{"id":21058,"date":"2016-02-24T20:00:37","date_gmt":"2016-02-25T01:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/?p=21058"},"modified":"2016-02-24T20:01:41","modified_gmt":"2016-02-25T01:01:41","slug":"that-time-i-tried-to-become-george-r-r-martins-publisher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/2016\/02\/24\/that-time-i-tried-to-become-george-r-r-martins-publisher\/","title":{"rendered":"That time I tried to become George R. R. Martin’s publisher"},"content":{"rendered":"

While digging out that 44-year-old Analog<\/em> rejection letter<\/a> I shared with you, I also ran across one of my own letters, sent just a few years later, which speaks to the ambitions of me at 19.<\/p>\n

Because (as the letter reveals) I was trying to become George R. R. Martin’s publisher.<\/p>\n

Back in 1975, when I was still living with my parents, flush with earnings from my new job at Marvel Comics, and feeling myself then to be more a part of comics than science fiction, I decided I’d start a publishing company which would do for comics what Advent Press was then doing for SF.<\/p>\n

At the time, George had only published around a dozen short stories, had yet to come out with a novel, and I knew him best for his prose appearances in the pages of Star-Studded Comics<\/em>, a fanzine out of Texas. <\/p>\n

\"StarStuddedComics7\"<\/a><\/p>\n

One such superhero adventure was “Powerman vs. the Blue Barrier,” which had appeared 10 years earlier.<\/p>\n

I wrote the following letter to the publishers of Star-Studded<\/em> attempting to get reprint rights.<\/p>\n

\"GeorgeRRMartinStarbuckPress\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I eventually received a letter from George—ONE I SADLY CANNOT LOCATE—in which (to the best of my recollection) he told me he thought it a swell idea, but that I’d omitted one very important aspect of the offer. That is—what did I intend to pay<\/em> for said rights?<\/p>\n

And that is where our correspondence stopped.<\/p>\n

Because in between the time of my letter and his, my attention turned from being a publisher to being in a relationship with my future wife. I moved out from my parents’ apartment, got one my own, and any excess money went not to publishing but to living expenses and wooing the woman with whom I was falling love. <\/p>\n

George is probably glad of this, because as he’s written<\/a>—<\/p>\n

And if by some mischance you should actually manage to stumble on some of these long-forgotten publications, please do remember that I was still in high school when I wrote most of this stuff.<\/em>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But who knows what would have happened had I hitched my star to George R. R. Martin rather than Irene Vartanoff<\/a>?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While digging out that 44-year-old Analog rejection letter I shared with you, I also ran across one of my own letters, sent just a few years later, which speaks to the ambitions of me at 19. Because (as the letter reveals) I was trying to become George R. R. Martin’s publisher. Back in 1975, when […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[18,180,229,73],"class_list":["post-21058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-comics","tag-fanzines","tag-george-r-r-martin","tag-irene-vartanoff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21058"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21058\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21581,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21058\/revisions\/21581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}