How I Self-Published on KDP

I recently collected a bunch of my previously published short stories and poetry and bound them together in a self-published collection titled Classic Camp's Classic Horror Emporium. It is available now on Amazon here. After doing so, several people asked me how I published through Kindle Direct Publishing, and I kind of stammered through the answer. Not trying to be rude, but it was just one of those things that I figured out as I went along. So, I thought a blog post about how I self-published my first short story and poetry collection would be fitting since I have not blogged in a while.

First go to Amazon.com and sign in. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on Kindle Digital Publishing. I actually Googled KDP and found this shortcut later, but it brought me to the same page.  Click the big yellow button that reads + Create at the top. The next page asks what you would like to create, a Kindle e-book, paperback, hardcover, or a series. So far, I have only created a paperback and a Kindle e-book, but it appears the hardcover is pretty much the same as the paperback. I am not sure about how to create a series, yet.

So for the sake of this blog, I clicked paperback. It then asks you type in your book title and subtitle (the subtitle is optional). It is also optional to enter the edition number. You can then add up to nine other contributors, which is important if you ever want to create an anthology instead of a collection (an anthology being a collection of short stories and poetry from different authors and a collection being works from only one author).

Scrolling down the same page a little further, it then asks for a description of the book. For this, I used the forward from my collection. Next, you choose if you own this work or if it is a public domain work. I checked off that I own the work. After that, it asks if there are any sexually explicit images or language, and I checked off no for my work. Then it asks for the minimum and maximum ages for the work, and I chose 12 to 18+ because these works do not contain any real explicit language. They are pretty much PG-13.

Next, it asks for the primary marketplace, and I chose Amazon.com because all of the other choices are international markets. Choose your categories, such as "mystery, thriller, and suspense," or "fiction & literature" from a dropdown menu. This is so Amazon can categorize the work. There are also subcategories and placement to choose from. It asks for some keywords so your book can come up when related words are searched. I chose words like short stories, collection, nature poetry, gothic, etc. You can choose up to seven of them. Then choose if your publication date is the release date or if it was previously published, and finally choose if you want today to be your release date or if you want to schedule it for a future date. I chose the same day, but in the future, I may try to build some anticipation and choose a future date. Click save and continue.

Here you can let Amazon give you an ISBN number or enter your own if you have one. I just let Amazon give me one. Next, choose if your book is in black and white or color and if you want white or cream paper. Then choose the trim size. This is the size of paper your book will be and determines how you will need to format your file to upload. Choose bleed or no bleed depending on if the book has images. This is all laid out in the KDP instructions. Choose if the book cover should be matte or glossy. I like glossy book covers, personally.

Now you finally get to upload the manuscript, and this is where things grew a little hairy. I write everything in Microsoft Word, and through trial and error, I have learned that single space in Times New Roman works well for books, but you can choose whichever font you like. I do suggest single space, however, because it looks more professional. Then click the previewer to see how it lines up. Likely you will need to adjust the margins of the Word document until they align into the margins of the trim size you chose earlier. If you want page numbers, this can also be accomplished by clicking insert, and then going to page numbers and choosing the placement of those page numbers. To adjust margins in Word, go to view and check the box next to ruler, then click and drag the tiny box on the left to where it you want to margins. Click and drag the tiny triangle on the left because the pages have to be centered. Then click the part of the ruler on the left at the top of the page where the shaded portion meets the dark part of the ruler and drag it where you want the top and bottom margins. However, to get the page numbers into the trim margins on Kindle, double click in the top margin to open up the header and hit enter as many times as needed until the page numbers appear within the trim margin. I wound up readjusting my manuscript several times and reuploading it and previewing it over and over until I got everything to line up correctly. I believe there is a way for KDP to do this automatically, but I kind of liked doing this part manually so I know it was done right.

Next, choose the cover photo. Kindle has an option of uploading cover you have already created, or you can choose among the many covers they have created. I chose one of Kindle's previously made covers because I'm on a slow track of learning about this stuff on my own. You can also choose where the book title appears in various styles and fonts. I chose a different style for the title across the same cover image for my paperback and e-book versions, just to have some differentiation.

Amazon also asks you to indicate whether or not generative AI was used in the creation of the book. I obviously chose no.

Finally, choose the pricing for the book. I chose to have my book available in all territories. Pricing, royalties, and distribution gets a little confusing. My first self-published book, a short story titled, "House of Vergosi," which is also included in this new collection, I did not include in expanded distribution because it keeps the price down. This one I did choose expanded distribution because I believe it is available to more people in more areas around the world. I'm still not fully sure what the difference is, honestly, but I do know the book has to have a higher price if you choose expanded distribution. It will tell you what the whole sale price of the book will be and you can figure out how much you want to charge for it to earn a profit.

