When conventions arrived I was able to rap with the pros, get into par-ties and private places only open to professionals–things that were purpose-ly isolated from the fans. My “glory days” were beginning to open up to me in wonderful ways.
It was through these connections that I ended up handing Forry Acker-man a few manuscripts he was kind enough to look at, submitting a few to magazine editors. Suddenly I got an acceptance for Country Boy [originally titled: Flowers for the Lady]. That was a far cry from the sci-fi mags I really wanted to get published in; but it was a beginning.
That sale went to Cocktail, a girlie magazine, filled with lots of nude ladies (only airbrushed to keep the women somewhat modestly mysterious) showing off their well-developed bustlines. Today called Hooters or Boo-bies. And the airbrushing has been long gone; cause today anything goes —well, everything goes, come to think of it. The censorship doors were blast-ed wide open a long time ago, after a very prolonged struggle between people who wanted to reveal and see all and those who wished to restrict visual and graphic images of all and any kind!
Heaven forbid a young kid might discover what a nude body looked like. I remember, as a child, being exposed to pictures of naked men and women. Heck, I was the son of an artist, and commercial or not, he was no prude about concerning these kinds of images. Not “naughty” but pure re-spectable visual information. So, I never really had much interest in such things as “French postcards” which merely offered shots of naked women. My attitude was: “Well, so what?” Of course this was before a bit of “ma-turity” would spark different kinds of reactions.
But back to the magazine Cocktail and the publication of Country Boy by Alexis Charles. (Yes, I used a penname for that story!)
The editor who bought the story used the editorial penname of Larry Maddox. I don’t feel it right to expose his real name here, though it is well known and not much of a secret any more–a long time exposed.
Larry was a sci-fi fan and writer and one of those who circled around the Ackermansion. He had me come into his offices at Art Enterprises in Sherman Oaks, and went over the manuscript line by line telling me what was needed to make it a winner. And, of course, I went about doing as instructed. He bought a few other manuscripts over the next months, but became resistant as I became more and more prolific in grinding out one story and/or article after another as fast as I could type.
Forry found other publishers who grabbed up things from time to time, keeping me continually encouraged to keep tappin’ away at the keyboard that first year! One thing led to another. A little issue of seven stories for seven titles, led to my first novel sale to David Zentner and to meeting Bob Pike, who was to become an important factor in the work with Dad.
Dad had some contracts of his own, also. Such as Vera Radcliffe, whom Dad had known for some time socially through a fellow artist, and helped in the original contact with David Zentner, whom she knew on a personal level. Well, she knew a lot of interesting people and one of them was connected with a local, developing, serious pocketbook publisher, who owned “Book Company of America” and had managed to get 1st class na-tional distribution of his books through his contacts. In any case, they had an office in Beverly Hills. Dad was introduced to them as a cover artist—they hired him to do on work several of their current books in production. Dad introduced me to them and they signed me to write a book on Holly-wood, which came out under their suggested title: Whodunit? Hollywood Style. This was the first book published under my own name and for a mul-tiple of reasons I dedicated the original printing to Vera. It later saw print in French, Dutch, and who knows where else it was translated; and later was reprinted as Hollywood Mysteries by Powell Publications and now as True Stories of Scandal and Hollywood Mysteries, again by Wildside Press, in a modernized, updated, and expanded edition.
Selling Dad’s sci-fi magazine covers was topped only by having my fa-ther do a cover for one of my books! Now that was one big thrill and five-halves!
Once he started doing the covers, which were done to please his son, we begin our connections with the professional world of science fiction. We had made a serious connection with the Ackerman Agency and I was doing the in-between stuff between 4e (Forrest J “no period” Ackerman) and Dad.
Dad was in place, and now the agent was in place, and I was ready to start really writing for publication. What followed then was the publications of my first short stories and finally my first pocketbooks.
It was Bob Pike who was the first editor/publisher/packager to buy one of Dad’s covers for one of my books he’d released. Then he suggested we consider actually packaging books, bypassing publishers like himself!
One good thing led to another.
My real relationship with Bob started when he got his deal with a local distributor to package (publish) pocket books, called me and asked if I had something for his new publishing company, Pike Books. Bob had met me at David Zentner’s office. Reputations are built very rapidly once you’ve made one sale. He had, in fact, edited my first pocket book Hot Cargo for Zentner’s Epic Books line.
Well, Bob contracted to package two books a month and for the first month he took an un-produced film script, converted it into a short novel, did a photo cover for it, and used it as one of his first months’ release.
Well now he needed a second novel and cover for this opening month’s release of Pike Books.
Did I have a deal for him: A manuscript which I was willing to sell at the drop of a “cover by Dad” being added into the deal!
Lost City of the Damned hit the stands with Dad’s cover on it. [An up-dated, revised version, both story and cover, is now published by Wildside Press.]
An interesting side-point concerning this cover is two-fold: Dad hated it! And many people liked it, enough so that Jeffrey Luther used it on one of his many postcards sold as prime examples of this kind of cover art. What a tribute to Dad!
