RZ: How did you start selling Powell your science fiction/fantasy work?
CAN: The deal with Bill was, among other things, the following: When he started doing quality books I’d be given total control of the Sci-Fi line. After all, I could offer named authors, via Forry Ackerman’s personal con-nections and through his agency. If This Goes On proved my ability to de-liver the names. So. Bingo! I came up with the Powell Sci-Fi title/line. My approach was this: since he wasn’t paying that much money (and certainly not the going market rate) I would have to “con” the writers into giving me some halfway good stuff. I had to come up with a package that offered more than fast bucks. And there the partnership with Dad would be a real double payoff. I wanted to get big name writers, so this was the deal. They were consulted on the cover and got the original art to have and hold till death do them part. For this they give Powell a one year exclusive on a book. I got A.E. van Vogt, Donald Wollheim. I would have added L. Ron Hubbard given time. In order to afford to make this deal with Powell work I tossed in some of my original, newly written, books at the going price. Thus, Swordmen of Vistar came into being, as well as Images of Tomorrow, and the Noomas and Lomooro books. And then there was a man name For-rest J Ackerman. I added things like Science Fiction Worlds of Forrest J. Ackerman & Friends, which was an original collection, which we planned on following up with sequels. Plus a line of books that would be called “Forrest J Ackerman Presents,” the first being Invasion of Mars, a “sequel” to the H. G. Wells book War of the Worlds. I did the first twelve Powell Sci-Fi books. In 1969 I was a busy guy, and I think some forty-five books came out. Some of these were, of course, books I wrote for other publishers (like the Carson Davis books). The Powell Sci-Fi line was, bluntly put, a closed market. Period! Even Forry would not make a deal with them with-out me. It was all rather neat. I had Powell tied up from their end; I had Forry to supply me with anything and any connections I needed. That meant getting stuff from authors he didn’t even represent. About this time I was handed another packaging deal from a different publisher that lasted for four books; this deal meant buying sex books from writers like Pete Crowcroft and Philip José Farmer, along with one by Stuart J. Byrne. All, of course, under bylines. Farmer’s manuscript wasn’t released by me, but resold to another “adult” publisher.
RZ: Talking about “adult” fiction, how did it change during this peri-od? The 1960s was a turning point, wasn’t it? Since you were “there” so to speak, and part of the forces behind the scenes, could you tell us something concerning your experiences?
CAN: Hardly a force. But certainly I was there to see how things changed. And I had a great inside viewpoint.
RZ: Could you tell us something about those changes?
CAN: Well, when I started writing seriously, in 1960, Forry, you see, had told me where the “new pulp” markets were [after the original pulps died]. The girlie magazines. This market, as it turned out, especially at the beginning, was a neat way to get published while learning your craft. Just put in the required sexual teases and you were in. Then you could spout off on any subject that fit. Especially at book length. You could write about anything you wanted, do a mystery, adventure, western, contemporary, or sci-fi novel. I did only one sci-fi sex book. This was published as Lovers: 2075 by Charles English. It was expanded from a story entitled “The Er-satz”—finally reprinted in Images of Tomorrow. Fred Pohl, then editor of Galaxy Science Fiction and the Hugo Award-winning If, had made some very nice editorial comments on the original story, saying he had almost bought it. But an “almost” is just another way of saying: no sale, for now. (Some years later I sold him a story, which he had rejected, in a much longer form—”A Day for Dying.”) So, under the pressure of deadlines I expanded the 17,000 or so word novella into a novel length work for Scor-pion Books. Even in this form, Lovers: 2075 was so tame I let it be released in Europe under my own name. The “sex” market in the early days was just about as daring as them thar romantic books for female teenagers. The ro-mantic books for more mature women are porno compared to what we wrote in the early ’60s. The books we did had to have the proper sexual tease. You had to offer the required sex scene very so many pages...like every twenty pages the curtain had to be dropped on two lovers. You could use lines like “They were lifted upwards into the heaven in a thrust of fiery passion...etc.” Colorful stuff but not very graphic. But things change. And we were told to keep the focus on sexual content throughout the book as much as possible. Then later, much later, the four letter words started creeping in until they finally took over. Then it became the orgasm on the first page and you built from there across 200 pages to a climax. Just typing the stuff was crappy enough. That’s when martini time arrived. When I got to the point where I was proofing/editing first draft books with a martini instead of a cup of coffee, I figured it was time to stop drinking or stop writing in a sex market that had changed from “spicy” anything to just the orgasms all the way. I had never been a compulsive reader of the “adult” fiction; it was something I had to write for a living. And over the years things had changed to the point where it was even difficult to monitor the news stands for copies of my own current book.
