Lilja's Library

by Hans-Ake Lilja

  Also in 1998 a friend and I started a Scandinavian Stephen King Fan Club called Följeslagarna (which is the title of the first Swedish translation of The Dark Tower: The Drawing of the Three), so all Swedish news was covered there. Let’s say that the Swedish section wasn’t the most popular part of the site.

  When I started the website it was really, really small and not very good-looking. It looked like every other site on the Net that dealt with horror in the mid-90s. It was black and had red text and spinning skulls and sawblades and such…It really wasn’t very good-looking. And everything was on one long page that you had to scroll…Definitely not my best work.

  The site’s weakness probably comes from my writing in English. Since it’s not my first language, there are grammatical and spelling errors on the site. I often get mail about them from very kind people and I try to improve my English, but some errors remain. I hope, though, that they are fewer and fewer as time goes by.

  Bev Vincent: Did it start out as a news site, and if so, how did you get your news?

  Lilja: It did. At first it only had news, but then I added more and more. I added lists of books, movies, etc. The news I reported on back then—well, let’s say I probably wasn’t first with it. I got a lot from SKEMERs newsletters and a lot from other King sites. I tried to take news from all the different locations and put it in one place.

  As the site grew, people started to notice it and started sending me mail with news they had found. That made the site even more up-to-date, which drew more readers to it and also more people who sent in news…and then the snowball effect started. Now I get several pieces of mail each day with different information. Most of it ends up on the site.

  Bev Vincent: Was it Lilja’s Library right from the beginning? If not, when did you decide to name your site and why that name?

  Lilja: As long as the site has had a name it’s been Lilja’s Library. In the beginning, it didn’t have a name but as soon as it did it was Lilja’s Library. Lilja is my last name, which I use when I communicate on the Internet. My first name is Hans-Åke, but since the letter “Å” only exists in the Scandinavian languages it’s no good to use online, so I used my last name, Lilja. The problem with that was that a lot of English-speaking people thought I was a female…I could tell you some funny stories in that area…

  Sometimes, though, I feel that I should have taken a name that reflects more that the site is about Stephen King and his work. The full name of the site has always been Lilja’s Library—The World of Stephen King, but when anyone speaks about it—including me—it’s almost always just Lilja’s Library.

  Bev Vincent: What has inspired you to keep up with the site for over a decade now?

  Lilja: Several things have inspired me to keep the site going. One, I still think it’s a lot of fun. King’s work is my hobby and I enjoy reading his books, seeing his movies and reading about the man himself—I would do that even if I didn’t have the site. [Another inspiration is the mail I keep getting from people who’ve visited the site and then take the time to send me mail telling me they really like it, that they enjoyed an interview or a review, that it has helped them with a school project or helped them get tickets in time to a King reading because I got the news out. That is probably the most rewarding thing.]

  Bev Vincent: How has viewership changed over the years? Do you see spikes in page views when new King works come out or do you have a fairly constant daily profile? Do you think that viewership will flatten out or keep growing in the future?

  Lilja: My readers have increased in number over the years in addition to their locations. At the beginning they were mostly from the U.S., but now I get mail from Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and so on. I have a fairly set number of visitors (at the moment it’s about fifteen hundred unique visitors a day), but the number is steadily rising. I have had peaks, the biggest being when Mick Garris sent me the first images from Desperation. That day I had over thirteen thousand unique visitors on the site.

  Besides the peaks, there is a steady increase in the numbers. One big leap occurred when King’s official site linked to Lilja’s Library, and another when I got the interview with King. I think those events introduced the site to many fans who came back on a regular basis.

  So far I have only seen the numbers rise. Sometimes a bit slower and sometimes faster, but there haven’t been any signs of them flattening out or dropping…yet.

  Bev Vincent: Do you have long-term plans for Lilja’s Library?

  Lilja: The long-term plan is to keep the site up and running like it is today and to keep improving it. To add more to it and keep offering the one place where you can find all the news about Stephen King and his work. I also hope to be able to keep having contests, to keep reviewing books and movies, to keep getting interviews with interesting people. In short, I want to keep the site growing and improving. I would like to think that I’ll be able to do that as long as there is an interest in King’s work out there…and I predict that will be the case for a long time to come.

  Bev Vincent: Have you ever considered branching out to cover other writers, or will it always be just King?

  Lilja: No, actually I haven’t. Partly because I don’t have the time (even if it would probably be fun). Maybe if someone offered to do it as a real job. Not in my spare time, though. Also, I think that in order to keep a site like Lilja’s Library running, you need to have a big interest in what the site is about, no matter what the subject is—and I don’t have that kind of interest in any other author.

  Bev Vincent: Who are some of your other favorite writers—in English or Swedish?

  Lilja: When it comes to reading, I actually don’t have that many other authors who I read frequently. I do enjoy books by Peter Straub, Joe Hill, Jan Guillou (a Swedish author) and Stewart O’Nan, even though I don’t feel I have to read everything they have written. I also enjoyed Walpuski’s Typewriter by Frank Darabont. It’s a funny little book that I really enjoyed reading.

