The story of a shabby little man

David Boyer/Iron Dave Byron/DocByron, a man of many aliases, was on Storymania in 2002.   He envisioned himself as an author with a level of talent that placed himself among the greats of the genre.  He asked for a story to be reviewed there and when the review came back less than laudatory, he went after the reviewer in an extremely ugly fashion.

The most interesting gem here is this story of his called "InsideOut."   Four years later, he would put Jane Timm Baxter's name beside his own on that story and publish it without the changes he alleges she made when she agreed to help him with it.  It has previously been established elsewhere that Jane did not even know Boyer at the time that he stole her stories and her good name.  Jane did not give him input of any kind on that story.  Jane did not give him permission to publish her stories.  Jane did not even KNOW him.  I cannot stress that strongly enough.

So follow me while I theorize about David Boyer and his misdeeds. 

There are people who become authors because they love to write.

And then there are people who become authors because they want to become authors.

So four years after the start of his sojourn at Storymania, unable to sell his material, he decided that he needed an aura of success.  He stole a name.  Jane's name.  He put her name beside his own, hoping that the editors would buy the story because it was "Jane's."

There is an all purpose myth in the publishing industry, especially among the noobs, that the reason so few new authors make it into the pages of professional magazines is because they lack a name; that people would buy only names because names had names.  We've all heard variations on this.

So, maybe Boyer bought into that when he stole Jane's name.

A year after that he does a series of collections -- two author collections: his and Jane's.  He steals her name and he steals her stories.

A short time after that he starts stealing from other authors and putting his name on their stories.

He's now achieving the success he craved, but he is not doing it with his own writing.  He is doing it with stolen property.

I want to venture a suggestion as to why this might be happening: vengeance.

Vengeance, not against a person, but against the small presses and other presses that kept him out.  Vengeance against the industry.

But then, this is just my theory.  There are others.