May This Blog Haunt You Pleasantly (Part 3) by C. Kevin Thompson

C. Kevin Thompson

We’ve arrived. Part 3 completes this blog trilogy revolving around my reading of Les Standiford’s The Man Who Invented Christmas: How Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol Rescued His Career and Revived Our Holiday Spirits (You can read Part 1 and Part 2 here). As I stated before, if you want to learn about the writing life and how other writers who have gone on before us have endured the trials and tribulations therein, reading about them is just as important as reading about the craft itself. For one thing I found when learning about Dickens’s life was how universal some things are. It truly is a small world.

So far, we have covered the first two “gleanings” I gathered from my reading of this work. Gleaning #1 (found in Part 1 above) was: Authors have always wished to get their works in as many readers’ hands as possible, sometimes at the chagrin of their publishers (if they are traditionally published) or themselves (if they are independently published). And if not handled properly, it can become an all-consuming fire.

As much as this writing life can become a soul-wrenching conflagration, this mindset can worm its way into the writer’s business relationships as well, which led us to Gleaning #2 (found in Part 2 above): The constant tension between authors and publishers will always be a constant.

If an author like Dickens, who made such an impact of the art of story in relationship to the downcast and poor among us, then who are we to think that everything we write should be loved and adored by every editor and publisher who reads it? It’s actually quite the tip of the hat to arrogance, if you ask me. And believe me, I’ve asked me a lot. We all think, if we’re honest with ourselves, that what we write should be adored and published with an air of delight. It should be venerated and lavished with contracts fit for a king or queen. So, when we are told by an editor or agent, “I’m not interested,” or “It’s not something our house can support,” our proud belief in our work explains the utter incredulous nature of the expression on our face. It’s definitely something we need to work on, for sure.¹

This brings us to my last gleaning from Les Standiford’s book.

Gleaning #3: Crooks abound in publishing, and sometimes in the unlikeliest of places.

Did you know Charles Dickens had to deal with pirates? Not the Jack Sparrow, “Where’s the Rum?” brand of pirate. He probably could have more easily accepted the “Yo-ho-ho,” parrot on the shoulder kind of buccaneer than the scallywags he faced.

Dickens had fought for years to have an International Copyright Law. He saw the practical and legal need and lobbied for it every chance he got, for the problems crossed the Atlantic—heading both east and west—and didn’t seem to play favorites. However, the pirates had their preferences, and popularity was always the key.

American authors popular in England watched as their works were literally stolen and reprinted in England. Edgar Allen Poe was a common victim. Such works as The Fall of the House of Usher (1839) and The Masque of the Red Death (1842) were both bootlegged from Poe’s pen by English publishers and sold to a British audience without Edgar receiving any compensation at all.

Dickens was Edgar Allen Poe’s contemporary, as well as his fellow quarry. His works traveled abroad, from England to America, were retooled, and sold for a pittance with no recompense heading into Dickens’s bank account. The one foray into plagiarism that caught my eye, though, was when A Christmas Carol landed in Boston, and was subsequently harvested by the publisher known then as Harper and Brothers.

Does the name of that company sound familiar? It should. Harper and Brothers later merged with Row, Peterson, and Company in 1962 to become Harper & Row. In 1987, Rupert Murdoch purchased the company for $300 million and merged it with his News Corporation. Then, three years later, he purchased William Collins, Sons & Co., a British company (ironically!), and HarperCollins was formed as a means of creating a worldwide English-speaking book market that has great potential, according to one analyst.²

The article I found went on to say, “Harper & Row evolved from a publisher of books on religion and ethics—its first title was Seneca’s “Morals”—to books by Mark Twain, James Thurber, E. B. White, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Moshe Dayan, Allen Dulles, Svetlana Alliluyeva, Erich Segal and Sylvia Plath” (emphasis added).³ Apparently, religion and ethics didn’t play a huge part in the company’s earlier days. There didn’t seem to be any feeling of remorse about the act of thievery. Even though copyright laws existed in both America (Copyright Act of 1790) and England (Statute of Queen Anne in 1710), they only applied to authors within their own borders.⁴

How convenient, right? There have always been legal loopholes…

Dickens, like others, knew there was little they could do about the literary poachers of their day who operated across the pond, much like we cannot do much about the ones that exist today.⁵ However, when a British publisher known as Lee & Haddock had planned to publish a “re-originated” version of A Christmas Carol—which turned out to be the book in its entirety with a few lines of introduction added and a few minor things changed—for two pennies a copy in their Parley’s Illuminated Library, in the January 6, 1844 edition, Dickens wrote his friend and legal counsel, Thomas Mitton, who filed a formal complaint with the courts.

