The Pulp 2.0 Brand

One of the questions I get asked the most is "What sort of material are you looking to license for Pulp 2.0?' It's  certainly a fair question, but sometimes hard to define as I do have eclectic tastes when it comes to my reading, movies, comics and toys.  I thought I would take a moment to sit down and try to define my tastes, and give you a clearer insight into the Pulp 2.0 brand.

Come to find out that it's a good time to discuss branding, universes and "presence" on the internet bookshelf. 

When I was a snot-nosed brat growing up, one of the best places to visit was downtown Aiken, SC.  A short bike ride past the Highland park golf course and voila' you were in the center of a cornucopia of small shops, thrift stores, drug stores, 2 movie theaters (The Rocking Chair and the Mark 1&2), a sporting good store and a newsstand/convenience store.  For a ten-year-old kid this was a major component of the pulp paradise that would help define my level of taste  (the other being Kmart and Nonesuch Books ).

Downtown Aiken, SC had, for all intents and purposes been built in the fifties and sixties when the Savannah River Nuclear Facility came online and brought thousands into the sleepy town and the 20th century.  Prior to that, the main street was dirt and geared toward not only cars, but horses and carriages. Aiken was known as one of the premier horse training areas in the country with several Kentucky Derby winners to its credit. It was a small town that liked it that way, and did its best to accommodate the great influx of  people, money and commerce that a nuclear plant provides.

So by 1974 or so, I had the good fortune to be able to navigate this sleepy downtown corridor of 50's storefronts and find all sorts of cool things - the kind that delight the mad-pulp-bastard-in-training with a voracious appetite for reading, hobbies and movies - of the fantastique variety.  We would get Aurora model kits and Estes rockets from Aiken Sporting Goods. We would devour copies of Famous Monsters, Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella  at the Quick Stop; pick up comics at Hooks Drug store and Starlog and Fangoria at Aiken Drugs.  Some Saturdays we would go to the Rocking Chair Cinema and see things like The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, Silent Running,  The Planet of the Apes movies, Godzilla v. Bionic Monster, and later more adult fare like The Great Texas Dynamite Chase, Death Race 2000 and yes, even Big Bad Mama.  


[OMG - Captain Kirk is getting naked with Police Woman! She is so hot!] 

So this is the stuff I grew up with (though not necessarily grew up on. I went to high school with an emphasis on reading, and because I had such a habit I read everything - including all the literature that's supposed to be good for you).  Yes it informed my style, and the style of many of my peers.  From those humble beginnings we haunted garage and attic sales and the occasional swap meet looking for these buried treasures...

And we realized we weren't alone.

So if you remember Famous Monsters,  weird series fiction paperbacks, Aurora model kits,  masked mexican wrestling, cliffhanger serials, pinup magazines, and all of the movies mentioned above then you have a pretty good handle at what makes my clock tick.  That's what we're doing with Pulp 2.0 ... and not just with books.

(Cue dramatic organ music)

So what does that mean for you creators and our audience?

For established writers it means if you have material that fits the description and has been published before - we want to talk to you to see about possibly licensing your work for new pulp-inspired editions.  We want to keep your work in print and looking its best to our audience so that it makes all of us a nice profit.  This includes prose as well as graphic novels.

For artists it means we want to see about licensing art from you for covers and interior illustrations.

For new writers who may have a few credits it's an opportunity to work with us writing novel and graphic projects we've developed - just like the old pulp publishing houses. You'll have the chance to earn money in print as you develop as a writer.  You get to work with all of us here and get stuff done.

You see, I'm setting a goal of licensing 100 titles in the next two years.  A pulp library dedicated to bringing back the "buried treasures and guilty pleasures" of yesteryear, as well as developing new pulp properties in the classic mold.  A library that draws an audience and is the launching pad for all sorts of media creations: tee shirts, posters, web series, movies, games and toys.

(Nobody ever said I wasn't ambitious)

For the audience it means you'll get a plethora of pulp entertainment at your fingertips (or wifi connection) : digital books, print editions, media and merchandise that doesn't break your bank and looks great on the shelf.  It means you get to hang out with people who are just like you, and help us develop a company that's geared toward what you like. Maybe even develop your own talents just like Don Glut or Joe Dante or John Carpenter (when they each wrote for FM) and become a pro at it.

