{"id":425,"date":"2016-01-28T21:29:02","date_gmt":"2016-01-28T21:29:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nortoncreekpress.com\/wordpress\/?page_id=425"},"modified":"2026-09-16T10:50:05","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T17:50:05","slug":"the-fiction-factory","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.nortoncreekpress.com\/wordpress\/other-books\/the-fiction-factory\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fiction Factory"},"content":{"rendered":"

Being the Experience of a Writer who, For Twenty-Two Years, has kept a Story-Mill Grinding Successfully<\/h2>\n
\"The<\/a>
Buy Now.<\/a><\/b><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

by William Wallace Cook
\n(writing under the alias John Milton Edwards)<\/em>
\n Norton Creek Press, 182 pages. ISBN 0981928498.<\/em><\/p>\n

William Wallace Cook was a famously prolific writer, turning out so much pulp fiction that he was called \u201cthe man who deforested Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n

Best remembered today for his plot-generation book, Plotto<\/a>, Cook (writing under the pseudonym John Milton Edwards, also chronicled his first two decades as a high-volume pulp writer, in his book,\u00a0The Fiction Factory.<\/em> He tells how he got started as a fiction writer and the ups and downs of freelancing at the turn of the last century.<\/p>\n

In addition to being fascinating reading in its own right, the book shows how much harder writing used to be. Cook was not only an early adopter of the typewriter, gratefully abandoning his fountain pen, but also of the index-card-based filing system, which made his precious collection of background material (newspaper and magazine clippings) far more accessible.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no better chronicle of an author writing quickly and with increasing ease, year after year.<\/p>\n

This Norton Creek Press edition is an exact reproduction of the 1912 original edition.<\/p>\n

Jerry Lentz Video Review of The Fiction Factory (original edition)<\/h1>\n

“This is one of my favorite books of all time. I’ve had so many people try to buy this from me … and steal this from me.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n