Greenleaf Classics House Style, c. 1969

Appropriated from Earl Kemp’s great e-zine, el. (If you’re into vintage sleaze, his memoirs are a must read of the times and people who wrote, edited, and published these books.)

Note that this is dated 1969 and states that “shock words” are okay to use, but not over-use.  By 69, court cases on censorship were allowing more dirty words in dirty books…ten, even seven, years before that, in the Nightstands and Midwoods and so on, from 1959-1963, you do not find any dirty words at all: “loins” for vaginas, breasts or bosoms rather than “tits” or “kncokers.”  In Silverberg’s “I was a Pornographer,” he notes that he qould freqently get a list of no-no words and terms from William Hamling and his editors, based on current court cases and what the cops were arresting for in the obscenity scare,  at one time forbidding the use of “give it to me,” which he found riduloulous so wrote a book with “give it to me” on almost very page (I think this was Roadhouse Girl, which I have yet to read and discuss, but soon..)

The writers out there will note that book length requirements were different back then than now — 47K to 67K words…today, most commercial publishers, even those that print erotica, do not want anything under 80K words (c. 300-325 manuscripts pages, coming out to printed books of 250-270 pages).  Harlequin still likes books in the 50-60K range (for those 192 page books); when I wrote for Blue Moon, my books ranged anywhere from a short 30K words to a normal 80K words, but average about 60K.  They never said otherwise; they never said anything was taboo, really, except “illegal” matters like rape and pedophilia and beastiality (more zoning laws in NY City when it came to obcenity than anything else).

In the meantime, for a blast from the past, I give you the…

HOUSE STYLE MANUAL
GREENLEAF CLASSICS, INC.
GUIDE FOR AUTHORS

Compiled and Edited by
PETER V. COOPER
Editor in Chief
Greenleaf Classics, Inc.
San Diego, California

Version dated 06-09-1969

#

I. MANUSCRIPT SPECIFICATIONS

A. Length: Regular adult novels & nonfiction-44,000 to 47,000 words;
Classics-50,000 and up;
Gay classics-63,000 to 66,000

B. Chaptering: Regular adult novels-exactly twelve, which may vary in length.
Other types-variable.
Chapters should be numbered, whether or not they bear titles. This matter should be centered at least six spaces above body copy.

C. Copy must be typewritten (pica or elite only), double-spaced on one side only of unlined 8- 1/2×11 white paper. (No erasable or corrasible bond, please.) Leave approximately 1-inch margins top, bottom and sides.

D. Use pencil only for corrections; ink markings hamper our editing process. Typing and page-numbering should be neat and accurate.

E. In fiction, we require strong emphasis on plot development and story ideas above all else, with a house taboo on irrelevant padding of any sort. The erotic content must be integral to characterization and story progression; it must be strong, meaningful and real.

In nonfiction (credentialed author or co-author preferred), we expect very specific case materials, with natural speech content, balanced by dignified scholarly commentary or narration.

F. We prefer sample chapter and outline, on new material only; we are not interested in examining old manuscripts. Report is within two weeks, and payment is on acceptance, with rate dependent on frequency of acceptance.

G. All submissions must be accompanied by sufficient return postage and self-addressed envelope. We assume no responsibility whatever for unsolicited manuscripts.

II. STYLE GUIDE

A. Reference Works*

1. The American College Dictionary (ACD), C.L. Barnhart, Editor in Chief; Random House, 1963 to date.
2. 20,000 Words, Louis A. Leslie, McGraw-Hill, 1965.
3. The New Roget’s Thesaurus, Edited by Norman Lewis, Garden City Books, 1961.
4. Dictionary of American Slang, Wentworth and Flexner, Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1960.

*NOTE-These are standard reference volumes used in our editorial offices. We urge all authors to have copies of at least the first two, as our critiques may refer to information therein. 20,000 Words contains a section entitled “Punctuation Simplified” (pages 237-247), which is an invaluable guide.

B. Additional notes on punctuation and style

1. Brand Names: Avoid, otherwise watch spelling and caps, especially Coke (Coca-Cola), Jell-O, Levi’s (note apostrophe), Technicolor. But: diesel, quonset.

