsewhere, although Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick and poet Christine Swanberg still remain in town and only God knows why. New American Theater closed. The only live theater in town is at the local community college during summer months and at the restored Coronado Performing Arts Center when roadshows come to town. The big box Metro Center—excuse me, the renamed BMO Harris Bank Center—has become a venue for ice hockey and religious festivals and no longer includes a regular schedule of musical performance by big name artists.

 

The annual 3-day and 3 raucous night Labor Day “On the Waterfront” music extravaganza fizzled out and exists only in memory.

 

Rockford used to have one of the finest public libraries in the state. Instead of investing in maintaining the library and increasing its collections, the city chose to build golf courses and sports complexes. Soon the main public library building will be torn down while a new indoor mega-sports center appears on the opposite bank of the Rock River.

 

 

Rockford has no new bookstores other than a few Christian booksellers and one pint-sized children’s bookstore. Borders closed and Barnes and Noble moved out of town to nearby Cherry Valley. Toad Hall, one of the best record and book memorabilia shops in the country, is still on Broadway, but it has deteriorated into a ghost of what it once was. Tomorrow is Yesterday has become more of a gaming haven than a comic book emporium and changed its name to Top Cut Comics and then to Top Cut Central. There is a Half-Price Books discount outlet that opened a few years ago. But they carry only remainders and inventory acquired from bankrupted bookstores.

 

 

I left Rockford and I came back. I left the first time when I went away to the University, but I came back to attend Rockford College when John Bennett and Mary Dearing Lewis and Donald Walhout were teaching there. I left the second time to enter the army and complete my formal education. But, eventually, I came back.

 

Declining home values makes Rockford affordable for low-lifes like me. Rockford’s escalating crime rate provides daily inspiration for crime writers like me. Paranoia and superstition and religious fanaticism fuel the fires of horror fiction. Rockford, Illinois, is a wonderful place to observe entropy in action. In short, Rockford is the perfect place to write.

 

Although I miss brick-and-mortal bookstores, Amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com make it easy to buy new and used books from the same computer I use to craft my own fiction. Facebook and Skype allow me to stay in touch with other writers throughout the world without leaving my computer. I can easily access library databases and do research on the internet from the comfort of my own home.

 

Because “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and among his own relatives and in his own household,” I do leave Rockford to make personal appearances and do book signings all over the world. My novels and stories sell well in England and in Europe and Japan and China. I can hop a commuter bus or airline in Rockford and make connections to anyplace I want to travel. Or I can drive to Chicago’s O’Hare and be there in less than two hours.

 

But I return to Rockford to write. No one here knows or cares that I’m a writer. There are too few venues here to bother about doing local autographings, and the local newspaper and radio and television stations prefer to report on true crime and not the imaginings of home-town boys and girls.

 

Crime runs rampant in Rockford. Gunshots are a daily occurrence. No one here pays any attention to the voice of one person crying in the wilderness.

 

Rockford is known as one of the ten worst places to live in the nation. For a crime writer, it’s one of the best.

 

 

Light is available September 11, 2015

Tomorrow, September 11, 2015, is the official publication and release date of Light, my latest novel. Light is a supernatural thriller, a dark fantasy. It’s available as a trade paperback for $19.95 and as a Kindle e-book for $3.99. You can order the trade paperback here http://www.amazon.com/Light-Winds-Paul-Dale-Anderson/dp/0937491152/ or the Kindle version here http://www.amazon.com/Light-Winds-Book-Paul-Anderson-ebook/dp/B014Q8EJJE/

On Death and Dying

I couldn’t help but notice, while doing final page proofs of Light, my current preoccupation with death.

Death is my stock in trade. I’ve been a horror writer for more than a quarter century, and my Instruments of Death series of police procedurals examines the manner and means of death in graphic detail. So do my other novels and most of my short stories.

Death stalks us all every day of our lives. Death is the Great Mystery.

I began to explore death itself in the Winds-series of supernatural suspense novels that starts with Abandoned.

