Jeff Strand's Blog, page 29
September 16, 2019
Clowns Vs. Spiders Available Now!
It’s here! At least the Kindle edition is here! Yes, it’s time for my latest novel, Clowns Vs. Spiders!
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Jaunty the Clown just wants to entertain families with lighthearted slapstick antics, but people think of clowns as terrifying, nightmarish creatures who hide in closets or under beds. When Jaunty, along with his fellow performers Guffaw, Wagon, Reginald The Pleasant Clown, and Bluehead are fired from the circus, they’re told that the world just doesn’t like clowns anymore.
Still, clowns have to eat. And since these clowns don’t eat children, to make ends meet they’re eventually forced to take a job in a popular haunted attraction, the Mountain of Terror. Instead of charming entertainers, they’re now scary clowns. A zombie clown. A demon clown. A creepy doll clown.
But the town is about to discover something more frightening than clowns. Because on opening night, millions of oversized spiders emerge from a cave and begin their deadly invasion…
From Bram Stoker Award-nominated author Jeff Strand comes an insane mix of shameless silliness and grisly creepy-crawly horror. Clowns Vs. Spiders. Who will win?
Get it right HERE.
September 12, 2019
Welcome to Gleefully Macabre!
[image error]Welcome to my website! Whether you were brought here by interest in my work or a Google search gone terribly wrong, I encourage you to hang around and start clicking away!
My latest novel, Clowns Vs. Spiders, will be available this Monday!
My compilation Five Novellas is now available in a Kindle and paperback edition!
My novel My Pretties is available now in a Kindle and paperback edition!
My novel Ferocious is now available in a Kindle and paperback edition!
(P.S.: People who leave reviews on Amazon deserve great big hugs!)
Friend me on Facebook !
Follow me on Twitter !
Like my Facebook Fan Page!
Friend me on Goodreads!
Subscribe to my newsletter at MailChimp! A brand new story in every issue!
August 28, 2019
Travels N’ Stuff
I’m writing this in a cabin in Wisconsin. There is plenty of cheese available.
My heavy duty travel time, which included Necon, Scares That Care, and KillerCon in about a one-month period, is almost over. I’ll be driving to Peoria, where I’ll be seeing a “Weird Al” Yankovic concert, and then all the way back down to Atlanta, after which I’ll be home for about six weeks.
I don’t mean “in my house” for six weeks. I’ll get back Saturday night, and Sunday morning I’m immediately off to the Decatur Book Festival, where I’ll be at the Horror Writers Association: Atlanta Chapter booth with other fine spooooooooky authors. But that’s, like, a ten-minute drive. And September 27-29 I’ll be a guest at Monsterama, but that’s in Alpharetta and I’ll be driving home each night, so it doesn’t count.
Nope, I’m home until the long-ass drive from Atlanta, Georgia to Haverhill, Massachusetts in October for the Merrimack Valley Halloween Book Festival. Last year the drive SUCKED. Will it equally suck this year? Probably not. Last year we were trying to outrun a hurricane. Oh, it’s still going to suck, though. You know it’s an amazing event when it’s worth that crappy of a drive.
Upon returning from Haverhill, I’ll have another local convention (Multiverse–I don’t yet know if I’ll be an author guest or just a commoner), followed by the awesome Scary Fireside Stories event a few minutes from my house, then a trip to North Carolina which was originally going to include a booksigning but now probably won’t, then a trip to Birmingham, Alabama for Noir at the Bar, then a Minnesota Thanksgiving visit, and then I am, in theory, home for the rest of 2019.
I do kind of wish the trio of Necon, Scares That Care, and KillerCon were spaced further apart. Part of the fun is the “OMG only 47 more days until Necon!!!!!” anticipation, which instead becomes “Holy s**t it’s KillerCon time already!” This is, of course, big time First World Whining, so feel free to roll your eyes.
NEXT BLOG: KillerCon report.
CURRENTLY READING: The Art of Dying by Derik Cavignano and Braineater Jones by Stephen Kozeniewski.
July 31, 2019
Latest Newsletter
The latest issue of my newsletter just went out! It contains the goofy little story “Last One In,” a handy guide to which of the five novellas in my collection FIVE NOVELLAS is best for you, and a couple of cool images that you’re probably seen already. Read it online here:
https://mailchi.mp/4b7c55985e28/teasers-of-two-new-novels
July 30, 2019
My Next Novel…
Despite the Wolf Hunt 3 (available October 25th) teaser, that’s not my next novel! This is:
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Cover by Lynne Hansen Art. Coming soon…
July 29, 2019
Welcome to Gleefully Macabre!
[image error]Welcome to my website! Whether you were brought here by interest in my work or a Google search gone terribly wrong, I encourage you to hang around and start clicking away!
My compilation Five Novellas is now available in a Kindle and paperback edition!
My novel My Pretties is available now in a Kindle and paperback edition!
My novel Ferocious is now available in a Kindle and paperback edition!
My novella Cold Dead Hands is available now in a Kindle edition.
My novel Bang Up is now available in a Kindle edition. (Most of my books are not for kids. This is REALLY not for kids.)
(P.S.: People who leave reviews on Amazon deserve great big hugs!)
Friend me on Facebook !
Follow me on Twitter !
Like my Facebook Fan Page!
Friend me on Goodreads!
Subscribe to my newsletter at MailChimp! A brand new story in every issue!
