Dime novel, though it has a specific meaning, has also become a catch-all term for several different (but related) forms of late 19th-century and early 20th-century U.S. popular fiction, including “true” dime novels, story papers, five- and ten-cent weekly libraries, "thick book" reprints, and sometimes even early pulp magazines. The term was being used as a title as late as 1940, in the short-lived pulp Western Dime Novels. Dime novels are, at least in spirit, the antecedent of today’s mass market paperbacks, comic books, and even television shows and movies based on the dime novel genres. In the modern age, "dime novel" has become a term to describe any quickly written, lurid potboiler and as such is generally used as a pejorative to describe a sensationalized yet superficial piece of written work.

It is generally agreed^{[by whom?]} that the term originated with the first book in Beadle & Adam's Beadle’s Dime Novel series, Maleaska, the Indian Wife of the White Hunter, by Ann S. Stephens, dated June 9, 1860. The novel was essentially a reprint of Stephens's earlier serial that appeared in the Ladies' Companion magazine in February, March and April 1839. The dime novels varied in size, even within this first Beadle series, but were roughly 6.5 by 4.25 inches (17 by 10.8 cm), with 100 pages. The first 28 were published without a cover illustration, in a salmon colored paper wrapper, but a woodblock print was added with issue 29, and reprints of the first 28 had an illustration added to the cover. Of course, the books were priced at ten cents.

William H. Bonney (born William Henry McCarty, Jr.) est. November 23, 1859 – c. July 14, 1881, better known as Billy the Kid but also known as Henry Antrim, was a 19th-century American gunman who participated in the Lincoln County War and became a frontier outlaw in the West. According to legend, he killed 21 men, but he is generally accepted to have killed between four and nine.

McCarty (or Bonney, the name he used at the height of his notoriety) was 5 feet 8 inches (173 cm) to 5 feet 9 inches (175 cm) tall with blue eyes, a smooth complexion, and prominent front teeth. He was said to be friendly and personable at times, and many recalled that he was as "lithe as a cat". Contemporaries described him as a "neat" dresser who favored an "unadorned Mexican sombrero". These qualities, along with his cunning and celebrated skill with firearms, contributed to his paradoxical image, as both a notorious outlaw and beloved folk hero.

Relatively unknown during most of his lifetime, Billy was catapulted into legend in 1881 when New Mexico's governor, Lew Wallace, placed a price on his head. In addition, the Las Vegas Gazette (Las Vegas, New Mexico) and the New York Sun carried stories about his exploits. Many other newspapers followed suit. After his death, several biographies were written that portrayed the Kid in varying lights.

Paul Chitlik, author, television and film writer, producer, and director, was born in Cleveland, Ohio. He wrote and directed his first play when he was eleven. He moved with his family to Long Beach, California, when he was thirteen. Though he felt out of place for most of the first year in Long Beach, he eventually became student body president of his high school, claiming he ran because one of the perks of office was to crown and kiss the homecoming queen.

During the 1960s, Chitlik attended the University of California, Berkeley, as an undergraduate. As a junior, he spent a year at the University of Madrid under the auspices of the UC Education Abroad Program. After graduating, he entered the PhD program in comparative literature at UCSD, then transferred to UC, Berkeley, once again. He returned to Spain after a year where he lived and worked in Madrid. It was there that he also published his first work in any language - a Spanish poem.

After a year in Madrid, Chitlik migrated to London where he worked as a translator, photographer, and journalist for several years after the traditional writer’s series of jobs – stock boy in a deli, baker, house cleaner, house painter, and, eventually consultant for famed publisher Calder & Boyars. Eventually he worked as a reporter for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. He also freelanced as a photographer and journalist. His photographs and articles appeared in English, Welsh, Spanish, US, and Israeli periodicals.

Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits (born December 7, 1949) is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car." With this trademark growl, his incorporation of pre-rock music styles such as blues, jazz, and vaudeville, and experimental tendencies verging on industrial music, Waits has built up a distinctive musical persona. He has worked as a composer for movies and musical plays and has acted in supporting roles in films including Paradise Alley and Bram Stoker's Dracula; he also starred in the 1986 film Down by Law. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his soundtrack work on One from the Heart.

Lyrically, Waits' songs frequently present atmospheric portrayals of grotesque, often seedy characters and places—although he has also shown a penchant for more conventional ballads. He has a cult following and has influenced subsequent songwriters despite having little radio or music video support. His songs are best-known through cover versions by more commercial artists: "Jersey Girl", performed by Bruce Springsteen, "Ol' '55", performed by the Eagles, and "Downtown Train", performed by Rod Stewart. Although Waits' albums have met with mixed commercial success in his native United States, they have occasionally achieved gold album sales status in other countries. He has been nominated for a number of major music awards and has won Grammy Awards for two albums, Bone Machine and Mule Variations. In 2011, Waits was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.