  Bev Vincent: How much time does it take to keep up with all the news and keep the site updated?

  Lilja: Well, it takes quite some time since I run the site all by myself. I would guess that I spend about an average of one hour per day on the site, but it’s hard to say. If I read an article or a review online and then link to it on the site, adding the link may take just five minutes but reading the article or review itself might take fifteen minutes, so it depends on what you count. I also spend quite a lot of time answering and sending e-mail that are in some way connected to the site. It also varies quite a lot depending on what’s happening in the King world. If there is a new book or movie being released, there is often a lot more to report about and the time it takes to keep the site up-to-date increases.

  Bev Vincent: How have you managed to secure interviews with all these people over the years?

  Lilja: Interviews are always tricky. There are a lot of people I would like to interview that I haven’t yet. Usually, I search the Internet for contact information and, when I find it, I write a nice letter to the person in question, introducing the site and asking if an interview is possible. I have been extremely lucky—I really don’t think more than one or two people have actually said no. As I have gotten to know more and more “big names” in the King community, they have been kind in forwarding mail to people they know, making my own circle of contacts grow. In turn, it’s easier to find other people.

  I also hope I have proven myself through interviews I have already done, so the people I want to interview feel comfortable letting me interview them and know I’m serious and worth spending time on.

  Bev Vincent: Is it difficult to convince American and British publishers to give review books to someone in Sweden, which is not normally part of their territory? I assume there is some King material that is difficult for you to gain access to in a timely manner—such as movies or TV adaptations.

  Lilja: When it came to books, I struggled in the beginning to get publishers in the U.S. and the U.K. to
send stuff. The U.K. was a bit easier since it’s a lot closer to Sweden. At the beginning, I managed to get a book, review it and apparently do a good job on it. I’d get another book and do the same thing, and so forth. Today, I’m fortunate to have very good relationships with King’s publishers in both the U.S. and the U.K. They are very kind when it comes to sending books.

  Movies are a bit harder. I have been extremely fortunate when it comes to TV, though. I have good relations with most U.S. TV channels and they are usually nice enough to send screeners of series and movies as if I were a reviewer stationed in the U.S.

  Feature movies and DVDs are more difficult. I get some DVDs but there are stricter rules with the different regions. Feature movies are impossible, though, because you have to attend a screening at a theatre, which obviously I can’t.

  But all in all I have very good relations with both publishers of books and distributors of movies. I hope and think it’s because I have proven to be a reliable partner to work with.

  Bev Vincent: What was it like to have King on the phone for all that time? Tell us about the experience.

  Lilja: Well, what can I say? It was a dream come true. I had to work for it, though. I had been asking for five years until I got a “yes.” They didn’t say “no,” though, during that whole time, which kept me motivated. I kept asking every three to six months or so, and finally they said OK, you can have fifteen minutes with Stephen on the phone.

  When we set up an exact date, Stephen said he would give me forty-five minutes instead of fifteen, and I was just floored. I’m not sure exactly why he granted me that much time, but I’d like to think it’s because he liked the site and thought I’d do a good job interviewing him. He later said he thought it was a good interview. At the time, though, I had a very hard time understanding that I was going to speak to Stephen King for forty-five minutes on the phone.

  When the day came I was so nervous I couldn’t work or anything. He was supposed to call me at 5 p.m., so I had to go the entire day waiting for it. I sent my girlfriend and two kids to a friend’s so I wouldn’t be disturbed. Five minutes before he called I was so nervous I almost got physically sick. Then the phone rang, I answered and heard: “Hello Hans? Steve King…”

  The first few minutes I was still extremely nervous, but his kindness and down-to-earth persona soon made me feel like I was on the phone chatting with a friend. The forty-five minutes just sailed by. It was an amazing experience.

  Bev Vincent: What are some of your other favorite moments from your years working on the website?

  Lilja: The day-to-day highlight is when I get e-mail from people who read and like the site. It really makes my day to get mail from people saying they enjoy the site or they found something they could use or didn’t know before.

  Some of the milestones of the site are:

  2002, when I registered the domain.

  2004, when I got a link to Lilja’s Library on Stephen King’s official site.

  2006, when I got to meet Stephen King in person in London, which was made possible because I made some contacts while running the site.

  2007, when I got to do a phone interview with Stephen King for Lilja’s Library.

  2008, when I got to do a second phone interview with Stephen King for Lilja’s Library.

  2010, when this book was released.

  I hope to add more to the list as time goes by. I have some ideas but we’ll see what happens.

  Bev Vincent: What sort of response have you had to the website over the years? Any interesting people pop up in your guestbook?

  Lilja: The response has been varied, and there have been greater amounts as the years pass and more people find the site. Most people really like what I do on the site and some even think I am Stephen King, which is quite funny.

  The site has also gotten a response from the media. The BBC contacted me and I ended up doing an interview for BBC radio. The site has also been mentioned in different articles over the years, as well as in books and in promotional situations. About ninety-nine percent of the response has been positive. The one percent is made up of people who take out their anger on me because they didn’t get tickets to a reading, didn’t get a special book they wanted in time or things like that. But that isn’t a big problem.

