Alan Baxter's Blog, page 26

The Alex Caine Trilogy Launch wrap-up.

Man, what a night I had! We launched The Alex Caine Series in style on Thursday 30th June at Galaxy Bookshop in Sydney, so now all three books in the series (so far!) are out in the wild and on bookstore shelves across Australia and New Zealand. And Galaxy have a bunch of signed copies of all three if you’re quick. I’ve also just learned today that the series took out the 1, 2 and 3 spot in Galaxy’s bestsellers for last week, so that’s just fucking fantastic. The US, UK and everywhere else will start to see their release from December this year, so hang in there, you guys! Meanwhile, I thought I’d post here wrapping up everything that’s accompanied the launch so far.

Here I am crapping on about something while Garth Nix watches thoughtfully.

Galaxy Bookshop were fantastic, and with the publisher, HarperVoyager, they put on a great event. Garth Nix was a superb MC and official launcher, and a decent crowd turned out to make an absolutely stellar night. I’m so lucky and so grateful to everyone involved that I could enjoy such a great event. This post will collect everything in one place, starting with a video of the launch itself. It’s about 20 minutes and records the Q&A with myself and Garth, then questions from the audience. Massive respect to Alice Wood from Voyager, who I asked to film it and who stoically held my phone steady for the entire time! Also, apologies for anyone getting motion sickness watching this – I honestly had no idea how much I sway when I’m standing around talking.

After the video will be a link to a huge photoset on Flickr, thanks to the amazing Cat Sparks for that. She’s truly the Aussie SFF paparazzi master. After the link to the photoset will be a series of links to all the guest posts about the series so far, where you’ll find interviews with me, with Alex Caine, posts about fighting, writing, psychopaths and more. So enjoy, and thanks again to everyone who made all this possible. This is what it feels like to be living the dream.

Video of the launch, with myself and Garth Nix:

Here, Garth asks me all kinds of questions about the series and its origins, and I talk about favourites, paths to publishing, manuscripts under toilet doors, and more.

Photoset of the launch and the dinner afterwards, with huge thanks to the amazing Cat Sparks:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/42956650@N00/albums/72157669430754560/page1

Blog tour posts:

I’ll list the interviews first. They’re all a bit different, so well worth having a squizz at them all, even if you just skim the questions for things you might be interested in.

Interviewed at Smash Dragons:

http://smashdragons.blogspot.com.au/2...

Interviewed by the wonderful Angela Slatter:

http://www.angelaslatter.com/alex-caine-lives-again-alan-baxter/

Interviewed by the also wonderful Peter M Ball:

http://www.petermball.com/talking-writing-and-the-alex-caine-series-with-alan-baxter/

Interviewed by David McDonald:

http://www.davidmcdonaldspage.com/2016/06/in-conversation-with-alan-baxter/

Interviewed by Annie Mitchell:

https://annieonwriting.wordpress.com/...

Robert Hood interviews Alex Caine himself!

http://roberthood.net/blog/index.php/2016/06/20/an-unexpected-chat-with-alex-caine/

And the guest blog posts:

At Speculating on SpecFic I talk about why I write dark fiction:

http://www.speconspecfic.com/2016/06/20/blog-tour-alex-caine-trilogy-alan-baxter/

At Book Frivolity I explain that I’m really not a psychopath, honest:

http://bookfrivolity.booklikes.com/post/1420703/author-guest-post-actually-i-m-really-not-a-psychopath-by-alan-baxter

At Kaaron Warren‘s blog, I talk about the spark that started the Alex Caine fire:

https://kaaronwarren.wordpress.com/2016/06/16/alan-baxter-trilogy/

And at the Voyager blog, I talk about fighting as a metaphor for life:

http://www.voyageronline.com.au/guest-blog-alan-baxter/

Signing books, living the dream.

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You owe me nothing, but if you’d like to help…

There are loads of those memes flying around social media that are some variation of “How to help an author” or “Support Authors” or “Fuck you, reader, dance for me, you monkey!”  The truth is, you owe an author nothing. At all. Just because I wrote a book, and that book got published, doesn’t mean anyone is under any obligation to buy it, let alone do anything else. And even if you, dear reader, did buy a book I wrote, and you loved it so much you went around with it stuffed down your pants for a week, you still owe me nothing. Although, you might need to consider getting out more if you really did spend a week with a book down your pants. But I digress.

Put simply, there is no obligation of any kind on readers. They choose to either buy a book or not. Then they get around to reading it or they don’t. That’s it. Finished.

But, of course, there is a lot more they can do, should they so choose, and lots of those things really honestly genuinely help authors. So as my Alex Caine trilogy hits Australian and NZ bookstore shelves today, all three books in print at last, it seems a pertinent time to talk about this. And the ideas, while they can be listed in a trite meme, are maybe better explained in a little more detail. This stuff applies to big trad books and indie books, well-known authors and newbies. So here we go. You owe me nothing, but if you want to help, here’s what you can do and why it helps.

