Dozens of Readers Braving “The Flesh Sutra”

2 05 2023

I’m still trying to establish a work rhythm, and I’m sorry this update is late. But sales of “The Flesh Sutra” had ranked it in the 800’s in Amazon’s Horror Fiction sales. It’s back down again, but we’re establishing a small business here, and business has ebbs and flows. What else is going on?

A wonderful artist and friend Rachael Mayo is working on a yantra appropriate for Alecsi and Olivia’s mysticism. She loves making dragons, but I chose her because her eye for color is so startling and innovative. Look at this color work!

If anyone could make the disturbing, compelling, soul-straining yantras, it’s Rachael. Check out her tumblr just to wake up your eyes.

What else? I’m editing two videos; one for the reading salon Galactic Philadelphia (I’ve edited all their videos), the other is the aforementioned interview with Sally Weiner Grotta.

I use Final Cut Pro on a Macbook Pro, but lately Final Cut is proving to be a lot more than I need. I’m test driving ClipChamp off of Windows 11, and I’ll let you know how that works out.

My new job is doing very well. I work at a supermarket for more than I was making after nine years at a big box tech store. The scheduling is more flexible so the conventions I need to do will not interfere. Stocking shelves and lifting grocery bags make me buff. My coworkers are my age or younger, and their good nature and ambitions remind me the future is in good hands.

Still figuring out how to make best use of TikTok and Twitter. I’ve bought books based on posts. The trick is to come up with promotions that are both effective and comfortable.





Promoting Book Launch Pt 5: Using Media

27 04 2023

I have had my first author interview a few days ago. My friend (and professional journalist) Sally Weiner Grotta interviewed me via Zoom about “The Flesh Sutra” and the subsequent “Saints of Flesh”, and my fantasy novel “Fazgood and the Obstreperous Moosecrab Caper”. What did I have to do? How did it go?

Usually, I work or Zoom from a Panara Bread in my neighborhood. Obviously, it was time for me to grow up a little. My apartment has the bare minimum of everything, but I’m converting a corner of my unused dining area into an office. A small bookcase went against the wall. One of my two chairs went in front of it. I sat in the chair wearing a white dress shirt (which I’ve almost outgrown at the shoulders) and a blazer. My laptop went on an heirloom dropwing table.

Preparation is key and Sally sent me her questions ahead of time. “Oh yeah, I got this,” I thought and did not look at the questions at all. As a result, I stammered through my answers, which while understandable for my first interview, was pretty rude of me. Sally was gracious and the video ended at 26 minutes.

Now I am editing the video. I’m using ClipChamp, Windows 11’s video editing software. Turns out it’s very user friendly. Haven’t exported the results yet, but the video does look good.

The interview format is itself user-friendly. Book trailers can be tricky, and to be honest I don’t look at them. Does anyone? Don’t know.

What little I know is an optimum promo video is less than eight minutes long. I took the 26 minutes and have edited out nine minutes (mainly stammering) and may be able to get out another three or four. Speed up the finished product by 1.2, and it may get down to nine minutes. We’ll see.

I’ll pin the finished interview when its done.





Prepare For Book Launch Pt. 4: Promo Video and Presentations

20 04 2023
black camera recorder
No mysterious phantoms appeared on my video. Darn it.
Photo by Donald Tong on Pexels.com

I’ll be interviewed by Sally Weiner Grotta about the re-launch of “The Flesh Sutra”. How do you an interview?

First, my publisher provides a list of standard, sensible talking points: Availability and current price; Brief quotes from blurbs; the sequel coming out at StokerCon; current pricing deals, and other salient sales points.

Then, I work up my notes. What do I like about my book? Do I have an elevator pitch, where I summarize the book in a pithy sentence? Quick summaries of characters, locations, tone. What existing book is this like? “Fans of (another author) will like this book.”

Last, topics: if this were a podcaster, I would provide my bio and a list of subjects I’m glib about. Since I’ve known Sally for years and we’re focusing on just the book, that won’t be necessary. Hopefully at Horror On Main or StokerCon, I’ll connect with potential interviewers.

I have a terrible habit of making a performance out of everything. That habit comes from insecurity. It will be important to just have a single iced tea, relax, and just answer the questions. A good interviewer will guide the conversation along the interviewee’s strengths.

POST INTERVIEW:

The interview went well. Being a former video professional, my presentation had a minimum of stammering, at least for my first author interview. I had a few false starts, but it’s my first time, and so I’ll keep expectations reasonable.

I’ll have the interview linked in a few days, hopefully!





“I love ‘The Flesh Sutra’!” – Nancy Holder, NYT Best-Selling Horror Novelist

19 04 2023

Would you mutilate mankind for love? That is the question of “The Flesh Sutra.” In Fin de siècle Boston, the mystic healer Alecsi Keresh lays in the passionate embrace of his lover Mrs. Olivia Spalding, when he is shot dead. Enraged, he forces his way back to life through ghastly means. He becomes an abomination. All for love. Olivia is terrified of death. Alecsandri dreads abandonment. Seeing one another as soul mates, they resolve to atone for their sins by helping humanity. But their jealousies mar their works, often with hideous results. And a spirit stalks them. One that grows more powerful at every turn. Will the lovers succeed and transform mankind? Or will their weaknesses twist humanity into abominations? Therein lies the answer to “The Flesh Sutra.”





