Scott F. Falkner's Blog

RIGHT NOW

In years past, going way back to the days of “The Daily Cave,” I used to do a part reflection/part horoscope sort of thingy blog post right around New Year’s Eve. This year, as evidenced by January being half-over, I decided not write such a post. Maybe I’m older. Maybe I’m wiser. Maybe I have better things to do.

I just don’t see the benefit in dwelling on the past too much any more. On the other hand, writing about what you’re “going” to do is a sure fire way to end up not doing it.

But I digress. Let’s talk about what’s done. Now. In January of 2014.

I’ve finished three short stories so far this year and the pilot script for a television show. I’ve set some new ground rules for reading and writing in the new year, but the specifics are for me and me alone. What all this means is that you should be able to read some new stuff soon. I’ll let you know when.

All the best in a great new year.

Scott

IT’S ALMOST HERE!

FALKNERCAST will be up very, very, soon.

Here’s a teaser.

FREE SIGNED BOOK

Hey – Unbeknownst Entertainment, the publisher of “The Feast of Catchville” just put up a contest to win a free signed copy. All you have to do is leave a review of “The Feast of Catchville Author’s Preferred Edition” on Amazon before January 31st, send an email to ‘em that says you left the review (ueweb@unbeknownstentertainment.com) and they’ll pick a winner at random on Feb. 1st.

The winner gets a signed, paperback copy of the new edition of “The Feast of Catchville,” by yours truly.

You can leave a review on the paperback OR kindle page, apparently. And, to the best of my knowledge you needn’t have purchased your copy of the book from Amazon – just have an Amazon account.

(For that matter, if you read the original version of “Feast” (by Stonegarden Books) and want to leave a review of that under the “Author’s Preferred Edition” Amazon page… I won’t tell if you don’t.)  

Official rules are up on the UE SITE.

Best of luck.

NOW AVAILABLE

The Feast of Catchville Author’s Preferred Edition is now available in both paperback and kindle versions! Here’s the official release blurb from Unbeknownst Entertainment:

Scott F. Falkner’s terriffying breakthrough novella is back in an all new Author’s Preferred Edition! 

University professors Seth and Anne Landon need a weekend away from their hectic lives. They head to scenic Catchville, Wisconsin in hopes of spending a few days at the rustic Bennington Hotel. But something is working its way across the Northwoods, something with an insatiable hunger…

…something that intends to feast on Catchville. 

Seth and Anne will soon long for their hectic lives. 

Includes an all new introduction by the author and a sample chapter from the forthcoming Author’s Preferred Edition of Falkner’s horrific paranormal suspense novel, “Swaybuck.” 

And here’s some folks telling you that it doesn’t suck:

“A must read for any fan of the horror genre.”    - Midwest Book Review

“A cult classic.”    - Horror World

“The Feast of Catchville is near-perfect suspense. Tight, fast, and scary as hell.”    - Horror Cram Annals

The Paperback is available HERE for a little over six bucks, and the Kindle version is available HERE for .99 cents – (or FREE under the Kindle Loan Program if you have the Amazon Prime thing-a-ma-jig.)

The holidays are coming up, and The Feast of Catchville Author’s Preferred Edition makes a great gift. I guarantee it.

WRITING CLASS RECAP

Last Wednesday I taught a class at a local library on writing, publishing, and selling your book. The class was well attended, and from what I hear most attendees enjoyed it.

One thing that’s come up since the class: Three of the attendees have sent me friend requests on Facebook. During the class, I talked about how an author should have a “professional” fb page and a “personal” one. Talk about not practicing what you preach. I’m afraid I only have a personal fb page at the moment, but hopefully that’ll change in the near future.

In the meantime, I’m hoping that those of you who sent me friend requests are on Twitter. Please head on over and “follow” me on twitter here: https://twitter.com/ScottFalkner and I swear I’ll “follow” you back – Scouts Honor.

All right, in other class news, I had a request by a bunch of you that I post the Power Point I used in the class online. I think we figured out a way to do it. Just follow this link to download it:

http://www.unbeknownstentertainment.com/WC1.odp

The “power point” is actually an Openoffice.org Impress file. So if all else fails, just download OpenOffice for free to view it. I think that’s all for now.

Big Book News will be posted here shortly…

THE WEEK AHEAD

On Wednesday evening, I’ll be teaching a writing/publishing/marketing class at the public library in Rice Lake, Wisconsin. As such, the next few days will be dedicated to prepping for that class. As I stated in an earlier post, we’ll be discussing the writing process, defining the terms “writer” and “books,” taking a look at the current, ever-changing cyclone that is the publishing industry, and exploring guerilla marketing tactics when it comes to selling books. The class is free and open to the public. More info: http://www.ricelakelibrary.org/

In book news, the Author’s Preferred Edition of “The Feast of Catchville” was supposed to be available last week, but we hit a minor snag in the development. Nothing major, but we wanted to make sure the book is absolutely perfect before releasing it to the world. That said, I’m hoping it’ll be ready for World Domination in the next week or so. Sorry about the delay – but it really was a question of quality over expedience. 

