“Fallen Heroes“ is now on the shelves of several branches of Waterstones, including their flagship branch (where it was labeled a ‘cult hit’), which is regarded as the largest bookshop in Europe. I have, since then, done several book signings both in-store and at various conventions.

Thanks to the success of “Fallen Heroes” I now have an agent and an award winning TV and film production company has optioned the book itself. I am also working with a BBC journalist who will be adapting the story for a graphic novel to be published by Insomnia Publications.

None of this would have been possible without the easy to use and excellent print on demand infrastructure set up by Lulu. One example is the ease by which I was able to release a new edition of the book with a back cover Waterstones review and a front cover quote/recommendation from fantasy author, James Barclay.

Through self-publishing I have pushed myself to do things, in terms of self-promotion and marketing, I would never have done otherwise (signings are not my strong point!). I have learnt a lot about what it takes to not only get your work out there but what to do once it is. It’s been a journey of hard work, disappointment, lesson learning and huge moments of sheer joy.

I am a huge fan of the social networking tool Twitter and have added all of the Lulu authors I can find who use the tool. (Follow me here and Lulu here.) I happened to be following Marty Wombacher who, as it turns out, is kinda semi-famous. He founded the magazine Fishwrap and also has written a number of books.

Marty also wanted to be a firetruck when he grew up, which is way cooler than the baseball that I wanted to be.

Can you give us a bit of background on Fishwrap?

Sure, I moved to New York in the summer of 1993 from my hometown of Peoria, Illinois, hoping to get a job as a staff writer at a magazine. I had a connection with the founding editor of People magazine, Dick Stolley (you can read about that connection in my book, “The Boy Who Would Be A Fire Truck,” yikes, I’m plugging my stuff already!) and he got me interviews at People magazine, Entertainment Weekly and In Style. I was really excited and was certain I would land a job at one of them. Well one by one they turned me down (I later learned they thought I was a talented writer, but thought I might have an attitude problem. Moi?) and while I was doing some freelance writing for newspapers, it was a real disappointment. So I decided to publish a magazine that would ridicule the whole world of mainstream magazines. This became Fishwrap and it became somewhat of a cult hit. It started out as a black and white fanzine (this was the pre-blog era) and later evolved into a 48 page glossy magazine. I had a distribution agent, so it was available across the country. I got some decent press through the years, but could never sell ads for it (I’m a horrible businessman) and it never made any money. By the year of 2000 I felt it had run its course and put it to rest.

How many books have you written and where are they available?

I’ve written two other books. One was written in 1992, when I still lived in Peoria, Illinois and it’s title is: “Elvis Presley is a Wormfeast.” It was a humorous look at how Elvis Presley actually got bigger after he died (although he was pretty big at the time of his death, har har.) That one is long out of print and I’ve only got a couple copies of my own. The other book I’ve written is called “99 Beers Off The Wall,” and it came out in 2002. What this is, is one man’s guide to 99 bars right here in New York. The hook to it is, I had a week’s vacation from my night job, so I went to 99 bars and had 99 beers in seven days. As you can imagine, a lot of adventures ensued and in between the reviews are travelogue type writing of me running around in a drunken stupor in Manhattan. I’ve still got a couple hundred of these in my apartment, and if anyone is interested in buying one they can email me via my Lulu storefront.

You mention that you had a few “small doses of fame.” Can you elaborate on a few of them?

In 1985 I created a satire on Trivial Pursuit which was really hot at the time. My game was called “Trivial Trivia, The Idiot Edition,” and it was designed for people who weren’t smart enough for Trivial Pursuit. Some of the questions were, “What is Burt Reynold’s first name?” “How many members were in the original Jackson Five?” “Who’s buried in Grant’s tomb?” I’m sure you get the drift of the game. I just did it for a goof, got them printed up and went from getting written up in the local paper in Peoria, to being on the local news, then the U.P.I. wire service did a quick story on it and it was put on a national wire and things went nuts. I did hundreds of radio interviews, papers picked it up across the country and ultimately I got flown out to New York and was a guest on the Today Show and interviewed by Jane Pauley. In the end, over 100,000 games were sold, so I had a decent payday out of that. The bad news is that years later I started my own magazine in Peoria (which again was a cult hit, but nobody would advertise in it) and I blew through all the money in three years. However it was through that magazine that I made my connection with Dick Stolley and why I moved to New York, so I have no regrets. Fishwrap also brought me some chunks of notoriety, through the years I got write-ups about myself and Fishwrap in Spin magazine, USA Today, Men’s Journal, The NY Post, NY Daily News, Chicago Tribune and Folio magazine among others. I guess you could say I’m a legend in my own mind.

