Marketing Fiction In A Changing World Part 5 - Ace Doubles by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Marketing Fiction In A Changing World
Part 5
Ace Doubles
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

In Part 3 of this series we began looking at Making A Living as a writer.  The discussion of how to achieve that continues here in Part 5.  Part 6, next week, will bring these ideas together. 

Here are the previous parts of Marketing Fiction In A Changing World:

Part 4: Understanding The Headlines You Use For Springboards:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/02/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world_18.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/02/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/03/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/05/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world.html

Long ago, in the mid-20th Century, Science Fiction was just getting a start.

A lot of publishing projects, writing projects, etc. were all put on hold for World War II.

That interval concluded around 1947 - a couple of years after the official end, troops had mustered out, reclaimed or acquired spouses, found jobs, started families, -- and in England, were still in the process of rebuilding buildings.

By the mid-1950's the rebuild had primed the pump of world economies and we were roaring along in publishing.

During that era, many science fiction magazines thrived, and niche imprints were created for books. 

ACE books, which still publishes some of the best stuff, especially in kick-ass heroine fantasy, launched a unique, exploratory publishing program called Ace Doubles. 

It was the biggest publishing genre innovation since maybe The Dime Novel which brought the Western genre to the densely populated East Coast -- ignited dreams and send droves of people to colonize the USA mid-West. 

The Ace Doubles ignited a furor of book-buying of science fiction.

Now these "books" were really composed of 2 novella length works -- longer than magazine stories, but shorter than Novels. 

Ace put 2 of these long-stories back to back, but upside down with respect to each other.  Each side of the volume was a "front cover" with illustration.

They packaged a well known writer on one side, and a beginner or unknown on the flip side.

Many great writers got their start this way. 

But at the same time, by using this format, ACE was able to import works from England, introducing popular English Science Fiction to the US audience. 

Marion Zimmer Bradley's SWORD OF ALDONES (her first novel; she had sold short work to a magazine prior to that) was an ACE Double.

It was a marketing ploy, and it worked fabulously well by making longer works cheap and accessible, and exploration of new authors painless.

E. C. Tubb was one of the British imports. 

I've recently picked up the audible.com version of the first three novels in Tubb's DUMAREST OF TERRA series, remembering it and finding it still stands up.

Here is a glimpse of the ACE marketing and decades later, the audible.com marketing via Wildside Press.  Study this.
              
If you're just starting out as a writer, this is what you aim to accomplish -- longevity.  Tubb's heirs are benefiting from this series which ran over 20 books.

Now, I have to tell you about DERAI, the second in the Dumarest saga.



Dumarest is a man from Earth, traveling the galaxy (much populated by various human cultures).  He has gotten so far from Earth that nobody's ever heard of it except as the legendary (how ridiculous!) birthplace of humankind.

 Now look at this non-fiction book from Wildside Press (available for reading on google) is an excellent history of science fiction, and the influential writers of so long ago.






Google this:
E. C. Tubb Serialization 

You should find this book at the top of the list and it will display a comment on Tubb's work in the mid-1950's.

I have this vague memory of my first encounter with Dumarest.  I used to haunt the used book stores and buy British magazines (tattered and yellowed with age) and other very hard-used paperbacks, reading Science Fiction from the 1930's and 1940's while waiting for the next new book.

Today, there's no way any one person can read everything the big publishers are churning out in Science Fiction Romance, Fantasy and PNR.  That has not always been the case!

So in my mind, E. C. Tubb and Dumarest and this style of storytelling he uses seems to me to have been one of those used magazines from the 1950's -- it was old when I got it, and is long since gone.  So I can't check this.

Everything online, and the serious scholars who have searched hard, are saying the Dumarest material dates from the mid-1970's Ace Doubles -- see the covers above. 

I could be confusing two different Tubb works. 

According to this book:
http://books.google.com/books?id=9j70AAAAQBAJ&lpg=PA138&dq=E.%20C.%20Tubb%20Serialization&pg=PA138#v=onepage&q=E.%20C.%20Tubb%20Serialization&f=false

Tubb dominated the British SF magazines in the mid-1950's and it could be some of that material that grabbed me.

Later, ACE did Tubb works in Ace Doubles. 

In the mid-1970's, the copyright laws were changed, so many earlier works were re-copyrighted so heirs could benefit from re-sale.  Nobody knew then what e-books would do to the reprint market -- or what the advent of Science Fiction Romance would do.  But right now, those older works are re-appearing, and they reveal the origins of SFR, PNR, etc.