That didn’t stop the pilferers, though. Because of Dicken’s enormous popularity, other works of his were lifted in a similar fashion, many of which being done so in a not-to-flattering manner. Such titles as The Posthumous Notes of the Pickwick Club, by “Bos,” Pickwick in America, Oliver Twiss, Nickelas Nicklebery, Barnaby Budge, and more were allegedly written by “Bos, Buz, Poz, and others.”⁶

Dickens, more than upset over Lee & Haddock’s actions, spent over a thousand pounds on legal fees in his court battle—a tough ride, considering Dickens was always on the verge of bankruptcy. He eventually won his fight against Lee & Haddock, and decided it was their fault he had accumulated these legal fees. So, he filed another lawsuit to recoup his funds. He won that case as well. That was when Lee & Haddock filed for bankruptcy, thus forcing Dickens to drop the case and absorb the legal fees when he was already in debt.⁷

So, what’s an author to do? Those, like Dickens, have gone on their crusades and fought for themselves and those writers who have come after. But there are two things that have come out of this Gleaning #3 for me.

1. There will always be pirates. Always have. Always will. And even the courts can’t eradicate them all. Sometimes, it seems, the laws of the land protect them with the loopholes that can be used as escape hatches. “There is no justice in the justice system,” one of my characters says all the time.

2. We are Christian writers. Most of us write Christian literature. Dickens didn’t (Neither did Poe, for that matter). And he was taken advantage of by unscrupulous publishers. In this ever-darkening world around us, I’ve often wondered how long it’s going to be before our works are rejected because of the emphasis on Jesus. I believe a form of censoring is coming that will be allowed (If Jesus doesn’t return before that happens!). The courts will declare the message of Christ anathema to all human beings and to be avoided at all costs.

So, what’s an author to do? I believe the answer is as simple and as complicated as this: write. In the admonition of Ephesians 5, “redeeming the time because the days are evil.” To use our talents to help as many people as possible see the light of Christ as it shines brighter and brighter in a dark world before our window as a writer closes. Take advantage of the avenues God supplies to get your word out about the Messiah.

And in the words of Tiny Tim, “God bless Us, Every One!”

¹  My wife ran across a book that deals with this very issue recently, titled Free of Me: Why Life Is Better When It’s Not about You, by Sharon Hodde Miller. This book should be on every Christian writer’s shelf.

² McDowell, Edwin. “Murdoch to Buy Harper & Row in Surprise Deal.” New York Times. 1987 March 31. 2019 March 18. https://www.nytimes.com/1987/03/31/business/murdoch-to-buy-harper-row-in-surprise-deal.html  

³ Ibid.

⁴ Standiford, Les. The Man Who Invented Christmas: How Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol Rescued His Career and Revived Our Holiday Spirits. Broadway Books; New York, NY, 2017. pp. 140-141.

⁵ Clark, Grant, and Shelly Hagan. “What’s Intellectual Property and Does China Steal It?” Bloomberg.com. 2018 March 22. 2019 March 18. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-22/what-s-intellectual-property-and-does-china-steal-it-quicktake

⁶ Standiford, Les. The Man Who Invented Christmas: How Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol Rescued His Career and Revived Our Holiday Spirits. Broadway Books; New York, NY, 2017. pp. 142-143.

⁷ Ibid., pp. 144-152.

The Tide of Times

The Tide of Times

(The Blake Meyer Thriller Series, Book 3)

A Perverse Tale. A Precarious Truth. A Personal Tribulation.

Supervisory Special Agent Blake Meyer is at an impasse. Bound and beaten in a dilapidated warehouse halfway around the world, Blake finds himself listening to an unbelievable story. Right and wrong warp into a despicable clash of ideologies. Life quickly becomes neither black nor white. Nor is it red, white, and blue any longer.

