With four novels on the stands since 1997, Steve Alten’s story is already the stuff of publishing legend.
The ex-jock who once nursed a notion of coaching Men’s Division 1 college basketball — and who served as a grad assistant to Temple University’s legendary basketball coach John Chaney — shifted gears after collecting several degrees in athletic administration and followed other career paths.
Some panned out, for a time. Others didn’t.
A growing family; shrinking income.
Alten was working two jobs and cramming the writing of a novel into late night and early morning hours of the weekdays; he threw himself into his writing for long stretches on the weekends. He was inchoately convinced his commitment to writing represented some way out.
A manuscript in hand — fired by a clever concept — Alten did what every aspiring writer does: He white-papered a slew of agents. He collected vast quantities of rejection slips.
Eventually, he got one interested nibble. The manuscript, he was told, needed work. Alten sold his "beloved" 1971 Chevy Malibu to cover editing costs.
The revised manuscript went back out there. There was some Hollywood interest; a possible movie deal loomed.
Friday the 13th: Steve Alten reports for work to the wholesale meat plant where he spends his days and learns he and his crew are out of work.
Four days later, after a frenzied bidding war, Alten nets a $1 million-plus book deal.
A happy ending? Wait and see....
On June 19, 2002, Alten’s fourth novel was released.
"Goliath" is set six years in the future. George W. Bush has proven to be a one term president. Saddam Hussein is still in power in Iraq. A state of the art stealth submarine endowed with artificial intelligence has gone missing.
The novel is studded with references to the events of September 11, 2001, and the ongoing "War on Terror."
Interviewer Craig McDonald spoke with Alten in June 2002.
McDonald: How on earth did you end up at Red, White & Boom for an appearance? It’s hardly your typical author venue....
Alten: No.... It happened through the Adopt-An-Author program. I have a lot of high schools in the Columbus area that have signed up for the program and my Adopt-An-Author coordinator lives right outside of Columbus (in Carroll) and thought it would be a great event to attract teachers and readers and I’m anxious to come. I’ll be at the booth all day, giving away things and signing books. And it coincides with the release of my fourth novel, so it works out really well.
McDonald: You recently went out on the USS Scranton, a ship which figures in your new novel Goliath. How did that come about?
Alten: The Scranton is a Los Angeles-class attack sub and it is featured in Goliath. It’s one of the subs chasing the Goliath. I’m very lucky in that I stay in contact with all of my readers and I happened to meet a former commander of the Scranton, and he helped edit certain passages of the book. So I sort of have a place in my heart for the whole Scranton crew and her officers. I contacted the Navy public affairs office and sent them a copy of Goliath. They read the book and liked it and said, “Well, we’ll see what we can do.” The next thing I know, the Scranton was tripped into port at Coco Beach, Florida. Myself and a few other VIPs were invited on board, and it was more than I ever could have hoped for, because we didn’t just get a tour: They took us out 40 miles off shore and did maneuvers in 600-feet of water and torpedoizations and all sorts of stuff and it was just tremendous.
McDonald: I had wondered if they ever resumed those sorts of public outings after the collision several months ago between one of our submarines and the Japanese passenger boat.
Alten: Well, they won’t let passengers drive the boat or things like that any more, but we got to watch everything.
McDonald: Did you find that you had claustrophobia being in that confined space and that far down?
Alten: No, I actually felt safer on the sub than I do on an airplane...pre-911. You know when you ride on a boat like that and see what tight confines the crew lives in, you just feel so proud to be an American and to have this kind of military behind you. I felt really good.
McDonald: Tell me more about your Adopt-An-Author program. I understand that you struck upon the idea when you found you had a fairly young readership.
