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About Us
We have
both been Jackson fans since the early 1970s, and our writing partnership began
in 1990, when we compiled
'The Complete Michael Jackson Discography 1972-90' for Adrian Grant's fan
magazine, Off the Wall.
Chris also
did much of the research for the first edition of Adrian's best selling book,
Michael Jackson - The Visual Documentary. He launched his own fanzine
Jackson in 1995,
with Craig as contributor, proof reader and eventual co-editor. Jackson
lasted six issues,
after which we decided to concentrate our efforts on writing a book together.
Our first
book, which we titled The Michael Jackson Files, was accepted for
publication by a well known
London publisher, who re-titled it, The Michael Jackson Chronicles. But,
for various reasons (including
the first child molestation allegations against Michael), the deal eventually
fell through - a major disappointment at the time.
We picked
ourselves up, and hit on the idea of splitting the book into two books - which
became The Early Years and
The Solo Years. Around the same time, with commercial publishers not
interested in anything positive about Michael,
we began exploring the idea of self-publishing our books - an attractive
prospect, as it meant
we would retain total control over what our books did and didn't include.
It was
while researching self-publishing companies that we discovered another option:
print-on-demand.
This, in simple terms, meant a book would only be printed once a firm order had
been placed for that book - whereas
most self-publishers demanded an order of 1,000 books or more (all of which had
to be paid for, up-front). Thus we went
into partnership with Authors OnLine Ltd, and finally published our first book,
Michael Jackson - The Early Years, in 2002.
Chris was
born in July 1961 in West Bromwich, England. A karate black belt First Dan by
the age of 15 years,
he joined the family business on leaving school, a business he still helps to
run today, supplying and servicing saws
for companies across the West Midlands, where he still lives. He is married to
the love of his life, Lynne,
and has two adult daughters, Samantha and Stephanie.
Craig was
born in June 1959 in Rochdale, England. He studied Applied Chemistry with
Biochemistry at Huddersfield,
gaining a BSc (hons), but since November 1986 he was worked as a Community
Worker at a small,
multi-cultural Community Centre. He also writes fiction and is the author of one
novel, which he has
published under a pen-name. He lives in the North West with his young son,
Aaron.
Copyright © 2008 Craig Halstead & Chris Cadman