2. Capitalization: Generally, “down” style-a.m., p.m., summer, winter, etc.; the lieutenant (but Lieutenant Jones), the homicide division, the city, the state, the Taft building. If in doubt, check the ACD.

3. Commas and semicolons:
a. Read carefully pages 237-245 of 20,000 Words, with particular attention to the sections on apposition and nonrestrictive expressions.
b. In dialogue sequences, a comma must be used to separate attribution from following action (“Good-bye,” he said, and left), except in subordinate form (“Good-bye,” he said as he left).
c. Terms of address are always set off by commas, before and after.
“Henry, I wish you wouldn’t do that.”
“I asked you not to do that, dear.”
“Damn it, Henry, stop that right now!”

4. Dashes: Use two hyphens, no spacing in or around. (I think we-watch out!)
Indicates radical interruption: parenthetical interjection, midsentence thought shift, interrupted dialogue.

5. Ellipses: (…) Three dots only, no spacing in oraround. Indicates tapering off to silence, stuttering, breathy speech, pregnant pause.

6. Definitions: Know your meanings; be certain you mean what you say and vice versa. If in doubt, check the ACD. Especially watch fulsome, noisome, unique, and other such sneakies-strict definition use only. Do not use “oblivious to;” the correct form is “oblivious (forgetful) of.” Do not use “different than;” the correct form is “different (varying) from.”

7. Hyphenation: For general rules, see pg. 246, 20,000 Words. For special cases, check the attached word list. House rules: Good-looking (all-lookings), half-hearted, well-heeled, and all such “new meaning” combinations are hyphenated anywhere in sentence.

8. Italics: Use sparingly for word emphasis not given by context, for uncommon foreign words, for brief speechlike thoughts. Do not use for: “He said no.” “She said yes.”; nor for commonly borrowed foreign words (savoir faire, per se, fiancee, etc.); nor for long passages (three lines or more) of any sort. Always use for names of newspapers (the New York Times, the Gazette), magazines, books, ships, airplanes (but not for makes and models of ships, planes, autos): Lindbergh’s plane was called The Spirit of St. Louis. We flew on a Boeing 707.

9. Numbers: Small numbers (under 100) generally should be spelled out; larger ones may be written as numerals or spelled out, as writer prefers, but consistency must be maintained throughout the manuscript. (Particularly when stating times of day and characters’ ages). In dialogue, all numbers should be spelled out, as people do not speak in numerals. Note the following examples for general rules:
a. Three-thirty or 3:30; five-forty-five or 5:45; six o’clock or 6:00. Kill redundancies such as “at ten p.m. that night,” “at 12 midnight.”
b. A four-year-old, or a four-year-old boy, but four years old; a three-week vacation; but three weeks’ vacation.
c. One hundred forty-six (no and); Fifty-second Street (note caps); $5,000 (note comma).
d. Twenty dollars, but twenty-dollar bill; ten thousand dollars, but ten-thousand-dollar bills (unless there are ten bills of a grand each).
e. Height: Don’t use figures. Don’t abbreviate or use symbols for “inches” and “feet.”
f. Weight: Numerals or spelled out, but do not abbreviate the words “pounds” and “ounces.”

10. Possessives: In general, be sure you know the difference between possessives and plurals: possessives take apostrophes, plurals do not. (That is Mary’s book. Two Marys were invited to the party. This is my brother’s wife. Those are my sisters’ husbands.) Also watch the difference between possessives and contractions. (Whose book is that? I don’t know who’s at the door. That door is off its hinges. It’s about to fall down.) Our preference possessives ending in “s”: the boss’ daughter; Gonzales’ serape; the Joneses’ house (or, the Jones home); Willis’ wagon; but Bruce’s, Candace’s,Denise’s, etc.

11. Prefixes and Suffixes: “Half” is usually separate, except to form an adjective before a noun (note exceptions in word list). “Over” and “re” never take a hyphen unless necessary for clarity (okay are: overripe, reenter, reread, rework). “Ex”, “pseudo”, “quasi”, “self”, and “ultra” always take hyphens, “non” usually does; “like” usually needs no hyphen, “maker” usually does. (ex-husband, pseudo-intellectual, quasi-literate, self-esteem, ultra-modern, non-American, apelike, movie-maker) Also watch “ally” suffixes on such words as: accidentally, frantically, incidentally. When in doubt, check word list and ACD.