RZ: Difficult?
CAN: Well, yes. Even in the beginning with the girlie mags I felt a little timid haunting that section of the news stands every delivery day. I kept thinking people were staring at me a bit strangely. What are you supposed to say to somebody giving you the “evil” eye? “Hey, I don’t read this stuff, I only write it. I just wanna make sure the damn publisher isn’t trying to slip one over without paying me for it.” Fact of the matter is: when dealing with even the better publishers you didn’t always get copies of your book, so you bought them from the news stands with whatever spending money you might have in your pockets. And you never knew when a publisher might simply go out of business. Even people like Bill Trotter, who was very up front and fast at paying, had to fold the tent.
RZ: When did Powell Publications shut down?
CAN: Around 1970-71, thereabouts. There was a recession which cut into the trucking industry, and I do believe their “strike” countrywide was enough to buckle Powell Publication’s back. They [Powell] were under the pressure of getting the books out so they could get the money in to pay the bills. If the books didn’t get sold then the checks didn’t come in. If memory serves, it breaks down to something like this: about a third (based on total number of copies agreed on) of the payment from the bookstores comes in when things start, then another third after a period of months, then the final payment something like six months later. If the books don’t sell something like sixty percent (which is, I think, the break-even point), then you end up owing the other guy. If the books sell well, then you get what is considered the publisher’s profits. In other words, the final payment will determine profit or loss. And if you are working on a “string of shoes,” you’re in big trouble. The time between delivery of books and the final payment can break the back of a tight budget. Electric companies and phone companies don’t care about your problems concerning cash flow. And if the books are not being delivered by the truckers any certain month, that delay can cripple a short cash flow. Many a publisher hit the printing dust in this manner. Powell Publications, all things considered, had a pretty good run. And if that trucker strike hadn’t happened….
RZ: While packaging for Powell Books, I understand, you actually put out a book by Harlan Ellison. How was that as an experience?
CAN: Actually pretty nice. He was very professional. I wanted a pic-ture of him for the cover, since the book dealt with some of his experiences with LA gangs. This was Memos from Purgatory. I don’t know the details of how I went about making the first contact. Though I had met him in the oddest places. Like outside of Forry’s Ackermansion. Like conventions, or banquets, or the local magazine stand in Sherman Oaks, which I had been going to for years. He didn’t live very far from it. Though the professional contact was probably by phone. He is very approachable. Nic
e fellow, real-ly. [He] has some problems with Forry Ackerman, for reasons I do not un-derstand. But that’s Harlan. Great writer.
RZ: I understand that you almost published his Gentleman Junkie. Can you tell us about that?
CAN: Sure. That was a large collection of stories. I could only offer so much money per book and decided to suggest splitting the book into two volumes. I was at his home/office while he did the Introduction for the Se-cond Edition of Memos from Purgatory for me, at my request/suggestion. I made my offer for Gentleman Junkie as he walked through the living room where I waited. I suggested a slightly reduced rate, which was greater than doing it in one volume, and which would have given me a little profit for my time. I was doing Memos at a “loss”—no profit—for quality credit. Well Harlan, being the sweet guy he is, simply countered with the full price, without so much as a pause in his rush through the room.
RZ: During this time you almost published a book about Boris Karloff that never came off. What happened?