Abandoned was published last March by Eldritch Press. Darkness appeared in June from 2AM Publications. Light is scheduled to see print in September and Winds will come out at the end of October. Time will debut in March of 2016. Mysterious Ways and Daughters of Nyx will be out next summer. These are all stand-alone novels with some recurring characters I’ve learned to love. Each novel is around 120,000 words. That’s nearly a million words devoted to the themes of death, dying, and rebirth.

Ask me for my autograph

Rebuilding your readership one reader at a time isn’t easy. My horror novels have been out of print for a quarter of a century, and I have only just began to see my new suspense thrillers appear in print. I tried advertising on Google, in the pages of The Big Thrill, in various media. I sent out news releases and free review copies. I appeared on panels at science fiction and fantasy conventions and did readings, autographings, and group signings at the World Horror Convention, The Nebula Awards, OdysseyCon, and bookstores all over the country. I hawked books during television interviews, and I maintained a presence on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, GoodReads, Library Thing, and Amazon. I maintain multiple websites and write weekly blogs on Blogger, WordPress, and Tumbler. New short stories bearing my by-line have appeared recently in Weirdbook, The Horror Zine, and Pulp Adventures. All of this is, of course, necessary to rebuild name recognition. But what really sells books is repeat customers and word-of-mouth. Faithful fans who buy everything I write and tell their friends about me are precious.

What I haven’t done and need desperately to do is stay in contact with each of those fans. I’m a shy guy and my comfort zone is reading and writing alone at home. I don’t answer my telephones when they ring, and I don’t respond to e-mails in a timely manner. I am on Facebook nearly every day, and I do respond to most messages. So, if you want to contact me, message me on Facebook. And if you just want to learn about what I’m currently working on, what appearances I have planned at conventions or bookstores, when my latest novels will be released, or follow my fictional adventures, sign up for my monthly newsletter at http://www.pauldaleanderson.net/contact/. You can also read my weekly blog at http://www.pauliedaleanderson.com.

And never be hesitant to ask me for my autograph (except on a blank check). If you buy my books, I owe you a personalized autograph.

Sometimes I write short stories

Although I’m best known today for writing series suspense thrillers such as my Instruments of Death (Claw Hammer, Pickaxe, Icepick, Meat Cleaver) e-book series from Crossroad Press and my Winds novels from Eldritch Press and 2AM Publications (Abandoned, Darkness, Light, Winds, Time), I still write stand-alone novels (Deviants, forthcoming from Damnation Books) and occasional science fiction or horror short stories for magazines and anthologies. “After the Fall” appeared this week in the Fall 2015 issue of The Horror Zine Magazine (http://www.amazon.com/Horror-Zine-Magazine-Fall-2015/dp/0692482067/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8). “Dolls” is scheduled to appear in Weirdbook 31. And “Who Knows What Evil Dwells” appeared today in Pulp Adventures 18 (http://www.amazon.com/Pulp-Adventures-18-Model-Corpse/dp/151510110X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1438453189&sr=1-1&keywords=pulp+adventures+18).

I love reading and writing short fiction. I work on short stories concurrently with novels. Like most writers, I have thousands of story ideas in various stages of development. Novels, of course, are more lucrative than short stories. I make my living by writing novels, but I gain new readers from placing short stories in magazines and anthologies. Short stories introduce readers to my writing, and many of those readers go on to buy copies of my novels. Short stories, not unlike blog posts, are an excellent way to showcase a variety of my writing styles. I prefer to use multiple viewpoints in novels, but I normally limit short stories to a single viewpoint character. I hate first-person narratives in novels, but first-person is perfect for blogs and many short stories. Yes, Elizabeth. I do sometimes write in first person. I have even written some—but not many—first-person novels. There is a time and place for everything.