Finally, click publish your book. It is pretty much the same for the e-book version. Choose the price at the end again, and the break-even price is far lower for e-books. That's how I did it. Every author should try to self-publish at least once just to see what goes into the process. There are other platforms that will allow people to self-publish, but from what I've heard, Kindle is still the easiest and the best way to make any money. Speaking of which, getting the money earned from book sales is another process, which I may blog about at another time. I hope everyone found this process helpful.

I'm About to Become a Full-Time Writer (For 3 Months [Again])

 I hold three jobs that actually pay the bills. Like most writers, I like to consider my writing a job, a fourth job in my case. Sometimes I consider my membership to the HWA still a fifth job, since I attend meetings, and am the Virginia chapter's events coordinator, but it does not pay me any money. In fact, it costs me a little in membership fees, but I enjoy it nonetheless, and it does provide me connections and opportunities to the publishing world. My main gig that pays the pills is teaching as adjunct faculty at two higher education institutions, which means my summers are (mostly) off. I have a third job that pays a few bills, and I continue working there during the summers, but I still work far fewer hours during the summer months than I do during the school year.

So one of the main things I do during the summer is write, and write a lot more than I do at any other time of the year. It is my most productive season. Most of the short stories, poetry, and non-fiction projects I've published in the past were written during the summer months. That does not mean I do not write at all during other times of the year, but I do have months where I can devote more time to writing and publishing than other moths. My annual writing schedule is something like this:

January: I'm off the the few weeks, but recovering from the holidays. I still find quite a bit of time for writing.

February and March: Early in the semester, I have some time for writing, but once essays start coming in that need grading, my writing time starts to dwindle.

April: Essays pile up to nearly unmanageable levels. Very little writing gets done.

May: First half of the month is finishing up finals and grading, but once final grades are posted I write nearly a full time schedule.

June, July, and August: The nearly full time schedule continues and I can usually be pretty productive during the summer month. Even when classes first start up in late August, not much needs grading yet, so I still find quite a bit of time for writing.

September and October: Since I write primarily horror, these can also be particularly busy months, attending cons as well as classwork starting to pile up. Still, because I primarily write horror, it is also a particularly inspiring time of the year, so I can usually continue to work in at least some writing time.

November: Essays and other classwork piles up again, so not as much writing gets done, with the exception of Thanksgiving break.

December: Not much gets done in the beginning of the month, and after classes end, I usually plan a trip to see family for the holidays, but I still usually work in a decent amount writing time after the fall semester ends.

And if you don't think there's that much grading to do when teaching college English, here is a photo of a stack of items needing grading I took in days before everything was turned in digitally:

I read about 1000 pages of student writing per semester. I could be reading War and Peace twice annually.

But then the summer comes and I get to pretend to be a full-time writer for three months out of the year (albeit a very poor one, since I also do not get paid over the summer). Still, I always feel as though I could have and perhaps should have been more productive during those summer months. I do create an annual summer writing to-do list (along with a summer honey-do list I make up with the wife, where I work around the house and complete some household chores that need attention). So that end, (um, the writing one, not the honey-do list), I thought perhaps if I published my summer writing to-do list here, I will hold myself accountable and be more productive this summer than in years past, so to that end here it is:

1. Make a Word file of all my class notes, (One school I teach at is changing over from Blackboard regular to Blackboard Ultra, so my files may not be good any longer. Besides, I have been meaning to do this for a while now. I even applied for a stipend to have my notes published as an Open Educational Resource)
2. Finish putting together the short story and poetry collection for self-publication. This is a project I started during the spring semester, and it is pretty close to being finished already. It will feature most (but not all) of my previously published short stories and poems, and a few new short stories I have been shopping around for a while, and have decided to add to the collection.
3. Finish editing Blood of the Werewolf. It is so close to being ready to send to an agent or publisher. It only needs about 50 more pages of editing, and maybe one last quick passthrough for continuity. This is a top priority this summer.
4. Work on a rough draft of Osiris, the next in my series of historical horror tragedies. I'm thinking about joining Camp Nano to punch out a good portion of a rough draft in July.
5. Edit the short story "The Vampire's Coffin" which I did for a writing group recently. It's pretty short, so this should not take very long.
6. Finish that next section of Franksploitation non-fiction book and write the proposal on Frankenstein in film. I'm embarrassed at how many years this appears on the list and does not get done. Especially, since the sample chapters are actually pretty close to finished.
7. Edit and resubmit a non-fiction article on Ed Wood to a literary magazine. I have done this a few times, but still have not found the right market for it.

Aside from all that, I will continue to do my usual submitting more poetry and short stories to various publications. Chances are I will still not get all of this done even this summer, but it never hurts to shoot high. My hope is that publishing it here will help make me more accountable and hopefully more productive this summer.

