Jason Brant's Blog, page 8

Final Guys #117 – The Haunting of Sharon Tate

Sometimes you have to wonder how certain movies get the greenlight. The new king of Turd Mountain might be The Haunting of Sharon Tate. Because there’s nothing like a supernatural dramatization of a real-life murder. Prepare for a lively episode.

Our weekly horror reviews are Grizzly, Zombie Tidal Wave, Nightmares in Red, White and Blue, The Manitou, A Nightmare on Elm Street, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge, Mirror/Mirror, Bad Moon, and Recursion by Blake Crouch.

Get free books and stories by signing up for Jason’s Newsletter or Hunter’s Shea’s Dark Hunter Newsletter.

The Final Guys: The Final Word in Horror–A horror podcast hosted by Jason Brant, Jack Campisi and Hunter Shea.

Also available on iTunes – Stitcher – Google Play – TuneIn

Web ► https://www.finalguys.comFacebook ► https://www.facebook.com/finalguysJason ► http://www.authorjasonbrant.comHunter ► http://www.huntershea.comMonster ► http://www.themonstermen.net



Twitter ► @finalguysJack ► @backinjackJason ► @jason_brantHunter ► @huntershea1

*Anything rented or purchased through the links above gives a small percentage to Final Guys which helps pay for our beer and poor movie choices.

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Final Guys #116 – Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark has haunted children for decades in book form. But can the movie adaptation pack the same punch? Or is it as scary as a sad, lonely scarecrow? Directed by Andre Ovredal of The Audopsy of Jane Doe and Troll Hunter fame, and produced by little known Guillermo del Toro, Scary Stories creates quite a horror stew.

Our weekly horror reviews are The Hole in the Ground, Satan’s Triangle, The Sentinel, Sleepstalker, In Darkness, The Boys, Greener Pastures by Michael Wehunt, and The Switch House by Tim Meyer.

Get free books and stories by signing up for Jason’s Newsletter or Hunter’s Shea’s Dark Hunter Newsletter.

The Final Guys: The Final Word in Horror–A horror podcast hosted by Jason Brant, Jack Campisi and Hunter Shea.

Also available on iTunes – Stitcher – Google Play – TuneIn

Web ► https://www.finalguys.comFacebook ► https://www.facebook.com/finalguysJason ► http://www.authorjasonbrant.comHunter ► http://www.huntershea.comMonster ► http://www.themonstermen.net



Twitter ► @finalguysJack ► @backinjackJason ► @jason_brantHunter ► @huntershea1

*Anything rented or purchased through the links above gives a small percentage to Final Guys which helps pay for our beer and poor movie choices.

The post Final Guys #116 – Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark appeared first on Jason Brant.

Day 108 – Website Updated

Whew. With a lot of help from my cover artist/webpage guru/lifesaver, my website is finally updated to a look I’m happy with. It’s much easier to navigate on desktop and mobile. I’m going to pay attention to the length of time visitors spend on the site over the next few weeks to see if it increases.

My cover is in production, which has me super excited, so I should have something to show soon. Really pumped to get over this hump in the production process of Decayed. As soon as I get the book back from a proofreader, we’re gonna be days away from a release.

That’s it for now. The in-laws are in town for the weekend, so I might not get a post up tomorrow.

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Day 107 – Misc

Today was a busy one, but little writing was done again. My plan to go to bed early, so I could write first thing in the morning hasn’t worked out all that well. Should go better tomorrow. Still, I managed a few hundred words and managed to plot out the next chapter or two in my head.

But the stuff that kept me busy was the same crap I’ve been working on all summer.

First up, there’s a new Final Guys. Lots of laughs in this one as we review The Banana Splits horror movie. You read that right. Give it a listen.

Then I worked on the website more. A lot more. I’m changing the homepage around a bit, which seems like something that should be easy, but my theme is being a massive pain in the ass. I’m almost done with it though, so things should look a lot better shortly.

A few bugs with the mobile version of my site have cropped up since I updated the theme recently. Still trying to fix those little bastards. Should get them done soon.

The move away from Mail Chimp is looking likely, but I don’t want to go into detail until I make up my mind.

Anyway, that’s it for today.

See ya tomorrow.

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Day 105-106 – Oops

Forgot to post yesterday. I actually had typed up a little something, but put it in draft mode to record Final Guys. Then I forgot about it. As you can tell, I’m really dedicated to this.

I was on Arm Cast Podcast with Armand Rosamilia last week. The episode went live yesterday. I had a lot of fun making fun of him. And Hunter Shea, of course. Some good laughs and information await inside. I do wish I’d known my audio was such shit, but whatareyagonnado.

I’m almost finished going through the proofs for Decayed. Just waiting on one more set of notes, then it’s off to the beta readers. I’ve never had a book take this long to release. It’s getting on my nerves. It hasn’t been any one thing, but every step of the process has taken way longer than normal.

I’ve put a few words down in the next book, but haven’t done a whole lot with it yet. Instead, I’ve written down several story ideas that I’ve had recently. These are stories I’ve thought about for quite a bit, and are somewhat fleshed out, rather than things that just pop into my head.