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….





Newsletter? Yes, You Can Get Newsletter!

12 02 2023

My publisher wants me to assemble material to give newsletter subscribers, and I’m having a blast.

If you subscribe to my newsletter, you can look forward to a cut scene from “Fazgood” and “Leadership Advice From The Earl of Weiquand”. Or how about “Fazgood” details translated for AD&D 5e:

Educated Wind

Minor Air Elemental

Armor Class 14 (natural armor)
Hit Points 30
Speed fly 120 ft.
Damage Resistance +1 or better weapons to strike
Damage Immunities poison
Condition Immunities exhaustion, grappled, paralyzed, poisoned, restrained, prone, unconscious
Senses darkvision 90 ft., passive Perception 16
Languages Aerial, Common
Challenge 2 (700 XP)

An Educated Wind looks like swirling columns of cloud with a winsome happy face. Educated Winds are used as messengers by all countries, and as mounts by the Empire of Birqmuir’s Elite Holy Geeks.

You can see drafts of yantra from the “Flesh” books:

Or see those characters and qualities in AD&D 5e:

Astral Projection

1st Level Abjuration

Casting Time: 1 hour

Range: Touch

Components. V, S

Duration: One hour per level unless dispelled or killed.

The caster and one person per five caster levels transcends to the Astral Plane. They are naked and bear no equipment. They replicate their game statistics. Any damage incurred while Astral will reflect in their physical body. Anyone physically encountered while Astral may be brought to the plane if desired; again, one person per five levels of caster. Those Astral may affect their size and perceptions down to the subatomic level, or up to fill the sky. They gain True Sight, including alignment and health.

Plus previously published stories, updates, drawings, and the stuff one gets in a newsletter.

Do you have any suggestions about what to put in my newsletter?





Lovecraft’s Tricks For Writing The Impossible: You Only Know One Of Them

24 01 2023

You know which one: “OMG it’s impossible!” Well, he had other tricks and a couple caught me off-guard. This is a useful YouTube channel, so maybe subscribe.





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.





Did You Write a Monster Or A Careening Semi?

3 01 2023

Lately, I’ve been tempted to write about the politics of our time. Or about issues in our zeitgeist. Or about the changes in our society. You know…Make A Stand About Something. Wield Art like a glowing sword, shining as a beacon, hacking through the darkness of ignorance.

Let’s overlook the fact that I, a Gen-Xish Provincial Liberal Straight White Guy, have neither the chops nor the lived experience to expand the cultural debate. I can write about my own experiences, of course, like John Updike but anxious, with more sentient body parts.

Over the past few years, I’ve encountered a few stories which address social issues. I’d felt that the monsters in these stories lacked agency, that these stories were parables with monsters in them, and weren’t truly Horror Stories.

I’d come to realize that this lack of agency wasn’t endemic to topical stories, but what I’d actually found were stories with weak monsters, and those monsters just happened to be used as symbols.

How do you know if your monster has little agency or lacks depth?

If you can replace your monster with a careening semi without it affecting the plot, your monster may need more.

Keep in mind that I respect these stories and other works by these same authors. It’s just that these particular stories share a common trait which hampers their emotional impact. That common trait is a lack of depth or agency in the story’s monster.

If you can replace the monster with a careening semi, then you have not written a horror story. You have a parable with a horrific setting.

Honestly, I forgot who wrote this first story, except that it is contemporary. A group of construction workers are part-way through building a house in a wooded development. The sun goes down. A werewolf appears and kills all the men but one. Though uninjured, the survivor suffers from the werewolf attack through weeks of guilt and misplaced sense of manliness. The story ends with the man back at the development screaming his anguish at the moon.

Do you see it? That the werewolf could be replaced by any catastrophe, by a careening semi, and the story would not need to change a whit? Many say “trauma transforms us as surely as lycanthropy”. I call this story a parable and not a story, then I imagine a story where his scream brings the werewolf back for something resembling an arc, then imagine another story where he looks to the moon and screams out the long blast of a big-rig airhorn. I set that last story idea aside to workshop.

Another recent novella is set in the early 1900s, in a rural community is threatened by a White Supremecist’s plans to create an armed enclave. The monster comes in the form the Gifters, three spectral women who visit those who disrupt their community. They present a gift to the interloper, a trinket meaningful to that person. Then the person explodes into a spray of gore. This story’s language, tone, and characters compel and chill, and it is a great story from a great podcast. But a careening semi could have done the job, and kicked the wrapped gift out of its cab door.

Think about popular stories with strong monsters like “I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream”, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”, or “Dracula”. If a careening semi appeared, the plot would be dramatically difficult, especially “Dracula” as diesel rigs hadn’t yet been invented. These all have strong, decision-making, influential monsters.

Think about great works of literature. There are examples where the monster is a bit weak.

“The Grand Inquisitor” in “The Brothers Karamazov”: The Inquisitor interrogates the Prisoner and explains why he must die. The Prisoner busts out in a cloud of diesel exhaust and roars away to freedom.

“Moby Dick”: Some sort of submarine?

“Gunga Din”: Again with the air horn.

Keep in mind that I have a Bachelors in Communications and as such, know a little about everything.

More experienced writers, think about your favorite story. Does this test stand up?

Can your monster outperform a semi?








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