Alten: Yeah. One of the things I endeavor to do as an author is to remain accessible to my readers. It can be very time consuming, but it’s my best asset I think, right now, because there is such a diversity of knowledge out there and people who want to help. A couple of years ago, I started getting e-mails from high school students, the majority of which hated reading — as, unfortunately, typical high school students do — until they read Meg. Meg hooked ’em, and then they wound up reading The Trench which is the sequel to Meg, and then they started reading other works of mine. Then I started getting e-mails from teachers who were using Meg in their curriculum. To top if all off, I found out that Meg was named the number one book for reluctant readers by the Young Adult Library Services Association. That really spurred me on to try and do something to assist what was happening naturally. So I created the program, Adopt-An-Author, with the design that as a former educator myself, I could help teachers make their lives easier by providing free curriculum materials about my books, exciting posters for the classroom to get students to read...pamphlets of information...But, most of all, when the students were reading the book, they could contact me and I would answer their e-mail within 24 hours, if not sooner. So we could do sort of question and answer sessions. Then, I took it a step further, so that when a student would e-mail me — as well as any other reader — they automatically get newsletters each month. So there is follow-up to that. Then we do conference calls with the classroom, or, if it is a local school, I will do classroom visits. The best part about it, is the books are hooking the kids. I can’t tell you — every day — what will happen is the classroom will all e-mail at once. I’ll get like 30 e-mails from the same class, and the testimonials are amazing. The teachers are shocked that students who normally are presenting discipline problems are coming into the classrooms to read beyond the assigned chapters. It’s worked out very well. And it is something that, now that we are gaining sponsorships, we will be able to do on a larger basis, providing better materials. One of the goals of the program is that it is always going to stay free. I’ve been paying for it myself for the last year-and-a-half, but with sponsors on board, we’ll be able to do even more.
McDonald: Now that you have this awareness of a younger readership, does that affect you at all artistically in terms of, “Maybe I shouldn’t put that in there, knowing that I have middle or high school students who will be reading it?”
Alten: Yeah, it has. One of the issues was that I never wrote the books for teens, per se. I knew they would enjoy them, but they are adult books. There is some cursing in it. There is violence — shark violence. Some of the themes deal with warfare and so forth. The thing more than the occasional curse word, is the fact that I do spend so much time doing research. So they are learning a lot of things in a fun way. And, the truth of the matter is, on that on my Web site I do address the cursing issue in case it is an issue with parents. I say that the books are written for adults and that as my books progress — as I have progressed as a writer — I have gotten better from book to book. And the cursing has cut down significantly and I am aware that students are reading it. At the same time, I’m not going to change a storyline just to please a student, because the majority of my readers are not students. But I am aware of it. It’s not like kids haven’t heard these things before.
McDonald: No, and you get the sense that if you pander to them, you probably would lose them.
Alten: Exactly. That’s a good point and it is exactly right. I do have a funny story. I went to a book signing, and, as many book signings go, after a while there is not much of a crowd there. A woman came up to me, and I guess she was a born-again Christian and she was there with her teenage daughter, who was 16. The woman said, "My daughter really wants to read Meg, but are there any curse words in it?" And I said, "There are a few." And she said, "That’s too bad. I can’t let her read it." The daughter was a little embarrassed, so I said, "I’ll tell you what, what if I cross ’em out for you?" And she said, "Okay." Because there was nobody there, I thought, "What the heck?" So, I sat there with a pen and crossed out all the curse words in Meg. She bought the book, came back ten minutes later and said, "Well, my daughter wants to read the sequel, The Trench, can you do the same thing?"
McDonald: Did you?
Alten: Not quite. I spent the next hour crossing out curse words in The Trench, then thought, "What am I doing here? I’m censoring my own books!" I was going to write on the front page, "Thank you — Best F-ing wishes...." But I didn’t do it. But the daughter later e-mailed me and she was very grateful and loved the books and apologized. If I can accommodate them, I will, but that’s not something I’m going to do on a regular basis.
McDonald: I had noted your unusual accessibility. You note that, now, through Adopt-An-Author, you have nearly 1,000 schools participating — are you reaching a point of critical mass in terms of your ability to have that kind of interaction with your readers?