12. Quotes: Don’t use singles except inside doubles; for so-called effect, it’s: her “cousin” was, in fact, her lover. Punctuation goes outside quotation marks with one-word quotes only; two words or more, inside; of course, this does not apply to one-word comments in dialogue.

13. Spelled Sounds: Do not go to ridiculous extremes. In general, use these forms: aargh (pain); ah (one h), oh (one h); oh-oh (surprise); en? Hmm? Huh? Humph (doubt, scorn or indifference); mmm (delectation); uh-huh or mm-hmm (yes); uh-uh or unh-uh (no); uh (hesitation); psst, shh. Others, use your own judgment, but please don’t get carried away.

14. Spelling: See attached word list and the ACD. Always use American spellings, not British; color, favor, savor, etc.; caliber, fiber, luster, meager, somber, specter, theater, etc.; afterward, backward (one exception in word list), downward, forward, inward, outward, sideward, toward, upward; dialed, dialing, signaled, signaling, traveled, traveling, marveled, marveling, etc. (Usually, the “l” is doubled only when the emphasis falls on the last syllable, as in: propel, propelling.)

C. TABOO TERMS

Under current contemporary standards, adult fiction knows no restrictions as to word usage. However, please do not abuse this freedom of expression. There is no need to clutter up the manuscript with an overabundance of “shock words” in the narrative, simply to fill up space; use them only where appropriate. In fiction, we prefer use of slang terms to clinical terms in describing parts of the body and the actions in which they engage.

Do not use the following terms to describe anatomical parts (there is no need to be “cute” or evasive): his masculinity, his manhood, his avenger, her mammaries, her womanhood, her femininity.

To avoid tedious repetition of certain descriptive terms, refer to the Dictionary of American Slang or use your imagination-but again, don’t get too carried away.

D. PESTIFEROUS PAIRS

adverse: contrary; opposing in effect (seldom applied to persons)
averse: opposed; having an aversion

affect: (v.) to act on; to change; to impress; to influence
effect: (n.) result; (v.) to bring about

avert: turn aside (one’s eyes) or ward off (evil)
avoid: to keep away from, stay clear of, shun, evade

a while: a period of time
awhile: for a period of time

callous: (adj.) hardened; (v.) to become hard
callus: (n.) a hardened part of the skin

compose: to make up
comprise: to consist of; include

confidant: (n.) one in whom secrets are confided
confidante: (n.) feminine form of above word
confident: (adj.) certain, self-assured

discreet: prudent
discrete: separate

eminent: noted, prominent
imminent: impending
immanent: inherent

hangar: for airplanes
hanger: for clothes

its: possessive
it’s: contraction of it is

lay, laid, laid (transitive) to place or put
lie, lay, lain (intransitive) recline

lustful: libidinous
lusty: hearty

raise, raised, raised: (transitive) to elevate, to lift, to rear children
rise, rose, risen: (intransitive) to go up

repulse: to push away
revulse: to revolt or sicken

tortuous: twisting or complex
torturous: agonizing

principal: (adj.) chief, main (n.) central figure, basic debt, director of a school
principle: (n. always) a rule

rack: as a verb, strain or torture
wrack: noun only, meaning wreckage (flotsam or jetsam)

sensual: inclined to gratification of the senses; voluptuous
sensuous: of or pertaining to the senses; perceived by or affecting the senses

E. WORD FAT-a few common excessive forms to be reduced:

supposing = suppose (This is an imperative verb form: a sentence begun with it should end with a period.)

her own, his own = her, his (unless clarity compels)

excepting = except; off of = off; or from; a ways = a way

the both of them, or the two of them = both, they, or them

Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go! = Go, do, go! (Three will suffice at any time for any word or sound being repeated as a chant, shout, etc.)