How Long Have I been Editing My Current Novel? (It's Complicated)

 

Not long ago, I was in a monthly meeting with the HWA - Virginia Chapter when I was asked how long I had been editing my current work in progress (WIP), and I was not ready with an answer. I am sure whatever I said sounded evasive, but honestly, I had to think about that question for a while, and was not quite sure what the answer was. The more I thought about it, the more I felt it may make for an interesting blog post about my process and since this is apparently going to be my second completed manuscript ready for submission to agents and / or publishers very soon, it may also make for great promotion for this labor of love.

The current project is titled Blood of the Werewolf, and as the title suggests, it is a werewolf tale. The setting is the early 1800s Great Britain (with a few key scenes in Tibet), which places it in the same universe as my first completed manuscript, The Sorcerer, which is still under consideration at a small press publisher at the time of this writing. I will one day blog about why I have chosen that location and timeframe, but the short version of that answer is, it is the era of literature I studied in college.

Anyway, I began my college career in the mid-1990s and it was around this same timeframe that I started thinking about becoming a author. It turns out to be a very long, hard, and slow process. One thing I did for fun and practice was to write novelizations of some of my favorite horror movies, such as those from Universal Studios. I had no intention of getting these published, but it was a way to try my chops at writing something of some length.

It made me start to think about writing my own stories about vampires, werewolves, and mummies, so I started writing a few longer pieces, more so for my own amusement once again than with any intension of trying to get it published. Once I had a few of these under my belt, I started thinking more seriously about writing a full length novel and hopefully one day getting it published. I decided that with some major revisions, these projects could be made into full length novels.

Those who say writing for yourself is very different from writing for publication are certainly correct. These stories needed a lot of work. In their original form they were only the length of novellas and novelettes as they ranged from 12,000 to 17,00 words. Most publishers like novels to be around 80,000 words. They needed extra scenes, backstories, more thoughts and emotions from characters and other elements to flush them out into full-length novels and make them much better stories in the process. At their heart, they were already novels, really, they just needed to be flushed out to reach their true potential. The first of these stories I did this with was what is now titled The Sorcerer, and in its final form it reached the industry standard for a finished novel at 80,000 words. The second is the one I am working on now, Blood of the Werewolf.

So to finally return to the question above (You do remember the question above, don't you, "How long have I been editing my current novel?") The original 17,000 word version was completed sometime in the late 1990s. Then it was placed in a drawer for a very looooong time. I completed The Sorcerer, and edited it I don't even know how many times, until I decided I could no longer edit it. I finally put what at the time were the finishing touches on The Sorcerer around 2017. And I finally started a major revision of Blood of the Werewolf. But the question now is, does revision count as editing? I would say that since this revision was so massive, it is probably does not count as true editing. It became practically a new story.

But then in 2019 I received a mentorship from Tim Waggoner through the Horror Writers Association. He gave me some good feedback on that novel and insight as to why it was not attracting agents or publishers yet. In order to make Blood of the Werewolf come out right, I had to put it down once again and edit The Sorcerer one last time. This took about another year, which brings us to 2020, the year of Covid. I did work on it some during the pandemic, but like many other authors and publishers, no one was as productive as we wanted to be during those odd two years.

The editing process for Blood of the Werewolf I believe started around 2020 or 2021 (not counting the major revision years). I am now very close to getting this one finished and should have it done very soon. I'm editing page 306 out of 363 and it now totals almost 79,000 words. I will make sure it reaches at least 80,000 words by the time I am finished. It may need one more pass through before I am comfortable sending it out to publishers and agents, but that should only be a light edit to clean up a few things and ensure continuity throughout the novel.

I feel as though I am getting faster and better at this, and I've never missed a deadline when I've been given one. I am also getting excited to write more follow-ups to these stories, as I have one more, Osiris, that is in a very rough draft at about 13,000 words, and I have notes on numerous others in the series. The fact that I have been able to publish more short stories, poems, and non-fiction articles in recent years also shows I am improving. And keep in mind that I also wrote many of those short stories, poems, and non-fiction articles in between revising and editing these novels. Wish me luck with these and other projects in the future, so that I can post this self-made meme once again:

Recent Cons & Photos

 I thought I would do another one of those blog posts where I present some recent photos. I have been making a few appearances at various cons to sell books and sign people up the Horror Writers Association. I thought I'd throw in a few photos from last Halloween for good measure, so here goes.

Here is the table I set up at Monster Fest at the Chesapeake Central Library in Chesapeake, Virginia in October of last year.

It is with great sadness that I announce the passing of my friend Paul Knight, who was sometimes known as Pauzilla. He always remembered me and my family on Halloween.

