It’s getting down to the wire, folks...

This Friday, “The Astonishing Adventures of Doc Wilde” project will go live on Kickstarter.

“In a young adult book market crowded with the depressing and the dour, Tim Byrd’s Doc Wilde swings in on a jungle vine to raise the flag high for adventure. Infused with pace, fun, and all the two-fisted action a reader could ask for, Wilde lovingly riffs on situations straight out of the old pulps, even while making them fresh for a new generation.”
— Zack Stentz, screenwriter, Thor, X-Men: First Class

The Doc Wilde stories are my tribute to the pulp stories I loved growing up, and still love today. Like The Incredibles or the Indiana Jones films, they are suitable for kids and adults both,  full of action and humor and weird science and occult menace and lots of derring-do.

I published the first book, Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom, with Penguin/Putnam in 2009; it did very well both critically and commercially, so they asked for more books. But in the three years since, the digital publishing revolution has opened up many opportunities for an author that traditional publishing doesn’t offer, and I decided to go independent with the series.

The Kickstarter project will encompass three Doc Wilde novels, all to be released by year’s end. The books will be available in trade paperback and ebook formats. They will all have gorgeous covers and interior illustrations by the great Aussie comic book artist Gary Chaloner.

I’ve regained my rights to Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom and it will reappear in a much improved new edition in June, featuring not only the new artwork inside and out by Gary, but my “author’s cut” preferred edit and a new short Doc Wilde adventure.

In August, we’ll release Doc Wilde and The Mad Skull, the long-awaited second book, in which the Wildes face a mind-blowing mystery and a truly bizarre villain.

In November the third adventure will appear, Doc Wilde and The Dance of the Werewolf, a dark tale featuring lycanthropes and witchcraft. At least two more Doc Wilde adventures will follow in 2013.

(If you follow the links above you can read excerpts from each of the books).

For those who may not be familiar with Kickstarter, it’s a modern patronage system for creators in which they present something they’d like to do and supporters are able to pledge funds to help them do it, in return for rewards varying from big thank yous to copies of the items created to interactions of various sorts with the creators. The creator posts his intentions and a target amount of money he is trying to raise; if, within the time the Kickstarter runs, enough money is pledged to hit that target, then the Kickstarter succeeds. If the target amount is not met, the Kickstarter has failed and no money is exchanged.

The target I’m setting for this project is $3,000. But that’s a minimum goal, not a maximum; once it’s reached, the Kickstarter continues and new people can continue to get involved. The funds will go toward art and book design and editing, as well as paying for the writing. Any extra funds will be applied to producing more books down the line.

I’ve come up with reward levels for pledges ranging from $5 for an ebook copy of one of the novels and the supporter’s name on the book’s acknowledgments page, up to $400 for signed limited editions of the books along with a bunch more cool stuff. There are only three slots available at the highest level, and four at the second highest, because they include exclusive one-of-a-kind rewards, so those are first come, first served.

I plan to launch the Kickstarter this Friday, March 30th.

If you’re looking for adventure...it’s time to GO WILDE!

“It’s a true delight…Tim Byrd has taken Doc Savage, added in a pinch of Robert E. Howard, a liberal dose of H.P. Lovecraft, and mixed it all together in a well done, enchanting pastiche of the pulps that will appeal to the adult audience as well as the young adult readers. It is an over the top at times, rip-roaring adventure that returns us to the days of yesteryear and leaves us wanting more.”
                          —The Baryon Review

In a young adult book market crowded with the depressing and the dour, Tim Byrd’s Doc Wilde swings in on a jungle vine to raise the flag high for adventure. Infused with pace, fun, and all the two-fisted action a reader could ask for, Wilde lovingly riffs on situations straight out of the old pulps, even while making them fresh for a new generation.
— Zack Stentz, screenwriter, Thor, X-Men: First Class

In 2009, Penguin/Putnam released my book Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom, an adventure novel for all ages, my homage to the great pulp adventure stories of the thirties and forties. I conceived it as the first of a series, but Putnam waited to see how it was received before committing to more books.

The reviews were great, and the sales very good. As a result, Putnam asked for two more books. But, as regular readers of this blog know, I went through some rough times that delayed completion of the second book, and in the time since Frogs was released there has been a great deal of change in publishing. Thanks to digital distribution, the rapid rise of ebooks, and print on demand, the options for authors are much better than they used to be.

So, today, I’m excited to announce that Doc Wilde is going indy.

