How To Prepare For Book Launches Pt 2

4 04 2023
person reading book in city
Once again, not me. But marketing surveys say I rate very well among Sheet Ghosts.
Photo by Ayşenur Sağlam on Pexels.com

This is to catch myself up on what I’m doing in the next couple of months:

Prepare a presentation/reading for the launch(s):

it’s tough to get a slot for an author reading, so apply early. Most conventions allow you to just request a slot; the Horror On Main convention requires the author to buy a vendor table as well for IIRC $200? It’s promotional expense so if I make more than $4K from the books this year I can write off the expense yadda yadda. So step one, get those slots requested.

Prepare the reads/presentations. Usually the author will be given 30 minutes to do a reading and/or what’s called an “anti-reading”. An anti-reading can be anything like a presentation about the novel’s world or a free-form discussion or really it has no boundaries. At present, I plan on fifteen minutes of reading and a fifteen-minute presentation about the fun stuff I discovered while researching the “Flesh” books. I may include a Powerpoint. For the Fazgood launch at World Fantasy, at present I’ll just do a reading.

Get stuff into hands and onto tables: Conventions usually give attendees a swag bag, or a bag filled with promotional materials. My publisher Noble Fusion Press is getting post cards or other materials to World Fantasy to give the launch a boost. For Horror On Main, and more so for StokerCon, I have to get on the stick and find out if they do swag bags. Tables will need signage, which I image will have to small to accommodate travel.

Yes I am nervous about all this.

Contact the relevant media: the Horror Writers Association has a newsletter, and I have to get my Horror On Main and StokerCon plans to its editors.

Supporting promo material: I’m working with a talented artist friend to come up with yantra stickers. Yantra are mystical symbols key to the “Flesh” mythos. I believe stickers are the way to go, because even if no one is interested in the book, they may like the sticker design and get interest developed that way. I’ve seen the preliminary colors and they are disturbing. Plan is to have them done by end of April.

List of people to contact: I’m shooting for podcasters, mainly. I’m funny and have a varied, colorful history. Obvioulsly, the “Flesh” books and Fazgood have two different audiences, with different persons of interest to contact.

I’ll keep you posted, obvs.





Update! Cover Artists! Mine Is Really Good!

18 03 2023

This artist calls themselves “HumbleNations” and their business is “Go On Write”, which URLs as “goonwrite” or as I see it “goon write”, which I like more. It’s worth clicking on a book and seeing his examples, if just for a look at the mock-up titles…

Their blog is also Brithumorlicious.

What of my covers? There will be a release soon….





Preparing for My Improved Writing Career

7 02 2023

It’s a damn truism that to be a successful author, an indulgent spouse can help. They pay the bills. Their job provides health care.

cheerful mature couple dancing and laughing against beige background
Photo by Alex Green on Pexels.com

Presented to illustrate “indulgent spouse”. Not me. Not my spouse.

Lacking a supporter, I stumbled into another truism: you can be your own indulgent spouse if you prepare. I had no idea I was preparing all these years, but it turns out I can now access my mutual funds and 401K and only pay income tax on withdraws. So I have money.

I just got a new job at Redacted Retail. This new place is fantastic. The employees are happy. I’m making more here than I did after nine years at my last job. My shift is evening, which leaves my productive afternoons free. Most of all, I have control over my hours: I can work as few as 24 hours per week and still get health benefits. Which is nice, but I may not need them because I qualify for Medicare.

Getting old was not my idea, but it does seem to have some benefits.

So I’ve set up some conventions! To visit! Where?

Horror on Main – May 26 to 28 Delta Marriott • 245 Shawan Road • Hunt Valley, Maryland 21031

StokerCon – June 15 to 18 Sheraton Pittsburgh Hotel – Station Square 300 West Station Square Drive Pittsburgh, PA

World Fantasy Convention – October 26 to 29. Sheraton Crown Center – 2345 McGee Street, Kansas City MO

I’m lining up a reading or group talk for Horror on Main, “Saints of Flesh” is slated to launch at StokerCon, and the Fazgood novel will launch at World Fantasy. Maybe I can get a reading at StokerCon? I’m new at this and have to see how to line that up.