Here is another attendee from Monster Fest, who was working a puppet on that day.

I entered the costume contest at Monster Fest as a famous movie murderer from a movie directed by Alfred Hitchcock and a book penned by Robert Bloch. I also moderated a panel on how to write scary scenes in horror which featured Red Lagoe, Pam Kinney, and Justin Cristelli.

Here are last year's yard decorations for Halloween.

The wife and I went out dressed as Jason Voorhees and Ahsoka Tano.

Here was the band for that night, Everafter, at Big Woody's in Chesapeake. I loved their costumes.

There's Laurie Camp as Ahsoka again at Big Woody's.

My daughter, Delaney, also got into the spirit of Halloween and dressed as Pearl from the movie of the same name.

Delaney always challenges me to do a difficult jack-o-lantern. This year, she challenged me to make a Frankenstein Monster. Of course that's Laurie dressed as a ghost in our driveway where we handed out candy.

An now we're up to January where I ran a table at Mars Con in Virginia Beach. This was a rather elaborate costume that I felt was photo-worthy.

A few other authors at Mars Con included, from back to front, Pam Kinney, Sidney Williams, yours truly, and Bryn Grover. It was fun meeting up with the other HWA members and talking with them.

And finally, Laurie entered the costume contest at Mars Con, again as Ahsoka, but don't call her a jedi.

My First StokerCon

I attended my first StokerCon in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania recently, and took a few photos, which I shared below. I am from Erie, Pennsylvania originally, which is only about 2 hours north of Pittsburgh, so I figured if I didn't make it to this StokerCon, I may never make it to one. You can tell I am from Erie because I just measured distance in time. Anyway, there was a Taylor Swift concert going on not far away, so I could not get a hotel room at the actual con, but found one about 10 minutes away (and I just measured distance with time again. It's an Erie thing, although I imagine a few other areas do that too.). I started out getting a late lunch next door to the con, at the Hard Rock Cafe. I love Hard Rocks, and eat at one every chance I get, especially ones I have not eaten at yet, like this one.

I met up with my friend and author of many books, both fiction and non-fiction, Pam Kinney. We chatted at length about Pittsburgh and current projects. She always has something going on.

I attended several public readings, including this one with another friend I knew online, but this was my first chance to meet him in person, Rami Ungar, seen here in the middle with the top-hat. He was reading from his upcoming short story anthology, Hannah and Other Stories. Next to Rami is Gabino Iglesias, who won this year's Superior Achievement in a Novel for The Devil Takes You Home. He read from his current work-in-progress. On the ends are Jeremiah Dylan Cook on the left and Barbara Cottrell on the right.

I also attended several presentations and panels, which I often enjoy. I won't go into details about them because it would take too much space to do them justice in a blog post such of this length, but I always find them very informative and interesting.

The panel below is from the Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference portion of StokerCon, proving genre fiction, even in the horror genre, can be considered academic.

Between all the panels and presentations, I was able to stop at a Pittsburgh favorite, Primanti Brothers. I love going to local eateries wherever I go. This location of Primanti's was within walking distance of the con and coincidentally was the original location. It is local Pittsburgh legend that their sandwiches were created because the owners forgot to purchase silverware, so they put the coleslaw and French fries into the sandwich. The steel workers at the time enjoyed the sandwich so much, they kept it as their staple. That's an I.C. Light (Iron City Light), the local brew, to wash it down.

I finally got to mee my mentor, Tim Waggoner, face-to-face. I blogged about some of the things he taught me when he was my mentor in a previous post. He also walked away with a Stoker Award during the weekend event. Unfortunately, we did not get a chance to talk for long because he's kind of a BMAC at the HWA, but we did talk briefly about current projects and he agreed to pose for the selfie. Perhaps another time . . .

I also went to the Mass Author Signing where I purchased a number of books from fellow HWA members and got many of them to autograph their books for me. In the center is Classic Monsters Unleashed, edited by James Aquilone. I've had my eyes on that anthology for some time because it contains new stories about all the classic monsters such as Dracula, werewolves, the invisible man, and others. Stories that will truly interest me. I am very much looking forward to reading these other books as well.

And that was my trip to StokerCon in Pittsburgh. It was a great time, and I hope to attend another one some time.

Last year's Monster Fest

Let's take a look at a few photos from last year's Monster Fest, which took place on October 1, 2022, in Chesapeake, Virginia at the Chesapeake Central Library.

I worked the table for the Horror Writers Association where I signed up a few prospective members for the organization. The table was positioned between other HWA members, authors Red Lagoe and Pam Kinney. Author Brad Center also worked the table during the day.

I watched the costume contest, which is always fun. These are this past year's winners. I always consider the costume contest to be the main event of Monster Fest each year.