Alten: Haven’t reached it yet, because each teacher has their own way of working the book into curriculum. What I do is I get up a little bit earlier and it takes me about three hours in the morning to answer all of the e-mails, but then I do it sporadically throughout the day, too, so it doesn’t all hit in one lump sum. What will happen, too, is I’ll get the whole classroom e-mailing me at once, and that way I’m not typing out a two page response for each person — I’m cutting and pasting and answering their specific questions in the e-mail. I’ve got it down to a science, now. I know exactly what they’re going to ask before they ask it. So I can address that answer in the e-mail, and then, when they do a follow-up letter, I recognize their e-mail address and specify.
McDonald: When you started out, your degrees and your curriculum were all in sports administration. You have also stated you once held a goal to be a Men’s Division 1 coach. What moved you away from that athletic arena?
Alten: I went through 10 straight years of school. I had played basketball at Penn State and coached at the University of Delaware as a grad assistant and did the same thing at Temple University so I could work with John Chaney. What happened was my last year, I just couldn’t afford to stay as a grad assistant and I took a job. I did well at that job, and at that point I had to make a decision: Do I continue to work my way up the ladder as a Division 1 coach — meaning, probably, that I would probably be a second assistant for a while, maybe a first assistant? I decided I just wasn’t patient enough to do that. I coached a little in high school, too, and figured I’d come back to it at some point, but at this point I just coach local teams as a volunteer.
McDonald: Now, were you an assistant coach to John Chaney?
Alten: No, I was a grad assistant, and he allowed me to work with his program informally.
McDonald: You cite Coach Chaney as a mentor. What are some of the things you picked up from him?
Alten: First and foremost, John Chaney is a teacher. He teaches the game of basketball, but, at the same time, he teaches the game of life. He imparts his wisdom to his kids, and I’ve learned a lot from him in that way. Just the way he handles himself, behind the closed doors. He is not a Bobby Knight. He may address himself that way — as a black Bobby Knight — but he’s not. These kids love him because he cares about them and they sense that. He’s a terrific role model. (Interviewer's note: On Aug. 30, 2002, it was announced that “Papa John,” a treatment by Steve Alten for a television series featuring Philadelphia’s legendary urban basketball coach, has been optioned by De Passe Entertainment.)
McDonald: You seem to have a real drive and a gift for self-promotion. I understand that what would have been your second book got mired down in law suits and some repackaging and revising of the book. At this point in your career, how involved are you in packaging, design…you are obviously out promoting aggressively….?
Alten: I’d like to be more involved. I’m sort of limited a bit with my publisher. They come out with their own designs. I try to persuade them. I have a team of readers who perform different things for me, and I have a group of guys who are graphic artists, so, before my publisher comes out with a cover, I pay them to come out with a cover that I like and try to persuade the publisher to come out with something more in line with that. As more books come out and my sales go up, I’ll have a little bit more control, but it’s like anything else regarding publicity and related things that I have learned the hard way: That is, that you can’t sit back and hope that your publisher will do the job for you. Bantam/Doubleday did a great job of publicizing Meg and I just assumed that that was the norm. Well, when I went to a second publisher for The Trench they did nothing like that for the hardback. As a result, sales were not that high. So, when the paperback came out, I got behind it and did the publicity and it hit bestseller status. I’ve spent the last six months preparing for the promotion of the Domain mass paperback and Goliath, which both came out this month. Hopefully, it will pay off. But it is very time-consuming.
McDonald: Goliath, debuts today. It’s your fourth novel. What are your thoughts today? Do you still get jitters as the books go out there and reviews start coming in? Is there still a thrill for you to have that book going to the stands?
Alten: Oh yeah, it’s a big thrill and it’s a thrill to see the reviews. I’ve gotten better as a writer, and I just believed — I just knew — that Goliath was going to get good reviews, especially with the timeliness of the subject matter. Everything we are dealing with in terms of terrorism…the threat of nuclear war between India and Pakistan…the situation in the Middle East. The book is very timely. It’s very exciting for me. At the same time, my manager is working with some people to see if we can get a movie option, too. That would get me really excited.