Written in fast-paced, intelligent prose laced with humor and literary allusions ranging from Dante to Dr. Seuss, the story has all of the fun of old-fashioned pulp adventures. A tale ‘terrifying and dark, of indescribable horrors and eldritch mysteries,’ this is sure to be Wilde-ly popular, and readers will anxiously await future installments.                                                     —Kirkus Reviews

Putnam treated me well enough, but I was largely underwhelmed with my experiences with them. The  money was relatively lousy (and usually delivered months after it was contractually supposed to be), they did no promotion, and I thought they failed to take advantage of important opportunities. At no point did I get the idea that my input was valued, except insofar as delivering a printable text was concerned. And they allowed the hardback to sell through its print run and fall out of print before even scheduling a paperback printing, meaning the book’s effective shelf life and opportunity to find new readers was less than two years. In other words, I was treated like most authors are treated by the Big 6.

The thing is, I want to make a living at this, and unless the series really took wing, I was never going to do that under standard publishing terms. Everybody in publishing makes a good living, with benefits, except the folks who write the books. Going independent is a gamble, but honestly, if it doesn’t work, I’m not out much income, and if it does (and I expect it will) I’ll at least be able to keep the roof over my head.

So this is the year of Doc Wilde.

Doc Wilde and the Frogs of Doom is an adventure yarn in the old tradition. It gets that reading is an intellectual activity, and that an adventure, to be really good, has to engage the reader’s brain. I love a smart book!
—Daniel Pinkwater, author of The Neddiad and The Yggyssey

The fact that Putnam allowed Frogs to fall out of print turned out to be a great thing, because it allowed me to retrieve the rights and I can start the series anew, the way I want to. There were things I wanted to do with the books that I wasn’t getting to do with Putnam, and now I can.

One of those things is working with Gary Chaloner. As I’ve written before, well before I finished writing Frogs, I tried to find the perfect artist to depict the Wildes, and Gary was my choice. Not only was he a gifted graphic storyteller with a distinctive style, he was also a huge fan of pulp adventure and had an instinctive understanding (and love) of the material. Together we decided to produce lavishly illustrated books, and he put a lot of time into honing his designs to match my vision of the characters. (To see some of his early designs, go here.)

When I signed with Putnam, they completely disregarded my wishes. The resulting book had a really nice cover, but I never got so much as an email consultation from the artist and I have a few minor issues with some of its details. There were no lovely illustrations inside. Instead, there were some goofy typographical effects that (I felt) distracted the reader and made the book look like it was meant solely for very young readers, rather than for young and old as I intended.

Well, Gary’s back on board, and we’re doing the books the way we originally envisioned.

Here’s the plan:

Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom will be released in its new edition in June, in both ebook and paper. It will offer my preferred edit of the novel, along with a new short Doc Wilde adventure, and (like future books) will have a new cover and be fully illustrated by maestro Gary Chaloner.

In the next few weeks, I’ll be putting together a Kickstarter project so folks can help us with the relaunch and get assorted boons ranging from being named in the acknowledgments to autographed limited editions and other exclusives.

Then, in August or September, the long-awaited second adventure will finally appear, Doc Wilde and The Mad Skull, in which the Wildes face a mind-blowing mystery and a truly bizarre villain. Book 3, to be named soon, will follow in November, just in time for Christmas.

Had I remained with Putnam, by year’s end there would have possibly been a paperback of Frogs of Doom, and The Mad Skull might have seen print some time next year, though more likely it would have been in 2014. Doing things this way, you get the first three books by Christmas, with more to follow next year.

This is all very exciting for me. Going indy will allow me not only to produce nicer books, not only to make more money (at less cost to readers), but to have a more organic and personal relationship with fans. It’s a great time to be a writer.

Stay tuned for more news, including the details of the Kickstarter project…

A true delight…Tim Byrd has taken Doc Savage, added in a pinch of Robert E. Howard, a liberal dose of H.P. Lovecraft, and mixed it all together in a well done, enchanting pastiche of the pulps that will appeal to the adult audience as well as the young adult readers. It is an over the top at times, rip roaring adventure that returns us to the days of yesteryear and leaves us wanting more.
—Barry Hunter, The Baryon Review

(Note: At the time I post this, Putnam’s ebook version of Frogs of Doom is still available online. The wheels of publishing grind slowly, and they haven’t yet gotten around to removing it as they’re supposed to. If you’re interested in the book, I encourage you to wait for the new version later this year. It will be a much better edition, will cost you less, and I’ll benefit a lot more from the sale.)

Over at Goodreads, the Pulp Magazine Authors and Literature Fans group is discussing my book, Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom (it was the official common read for November, but the discussion is only really just beginning).