Read page 138 of the book on Google.  Part 4: REBIRTH AND BUSINESS PLAN (1954-55).

It claims that Tubb wrote in a melodramatic vein.

That word, used in reference to science fiction, is a perjorative. 

It was used to disparage some of my favorite works -- the Lensman Series by E. E. Smith, Ph.D. -- along with the term "Space Opera."

These are terms which simply scorn anyone who respects these works.

But the fact is these works were and still are, deep, far-ranging philosophically challenging explorations.  They could even be seen as "subversive" -- even today! 

The second Dumarest novel, DERAI, is a Romance.

It is a standard modern-day ROMANCE!  (except for the ending, plus the idea that the man who marries the heiress gets control of her fortune).  It even has a Heroic-Heroine Telepath who falls in love with the Hunk Hero non-telepath assigned as her bodyguard. 

The ending, by requisite marketing formula, requires the heroine to die, leaving Dumarest single, free, available, and able and willing to travel to the next planet in search of Earth. 

That's what the series is about - Dumarest's quests to find his way back to Earth, and all the adventures he has getting there.

But using a science fiction twist, Tubb leaves her alive and even happy! 

Meanwhile, she has informed Dumarest of who knows where Earth is.  And he is now in hot pursuit of that information, knowing the galaxy-spanning organization is his mortal enemy.

So the Dumarest saga is about how one man confronts seemingly overwhelming odds to go home to Earth.

The other thing I noted about E. C. Tubb's writing which didn't distinguish the work against the background of contemporary works, but causes it to stand out against today's novels -- vocabulary.  The choice of word is excellent, precise, jewel-like (very much as you find in Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's St. Germain Vampire novels).

Tubb doesn't reach for those OED gems, though -- he uses normal, everyday vocabulary, but uses it well.

So I recommend the Dumarest saga as a way to study how to achieve inconspicuous but elloquent precision in vocabulary usage.

Just like a TV Series Hero, Dumarest has to stay footloose.  But his character is such that he does form relationships, and his personal integrity requires him to risk even his life for the sake of those relationships. 

He demonstrates Self Respect -- something you don't find a lot of on TV Series these days.  When you do find it on TV, it's watered down compared to this.

Which brings me to an article published last year, the 13 attributes of successful people.

If you are building a character to be the center-pole of a long series, a quintessential Hero, use this list and test every line of dialogue and every decision that character makes against this list.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/cherylsnappconner/2013/11/18/mentally-strong-people-the-13-things-they-avoid/

Check Dumarest against that list.  See what markets on both sides of the Atlantic.

Now, why would a modern Romance writer want to study dusty old adventure-action novels written for boys?

It's not the "dusty" or "old" part that you need to study -- or emulate.  (Please, no emulation of the dusty or old parts!).

To figure out what to do TODAY that will last and last and come back into print to put your grandchildren through college -- study the parts of these novels, the ingredients, that have lasted.

The parts that still work will very likely still work 50 years from now. 

To figure out how to use that information to create a galaxy you can tell a long-romance-saga against, you do need to know something about what else was going on during the early 20th century. 

What did life feel like?  Well, Hollywood isn't a reliable source of historical information, but it does show the Fantasies and Aspirations -- the wishes, dreams, spirit -- of that time.

Combine watching some really old films on Netflix with some non-fiction written at that time (not in modern times) about the world-forces shaping people's lives.  "Life" is mostly about wedging yourself a place between sweeping, storming forces.  We all try to find our place, our "Home" as Dumarest does, and make a safe place to raise children.

I should also note that board gamers look at the Dumarest of Terra Series as the origin of the extremely popular (Dungeons & Dragons level popular) TRAVELER game. 

Study the Dumarest phenomenon (how popular it was -- it is in the same category as the Sten Series, also from Wildside) against those two dimensions, Hollywood dreams and cold-hard-facts of history, and you will understand what Ace Doubles were and what they did for science fiction.

That is what has to be done for the HEA plausibility in the Romance genre.  We have the leverage now.  We have but to use it.

Here is the first of the Sten novels:
http://www.amazon.com/Sten-The-Series-Vol/dp/1434430979/

There are 8 main novels and several additional newer volumes.  They are in paper, e-book, and audiobook. 

Sten dates from the 1980's or so, and the series was written concurrently with a large number of screenplays (mostly TV) by Cole and Bunch. 

