Brian James Freeman's Blog, page 36

Elmore Leonard On Writing

Elmore Leonardon writing: “I try to leave out the parts that people skip.”

Why you should use exactly the number of words you need to tell the story

Many years ago, someone read a 50,000 word manuscript of mine and said, “It’s great, but it’s not a novel, and you’ll never sell it to New York until you add 40,000 words.”

That ingrained the idea in my head that if I wanted to sell my work to a publisher, it had to be 90,000 words, give or take — that there was no way something in the 50,000 or 60,000 word range would ever sell.

Of course, in the years that followed, several of my friends sold what were essentially novellas to New York, and I...

Thank You For 50,000 Page Views

I just realized this blog is at49,983 pageviews, so by the time you read this, it’ll probably be past 50,000. That seems like a pretty cool achievement since I still have no idea what I’m doing with a blog.

To those of you who’ve been reading my work, I just wanted to say thank you for your support. There should be a lot more to come in 2013. In the meantime, here are my five “most-read” posts on this blog if you want to kill a few minutes:

Even Stephen King Had to Start Somewhere (14-year-old...

More Than Midnight Review From October Country

Blu Gilliand over at October Country has written a tremendously nice review of More Than Midnight,my little horror collection of short stories that was published in December by Cemetery Dance and quickly sold out. As a writer, this is one of those unexpected reviews that just shows up in your “Google Alerts” and makes your entire day. Here is the beginning:

Brian James Freemanis one of those writers that someone, some day, is going to call an “overnight success,” completely ignorant of the fac...

“Publishers Clearing House Predicts Murder Six Months In Advance!”

Maybe only my mind works this way, but have you seen thePublishers Clearing House “$5,000 A Week ‘Forever’ Prize” ads on TV?

Basically, the winner will get $5,000 a week for the rest of his or her life, and then when he or she dies, another person that the winner has selected will start getting $5,000 per week for the rest of his or her life.

Does anyone else see how this story is going to end? Maybe with a headline along these lines:

“Publishers Clearing House Winner Dies In Mysterious Accident...

Scenes from the Cemetery Dance office: A Book of Horrors Lettered Edition Traycase

The approval copy of the Lettered Edition traycase for A Book of Horrors edited by Stephen Jones has arrived. This project represented the first-ever collaboration between Cemetery Dance Publications (US) and PS Publishing (UK), so we thought it would be cool to do something a little different for the traycase. This is the first time we’ve ever “wrapped” the hot foil stamping the whole way around the traycase and the effect is pretty amazing in person. These will be shipping before the end of...

A NOS4A2 Christmas Card From HarperCollins/William Morrow!

Christmas/Holiday cards can all start to look the same after a while… but then this card from our friends at HarperCollins/William Morrow arrived! Perfect for the Joe Hill fan in your life:

Scenes from the Cemetery Dance office: Our Warehouse Elves Have Been Busy

The Cemetery Dance warehouse elves have been busy:

More Than Midnight Signed Limited Edition Almost Sold Out!

There are only about 15 copies of the signed Limited Edition of my new mini-collection, More Than Midnight,left available, so today is probably your last chance to order! Thank you to everyone who helped put this 750 copy print run Out of Print in just 8 days, which is really quite amazing!

Read more or place your order on the Cemetery Dance Publications website!

More Than Midnight Selling Very Quickly

The signed Limited Edition of my new mini-collection, More Than Midnight,is nearly 90% sold out after just 24 hours of sales. If you were on the fence, I hope you’ll place your order today. Here is the cover again simply because I love how Vincent Chong managed to visualize the range of emotions the characters feel in this book:

Read more or place your order on the Cemetery Dance Publications website!