I’d like to invite any and all of you to join in, or at least hop by and take a peek:

Pulp Magazine Authors & Literature Fans Home Page

“Common Reads” Discussion Board

If you’re a reader and you’re not taking advantage of Goodreads, you should be. It’s a great site for sharing and discovering books, and there’s a lot of dialogue between not only readers and other readers, but readers and writers.

The Saturday before Christmas (December 19, 2009, from 3-5 pm), I’m going to be at Eagle Eye Bookshop in Decatur, GA for a reading/discussion and book signing. Eagle Eye is a fantastic indie bookstore, well known for its author events.

It being the Yule, I figured I’d do something special. So instead of just doing the usual reading from Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom, the first book in the series, I’ll be reading the opening chapters of the second book, Doc Wilde and The Mad Skull, which will see print a while down the line.

This will be a rare opportunity to get a peek at a book that’s still being written, prior to any editorial input. First draft pulp, straight from my swashbuckling brain pulp.

Afterward, there’ll be a casual discussion about the book(s) and I’ll be signing Frogs of Doom. Which is not only a fun pulp adventure tale for kids and adults, but a FANTASTIC holiday gift. 

Just a quick note to let you know that my already sporadic posting to the blog is slowing down further. I'm nose-deep writing Doc Wilde and The Mad Skull, and on a tight deadline, so most of my typing needs to be on the book right now.

But I will try to keep you posted on news as it pops up...

Big news, folks!

I always intended the adventures of the Wilde family to be a series, and have always considered it one. My publisher (G.P. Putnam's Sons) also saw it as a series, but hadn't yet committed to doing more books. They had to wait and see how the first book, Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom, did in order to be sure it was a good idea.

A few weeks ago my editor contacted my agent and told her they were ready to buy more Doc Wilde. Not only that, they were ready to contract for the next two books.

It’s now official: the adventures of the amazing Doc Wilde and his daring kids are a series. An actual, real, genuine, more-than-one-book series.

I've been working all along on the assumption that would happen, and had three Wilde books in varying states of development. I'd intended the second in the series to be Doc Wilde and The Daughter of Darkness, so most of the work had gone into it.

Unfortunately, DoD is a complex tale with lots of moving parts, and I wasn’t sure I could finish it properly, the way I want it to be, before the agreed upon deadline for the next book (which is not far off).

So one of the other stories leaped heroically forward to take its place:

Doc Wilde and The Mad Skull

The elements of this tale, filled with weirdness and cliffhanging action, date back to the earliest days of Doc Wilde's existence in my imagination, the 1980s. The story's been brewing long enough and it's a great time to let it loose on the world.

Publication is scheduled for May 2011, after which the books will go to a yearly schedule.

And in the meantime...

I also have a secret project underway, and if it works out, there will be some extra adventure coming along to entertain you while you wait.

Watch this space (and sign up for the newsletter!) for more news as it develops...

For those in (or coming to) Atlanta, I'll be making appearances at two big events on Labor Day weekend (Sep. 4-7).

I'll be hopping back and forth between DragonCon in downtown Atlanta and the Decatur Book Festival in (you guessed it) Decatur all weekend.

At DragonCon, I'll be on these panels:

Writing for the YA and Children's Market

Time: Sun 11:30 am Location: Manila / Singapore / Hong Kong - Hyatt (Length: 1)

Description: How to write for an audience that's half your age--or less. Tapping into the minds of today's young people--what DO they want to read?

The Future of Fantastic Fiction

Time: Mon 04:00 pm Location: Manila / Singapore / Hong Kong - Hyatt (Length: 1)

Description: What lies ahead for the S/F, Fantasy and Horror genres? Can we forecast trends or should we just jump on the bandwagon?

At the Decatur Book Festival, I'll be appearing along with author David Lubar at 4:30 pm Saturday on the Target Children's Stage.

And I'll be wandering both events with no real planning all weekend.

Books will be available at the DBF for signing after the appearance, and signed copies of the book will also be available the whole weekend at Little Shop of Stories on Decatur Square. I'm going to try to have some on hand for random buyers at DragonCon.

I hope to see as many current and potential Doc Wilde fans at both events as I can.

After promising various folks I'd do so, I have finally gotten around to figuring out how to handle personal inscriptions for folks unable to see me at a public appearance.

If you already own a copy of my book, for $1 US I'll mail you a signed adhesive book plate to put in your copy, inscribed to whom and however you wish it to be inscribed (within reason).

If you don't already own the book, or wish to obtain more copies, for cover price ($15.99) you can order a personally inscribed copy directly from me. Shipping is free (unless you're outside the US, then I'll have to check on rates). Again, I'll sign it to whomever you wish.