McDonald: Goliath at several different points, alludes to the terrorist attacks of September 11, and incorporates some quotes from President George W. Bush’s now famous speech to both houses a few days after 9-11 regarding the War on Terror. How much of the book was plotted or written prior to 9-11?
Alten: Almost nothing. The 9-11 references — and they’re just, as you mentioned, small references, I put in on a last walk-through on the edit. I had thoughts about taking it even further, but I decided it would be too major of an edit to do that and I was doing it solely to incorporate Osama bin Laden into it. So I decided not to do it. But you have to make reference to it, because the book takes place in the near future.
McDonald: 2008…
Alten: Right.
McDonald: Without giving away any major plot points, Osama bin Laden, his whereabouts in the book, in the year 2008, are left vague. Saddam Hussein — there is a plot-point calling for his demise. When did you incorporate that into the novel? Events of the past week — as the President has signed an order essentially setting the stage for Saddam’s assisted demise — is incredibly timely.
Alten: When I sat down and was developing the Simon Covah character, who is not really a villain but more of a victim who crosses the line of what a victim does and a villain does, I kind of put myself in his position. If you were king of the world, what would you want? And, you’re trying to do the right thing and to bring peace and nuclear disarmament to the world. What would your demands be? So, I made up this whole list of demands and found that I sucked myself into the plot — and, I think readers will too — where you start rooting for the villains to win. It’s sort of a gradual boil, like sticking your hand into a pot of cold water and gradually simmering it until you burn your hand off and have no idea what you’re doing. When you cross that line, you just barely cross it, and all of a sudden you’re in the hot water and realize you’ve gone too far. I think that’s the fun part of Goliath and the theme of the novel: Where does violence come from and why do we go too far? It’s the best of intentions that can lead us down the path to destruction.
McDonald: The road to hell is paved with them…
Alten: Exactly.
McDonald: In incorporating some of the events of the past six or eight months, was there anything you put in and then thought better of and took out?
Alten: Yeah, at one point, right after 9-11, I put in a demand that Osama bin Laden be killed and that Covah knew where he was hiding. But, I realized after I wrote it, that it was not very realistic and that I needed to take it out.
McDonald: Casting back to an earlier stage of your career: You’ve famously described working two jobs and crowding the writing of your first novel into the late-night/early-morning hours and weekends. With all of that going on in your life, what made you persevere and soldier on with the writing under those circumstances?
Alten: I saw writing as a way to get out of my tough circumstances. I’ve always been able to set goals and stay focused on them. I’ve always realized that if you stay focused on the goal — and you have a plan and you work the plan — then you put yourself in to the best position to be successful. For me, because I was working two jobs and I was really getting nowhere, the only time to write was 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. and weekends. I was able to do it just because I imagined the end result.
McDonald: How much of your athletic background and training feeds into that?
Alten: I think a lot does. I’ve never been a star on any team. I’ve always been the guy who sits on the pine and has to work harder than everybody else just to stay on the team. I’ve always done a lot of working out on my own and persevered that way. You build discipline by doing stuff like that. Athletics have helped a lot.
McDonald: You also — kind of famously — lost your day job on Friday the 13th — and then a few days later you got this million-plus dollar deal for the first novel and the, I take it, unwritten second novel. How long an interval before you realized there is this deal out here that may bail me out? Was that a dark night, or a dark couple of days?
