King, Knight, and Koontz: Contrasting Careers in Speculative Fiction

It's interesting to look at how widely disparate paths to success among writers in your own field can be. This is perhaps nowhere more in evidence among authors in the speculative genres (horror, sci-fi, fantasy) than the respective histories of its two head honchos, Stephen King and Dean Koontz.

Both are baby-boomers, and both came of age as writers in the hippie-trippy late 60s and early 70s. King's first paid sales as a fiction author were two shorts published in Startling Mystery Stories magazine in 1967 and 1969 respectively, for $35 each, while he was still an undergraduate student at the University of Maine. Worthy of note is the fact that the purchasing editor was Robert AW Lowndes, already a prolific science-fiction author in his own regard. In 1970, King made what was to be the first of 14 short story sales through 1978 (by which time King was already a literary superstar) to Nye Willden at Cavalier magazine for $200. The early 1970s were lean years for young Stephen King: Half of those Cavalier short story sales occurred from 1972-1973 and barely kept him, his wife Tabitha, and their two young boys fed and housed. Along with his day job teaching English at Hampden Academy and moonlighting washing sheets at the New Franklin Laundry in Bangor -- all while Tabitha worked nights at a Dunkin' Donuts to help make ends meet -- it was slim living. He was also writing novels and sending the manuscripts to Bill Thompson, an editor at Doubleday Publishing in New York. And although the rejection letters he received were personalized by Thompson, and encouraging, none of these early books sold.

Then in 1973, King received a telegram from Thompson (the Kings' phone had been shut off; they could no longer afford to pay the bill). Doubleday wanted to publish King's novel Carrie in hardcover and would pay a $2,500 advance. But the real money came shortly thereafter when Doubleday sold the paperback rights to Carrie for $400,000 -- half of which was King's. The novel went on to sell over a million copies in paperback and launched King's prolific and world-famous career. Every book he has published since has eventually become a #1 bestseller, and scores of cinematic adaptations of his stories have gone to both TV and movie screens alike. It is worthy of note that Carrie started out as another of King's short stories which he initially threw away. It was Tabitha who fished it out of the trash can and suggested that Stephen finish it as a novel.

Dean Koontz had a bit of a different path. His first fiction sale was in the form of winning a story contest sponsored by the Atlantic Monthly magazine in 1966, while Koontz was a senior at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania. He was paid $50, and the story appeared in a chapbook insert included with the May issue of AM titled Readers & Writers. He then went on to continue publishing short stories in venues like The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and after graduating from Shippensburg in 1967, began teaching English at Mechanicsburg High School as part of a federally funded program allegedly designed to assist kids from impoverished families. Very shortly disillusioned and dissatisfied with public school teaching, Koontz arrived at an arrangement with his wife, Gerda: She would work a day job and support the household for the next five years -- while Dean worked on becoming a full-time author.

In 1968, Koontz published his first novel, Star*Quest, as an Ace Double paperback, paired with Emil Pataja's Doom of the Green Planet. The years that followed proved tumultuous for Koontz as he laboriously worked his way to the status of a midlister author. He published books under his own name, and scores of pseudonyms (he was fearful of being shunned by the publishing industry of the era, since he wrote in multiple genres), with publishers who folded shortly thereafter, ones that delayed payment for up to a year or more, ones with which he got involved in lawsuits. He was treated unscrupulously by various editors and agents -- one of whom told Koontz he'd be poor forever. He wrote nonfiction articles for pornographic magazines to make ends meet on occasion, and dabbled in screenwriting for TV. He worked 12 hour days, six days a week (a work schedule he maintains to this day). Finally, in 1980, Koontz's novel Whispers made the New York Times bestseller list (two novels before that, The Key to Midnight [1979], and The Funhouse [1980], were also bestsellers, but orginally published under pseudonyms). Koontz's first hardcover bestseller, Strangers, was published in 1986, and cemented his place as a major high-earning toplist writer. He has since generally been regarded as the second most popular and widely read speculative fiction author after Stephen King.

And Yours Truly? I sold my first two stories in tandem back in October, 1996: One to a small press anthology, the other to a newspaper magazine (insert). I received a total of $40 for both. I met Stephen King that same month (for the first time; I met him again in December of 2009, whenceupon he was presented with a signed copy of my print book, Victoria's Place and Other Tales of Terror -- and I got a signed edition of his book, Under the Dome. John Irving was in attendance as well)...and Ray Davies from the Kinks! I have gone on to publish quite a few more things since then (books, short stories, articles, poems, reviews), but I'm still very much pounding the pavement and trying to make a name for myself among the giants (or even just the normal-sized people). That's why I'd be thrilled for you to go have a browse of my book catalogue over on Amazon, or Smashwords, or Barnes & Noble. If you like or love King or Koontz, I think some Knightmares might be just the thing for you. And if you cruise around this blog and website using the links above, you'll also find my Twitter feed, Facebook page, and how to get on my e-mail list for the very latest updates.

Cool? I hope that's how this latest missive of mine finds you. In any case, I'll see you soon. Read much, enjoy much, complain as little as possible...and never mind that strange noise you hear downstairs at 3 AM. That's just your imagination. Really. It is.

Best,

Alex

King, Knight...now if only Koontz was a chess piece....