A note to collectors: the first printing has sold through about 2/3 of the way since the book came out in May. So if you'd like your copy to be a first edition, you may want to get your order in sooner rather than later.

Payment can be made by credit or debit card via PayPal (there will be an additional .50-75 charge to cover PayPal fees) or by money order (no checks). I can assume no responsibility for postal failures; if you’d like to insure the delivery, it’s an additional $1.75.

To order, contact me through the Contact form on this site. And, as always, please be patient if I take a few days replying, as I'm doing all this on my own.

This Sunday (August 16) I’ll be interviewed on the monthly science fiction show on WREK radio. We’ll be talking about Doc Wilde, and perhaps about saving the world, we’ll see.

Here’s the blurb from WREK:

The Science Fiction Laboratory on WREK Atlanta (91.1 FM) airs the third Sunday of every month from 7:00 to 9:00 pm. This Sunday, August 16, 2009 we will broadcast, among other things, an interview with author Tim Byrd and a discussion of our favorite pieces of the quickly developing vampire mythology. For listeners not in the Greater Atlanta Metropolitan Area, we stream online at http://www.wrek.org; just click the play button in the upper right. We also stream the show for two weeks after the broadcast. You can access the archive by clicking “Listen to our 14-day archive!” on the left side of the WREK homepage and finding the correct date and time of the show.

For those in (or coming to) Atlanta, Tim Byrd will be making appearances at two big events on Labor Day weekend (Sep. 4-7).

He will be hopping back and forth between DragonCon in downtown Atlanta and the Decatur Book Festival in (you guessed it) Decatur all weekend. At DragonCon, he will be on various panels over the course of the convention, and at the DBF will be appearing along with author David Lubar at 4:30 pm Saturday.

He hopes to see as many current and potential Doc Wilde fans at both events as he can.

More details to follow...

It's been a while since the last entry (about the debut of Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom), and I apologize. A lot of things have been happening here at Wilde HQ, and it's been difficult to get to everything I need to do. But I'm here for the moment, and will try to tell you the things you need to know in this entry and those to follow...

First, I want to invite everyone again to subscribe to the Doc Wilde newsletter, which you can do by using the form on the left side of the blog pages. The newsletter will start going out soon (hopefully within a month), and it will share any fresh news about the Wildes, appearances I'll be doing, and that sort of thing, but its coolest feature will be "Doc Wilde's Cliffhanger Survival Tips." These tips will be Doc Wilde's advice on surviving in a really tight spot. They may ultimately be gathered into a book, but you'll be getting them first.

Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom has been wonderfully received. The response from reviewers has been overwhelmingly positive, and has helped a lot of readers find the book, for which I'm grateful. I urge you to take a look at their words on the Reviews page.

I've heard from many readers directly, and their enthusiasm for the characters and this first adventure has been truly gratifying. These readers range from six years old (being read to by parents) to seventy-eight, and the book seems to be enjoyed equally by both sexes. All of them pretty much demand I hurry up with a second book.

Rest assured, I'm working on it.

More news on the way...

Everyone had a great time, and I gained my sea legs a bit for future events (I have to admit to a bit of stage fright, since it's been many years since I got in front of a crowd for anything). I hope to see many more of you at events in the future!

Go Wilde!

Howdy, folks.

The wait is nearly done: this Thursday, May 14th, Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom will be released into the wild. It can be ordered online (just visit the Order Doc Wilde! page of this site) already, but as of Thursday, you should be able to find it at your local bookstore.

For those in the Atlanta area (or able/willing to travel there), the big debut/reading/signing for the book will be next Saturday, May 16th, 7 pm EST at Little Shop of Stories in Decatur, GA. Details are in the blog post just below this one.

Click "Read More" for more Doc Wilde news...

I was a guest on Alpha Waves, an online science fiction radio show a couple of weeks ago. The hour-long broadcast was dedicated to pulp adventure fiction. My part of the show was in the last fifteen minutes. You can listen to it here.

Quite a few reviews of the book have rolled in, and they're all GOOD. Most of them are very good. Take a peek at the Reviews page to see what the critics think of the Wildes' first adventure.

Earlier, I announced that the debut event at Little Shop of Stories for Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom was to be held on Friday, May 15th.

This has been rescheduled to Saturday, May 16th. The details:

The Day: Saturday, May 16, 2009

The Time: 7 pm

The Place: Little Shop of Stories in beautiful downtown Decatur, GA.

There will still be gummi frogs.