Pulp King Honorable Mention

Well. This is just one of the coolest things that’s happened to me in quite some time. Yours truly was mentioned on Brian Keene’s website.

That’s right.

Me.

On Keene’s website.

Good times. Noodle salad.

 

Here’s the linkage: http://www.briankeene.com/2013/10/25/pulp-king/

Catchville Author Preferred Edition Cover

I am very, very happy with the new cover for the Author’s Preferred Edition of “The Feast of Catchville.” Artist Nadia Cochran from UE did the artwork and design, and again, I couldn’t be happier.

The book should be available before Halloween.

HOT FOR TEACHER

Riiiight…

Any-hoo, on Wednesday, November 13th, I’ll be teaching a class on “Writing, Publishing, and Selling Your Book,” at the public library in Rice Lake, Wisconsin. The class starts at 7:00 PM and is free to attend. We’ll be covering what it “means” to be a writer, overcoming self-doubt and dealing with others in your life as you start the writing process. We’ll cover writing and book basics with respect to genre. We’ll cover publishing possibilites at the dawn of the 21st Century – from conventional to indie to self. We’ll talk about what happens after you get someone to believe in your book – as that’s when the ‘real’ work starts. We’ll talk about getting your books into the hands of readers, and keeping them there.

All in all, it should be a great time. I’m planning the class to last a few hours, but I’m not putting a time limit on it. I’m hoping a lot of you are interested and can attend.

 

In other news, the Author Preferred Edition of “The Feast of Catchville” is going through it’s last minute checks and balances and is scheduled to be released the last week of October. (Just in time for All Hallows Read!)

COMMERCIAL-FREE & GILLIGAN

Earlier today while doing some work around the house, I was listening/watching a documentary off of Youtube on Frank Miller. The doc originally aired on G4tv, and to my surprise, the commercials were still embedded in the video.

At the beginning of this summer – about three months ago – we did away with cable television in our house. We now exclusively watch things online, or via Netflix on our television sets. At any rate, what I’m trying to say here is that I really haven’t encountered a commercial in the last 90 or so days, so when the commercial break started on the Youtube Frank Miller doc, I was kind of shocked, a little surprised, and a lot bemused.

The commercials got me thinking about television as a concept.

A few weeks ago I purchased a season of Gilligan’s Island on DVD. As a kid, I remember getting home from school and parking my butt on the sofa to watch Sherwood Shultz’s masterpiece five days a week along with Andy Griffith, Bewitched, and a host of classic cartoons – (most of which are being made into crappy big-screen versions for today’s cineplex consumption – fuck you, Michael Bay). At any rate, I wanted to make sure that my kids – aged 10, 8, 5, and 3 – all got a chance to enjoy the castaways as the show isn’t available to us in a VOD type setting currently.

And enjoy the show they did.

I could not have been happier than after watching a few episodes when my 10 yr old daughter turned to look at me and said, “Do they ever get off the island?”

Classic.

Now, however, thinking about that experience, and my experience from earlier today, it’s occurred to me just how different the television experience is for my kids than when I was their age. Oh, of course the experience was different for me than it was for my parents, but I think we can all agree that the advancement of technology is speeding up.

On a less heady note, it occurred to me that my children – especially the two younger ones – are really going to have an almost commercial free life. What a concept. I remember when we had cable, and we would watch a lot of things on the dvr – and then when things weren’t on the dvr and the kids would ask to have the commercials fastforwarded – and then get pissed when we’d explain that you can’t fastforward them because it’s live… well, the whole thing just seems very surreal.

I wonder if my kids will sit in awe at the tv viewing experiences my grandchildren will enjoy thirty or forty years from now.

“You know, when I was a kid, there weren’t any holographic options. Everything was confined to a rectangular screen…”

Kind of like me saying, “You know, when I was a kid, we had to watch the commercials. And we couldn’t choose what shows we wanted to watch – we had to choose from what was on.”

I’m sure my grandkids will roll their eyes at their parents just like my kids roll their eyes at me.

Ah well.

By the way – my answer when my daughter asked me if they get off of the island? I told her she’ll just have to watch all three seasons (on dvd – commercial free) and two reunion movies (available on youtube – commercial free) to find out.

BTW – here’s that Frank Miller doc I was watching. It culminates with Sin City, so it’s not current, but still some good early career info. (I didn’t realize he was so tight with Neal Adams.)