What else am I doing? I need to clean up my Goodreads and Amazon pages. I’m working with my publisher on my upcoming monthly newsletter which will include nifty giveaways. Want Fazgood, Olivia, or other character stats to use in AD&D 5e? Am doing! How about out-of-print published stories brushed up and improved? Will soon be doing!

Meanwhile, I am annoyed with the Safari browser because I could not access my website dashboard for a week. Google Chrome is a pain on this OS. I’m editing the videos for Galactic Philadelphia and barely have enough hard drive for everything. So a new laptop may be in the offing.

This is quite unnerving, but I am taking all of these changes a day at a time. I’m glad you’re interested enough to come along. Together we will learn some new things.





Publishing Update!

12 01 2023

Mentioned before that my publisher Noble Fusion Press will be releasing three of my novels this year. Two will launch at big deal conventions:

“Saints of Flesh” will launch at StokerCon in Pittsburgh, June 15 – 18.

“Fazgood and the Obstreperous Moosecrab Caper” launches at The World Fantasy Convention in Kansas City, October 26 – 29.

Cover reveals for both are forthcoming.

“The Flesh Sutra” releases soon in a third edition with some tweaking. You will be kept up to date on that as well.

My publisher will start a newsletter for me, probably by this summer. The newsletter will have lots of supplemental material: drawings; playable AD&D races, classes, and characters; stories published in the past and more!

This is an exciting year already! I’m glad you are here so I can share it with you.





What Tropes Are Selling In Spec Fic? What Is Tough To Sell?

10 01 2023

I have to be circumspect in this post, because I present information from a private online writers group. A writer in this group wondered what tropes sold well in today’s market. This writer is also a statistician. The writer polled dozens of published writers within this group. He asked which tropes sold easily to editors in this market. He ranked the responses. Here are the five highest selling and the six toughest selling tropes in spec-fic.

Toughest To Sell Ranked To Most Difficult:

6) Prominent Violence.

5) Prominent Sexual Content

4) Body Horror

3) Vampires

2) Werewolves

1) Furry

Now I was alarmed to see Body Horror on the list at all. But fourth from least popular isn’t so bad…right? Violence and Sex have their markets of course, just not as large a market as others. Some twenty years ago Vampires and Werewolves took up entire shelves in bookstores. Now, expectedly, editors are looking for new twists due to reader fatigue. As for Furry, author Dr. Lawrence M. Schoen is writing about his universe of anthropomorphic spacefarers. He tells me that while he did not write to the Furry audience, he finds them a small but enthusiastic fanbase.

Most Popular Ranked To…Most Popular

5) Time Travel

4) Robots With Feelings

3) Fairytales, Folklore, and Mythology

2) Prominent Humor

1) Ghost Stories

Well, this tracks, doesn’t it! How many anthologies have we seen featuring all of these tropes? How many novels have you seen with robots grappling with their burgeoning humanity? Notice that truly popular novel series seem to have all of these elements: Discworld and Hitchhikers Guide being two. What is it about these subjects that their appeal is so long-lasting?

While I may wish for the powers of a vampire or werewolf, they have pronounced drawbacks. And my upbringing was a bit prudish and meek, so violence and sex sets off my discomfort. Furry stories are fun but I’ve noticed I write about humans all the time and may have an unconscious bias against Furdom. Body Horror expresses my anxieties about mortality very well, so there lies my aesthetic.

The Most Popular tropes seem easily for people to take personally. Want to change something in your past? Are you a history buff? Travel in time! Feel awkward? So would a robot. Wanna just get away to simpler, artful places? Fairytales etc! I like ghost stories for the afterlife and the idea of getting away with just loafing about.

So yes, I am wondering about a time-traveling AI dealing with his banshee sidekick. Not really, but this information is intriguing.

Meanwhile, enjoy this hipster fish!





Ian Fleming On Writing Thrillers, Writing For Fun, Writing For Money

14 07 2022

A pretty neat article! Wanna write streamlined action prose? Here it all is in one list.





Writers Groups Like My New Novel Darft (Draft)

12 07 2022

Yes it does say “darft”, I’m trying to generate some whimsy here.

Because things are going quite well. Everyone is following the sequence of events and understanding the cause/effect of the “magic system”. The darft tenses shift around and I have to fix that. The big reveal is shocking! The climactic resolution? It resolves five characters — five! — in one scene! And everyone is good with it! The characters are all likable and relatable!