CAN: The day that Karloff died I immediately called Forry. He was doing Famous Monsters of Filmland and was the perfect person to do a book on Karloff. I wanted to put one out, instantly, a high quality one at high speed, and I called Forry. He said: “yes.” Then I called Bill Trotter. He said he’d check it out. I figure we’d do a great cover with a close up of Karloff’s head and probably call the book “Karloff.” We were talking about putting a book out in a week, writing-wise, written by a guy who could wing it, rapid fire, on somebody he loved and admired. I wanted a serious book on the man, the kind Forry would want to do. Illustrated with photos and such. Bill Trotter came back with the fact that the wholesalers didn’t know who Karloff was, other than a “has-been” actor. The book died, for me, there. Later, Forry sold it to Ace as Forrest J Ackerman Presents...Boris Karloff the Frankenscience Monster, and it was dedicated to quite a list of people, including me and Bill Trotter. My personal copy is signed: “For Charlie Nuetzel—without whose encouragement and efforts this book might very well have remained in the realm of unwrought things. Thanks Forry.”
RZ: Did you ever have any difficulties getting copies of your own books from Powell?
CAN: Well, not from the publisher. And I could find copies all over the place on news stands in Southern California. And this was, apparently, true for most of the nation. But not in Ventura County and my own town of Thousand Oaks, California.
RZ: You mean people couldn’t buy copies of your books in your own county and own home town? How did that happen?
CAN: That’s what I wondered. Here we were with national distribution and I couldn’t find anything in my own county. In the counties to the north and south, yes. But not in Ventura. So I went to Powell Publications in Los Angles County, around half an hour drive south. I mentioned [the problem] to Bill Trotter and he immediately got the wholesaler in Ventura County on the line and talked for some time. The problem was that the first books he had sent, a few months back, hadn’t sold well enough and the distributor wasn’t interested in putting more Powell Books on the stands. The whole-saler has that power of God over publisher and author. The damage was done. So, for any egoboo I had to go outside of my county to see my books on the stands.
RZ: Speaking of ego boosts. Didn’t you at one point have a book that outsold the Powell Book by A. E. van Vogt?
CAN: Swordmen of Vistar, the first Powell Sci-Fi release, outsold the van Vogt and E. Mayne Hull (van Vogt’s wife) book Out of the Unknown. In fact, Powell considered Swordmen a winner and planned on re-releasing it as Thoris from 30,000 BC, and have me do sequels. They had Bill Hughes do the cover, which was printed up and sent out as PR. I was lucky enough to get a copy.
RZ: The sci-fi anthology you edited had the rather intriguing title of If This Goes On. Can you tell us a little about this anthology? How’d it come about and how did you get the idea for it?
CAN: Well, this starts back to a time before I was even a professional writer. It involves the story “The Test” by Richard Matheson, when it orig-inally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. I was so impressed with the story that not only did I remember it over the years, I came up with an idea for a TV series because of it. This went no further than a storyboard my father designed for me, and the concept. The story-board is somewhere in the garage, I imagine, but I used the concept for the collection. My idea was to take a trend of today and have it extrapolated into a story of the future. If This Goes On was “designed” to sell sci-fi to the non-believer. I wanted people like my family to find the stories and ideas reasonably sound, making a social comment and hitting home in a way that even non sci-fi readers would be emotionally moved, and intellec-tually challenged. I wanted the book to sell sci-fi as sound, interesting, and serious fiction, but with a social bite. That’s why I actually turned down more stories than I used. I simply would not pick a story that didn’t make a social point in a particular manner which would appeal to the general read-er, rather than the fan. There were quite a few I might have picked for a more sophisticated sci-fi audience. “The Test” was truly a starting point and that’s why I put it up front, first story.
RZ: I understand that Ray Bradbury was willing to let you have one of his stories for the collection almost as a gift. Considering what he could have commanded on the open market, how did this come about?