 Here is me displaying the line-up of events for the day. The HWA Virginia Chapter ran a panel / presentation on the importance of joining writing organizations. Overall, it was another fun event put on by Rob and Phyllis Floyd.

My Latest Short Story Sale

I am particularly excited about my latest short story sale for several reasons. For one thing, it is always exciting to make a short story sale, obviously, but this sale is particularly exciting. My latest short story sale is "Beheaded" (I love that title, by the way, but again, that's not why I am particularly excited about this sale). It will appear in the anthology Madame Gray's Poe-Pourri (cover pictured above) with the publisher, HellBound Books.

I have submitted to other anthologies with HellBound Book, but this was the first one they have actually accepted so far. All these are great reasons to be proud of this short story sale, and they are all reasons that I am proud of this short story sale. But there is one reason that makes me particularly proud of this specific short story sale.

The thing that makes me particularly proud of this short story sale is the fact that I consider this story, "Beheaded," to be part of the same universe as my first completed novel-length manuscript, The Sorcerer and my current work in progress, Blood of the Werewolf. That proves to me, and hopefully one day to a publisher, that stories in this universe can and will sell.

That universe is Romantic England (note the capital R in Romantic). It is similar enough to Victorian England that fans will be able to identify with both eras. It is the era just before the Victorian Era, usually noted as 1800 to 1835 in England. It is also my favorite literary era, with its love of nature and "spontaneous overflow of emotions." And it is the literary era I studied in college.

For more information on these works, you can see my previous blog-post on Shameless Self-Promotion. And for more information on this anthology, here is the link to HellBound Books. 

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.

Collaborative writing

 

(My dog, Ahsoka, and cat, Serenity, collaboratively sleeping together)

There is something to be said in favor of collaboration when writing. On some level all writing needs to be collaborative. Now I'm not talking about so much collaboration that the story is no longer your own, but on the other end, there can be great advantages to letting others read your story and provide feedback.

Recently, I've managed to find a few beta readers for some of my short stories, and I received incredibly useful feedback. With the internet age, finding beta readers has become easier. Instead of going out and finding people in the real, live, three-dimensional world, one can post on a Facebook group, or other social media platform, that you have a short story you would like feedback on.

In many circles, you may have to pay an editor to do this, but there is a way around this. If you do not have the money to pay an editor, you can offer to read someone else's short story in exchange. The point is, it will cost you something. If you cannot afford to pay money, you will have to pay with time.

I also don't want to take anything away from paying a good editor. If you do have the money, chances are they may provide better feedback. But offering to read someone else's story can certainly be another viable option. Also, it allows you to read what other writers are working on and see how your own work matches up.

I recently had the opportunity to exchange short stories with a few other writers, and the feedback I received was excellent. It is certainly an experience I will try to replicate in the future. It was spot on in almost every case. Keep in mind, your stories are always your own, and you do not have to make changes that you feel will weaken your story. But in my case, the vast majority of suggestions were viable, and helped the stories overall. There were only a few suggestions I chose not to follow because I did not feel comfortable with them.

If you take any creative writing course that is worth anything, you will be asked to change stories and provide and receive feedback. This is almost always the most important part of the course. So if you cannot afford a creative writing course, this can also be an alternative to that as well. So go out and give and get feedback on your current works. It is invariably a key part of the writing process.

Although I Have to Say Goodbye to the Summer.

Summer is just about over 😥. Being a horror fan and a horror writer, this is bitter-sweet. Summer is still my favorite season of the year, despite the fact that Halloween comes in the fall. So as I say goodbye to the warm weather and sunshine that summer brings, I at least get to say hello to some good television, stores filled with spooky decorations, and my favorite cereals making their return.

But the end of summer is also a time to reflect on what writing accomplishments I've managed to accumulate this year. I managed to publish only one work so far (several pieces are still out, awaiting response), a poem at Lite Lit One. But I also managed to write the first two chapters of Franksploitation,and had a meeting with my unofficial academic advisor about the project. He was very positive and encouraging about it. He even mentioned a book contract possibility already.

My total word count for the summer was about 25,000 words. I was hoping to produce almost double that, but I hit a wall during the second half of the summer, and couldn't seem to produce much of anything. I'm still working to get over that wall, and I think I'm pretty close. Of course, now my semester is starting again, so time to write will once again become an hiderance. Among those words, was about 9,000 words toward the Franksploitation nonfiction project, about 7,000 words toward my current fiction work in progress, Blood of the Werewolf, three band new short stories, and several new poems. Reading the blogs of other educators, I can console myself with the idea that no one ever seems to reach their summer writing goals.

I also found a new writers group to join in nearby Smithfield, Virginia. I never realized there was such a rich writing community in little Smithfield, but there are several published authors in that writing group, and we attended a presentation from another published author for one meeting. They provided valuable feedback on some of those new short stories I wrote this summer.