Excess repetition of that girl, the man, the blonde, etc., once the characters’ names are known to the reader

Excess repetition of characters’ full names (except for special emphasis)

Excess use of bare, nude, naked, etc., once the condition is obvious, or as in: “He reached inside her blouse and bra to touch her naked breast.” Or, after an undressing scene, the completely unnecessary statements: “Then they were naked,” “Then he was as bare as she was,” etc.

Totally unnecessary use of “a pair of,” “two”, “both”, “Twin”, etc., in reference to breasts, arms, legs, buttocks, etc.

Unnecessary use of “of her” and “of him” to show possession, as in: “The breathtaking loveliness of her,” “the strength of him.” Should be: “her breathtaking loveliness,” “his strength,” etc.

III. WORD LIST

Compiled by our editors from notes on most frequently misspelled words in manuscripts. (Asterisks denote departure from ACD form, indicating house preferences.) For all words not listed, use the first form given in the ACD.

abdomen
accommodate
acknowledgment, acknowledgeable, acknowledging
acquaintance
advertise, advertisement, advertiser, advertising
aggressor, aggressive
aerial
afterward
air-condition (er, ed, ing)
airline*
all right (never alright)
any more (never anymore)
any place (always)
any time (always
ash tray
attendant
aureole
baby-sitter*
backward (direction)
backwards (in reverse order)*
ballpoint pen*
barbecue
beeline
blond (masc., noun & adj.)
blonde (fem., noun & adj.)
blue jeans
bourbon (no cap)
bourgeois
boy friend
brand-new
brassiere (bra is okay)
brief-case* (but attaché case)
cab driver
cafe (no accent)*
camouflage  
Canadian whisky (no e)
caress
cave man (n.), cave-man (adj.)
cellmate*
chaise longue (but lounge chair)
cheekbone* (but collar bone, etc.)
Chris-Craft
coiffeur (hair stylist)
coiffure (hairdo; coiffed, adj.)
coolly
cross-eyed (but cockeyed)
Chevy
cross-town (all forms)
damn, damned, damn it, damnedest
daytime
defense
desirable
desperate
diesel* (no cap)
dinner time, lunch time, supper time
discreetly (prudently)
discretely (separately)
disheveled
disk
double-cross (verb)
double-crosser, double-crossing
double cross (noun only)
drug store
dumfounded (no b)
ear lobe
ecstasy
embarrass (ed, ing, ment)
everyday (adj. only)
exaggerate
exhilarated
existence
fierce
fiery (never firey)
fingertip*
focus, focused, focusing
G-string*
garter belt
guage (estimate-never gage)
gouge (to scoop out)
girl friend
glamorous (but glamour)
goddamn, goddamn it, goddamnedest*
good-bye*
good night (but good-night kiss; said their good-nights)
good will (n.), good-will (adj.)
goosepimples*, gooseflesh*
half-day, half-dollar, half-hour, half-mile (but half an hour, etc.)
half slip
halfway (adj. & adv.)
half-wit
hangover* (but hung-over)
harass
hardhead (n.), hard-headed (adj.)
hard-top
hatbox
headwaiter
heartache
heartbreak (all forms)
hi-fi
hitchhike
hors d’oeuvres
idiosyncrasy
indefinable
inside out (hyphenate before a noun)
insistent
intern (n.), interne (f.)
irresistible
jack hammer
jackknife (n. & v.), jackknifed
jeopardy
judging, judgment
Juggernaut (note cap)
kidnaped (one p, all forms)
knowledgeable
languor, languorous
lascivious
leisure
Lesbian, Lesbianism (always cap)*
Lez, Lezzie (never use Les, Lessie)
leveled (one l, all forms)
libidos (pl.)
lieutenant (cap only before or as a name)
living room
loathe, loathsome
loveliness
lovemaking (no hyphen)
love play
lovesick
ludicrous
luster, lustrous
ma’am or madame (polite term of address)*
madam (one who runs a house, not a home)
machine gun (n.), machine-gun (adj. & v.)
machine-gunned, machine-gunner
make-up (all forms except verb), ditto made-up
mealtime
mid-air
midsection*
mid-town
murmur
mustache (never mou–)
nearby (adj. & adv.)
Negro, Negroes
negligee (no accent)
night club, night spot
nickel (metal & coin)
nighttime
occur, occurrence, occurred, occurring
okay (never O.K.)
old-fashioned
paneled (one l, all forms)
panty girdle
paraphernalia
passed (verb form)
past (adj., adv., or prep.)
Peeping Tom (note caps)
per cent (but percentage)
persevere, perseverance
plainclothesman*
playroom
pickup (n. & adj.), pick up (v.)
pile driver
pill box
point-blank
practice (all forms)
prestige
precede, preceded
proceed, proceeded
protuberant
recur, recurred, recurrent, etc.
redhead (n.), red-headed (adj.)
right side up (hyphenate before nouns)
schoolboy, schoolgirl, schoolteacher
scorch
Scotch whisky (no e)
seafood*
seize
separate (v. or adj.)
servant
setup (n.), set up (v.)
shined (polished), shone (gave light)
short wave (all forms)
sibilant
siege
signaled (one l, all forms)
sledge hammer (n.), sledge-hammer (adj.)
smolder (no u)
solely
some place (never someplace)
soundproof, soundproofed
sports coat (jacket, shirt, car, etc.)
strip tease (but strip-teaser, -tease act)
superintendent
supersede
sweatshirt*
T-shirt*
temperament, temperamental
teen-age, teen-ager (always hyphenated)
tendency
terry cloth (n. & adj.)
theater
thrash (only farmers thresh)
titillate
tousle, tousled
toward
towhead (n.), tow-headed (adj.)
tranquil, tranquilizer, tranquillity
trench coat
trip hammer*
truck driver
TV (always caps, no periods or space)
unselfconscious (but self-conscious)
upside down (hyphenate before nouns)
vice president
weekend* (all forms)
will power
weird
whiskey (all except Scotch and Canadian)
wield
worshiped (one p, all forms)
worthwhile* (all forms)
wrist watch
yield
zigzag (all forms)