Take Three Years Off

The US Army is downsizing. "Take Three Years Off" screams the Army Times in front-page headlines. I've read the Army Times religiously every week since the 1970s. Since I got out of the service in 1986, I've kept up with trends and rumor-mills via print media. I write several series of para-military thrillers (Running Out of Time, Impossible, and even the Winds-series  which includes Abandoned and Darkness). I depend on AT and a handful of buddies who are still in the service or recently released from Active Duty to keep me current.
I've been through downsizing before. I was a DA Budget Analyst and Logistics and Personnel Technician during the Nixon, Carter, and Reagan administrations. I got recalled from the standby reserve to help plan for future mobilizations. Every time I took time out from military service to pursue a career as a writer, the Army needed to increase troop strength again to handle a new emergency. Eventually, after more than twenty years of yo-yoing between civilian and military careers, I asked out of that chicken-shit scenario. Now I'm too old to put the uniform on again (even if it fit), but the nightmares still haunt me that I'll wake up in the middle of the night and have to shave and get a haircut, don my ACUs, grab my duffel, and airlift somewhere under live fire. Like CW5 Dave Davis and The Ranger in Abandoned, I just want the killing to stop. Is that only wishful thinking?
Periodic downsizing is necessary, but so is periodic mobilization. America must have a viable deterrence to threat, but we also have realistic limits on men, money, and materiel that require us to withdraw and take stock before responding. We can't keep running without taking a breather. Now is the time to "smoke 'em if you got 'em" and get ready to run again. We've come a long way, but we have farther to go before we can rack our rifles and turn in our unexpended ammunition.
How many boots on the ground will we need for future conflicts? How soon will we need them? I hope planners take a long, hard look at history before culling too many of the herd.
Take three years off? Hell, yeah! It sounds like a great idea for reducing troop strengths while keeping combat-trained men and women available for future conflicts. Whoever thought up that idea deserves a medal.

What’s in a Name? On Author’s Names and Creating an Author Brand

 

When I taught novel and short story writing for Writers Digest Schools back in the 1980s, many of my students asked me if they should change their auctorial names. Either they had very common birth names that wouldn’t stand out on bookstore shelves or they possessed very unusual names that revealed their religion, ethnic heritage, gender, or were too long to easily fit on a book’s cover and spine. Since I had only recently begun using my own name after employing a variety of pseudonyms on much of my published work for a variety of reasons, I urged students to choose one name, preferably their own name, and stick to it throughout their careers. I had learned that what matters more than the name itself is the quality and quantity of work associated with a name. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but a bouquet of bright-colored sweet-smelling roses matters most of all.

Literary history, like music history, is filled with one-hit wonders. Margaret Mitchell and Harper Lee come immediately to mind. Some writers pen a masterpiece first-time out and never write anything again because they feel nothing else they would write could surpass or even come close to their masterpiece. Some writers have only one story to tell, and that’s okay.

But the publishing game depends on selling lots of books. Publishers, like readers, seek out brand names they can trust to deliver consistent product each and every time. We choose those brands we know over no-name generics from displays in bookstores, grocery stores, and online retailers. We know what we like and we like what we know.

Two of my favorite writers are Henry Kuttner and Catherine Lucille Moore. Both were prolific authors who wrote under pseudonyms for a variety of reasons. Not unlike Alice Bradley Sheldon who wrote under the pseudonyms of both James Tiptree, Jr., and Raccoona Sheldon, Moore chose the androgynous name of C. L. Moore to disguise her gender in the male-dominated genres of science fiction and fantasy. Moore proved that a woman could write sword and sorcery as well or better than most men regardless of name. But Moore and Kuttner would be better remembered today if they had penned everything under their own names, or one consistent pseudonym, than writing under so many different names.

Some brand-name writers choose pseudonyms when writing outside their genre or writing in styles different than their fans expect. Stephen King wrote novels as Richard Bachman, Dean Ray Koontz as D. R. Dwyer, Leigh Nichols, Brian Coffey, Owen West, and Richard Paige, and Joanne Rowling wrote novels as J. K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith. Their already-established reputations were enhanced when it was revealed they were capable of writing outside their known genres. Though their pseudonymous novels sold reasonably well on their own, they became best-sellers only when the authors’ true names were added to the covers. Brand names sell books. Period. End of sentence.