Additionally, I attended several events with the Horror Writers Association Virginia Chapter, where I was able to do some public readings, and talk with other published authors. I count this as more valuable experience.

As summer winds down, I'm mainly concentrating on my teaching duties. I starting teaching part time at another community college, along with my already busy schedule of two other higher education facilities. During the summer, I managed to land two interviews for full time positions with higher education facilities, but was unable to land either of those positions. This is still encouraging as it means I am gaining ground in this field. I will continue to write and submit, and hope for the best, while trying to pick up on more tips and helpful hints along the way to make me a better writer. Good luck to you as well.

My First Horror Writers Association Virginia Chapter Event

There are perks to membership. I have lately been blogging about some of those perks here. And recently, I have another story about just great this type of membership is.

Recently, I was able to participate in my first event with the Horror Writers Association Virginia Chapter, which was Unhappy Hour at the Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond. It was a lot of fun. I was able to finally meet some fellow HWA members face-to-face who live in the area (or at least in the same state).

I also participated in my first public reading. It was a fellow member's piece, but it was lesson worth learning; from now on I will bring at least one piece to read just in case the opportunity arises. But at least I was able to provide a little publicity for a fellow member.

I was able to slip away for a quick tour of the museum, which I hadn't seen in about 15 years or more.

Oh yes, did I mention there were free drinks for HWA members?

We had a booth to sign up new potential members. Members with books to sell were able to do so.

I handed out a few business cards to maintain publicity for my current non-fiction project, Frankspoitation.

Oh yes, and drinks, I did mention the free drinks didn't I?

Anyway, here are some photos from the event.

What I Learned by Having a Mentor

This is author Tim Waggoner. He has been my mentor for the past few months. The mentoring program is over now, but I thought I'd share some of what I learned through the experience.

First let me go over how I got a mentor. I signed up for the Horror Writers Association mentoring program about six months before I was accepted. In fact, I had forgotten I signed up for the mentoring program by the time I was accepted. But it came at an important time. My writing had hit a plateau. I'm finally able to publish one or two short stories or poems a year at some small publications for nominal fees, but I just can't seem to break through to the next level. I'm really hoping the advice he provided will help me be able to publish with more regularity at larger publications. This made me very excited to have acquired a mentor in the first place.

When they told me who my mentor was, I felt like I had some homework to do (and some cyber-stalking). I had heard of him, but needed more information. Turns out, he's published over 40 books, some of which have received some critical acclaim, including the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Long Fiction and he was a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award. He's also published several short story collections. He's even published some novels with movie, television, and video game tie-ins, such as "Supernatural," Nightmare on Elm Street, and Resident Evil. I had to confess I felt a little overwhelmed and out of my league (and I probably was).

Tim's website can be found here.

Anyway, the first thing I sent him was my completed novel manuscript, The Sorcerer, and then I sent him a sample short story I had recently written. He provided a lot of criticism and advice to improve. One thing of note, If you are planning to become a writer you have to be prepared for all sorts of criticism. Even if you plan on self-publishing you need to be prepared for bad reviews from readers, and arguing with negative reviews only makes you look even more foolish.

His criticism basically broke down to two main ideas. One was that my characters needed to have stronger reactions to supernatural events. I write mainly horror and other genre fiction, so there should be some pretty strong reactions from my characters. There was some, but not enough, not nearly enough. For whatever reason, I could not see how little there was until he mentioned it. I guess that's the power a mentor can have.

The other was that I needed to start using a technique called "scene and sequel." He provided a link to the technique, but I found another that seemed to suit my needs a little better. This is supposed to be the technique that draws readers in and keeps them reading to the very end of a story. I went ahead and made some notes in one of my notebooks about the technique as well, and try to keep it handy whenever I write fiction.

The last thing I sent him was a PowerPoint of several chapters of Frankspoitation, the the non-fiction book I've been working on about Frankenstein films. He was far less critical of this, and felt it helped him see some of these films in a new light. I'm pretty close to sending a few sample chapters to a former professor of mine who's agreed to help me out on it. I'll blog about this again soon.

But the lessons Tim provided me concerning my fiction writing will not be forgotten. He's even agreed to keep in touch so I can ask him further questions when needed. I've since rewritten the short story I sent him and have written a few new ones, hopefully using many of the techniques he suggested. Remember that your story is always yours, ultimately, but feedback is still excruciatingly important. In fact it's crucial. I'm still looking for a critique group either online or in person. I'll keep at it, and hopefully keep improving, and hopefully I've provided some information here that others can use as well.

