Beyond The Darkness 18
Despite all my rage, I am still just a goat in a cage!
Hello, horror beings!
Some stuff happened this week, so let’s dive in, shall we?
My wife and I’s ninth wedding anniversary was on Wednesday. Honestly, I cannot believe it’s been nine years already. I can still recall the whole day so well, it could have been last weekend. I remember the ceremony (the groomsmen and bridesmaids all wore Ninja Turtle accessory colors), the reception (Katie and I walked in to “Bedrock” by Young Money, and the after party at the hotel where Katie and I ran to the closest Sheetz, got a shitload of food, and we sat for the next few hours around the courtyard fire pit at the hotel with all our close friends. Such a wonderful day.
Nine years later, and all we did was order DoorDash and hit the hay by 10pm.
Getting old sucks.
But we did have a little fun this weekend. We both took off on Friday and took our son up to Lake Tobias Wildlife Park in Halifax, PA, just north of Harrisburg. I had never even heard of the place until a few weeks ago, but Katie had been many years ago as a kid, so she vouched for it. I wasn’t sure what to expect. I imagined some run-down petting zoo in the middle of nowhere with sickly animals and rude staff. I’m happy to report it was anything but. The place was wonderful and extremely clean and well kept. It was basically a zoo with a ton of open land for a good majority of the animals to roam and live. The exhibits were well put together and nearly pristine, like the whole place had only been around a few years, not since 1965. Our son had a great time, though I’m not sure he even knew what he was seeing. He’s only seventeen months old. He likes animals and loves our cats. He loved the dog too, even if the dog doesn’t share the sentiment. All in all, we had a great time together on Friday. He may not remember the experience, but we absolutely will.
This week I was finally able to make a change to one of my books I’ve been meaning to make for a while.
Late in 2021, I had gotten the rights back to my collection RESISTING MADNESS and my novel CRUEL SUMMER. The publisher was gracious enough to give me back the original covers to both. With the cover for CRUEL SUMMER, the cover came back to me with all the color taken out of the title font, making the book nearly impossible to point out when someone would post a picture of it online. This was always bothered me tremendously. I know for a fact I have lost countless sales because of this. I think what finally broke the straw for me was someone posted about the book a few days ago across a few social media platforms, and people started to ask what book that was because they couldn’t read the title or my name. I went to Scott Cole, who has been doing my layouts for all my self-published work, and had him create a paperback/e-book cover with the files he used to create my recent hardcover for the book. I absolutely LOVE the result. I should have done this months ago. Either way, my Imadjinn Award-Winning novel now has a fresh new look across the board.
You can get the trade hardcover here: https://a.co/d/d23T6UK
The trade paperback here: https://a.co/d/ao7VDvt
The e-book here: https://a.co/d/aQN7qfb
And the audiobook here: https://a.co/d/766dvvu
Writing updates…
I’ve started to get my edits back from my pre-readers for my new novella, and so far they’ve been very positive, which makes me very happy. I trust these individuals opinions very much, and each one does such a great job at catching all my mistakes and offering advice on how to make my work better. I believe every author needs to have a minimum of three pre-readers to look over their work before it hits print. I’ve learned so much over the years from all the individuals I’ve used, and it’s made that much better as a storyteller.
My hopes, depending on where Wile E. Young is with his story, is to have this book out by next month.
I was fortunately able to reserve a table for next year’s AuthorCon in Williamsburg, VA before they sold out (they all went in four minutes!). The 2024 event will take place the weekend of April 12-14. Hope to see you there!
As a thank you for subscribing to my weekly newsletter, I’m offering a coupon code you can use over at my webstore to purchase signed books and book bundles. Use the code “memorial” to get 15% off you entire order. Code expires on Monday May 29th.
That’s it! Thanks, everyone! See you next Sunday…or not. I don’t know. Maybe. Probably. Possibly. Who the hell knows?
Love the new cover! Excellent.
LOVED Cruel Summer, but wonder why you chose Elon Musk for the covet