Jack Rollins's Blog, page 11
October 27, 2014
Let the games begin
If you’re following my blog, by now you know I’m launching my new novella this week, and Friday night is the launch event on Facebook. But, due to timezone differences, i want to do some things during the week to make sure everyone can get involved.
2 games have currently been launched, to build up the number of e-book copies of The Seance I will put into the draw on Friday night (you don’t have to be online at the time of the draws).
Game 1: For every 10 new followers on my Twitter account up until 23:59 Thursday 30th October 2014, I will add another copy of The Seance e-book to the draw. The starting number of followers was 148. Just follow @jackrollins9280
Game 2: For every 10 new likes on my Facebook page up until 23:59 Thursday 30th October 2014, I will add another copy of The Seance e-book to the draw. The starting count is 261 likes. Just go to: http://www.facebook.com/doctorblessing
To register for the prize draws, please follow this link http://eepurl.com/58PA1, which will sign you up for my very occasional newsletter. I hate spam, so the newsletter will only be used to post details of upcoming releases, features and a little about what I’m reading and working on, that sort of thing (you can always unsubscribe at any time after you get your prizes anyway).
Visit the event page, and whenever the puppet from Saw appears, you know there’s a game coming on which will either unlock more prizes, or which will enter you into a draw. www.facebook.com/events/479596528844139/
Hope to see you there soon, even if it’s just to wish me luck.
“The Seance” in special feature on Scarlet’s Web Horror Fiction Blog
A fantastic feature for “The Seance” on Scarlet’s web.
Quote: “I really enjoy the writing style of Jack Rollins, the tales he weaves are both original and atmospherically dark and gothic. The way he builds the Victorian age and atmosphere in his stories pulls me effortlessly into another time and place.”
See the full feature here:
http://scarletaingeal.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/release-special-seance-gothic-tale-of.html
In a week where all of my efforts are going into ensuring my novella gets as much attention as possible, Scarlet’s feature is such a welcome boost. As much as I know I am going to enjoy my busy Friday night, launching the book, I can’t wait to let things settle again and I can spend more time working on the next story.
With 350 people on Goodreads having marked The Seance as to-read, it has to be said, my efforts are paying off!
October 25, 2014
The Seance Virtual Launch Halloween Party on Facebook
Halloween 2014 will see the launch of my new novella, “The Seance” worldwide, in paperback and e-book, through Dark Chapter Press. To celebrate this event, I am hosting my very first Virtual Book Launch. What better night to host this, than Halloween?
From 9PM til 11PM GMT, you can join in the fun here: www.facebook.com/events/479596528844139
There will be some action in the days before the launch, to ensure my friends in America can get involved despite the time difference at the actual launch. There is going to be a prize for the best halloween costume selfie; Q&A with the me, the author; horror trivia, great music videos and horror movie clips galore.
Some of my generous author friends have jumped in to lend a hand and have offered up a shed load of books and e-books as prizes. See the image attached to this entry to see (and there are possibly more titles to be added before the night too).
So, if you get home from trick or treating by 9pm GMT, why not join us at the event page using the link above? There’ll be more treats than tricks, I guarantee it. Unless I’m tricking you now, of course…
Why not check out a sample of The Seance here :http://goo.gl/jx16FK
You can pre-order your copy from Amazon here: http://goo.gl/4829nw
And some of the ARC reviewers have posted here: http://goo.gl/xkiyzg
October 23, 2014
Support Our IndieGoGo Campaign
Check out this Crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo. A really interesting project for fans of Horror literature.
Originally posted on FRAGMENTS OF FEAR:
Fragments of Fear is a multi-platform project showcasing the best in contemporary horror from new and established writing talent. Over each episode, a series of other worldly narrators lead the viewer through tales of terror, horror and suspense, offering a dark and disturbing take on Story Time meets Tales from the Crypt.
Guest starring Caroline Munro (The Spy Who Loved Me, Golden Voyage of Sinbad, Maniac, Dracula AD 1972, The Last Horror Film), Francoise Pascal (The Iron Rose, Burke & Hare, Incense for the Damned, Mind your Language) Dani Thompson (Serial Kaller, Axe to Grind, Convention of the Dead), and Billy Chainsaw (Cry Wolf, Strippers vs Werewolves, Frightfest TV) our objective is to create a multi-platform experience in order to bring contemporary horror writing to a new audience.
