Jeff Strand's Blog, page 39
July 2, 2018
Vampire Gummis
My sister visited from Germany, and she brought me a vast selection of German gummi candies, including a package of my beloved Haribo Vampires. These are shaped like bats. The wings are various fruit flavors, and the body, though gummi, is flavored like black licorice.
I know some of you reading this are thinking “EWWWW!!!! THAT SOUNDS HORRIBLE! I’M NOT CURRENTLY EATING ONE MYSELF BUT I STILL CAN’T GET THE TASTE OUT OF MY MOUTH!” but to me this is pure gummi bliss. Nom nom nom.
The latest online issue of The Horror Fiction Review came out, and it’s got a review of Bring Her Back. I’m not just cherry-picking the good stuff when I quote it as saying: “This is Strand at his gruesome best…some of the darkest humor you’ll read this year (or any year).” You can verify this right HERE.
July 1, 2018
Happy July!
Wow, is it July already?
Yep, that’s an old person thing to say. It used to be “OMG how long is it going to take for July to get here???” except without the “OMG” part because old people like me didn’t use that acronym when we were kids. July was a great month because there was still plenty of summer left–we didn’t go back to school until early September! (JEALOUS, modern kids? Hahahahahaha!)
The Fourth of July was one of my favorite holidays. I don’t know why. I grew up in Fairbanks, Alaska. For those unaware of the daylight cycles in Fairbanks, it doesn’t get dark in July. That means you can’t really see fireworks. So instead of amazing colorful displays in the sky, we ignited stuff like firecrackers, bottle rockets, snakes, etc. We didn’t care. If it had a fuse to light, we were in!
For the past couple of decades I’ve been less enthralled with July because a) summer vacation no longer existed for me, and b) I lived in Florida. But last summer I moved to Atlanta, where I spent several months relentlessly complaining about the cold and vowing to never complain about the heat again. I’m not sure if I’ll stick to that vow, but I’m happy it’s July.
June 30, 2018
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, Bring Her Back, is now available in a Kindle and paperback edition.
My new YA comedy, How You Ruined My Life, is available at your local bookstore or from the online retailer of your choice!
Sick House is available in Kindle and paperback editions.
(P.S.: People who leave reviews on Amazon deserve great big hugs!)
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Coffin Box!
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Me after signing 775 copies of the My Werewolf Neighbor chapbook, which I wasn’t allowed to speak about because it was included in the first HorrorPack Rue Morgue Coffin Box. (Yes, I spent some time watching unboxing videos on YouTube to see people’s reactions.)
This chapbook was exclusive to HorrorPack, but there are enough of ’em out there that I assume some will pop up on eBay.
June 29, 2018
BRING HER BACK Group Read!
The Horror Aficionados on Goodreads have a monthly discussion group with a guest author. For July, I’m the guest author and the book is Bring Her Back.
Participate in the discussion! Ask questions! Nitpick! Shower me with praise! Ridicule my creative choices!
It officially starts in July, but the thread is active now! Check it out right HERE.
June 28, 2018
HAUNTED FOREST TOUR Fan Fiction
Whaaaaaat? The Haunted Forest Tour fan fiction? Could something so magnificent really exist in this world?
Yes, thanks to author S.A. Schneider, who wrote the tale “I’ve Gotta Pee” which takes place in the world of monstrous horror created by myself and James A. Moore. Check it out here:
http://sa-schneider.com/the-haunted-forest-tour-jeff-strand-james-moore-fan-fiction/
June 15, 2018
Audiobook Roundup
Last weekend I had a great time at the HEAR Now Audio Fiction & Arts Festival. I emceed the first annual Audiobook Reviewer Listeners’ Choice Awards, and I’ll probably include my opening monologue in my next newsletter.
In the meantime, here’s a handy list of all of my available audiobook editions. Some are available on CD, and some can be synched with the Kindle editions.
Wolf Hunt (read by Scott Thomas)
Wolf Hunt 2 (read by Scott Thomas)
Pressure (read by Scott Thomas)
Dweller (read by Scott Thomas)
Cyclops Road (read by Joe Hempel)
Sick House (read by Joe Hempel)
Blister (read by Daniel Dorse)
An Apocalypse of Our Own (read by Nadia Mori)
Fangboy (read by Janine Haynes)
I Have a Bad Feeling About This (read by Aaron Landon)
Stranger Things Have Happened (read by Kyle McCarley)
How You Ruined My Life (read by Andrew Eiden)
Coming soon: Dead Clown Barbecue (read by Andy Barker).
Coming less soon: The Haunted Forest Tour and Bring Her Back (read by Joe Hempel).