Sin on Wheels by Loren Beauchamp (Robert Silverberg, Midwood Books #70, 1961)

Robert Silverberg published two novels called Sin on Wheels — first for Nightstand as Don Elliott, about lusty driving instructors and teen girls, and for Midwood as Beauchamp, about swingers in a trailer park.

I coveted this Midwood for a long time — it was difficult to find a copy for a reasonable price; some dealers wanted $100-200 for it, and I seldom pay more than $50 for a vintage book.  I wanted it for (1) the great Paul Rader cover; (2) for my Silberberg sleaze monograph; and (3) to complete my Loren Beauchamp collection.

Lynn Munroe was kind enough to find a beat up reading copy for me, and a day later I found a near-fine condition copy  priced a little more than $50.  So, I had one for the collection, that I would not take out of its bag, and one to read.

The cover is classic Rader, classic Midwood, classic sleaze era — the image has enetered the pop culture meme and has been used for posters, notebooks, T-shirts, mugs, chains, and boxes.  Several bands have pilfered the image for their CDs.

Would the book live up to its pop hype?  I prepared myself, read it on my birthday (July 12) as a treat…and was disappointed.

Sin on Wheels fell short as both a Loren Beauchamp/Silverberg novel, and a sleaze title.  Maybe I was hoping for too much.  But it was not as engaging as Connie, Meg, Nurse Carolyn or Another Night, Another Love — more along the lines of The Fires Within: an average novel, not bad, but not a page-turner.

Lenore is 19 and just married Jack, a husky he-man she met five weeks ago, who works as an engineer of some sort on missiles at the army base. He’s also a womanizer and swinger, but she doesn’t know this yet.  She goes to live with him in his trailer in a trailer park in a rural zone not far outside New York City.  There, in the park, all the men eye her as new meat to feast on: she is young, gorgeous, naive and untainted.

The parties there are drunk fests with  alot of groping and wife swapping. Her husband leaves for an hour with another woman; he later denies it.  Then he takes her to a strip poker party where after everyone is naked and drunk, they dance and slowly pair off with each other’s wives or husbands. She goes to bed with another man but stops it mid-coitus, running away.