CAN: It had to do with the movie King of Kings. It had to do with my father, Albert Augustus Nuetzel, who as a commercial artist worked for the company that did the screen credits and optical effects for this—and many another—film. It had to do with Bradbury, who was hired to do a rewrite on the script of King of Kings. It goes this way. In visiting Dad at work I saw or was shown the glass title on which was lettered a screen credit to the effect that Ray Bradbury had done some rewrite work on the script. For whatever reasons, the writer of the original script had the power to nix au-thor’s credits on the screen and Bradbury’s name was yanked off the titles. I quickly said to Dad: “Think that you could get this for Bradbury?” Dad checked it out with his boss, Larry Glickman, and it was a go. I called Forry, who is a lifelong personal friend of Bradbury’s. I told him the facts and asked if he thought Ray would be interested. Forry checked and found out he was. So, the glass title was delivered to Forry, who delivered it to Bradbury. Shortly, Dad and I received copies of Bradbury pocket books autographed by Ray. Well, just jump a few years and I wanted a story by Ray Bradbury for my collection, and wrote him. I got the following an-swer—it is dated Nov. 4, 1964. “Dear Charlie: Of course I remember you! And I have the nice clear huge pane of glass on display in my home base-ment office with the King of Kings screenplay credit to prove it.” He went on to suggest several possible stories I might use. The deal was made, in which he didn’t in the least question the rate of pay I was offering, which was—I have very good reason to believe—well below his going price. We ended up with a pocket book with Ray Bradbury’s name on the cover but no story by him inside.
RZ: How in the world did that happen?
CAN: In short: Book Company of America was going under and keep-ing it secret from everybody. Their cash flow was creating problems. Ap-parently. Normally they would give you the proofs to read. On If This Goes On, after I delivered the editorial copy, they kept delaying. What was hap-pening behind the scenes was the book was set up, printed, and released before everybody was paid. I didn’t know about this until I saw the book on the stands. I blew up. I went directly to their offices in Beverly Hills. The irony of the whole story is that the publishers knew nothing about science fiction. But they did know the Bradbury name and basically said: “If you can get him, we have a deal.” The book, as every dedicated Nuetzel fan must know, had names like A. E. van Vogt, Fritz Leiber, Fredric Brown, Isaac Asimov. But no Ray Bradbury. If I had been given the proofs I’d have caught the mishap. By their playing a sneaky cheapy, trying to put something over on me, they shot themselves in the head. I got my Bradbury story in the French edition of If This Goes On, so things worked out OK
for me.
RZ: What about some of the other stories that made it into the If This Goes On collection? Any other interesting tales?
CAN: There was one titled “No Land of Nod” by Sherwood Springer. The concept was startling: What happens to the human race if the last two people on Earth are brother and sister? I asked Forry to get the story for me, but upon rereading it I discovered it was out-of-date. Times had changed. So I asked Forry if the author could update it. This was simply a matter of changing a few lines. What surprised and actually kind of thrilled me was Forry’s instructions to go ahead and fix it myself. Here I was being told to “revise” a story written and published when I was a teenage fan. Years later when I met Sherwood Springer, we talked about the “changes” and I learned he was quite pleased with what I’d done. Another interesting sidebar concerned van Vogt’s “The Earth Killers.” I wanted the van Vogt name, but the story didn’t quite fit my rigid rules of acceptance. I asked Forry if van Vogt could fix it to fit the anthology’s theme. The result was my getting a tear sheet copy into which had been cut and pasted the revi-sions that gave the story the social impact to fit my book. Only a true pro-fessional would handle matters this way. Van Vogt was one of the Big Five in sci-fi. Yet, he was willing to make the changes. And he was doing me more of a favor than the other way around; quite obviously.
RZ: Did you turn down any big name writers for that anthology?
CAN: I had a very hard-line attitude about dialect. If it was difficult to read I didn’t want it. One of the stories Forry offered had this problem. Too much dialect. So I simply tossed it merrily aside, considering it “not very professional.” When I told Forry about rejecting it as being a bit amateurish, he laughed and asked: “Do you know whose pen name this is?” I, naturally, had no idea. It was Donald A. Wollheim. It was this kind of editorial bias and slant and policy restrictions that also kept out an otherwise fine and dandy Harlan Ellison story. The only one that the publishers, for their own reasons, nixed that I wanted to include was one by Edmond Hamilton.