Stack up STEN next to DUMAREST, and contrast-compare what innovation they brought to their decade's audience. 

While you're at it, you might want to make a third column for the 8 original Sime~Gen volumes (there are now 12 volumes). 

Look at the strong influences and criss-crossing thematic lines.  Look at the character-formulae relative to that list of 13 things successful people avoid. 

Now look around at the current headlines.  Evaluate the current culture surrounding your target audience.  Check your Market. 

Wildside Press is today reviving the Ace Double format.  Two of the new, first publication Sime~Gen novels are part of that program. 



These two new novels are available in this paper Doubles format, and individually as e-book and audible.com editions.

Study these achievements that test out over time, adapt the principles behind these achievements to your purposes, and launch a byline that you will live with for the rest of your life.

Up until recently, Romance Genre was never considered "reprintable" -- today, Bestselling Romance writers are bringing their own backlist books out as e-books (yeah, Bestselling writers are self-publishing).  And these golden oldies are selling very well!

Yes, pre-cell-phone plots seem awkward.

Yes, women who lack adherence to those 13 principles of successful people in that article seem implausible. 

But yes, that's how life was -- and still is for a lot of women world-wide.

Consider that when you're rummaging around in your mind for a story that's marketable today and for the next 50 years.

Then ponder this article, and why it is that self-published writers don't make much money.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeremygreenfield/2013/12/09/how-much-money-do-self-published-authors-make/

And in that article is this link:
http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2013/self-publishing-debate-part3/

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Reviews 5 by Jacqueline Lichtenberg E. C. Tubb's Dumarest of Terra novels

Reviews  5
by Jacqueline Lichtenberg 
E. C. Tubb's Dumarest of Terra novels

This continues the Reviews series of novels for Romance writers to study. 

Here is a Hot Science Fiction/Paranormal Romance without sex scenes and with some antiquated tech in the background.

You'd think the "Mixed Genre" trend we follow on this blog was a new thing.

It is not.

And it didn't exactly start with my Sime~Gen novels -- though they pushed the limits way farther than anything before.

In the mid-1950's Marion Zimmer Bradley gained considerable note for her first sale, a short story published in a magazine.  It had characters and a relationship driven plot.

But at the same time some of the male writers were exploring just how "real" they could make their characters and the relationships in their stories.  Hal Clement caught on with Mission of Gravity where the "Relationship" between a male (sort of) Alien on a high gravity planet and the human male on the high gravity surface in a capsule could relate to each other to solve a technical problem.

During that same era, E. C. Tubb made me a lifelong fan.  I read his Dumarest of Terra novels with that "Yes, but ..." response most women had.  But I was just sent an audiobook version of The Winds of Gath (Dumarest of Terra #1) and was blown away by it.

The Winds of Gath is an example of the very best MODERN Science Fiction Romance --  because it has the really Hot Hero (Dumarest).  It also has a character that reminds me of the Grandmother in C. J. Cherryh's Foreigner novels.  It does have the "damsel in distress" character but that character is the "Grandmother" character's protege and great-granddaughter so you can guess just how much damsel there is in that distress.

Here it is on audible:
http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/The-Winds-of-Gath-Audiobook/B00EUE9ULC
And here it is on Amazon -- you can get the collector's old original first edition, or the Wildside e-book or paper reprint:

http://www.amazon.com/Winds-Gath-Dumarest-Terra-Book/dp/0441893023/

Wikipedia says WINDS OF GATH was first published in 1968, but I think it's older than that, and someone picked up a reprint that didn't credit the older edition (common practice).

Here's the wikipedia entry with a list of the 33 novels:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumarest_saga#Books

I have long been a fan of E. C. Tubb -- especially Dumarest of Terra.  But I read them in used ACE Double paperbacks years ago, tucked the author and title names into my GREAT-WONDERFUL-ALWAYS-RECOMMEND list, and went on with my own writing career. 

Little did I know that having forgotten the details in these novels, I would incorporate some of them into my own Sime~Gen Series which only began selling to the major publishers in the 1970's.

Bits and pieces of elements you will find in THE WINDS OF GATH turn up oddly in some of my other novel series.  So if you've found my novels intriguing, you should check out the DUMAREST OF TERRA series then look for how it inspired other writers. 

That effect -- firing up a new generation with an urge to write stories -- is proof positive that Tubb has created a true Classic.  Dumarest lives on via the writers Tubb inspired.  And there are a lot of us. 