Every second brings the contagion's release closer, promising to drag the United States into the Dark Ages. Tens of millions could be dead within months.

Every moment adds miles and hours to the expanding gulf between him and his family. What is he to believe? Who is he to trust?

C. KEVIN THOMPSON is a husband, a father, a grandfather, and a kid at heart. Often referred to as “crazy” by his grandchildren, it’s only because he is. He’s a writer. Need he say more?

The first three books of his Blake Meyer Thriller series are out! Book 1, 30 Days Hath Revenge, Book 2, Triple Time, and Book 3, The Tide of Times, are now available! Book 4, When the Clock Strikes Fourteen, is coming March 2019!  Also, the second edition of his award-winning debut novel, The Serpent’s Grasp, is now available!

Kevin is a huge fan of the TV series 24, The Blacklist, Blue Bloods, and Criminal Minds, loves anything to do with Star Trek, and is a Sherlock Holmes fanatic, too. It’s quite elementary, actually.

Website: www.ckevinthompson.com/

Kevin’s Writer’s Blog: www.ckevinthompson.blogspot.com/

Facebook: C. Kevin Thompson – Author Fan Page

Instagram : ckevinthompson

Twitter: @CKevinThompson

Goodreads: C. Kevin Thompson

BookBub: C. Kevin Thompson

May This Blog Haunt You Pleasantly (Part 2) by C. Kevin Thompson

C. Kevin Thompson

In last month’s Part 1 of “May This Blog Haunt You Pleasantly,” I stated how important it is for writers to read about other writers. Whether they were trailblazers or path-wideners, each writer has his or her own story. Being as human as we are, those stories paint for us pictures of triumph and tragedy…two things from which we can learn. 

As I read Les Standiford’s The Man Who Invented Christmas: How Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol Rescued His Career and Revived Our Holiday Spirits over the holidays, there were some things that jumped off the page for me, and I thought I’d share them here at Seriously Write.

Last time, we looked at Gleaning #1, which was:

Authors have always wished to get their works in as many readers’ hands as possible, sometimes at the chagrin of their publishers (if they are traditionally published) or themselves (if they are independently published). And if not handled properly, it can become an all-consuming fire.

One little tidbit I didn’t mention at the end of last month’s post was how all-consuming that fire had become for Dickens. By the 1850s, his relationship with his wife Catherine had become so estranged, they divorced after twenty-two years of marriage and ten children. Rumors tossed about suggested Charles had been involved in “an illicit affair” (is there really any other type when married?) with a younger woman. Dickens took such offense that he used the front page of his then current magazine, Household Words, to argue to the contrary. ¹

As much as this writing life can become a soul-wrenching conflagration on a personal level, this passion we often champion at writers conferences can worm its way into the writer’s business relationships as well, which leads us our next point of interest:

Gleaning #2: The constant tension between authors and publishers will always be a constant. So, get used to it.

As many may or may not know, Charles Dickens lived a challenging life growing up. When Charles was a young lad of twelve, his father—who worked as a clerk for the navy and seemed to always struggle to pay the bills—was thrown in prison “alongside smugglers, mutineers, and pirates” for a debt of forty pounds, owed to a baker, which was a considerable sum in those days. (Aren’t you glad things have changed?) As a result, Charles was forced by necessity to take a job at six schillings a week, working in a boot-blacking factory, bottling the polish used to by military personnel and businessmen to make their shoes shiny. In this factory along the Thames, Charles would one day write of his experience:

Its wainscoted rooms and its rotten floors and staircase, and the old grey rats swarming down in the cellars, and the sound of their squeaking and scuffling coming up the stairs at all times, and the dirt and decay of the place, rise up visibly before me, as if I were there again. ²

This time of his life made an ineradicable impression, for it is found in various forms throughout his writings, and in none more famous than the sentiments of Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol (“Are there no workhouses? Are there no prisons? And the Union workhouses? The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigor then? Those who are badly off must go there. If they would rather die, then they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”)

It was after works like Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby that Dickens would walk around “black streets of London,” formulating the story of his Carol. He was excited about the tale being pieced together in the recesses of his mind. It was a bit of leap on his part, for no Christmas “books” had ever been written before 1843. Some essays by American author Washington Irving, written in January of 1820 and contained in The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, had helped to revive the holiday’s traditions we know and love today. However, it is believed that Dickens’s work helped to launch the holiday into another stratosphere.

