The Demonweasel Speaks

Kind of a lot going on this week, which is cool.

First up a bunch of stuff this weekend I had my hand in for Panels on Pages. First up was an article/interview with Rusty Shackles about his PaletteSwap art blog (which takes old video game box and has artists re-imagine/reinterpret it) which was doing a Halloween Art Jam of horror themed games like this one from Rusty, doing Castlevania.

In addition, we do a Fangirl of the Month feature on the site and I found this month’s Fangirl, Jamila Rowser of the Girl-Gone_Geek blog. She’s pretty cool and you should check her out.

Then there was my regular stuff, like my column Back in the Game (this week’s being about how my old shop was selling more copies of Strawberry Shortcake than Wolverine) and my hosting duties on the Super-Fly Comics Podcast (where we talked about the conclusion to the Super-Fly vs Wizard/Mid-Ohio Con beef, the aforementioned Strawberry Shortcake vs Wolverine and the psychiatrists who want DC to be more realistic in their depictions of the criminally insane). Since it’s kind of impossible for me to not jump at the chance to talk about things, I accepted the call to co-host the main Panels on Pages PoP!-Cast since the 11th Hour were unavailable. It was a slow news week, but you do get to find out which of my Super-Fly co-hosts I’d make a skin-suit out of, my financial destituteness and I still managed to talk a lot about comics I haven’t read yet. You can listen & subscribe to all the shows on the PoP!-Cast Network on iTunes.

In non comics news, Misty reviewed my horror novel SHADOW OF THE PAST on her blog, KindleObsessed, giving it 4 out of 5 stars. It’s a great review, and while there were some parts she didn’t enjoy I love hearing someone say they couldn’t put it down, as well as “that was freaking fantastic” and “the story was a very well thought out and intricate one.” I assure you those quotes aren’t completely taken out of context. I’m well aware that the book, with teenage protagonists and more than it’s fair share of “self-loathing monologues,” has aspects that aren’t for everyone but I’d like to think there’s enough violence, humor and mystery to make it entertaining for most (and maybe, if you’re really unlucky, you’ll find something from your own teenage years you can relate to).

SHADOW OF THE PAST is still available on Amazon and Smashwords for only 99 cents. I’m still serializing my next novel, THE CORNER, here on the site with a new chapter every Saturday.

My comic, THE ROBOZOIC AGE is still coming along (pages from the artist J.C. Grande arrived in my email today) and I also decided to push/punish myself by participating in 30 Characters, the month long challenge for comic people to create a new character for every day in November. I’m already a day behind, but I’m looking to correct that once I’m done with this little warm up. It’s mostly artists that take up the challenge, but occasionally writers like me jump in. I’m still working out exactly how I want to do this, but I think some with be little snippets of stories, some will be full short stories and others I may try out a weird “text-trailer” kind of thing, where there’s some over-arcing narration and short little scenes picked out from what would be a larger story. I’ll try to avoid using “In a world…”

So yeah. November, it looks like you’re going to try to kill me. I look forward to it.

At the close of July, Shadow of the Past topped not only the Horror bestseller chart at Smashwords but also the Thriller and Suspense chart and topped out at #13 in the site-wide overall bestsellers. Not too shabby, considering that Smashwords boasts about 63,000 books in their catalog according to their most recent newsletter.

I’m trying not to get too proud of myself, as it was a giveaway sale, but with that many books in the offering and most of them free I’m happy that people picked mine out of the crowd. I’m hoping there’s not too much of a lull on the site now that folks have gorged their eReaders on free books, as Smashwords offers a pretty decent royalty rate for me. Of course, Shadow of the Past is also available on Amazon, if you’ve got some sort of fancy Amazon coupon or preference. The price is still only 99 cents either way, so hopefully that’s as good as free for folks.

Thanks again, and hopefully I’ll have more good news about other projects in the works later this week or early next. In the mean time, you can read my latest “Back in the Game” column for Panels on Pages or listen to me yell about Marvel, Richie Rich and pouring gasoline in hipsters eyes on the latest Super-Fly Comics Podcast.

When I was in chemistry class during my junior year of high school, I made note of that fact that Boron gives away all of its electrons during a chemical bond by drawing a little Boron atom guy singing “Give it away, give it away, give it away now” in my notes, complete with a an Anthony Kiedis mohawk. I may have barely passed chemistry that year (and still may not fully understand what some of those words in the last sentence mean), but that’s stuck with me all these years. I like to think that Boron is a pretty cool guy, giving away his stuff like that.