The main characters are women. The women who are critiquing like the woman characters! I kept their motives as sex-free and guy-free as possible, and the critics really liked that.

What they seem to like: there is no villain, just people bumbling around making mistakes; the use of unusual settings like Ren Faires; taking risks with descriptions of emotions, getting as precise in their physical affects as possible; personal quirks that aren’t eccentric (showing reliable bias towards particular flavors, styles, tastes); keeping real-life branding and signifiers out of the story (I am reminded of a National Lampoon parody of Stephen King: “Pepsi!” he screamed in terror.)

This book is such a change from the previous book. “The Flesh Sutra” is a fix-up novel episodic, gothic, nudging on erotic (meter and rhyme accidental here, that was cheesy). “Saints of Flesh” is streamlined more like a novel with lots of ghastly stuff but literally no sex.

I’m still compiling reviews, but I dunno, maybe it’ll be off to agents/editors by the end of the summer?

I want to work on flash fiction for a while.





Just Sent Out Novel Draft To Beta Readers. Here’s What to Ask Them.

30 06 2022

I have a primary irl writers group, an online writers group, and interested friends reviewing my draft. The first concern would be: with som many points of view, wouldn’t I get overwhelmed by detailed critiques? Yes, however! Critiques are like product reviews. You have a look at them, gather their commonalities and adjust based on what lots of people need for the work to be better.

Even people who don’t like my genre can help! Heck, even people who didn’t like the book at all can help.

How? First, for those people who bailed on reading, ask “where in the plot did you lose interest?” Chances are they lost interest where an enthusiastic reader would: at exposition, or dialogue which held no benefit to the story, or at a stylistic darling which jarred the tone. They may bail out if the stakes aren’t clearly described, so like I always say, summarize the stakes before or at the 20% mark of the complete work.

That was for the non-genre readers. For readers already fluent in speculative fiction, what questions can you ask them?

  1. Does this draft remind you of any other existing work? A resemblance to existing books or media may be a good thing, in that you may not realize you wrote “Moby Dick In Space” (did not write that) and people like both Moby Dick and Space. Or it may be bad because It’s Been Done and This Ain’t Fresh. For that reason, if someone tells me one of my drafts reminds them of another work, I seriously consider abandoning the project. I am a snob and this being a snob has made my life difficult. But it forces me to come up with better ideas.
  2. Can you relate to the characters? Not “do you like the characters”, because like actual people, characters exist for their own benefit and on their own merits. Your friends annoy you sometimes, and That Guy can be admirable sometimes. Judge the characters on the clarity of expressiveness and motivations.
  3. Is The Science too easy? Whatever powers warp drives or werewolves needs to be inconvenient in proportion to the benefit.
  4. I aim for three sensory details per page. I forgot to check for that before I sent out the draft.
  5. The Clean Silhouette. Characters need to be easy to imagine. Not stereotypical, because that is LAAAAAAZZYYYY. But if you were to turn off the lights so that you could only see their outline, could you tell one character from another?
  6. The Gut Punch Image/Good Kill. In “The Flesh Sutra”, I had a man birth himself from the tumor in another man’a brain. In “Saints of Flesh”, I’m going after cosmic horror (which I did somewhat satisfying) and body horror (yeah, some good stuff). Both present strong images.

Do any of you have questions you ask your readers?





More Thoughts On WIP and Magick

11 05 2022

Currently figuring out the big climax. All the characters are in one location. I realized I could resolve the Doppelgänger character by having the protagonist realize her core personal conflict. But I’ve got unwieldy cursed tumors and a near-immortal antagonist. How do I deal with them? Rather than be overwhelmed, I waited. I gave myself space and took a couple of days off.

A random listening to the “Psycho Analysis” podcast about Frankenstein gave me an idea — maybe THE idea as to how to resolve them to gruesome satisfaction.

I’m starting to look at publishers and I’m feeling my chest clench again. So, one step at a time. Get it finished first.

It’s worth mentioning that when I began this novel, and was writing from Alecsis’s perspective, I was doom- scrolling seven websites every day, several times a day. My spiritual concerns were limited to “what version of Christianity will keep me out of Hell?” I gnawed at decades-old regrets. My mind had a constant drumbeat of “must do”, “get done”, and “be more”.