But back a few decades to when Lost City of the Damned by Alex Rivere (yes, another penname!) was released.
A major fact of life was taught me when that came out on the stands. My Dad’s brother, Uncle Carl, and his second wife, wanna-be writers themselves, were so very impressed by Dad’s cover, and had nothing what-soever to say at all concerning the book.
Now, that hurt like blazes! It took some time for me to understand the obvious: it is far easier to look at a visual object and compliment that than to actually spend time reading a book! Can you blame them for being im-pressed with the art and not at all interested with the writing? To say noth-ing about the fact that my words were in print and theirs never did reach that level of achievement. I have always wondered if it was merely the ob-vious easy take on art vs. writing or if something else had entered into their judgment concerning Lost City! Since I happened to have liked it to some degree, I find it difficult to imagine they were all that contemptuous of the bloody thing. Like many people who attempt to write, they didn’t seem willing to bend to the demands of the market in order to get published. Or, perhaps they didn’t want to write what could be acceptable, or maybe they simply had their own ideas as to what was worthy of publication.
The fact is, though, that they did write a number of things that never got past any editor’s desk. That does not mean these stories weren’t good. It simply means they weren’t commercial enough to reach the markets that would, perhaps, have been possible buyers.
Reasons aren’t important. The issue here is that in order to get published you have to develop a hard skin and a determination to do whatever is necessary to appeal to the editors/publishers who are willing to pay to put your words in print and into the reading public’s hands.
There are other factors, of course, involved in such matters: determina-tion, connections, and most important a market willing to take on the chal-lenge of a new, unknown writer. Sometimes a publisher’s doors are closed to anybody other than a few select writers. It can be just that simple.
Like Bob Pike calling me by phone a
nd asking for a book. I happened to be in the same general area and within easy driving distance from where he was setting up business. I was willing to cooperate with him, and not hard to get, nor unable to slant or revise to his demands.
In this case we delivered manuscript and cover together as a packaged deal. Plus tossed in for good measure: cover lines and flyleaf copy (teaser which is published on the page upon opening the book, previous to the title page).
We sold several double packages to Bob, and in at least one case he did a photographic cover for a book of mine. At the same time he commis-sioned Dad to do the cover for Coming of the Rats by another author.
So, that’s how things opened up; one deal ran right into another.
In fact, it was Bob Pike who said: “You should bypass me and go di-rectly to the distributor and do the whole thing yourself!”
How things progress, step by amazing step!
But for that simple side remark from Bob, the “books with a sting” would never have come into being. I did just what Bob suggested and came out with a deal that turned into Scorpion Books! Though I had total creative control of this line, it wasn’t done without checks and double checks. Most of these books have been reprinted elsewhere and in translation, so I felt pretty good about that.
But Dad did all the covers for the Scorpion books and I wrote cover lines, flyleaf copy, and the books themselves, including any and all ads concerning them. I owned all the covers for many years, until I sold them via the Tom Lesser Pocket Book Show.
One of these books was titled: Lovers: 2075 by Charles English and later was totally revised to become The Ersatz in Images of Tomorrow, a collection of my sci-fi fiction for Powell Sci-Fi, and now again updated and totally revised as The Ersatz and The Talisman for Wildside Press. Another bit of business concerning the original edition was its translation in Europe under my own name.
It is always nice to have a winner!
The first book for Scorpion Books was….
Oh, but maybe I should let that be told some other time.
The final chapter, working with Dad, all started with meeting Bill Trot-ter in his offices previous to his going independent as a publisher all on his own.
He was a small man [in size, only], delightful in many ways, but quite serious and business-like. Plus an important factor: dependable insofar as delivering payment upon verbal contract.
His background was simple enough: he had been involved with Play-boy, early on, in the distribution department, then later with setting things up for some adult publishers in the mid-west, and apparently involved with William Hamling for a while, even when they went to San Diego. Then his connection with Richard Sherwin in Venice Books set things up for our meeting one afternoon in 1968.
Bill Trotter happened to be a friendly guy who invited me into his of-fice, when I was there to just pick up a copy of the current Carson Davis book.
I’d brought copies of a few things I’d done in the past, like If This Goes On. I mentioned some of these things to Bill during this rather light and social meeting and showed these samples of what I’d done. He was inter-ested, and impressed.
He confided that he was planning to go out on his own, forming a pub-lishing house, and doing more than just “sex book” such as the Carson Da-vis line. Legit books, with first line distribution! That would set things up in a totally different way. In many situations the sex books and magazines didn’t get frontline distribution, and even when displayed, it was not up front in the quality section with all the other major publications. But what Bill was planning would be a totally different setup. Very exciting.
Obviously I mentioned my own experiences and contacts, Forry Ackerman and the If This Goes On book I edited. I even suggested a sci-ence fiction line, and how I could probably get some very top named au-thors. He took my name and phone number and said he’d give me a call when he was ready.