Recently, I was given the audiobook of THE WINDS OF GATH -- and copies of the next two in the series in audiobook -- or I probably would not have taken the time to rediscover Dumarest (a sexy hunk to die-for!). 

But the Dumarest novels are not "classic" in the sense of being a chore to read, of being a duty to your education -- they are delightfully entertaining and just plain fun.

If you write SF Romance, you will see the frustrating holes, the MISSING SCENES, and the reason that books like this inspired a whole new type of Science Fiction. 

So when I was given a review copy of the audiobook, GATH went straight to the top of my to-do list.
I am blown away!  Dumarest is sexier than I remember!  Everything I love about Modern Science Fiction Romance is present in this novel even if only by implication. 

Not only is the audiobook's reader, Rish Outfield, top-notch terrific, but the whole composition comes to life in audio because the writing is so good! 

OK, Tubb uses "tape" recording on a scientific instrument, omits cell phones or any Trek-type handheld, no warp drive (they travel in cold sleep or under some drug).  This series was started in the 1960's after all. 

Consider, though, that Tubb was lured into writing more and more of the Dumarest of Terra series for decades after that-- because it just sold and sold.  It was popular for a reason. 

It has stayed popular for a reason -- it is Mixed Genre at its very best, a 2014 novel published in the mid-1960's. 

You have a whole saga of the galaxy spread before you once you get into Book 1.  Books, 1,2, and 3 are in audiobook already.

Read these with a focus on the social issues, and issues of Character (what it takes to be a Good Person - what makes people turn really Dark -- what sorts of social orders foster what kinds of changes in people.)  The characters in the Dumarest novels are deep, multi-faceted, realistic. 

These novels are masterful explorations of the Major Social Issues of 2014 on Earth Today.  These novels give you something to think about.  Like Star Trek at its best, these novels leave you with Questions, with the essential Conundrum of Life, and a hint of what it would take to resolve that puzzle. 

So you can take what Tubb has sketched out, and add in the decorative parts expected in today's market, update the tech, and create a new universe for younger readers to explore. 

The Dumarest of Terra Series is an example of the material scorned worse than video-games are today -- a vacuous waste of time to read, something to keep your kids away from.  Kids who read this stuff were considered social outcasts. 

Guess what!  I disagreed with my elders as a kid when I was reading these books, and on rereading (well, listening), I have confirmed that I was right and they were wrong. 

Tubb's writing is both masterful craftsmanship and as profound as any of the great Classics in Latin and Greek. 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Audible.com-The AudioBook Adventure

See below for news on Sime~Gen in audiobook edition.

A couple months ago, Wildside Press put my novel Molt Brother

Molt Brother (Lifewave)

and the Sime~Gen novels into Audible.com's program for audiobooks which are distributed on audible.com, on iTunes and on amazon, and I don't know where else.

A couple weeks later, a reader was assigned, and a couple weeks after that Wildside sent me an MP3 of the first few pages of the novel.

The accompanying note just said the editor had reservations about the accent the reader used during the opening.

I recently upgraded my ebook reader to an iPod Touch 4, and was easily able to listen to the MP3 on it that evening.

When I listened to it, I knew what the problem was.

But at the same time, I was suddenly extremely pleased with myself, I'd venture to say insufferably pleased.  Molt Brother is one terrific book.  It got a new review on amazon from Carol Buchanan, a writer I met on twitter who is not an SF reader at all, and she said,

------Carol Buchanan----------

I don't read science fiction. Or fantasy. And I hate snakes. I don't believe in reincarnation, or karma. Yet I think _Molt Brother_ is a work of high imaginative quality. Translation: It's a great read.
....While wholeheartedly recommending _Molt Brother_ to anyone who reads English, and I'll be happy to read anything else by Ms. Lichtenberg, I have to admit I still hate snakes.
---------END QUOTE-------

I so wanted the audiobook version to live up to that review! 

I introduced you to Carol Buchanan here:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/04/gold-under-ice-by-carol-buchanan.html

And you heard from her here in a later post with writing craft advice:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/05/carol-buchanan-on-writing-tricks-and.html

She's a great writer, and you really should read GOLD UNDER ICE.

So back to my problem with the audio opening of MOLT BROTHER.

The opening works very well on paper, but read aloud with an "alien" (i.e. non-human) accent that kinda sounds like the sort-of reptilian amphibian species -- there's a brick wall between the listener and the story.  There's no reason for a listener browsing book samples to waste time trying to understand that opening.