My own birth name is too long to fit comfortably on book covers. There are far too many Paul Andersons in the world, and I don’t want to be confused with the legendary Poul Anderson (I was once on a panel at an sf convention where Poul Anderson was GOH and I was listed on panels as “the other Poul Anderson”). I have writer friends named Paul Michael Anderson and Paul Thomas Anderson. When I was a kid, I was teased for having the same name as Olympic weightlifter Paul Edward Anderson. I now use my full birth name on books, and my current publishers break up my name into two lines on book covers to accommodate the length. I no longer deal with publishers who won’t.

Friends like Mort Castle call me P. D., and Wayne Allen Sallee affectionately calls me PDA. My parents called me “Dale” or “Paul Dale” because my father was Paul Anders Anderson. Most of my male cousins on the Anderson side of the family were given Dale as a middle name to commemorate our Dalecarlian or Dala heritage from the Swedish province of Dalarna. I set my Instruments of Death series of police procedurals in the fictitious town of Riverdale in Dale County in honor of my Dalecarlian heritage. In Mysterious Ways, the forthcoming sixth novel in the Winds series, I honor Dalecarlian magic and explain the origins of the Dala Horse.

Paul Dale Anderson disappeared completely from bookshelves for twenty-some years while Paul Dale Anderson, MS Ed, MA, BCH, CI did medical research, wrote journal articles, and worked on doctorates. When I reappeared as a fiction author after the death of my wife, few genre readers remembered my name.

That became painfully apparent when I began book tours last year. Although some fans and book collectors asked for autographs on old copies of my published novels and anthologized stories and John Everson and Bill Gagliani even asked me to read one of my published stories at their late-night panel on erotica and horror, some fellow panelists had no idea what I wrote. Despite serving as an elected Vice President of HWA and as a trustee who signed the original HWA charter, HWA members at registration couldn’t find my convention name badge and gave me an anonymous blank attendee badge. My name was misspelled on the mass signing list and on panel placards. It took nearly the duration of the entire World Horror Convention for people to begin recognizing me. Only two people asked for my autograph during the Friday night mass signing, but by the end of the convention a few dozen more asked me to sign copies of my books (including one collector who had acquired copies of all my out of print titles).

I am the invisible man, the man nobody knows. My name is too long and too confusing with other writers to remember. Many of my contemporaries have died or no longer make the convention circuits. I am a ghost.

Part of the problem is I’m shy. I’m a writer whose comfort zone is sitting alone at the keyboard. I don’t aggressively ask people to buy my books. I’m the quiet guy who observes. I know you, but I don’t want you to know me.

I write about you. Sure, some of me appears in my writing, but I’m really writing about and for you. See if you don’t recognize yourself in my stories.

 

            I’ll be signing trade paperback copies of Abandoned and Darkness at the Nebulas in Chicago next Friday and at the Printer’s Row Lit Fest on Saturday. Paul Dale Anderson is prominently displayed on the covers of both titles. I don’t care if you remember my name. I do care that you read and remember my stories.

Buy My Books

My passion is reading and writing. I love to read more than anything else in the world, and I love to write just as much. I love to read my own stories as much as—often more than—I love to read stories written by other writers. That’s incredibly helpful when I revise a story for publication. I read the story over and over again, revising as I read, until the whole story feels right to me.

 I always purchase copies of my own books to hold in my hand, sniff the paper and ink, and treasure the words. I’m always amazed at what emerges from my imagination. Did I really write that? Is the writing as good as other works I’ve read? Does it hold my attention from page one to the final “The End”? Am I as passionate about the story on the last page as I was on the first? Will I do as well or even better with the next novel I write?

            If you’re a writer, you know what I mean. When one of my stories brings tears to my eyes and a satisfaction to my heart, I know how a genii feels when he grants three wishes to someone.

            What makes passion meaningful is the combination of suffering and ecstasy inherent in all worthwhile human endeavor. You’ve got to be willing to endure the bad along with the good. We learn by doing. We grow by choosing. We live by gaining and losing. We evolve by being involved. There is great risk to life. The greater the risk, the greater the reward. Passion means giving it all or nothing with no holds barred. Grab onto the golden ring and never let go. Follow your dreams through hell and back. Love every minute of the struggle. Persevere. Go for the gold. Dive right in and become immersed. Emerge scarred but exhilarated. Be willing and eager to do it again.

