Bankrate.com interview of DOOM. Now with extra snark!

[freyalorelei.livejournal.com]

I waffled on posting this after writing it two days ago, but klmorgan suggested it be done. It really strikes me how some of Laurell's statements about her background and upbringing are kinda...screwy and inconsistent.

Vampire hunter sinks teeth into merchandising
By Jay MacDonald [With additional comments by Freya Lorelei] • Bankrate.com

Looking for fantasy adventure with a little bite? Sink your teeth into Laurell K. Hamilton's "Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter" series, the sexiest, scariest and funniest tales of undying (and undead) love ever to claw their way onto the bestseller lists.

In Hamilton's alternate reality, vampires, werewolves and assorted monsters have been granted equal rights by the U.S. Supreme Court. They live among us, running businesses, getting haircuts, sponsoring blood drives, just regular Joes.

Hamilton's plucky alter ego [dude, even BANKERS know Mary Sues when they see them!] is your attractive girl-next-door, working two jobs to make ends meet: as an animator she raises the dead to solve inheritance disputes and preternatural crimes; as a badge-carrying vampire executioner she hunts down rogue neck-biters and destroys them.

Back in 1994 when the series began with "Guilty Pleasures," Blake insisted, "I don't date vampires. I kill them." In her 12th installment, "Incubus Dreams," she's not only the main squeeze of master vampire Jean-Claude but shape shifter Micah as well. [And Richard,
and Damien, and Jason, and Nathaniel, and-] [But, oops, can't infer that the "alter ego" is a slut, can we?]

Hamilton learned the power of storytelling early on. Born in Heber Springs, Ark., she was raised by her grandmother in tiny Sims, Ind., (pop. 100) after her father abandoned her and her mother was killed in an auto accident. Her grandmother always had plenty of "bloody bones" stories from Arkansas to share with the wide-eyed Hamilton.

The fang queen repaid the favor in 2000 by launching a new series featuring Merry Gentry, a faerie princess private detective named after her grandmother. At 93, Laura Gentry claims she still reads all of her granddaughter's books. [O.O ...FEAR.]

Since her aptly named debut, Hamilton has gone from guilty paperback pleasure to hardbound bestseller. She and Jonathan, her husband of four years, run a St. Louis marketing company that spends much of its time generating merchandise around the Anita Blake series. [Because everyone in LKH's life is happy to lick her stilettos and otherwise revolve their lives around HER.]

Bankrate.com checked in with Laurell Hamilton by phone at her home near St. Louis.

Bankrate: You not only grew up without parents, you and your grandmother struggled to make ends meet, right?

Laurell K. Hamilton: My grandmother didn't tell me how little money we had until I was in my early teens, when she wanted me to know so I could learn how to handle money. And I was horrified how little we were getting by on. My grandmother could make a dollar sit up and sing Dixie. She knew how to make money work because she had been poor her whole life.

Bankrate: Do you remember going without as a kid?

LKH: You just didn't ask. Little kids wore little kid clothes; they didn't wear the designer stuff so I didn't feel as much pressure as seems to be on kids today. Either that or I was oblivious to it, because I'm still pretty oblivious to clothing. [*snort*] I've never been one of those people to really worry so much about the outward appearance. Going on tour, I know I have to dress up and I pay attention to clothing, but on a day-to-day basis it just isn't that big a deal. But I got clothes once a year for school. [Can't make fun of her so far, sadly, my own childhood was rather similar. But! Read on...]

Bankrate: How poor were you?

LKH: The biggest thing was, my grandmother owned the land and the house, which is a big deal when you don't have money. [So the house and property is fully paid for, yet they're still in the poorhouse. WTF?] We were living on Social Security, hers and what we both got for my mother's death. Once a year she would work in the tomato-canning factory. But if I needed new shoes, I would have to wait until we had the money. I didn't know how to cut steak because I didn't have steak. The first time I had steak was on a prom date and I didn't know how to cut a piece of meat. I'd never learned how to do it. [OMG TRAGEDY!]

Bankrate: Did you work when you were in school?

