Alan Baxter

I’m sure you all remember the bizarre RLSH – Real Life Super Hero – thing that blew up here back at the end of 2008. If not, refresh your memory with this post (that I had to close after more than 150 comments, many from “super heroes” themselves). That saga continued with this post. Now, I’m happy to report, the saga continues to continue.

You know when you read something and you think those time honoured words, Only in America! Well, now we can’t apply that to the RLSH thing any more as Britain and Australia are getting involved. That’s right. We have our very own Real Life Super Hero. He’s called Captain Australia and this is him:

(Picture from www.bleedingcool.com)

Now seriously, how can that guy not strike fear into the hearts of villains everywhere? Although, by his costume, I think he’s actually Captain At. He probably deflects evildoers with his super belly. He patrols for crime around the Brisbane area apparently.

According to Captain At, “During one patrol, I stopped two sexual predators from taking advantage of a very drunk woman at a taxi rank. Unfortunately, I was unsure of my ability to conduct a citizen’s arrest and the two predators ran away before the police arrived. But I was able to prevent a near-certain sexual assault.”

You’d think a super hero would have some idea of the law regarding citizen’s arrests. You’d also think he’d just kick their arses, vigilante-style, but regardless he did do a good deed. So more power to Captain At!

Britain’s caped crusader is no less… well, less. Called The Statesman, but dubbed the Phan-Tum by the The Sun newspaper (that unquestionable paragon of quality news), he fights crime in Birmingham. Seriously, between Captain At and The Statesman, I’d take the Captain’s beat any day. The Statesman is one of at least 16 amateur crime fighters in Britain, according to researcher Tea Krulos, who is writing a book on the subject. Here’s The Statesman:

(Picture from www.bleedingcool.com)

The News of the World lists The Statesman’s crime fighting CV as “He helped three other superheores and Police Community Support Officers capture a drug dealer and managed to scare off burglars breaking into builder’s merchant.”

Along with people like Vague, Swift, Black Arrow, Lionheart and Terrorvision, The Statesman is keeping the streets of Britain clean. (Incidentally, what kind of super hero name is Vague? It’s a little… vague, isn’t it?)

When Krulos was told of the British heroes he said, “In America we have many, but they tend to seek publicity.

“In Britain it is a very secretive underground society. They do all they can to avoid publicity and communicate online. Whole forums are set up and often they operate in groups. I have spoken extensively to The Statesman, and he takes what he does very seriously.” (Source)

According to Krulos, “These are normal people wanting adventure and to improve communities. They achieve more than you’d think.”

I have to admit, I bloody love this whole thing. I just can’t leave it alone – it’s like picking at a scab. There’s a part of me that wants to laugh my arse off at these overweight comic book lovers running around the streets at night in costume. Then again, another part of me has a lot of respect for people that would run around the streets at night and put themselves in danger for the good of others, silly costumes or not. I love reading super hero comic books. I’ve been a regular Batman reader for decades. I’ve dreamed of what it would be like to fight crime, vigilante-style. But I’ve never followed through and done it.

I most certainly have stepped in on a few occasions when I’ve seen injustice done. I’ve got into fights before by getting involved when someone else was getting a beating, I’ve interrupted people that were clearly trying to break into a car and some other stuff like that. I’m also a career martial artist, so I’m probably less vulnerable than most in situations like these. But those were events I happened to stumble across. Going out and deliberately seeking this stuff is another matter entirely. And, let’s be honest, walking around the streets dressed like Captain At or The Stateman is the kind of thing that’s likely to attract a beating on its own.

I really hope these guys can stop a bit of crime and help some people. I hope they have adventure and a sense of fulfillment doing it. I really hope that more people will stand up for the oppressed when they see injustice instead of just walking by, and maybe one day we won’t need the super heroes that we don’t really have anyway. I just hope I don’t read about one of these guys eating a bullet or a blade in the meantime. We’ve all seen the movie Kick Ass. If you haven’t, you really should.

What do you think? Ever wanted to be a super hero? Do you think these guys are heroes or total fucking nutcases?

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I’m a very proud member of the Australian Horror Writers Association and a big fan of the Association’s magazine, Midnight Echo. I’m really hoping that they’ll buy one of my stories one day. In the meantime, I always enjoy reading it. Issue 5, edited by AHWA President, Leigh Blackmore, is available now.

Midnight Echo 5 is jam-packed with dark fiction, poetry and art. It includes the winners of the AHWA’s 2010 Short Story competition and Flash Fiction Competition (stories by Christopher Green and Jason Fischer), with brand new stories by Terry Dowling, Chandler Kaiden, E. Albert Banstrom, Blair Kelly, Bryce J. Stevens, Mollie Burleson, Christopher Sequeira, Aaron Polson, Felicity Dowker, Rick Kennett, Juliet Bathory, George Ivanoff, Damien Giles, Robert Mammone and John Goodrich.

The issue includes horrific and weird verse by such poets as Kyla Ward, Richard L. Tierney, Fred Phillips, Charles Lovecraft, Michael Fantina, Rosa Christian, Ann K. Schwader, Phillip A. Ellis, Margi Curtis, Joyce Frohn, Mike Berger, Guy Belleranti, Adrienne J. Odasso, John Grey, Ron T. Wilkins and Terrie Leigh Relf.

Dark art by international artists include works by Carl Schaller, Martin Blanco (cover), Shane Ryan, Gaston Locanto, Wayne Palesado, and Tony Karnes.

As an added bonus, this issue features an eight-page graphic story by Mark Farrugia and Greg Chapman.

It’s a seriously beautiful magazine – I’ve got my copy already and it looks fantastic. You can get the PDF edition for $3 or the print edition for $11. AHWA members get the PDF for free. Get your copy here right now!