Celebrating Christmas like we do today, or even how Bob Cratchit and his family did in A Christmas Carol, was not a “thing” in 1843 England. The day itself was not very popular, unlike its Christian counterpart in the spring. Because the day was primarily of Roman Catholic origin with ties to the pagan celebration of Saturnalia, many protestants, both in England and especially in America, actually thought of the holiday as more of a devilish revelry than Godly celebration of Emmanuel, God with us.

These beliefs were amplified by the pagan traditions, such as wassailing, which looked very much like the trick-or-treating we witness today at Halloween. After a song was sung by a group of wassailers—who often came to the door a bit hammered—the home was to offer the singers goodies, like “figgy pudding,” for example. If the homeowners did not comply, they were met with behavior not befitting the holiday. The entire tradition had more of the look and feel of a bully taking the nerd’s lunch money in the middle school cafeteria than “a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time” of giving from “shut-up hearts.”

Nevertheless, Dickens felt the setting of Christmas to be the best for his newest endeavor. With excitement, he took his notes and idea to his publisher, Chapman and Hall. After hearing Dickens explain where his heart had brought him (Have you ever been there as a writer?), the publishers seemed less than enthusiastic (Have you ever been there as a writer?).

His friend and agent, John Forster, who was with him at this very moment, later wrote in his biography of Dickens, “Chuzzlewit had fallen short of all the expectations formed of it in regard to sale.” ³ Even though Forster believed Martin Chuzzlewit to be Dickens’ best work yet, the public felt otherwise as sales testified. Despite all this, Forster felt keeping the relationship with Chapman and Hall open and in good standing would be most beneficial for Dickens, allowing him to trust the process and focus on his part, the writing.

However, Dickens was already at odds with Chapman and Hall before he waltzed into their offices to sing his Carol. They had stated in earlier conversations they might have to draw an extra fifty pounds from his royalties stipulated in the contract for Martin Chuzzlewit. Dickens wrote to Forster after, “I am so irritated, so rubbed in the tenderest part of my eyelids with bay-salt, that I don’t think I can write.” ⁴

Have you ever felt like that? As if your publisher or agent was pulling your eyelids back and grinding the shards of bay-salt into them until they dissolved with your many tears? I’m sure all writers have felt that way at some point. Some more than others.

Chapman and Hall finally determined they were not interested in a Christmas book written in haste (remember, this is October of 1843, and Dickens had not even started writing it yet). The publishers also believed the story explained to them by Dickens to be a re-writing/re-telling of his former works, and it would have to be done in a cheap form under such time restraints. You could liken it today to having a large publishing house using CreateSpace-like print-on-demand in haste versus taking their time and producing a print run of several thousand hardcover copies.

Instead, Chapman and Hall gave their final ruling. If Dickens wanted to issue the story out to the public, it would have to be in a magazine owned by them and edited by him. This was the only way they would consider funding the project. Otherwise, they were not interested. Translation? Dickens would have to work off the publication of his newest story by writing it in installments, like he had done with his other works, while editing the new magazine for them. In other words, they would pay him—a contract would be written and signed, for sure—but they were going to get some collateral in the bank, namely his name on the cover of the magazine as not only the editor, but as one of the authors contained therein.

In his biography of Dickens, Forster wrote this of Chapman and Hall:

Publishers are bitter bad judges of an author, and are seldom safe persons to consult in regard to the fate or fortunes that may probably await him.” ⁵

I know every writer reading this believes Forster to be “right on the money” with his comment. Publishers tend to want to play it safe. They like riding the champion thoroughbreds again and again instead of taking a chance on a horse who has never run the big race. We all know this writing life is as much of a business as it is an art or a craft, and it seems it has always been that way.