            Imagination is so wonderful and powerful that it carries us away to other worlds. It enables us to be many different people at the same time. It allows us to enter the hearts and minds of beings so completely different than us that we can barely comprehend their alien reasons for acting as they do until we realize that a part of them is a part of us and vice versa, and maybe they aren’t so different after all.

            Reading and writing are my passions. Telling stories is my purpose in life. Some of my stories satisfy one type of reader and have no salience for other types of readers. My Winds series (Abandoned, Winds, Darkness, Light, Time, Mysterious Ways) offers novels of supernatural suspense to readers who wonder about the meaning of life and death, who peek at the past to understand the future, and who seek truth in fiction. My Instruments of Death series (Claw Hammer, Daddy’s Home, Pickaxe, Icepick, Meat Cleaver) offers fast-paced pulp-style murder mysteries with dedicated detectives and modern forensic scientists to readers who worry about the here and now. My stand-alone novels and short stories are hard looks at flawed characters. There’s something for everyone in what I write, but not all of my novels and stories will please everyone. Pick and choose what you like.

 Buy my books and share the passion. Claw Hammer is on sale for Kindle this week. Only 99 cents for a good read.

           

           

The Real Secret to Success as a Writer of Fabulous Fiction

The way this whole writing thing works

© 2015 Paul Dale Anderson

 

If you haven’t figured it out yet, let me save you time and heartache. There is only one way to get rich as a writer.

Well, actually, that’s a lie. Writers tell lies for fun and profit, you know, and I’m no exception. There are probably as many ways to get rich as a writer as there are ways to win the Powerball Lottery.

But there is only one quick, easy, and sure way to get rich as a writer.

I’ll reveal that secret to you shortly. It took me nearly seventy years of writing in multiple genres and writing under multiple pseudonyms to learn the secret.

I read every writing manual and book I could find. I attended every writing conference I could afford. I wrote my heart out religiously every single day, and when I wasn’t actually writing I was thinking about writing. I became a master craftsman. I communicated with other writers and with editors in person, by snail mail, and via e-mail, telephone, and IM. I became an editor myself for both major and small press publishers. I submitted manuscripts via slush, agents, Submittable, and in person. I pitched in elevators, over lunch, and in bars. I became an active member of SFWA, MWA, HWA, ITW, and the Author’s Guild. I participated in panels and workshops at Worldcons, regional cons, and prestigious conferences. I was a Guest of Honor more than once. I earned my living as a professional writer who waited patiently for advances and royalty checks to roll in so I could pay rent, buy food, and make monthly health insurance premiums or pay medical bills. I dutifully filled out my Schedule C every year for forty years and even incorporated and filled out a separate annual return as a subchapter S corporation. I knew the writing business like the back of my hand. I weathered the death of a spouse, the death of a beloved agent, the deaths of friends and family members and mentors, and I personally survived a diagnosis of a deadly cancer that should have killed me decades ago and didn’t because I hadn’t finished writing the Great American Novel yet. I survived the digital revolution and learned to use Word and Scrivener and Adobe Creative Suite In-Design. I learned to create and market e-books and audio books as well as how to write fabulous fiction.

So what is this valuable secret I learned along the way? What is the one, sure way to get rich as a writer?

Stephen King knows this secret. So does Dean Koontz. So do I. And soon you will, too.

During recent book tours for my Winds series of supernatural thrillers and my Instruments of Death series of police procedurals, I met thousands of successful writers doing mass signings in bookstores and at conventions. I appeared at workshops and on panels alongside NY Times Bestselling Authors. I attended the Bram Stoker Awards, the Nebulas, the Hugos, the Anthony Awards, and the World Fantasy Awards. I spoke with thousands of professional writers and hundreds of thousands of dedicated readers and wannabe writers. What was the single stand-out factor every one of those people I met had in common?