June 13, 2018
Ear Entertainment
I’m a guest on the latest episode of The Horror Show With Brian Keene. This interview was recorded at the Scares That Care telethon last month, which is why I don’t make any tasteless jokes about Brian Keene’s recent accident where he was severely burned, or even ask how he’s feeling. There’s a GoFundMe campaign set up to help with his medical expenses.
The audiobook edition of Sick House, read by Joe Hempel, is now available. If you’ve got an Audible credit, why not spend six hours and forty-three minutes being ever so scared?
February 9th, 2019 I’ll be giving my “Stick With It! Sustaining Your Writing Passion In A Brutal Business” talk at the first-ever Con-tagion convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. If you buy your ticket between now and June 15, you can get $10 off by using the promo code PLAGUE. Click HERE for the details.
June 8, 2018
Audiobook Listener Awards!
Can’t make it to the Audiobook Listener Awards tonight? No need to wallow in self-pity. KAAD-LP 103.5 FM in Sonora, California is going to air a live feed of the audio.
Don’t live in Sonora? Listen online at http://kaad-lp.org. It should start promptly at 9:15 EST.
June 6, 2018
From The Mailbag: KUMQUAT and Romantic Comedy
Goodreads has a feature where people can post questions to authors. This one came in, and I decided to give a long, rambling answer that I could use as a blog post.
Robert Baker asks: Hey! I bought all your [stuff] and enjoyed it. Surprisingly, I enjoyed KUMQUAT the most. Do you have any plans for another romantic comedy soon?
Thanks for the question, Robert. Sorry I replaced the s-word.
The answer is: Maybe….?
KUMQUAT is in my top five favorites of my own books, and I was thrilled by how well readers responded to it. It is also one of my poorest sellers.
It was written as a mainstream comedy, not necessarily a romantic comedy. It’s an outlier in my own work, but also unquestionably a “Jeff Strand” novel. Same sensibility, different genre. FANGBOY is a very strange novel that was quite obviously never intended to have universal appeal, but I think that almost anybody who enjoys my work would like KUMQUAT.
I sent the book to my agent. She dismissed it as “kind of slow getting started” and that was the end of that. (It would her repeated but never fulfilled promises to read CYCLOPS ROAD before I finally got the hint, like a clueless boyfriend who didn’t realize he’d been ghosted.)
I considered trying to find a publisher, but books like WOLF HUNT had done so well for me in the self-publishing realm that I decided to go that route for this one. I knew that it would be a harder sell, so I offered advance digital copies to anybody who wanted one, to help get the word out.
Early reactions were outstanding. DWELLER probably has more passionate supporters, but almost everybody loved KUMQUAT. The book came out, the reader reviews were the best of my career, and…it didn’t sell all that well. The hype didn’t matter. Most of my readers were simply not going to buy a romantic comedy.
Now, I hadn’t called it a romantic comedy (I went with “road trip comedy”) but that’s basically what it is. After a few months, I decided to try to go after the audience that WOULD want a romantic comedy, so Lynne Hansen did a new cover and I reworked the description and I went all-in on this tale of awkward quirky love.
Nope. Didn’t work. The reviews may have backfired a bit in that regard, because so many of them were a variation on “A romantic comedy written by a HORROR author??? Whaaaaaat???”
It could be the title. I love the title. Many other people love the title. But I’ve also heard “Who the hell would buy a book called KUMQUAT?” Fair enough.
So that’s where it stands. A book that many readers consider a favorite that didn’t sell very well.
At the time I wrote KUMQUAT, I had a full-time day job and, honestly, it didn’t matter all THAT much how well a book sold. I wanted a thriving career but it didn’t impact groceries or rent. Now I’m a full-time writer, which means that whenever my Amazon rankings start to slip I break into a cold sweat and scream “NOOOOOOO!!!!” at my computer screen.
Do I have plans for another romantic comedy soon? No. Do I have plans for another romantic comedy eventually? Yes.
I’ve got a decent chunk done of a novel called DROP THE MIC about a stand-up comedian, which I think is my funniest book by far. Commercial prospects are limited. This one is quite a bit darker than KUMQUAT because, like many stand-up comedians, our hero is prone to a bit of self-loathing, but it’s also a sweet and funny romantic comedy. I fully intend to finish it someday; it’s just not a currently active project.
And I wrote sample chapters for a novel called A PLAYFUL TUNE, a comedy about an office manager who calls in love with a woman who performs novelty songs after he saves her from an enraged audience that she accidentally offended with a poorly timed joke. This one is a romance novel. A funny romance novel.
But my next novel is a thriller.