She has just lost her virginity on her wedding night a week ago, and here she is at a swinger party. This is not her.  But to get even with her husband Jack (“turnabout is fair play” is the phrase often used) she sleeps with a much older married man, whose wife her husband has a constant “thing” with, and then has an encounter with a lesbian in the park…

All of Beauchamp/Silverberg’s lesbian encounters seem to be the same: they happen when the heroine is confused, drunk, hurt…the lesbians take advantage of this, mutter how men are bad and don’t know women the way another woman does…and after, the heroines feel shame…the lesbian here is a writer of children’s books, just like the chldren’s book writer lesbian in The Fires Within, but Lenore does not harbor as much guilt as the other Beauchamp heroines do. In fact, Lenore admits she liked it, and while the lesbian tries to convince her all men  are evil and to leave with her on a country-wide trailer jaunt, she does not want to be a dyke.

One of the drunk residents pays her a visit, wanting to know why she won’t do him; he’s just lost his job and wants some love.  He tries to rape her.  Jack shows up and stops the attack and beats the living crap out of the rapist.

Lenore wants to leave Jack and the park…she knows her husband will never change…he pleads with her, says he will reform and never look at another woman, that they will move out of the park, he’ll put in  a transfer for White Sands…Lenore knows he will cheat eventaly, and she might too, but decides to give marriage another whirl.

Again, an okay story that does not live up to its great cover: “the uncensored confessons of a trailer camp tramp” (which was removed in the second printing).  Lenore is not a tramp, and this is not a first person confessional, like Beauchamp’s And When She Was Bad, or even like Andrew Shaw’s Trailer Trollop, both of which I will read and discuss next.

Note: this has also been reprinted as Orgy on Wheels by Don Elliott (Companion Books, 1967).

Joan Ellis – Elegant Dirty Books

Joan Ellis was the pen name for Julie Ellis, who later became a bestselling historical novelist…but in the 50s-60s, she wrote a lot of softcore for Midwood, also as Linda Michaels; other pen names for Bedstand and Newsstand Library.

In Lynn Munroe’s interview with Gil Fox (aka Paul Russo, Dallas Mayo, Kimberly Kemp), Fox says Ellis was too elegant for dirty books…there is a calm elegance to her writing, and her female characters are much more three-dimensional sexually than men writiting as women, but what bugs me about her style is she does use “said” or “ask” in dialogue, but a lot of adjectives, too many, such as:

“Turn around,” he coaxed. “Turna around,” he repeated.

“Okay,” she bushed this aside.

“I’ll pick you up afterwords,” he decreed.

“Smart,” Denise purred.

“She’s very attractive,” Denise forced herself to concede.

“Don;t worried, honey,” he whispered huskily.

All takes from Country Girl.

Perhaps it’s just my preference of style, simple he said she said…but Ellis’ style grows on you. Country Girl about a precocious sexy teen girl, Denise, playing love games with two young men she’s dating, one a college guy from the city.  It’s a lot similar to Don Elliott’s Sexteen (no cover scan, Nightsand Books), which has more twists and turns than Country Girl, such as a Elliott/Silverberg-esque gang rape by a group of young thugs, a la Connie (Loren Beauchamp).

Ellis tackles sex on college campuses with Girl’s Dormitory and Faculty Wife.

Many of her books were illustrated by Paul Rader.

Sin Servant by Don Elliott (Robert Silverberg)

One of the best of the Don Elliotts, IMHO, at least this far as I read them.

Consider the opening of Sin Servant (Nightstand Books #3651, 1962): “I don’t know why it is I like to hurt people. I just do. Especially women.  It’s the kind of guy I am, that’s all, and I don’t try to make excuses for it.”

The novel chronicles Jimmy Robinson’s journey into the world of S/M and rough sex, from age sixteen to his 20s.  He loses his virginity to an experienced girl in high school who laughs at his lack of sexual know-how.  He then meets a 26-year-old divorcee who shows him how some women like to be man-handled and roughed around.

