Shameless Self-Promotion

 

I was sending out my old manuscript for The Sorcerer to another small press recently, and their submission guidelines said their authors should be prepared to promote their work nearly every day. Most small presses, and even many large presses, want their authors to do quite a bit of their own promotion. Perhaps it has always been this way, but I think most people in the writing and publishing industry would say authors are expected to do more of their own promotion that at any time in the past. And most of that promotion at this stage should be about my current projects.

Then just today, I was in my Horror Writers Association-Virginia chapter meeting when we got to the end of the meeting, the point where we all discuss our current projects, and I spouted off a few items I have out for consideration. When they moved on to another member, it occurred to me that I had an intriguing story about my current manuscript project, Blood of the Werewolf but forgot to mention it.

With that in mind, here is that (hopefully) intriguing story:

I am currently in the editing process of Blood of the Werewolf, when I reached a scene that needed a total revision. Why? Because one of the characters was supposed to leave town by train, but the story takes place in 1815 England. When I researched the history of train travel, I discovered this was about 15 years too early for regular train travel. While many of my horror writing cohorts are researching far more interesting things like types of poisons and how much bloodloss a human can endure, I spent my writing session researching the history of train travel and the history of slippers. Anyway, it is a pivotal scene that cannot be totally deleted, so I must revise it in a way that the character uses a different mode of transportation. The most obvious mode of transportation would be ship.

This opened up an interesting possibility for the story. I want both The Sorcerer and Blood of the Werewolf to take place within the same universe, and it would be even better if they had another direct connection. But up until now they did not have any connections other than parts of both stories take place in England in the 1810s. The Sorcerer actually concerns a man who owns a shipping company. So this character in Blood of the Werewolf will now travel via the Nichols Shipping Company because it is the name of the shipping company the character in The Sorcerer owns, giving the two novels the type of direct connection I was hoping to create for them.

Oh yes, the photo above is me promoting a public presentation at Monster Fest.