I believe that if any of us (I’m talking about authors here) started our own publishing house, we may go into it with the war chant of “I’m going to do it differently.” However, we all know there are things within any business which dictate certain ends. There are reasons why things have been done certain ways for so many years. People typically do not continue to make deals that will ruin them financially while remaining in business for decades. Insolvency and longevity never ride the same train.

Yet, this roadblock did not stop Dickens. He instead decided to publish the book “on his own account.” He personally became responsible for all the production costs, as was pointed out in Part 1 of this series.

As a result, he got it done. And the world has been better for it. As we examined last month, he did not make near as much as he had hoped, but such is the life of what amounts to a self-published author. Chapman and Hall, in this instance, became somewhat of an Amazon KDP. They paid the costs up front and offered distribution channels, but Dickens—the author—ended up footing the lion’s share of the bill in the long run.

Do you have a story in you nobody else seems to see or understand with as much clarity? Do you have the wherewithal to power through the obstacles (this is with the understanding that God is in it)? It would seem that if the answer to both of those questions is yes, then you are in good writing company.

As the British say, “On you go!” We’ll see you next month with Part 3.

¹ Standiford, Les. The Man Who Invented Christmas: How Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol Rescued His Career and Revived Our Holiday Spirits. Broadway Books; New York, NY, 2017. pp. 210-211.

² Ibid., pp. 2-3.

³ Ibid., pp. 73-74.

⁴ Ibid., p. 75.

⁵ Ibid., pp. 76-77.

The Tide of Times

The Tide of Times

(The Blake Meyer Thriller Series, Book 3)

A Perverse Tale. A Precarious Truth. A Personal Tribulation.

Supervisory Special Agent Blake Meyer is at an impasse. Bound and beaten in a dilapidated warehouse halfway around the world, Blake finds himself listening to an unbelievable story. Right and wrong warp into a despicable clash of ideologies. Life quickly becomes neither black nor white. Nor is it red, white, and blue any longer.

Every second brings the contagion's release closer, promising to drag the United States into the Dark Ages. Tens of millions could be dead within months.

Every moment adds miles and hours to the expanding gulf between him and his family. What is he to believe? Who is he to trust?

C. KEVIN THOMPSON is a husband, a father, a grandfather, and a kid at heart. Often referred to as “crazy” by his grandchildren, it’s only because he is. He’s a writer. Need he say more?

The first three books of his Blake Meyer Thriller series are out! Book 1, 30 Days Hath Revenge, Book 2, Triple Time, and Book 3, The Tide of Times, are now available! Book 4, When the Clock Strikes Fourteen, is coming March 2019! Book 5, A Pulse of Time, is coming November 2019! Book 6, Devil of a Crime, is coming summer 2020! The second edition of his award-winning debut novel, The Serpent’s Grasp, is available wherever books are sold! Also, his standalone mystery, The Letters, is coming in e-book, January 2020! Paperback in February 2020!

Kevin is a huge fan of the TV series 24, The Blacklist, Blue Bloods, NCIS, Criminal Minds, Broadchurch, Shetland, and Hinterland, loves anything to do with Star Trek, and is a Sherlock Holmes fanatic, too. It’s quite elementary, actually.

Website: www.ckevinthompson.com/

Kevin’s Writer’s Blog: www.ckevinthompson.blogspot.com/

Facebook: C. Kevin Thompson – Author Fan Page

Twitter: @CKevinThompson

Goodreads: C. Kevin Thompson

BookBub: C. Kevin Thompson

May This Blog Haunt You Pleasantly (Part 1) by C. Kevin Thompson

C. Kevin Thompson

One of the things all authors do regularly is read about the craft. How to write, what to write, what makes exceptional writing, what doesn’t…all the nuances, opinions, debates, professional advice, and sometimes contradictory “rules” out there can make a writer’s head swim.

Especially if you’re a new author.

I am convinced, however, that if new writers wish to “get their minds right,” they should be reading about famous authors, for it may be just as important, if not more so, than reading what other authors have written—especially when seeking insight into “how” stories come to be.

I did just this very exercise over the holidays, reading Les Standiford’s The Man Who Invented Christmas: How Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol Rescued His Career and Revived Our Holiday Spirits. There were a few things I pulled from the pages that have inspired me. In the next three months, I will bring three major “gleanings,” if you will, that arose from those pages and have relevance for us all.

