Heavyweight Titleholder : When he was struggling, Dean Koontz believed in himself and bought back the rights to his books. Now many of the best-selling author’s early efforts are paying off again.

NEWPORT BEACH — As a struggling young novelist in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, Dean Koontz cranked out an average of four books a year, many paperback originals and most written under a variety of pen names in a variety of genres.

At only $1,500 to $2,500 a pop, the former Pennsylvania English teacher needed to be prolific.

But a funny thing happened to Koontz on the way to his multimillion-dollar manse in Newport Beach via the New York Times bestseller list: The books he wrote two decades ago have come home to roost. Big time.

Banking on his future as a writer even when he was a lowly paid unknown, Koontz wisely retained--or in some cases bought back for as little as $1,500--the rights to his books once they originally went out of print.

In 1989, he sold a block of seven of his old titles to Berkley for about $3.5 million. But the big payoff came three years later when Ballantine Books purchased the paperback reprint rights to seven other of his early novels from the ‘70s for about $10 million.

Ballantine, which is releasing one old Koontz title a year, last month published the latest, “Icebound,” an adventure-suspense novel originally titled “Prison of Ice” when Lippincott published it in hardcover in 1976 under the Koontz pen name David Axton.

“Icebound,” which was given a whopping 2 million first printing, skyrocketed directly to the No. 1 spot on the New York Times paperback best-seller list after only a week in bookstores.

Koontz’s enviable position of being able to reap the financial benefits of novels he wrote two decades ago underscores his reputation as a best-selling novelist who is also a savvy businessman.

“He’s managed his career well,” said Clare Ferraro, editor-in-chief of Ballantine Books. “He always had his eye on the long haul because he realized if he were successful someday, those back-list titles would be worth a great deal more and, rather than let them languish on some publisher’s back list, he retained the rights himself.”

Ferraro said, “It’s very unusual for an unknown author to get back the rights to his books. It does happen, but it’s not the norm.”

What normally happens, Ferraro said, is, if a paperback publisher wants to acquire the reprint rights to a best-selling author’s back list, it will go to the original publishing house and ask if the licenses to the author’s early books are available, then buy them directly from the publisher.

(In a cases like this, the author usually receives nothing from the amount paid to the original publisher but receives royalties when the books are reprinted.)

“What’s unusual in Dean’s case is instead of (us) buying his back list from his original publishers, we bought them from the author directly because he had regained the rights to them,” Ferraro said.

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With the help of several mentors in the publishing business, Koontz learned early on to take control of the business side of his writing career.

“Most writers hate the idea of having to be involved in business,” said Koontz, 49. “They want to see themselves solely as artists, and they want somebody else to take care of business, usually an agent.

“The reality is there’s very few really fine agents, so if you don’t learn about the business of publishing and understand the economics of how it works, you become a victim, and you can’t protect your art that way.”

It’s the very nature of Koontz’s long-simmering literary career--combined with blind faith in his ability to see the potential value of his early works--that have put him in the position he is in today.

Some best-selling authors such as Scott Turow and John Grisham sweep to the best-seller lists overnight without accumulating a large back list of out-of-print titles from their apprenticeship days.

Koontz’s career, however, built slowly, his literary craft improving from book to book as he gradually built up a large body of work and more readers.

But even in the early days, Koontz said, he was always diligent about regaining the rights to his books when they went out of print.

In some cases his contract included a clause in which the rights to the book reverted to him in a certain number of years, or, when the book went out of print, all he had to do was write a letter claiming the rights.

“I would always watch that, and I would always do it,” he said, noting that some other writers would do the same.

What makes Koontz unique, however, is that in cases where there was no reversion clause, he would go to the publisher after the book had gone out of print and offer to pay back his advance to repurchase the rights.

Publishers, he said, “snapped at that.”

The book was out of print anyway, he said, “and in their mind they got to publish the book for nothing because I gave them back what they paid for it. . . . I don’t know of any other writer who was willing to do that.”