Few had either the time or cash to pay $24.95 for six hundred plus pages of well-written fiction, but they were all eager to devote more than twice that to attend week-long conferences where they readily purchased non-fiction about the art and craft of fiction writing. They spent hours combing blogs and websites of well-known authors searching for clues to success. They bought multiple fiction books by writers who had published short articles or short books on the art and craft of writing and didn’t buy the books of authors who had not. Not only do successful authors make lots of money from writing about writing, but they make money from selling their fiction to people who have read those non-fiction works and personally identify with the author.

Not only does writing a book about writing generate significant revenue from that title alone, it makes your novels sell like hotcakes. Many mid-list authors earn more from their non-fiction books on how to write than from sales of their multiple novels. Combining both works magic. I’m willing to bet that Stephen King earns nearly as much from On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (which is superb, by the way, and every writer should read it) than he earns from novels that have not been made into motion pictures. When Steve was just starting out and not yet a household word, he regularly contributed articles on writing to Writers Digest and The Writer. He shared what he learned as he learned it. It was a kind of Pay-It-Forward type of thing. And it worked. It helped establish Stephen King as a brand name.

Don’t get me wrong. You still have to write great fiction and plenty of it to become a best-selling author and stay at the top of the charts. But thinking about and writing about the process of writing is an important part of the process to becoming a successful author. Writing success doesn’t manifest until your words appear on paper or are otherwise published. The more words you write the better your writing becomes. The more works you have in print and available for sale, the more you sell. It’s really as simple as that.

But, first, readers need to know your name and know what to expect from you. Writing about what you go through to produce your fiction gets your name out there and also tells readers what to expect from your fiction. It’s a win-win for everyone. Name recognition goes a long way to establish you as someone worth reading.

I’ll tell you more secrets in upcoming blog posts. Here are a few hints of what’s next to know if you want to be a best-selling author.

Sleep and wake up with ideas – the silver dollar trick of Tom Edison.

The marketing rat race.

Selling yourself – Isn’t prostitution illegal?

Becoming a brand name.

Only 2 ways to get rich as a writer: sell to the movies or write about writing.

The difference between being a great writer and a successful author.

How to use the trance state to write great fiction and entrance your readers.

 

Axes to Grind

Because I love to read widely in a variety of genres, I often find myself crossing genres in writing my own novels and short stories. Axes to Grind, the sixth novel in The Instruments of Death series from Crossroad Press, is both a police procedural and a supernatural suspense story. I didn’t intend it to be that way when I began writing the novel, but elements of the preternatural suddenly appeared. That’s the way the cookie sometimes crumbles.

            Axes to Grind introduces Merritt County Sheriff’s Deputy Dan Edmonds. Dan will appear in later novels of the series that tie together murders in northern Wisconsin with murders in Illinois, but this story belongs to Dan Edmonds and Sandy Beech and it can be read as a stand-alone novel. None of my usual suspects make guest appearances. You can probably guess that the instrument of death is an axe. Both the title and the cover give that away, but there are a few surprises along the way that readers won’t suspect.

            When I was researching northern Wisconsin for both Axes to Grind and Winds, my supernatural thriller series featuring completely different characters, I uncovered an unusual number of Bigfoot sightings within a three-county area of north-central Wisconsin. Of course, I had to include that fact in one of my novels. Axes to Grind seemed the perfect vehicle. Maybe someday I’ll write a novel about Bigfoot, but Axes to Grind is primarily about demons—personal demons and mythological demons. It’s also about trust and belief and searching for clues outside of one’s normal experience. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

            The developing relationship between Dan and Sandy takes center stage in my drama. I like both of these characters a lot. There’s probably a little bit of me in Dan, and Sandy is the kind of girl I’ve always been attracted to. She’s open and honest and more than a little naïve. She’s the kind of girl who’s stronger than she looks because she has an inner strength that sustains her. Not all of my characters survive the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that come their way, but I hope Sandy not only survives but thrives. She’s my kind of people.

            Axes to Grind is the sixth novel in the Instruments of Death series, and there are many more novels yet to come in the series. I have nineteen novels already written or planned. There may even be more.