Gleaning #1: Authors have always wished to get their works in as many readers’ hands as possible, sometimes at the chagrin of their publishers (if they are traditionally published) or themselves (if they are independently published). And if not handled properly, it can become an all-consuming fire.

Charles Dickens, when he wrote his famed “little book,” known as A Christmas Carol, he was deep in debt, as he was most of his life. Yet, he wished for the average person to be able to get their hands on the book. Publishing prices for such a book in 1843 would have easily set the cost as high as thirty-one schillings or as low as five schillings for a seasonably red, hardcover copy with engravings done up in color and the pages edged in gold. Five schillings was not an exorbitant amount of money for the wealthier of the middle class, but definitely more than a worker like Bob Cratchit—who had a wife and five children—could have afforded on fifteen schillings a week without giving it some great thought and budgetary planning. Dickens allowed the price to be set at five schillings a copy, knowing some would be given to libraries. He also knew five schillings was somewhat of a bargain price that could still allow him to work his way out of debt.

I liken this entire price setting episode to e-books today. Many a publisher would like to charge $7.99 and up, but we often see books offered at $3.99 and less (sometimes free!) to build an audience. Something Dickens was always striving to do. If he had one fault, it was his incessant desire to make money so he would never be in debt again. Hmm…have you ever wished that wish? It seemed to almost consume Dickens at times, making him happy when his works sold well—as in the case of Oliver Twist, for example. But when his books didn’t sell well and placed him at odds with his publisher, then the pleasant Dickens became a cash-strapped worrier.

Before all of the six thousand books of the first printing were sold by Christmas Day, 1843—after being released just a few weeks before—Dickens had written to a friend, explaining how he hoped for a thousand pounds in profit to help his financial situation. And when compared to the two hundred pounds he was earning a month at the time for installments of his novel, The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, a thousand pounds definitely would have been a sizeable help.

But to his horror, after receiving his royalty statement from the publisher, Chapman & Hall, he wrote to his friend and agent, John Forster, on Saturday morning, Feb. 10, 1844: “Such a night as I have passed, I really believed I should never get up again, until I passed through all the horrors of a fever.”

Forster thought Dickens had some ailment. However, like so many authors, his ailment wasn’t internal. It was caused by an external force—His Publisher’s Accounting Statement:

• Started with 6,000 copies, minus approximately 103 gift, library, and press copies
• 26 copies sold at “three schillings, six pence” as a promotional deal to booksellers
• Printing: 74 pounds, 2 schillings
• Paper: 89 pounds, 2 schillings
• Drawing and Engravings: 49 pounds, 18 schillings
• Two Steel Plates: 1 pound, 4 schillings
• Printing Plates: 15 pounds, seventeen schillings
• Paper for the Plates: 7 pounds, 12 schillings
• Coloring: 120 pounds
• Binding of the books: 180 pounds
• Incidentals and Advertising: 168 pounds, 7 schillings, 8 pence
• Commission to the Publisher (@ 15%): 148 pounds, 16 schillings
• TOTAL EXPENSES: 855 pounds, 8 schillings
• BALANCE OF ACCOUNT TO MR. DICKEN’S CREDIT: 137 pounds, 4 schillings, 4 pence

As Standiford notes, “Dickens was shattered and said as much to his agent: ‘I had set my heart and soul upon a Thousand, clear. What a wonderful thing it is, that such a great success should occasion me such intolerable anxiety and disappointment.’” ¹

Few people know this, but Dickens almost quit in February of 1844. He was in debt when he began writing A Christmas Carol in October of 1843 (did you know he wrote it in six weeks and had it published before Christmas? So much for NaNoWriMo saving the financial day, eh?). ² He had also dealt with his debtor father, which is another long story that caused Dickens to spend his early childhood in a “workhouse” while he helped get his father out of debtor’s prison.

To help with his situation, Dickens had purchased a thirteen-room house on Devonshire Terrace—just around the block, by the way, from a more famous address: 221-B Baker Street—to accommodate everyone, including his father and mother. This massive house and his growing family of soon-to-be five children caused finances to be tight, indeed. As a result, he felt he might have to turn his efforts to more economically successful endeavors and abandon writing altogether.