LKH: No. For one thing, we had no car, so I had no way to get anywhere. [On the other hand, they also had no insurance or car payments to deal with, so again, why the poverty?] The other thing is, my grandmother did not want me to. She felt it was very important to work on your education, especially for a girl. She felt that if you couldn't take care of yourself, you wouldn't be independent. [She wanted LKH to be independent, yet
she refused to let her drive. O-kayyy...] She certainly taught me that. She taught me probably a little bit more than I wanted; I took that to mean depend on no one. My grandmother says that my self-reliance goes to contrariness.

Bankrate: Did you leave to go to college?

LKH: I went to college at what is now Indiana Wesleyan University, but I stayed home. My grandmother did not wish for me to leave home, so I went to a college that was close enough to drive to. [Again, this how does this foster independence?] I'd wanted to be a writer since I was 14, but by that time I had read up on it and knew that you cannot count on making a living at this. So my goal was to go to college and get my doctorate in English lit and teach at the college and write part-time [...and avoid run-on sentences...] until I could devote myself to writing full time. Then I was kicked out of the writing program.

Bankrate: Kicked out? [Wait for it, guys...]

LKH: I had put a vampire story and a horror story together to get into the writing program. It wasn't like I hid what I was going to write. [She has a point; they knew what they were getting into.] And what I learned in my junior year was that the head of the department thought she would cure me and teach me to write something worthwhile [BWAHAHAHA!], and when she realized she couldn't convert me [!!!], she decided to ruin me so that I would never write. She told me that I was a horrible writer and that I would never publish. [Well, 50/50 ain't bad...] She sliced me and diced me and served me on toast. She did her best to make sure I would never write. She told me I was a corrupting influence on the other students. So I had to leave the writing program, since she was the head of it.

[Oh NOES! Her professor wanted her skills to improve and expected more of her abilities! HOW CRUEL! And, erm, by "corrupting influence" she meant that writing shite was contagious, and she didn't want her other students to catch Laurell's disease. Bad writing: It's like STDs, in a way.]

Bankrate: What did you pursue instead?

LKH: Well, I ended up getting married in college, which had not been on my list of things to do ever, and his degree was in computer science, which was much more marketable. So we went with the idea that wherever he got a job, I would find a job. [How "independent" of you, Laurell. *snerk*] And he ended up in California, so we ended up going from an area where 30,000 people is considered a big town to L.A. I got a job as an art editor at Xerox. That's the person who does in-house illustrations for manuals. [DUH.] There was one problem with this: I can't draw. I had actually interviewed to be a text editor. When I got there, they told me I was the art editor. I insisted I couldn't draw. I interviewed too well for my own good, I guess. [Modest, no? Also, I refuse to believe she would be hired to a position that requires drawing ability, without fudging a little on her resume.] So for months I did the computer work for the person who could do the art, which was fine until she was sick one day ["...and they found me out..."] and of course put me into a meeting with a client who wanted me to -- gasp -- draw! And I looked at him and said, 'I'm sorry, sir, but I can't draw,' and he said, 'What do you mean you can't draw, you're an art editor, aren't you?' [Remember, kids, don't embellish your resumes!] I mean, what could I say? Do you want me to do stick figures here? I was there under a year. I hate corporate America. It was not a good fit for me.

Bankrate: How did you work your writing in?

LKH: I had been getting up at 5 a.m., and working for about two hours and then getting dressed and going into work. When I left Xerox, my husband said, 'Look, finish your book and then go look for another job.' At that point, we were looking to move back to the Midwest, and it's easier to move one job than two, but it never turned out that way. I finished the book ("Night Seer [sic]") and it sold. If it had done well, I probably never would have come up with Anita because I wouldn't have needed to. [...thank all the powers that be, because bad as Anita got, Nightseer was shit from the get-go. I shudder to think of sequels.]

Bankrate: When did you realize you needed to take a businesslike approach to your writing career?