            I love to read and write about forensic science. I also love to read a good mystery, whether I write it or somebody else writes it. My own expertise is in educational psychology and cognitive science, but I met more than a few pathologists when I worked at the American Society of Clinical Pathologists (ASCP) and I was allowed to play the fly on the wall as doctors talked about interesting cases. I try to combine what I personally know with what I’ve observed and overheard. I hope you enjoy these stories as much as I’ve enjoyed telling them. Stay safe, and don’t venture alone into the woods after dark. You never know who or what might be waiting for you.

I lived in Chicago and worked at the American Society of Clinical Pathologists’ Chicago headquarters, directly across West Harrison Street from the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office, when I wrote Claw Hammer. My ASCP job was to sell continuing education classes to pathologists, and I got to sit in on many of those classes because I was the person who registered pathologists and medical technologists for various courses. I set up microscopes in classrooms at conference centers, ran the overheads and slide projectors, hawked new books published by the Society or the College of American Pathologists, and hosted elaborate cocktail parties for the Docs at national medical conferences. One of those ASCP classes featured the latest techniques of tool mark analysis available to forensic pathologists interested in identifying the instrument of death, and I was fascinated to learn about the variety of ways people quite often used common household implements to kill beloved family members and friends.

That class reminded me of several terrible tragedies that had happened to grade-school classmates of mine in my own hometown of Rockford, Illinois. I recalled awakening one dawn to the sound of sirens when I was only about eight or nine. I learned that a neighbor had allegedly gone crazy during the night and killed his entire family—all but one daughter who survived–with a claw hammer. The milkman, the same milkman who had just delivered milk to my house, discovered the bodies when he entered the neighbor’s house to put milk in the refrigerator as he normally did twice a week. In those Father Knows Best and Leave It to Beaver days of the early 1950s, people were very trusting and nobody ever locked their back doors. All that changed, of course, after an entire family was killed in our close-knit suburban neighborhood. It never dawned on us that locking the doors would do no good if the killer lived inside the house and had keys.

Not long after that first tragedy, the mother of another female grade-school friend was electrocuted in her bathtub. Supposedly, a radio fell off a shelf and added 110 volts to an afternoon bubble bath and fried the lady like a lobster. Police arrested the lady’s husband and charged him with her murder. My young friend had to leave school to go live with her grandparents. I never saw her again.

One of my favorite uncles, Eric Ekebom, was a Rockford police detective sergeant and I remember asking to see his gun when I was too young to know any better. He told me he hadn’t had to use his gun even once in more than twenty years on the police force. He did carry a gun, he explained, but he said he really didn’t need one because “Good detectives use their brains and not guns to catch criminals.” I’ll always remember that. Eric was the detective who reorganized the Rockford Police Department’s record bureau in the 1930s. He became the police department’s forensic and identification expert, and he served as the President of the International Association for Identification, the largest forensic organization in the world, from 1956 to 1957.

When Pinnacle Books bought two of my novels and wanted them delivered right away, I wrote a rough draft of Claw Hammer and sent it off with the expectation I would have time to revise and polish the manuscript. I had one day between the time I received the page proofs and the deadline for getting the completed novel back to New York in time to make the publishing window. I over-nighted the proofs back. I have never missed a writing deadline in my life. In the old days when I was learning the newspaper business, we published what we had in order to make a deadline even if we didn’t yet have the full story. “Go with what ya got,” the editor called out as the daily deadline approached. Some stories were incomplete or inaccurate. We knew we always had the next day’s edition to round out the details or publish a correction. I’m glad Claw Hammer endured to see a next edition.

Claw Hammer was my first published psychological horror novel, and since its original publication in 1989 I have written nine additional suspense-thrillers/police-procedural novels set in imaginary Riverdale, Illinois. Riverdale is a combination of my native Rockford with areas of Aurora and Oak Park, plus images from a dozen other northern Illinois cities where I’ve lived and written novels. Carl Erickson, the homicide detective from Claw Hammer, also appears in Pickaxe, Icepick, Sledgehammer, Box Cutter, and Pinking Shears. After Carl retires, Troy Nolan and Andy Sinnott take over Carl Erickson’s roles, both detectives appearing in Pickaxe, Icepick, and Meat Cleaver.