The Website
Each…
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October 21, 2014
A pleasant surprise
This evening I was browsing through the forums on Goodreads and discovered my forthcoming book had been featured in a book shout-out on another blog.
Michael Brookes very kindly chose to feature The Seance in his book shout-out feature today and I was thrilled to see the kind comments he made. Michael was also a great supporter of my previous work, “The Cabinet of Dr Blessing” (which I am re-releasing soon with a brand spanking new cover that better suits the work).
I’ll include the link below and I ask you to visit his blog (which is great for readers and writers, I should add) and read his shout out, you never know, Michael might just convince you to give the book a try.
But before I feature that link, I wanted to encourage you, if you do visit his “Cult of Me” blog, to take a deeper look at his site. Follow the links to his book, also entitled “The Cult of Me” and please, go get it. I reviewed the story here: http://goo.gl/jiESl0 and am going to read the follow up story, “Conversations In The Abyss” as soon as I can.
Michael’s new book “Sun Dragon” is to be released a day after my novella, so that makes his 1st November 2014. I’ll be picking my copy up then! Note that the image at the head of this message is part of the cover art of “Sun Dragon”.
Anyway, the link to Michael’s blog is here, please check it out and share, tweet and spread the word if you like what you find there: http://goo.gl/ggR6xp
Many thanks
Jack
October 20, 2014
Review of “Charlotte” by Stuart Keane
Charlotte by Stuart Keane
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Disclosure: I will later this year be featuring in an anthology with Stuart, Carnage: Extreme Horror and I was given an ARC copy of Charlotte in exchange for an honest review. My opinions here are formed of my being a keen reader of horror fiction, and not as a writer.
This novella is a striking piece of fiction, capturing parental fears as well as childhood ones as the central character, a 9-year old girl called Amy, develops an imaginary friend, Charlotte of the title. Ignored at home and bullied at school, Amy’s assertive new fictitious pal gives her the confidence to stand up for herself, but this gradually builds to nightmarish levels. We are treated to a flash-forward in the early pages, giving you a little taste of what is in store.
Keane then takes us back a few weeks and we witness the bullying in scenes so realistically rendered that anyone who suffered at school will flinch to read them. He captures the feel of life at school most effectively, and scenes of Amy’s isolation and interactions with her coasting parents will have you almost cheering when the main character begins to lift her head up.
Which is when the story changes gear, and the tension is ratcheted up, notch by notch and a devious plan begins to fall into place.
Gruesome, thrilling, emotional and creepy as hell. Check on your kids, and give this story a read.
Review of "Charlotte" by Stuart Keane
Charlotte by Stuart KeaneMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Disclosure: I will later this year be featuring in an anthology with Stuart, Carnage: Extreme Horror and I was given an ARC copy of Charlotte in exchange for an honest review. My opinions here are formed of my being a keen reader of horror fiction, and not as a writer.
This novella is a striking piece of fiction, capturing parental fears as well as childhood ones as the central character, a 9-year old girl called Amy, develops an imaginary friend, Charlotte of the title. Ignored at home and bullied at school, Amy's assertive new fictitious pal gives her the confidence to stand up for herself, but this gradually builds to nightmarish levels. We are treated to a flash-forward in the early pages, giving you a little taste of what is in store.
Keane then takes us back a few weeks and we witness the bullying in scenes so realistically rendered that anyone who suffered at school will flinch to read them. He captures the feel of life at school most effectively, and scenes of Amy's isolation and interactions with her coasting parents will have you almost cheering when the main character begins to lift her head up.
Which is when the story changes gear, and the tension is ratcheted up, notch by notch and a devious plan begins to fall into place.
Gruesome, thrilling, emotional and creepy as hell. Check on your kids, and give this story a read.
View all my reviews
October 19, 2014
The Writing Life: Advice from a Counterculture Icon
A lovely article I found today while browsing (and learning how to use) WordPress.
All readers and writers should read this article.
Originally posted on The Daily Post:
Everyone should read at least one Kurt Vonnegut book — Welcome to the Monkey House and Mother Night are my favorites. They’re blunt. Dark. Demanding. And they make you think, and laugh, and want to be a better person. What more can we ask of literature, and what better person to turn to for tough love on writing?