In fact, Koontz said, fellow writers at the time would tell him they thought he was insane to buy back the rights to his books, especially at a time when he could ill afford to do so.

But his position was that he was working so hard at his writing that he would only get better. And as he did get better, he knew, some of those titles would have renewed value and “why let ownership remain with somebody else? Why not get that ownership back into my hands? And why not control the quality of what would go out there?” he said.

Unbelievable as it may seem, in some cases a publisher simply gave him back the rights for nothing.

“They didn’t see any value in the books,” he said. “It’s kind of astounding because some of these books now are in their 30th printing in paperback.”

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When it comes to reprinting his old books, however, Koontz is not willing to simply take the money and run.

He insists on revising many of the early books reissued in paperback because he doesn’t think they measure up to his current level of writing, and he doesn’t want to disappoint his fans.

In the case of “Winter Moon”--the first Koontz novel reissued by Ballantine in January 1994--not a single sentence remains from the original “Invasion,” a Laser paperback novel published in 1974 under the pen name Aaron Wolfe.

In a note to readers of his latest reissued novel, “Icebound,” Koontz writes that he “revised it and updated the technological and cultural references while trying not to get carried away and alter the entire story line and feel of it.”

Koontz is not the only novelist unable to resist the temptation to revise his early books after achieving success. Sir Walter Scott did it. Henry James was famous for it. More recently John Fowles revised his 1965 novel “The Magus.” And for a 1991 reissue of Stephen King’s “The Stand,” King revised it and reinstated material that had been cut out of the novel when it was originally published in 1978.

But the practice of rewriting an old novel for paperback reissue is so unusual that publishing sources have trouble coming up with contemporary counterparts to Koontz.

“There have been authors who have gone on to big best-sellerdom, and their back list is reissued, but the author usually doesn’t revise, update or rewrite those earlier works as Dean has,” said Ballantine Books’ Ferraro.

Not that one way is better than the other, she said.

“Sometimes the reader wants to see what an author’s earlier works were like to see how the writing is different or may have changed,” she said. “The other perspective is Dean feels very strongly a commitment to his readers and wants to make sure they enjoy his earlier books to the same degree they do his later books.”

For Koontz, revising his early novels has been a process of self-discovery, one that he concedes is both “joyous” and “humbling.”

With more than 60 novels to his credit--42 were published between 1968 and 1980, when he first reached paperback best-seller lists--there are bound to be early works that now fall short in Koontz’s more developed critical estimation.

He concedes that some of his old books, such as many of the science-fiction paperback originals he wrote in the late 1960s, will never see print again.

But in looking over his list a few years ago, he figured there were probably more than 20 out-of-print books that he would consider bringing back. He knew, however, that some would need work.

“Sometimes when you look back at your old books you just wince and say, ‘How could I have written that?’ ” said Koontz, seated in a green leather wing-back chair in the billiard room of his hilltop home overlooking Newport Beach.

Although he can see the value in a particular early book--”the essence of the story and the characters are there”--Koontz said he didn’t have the skill and sometimes the time to write a better book when he was younger. (He began writing full time in 1969, at age 24.)

But now, “I can run this story through the (computer) again and make it better,” he said.

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Revising his early works for paperback reissue has become something of a second career for Koontz, who still manages to turn out one new hard-cover suspense novel a year for Knopf. His latest, “Dark Rivers of the Heart,” hit bookstores in November with a 650,000 first printing and rose to No. 7 on the New York Times hardback best-seller list.

Koontz became so enthused about “enhancing” his older books for Ballantine that he decided to “spruce up” the three remaining older titles in a block of seven out-of-print books he sold to Berkley in 1989. “The Key to Midnight,” a 1979 internationally set suspense novel he wrote under the pen name Leigh Nichols, will be reissued by Berkley in April.

The Koontz literary enterprise rumbles along like a well-oiled engine.

