Until I was about thirteen years old, I had regarded reading as something of a chore. Then, one summer, while visiting family, my cousin gave me some books to take home with me. On the ride back, I cracked one of them open – and ended up reading all four during our 800 mile drive. These books really lit me up against all of my own expectations.
The Bantam editions of the Doc Savage series are the books that really got me interested in exploring the possibilities of becoming an author. Over the next few years, I read seventy-two of these books. Bantam published over 180 of them, at one time putting out one title a month.
Lester Dent (1904 – 1959)
There is a complicated backstory about the Doc Savage books. The stories were originally published in pulp magazines in the 1930s and 40s. The author of the stories was listed as Kenneth Robeson, but that was actually just a house name. Though the preponderance of the stories were written by an author named Lester Dent, a number of other writers were involved and contributed to titles in the series.
Dent developed a master fiction plot, called the Lester Dent Formula. Essentially, his approach for producing highly salable 6,000 word stories was to divide the story into four 1500 word parts, each with steps for building the suspense and sense of menace to keep the reader engaged. Ironically, it was likely that formulaic approach that made it possible for other authors to step in and write additional Doc Savage adventures so seamlessly that the reader would never guess there was no Kenneth Robeson. Continue reading “Book Formula”
The murder at Joe Café is an abomination. It stops the entire universe. For Michael, it tarnishes everything, including his badge. For Chet and his hostage, it is the beginning of a chase that will lead them through dingy motels and the darkest corridors of their minds. Dogan just wants Sara back. Jimmy the Cat wants to make up for all the time he has wasted. Frankie wants to live a ‘moral’ life, erasing everyone in his path who does not live up to his standards. Conventional notions of good and evil quickly blur as they are all forced to look into the mirrors they have avoided for so long. Chilling and horrifying, whimsical and wretched, Joe Café’s cast of broken characters try to find their way in a world they never understood to begin with…for the Chens, it is easy. They are dead.
Joe Café by JD Mader is available, currently for free, from Amazon.com.
“Here reader, reader, reader. Here, reader, where are you?”
Finding readers for your books can be like trying to find the proverbial needle in a haystack. There are the usual marketing things you can do to entice them, and there are a few “out of the box” ones that I have stumbled upon that have helped. Marketing, of course, is important. But sometimes it’s not just the marketing aspect that draws readers to you. We are writers; we are supposed to be creative. It’s in our nature to be. So use it! Here are some out of the box ways to find readers: Continue reading “Finding Readers”
The Cult of Koo Kway
“Here reader, reader, reader. Here, reader, where are you?”