It’s not surprising that his thoughts on art, writing, and the writing life are just as thought-provoking, funny, and inspiring…
If you want to really hurt your parents, and you don’t have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I’m not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the…
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October 8, 2014
Adventures In Crowdfunding
While publicising the campaign for the launch of The Séance, I discovered Kick It Forward, where you receive free publicity for your campaign if you agree to pledge to make other projects successful. I had already been bitten by the bug, pledging initially to get a better understanding of how the system worked and then really thinking about what I wanted to help develop. I thought I’d give a summary of the projects I supported while my own campaign was active.
The most unusual thing I’ve backed, I suppose, is a film. This one is close to my heart, being a short film on the life of Nikola Tesla (http://kck.st/1kYbfB8), great inventor of the Victorian era. When one or two of the other projects I was backing didn’t come off, I increased my pledge on this one, and my name will be in the film’s credits. How mad is that?
I looked for some indie authors in a similar situation to myself, and showed some solidarity with them and so I am waiting for a collection of Cyberpunk stories (http://kck.st/1mtiMvB) and the first in a new series of Steampunk tales (http://kck.st/1jZbw6C), which I am very keen to get into.
One or two of my backers invited me to look at their projects, which I did, and I pledged on them, using my own social networking efforts to increase their visibility, too. It worked for me, right? Well, sadly, for one or two of them it didn’t. A sci-fi thriller I had pledged on won’t be coming my way now, but the author generated enough interest that he is going to be able to put the book into print, so it was a happy ending for him. A book for children to help to educate them on loss was a project I was keen to see get off the ground, but unfortunately it didn’t make it. There was also a cool little book about hidden coffee shops and cool eateries in East London, which I was looking forward to receiving and working my way through; unfortunately they didn’t make it either.
On a more local level, I backed a comic book project (http://kck.st/1m2wL8c) launched by some guys in Newcastle. Comics? Newcastle! How could I resist? I didn’t resist, they got funded and I now have this excellent little comic with my name in the back credits.
I am really pleased to have backed and supported to completion, two children’s books. One of them is called “B is For Blobfish” (http://kck.st/1qGuaZ7) and is essentially an A to Z of weird animals. I’m so looking forward to going through these with my son Archie, as the A for Apple, B for Butterfly gets a bit stale after a while. The other project was “The Tale of The Greedy Fish” (http://kck.st/1pbnrCC), in which the author was raising funds to create enough copies of this beautifully illustrated children’s book, to donate to libraries, schools, children’s groups and literacy programmes, as well as fulfilling the backer rewards. So, my son has some pretty cool, unheard-of (hopefully soon to be Children’s bestsellers!) stories coming his way for his 2nd birthday.
Then my inner geek got the better of me. I backed and have enjoyed a card game called “Virus!” (http://kck.st/1o68kY2) and an entry level tabletop adventure game which looks perfect to play with my 4 year old nephew (not to mention my son and 2 year old nephew, when they’re ready in a couple of years), called “Pocket Dungeon Quest” (http://kck.st/1p9VVH0).
In terms of Kicking it Forward, I more than kept my commitment in the spirit of the generosity shown to me by my own backers.
So without further ado, I’d like to give a big thank you to all of those who backed my project. The list below is not an exhaustive list of the people who made The Séance possible - I mean through pledges and in the actual creation of the book - but it represents the backers who came in with the increased pledges where they covered their rewards and more, to enable me to reach further with The Séance and go beyond the original plan of launching an e-book.
Special thanks to:
LeeAnn Day
Heather Dodd
Robert Elliott
Trish Gordon
Ben Greener
Jim Hardison
Kevin McEwan
Robert W McEwan
Mick Rollins
Mark Tudor-Williams
Lisa Wood
Hope we get to do it again sometime…
October 3, 2014
Review of The Cult Of Me, by Michael Brookes
The Cult of Me by Michael BrookesMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
In The Cult Of Me, Michael Brookes has created one of the most memorable villains I have ever read about - and he is sort of the good guy of the story.
We begin with a man in prison who teases out information about some supernatural abilities he has by demonstrating them in the present and through revealing pieces of his past in alternating chapters. He is working to a master plan which will see him go down in a blaze of glory. You don't know whether you want him to succeed or not - he's such a brilliantly evil character, he does horrendous things and you start rooting for him (well I did!).
Then you hit the halfway point, and the character learns that there are others out there like him, some good, some even more evil and threatening than he, and he has some choices to make and opportunities to hone his abilities to new levels.
You will be guessing right up until the last page, and the ending will stay with you for a long time afterwards! Highly recommended.
View all my reviews