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My short story Running Wild With The Hunt will be published in The Game anthology from Seven Realms Publishing, due in the northern hemisphere summer. All the stories in the book are inspired by the classic Richard Connell story, The Most Dangerous Game. Most of the contributing writers are putting characters from their longer works into these short stories, so mine features Isiah from RealmShift and MageSign.

Seven Realms has released the cover of the book and I think it looks fantastic. Not least due to my fortunately alphabetical name. That’s a pretty solid list of names on there, so this should be a great book. I’ll let you all know when it’s available.

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March 6th to 12th is Read An Ebook Week. You may or may not enjoy ebooks already and I’m not here to convert you. But, in celebration of the week, my publisher is making all their books half price on Smashwords. That includes my novels, RealmShift and MageSign.

To get into the spirit of the thing, I’ve also made my Ghost Of The Black novella free for the week. Yep, free. But wait, there’s more. My little publishing outfit has made its two anthologies – Souls Along The Meridian by Bill Congreve and Dark Pages 1 edited by Brenton Tomlinson – half price as well.

So that’s two great novels and two great collections all for $1.50 each and a noir sci-fi novella for nothing. This week only. It’s an ebook bonanza. All you need to do is go to the relevant page and purchase the book and then use the code RAE50 at checkout to apply the discounts. Direct links below. Go get ‘em:

RealmShift.

MageSign.

Ghost Of The Black.

Souls Along The Meridian.

Dark Pages 1.

All Gryphonwood Press titles.

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The web has been abuzz lately (for example) with stories of Amanda Hocking’s incredible self-publishing success (and similar success by other indies). In a nutshell, Hocking has nine self-published works available on Kindle (and other ebook stores) and is selling hundreds of thousands every month and making more money than most writers ever dream about. Well, we dream about it, of course, but never expect to actually see it. Hocking sold 450,000 books on Kindle in January alone. At a 70% royalty that’s some serious moolah. Traditional publishers won’t be picking her up because none of them can offer a deal that’s even close, let alone better than the one she’s managed on her own.

Naturally when a story like this comes along, everyone immediately starts shouting stuff about how the world has completely changed and publishers will no longer be required. People everywhere can self-publish on Kindle and make themselves a million dollars a second. Of course, it’s all bollocks.

Anyone that knows anything about me will know that I have no problem with quality indie or self-publishing. The keyword there is QUALITY, but that’s another post. I’m absolutely chuffed for Amanda Hocking. It’s fantastic to see the kind of success she’s had. But let’s get realistic for a moment. She’s an exception, not a new standard benchmark. Remember Dan Brown and J K Rowling? They’re phenomenally successful authors with traditional print deals. Did every other traditionally published author suddenly become a sales behemoth because they did? Of course not. The fact that it can happen doesn’t mean it will every time.

I blogged back in January 2008 about a Japanese girl that wrote a novel on her phone and ended up with a print deal and 400,000 sales. Did Japanese girls everywhere start making fortunes with mobile phone novels? No.

When it comes to Kindle self-publishing there are some people making huge money and selling massive numbers (like Hocking, or J A Konrath, who used his already high profile to take control of his own ebook sales). There are also some people making moderate to good sales, some making poor sales and some making none. I don’t have any figures, but I’ll bet you that the people making none or low sales outnumber those making high sales by a factor of hundreds of thousands. Just like in print publishing. The music industry is the same – for every Justin Bieber there’s a million wannabes struggling to get noticed. Just because massive success can and does happen occasionally, doesn’t mean it can and will happen to many.

Also, every overnight success is usually on the back of many years of hard work. Just because these people shot to fame and success in short timeframes doesn’t mean they spent no time getting there.

Hocking posted this on her blog a couple of weeks ago, which includes these salient points:

So much of what people are saying about me is, “Look what Amanda Hocking accomplished in a year,” when they really should be saying is, “Look what Amanda Hocking accomplished in twenty years.” Because that’s how long I’ve been writing, that’s how long I’ve been working towards this goal…

There is a common misconception that I published the first novel I ever wrote, and that is not true. The first book I ever published was My Blood Approves, and that was the eighth novel I’d written…

There are no tricks or schemes with self-publishing. It’s just about writing a good book, polishing it really well, getting a good cover, pricing it right, and putting it out there. There are no short cuts. If you want to be successful at this, you have to do the work.

You should really read the whole post, it’s very good. I would also point out that even if you do take Amanda’s advice (which every writer should) and write well, polish, edit, get good covers and layout and so on, you’re still not guaranteed success. You’re giving yourself the best shot, but becoming the next Amanda Hocking or J K Rowling is akin to winning the lottery. It happens very rarely in the grand scheme of things, to a very lucky few. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t chase that kind of success, it doesn’t mean it can’t happen to you and it doesn’t mean you don’t deserve it. We all deserve recognition for the hard work we do. The truth is, most of us get a lot less recognition for our hard work than we’d like. That’s life.

Work your arse off and aim for the stars, but don’t get lost in unrealistic expectations. With any luck your hard work and attention to detail and quality will pay off. Certainly we’re going to see more and more people achieving very satisfying success indie publishing their stuff. Things are changing, self-publishing is losing its stigma and new vistas of success are opening to all of us. But even so, success stories like Hocking’s are likely to remain the exception and not the rule.

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You know, not only is Alan a tremendous author, he's a top bloke into the bargain.  After getting his name wrong in the post announcing his joining us, he very kindly didn't point out that there are days when I am dafter than a brush - which he would have been well within his rights to do at the very least!

Apologies Alan - you know you are very welcome at Clan Destine, and at my sincere apologies.

Everyone - Alan BAXTER has joined us - not that other bloke :)