Alten: Prior to the book deal, I knew that we had the unofficial workings of a movie deal. The movie rights for Meg had been sold, in principle, to Hollywood Pictures. So I knew, eventually, I would have that. When I lost my job, I sort of looked at it as, "Well, now I get to write full time." But my wife was saying, "Well, now we can’t even pay the rent, so what are you talking about here?" She didn’t see what I saw in it. Four days later, fortunately, it all worked out. For a time. It’s been a roller-coaster. We got this great two-book deal and a movie deal, and we’re living in a small apartment and all of a sudden we’re moving into a nice house, and, a month after we move into the nice house, the movie deal wasn’t renewed because of circumstances beyond my control, and the book deal was cancelled, again by some circumstances beyond my control. That hits you like a ton of bricks. The house you moved into you can’t afford. I tried to keep it in perspective. You turn on the news, you pick up a newspaper, and there are people dying…19 people get blown up on a bus in Israel, and you’re alive. You just took a step back and, so what? Deal with it. Figure out what you’ve got to do and bounce back. And that’s what I did. We had to sue Doubleday just so I could get the rights back to the book because I knew I could make it into the book I wanted. And, at the same time, I’m grateful for what Bantam/Doubleday did, because it forced me to become a better writer.
McDonald: That book was Fathom, that later became Domain….
Alten: Yeah. But two different books, completely.
McDonald: I was going to ask if you brought it back around to your original vision, because they had requested edits and changes, moving it away from your concept….
Alten: They wanted another underwater novel. The story was about the Mayans. There were underwater elements, but it wasn’t an underwater novel. But, I gave them what they wanted because there was so much money at stake. And, who am I to argue? I’m just a rookie. But I was really burned out by it all — I gave them five major edits over a year-and-a-half which they continued to accept until two weeks before I was supposed to get paid and then they cancelled everything. The fact that it happened, in the long-term, made be a better writer. I really had to put that book away and write The Trench just to get away to think. Once I did that, I was able to see the plot a lot clearer. I think Domain is head and shoulders above the first two books. It was what I needed to do.
McDonald: With the success there a little more solidly now, did you ever try to track down your Chevy Malibu that you sold to cover editing fees? Buy another?
Alten: (Laughing). You know, it’s a funny thing: I loved that car, but it’s a lot nicer to drive a new car. I have my memories….
McDonald: Meg spawned a sequel. You have a sequel for Domain coming out, called Resurrection and Goliath ends with a tease for a follow-up. Do these start off as self-contained novels, or do you always go in with the sense that they are going to be part of some multi-tiered series or trilogy?
Alten: They start off as self-contained novels, then, in the process of writing, I realize that — with Domain, for instance — I just wasn’t ready to end the story. I realized there was a lot more and I wanted to sort of end it on a cliff-hanger and sketched out the next two books right there. Resurrection is a much darker novel. It’s a different type of novel. It was a real challenge and still is. I really like that trilogy. I’ve fallen in love with the storyline and the characters involved. I think people are really going to enjoy the trilogy. Goliath — I just thought that in the end, the story ends, so there is no cliff-hanger, but there is the promise that I can take it to a different level later on.
McDonald: You have cited Ian Fleming and Anne Rice as two writers whom you admire. Do you see anything of their works reflected in your own, or anything you took from them?
Alten: I suppose there is some horror element in my writing, from Anne Rice. I also like (Tom) Clancy and Michael Crichton. I like the fact that Crichton is not pigeon-holed into one particular subject and I don’t want to be either. I’ve had my first two publishers try to do that with me. They just wanted underwater books. I don’t want to be the next Peter Benchley, though I admire his success. There are other subjects I want to write about. As long as I can tell the story in a way that keeps you turning the pages I don’t think there is a problem with that. My readers haven’t had a problem with that.
McDonald: Wrapping up, when do you find time to write now, between answering all the e-mails and promoting the books?
Alten: Man, that’s a good question. My wife just had a baby boy and it’s like sleeping with a snooze button that goes off every two hours. It’s funny: I’m back to where I started. I’m spending most of my days doing the promotions, try to grab an hour’s sleep here and there, and then I stumble into my office about midnight and try to write a few pages. Hopefully, things will ease up soon. I’m fortunate with the Adopt-An-Author program that I’ve got a few readers who can help administer the daily stuff so I can back to the writing, but it took a while to get it there.
— © June 2002, by Craig McDonald
Goliath & Primal Waters promotional art by Erik H. Hollander