Down the hall from his stylishly appointed upstairs office--a dimly lit, book-filled warren that includes copies of his books printed in 38 foreign languages--are two other rooms that serve as offices for what has grown to be a four-person staff.

The staff, which also works out of rented office space around Fashion Island Newport Beach, handles everything from running errands to answering fan mail (10,000 letters a year).

Gerda, his wife of 28 years, handles the financial side of the business and has served as liaison with foreign literary agents.

Koontz’s staff is in the process of setting up a computer program to keep track of his nearly 1,200 contracts worldwide, alerting them when a license is up, when royalty statements are overdue and if he hasn’t received his author’s copy of the book.

Twelve-hour work days are the norm for Koontz, who has been working seven days a week for the past few years.

Up by 6:30 a.m., he’s at his computer at 7:30. He usually works until 5 in the afternoon. He and Gerda go out for a leisurely early dinner, but then he’s usually back at the computer for two more hours.

Koontz insists he is energized by a schedule that would seem to guarantee burnout.

But there’s no question a literary lifetime of long hours has paid off.

Even Koontz said he is surprised by the number of titles he has amassed since he sold his first book in 1968--an Ace paperback science-fiction novel called “Star Quest”--for $1,000.

“You spend 20-some years writing, and you’re working 70- to 80-hour weeks, it’s amazing how things pile up,” he said.

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Dean Koontz by Any Other Name

Here are the other names under which Dean Koontz has written and the books he produced:

* Brian Coffey: “Blood Risk,” 1973, Bobbs-Merrill Co.; “Surrounded,” 1974, Bobbs-Merrill; “The Face of Fear,” 1977, Bobbs-Merrill; “The Wall of Masks,” 1975, Bobbs-Merrill; “The Voice of the Night,” 1980, Nelson Doubleday. (Koontz noticed many suspense writers had Scottish surnames; his Bobbs-Merrill editor found Coffey in a book of Scottish surnames.)

* K.R. Dwyer: “Chase,” 1972, Random House; “Shattered,” 1973, Random House; “Dragonfly,” 1975, Random House. (K.R. Dwyer’s initials are Dean R. Koontz’s initials backward.)

* Anthony North: “Strike Deep,” 1974, Dial Press. (Koontz says North was selected “because it’s a strong word, conveying a sense of direction and, therefore, purpose.”)

* David Axton: “Prison of Ice,” 1976, Lippincott. (Hoyt Axton is one of Koontz’s favorite country singer-songwriters.)

* John Hill: “The Long Sleep,” 1975, Popular Library. (A one-shot name Koontz thinks may have been invented by his agent.)

* Leigh Nichols: “The Key to Midnight,” 1979, Pocket Books; “The Eyes of Darkness,” 1981, Pocket Books; “The House of Thunder,” 1982, Pocket Books; “Twilight,” 1984, Pocket Books; “Shadow Fires,” 1987, Avon Books. ( Nichols was selected for its pleasant sound and because no other suspense writer had a similar name.)

* Owen West: “The Funhouse,” 1980, Jove Books; “The Mask,” 1981, Jove Books. (See Anthony North, above, for primary explanation; his publisher felt short names with the same number of letters were more memorable.)

* Richard Paige: “The Door to December,” 1985, Signet. (Koontz had a neighbor named Page but added an “i” because Page seemed too perfect a name for a writer.)

* Aaron Wolfe: “Invasion,” 1975, Laser Books. (Koontz no longer remembers the source of the name.)

* Deanna Dwyer: “Demon Child,” 1971, Lancer Books; “Legacy of Terror,” 1971, Lancer Books; “Dance With the Devil,” 1972, Prestige Books; “Children of the Storm,” 1972, Lancer Books; “The Dark of Summer,” 1972, Lancer Books. ( Deanna is a joke; he took the name from five Gothic romances written in his early days.)

* Source: Dean Koontz; Researched by DENNIS MCLELLAN / Los Angeles Times