Do you have plans for another book?

Yes, I have an idea for one I’m hopefully going to have written by the fall. You’ll be the first to know!

What are you working on now?

Right now I’m doing a magazine on Lulu, just kind of for fun, I don’t think there’s much commercial potential for it, but I’m having fun doing it. It’s called Natalie Word and the first issue is available now. You can find a link to it on my Lulu storefront page. I don’t think a lot of people realize you can do a magazine on Lulu, because I don’t see many. All you have to do is lay it out in the paperback book section, make it 8.5 x 11, saddle-stitched and baboom, you’ve got your own magazine.

Who designed your book cover and the page layouts?

A friend of mine designed it. His name is Joe Freedman and he’s an artist, designer and runs a design/production business out of Portland, Oregon. You can check out his website at LeafDisplay. He does original and amazing work. One thing we have in the book are flipbook movies at the bottom of the page, that was all Joe’s idea and it’s a fun and unique aspect of the book.

I connected with you via Twitter. How are you using the service? Personal? Professional?

Right now kind of a mixture of both. I don’t have a lot of followers and I’m not following a lot of people just yet, but I’m adding them slowly and getting used to the world of Twitter. I’m finding it is a good way to connect with like-minded people. Without it we never would’ve met and this interview wouldn’t be happening, so that’s very cool.

How much of your latest book is factual?

I wold say about 98% of it is true. The book is a collection of true-life short stories, so its all remembered stuff and everybody’s memories of events are different, but this is how I remember them. One chapter about when I worked at a printing plant in Peoria is a bit of a mixture of different characters I’ve worked with through the years and there’s just a bit of embellishment in that one, but I admit to it in the introduction. But all in all, they’re true-life stories, from my somewhat unconventional life.

The subtitle of the book is, “The True-Life Tales of a Working-Class Writer.” What does that mean?

That alludes to the fact that through the more than twenty years I’ve been writing, I’ve always worked a night shift job in the printing industry. I’ve done freelance writing for a number of magazines and newspapers including the NY Post, NY Daily News, Nerve magazine, Time Out New York and others, but I’ve never been able to make my living off writing, even though I’ve had some notoriety and people seem to enjoy reading my writing. A guy I work night’s with read my book and said to me, “Why are you still here?” And it’s a question I’ve asked many times through the years. But in the long run, I’ve had tons of fun and experiences and wouldn’t trade it for the world. And who knows, maybe my big break is right around the corner! Mucho thanks for the interview Dan, and long live Lulu!

Thanks again to Marty for taking the time to do this interview.

Visit his storefront HERE.
Preview his book HERE.

Her full biography can be found at her website: www.GeorginasWorld.com

Her Lulu Storefront can be found here.

She was kind enough to take the time to answer the following questions via email.

The film “The Devil In Miss Jones” followed the release of “Deep Throat.” How much of “Deep Throat” being a mainstream success, and getting mainstream acceptance, played a part in you taking a role in the movie?

None at all. I had never heard of the movie “Deep Throat,” or Gerard Damiano, when I sought and got the craft services job for his shoot. When he offered me the role, in addition to the job cooking, I must confess the first thing that entered my mind was, “A LEAD ROLE in a movie?” The second was, “A hundred dollars a day – plus twenty-five a day to cook? There’s next month’s rent!”

In the past few years we have seen adult film actresses once again gain acceptance by the public. How different is this from what you experienced back in the early 70s?

The “star treatment” I got for a year or so after “Devil” was released was, I must confess, delicious. Perhaps not as satisfying as the “star treatment” I got playing Gladys (the Shirley MacLaine role) in “Pajama Game” in the ‘50s – especially on the South African tour for Twentieth Century Fox. It’s heady stuff, whatever the venue. But as Emily Dickinson said, “…fame is a dubious meal on a slippery platter.” I was surprised and embarrassed by the fame that followed the release of “Devil,” and I certainly never expected to be accepted by polite society at that point. The polite society I grew up around spoke of such things, if at all, in a whisper. Still do. If the ladies of adult film are being accepted by the public now, I’m glad to learn of it.