We've already had some small success with Brother Blood and we're building on that with Radio Western Adventures and our upcoming Frankenstein Lives Again.  
















I can let you know right now we have many more cool things in store for you, and I look forward to hearing what cool stuff you have in store for us... 

Why DIY?

It's been a hectic week already as yesterday I engaged in a flurry of emails and ideas about Pulp 2.0 Press and building both our catalog of offerings and our business.  It has been a learning experience to say the very least as I now have a plethora of PDF homework printed out and notebooked for study and guidance.

School is always in session, gang. At least until you're dead.

But what's come out of this flurry of publishing and marketing is a wealth of practical, no-nonsense knowledge about what works and what doesn't and why.  Constant testing, constant challenging the status quo...and constant bloody noses and sore backsides.  But damn, if our little company isn't figuring out what's going to work for us and our readers. 

And that's part of the importance of doing it yourself.

If you were a writer who only submitted the final manuscript and weren't involved in the process of design, format, marketing, distribution, publicity and printing then you would only see the smallest tip of the whole iceberg that you were heading toward.  Now there's certainly something to be said for specialization, but if you only see one small aspect of your business then you're vulnerable.  You're missing tools in your belt that you could possibly use to do your job better.

In the past several months, I've had to learn the basics of InDesign, PR "hotspots" for publicity, scheduling, book marketing (not too much of a stretch as it is very analogous to DVD marketing) and a whole host of other things related to the business of publishing.

And now I've embarked on learning to format for Kindle, EPub and soon IPad.  I won't be an expert at it by any means, but I will have a greater understanding of the process and will be able to budget my time accordingly.  I'll be able to make them better reads tuned to the format in which they're being read ... and we'll be able to sell our books in any format you want ...

And that, kids is the win for both of us.

This doesn't just apply to book publishing either.  Not in today's new IPad world.  Soon we'll be integrating all sorts of applications into our "books" making them fully-functional multimedia ventures.  As you read you be able to click on video, or sift through evidence photos (if you're reading a mystery or crime thriller) or hear  witness statements - a whole host of things.  Using all of the media buffalo to tell the story.

But the storyteller (you) has to figure out how to best use these tools.  How to put them together in new ways to maximize the entertainment value.  How to communicate with others you will partner with to accomplish this task.  That's going to take you sitting down and using the tools yourself, getting comfortable.

And that's another of the reasons why DIY is so important.

(there will be more to come)

So do yourself a favor and get out there and make your own damn media.

George Bailey has Nothing on Me

Thanks to all of you in the Legion who have responded to my message
yesterday. While we haven't nearly reached the goal, I feel like
the richest man in town. I am sure many more of you will
respond today as they find my urgent message in their InBox.

[I also feel like the local PBS station]

Many of you have responded with words of support, ideas and actions
that lets me know there's an audience out there hungry for good
entertainment they can use and to which they can contribute. That's
been the core business plan from the start and it's good to know that
our plan is meeting with such a terrific response. Thank you.

Knowing you are out there helps. Don't be shy.

Many people want the option to subscribe and that suggests a lot -
payment options, good customer service and just listening to what
the consumer is saying. As I've said before, a good company of this sort
must cultivate users instead of just readers.

I will answering your emails personally, but overall:

1. Most would subscribe if they could save money and the product was
what they wanted.
2. Yes, posters and prints are part of the plan. Especially from artists
who want to do something different than their usual comic magazine work.
3. As far as genres go, we will be open to publishing and developing
works in a variety of genres - especially if it opens our label up to bringing
in more users. Horror, Cliffhanger action, Spy-Fi, Westerns, Sci-Fi, Adventure.
4. If we do reprint public domain material it will be with the intent of adding
as much value to the property as possible. Illustrations, articles, photos, Omnibus editions, etc...
5. Clothing, especially unusual clothing (Angela!) is also in the plan.
But if you buy it, you must send us a picture of you (or the person you bought it for)wearing it.
6. We will be developing strategic partnerships with other publishers,
advertisers, and others.

All designed to give you good entertainment, cheap!

Thank you all again. Please spread the word. While it says "Donations"
on the button, I am considering all of this an "Investment."

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**If you would like to make an investment in the future of pulp media, please go to the top button on the sidebar and donate. We thank you for your support. It's Paypal, so you know it's secure.

What Should I Write?

Story courtesy Strange Horizons via Boing Boing.