In a similar vein, this July Smashwords is running their Summer/Winter (it’s winter south of the equator, so there’s no need to be hemisphere-ist) sale for the books on their site. My novel, SHADOW OF THE PAST, has been enjoying modest success on that site and during the Summer/Winter sale it will be like that plucky little Boron atom and be given it away, given away, given away now. Yes, with the coupon code “SSWSF” you can get it for the low, low price of Free. The self-publishing in the digital marketplace is a hell of a game, and as I struggle along trying to make a name for myself I’ve come to realize that there’s nothing better than just getting your name out there and letting people know what you have. Hopefully, folks will find the book, enjoy themselves and then leave a pleasant comment about it on the site. It is still available on Amazon for 99 cents, if you are so inclined to still pay for it. You can read sample chapters at both the Amazon and Smashwords pages, or here on the site. One of the nice things about Smashwords is that it supports downloads in a ton of different formats, including Kindle (or the free Kindle app, available for any smartphone), Nook, Kobo, PDF or even just straight up reading it on the screen.

It’s been an incredibly busy summer for me thus far. I’ve still got a couple of irons in the fire that I don’t want to jinx by talking about, but I’m hoping to have more free content available by the end of the month. As I mentioned before, I’m just over a year in to doing the Super-Fly Comics & Games podcast on the Panels on Pages PoP!-Cast Network, as well as writing for the site (primarily my weekly column “Back In The Game,” about my transition from comics retailer to civilian fanboy after 8 years in the business). That, plus visiting my folks in upstate New York for the first time in almost 5 years (and getting a wicked bad sunburn in the process) as well as traveling to Colorado this coming weekend for one of my oldest childhood friend’s wedding (where I will definitely be packing sunscreen).

Either way, if you’re having a hectic summer yourself and want to something fun to read to take your mind off your problems (and go “Hey, a fire-powered serial killer isn’t stalking me, so maybe things are going okay for me!”) then give SHADOW OF THE PAST a try.

For the past year I’ve been one of the hosts of The Super-Fly Podcast, the Official Podcast of Super-Fly Comics & Games broadcasting every Monday on the Panels on Pages.com PoP! Cast Network. It’s been a blast, and even though I’m no longer at Super-Fly full-time I still love doing the show and talking comics, games and other kinds of bullshit withe the good friends I still have there. If, for some reason, you haven’t heard the show before and are even remotely interested interested in comics, genre stuff and other things that are awesome, give it a try. You can check out the two clip shows our Audio Chewbacca Jared Whittaker put together here and here. Be warned, we do work “blue.”

If you have listened to the show, feel free to send us an email at superflycomics@gmail.com before we record Sunday evening with a question, comment, complaint or challenge for a street fight. It’s a celebration, let’s act like it!

This past week I’ve done a lot of thinking about what I want to work on next, as well as trying to zero in on what stories are churning at the very top of my imagination right now. The answer to both question always seems to come back as two words: comic books. I thought maybe I’d focus more on fiction now that the book is out, as it’s something I can work on and complete on my own (or with the help of proof-readers and editors). I’ve still got some stuff lined up, but I’ve wanted to get a comic project off the ground and running for years and years, but have just had too many false starts to get any traction going. However, I have a great opportunity in the form of a place to host a webcomic that has far more traffic than this little ‘ol site will ever have and I’d hate to let that go to waste. That and the comic project ideas are bursting at the seems in my head enough that I’ve got to get them down on paper lest they burn themselves out. I’ve been doing that, and it’s fulfilling yet frustrating, as I know that since I can’t draw they’re just going to hang out on the page unable to reach their full potential. Not only that it’s also easier for me to work on a comic project when I know how I’m drawing for, what style they’re working in and how the characters I’m writing are going to look and feel.

So yeah, once again I’m putting it out there that I’m looking for comic artist for a handful of projects I’ve got brewing. Two of them would fir perfectly as webcomics, as they seem to work best as 16-page chapters, and a couple more that are potential miniseries that I’d most likely want to start shopping around to publishers working with creator owned stuff, like Image. There’s a chance I might be able pay a small page rate in addition to sharing whatever publication money comes down the line but that’d have to be discussed.