July 4, 2019
Covering FIVE NOVELLAS
People often ask when novellas like An Apocalypse of Our Own, Stalking You Now, Kutter and others will appear in paperback. I’ve never really wanted to publish them as individual books (they’re kinda thin) but there’s a huge difference between something like Faint of Heart and Facial, and it seemed like a collection of several of my novellas would be a very odd package.
Recently, I said, “Screw it. Let it be an odd package.”
I needed a cover, so I went to my wife and cover artist Lynne Hansen of Lynne Hansen Art.
ME: Where’s the link to the pre-designed book covers on your site?
LYNNE: I took it down. I don’t sell them anymore. Why?
ME: I’m putting together a collection of five of my novellas.
LYNNE: No, no, no, I’ll do a new cover for that. What’s the collection called?
ME: Five Novellas.
LYNNE: You can’t call it Five Novellas!
ME: [Repeats explanation for the title, which appears in the introduction to the collection, and which is part of the free Kindle sample.]
[Time passes.]
LYNNE: Here you go.
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ME: Sweet!
LYNNE [formatting the paperback edition]: Do you want the cover to each novella to appear before it?
ME: No. I never re-published Facial and we don’t have a cover.
LYNNE: You need a cover for Facial.
[Time passes.]
LYNNE: Here you go.
[image error]
ME: Sweet.
LYNNE: Also I’ve been wanting to redo the cover to Faint of Heart.
ME: The scope of this project seems to be expanding an an alarming rate.
[Time passes.]
LYNNE: Here you go.
[image error]
ME: Sweet.
So Five Novellas ended with three new covers, not counting the back cover design on the paperback. (TRIVIA: The back cover of Ferocious has the vicious zombie squirrel!)
That’s why Facial is available again (HERE) but you shouldn’t buy it unless Facial is the only one of the five books you’re interested in.
Instead, Stalking You Now, An Apocalypse of Our Own, Faint of Heart, Kutter, and Facial are now available in the ingeniously titled Five Novellas! 125,000 words for $2.99!
Kindle edition available HERE.
Paperback edition available next week.
If you want Lynne Hansen to go above and beyond for YOUR cover needs, check out her services at LynneHansenArt.com.
July 3, 2019
Welcome to Gleefully Macabre!
[image error]Welcome to my website! Whether you were brought here by interest in my work or a Google search gone terribly wrong, I encourage you to hang around and start clicking away!
My compilation Five Novellas is now available in a Kindle edition! Paperback coming soon!
My novel My Pretties is available now in a Kindle and paperback edition!
My novel Ferocious is now available in a Kindle and paperback edition!
My novella Cold Dead Hands is available now in a Kindle edition.
My novel Bang Up is now available in a Kindle edition. (Most of my books are not for kids. This is REALLY not for kids.)
(P.S.: People who leave reviews on Amazon deserve great big hugs!)
Friend me on Facebook !
Follow me on Twitter !
Like my Facebook Fan Page!
Friend me on Goodreads!
Subscribe to my newsletter at MailChimp! A brand new story in every issue!
June 22, 2019
Another June Newsletter!
The latest issue of my newsletter just went out. It includes a link to 30 free thrillers on Kindle, including my own Blister, along with the brand-new story “Fresh Fish” and an interview with Tod Clark, who reads all of my books before they’re published.
Check it out HERE.
June 16, 2019
Random Stuff
My “successful” books on Kindle tend to follow an anxiety-inducing sales pattern:
A very strong launch day.
An okay but concerning second day.
“Oh no! It’s all over! Goodbye, writing career. Time to go back to an office desk job.”
Then, 10-14 days after the book is published, sales momentum suddenly kicks in and all is well.
No matter how many times I go through this, there’s always the “NOOOOOOO!!!!” reaction in those first two weeks. Of course, if it’s a non-horror novel like Bang Up, the sales momentum may never kick in, leaving me with a book that readers loved but which didn’t help me buy many groceries.
Fortunately, My Pretties is a horror/suspense novel, and after that stomach-churning first couple of weeks, it’s doing very well. I’m very happy with reader reaction so far. I usually only share really bad or really funny quotes from Amazon reviews, but…
“My Pretties is the best novel Jeff Strand has published to date.”
“One of Strand’s best novels.”
“One of Strand’s darkest and most disturbing novels.”
“One of the most original and suspenseful horror releases of 2019.”
“One of Jeff Strand’s best if not his best book to date.”
“The story twist had me floored.”
Mark Sieber at Horror Drive-In was also a sweetheart: “My Pretties is full of twists and turns, and just when I thought I knew where Strand was going with the story, he turned it on its head and shocked the s**t out of me. And being Jeff Strand, he made me laugh as much as he was making me cringe.”
(The full review is quite funny. Check it out HERE.)
So I’m happy with how things are going so far. And I’m hard at work on the next book, which, though still a horror novel, switches gears from “dark and nasty” to “lots and lots of fun.”
The next issue of my newsletter will go out late this week. In addition to the usual brand-new story (so brand-new that I haven’t started writing it yet) it’ll have the first installment of my “Get To Know A Beta Reader” feature. Learn what it’s like for Tod Clark as he reads my books before they’re published!
Subscribe to my newsletter HERE.
Darrell Grizzle did an interview with me at Ghosts In The Kudzu. Check it out HERE.