At the same time, I was painfully aware that I had only one life, maybe only one opportunity at anything, and I should NOT SCREW UP. Which made mistakes and learning curves difficult.

Now, writing from Olivia’s POV, I am down to doom-scrolling only political Twitter, still several times a day, but a vast improvement. I am accepting that I do not understand myself. I relax more in the moment and do more of what I enjoy. I am comfortable that each person is their own solitary religion, picking through everything that came before. I am a more comfortable and accepting person, and am trying to forgive my mistakes and misunderstandings.

Olivia quested after meaningful goals, while Alecsi worked toward redeeming a mistake that couldn’t be undone. Olivia and Alecsi had both killed Thomas, and both had pledged to improve the world to atone. But in time, Olivia settled into accepting what they had done and making the best of her situation. Alecsi still wanted to be perfect.

I wouldn’t have tried Olivia’s POV if it weren’t for my friends in Noble Fusion Eastern Court. Life dictates Art which guides Life.

Many people I know needed to change their lives so dramatically, they changed their names to allow for that radical growth. Patty put her traumatic childhood behind her by embracing her nickname Bunny. Al put his past behind him by using his middle name Randy. Pseudonyms allow exploration of personas uncomfortable for the artist. Artists performing under their own names talk about their “stage persona”, sometimes referring to that persona as a separate being. Performers talk about how the audience expectations shape their performances, even their performing styles.

This is all kind of Jungian. The story is outside and inside, waiting. It may not be an ingenious work, but it must be told for you to grow.





Is Writing Magick?

3 05 2022

As mentioned before, I am nearing the end of my first-ish draft of “Saints of Flesh”. My primary writing group Noble Fusion Eastern Court have been impressed at how I’ve kept a lot of plates spinning in the plot. The problem now is bringing the plates together while still spinning, stacking them together, then lowering them to the floor to rest in a satisfying manner.

Some days I look at descriptions of other books and think “damn, my stuff is a bit goofy”. Then I look at other books and think “maybe my book is supposed to be a little over the tops like these guys”. I can’t honestly say that I’m writing a book that I’d want to read. I am writing the book that is there in me right now.

There are so many small press publishers out there. I am encouraged by this because having read many small press through Kindle Unlimited, I know I have a solid book. We all know the trick with small press; get a publisher with a good track record. I had been interested in one publisher with a good track record, but then they published something controversial and now have gone to ground. I passed on going to the writers’ fest in Williamsburg VA because I have nothing to market quite yet and I have a reflexive aversion to try to work into existing social groups.

The good thing here is that I do enjoy writing every day. It’s becoming easier to focus on that. Writing has been fun lo these many years, but lately I’m wondering if my subject matter is harming my outlook.

I am anxious and depressed, less so than I used to be, but still it’s something I work on. I had quite an interest in writing humor. Over the years, though, as I discovered that good writing comes from the heart, I lost a lot of my mirth. Jokes still come when I talk with people, but not so much when I write.

Jokes were my way of distracting myself and being endearing to others. Placing a distancing TV frame around everything helped my anxiety. That frame is my earliest childhood memory. So I realized that joking was not so much a choice as a compulsion. Did I choose to daydream all the time? Did I choose to create? Maybe I did.

Humor has disappointed me in these past years. My stabs at sketch comedy and movie production lost their momentum when I needed to risk my ego by going to the next level. I could go on about how comedy in the U.S. relies way too much on improvisation, and how Lorne Michaels is killing creativity, and that I don’t laugh at movies because I can see the stitching in the fabric. I’m still sussing out how I feel, but it just may be that no one makes anything quite to my taste.

Horror became a means of being outrageous with catharsis.

I’ve realized that horror reinforces my anxious view of the world. Someone said somewhere that Horror is Fantasy for atheists, and I agree with that. Is writing horror bad for my health?

A last thing I have noticed: writing is cathartic, but it also helps to process problems at a less-than-aware level. Concentrating on Alecsi in “The Flesh Sutra” reinforced a doomed romanticist perspective. In this book, Olivia is more proactive and does a mind-bending amount of personal examination and growth. These reflect my states of mind during their creation. I would like to experiment with writing a Marty Lou for the purposes of hacking my own psyche, much like Grant Morrisson did with King Mob.








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