A bit of autobiography comes into play — Jimmy decides to become a writer. maybe all the sex is true too, who knows.  Jimmy sells a couople stories, but then stops when he finds a more lucrative business: becoming live-in a gigalo for various rich older women. (His first is 37, so that is not really “older” even for a 23-year-old.)  One of his sugar mommas likes to hire call girls for threesomes — high class call girls who come from good stock, and lo and behold, in all irony, one night Leatrice, the girl who had shot him down when he was 16, walks in, to find that the teenage boy she rejected has become a master lover.

It’s an insightful commentary on the psychological make-up of the sadist, and how one is trained to become one by women who desire such things, and how this man seeks out women who get off on pain. This one goes into more detail than your usual “soft-core” and is well-written.

Genre writers (science fiction, fantasy, mystery, western) wrote soft-core to make money when the genre market for magazinesand books dwindled in the late 1950s-early 1960s.  Silverberg wrote an article in 1992 for Penthouse Letters entitled “My Life as a Pornographer” about the scene at the time, recounting:

I was 24 years old when I stumbled, much to my surprise, into a career of writing sex  novels. In l958, as a result of a behind-the-scenes convulsion in the magazine-distribution business, the whole SF publishing world went belly up. A dozen or so magazines for which I had been writing regularly ceased publication overnight; and as for the tiny market for SF novels […] it suddenly became so tight that unless you were one of the first-magnitude stars like Robert Heinlein or Isaac Asimov you were out of luck.

Silverberg claims he could write a soft-core for Greenleaf/Nightsand/Cornith/William Hamling or Midwood Books and  others in four days, working in the morning to produce 2-4 chapters, taking a lunch break, and then working till evening, where he would switch to writing sf for the rest of the night.  The erotica was paying for his true love, science-fiction that did not pay as much as the market had vanished. It was also paying his rent and dinners at fine restaurants and summer trips to Europe.  Producing 2-3 titles a month, starting with William Hamling paying him $600 for the first Nightsstand tittel, Love Addict, and as the books sold well and made profit,  $1200-2000 each. (Hamling paid Scott Meredith $2000 for each pen name/blinded manuscript, and later found out that Meredith was taking more than a standard 10-15% cut, but more like 40-50%, paying writers $1000-1200.” This was  good money for a writer in the late 1950s-ealy 1960s. Silverberg purchased his first house with this revenue — not just a house, but a 10 room mansion once owned by Mr. La Guardia!  $80,000 back then, translated to a couple million now.  When Silverberg was contracted by Hamling to write a certain amount of stories each month for Imagination Science Fiction at $500/month, that was damn good money for a writer in New York in the mid to late 50s:  most writers could live comfortably on $100-200 month, depending what part of the city they lived and if they had modest or upper crust pedacllos.  Silverberg, with his wife, rented a 4-room upscale apartment in Manhattan for $150 a month.  Imagine that!  But $150 in 1950s money was probbaly around $1000-1500, and a four room apartment in New York City today will run $5000 or more a month, with tiny 200 sq. feet holes in the walls going for $1200 or so a month.  Harlan Ellison, he has n oted, paid $10 a week for a room/apartment.

Imn his essay, Silberbeg claims he made about $1000/week on average, not only from checks from Hamling’s many shell accounts used for the books and magazines, but lesbian novels for Midwood as oren Beauchamop and straight sex as David Challon, non-fiction “sex studies”  for Monarch as L.T. Woodward, and science and archeology books geared for the juvenile market for bigger houses, and the science-fiction too.  He burned out on the sleaze in the mid 1960s, but the SF book market had expanded and he wanted to focus more on that.

Silverberg states that the 150 books he wrote for Hamling, and the others (400 in all) not only helped to hone the  carft of plot and dialougue, but put him in a professional mindset that aided the writing of future books — his doens of novels, stories, and anthologies attest to this.

Much more about all this can be read at Earl Kemp’s online zine, el.

Going back to Sin Servant, it is a well-crafted, well-told story with fairly belivable characters. I can see this as a movie.  Who knows, maybe I will adapt it, as I want to make a screeplay out of Barry Malzberg’s A Bed of Money (next review).

4 Nightstand Books Don Elliott Covers

Sundown Reader Titles

Sundown Reader s was one of Greenleaf/Hamling’s many imprints…

SIN!