If you read the statistical analysis of this it will make your eyes bleed polynomials so I'm going to break this down to show the trends occuring in genre fiction.

SciFi:

Stand Alones, Sequels and Other books (factual books on science fiction, art books, etc) are trending upward or are stable. Collections and anthologies are going flat. Unless some smart person has a new way to present the anthology or collection...hmmm.

Fantasy:

Stand alones and sequels dominate.

Horror:

Standalones and sequels rule the abattoir here. Short fiction anthologies are actually trending down.

Looking at # of books published per year:

Fantasy

Science Fiction

Others

Horror

(Please go to the Strange Horizons link above to see the more detailed analysis and charting)

I would be interested in seeing a similar analysis performed on online book services (IPhone, Kindle) and Print On Demand publishing to further refine this data. Media distribution does make a difference, and I suspect (though can't confirm) there's more short fiction potential in those arenas (for what I'm going to assume are obvious reasons at least to this audience).

Can Someone Please Tell Comics This?

Dave Eggers offers this about the future of print:

"The new issue of McSweeney's, he adds, will be published in newspaper form, in an attempt to show that if the print model is changed, if it can offer "a clear and different experience" from the internet, then it can thrive. "We believe that if you use the hell out of the medium, if you give investigative journalism space, if you give photojournalists space, if you give graphic artists and cartoonists space – if you really truly give readers an experience that can't be duplicated on the web – then they will spend $1 for a copy. And that $1 per copy, plus the revenue from some (but not all that many) ads, will keep the enterprise afloat," he writes.

Eggers ends with a rousing call for the future of print. "This is a time to roar back and assert and celebrate the beauty of the printed page," he says. "Give people something to fight for, and they will fight for it. Give something to pay for, and they'll pay for it."

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I want my comics on newspaper. I want to pay $1 for a big slab of culture with a lot of different comics in it... and ads for things I like... and a short story or two. I don't want to pay $3.99 for 22 pages of "story" (yes, that's sarcasm) on glossy white paper stock with card stock covers that winds up in a plastic bag and a board.

I also want to go online and read the comics if I miss the print edition. Surrounded by advertising and links and all sorts of "Google-ness" that pays for it.

But most of all I want to see kids reading comics again. With their folks. Just like my Dad and I used to do when I was a kid growing up in the small burg of Aiken, SC.

Every Sunday after church I would ask that we drop by the Aiken Drug Store to pick up the Atlanta Journal and Constitution which was the only paper in the area that carried DICK TRACY, THE PHANTOM and STEVE CANYON. All of this and the rest of the paper for only 50 cents.

Comics should be cheap.

The content shouldn't.

H/T to Warren

Does Anyone Know The Name of This Font?

Email me your findings... thanks!

Golden Age Goodness...

Everyone knows I love classic pulp fiction, but often they are extremely hard to find or the reprints are of such poor quality that it hardly justifies the purchase price.

Well, the folks at Galaxy Press have taken care of that and gone and created a book club for former pulp author turned founder of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard. I was skeptical at first, but after glimpsing some of the books at Comic Con, and now having had the chance to read one, I am convinced this is a bargain at twice the price (only $9.95 each).

But not only have they taken Hubbard's stories and re-released them in fine, new editions - they have taken the time to try and recapture the feeling of the pulp magazines for a new audience.

The books feature vibrant covers on durable cardstock, and a delicious cream colored paper stock for the interior printing. The type has all be reset and is clean and easy to read. The pages are slightly offset and not trimmed (like today's paperbacks) so you get that impression of rough-edged paper with flakes of pulp nesting in your lap.

But of course, you're wondering about the stories themselves. I have to be honest and say I didn't care for "The Beast" nor "The Slaver" included in this edition, but I thoroughly enjoyed both "Space Can" and the title story "The Great Secret." Both are what I consider to be "good pulp" - short, entertaining and thought-provoking while not being overbearing. I think Hubbard comes off as pretentious sometimes, but part of that is the "theatricality" of pulp writing in the time period.

But what's amazing is that Galaxy Press has made the commitment to over 80 novels in this format, not only in these beautiful print editions, but in both audiobooks, mp3 downloads and e-texts. They've even gone so far as to load up ipods with all of the stories in the library so you don't have to do any of the downloading. That's a publisher that understands readers - pulp readers to be exact.

So yes, I have to give this book a thumbs up and a thumbs up for the series overall.