Another rave review for Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom, this time from The Baryon Review:

It's a true delight...Tim Byrd has taken Doc Savage, added in a pinch of Robert E. Howard, a liberal dose of H.P. Lovecraft, and mixed it all together in a well done, enchanting pastiche of the pulps that will appeal to the adult audience as well as the young adult readers. It is an over the top at times, rip roaring adventure that returns us to the days of yesteryear and leaves us wanting more. I hope to see more from Tim Byrd and Doc Wilde in the future.

You can read the whole review here.

I found wisdom in a gamebook the other day, advice I think everyone should take, everyone should remember, everyone should act on.

Click Read More to, well, read more.

UPDATE: This event has been rescheduled from Friday, May 15th to Saturday, May 16th.

It's official: Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom hits bookstores on May 14th, and I'm having my first signing two days later!

The Day: Saturday, May 16, 2009

The Time: 7 pm

The Place: Little Shop of Stories in beautiful downtown Decatur, GA.

There will be gummi frogs.

My editor just sent me the first BIG review of Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom, from Kirkus Reviews (from Wikipedia: "Kirkus has long been a respected, authoritative pre-publication review source within the literary and film industries"):

When their scientist grandfather disappears again, 12-year-old Brian, his ten-year-old sister, Wren, and their world-renowned father, Dr. Spartacus Wilde, are off on an adventure to kick off Byrd's debut novel and the first volume in a new series. The high-tech Indiana Jones-type tale takes the adventurers to the uncharted South American jungles of Hidalgo to find Grandpa Wilde, who had researched dark matter and the possibility of traveling to other universes. The problem is that Frogon, a dark god from another universe, wants to take over ours. Besides finding Grandpa, the Wildes must face a glut of frogs-spy frogs, man-frogs, saber-toothed frogs and the dark elder god frog-and save the universe.

Written in fast-paced, intelligent prose laced with humor and literary allusions ranging from Dante to Dr. Seuss, the story has all of the fun of old-fashioned pulp adventures. A tale "terrifying and dark, of indescribable horrors and eldritch mysteries," this is sure to be Wilde-ly popular, and readers will anxiously await future installments.

Author Will Murray just posted these short comments on my book in various forums devoted to pulp adventure fiction:

Over the weekend I read Tim Byrd's young adult Doc Savage pastiche novel. Let me say that DOC WILDE AND THE FROGS OF DOOM is a pulp-pounding ribbiting croaker of a tale! It mixes a 21st century version of the Man of Bronze and his extended family of adventurers with evil Lovecraftian frogazoids infiltrating our reality via the South American republic of Hidalgo. It's out in May.

This is a particularly gratifying review for me, because Doc Wilde is in many ways an homage to the old pulp hero Doc Savage (see more on the Suggested Reading page), and Will is the official manager for the literary estate of Lester Dent, Doc Savage's creator. Will has also written seven actual Doc Savage novels (published under the pen name "Kenneth Robeson," just as all of Dent's stories were).

So the current keeper of the Doc Savage literary legacy loves Doc Wilde.

That's pretty cool.

If you look down along the left column of this site, you'll see a new spot you can sign up for the Doc Wilde newsletter.

What does this mean?

At the moment, it's nothing formal, mostly an email mailing list. Every once in a while, we'll send something out if there's something new or cool going on, like upcoming book signings, or new reviews of the book, and we'll of course send out news when major things happen like the actual release of the book (May 14, 2009).

We have plans, though, to turn the newsletter into an actual monthly feature with special content (like Doc Wilde's Cliffhanger Survival Tips). So if you get on the list now, you'll not only receive any news we send out (and we promise not to overdo this, we know how annoying an overflowing Inbox can be), when the monthly newsletter begins, you'll start getting those too.

The book is meant for anyone 10 and up.

My son, a very advanced reader, thrilled to its cliffhangers and monsters when he was 8. Many adults have read it and loved its retro action and in-jokes and allusions.

There has been some confusion about this because on various bookseller sites, the "Suggested Reading Level" is showing up as 4-8.

It's not. Somewhere along the line, some bad info got into the system, and I'm trying to get it fixed.

Hello, and welcome to the online headquarters of Doc Wilde and his amazing family.

I'm Tim Byrd, and I'm a writer. In May 2009, G.P. Putnam's Sons is going to publish my first novel, Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom. The book is the first of a series depicting the adventures of Doctor Spartacus Wilde, super-scientist, gadgeteer, physical exemplar, warrior, and the coolest dad in the world except for me.

Doc has two brilliantly capable kids, Brian and Wren, who join him for his perilous travels, often saving the day (and the planet) themselves.

Anyone who enjoys grand old pulp adventure in the Doc Savage/Indiana Jones/The Shadow style should enjoy Doc Wilde. It's written for young readers, but full of literary allusion and other stuff for smart folks of all ages.