I offered 2 solutions and asked if the editor had a third.

I said we could ask the reader to re-do the opening scene, which is just 3 non-humans having an argument.  Later in the recording, the accent used for the non-humans becomes better, clearer and more practiced, so a re-recording will probably be more intelligible for the opening. 

Or I could write another opening to put a frame around the scene before the aliens start having at each other.  This would give listeners a chance to hear the great dramatic reading Voice and realize the audiobook is worth its price before hitting the accent. 

I had particularly suggested the aliens speak differently from the humans because their mouths are shaped differently -- and because a listener can't see a whole page of text in front of them and know who's talking to whom and what species they are at a glance.  You hear one word at a time, so to know who's talking, you need a suggestion of verbal style.  After a few pages, she got it just right, so I think this will work very well.

The editor at Wildside emailed right back and said BOTH solutions. 

When I suggested that I'd write something, I had no idea what to write.  It had been many years since I'd read the novel or worked with that material.  And having just heard the opening read so nicely (this reader is really good!), I didn't want to touch a word of it.  I feel that MOLT BROTHER and its direct sequel CITY OF A MILLION LEGENDS showcase my "Voice."  

We discussed "Voice" a little in the last two weeks.

So how could I frame that opening in that same "Voice" -- I didn't know, so I just started typing.

In my mind, I was thinking of the opening sequence to the old film.

And I just typed.  In a very few words (for me) I achieved my objective, so I attached it to an email and wrote the editor:
----------
Attached is what might be the opening "voice over" for a panoramic
opening of a film -- as the titles roll, we start with STARS, focusing
on a blue planet, close on an island with a big excavated
archeological site, swoop to a nearby house, cut to the interior pond
room and Arshel's confrontation with her parents.  (I'm thinking of
the opening of the film ISLAND IN THE SUN - 1957)
----------
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050549/

So here's what I wrote to go before the opening dialogue: 
-------------
Way off the beaten track of the Galaxy, a space ship full of humans crashed on a verdant water world occupied by the Kren.  The humans crafted an alliance with the Kren natives which functioned well until the galactic civilization rediscovered them.

Generations later, the Kren and human natives have begun to integrate on a deeply personal level – in some parts of their world.

Arshel Holtethor, a young Kren female, does not live in such an integrated place.  She has grown up on an island where human archeologists are excavating a city that is hundreds of millions of years old.  Enamored by that project and by a human boy of her generation also working on the excavation, Arshel dares too much, then must confess her situation to her parents. 

It is not going well….

-----------------

He wrote back with a couple tweaks I've included above I think, and I said fine, and he wrote back that he'd sent it to the reader.

At this writing, I haven't heard the re-recording of MOLT BROTHER with my new opening. 

If you get a chance to hear it, let me know what you think.

Meanwhile, I ran into an old friend on Twitter, @MichaelSpence , and we got to talking about Sime~Gen, which he thought he should re-read now it's out in ebook edition.

So I mentioned that Wildside was looking for a reader, and since he's spent the last few years doing voice acting, he went and applied to Wildside for the job of reading House of Zeor.

A few weeks later, I got the audition recording of the opening of House of Zeor that Michael Spence had made, and before I could get together with Jean Lorrah to discuss that, Wildside sent a different audition for House of Zeor -- so we suddenly had a choice.

Jean Lorrah and I agreed, and later two more of our simegen.com staffers also agreed, Michael Spence was the one for the job.

The other reader had used software that allows for background sound effects and for filters to change the reader's voice when "doing" other characters.  All very nifty, and actually very well done by this reader, but none of us liked the overall effect.  That is so strange, but totally unanimous, a conclusion we all arrived at independently.

Just last week I was told that Spence had turned in the first chapter done with better technicals on the audio, but I haven't gotten a copy yet.

Meanwhile, upon my return from Coppercon (held over Labor Day weekend this year) where I was on several panels with Gini Koch (whose novels I've discussed here ...
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/04/turning-action-into-romance.html
) I found the final-final proof of the 12th Sime~Gen volume in my inbox.  So the new novel, The Farris Channel, will indeed be out in e-book and paper editions soon.

 Meanwhile, if you download from audible.com, iTunes, or Amazon, the audiobook editions of either of these novels, do please let us know your reaction - drop a note on this blog if you like.  There will be more opportunities to make choices like this.


Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com