Finding Time

They say time ⏰ is a human construct. It doesn't really exist, except that humans have devised a way to measure it. If this is true, it is good news to the writer, because we are at a constant battle with it. Things have been pretty busy for me lately, which is why I haven't had much time to blog, and is why I've decided to talk about what to do when real life is leaving you with little time to write. I had the end of another semester recently, which is always a busy time of the year. Then I had a honey-do list of activities that was ignored for longer than it should have been. Along with all of this, I've had some personal issues that required a lot of my attention. Obviously, this has left me with little time to write or blog. So I thought I would take some time to talk about what I have accomplished in these last (good lord, has it been almost two months already) since my last blog, and how to steal as much time as possible to write during life's little moments like these.

I did manage to finish the introductory chapter to my book on Frankenstein in film, Franksploitation, and I'm writing the first chapter. My goal is to get a few chapters of this completed before the end of the summer. I also managed to outline the rest of the book, and make lists of films I would like to cover in each of those chapters. Just this week I also managed to write a mystery short story. It's the first mystery I've managed to complete, but not the first I've attempted.

I've read some writers who claim a writer has to write every day, regardless of outside influences. I suppose this may be true if you've already reached the level of writing full time as the main source of your income, but for many of us this is just not realistic. However, I will say the shorter the breaks the better, and it is important to steal a few moments whenever possible. I am much better at night, sometimes just before bed. Sometimes I have to quit because I'm just so sleepy I cannot concentrate any more, but if I can get in even a few hundred words, I call it a victory. If you are more of a morning person, you may want to plan on waking up early.

The main thing is to keep going, keep writing, and keep trying. Even if this means taking breaks that last, days or even weeks. Just don't beat yourself up over it. Write as much as you can whenever you can. I've had a few personal setbacks lately, and it can be hard to remain positive. But when this happens, it is equally important to remain focused on the goals and keep striving to improve.⏰⏰

Eat me! Thanksgiving Horror

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I got to thinking (dangerous, I know), what horror stories go well with this holiday? And eventually, it came to me: Cannibalism stories!

So let's hear it, what are some of your favorite stories involving cannibalism, either in books, short stories, or film? I want to hear about all sorts of stories that involve people eating people in all of its various forms.

By the way, the photo is from my Facebook group. You can join us here.

My First Scholarship Haul

I received my first haul from the Horror Writers Association Rocky Wood Memorial scholarship for Non Fiction Writing recently (pictured above). I'm pretty sure the contents at this stage will make sense only to me, but I will attempt to explain them anyway.

The books with the face cover are my methodology, Kenneth Burke's dramatistic pentad (or pentad on dramatism). It is considered a pragmatic approach to analyzing literature, or any other rhetoric. I will post more thoroughly on this at a future date.

Next to Burke is the first film purchase, Jess Franco's Dracula Prisoner of Frankenstein. I have a few other outlets to get films, but am pretty sure I will not be able to get this one from any other source, so I placed it in this first order. It's also a film I've been trying to hunt down for about 20 years. Jess Franco is (sort of) the Ed Wood of Europe, I like to call him. He makes horrible films, but has a certain amount of enthusiasm for the horror genre, which I can very much appreciate.

Below that are two books that I chose to order first because I think I can use them for far more than just this project. The Golden Turkey Awards is a list of the worst movies ever made. It didn't have as many Frankenstein films in it as I had hoped, but it is a fun read.

Next to that is a far more serious study, that of homosexuality in film, The Celluloid Closet. It is essential for one chapter, but it is a very important chapter, the one on James Whale's Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein, which I will examine together. Whale was one of the first openly gay figures in Hollywood. I would also like to use the book to write another article or two on Whale and the horror genre in general that will be separate from this book project. The book doesn't look exclusively at horror, but LGBTQ images in Hollywood.

I've also finalized the title of my book, Franksploitation and the Rhetoric of Filmed Frankenstein. I will be posting much more about it in the future, so please keep checking back, and don't be afraid to subscribe.

My First Pitch Party

I'd been reading for some time that Twitter is the place for writers these days so I joined a while back. From there I learned that they occasionally have pitch parties, where agents and presses ask you to pitch your book using a specific hashtag. If any agents or acquisitions editors favorite ❤ your pitch, they are asking you send them a query.

The pitch party I participated in was specifically for horror and dark fiction, with the hashtag #PitDark, and here is what I learned. I made several pitches (the rules stated it was okay to make up to one pitch per hour), one general, and several pitches from the perspective of some of the main characters. Only one of my pitches received a ❤, but it was from two different acquisitions editors. This helped me figure out what kind of posts attract the most attention from decision makers in the publishing industry. When I sent the query I changed it a bit to better match the successful Tweet. And by the way, it hinged on the stakes of the story. So makes the stakes large and important.

