An Alternate History of Horror XIV: Paperbacks from Hell

[AndyC]

Comment on @RyanF 's article here.

 

[Charles EP M.]

It's a big sign of the times that writers used to do multiple genres and at times all under one name (though as you say not if one genre was 'the loser one'*), and now especially in small press and indie scenes there's a lot more subgenre hyperfocus. You are The Extreme Horror person, no gothics for you.

Laymon - who I used to read when I was younger, even when a book was sloppy the blunt nihilism stood out** - really does have a rep as the nicest guy, helping out people and warning them about real monsters in the scene. It's like Junji Ito being such a cheery chappy. If only more outwardly progressive writers of Nice Things could be as nice in real life as Laymon.

* then there's Ian Rankin, Stephen King, and John Wagner & Alan Grant using pseudonyms because they were told they can't do so much under one name (until they could); writers like Seanen McGuire and Iain Banks told they can say the other genre is them but could the cover have another name to placate the retailers (and now "Mira Grant" is McGuire's primary); and I forget which literary writer but I know one wrote a handful of low selling crime books under a fake name so he write some nasty scenes without people getting the hump with him

** The Stake, for example, with the growing obsession the lead has with a murder victim who might be a vampire and us knowing, but the cast don't, the nice suburban teacher hanging around is a rapist and killer

 

[Charles EP M.]

(One great penname story is scifi writer Michael Carroll doing some romance books in the 2000s as "Jay Carroll", because the market would order more with a less masculine name, and he got a reverse-Tiptree as a review said "well this is obviously a woman writing it, a man couldn't do this". Which says something)

 

[RyanF]

It's a big sign of the times that writers used to do multiple genres and at times all under one name (though as you say not if one genre was 'the loser one'*), and now especially in small press and indie scenes there's a lot more subgenre hyperfocus. You are The Extreme Horror person, no gothics for you.

Absolutely. The simultaneously most heartening and disheartening rejection email I received said they enjoyed my work at SLP at encouraged me to submit again especially when they did another AH anthology.

 

[Coiler]

I should note that around the same time as cheap shallow slasher movies were booming[1], cheap shallow horror novels also were, with this being the heyday of "legend" William W. Johnstone, who wrote horror, western, and contemporary thrillers, and was terrible at all of them.

[1]There's a great divergence to be had and talked about if Friday the 13th never progesses beyond being a single, forgettable slasher with Betsy Palmer as its lone killer.

 

[RyanF]

I should note that around the same time as cheap shallow slasher movies were booming[1], cheap shallow horror novels also were, with this being the heyday of "legend" William W. Johnstone, who wrote horror, western, and contemporary thrillers, and was terrible at all of them.

Indeed, something I'm actually learning more about through reading the book on them whose title inspired the title of this article.

This cover is from early in the book, and will be difficult to top:

[1]There's a great divergence to be had and talked about if Friday the 13th never progesses beyond being a single, forgettable slasher with Betsy Palmer as its lone killer.

You after my job mate? That's an upcoming article...

 

[Jared]

Absolutely. The simultaneously most heartening and disheartening rejection email I received said they enjoyed my work at SLP at encouraged me to submit again especially when they did another AH anthology.

Seconding this about how focused things have gotten.

My short story acceptance rate with publishers is, without exception, either 0% or 100%. Nothing in between. Even with those who have referenced liking my work elsewhere.

 

[RyanF]

Seconding this about how focused things have gotten.

My short story acceptance rate with publishers is, without exception, either 0% or 100%. Nothing in between. Even with those who have referenced liking my work elsewhere.

I'm drawing closer and closer to the "with blackjack and hookers" mentality.

 

[Jared]

I'm drawing closer and closer to the "with blackjack and hookers" mentality.

Same here. I have an assortment of about 45k words worth of short stories which I'm seriously considering self-publishing as a collection. The only thing which is holding me back is that if I go down the self-publication route I'd rather have 60-70k words at least, so I'm waiting until I write two or three other stories to bring it up to a more marketable length. (Only about half the stories are AH (even if squinting) and the other half most definitely aren't, so the collection isn't suitable for lodging with SLP - though I may include one or two reprints of my oldest and more obscure SLP anthology stories, given that in practice if an anthology has been out for 3 years, future sales will be minimal).