LKH: For me, the idea began with the impact the Internet had on my fan base. The Internet is one of the most amazing tools for getting your name out there, for good or ill. [Well, at least she realizes the "ill" facet.] The Internet was the first idea I had of getting my name out there that wasn't tied directly to the book. Darla Cook had done one of my Web sites as a hobby in maybe 1998 and I made hers the official site. [So it IS a hack amateur job after all. The truth is revealed!] Jonathan, who is now my husband, had done another one. At first it was just the Web site, then she started doing a newsletter and I started paying to print it off. Then we did Christmas cards and sent them out to fan club members, who absolutely loved it. Darla has now been full-time for about three years. She was afraid if she took money for it, it would be like a job and it wouldn't be fun anymore. [*snerk* Riiight. Keep telling her that, Laurell, it'll keep the expenses down. Also, I wonder if she and Darla were bestest friends before or after Darla set up the website? Because if it's the latter, it means her closest relationships began as celebrity/fan connections. O.O]

Bankrate: That must have helped with the growing fan mail?

LKH: Darla started doing fan letters because I couldn't keep up with them. I had never been too good keeping up with them, not only because of the number of letters but the type of mail I got. [Hon, when the hate mail outnumbers the praise mail? THERE'S A PROBLEM.] I finally came to feel that it disturbed my ability to write if I read too many of the crazy letters, so she acts as a filter for that. ["Now ALL my letters are positive and glowing! Fancy THAT!"]

Bankrate: You moved into merchandise in a big way the past couple years.

LKH: Yes. I'm usually the idea person. [Sadly, I am not surprised, and it explains a LOT.] Darla, Jonathan and I are the creative team. None of us has a business background [NO SHIT], so that has been very interesting. We try to do business with people who are local. ["Because nobody else will pay to ship our crap."] Our first T-shirt was a little rubber ducky with big blue eyes and fangs and it says "Jean-Claude's tub toy."

Bankrate: Are you a tough customer?

LKH: Well, artists are a good example. We've worked with some artists who don't make their deadlines. I don't care how good you are, if you want to hang in a museum that's fine, but if you want to do business with me, make your deadline. [Remember, it's all about the deadline. Not quality. Deadline deadline deadline. DEADLINE!] I'm an artist, writing is an art too, but I make my deadlines. ["End product be damned...my motto is 'it's shit, but it's ready!'"]

Bankrate: Do you enjoy the business side?

LKH: Yes, strangely enough I do. I enjoy the marketing and I'm good at marketing. ["All my friends tell me so!"] I'm good at saying this will sell or that will sell. It's as simple as, would I want to wear it? If the answer is yes, then I find that a lot of people will agree. [....Look. I wear vinyl and tweed together. It's odd, but I like it. I DON'T assume that a lot of other people will like it too, based on my single subjective opinion.] Just like with the books -- I write what I want to read. [Now that? Is a TERRIFYING idea.] The original idea was just to get my name out there. Every person who wore my T-shirt or had a tote bag or a lunch box was a walking billboard. At first, we really didn't think it would make money; we just thought we would run it up the flagpole and try it. And then it caught on. The merchandising has really helped. People are really enjoying the T-shirts, the coffee mugs. They like being able to feel like they're a part of the work. ["And of course, I ALWAYS listen to my fanbase!"]

Bankrate: What's the biggest splurge you make with your money today?

LKH: It's not the big things on money, though that's nice, too. It's the small everyday things, like the fact that I can go to the grocery store and just buy what I want, I don't have to coupon clip or worry about day-to-day survival. I grew up where that was the way. ["EMBRACE ME, LITTLE PEOPLE, FOR I WAS ONCE AS YOU ARE NOW!" *cue Evita soundtrack]

-- Posted: Nov. 15, 2004

[Snarked: June 23rd, 2005]

Comments

YAY! SNARK PREZZIE!

[klmorgan.livejournal.com]

*applauds wildly*

And thank you! That really did make my week.

Though the thing that refuses to compute is this: she's making money off of her merchandise? Real money? Or are Jon and Darla waving Monopoly bucks in her face in hopes she'll be distracted by the pretty colors?

Because, have you SEEN her CafePress Store? Yeek.

Re: YAY! SNARK PREZZIE!

[nanale.livejournal.com]

Have you seen the jewelry they sell? That's even worse and I have seen better pictures on some ebay sites. Really, I can't imagine, that they sell that sh*t.
Still my all time favorite is the small tin box with misspellings on it (Laurell K Hamailton[sic!] and Happy Valnetines [sic!])