Sure. Of course he would. I decided to be excited about the wild possi-bility of that happening, but not overly so. In fact, I’d pretty much forgotten all about it by the time I got a phone call. “This is Bill Trotter” and probably a “remember me” kind of statement. He was set up to publish books, wanted to know if I had some things for him, originals or reprints. I said something could be worked out. We arranged for a meeting that very day, I do believe. I simply closed up shop and drove to his office, about 30 minutes away. We talked for perhaps an hour.
When I came home I had a deal where I’d give him two books a month with covers by Dad, and I’d write all the cover lines and promo copy and not even delivery them to his office, but to the printer. They would be orig-inals or reprints of things previously published, but sexed up a bit to meet the present day market demands for more erotic material. They would be for Tiger Books, his sexy line. He had hired me on my reputation and didn’t have an editorial staff to supervise the production of his books. In other words, he had hired me as a packager. We planned on doing the “quality” book and a sci-fi line in the very near future.
Strangely enough I believed him! Actually, here was the kind of man who was straightforward, direct to a blunt point, and didn’t bullshit. So I knew he was as good as his word!
I offered up an original manuscript that I titled Nympho and got Dad to do the cover for that and another book, I believe was Blowout! In this case a sex-up version of a book I’d done for Zentner, thus making it, in many ways, an original, new novel. That was the beginning of our publishing “partnership” and what a delightful experience it turned out to be.
I was to get original stories from other authors, or use my own books as reprints. In a short time I got the offer to do the sci-fi line and suggested he call it Powell Sci-Fi, beginning with two books a month. I used the Ackerman Agency, exclusively. [What better expert could I consult for material? And most of all he had connections to named sci-fi writers, well established in the world of science fiction—worldwide!]
The opening month one book was by A.E. Van Vogt, and his wife E. Mayne Hull, containing all the stories from their hard cover edition of Out of the Unknown along with an original story never before published. As for the other book, that was my Swordmen of Vistar selected at Forry’s rec-ommendation.
In the months that followed, I picked for publication books like Starman by Stu Byrne and Godman by John Bloodstone (both the same writer). Even some of my own books were included, again at Forry’s rec-ommendation.
I wanted to release the most impressive books possible. And the deal was that rights were sold for only one year and the author got the original cover art for their book! Just a little sweetener for raking in established writers into the fold, since the rates of the advance to them was not as inviting as those offered by New York publishers. While Bill Trotter had great distribution, he could hardly compete with the Big Boys on the East Coast. He was just beginning a publishing house more as a fun thing, and as a moneymaker, sure, but it was something he had wanted to do, apparently, for a long time!
Almost all writers, no matter how big they get, have something special they’d like to have released and for whatever reason have not found a pub-lisher willing to take these products, and I was open to any kind of deal possible that was inviting.
Doors were closed in all this packaging for Powell. I had total control of the sci-fi line and the doors were shut to any other agency or writer or packager. And I would only buy manuscripts and/or reprints through the Ackerman Agency.
This is “dirty” business for the freelancing writers struggling to get through publisher’s doors. Mine had to be closed and locked tight cause I was pretty much a one-man operation, writing and packaging. The only “staff” I had was Dad, who took care of the art side of things. He painted the covers. Sometimes he did the paste-up, but most of the time I wound up doing that for one reason or another. But it was always done under a joint effort with him. Dad was not well and in fact dying, though we didn’t realize it at the time. The last book he did for me was for my Images of Tomor
row. I suggested a cover design that would be very easy for him to do: clouds for the background and a few simple objects in the foreground.
These paintings were done on a large hard canvas for wrapped around covers, which meant they went from front, through the spine, and around to the back of the book. And designed too also look good on the author’s wall in a frame! We were a small closed market.
I had the pick of the Ackerman Agency’s suggested books to consider. A number of L. Ron Hubbard books were offered and I planned on doing Kingslayer after replacing one story, which was dated, with a different one. That was a can-do idea. It just happened not to take place, cause the line didn’t last forever and I was over-worked and things changed. Dad died shortly after doing the Images cover.
It is enough to know that Dad had cancer of the spine, and was hospitalized for most of the last months of his life. I had to find someone to replace him as a cover artist. Of course, we figured this would be a short-term thing. Only when it became evident that he would not be coming out of the hospital did I have to face some hard decisions. Those were dark days for me, for all of us, in fact.
Luckily, during a previous conversation with Bill Hughes, we ex-changed phone numbers. Some time later, when Dad couldn’t do any more covers, I remembered Bill. I needed a cover for the adult line of Tiger Books, for Take Me, I’m Yours. I called Bill asking: “Can you deliver al-most immediately? Like tomorrow?”
I was quite serious about that. I had Uncle Louis doing the “serious” mystery and sci-fi covers and now was about to add Bill Hughes as my main guy.
He invited me over to his office; I believe I drove over immediately. We talked about the subject matter of the cover and the necessity of having it the next day or so. He did a quick pencil sketch based on our running conversation in his small two-room bungalow-type office. I said something like do it, and a cover was delivered to the printer within days.