What led you to retire from the adult film industry?

At thirty-six years of age, I was rather old for the genre when I appeared in “Devil.” Ten years later, I was ten years older. I’m amazed I lasted as long as I did. I didn’t exactly retire. I got a day job.

What led you to a career in computer design?

That day job. It was as a secretary for the department of a medical society that published the in-house organ (a slick magazine) for the membership. Our printing service begged us to start sending our copy digitally and even gave us a computer so we would. It was the first such beast to make an appearance in the staid halls of the association. This was in 1984. When my boss asked who wanted to ride the thing, I nearly broke my arm volunteering. I needn’t have shown such enthusiasm. Nobody else wanted to touch the thing. It was the beginning of a long-lived love/hate relationship. I talked them into trying a desktop publishing program I was dying to get my hands on for the layout of the book. It took a lot of memos, but we finally got one and I taught myself to desktop publish. I knew even then that I was going to build a book some day. I always thought that when my dancing days were done, I would grow up to be a “Lady Writer in a floppy hat, relaxing on a white wicker chaise in the shade of a moss-laden tree while sipping a tall, mint-y drink and penning poignant prose.”

Why did you decide to write a book chronicling your experiences after filming “The Devil in Miss Jones”?

Well, actually I didn’t. Many adult film stars did, of course. And I was approached by some publishers who were doing other porn bios, but they all had their own idea of what such a book should be – and it wasn’t what I had in mind. I was stubborn. I was determined to write it myself. I even bought a floppy hat. OK. So it took me thirty years. I’ve been busy.

Your Wikipedia page says you suffered from Polio as a child, but recovered and went on to be a dancer on Broadway in such musicals as Guys and Dolls, Sweet Charity, and The Pajama Game. How much of this is true?

I have one leg a bit smaller and shorter than the other. It was speculated when I was in my early teens that an illness I had suffered at about the age of three had probably been polio. I don’t know if it was or not. Yes, I did dance on Broadway in “Pajama Game,” as mentioned, and “Cabaret.” I was in a production of “Guys and Dolls” with Vivian Blaine that played the White House for President and Mrs. Johnson. I was Shirley MacLaine’s dance double in the movie “Sweet Charity.” Pretty close for Wikipedia. They insisted for a long time, until I figured out how to edit their stuff, that my “real name” was Dorothy Mae. I mean, really. Why not Felicia, or Brittany? Dorothy Mae?!

How did you get your roles in the Police Academy movies?

Paul Maslansky, the producer, wanted a “name” adult film star for the podium scene so they tracked me down. Another piece of dumb luck.

What are you up to now?

I’m up to my ears in books and mailing envelopes – trying to let the world know the book’s for sale: mailing out media kits, doing interviews – and thank you so very much for doing this one – dealing with the damn web (major brain burn) AND trying to find time to work on the sequel, “Going Down in Flames.” It took me thirty years to write the first book. The second one shouldn’t take me more than about six months. I think I’m getting the hang of it. Thanks for asking. And thanks to Lulu for making it possible to get my story printed – the way I want it told.

Kit Gleave, author of the Stone Messiahs series passed away in Bath, England last month. I never met Kit, but corresponded with him numerous times about marketing his writing.

I was born in London and enjoyed, or more to the point, detested the cheapest education money could buy. Luckily this fiasco didn’t last long and six weeks after my 15th birthday, proudly holding my diploma for swimming 100 yards, I was sent to No 10 Downing Street where, in recognition of this accomplishment, I was given the task of handing tools to the guys who hung the doors in the corridors of power.

After three years of mind bleaching boredom I quit carpentry and started life afresh. Fortune smiled and I landed the lead role in Duffer, a well received independent movie. This led to stage management with the Quipu Theatre, the infamous Angie Bowie Road Show and Crisis Cabaret. But painting had always been my great passion and after marrying my wife, Isobel, and moving to the heritage city of Bath I dedicated more and more time to it.

However, I also had a passion for words but due to dyslexia putting them down was a problem. Then entered the computer age and I was free to start teaching myself to write. My first full-length novel “The Stone Messiahs”, told in two parts, “A Child of Two Worlds” and “The Circle”, is the story of a lost human history and of those whose struggle it is to rekindle the promise of its ancient and unimaginable secrets.

His widow, Isobel, is currently editing Kit’s third book. Head to Kit’s storefront to learn more about Kit and his writing.