Ever been in Dickens’s shoes? Is the writing life just as “paycheck to paycheck” as the next job? Yep. Can be. For most authors, it is.

Ever been told “back in the day, publishers picked up all the advertising costs”? Now we know, that is a lie. Even with the great Charles Dickens, publishers deducted the costs of doing business from the sales. His own disappointing bottom line caused him to eventually sign a contract with a new publisher on June 1, 1844. He received an advance of 2,800 pounds to get him through a furlough from writing and a trip abroad to garner new ideas. This amount would be paid back during the life of the eight-year contract.

Ever had your heart set on a certain bottom line only to see a fraction of that amount fill out the little box on the royalty check? Did that make you want to quit? Chase more lucrative endeavors to pay the bills?

Dickens was only thirty-two years old in February of 1844. Even with great “hits” to his credit, like The Pickwick Papers, The Adventures of Oliver Twist, The Life and Adventures of Nicolas Nickleby, and The Old Curiosity Shop, one of history’s greatest writers was one step away from throwing away his pen and paper…for good.

Aren’t you glad Dickens chose to tough it out? Otherwise, works like these would not have been completed or written at all: Martin Chuzzlewit, The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth, The Battle of Life, Dombey and Son, The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain, David Copperfield, Bleak House, Hard Times: For These Times, Little Dorrit, A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, Our Mutual Friend, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Boots at the Holly Tree Inn, Reprinted Pieces, and The Mudfrog Papers.

As you can see, much of what Dickens endured in the mid-1800s wasn’t much different than today’s market. Publishers have bottom lines. Writers have hopes and dreams. And usually, a writer’s dreams and hopes are larger than the “Balance of the Account to Your Credit.”

The monetary cost of publication (and some would say the emotional cost as well) will always be a thorn in the writer’s side. Writers will always have a need (usually a financial one) to write more, especially if they are full-time authors. It has always been this way, apparently. And by the looks of it, always will.

So, are you in? For the long haul? Like Dickens? Regardless of the bottom lines?

I hope so.

Stay tuned for next month’s “Part 2,” where we will look at the publisher/author relationship through the lens of Charles Dickens.

¹ Standiford, Les. The Man Who Invented Christmas: How Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol Rescued His Career and Revived Our Holiday Spirits. Broadway Books; New York, NY, 2017. pp. 153-157.

² Although, some would argue that Dickens wrote his best work in A Christmas Carol, so maybe there’s something to be said for writing fast after all. 😊

Triple Time 

Triple Time

Book 2 of The Blake Meyer Thriller Series

A Looming Attack. A Loathsome Abduction. A Lethal Assassin.

Supervisory Special Agent Blake Meyer has an impossible choice to make. After thwarting a massive biological attack on the continental United States, the contagion is still missing and in the hands of the enemy. So is his family. Abducted as an act of revenge.

The clock is ticking, and the chances of finding his wife and children wane with every passing second. The assassin behind it holds all the answers.

Or does she?

Three demands. Three choices.

Blake Meyer knows what must be done...but can he accomplish it before it’s too late? Time is literally of the essence. And double time will not be fast enough.

C. KEVIN THOMPSON is a husband, a father, a grandfather, and a kid at heart. Often referred to as “crazy” by his grandchildren, it’s only because he is. He’s a writer. Need he say more?

The first three books of his Blake Meyer Thriller series are out! Book 1, 30 Days Hath Revenge, Book 2, Triple Time, and Book 3, The Tide of Times, are now available! Book 4, When the Clock Strikes Fourteen, is getting closer! Also, the second edition of his award-winning debut novel, The Serpent’s Grasp, is now available!

Kevin is a huge fan of the TV series 24, The Blacklist, Blue Bloods, and Criminal Minds, loves anything to do with Star Trek, and is a Sherlock Holmes fanatic, too. It’s quite elementary, actually.

Website: www.ckevinthompson.com/

Kevin’s Writer’s Blog: www.ckevinthompson.blogspot.com/

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Twitter: @CKevinThompson

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