  I actually got a really cool entry in the guestbook once. One day when I checked it there was a message from George A. Romero, in which he said he liked the site. Needless to say that made my day.

  Bev Vincent: What do you do when you aren’t working on Lilja’s Library?

  Lilja: Well, I’m involved in running two other sites. One is the Scandinavian King Fan Club, Följeslagarna (www.Foljeslagarna.com), and the other is a DVD review site called DVDKritik (www.DVDKritik.se). Those take up some of my time but also let me indulge myself in my other big interest—movies. I see a lot of movies in my spare time, so it’s only natural for me to review them.

  In real life I work as a software programmer, which means I spend a great deal of my day in front of a computer screen. We’ll see in about thirty or forty years if that is a good decision on my part…I also have a family that includes two children and no pets.

  Bev Vincent: So, tell us the truth—there’s a lot of really good information hidden away on a secret Swedish-only part of your site, isn’t there?

  Lilja: Ha ha, I wish. But no, there isn’t. Every piece of info I get that I’m allowed to share goes up on the site. There is information I get that I’m asked not to put on the site for one reason or another, but that information only exists in my head, not on a secret site for select members.

  Part 3—Interviews

  Section 1—The King

  Stephen King, Part 1

  Posted: January 16, 2007

  Welcome to the first part of a three-part interview I did over the phone with Stephen King. At a time when he is turning down interview requests, Stephen King made an exception for Lilja’s Library to accommodate a previous commitment and did the interview you’re about to read.

  We talked for about forty-five minutes and managed to cover topics including his upcoming books: Duma Key, Blaze and a second sequel to The Talisman.

  We also talked about what he thinks of all the fansites dedicated to him on the Internet, his collaboration with John Mellencamp, The Haven Foundation, limited editions of his books and a new novella called “The Gingerbread Girl,” which he is currently working on.

  I hope you will enjoy reading the interview as much as I enjoyed doing it. Stephen King’s kindness and down-to-earth manner made it extremely enjoyable, even though I was very nervous when I picked up the phone and heard “Hello Hans? Steve King…”

  Enjoy! / Lilja

  PART 1—Fansites, Blaze and The Haven Foundation

  “I would rather that they think of me as Santa Claus. That I’m paying attention to their little lists but I can’t respond to everything in person.”

  “Will it satisfy the fans? And between you and me and between everybody who reads your website, I have my doubts.”

  Lilja: So, how are you feeling? Have you recovered from your accident?

  Stephen King: Well, I think that if it had happened to me when I was forty instead of fifty I might be all better, but I get sore and I have a fair amount of pain in the hip and the leg. But it doesn’t keep me down much. I walk about three and a half miles a day and they told me, “Use it or you’re gonna lose it,” but mostly I feel just terrific. I’m great.

  Lilja: I’m glad to hear it. Having a website, I wonder, how do you feel about all the websites about you that are out there on the Internet?

  Stephen King: Well, I don’t go much. I go to yours because it’s always interesting. There is always a lot to look at.

  Lilja: Thank you!

  Stephen King: And sometimes I peek at The Dark Tower sites to see what’s going on there, and every now and then I’ll be like a ghost and sniff around my own website. You know, I tell you what, it’s a fun thing to do to go to those places because,
as Amy Tan says, when you go and you check on what people are saying about you it’s like being at a party and overhearing people say things, and the things they say are fairly nice.

  Lilja: Do you ever feel like contacting the people who have the sites and correcting them if something is wrong or unfair?

  Stephen King: No, I mean every now and then it’s like…I was looking at the thread on Lisey’s Story on the Stephen King website and there were several people that said, “Well jeez, if Scott was so sick why didn’t he go to that pool and get better?” and I got in touch with Marsha and said, “Will you tell these people that he couldn’t do that because the long boy was lying across the path?” You see stuff like that and you say, “Jeez, do these people really read or not?” Anyway, she put it on there but you could spend your life going to websites and looking at what people are saying about you and it would kind of slow me down and it would make me very self-conscious, so a lot of times I don’t do it.

  Lilja: I did a Google search on your name and I got about 40 million hits…

  Stephen King: Wow!

  Lilja: So, there are a lot of sites out there.

  Stephen King: See, it is scary to think of that. What can they all have to say?

  Lilja: Well, you have done a lot.

  Stephen King: I have. I have done a lot and I don’t know if that is a good thing or a bad thing, but it’s the way I am.

  Lilja: It’s definitely a good thing!

  Stephen King: Well, good. Thank you.

  Lilja: Do you feel the pressure? I read somewhere that people expected you to respond to questions on your official site. Do you feel a pressure to interact with the fans?

  Stephen King: I don’t particularly. I would rather that they think of me as Santa Claus. That I’m paying attention to their little lists but I can’t respond to everything in person. I’d like to think that they know that I know what’s going on and to some extent I do, but as I say, if I paid attention to everything I wouldn’t have time to write books and that’s what most people want.