In terms of what’s being drawn, I’ve got a project involving a cross-country road race (a supernatural Cannonball Run of sorts, with Werewolf bikers, gun-toting luchadores, and a godzilla-boy among others), a science-fiction/fantasy action mash-up with monsters and other strange humanoids (lizard people, devil moths, laser guns and flying buildings) and one that can be described simply as Dinosaurs, Robots and Cowboys. There are a couple of other things, but those are the three that my fevered imagination seems to think are the most pressing (and the rest of me thinks are damn fun). So if you’re looking to draw some comics, have some sequential page samples and the ability to get work done on some sort of regular basis (even if it’s just a page a week or two) then let’s chat. If you know folks that might fit the bill, let me know at thacher.e.cleveland at gmail.com (yes, I’m, avoiding evil spam robots). Being able to produce good work on a regular basis is key, which kind of goes without saying but is really key as I don’t want to miss out on this opportunity by not being able to actually deliver the goods, y’know?

Thanks!

It’s been a little over two weeks since Shadow of the Past was released on Smashwords and then a little under a week later it went up on Amazon. It’s been wild to see it actually out there where people can buy it. I’ve gotten a lot of support from friends and family thus far and I love the idea that other folks can discover it as well.

Of course, that means putting in a bit of legwork. As much, if not more so, as writing the thing took (granted, when I think about how long it took to write maybe not so much “more so”). To that end I’ve been making my way around the internet, finding places where I can talk about Shadow of the Past, find folks that are willing to review it and do other things that will get folks thinking and talking about it. There’s been a little bit of that, as I had a guest post on Lynnette Phillips’ “Avid Reader Book Reviews”, where I said this about Shadow of the Past:

The book went through draft after draft and change after change and as I gained more perspective on life I realized what I was really writing about. Sure, it’s got the spirit of a killer covered in smoke and fire wielding a sword cane and picking off Mark’s nearest and dearest, but that wasn’t what it was really about. It’s about feeling helpless and hopeless and overcoming that feeling. At the start of the book Mark is convinced that he’s going to be trapped where he is forever and that’s exactly where the Shadow Man hunting Mark wants him. This is about how Mark learns to confront that feeling and fight through it.

You can read the rest of it on her site. I’ve got another website interview lined up and am currently scoruing the web for more networking opportunities. If you have a favorite book-blog site or an idea of where would be a good place to try then let me know. If you’re on Goodreads, you can find Shadow of the Past there.

As important as this is, I’m also trying to keep focused on what my next project is going to be. If there’s anything that could be considered my biggest weakness it’s that I want to work on too many things at once. Being able to multi-task is a necessary skill, but when overused you end up with a lot of little things almost done but nothing concrete to show for it. I’ve done this a lot with my fiction, as I have a hard drive and notebooks filled with half-finished ideas and projects I’d like to work on. I’m doing my best to cut down on that as I move forward. As much as I want “Gifted,” one of my many comic projects, to get off the ground I don’t know if the time is right for it. There are some other comic ideas I’d like to get cracking on, but a lot of this involves finding the right artists to work with and giving all of us enough lead time to make sure the project comes out on a regular and timely basis. I do have some short stories, featuring paranormal private investigators Lexie Winston and George Churchill that I’m going to be putting up here with an eye to collection into a volume for sale. The first of which will hopefully be up by mid-May, and then once a month after that.

In the meantime, I hope those of you out there that haven’t picked up Shadow of the Past consider doing so, and those that have and have enjoyed it consider leaving a review on Amazon, Smashwords and/or Goodreads, as the more positive reviews it gets the higher it shows up in search results for folks that are looking for something cool to read.

I may have stumbled a little in getting this up by my self-imposed deadline as the run-up to C2E2 was rough and after the show itself I got a lingering sinus illness…thing, but we’ve powered past all of that and Shadow of the Past is now available for purchase for you, the book-loving public, via the eBook distribution site Smashwords. Through Smashwords you can make one purchase of the book (which is a bargain at $2.99!) and have it in as many eBook reader formats as you’d like: Amazon’s Kindle, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Sony’s reader or even plain text, HTML on the Smashwords site itself or a PDF that you can read on your computer screen. One purchase, all kinds of choices.

Click here to go to Shadow of the Past’s Smashwords page

There will be a proper Amazon page for the book coming soon (within the next 24 hours, if Amazon’s system isn’t lying to me) where you can buy directly from them, but I encourage you to give Smashwords a try in the meantime. Plus you can sample the first 20% of the book for free.

It’s been a wild journey with this book, so to be here is more than a little unreal. Thanks to all of those who’ve supported me thus far and continue to work to help me succeed. I’m humbled by the support of my friends and I hope that through their efforts people find the book and enjoy it. And if you do, please feel free to leave a review for it on the Smashwords (and eventually Amazon) pages.

Thank you, friends and readers, and I hope you enjoy.