Richard Bachman facts for kids
Richard Bachman is a pen name used by the famous horror fiction author Stephen King. A pen name is a fake name a writer uses instead of their real name.
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Why Stephen King Used a Pen Name
At the start of Stephen King's career, publishers believed an author should only release one book per year. They thought publishing more often would make the public think less of the author. King wanted to write more books, so he decided to use a different name. His publisher, Signet Books, agreed to print more books under a pseudonym (another word for a pen name).
King also used the name Bachman to see if his success was due to his writing talent or just luck. He released the Bachman books with very little advertising. King tried to make it harder for Bachman's books to sell well. He never truly found out if it was talent or luck. This is because he told everyone he was Bachman too soon. For example, the Bachman book Thinner (1984) first sold 28,000 copies. But when people found out King wrote it, sales jumped ten times higher!
King first thought of using the name Gus Pillsbury. This was his mother's grandfather's name. But at the last minute, King changed it to Richard Bachman. The name Richard came from Richard Stark, another author's pen name. The name Bachman came from the rock band Bachman–Turner Overdrive. King was listening to their music when he had to pick a name quickly.
How Richard Bachman Was Discovered
King dedicated Bachman's early books to people he knew well. These books included Rage (1977), The Long Walk (1979), Roadwork (1981), and The Running Man (1982).
The secret link between King and his pen name was found by a bookstore clerk named Steve Brown. Steve worked in Washington, D.C. He noticed that King and Bachman wrote in very similar ways. Brown then looked at publisher records at the Library of Congress. He found a document that named King as the real author of one of Bachman's novels.
Steve Brown wrote to King's publishers with a copy of the papers he found. He asked them what to do. Two weeks later, Stephen King himself called Brown. King told Brown he should write an article about how he found the truth. King even let Brown interview him. When the news came out in 1985, King was writing Misery. He had planned to release that book as a Bachman novel.
After the Secret Was Out
In 1987, the Bachman novel The Running Man was made into a movie. The movie had the same name. King did not want his real name in the credits. So, the screen credit for the movie went to Richard Bachman.
King later used the idea of a writer's pen name coming to life in his 1989 book The Dark Half. In this story, a writer's darker pen name becomes a real person. King dedicated The Dark Half to "the late Richard Bachman."
In 1996, another Bachman book, The Regulators, was released. The publishers said the book's manuscript was found by Bachman's "widow." This book was released at the same time as King's Desperation. The two novels took place in different worlds but had many of the same characters. The covers of the two books were designed to fit together to make one large picture. In the introduction to Desperation, King hinted that another Bachman novel might still be "found."
The next Bachman book to be 'discovered' was Blaze. This was an old, unpublished novel that King wrote even before his first book, Carrie. For its release, King rewrote and updated the whole book. It was published in 2007 under the Bachman pen name. King wrote the introduction for it under his own name.
Stephen King has fully accepted the Bachman name many times. For example, the first four Bachman books were re-released in 1985 as The Bachman Books: Four Early Novels by Stephen King. The introduction to this collection, called "Why I Was Bachman," tells the whole story. In 1996, the collection was reissued with a new essay by King, "The Importance of Being Bachman."
Richard Bachman is also mentioned in Stephen King's The Dark Tower book series. In the fifth book, Wolves of the Calla, a scary children's book is said to be written by "Claudia y Inez Bachman." In the next book, Song of Susannah, Stephen King briefly talks about his Richard Bachman pen name.
In 2010, King made a short appearance on the TV show Sons of Anarchy. His character was named Bachman. This character quietly got rid of dead bodies.
In a comic book version of The Stand, Richard Bachman appears as a character. He looks like Stephen King.
In a 2013 episode of the TV show Grimm called "Nameless," Richard Bachman was part of the plot. The killer in the episode used the title page from King's novel Rage to write a note to the police.
Other Pen Names
King also wrote a short story called "The Fifth Quarter". He used the pen name John Swithen for this story. It was published in Cavalier magazine in April 1972. The story was later put into King's collection Nightmares & Dreamscapes in 1993 under his real name. In the introduction to the Bachman novel Blaze, King jokingly said that "Bachman" was the one who used the Swithen pen name.
See also
In Spanish: Richard Bachman para niños