My comfort zone is sitting at my keyboard inside my own house writing novels and short stories or reading novels and short stories for review. When Gretta M. Anderson, my wife of 27 years, died three years ago, I abandoned the real world for multiple fantasy worlds where I could control the outcome of human interactions. Writing kept me relatively sane. Andy Sinnott is a lot like me. But you already guessed that, didn’t you?

I write not only for me and to maintain sanity, but I write for people just like me who love to read a good mystery. I try, first and foremost, to tell a good story because I love good stories. Some of my stories get really weird, and many of my characters bleed and feel pain and some die. I view the world as a dangerous place where bad things happen to good people. Not all of my stories have a happy ending. Meat Cleaver is a mixture of happy and sad because the novel closely mirrors real life.

I am neither a medical doctor nor a forensic scientist, nor am I a police officer or a civil engineer. I have, however, worked with medical doctors, forensic scientists, police officers, and civil engineers, and I have two earned master’s degrees and most of a doctorate. I have done extensive medical research for more than twenty years. I always try my best to be accurate in my descriptions of medical and police procedures. I also served time in the military, including tours in construction engineer units, and I am familiar with a variety of firearms. Nevertheless, my novels are works of fiction that spring from my imagination, and I do take liberties with verisimilitude in order to tell a good story. For me, story comes first. If you want fact-filled books, I can recommend textbooks you might find interesting. If you want good stories, read my novels.

Meat Cleaver, the fifth novel in the Instruments of Death series, was released as an original e-book on May 4, 2015. I’m thrilled that Crossroad Press wants to publish the entire series for e-book readers.

Shedding Light on Darkness

My Winds series of occult thrillers are upsetting some people. Because I deliberately chose to reveal arcane secrets of alchemy, witchcraft, and tantra, I expected a backlash from evangelicals. Surprisingly, a number of evangelicals have purchased Abandoned, the first book in the Winds series, and read the entire novel from cover to cover. I’ve enjoyed some very interesting discussions with Christian evangelicals about the end times and how my books dramatically differ from the Left Behind books. What I didn’t expect was a backlash from the esoteric community for revealing secrets some felt should remain only in the hands of adepts.

            The complete series of novels—Abandoned, Winds, Darkness, Light, Time, Mysterious Ways, and their sequels—are filled with accurate arcane lore that many adepts believe must be kept out of the hands of ordinary mortals and wannabe practitioners. Although the novels are fictional with fictional characters, the principles of practice are spelled out in enough detail to be dangerous. Anyone with an ounce of sense and the ability to research can decipher the clues I’ve embedded in the stories.

            It has been wisely said, “When the student is ready, the teacher shall appear.” It you’re not ready to receive this knowledge, my words will have no special salience. You can read my novels solely as fast-paced thrillers and love these books only for the interesting characters and the epic battles. You may never see links to hidden knowledge, and that is as it should be. But, if you are ready to learn, attend to my words.

            Darkness should be available as an e-book from Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com by early May. Each of these new novels is a stand-alone story, and you may read them in any order. Winds will be out in July. Light should be out sometime next year.

            We begin with the breath. I teach you to raise the Kundalini power through pranayama alternate-nostril breathing and Vajrayama tummo breathing. Unlike Larry Darrell in Maugham’s The Razor’s Edge, you don’t need to travel to Tibet and complete a hermitage in the Himalayas to gain this knowledge. Darkness teaches how to remember your past lives. Winds teaches how to master earth, wind, waves, and flames. Light teaches the secrets of the Pho-wa hinted at in the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Shall I go on?

            Most of you know I am an accomplished hypnotist and practiced and taught hypnosis for many years. I am certified in past-life regression techniques and have regressed hundreds of people who re-experienced past lives. I did my doctoral research on changes in consciousness and cognition using techniques to alter respiration, and my master’s thesis was titled States of Consciousness and Cognition: a study of state-dependent learning. Few people know me as an acknowledged master of the Craft or as an elder in certain circles. I know secrets that have remained hidden for millennia. Rest assured those secrets will remain hidden until you are ready to discover them. I’ll provide the key to unlock many mysteries, but you are the one who decides which doors to unlock. I’ll shed no light until it is time.