Typically, I don’t write down my ideas until a few weeks after getting them. I like to let them boil for a bit, see what survives. When the bad ones have died, I write the survivors down in my notebook for later. My brother had this notebook custom made for me, which I use to store my ideas. It’s rad. Hopefully I’ll get a lot of them inside of the next year.

Who knows at my current pace though. Two of these are probably going to be full-length novels. Most are shorts or novellas. I have quite a few of these I’m stockpiling in case I decide to start a Patreon account. Gotta have some content to make that sucker viable.

That and shorts don’t sell worth a shit.

That’s it for now. See ya tomorrow.

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Day 104 – Rest Day

I didn’t do a damn thing today. And it was glorious.

Back to writing tomorrow.

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Day 102-103 – Accountability Day

Kinda funny to call this an accountability post, because I didn’t do much this weekend. I wanted to take some time off, so I did very little on Saturday. Obviously, I didn’t even bother to blog.

Today, I also took it easy, though I did write 1400 words in the sixth book in The Hunger. Finally started getting some pages put together. I’m a little over a third of the way through the book, so I’m hoping the release will come pretty quickly.

I’ll do some work tomorrow, though I won’t go crazy again. Gonna kick back for the holiday a bit, before going full speed ahead the rest of the week.

See ya tomorrow.

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Day 101 – Mailing List Providers

This morning, I spent time looking into a newish company called Author.Email. Right now, I’m paying way too much money for my mailing list with MailChimp. MC is great when you have less than 2000 subscribers. When you have 10000, things start adding up.

Author.Email charges $10 for up to 10000 subscribers. I like that.

I haven’t switched yet, and probably won’t until after Decayed releases, but I’m thinking really hard about making the switch. Saving almost a grand a year on my mailing list is going to be difficult to pass up. But first, I’m tinkering around with their system. I want to make sure it isn’t too inferior to what MailChimp is doing.

I’ll provide updates if/when I switch over.

More promotional work is going on behind the scenes. I’m getting my beta readers lined up now. They should get the book next week.

The notes from one of my proofreaders came in too, but I haven’t had time to mess with them yet. Hopefully I’ll plow through those tomorrow.

That’s all for now.

See ya tomorrow.

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Day 100 – A Look Back

Well, I’ve made it through 100 days of blogging. I’ve probably missed 6 or 7 days so far. Some were because of travel, others from laziness, most from forgetfulness. But still, I’ll call this a win.

So what do I think of this whole thing so far?

It has resurrected my career. I’d languished for the past two years, struggling to write, to do anything actually, and putting my progress out in the public has turned that around. I’ve finished one book and I’m a third of the way through the next. I’d like to be further along in the next novel, but I’m still light years beyond where I would be without the blog.

Blogging is dead. That’s not why I’m doing this, though. I want accountability. Putting my production out there has accomplished that.

I just finished a written interview, which is something I almost never do. The guy sent me great questions, so I had to say yes. I’ll post it here when it’s live.

This morning, I had a great conversation with Armand Rosamilia for his Arm Cast Podcast. It will go live next week. The link will be here when it is.

My thoughts on Patreon are continuing to evolve. I just might start one next year or so, though I have to keep mulling over the details. I think it might be a way to give my readers more stories for less money. And it’ll give me a consistent income.

Maybe.

Anyway, today consisted mostly of promotional work. No words again. I gotta get back on the writing train. The next book in The Hunger needs to release pretty quickly after the next.

See ya tomorrow.

And thanks for reading!

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Days 97-99 – Whoops

You might have noticed that I haven’t blogged for three days. That isn’t because I was incredibly busy, my internet service died, or an explosion went off in my house.

The last two days, as I was crawling into bed, I realized that I hadn’t blogged for the day. I could have gotten up and banged some crap out, but honestly, I didn’t feel like it. The past few weeks have been incredibly busy, which is why my blogs haven’t been as substantive lately.

I do have more meaningful posts coming, as I continue to work through my launch. But I also started this as an accountability blog, so that’s my main focus with it.

So what have I been doing the past few days?

I got the first proofread of Decayed back and went through the notes. The book is now on to the second level of readers, who do an amazing job finding weird little things that my mind ignores. When they finish, which usually takes a few days, I’ll pass it on to the beta readers. Then it’s rock ‘n’ roll time.

Final Guys seems to be back on track, finally. The website is functional, the podcast doesn’t sound like trash, and I’m posting reviews again.

My website, which I thought I’d finished updating, is getting another coat of paint. I’m tinkering with stuff to see if it improves the browsing numbers across my site.

I’ve finished my training on Bookbub ads. Now, it’s time to start practicing. Can’t wait to lose hundreds of dollars until I figure it out. Assuming it works at all. I still have a feeling that rapid releases is the best strategy, but we’ll see.

The urge to do a few guest spots on podcasts hit me recently, so I’m considering reaching out to a few people. Tomorrow morning, I’ve got an interview with Armand Rosamilia on Arm Cast Podcast. It’s always fun talking with that douche, so I’m looking forward to it.

See ya tomorrow.

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