Last night I sent my two queries, a little wiser about how to write them. By the way the winning Tweet was:

"The Times of London reporter, Leonard Atmore, has been handed the strangest story of his career, but it is so fantastic that if he prints it no one will believe him and his career will be ruined. If he doesn’t print it, hell could take over the earth."

Meantime, don't forget to eat your Monsters cereals. It's that time of year again.

About That Scholarship

Last blog post I talked about some recent successes I've had as a writer. It's been a while, but I finally have a few. On the other hand, I also had another rejection letter in my inbox the other day too. Anyway, the biggest of those success was winning the Horror Writers Association Rocky Wood Memorial Scholarship for Non-Fiction Writing. This has led to some interesting developments so far. One of the schools I work for, Paul D Camp Community College, set me up to be interviewed by the local newspaper, the Suffolk New Herald,  for an article. I also notified my alma mater magazines. We'll see if they choose to cover this or not.

This is not some ego burst, but an attempt to draw up some interest in the project to hopefully sell books whenever I can finish it and get it to an agent and/or publisher. I'm also working on a presentation for Monster Fest next week on this very project.

I actually applied to both the Rocky Wood Memorial Scholarship and the regular HWA Scholarship. Sometimes you have to throw your hat into many rings before one decides to take you in, just like my last blog post, "Throwing Shit Against the Wall." After they reviewed all applicants for several weeks, I received an email asking if I could be more specific about what I will do with their funds. So I did several things to accomplish this. The easiest was to create a wish list on Amazon.com.

I also knew I might need money for photos for the book, but I had no idea about the legalities of even using photos for books. I did know one thing, however, I knew David J. Skal wrote what I consider the best horror book I've ever read (and I've read a few), with The Monster Show. I friended Skal on Facebook, and interacted with him enough. This was not enough for me to say I "knew him" but enough to know he seems very approachable about this topic. So I Googled his name and found his author page, which provided me with his email, and I asked him about how to get photos. He proved to be as approachable as I previously thought as he replied to my email within 2 hours. I added this to my budget.

The third part of my budget was to purchase research articles. I work for two different higher education facilities, which allow me access to their article databases. These databases are enormous, and can provide a large amount of the information I'll need to write the book for free. However, while the majority of these articles are free, sometimes you have get an inter-library loan to get some of the articles. And these inter-library loan articles are often not free. I searched for some articles I knew I would have to pay for to get an idea of how much to budget for this. I found two articles that I felt were exemplary, one cost $6 and the other $36. So I budgeted as though these were the higher end and lower end of the articles I'd need.

They reviewed this for about another week or so, and then sent me an email telling me I won the scholarship. Now some of my colleagues at Paul D Camp are asking if I can do a presentation on my progress as I go. And I still need to contact someone to help me with the methodology, but that's a topic for another blog post.

Throwing Shit Against the Wall

I am from a blue-collar town in Pennsylvania, Erie to be exact. For whatever reason, everything up there relates back to various excrements and the crotch. We don't say a business went belly up, we say it went "tits-up." If an idea didn't work out, we say it "shit the bed." It's just part of the colorful way we talk.

So when we're trying all sorts of things to be successful, sometimes we'll say we're just "throwing shit against the wall to see what sticks." For some time now, I've been doing just that, and FINALLY, I have a few things that have stuck. Mind you, most of these things I was working on all summer in the hopes of drumming up some business during my slow time of the year as adjunct faculty. But then when things began to come in, it really began to pour.

First off, I spent part of my summer shopping my resume and a few clippings around to a few of the newspapers in the area to try and drum up business, keep busy, and bring in a few extra dollars. Well, they finally got back to me as soon as classes started again. I'll still work in a few articles into my busy schedule. I feel it is important for a writing teacher to continue writing for an audience anyway. And getting paid for it is always better than not.

Then the poem I sold at the beginning of summer is finally published in Teach. Write. Here it is. I seem to have a regular place to publish some of my more literary works since this is the second time they published my work. I have a personal essay I worked on over the summer that still needs some work, but when I do send it out, I will likely send it to them first. I like the publication a lot, and I think the piece is a good fit for them anyway. Their homepage is here.

Third, and most importantly, I just won the Horror Writers Association Rocky Wood Memorial Scholarship for Non-Fiction Writing for a non-fiction book idea I have on the history of Frankenstein in film. This is actually a really big deal. They split the award between myself and another writer, Joseph Maddrey, who seems like a real heavyweight, having published eight books and written and produced over 50 hours of documentary television. It's a tremendous honor just to be named in the same breath with someone with these kinds of accomplishments.

I'm sure I'll post much more about this scholarship and the project in the coming weeks and months. In the meantime, since winning this scholarship, I've received two more rejection letters in my email, but somehow, they don't seem so bad now.