Buy The Book

Well, d’uh! Right? Not entirely. More options later. But obviously, at the bottom line, book sales are what keeps authors and their publishers alive. But it’s especially good with a new release if you buy the books during week 1 or 2 after release. Why? Because publishing is a machine and it doesn’t stop. It swallows authors, chews them up, and spits out their gnarled remains. The way an author survives the machine is if they sell well enough to not be spat out. And the best way for an author to sell well is to start by selling well. Sure, many books are successful on a slow burn, but to sell they have to be on shelves. Bookstore real estate is highly contested space, so if a book sits on a shelf for a while and doesn’t sell, it will be sent back to make space for a new book. But if it shifts several copies in the first week or two, the shop gains confidence in it and gets more copies in. The sales data is good and buyers order more. It might hit bestsellers charts, even just in-store ones, and stores order yet more. The profile of the book is raised and it gets more traction. That’s momentum happening right there, and that’s what we need. So please, if you think you want the books, buy them sooner rather than later. And if your local store doesn’t have them, order them in.

Order them in at your library.

But you’re skint? No problem, man, I know those feels. Books can be a real luxury. But you know who has free books for you read? Your local library. So go there and ask them to order the books. When libraries buy a copy, that’s another sale. And authors get a small amount of money for each library borrow their books have, so that’s another income stream for them in the long term. And more visibility of their books out in the world.

And you know what? As we’re talking about helping authors, even if you do buy the books, order them at your local library too. Help the authors and other readers will find them over time. Readers are what it’s all about, and more on that in a minute.

If you’re travelling, buy them at Newslink.

This is a weird one (and a bit Aussie-centric) but it really helps. Newslink is the bookstore chain at airports and train stations around Australia. Lots of people impulse buy books right before a long journey, so they go to Newslink looking for a travel read. The Alex Caine Series (for example!) is a great thriller read for travelling, so if Newslink have plenty in stock, it’s likely they’ll sell well there. But remember about how stores only keep stock of books that sell? It’s a bastard of a catch-22, right? So if you’re into buying these books and you’re travelling soon, grab them at Newslink so Newslink order more!

Buy for yourself and as gifts.

So as this is all about helping authors, how about buying the books more than once? Buy for yourself, of course, but if there are any birthdays or other celebrations coming up, buy another copy to give as a gift. That’s more sales and more readers, who may not have bought the books otherwise. I love buying books for people and introducing them to new authors, and I love it when people do that for me.

Tell friends, family and colleagues all about them.

So that’s all the actual purchase stuff covered. But there’s much more to a book’s success than that, and here’s where we talk about readers. We need lots of sales but individuals can only do so much. We need lots of individuals doing a little bit. Garth Nix calls it the transfer of enthusiasm. So when you love a book, don’t keep that to yourself. Talk about it! Tell your friends and family, talk about books at work, show off the copy you love so people recognise the cover when they see it again. Be enthusiastic and transfer that enthusiasm all around. Nothing works better than genuine, honest word of mouth. That’s what really sells books and that’s where books find success. So recommend them wherever you can.

Lend your copy to a friend.

Lend? Isn’t this all about sales!? Well sure, but not entirely. If you’ve loved a book, lending it is a great way to transfer your enthusiasm. That’s another reader, hopefully another fan. That’s another person talking it up and transferring their enthusiasm. Momentum!

Talk them up (and share the cover images) on social media.

If you only have 14 followers on Twitter and 38 friends on Facebook, don’t think for one second that you lack influence. People will pay attention to your social media commentary if they are your friend or follower. That’s why they’re your friend or follower. Every single eyeball counts. So just like you talk up the books in person, do it online, wherever you hang out online. And again, share the cover image so people can spot it easily in store. It really helps.

Leave a review and rating on Amazon, Goodreads, iTunes, etc.

And when it comes to talking about them online, if you can be bothered, reviews make a huge difference. You don’t need to be a great reviewer. You can write:

“this book was really grate, I loved the action. people will definately enjoy it to.”

Seriously, that’s awful spelling and grammar, but it counts. Because it’s the transfer of enthusiasm that matters, not your writing skills. And the more reviews something has, the more visibility it gains on that site, and the more likely other people are to take a chance on it, because it seems like it’s already popular. And that’s the thing about getting more readers – the more popular something appears, the more other people will want to check it out. The more other people check it out, the more likely they are to talk about it too. Hopefully they’ve enjoyed it and they’re talking it up, so the more transfer of enthusiasm we have. That means even more readers, that means even more sales. It’s a self-perpetuating engine of literary love. The book gains success, the author stays in the machine and gets to write more, and readers get to read more. And you helped. Only you can help. Readers and their enthusiasm are an author’s pulse and lifeblood. We love you people.

So you owe me nothing, but if you do want to help, buy, order, talk, and review. Be part of that great word of mouth process. And if you do any of that, I genuinely can’t thank you enough. You totally rock!

Transfer your enthusiasm!

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New YouTube vid about the Alex Caine paperback release.

I’ve just posted a new video to my YouTube channel where I get a bit over-excited about the release of the entire Alex Caine trilogy in paperback in Australia and New Zealand. Stick around to the end for a little outtake.

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On making time and recognising privilege

I posted the meme you see here the other day on Twitter and Facebook, etc. It generated a fair bit of comment, some of it a bit snarky. So I thought maybe I ought to address the concept. Firstly, I stand by the basic premise of the meme, which we’ll look at below. But of course, real life has nuance that a few words on a picture don’t.

So let’s start with privilege. Yes, it’s absolutely true that if you can make time to write you are enjoying a certain level of privilege. If you live in a war torn country or you have to work 18 hours a day just to live, making time to write is not even on your radar. If you’ve had enough education to be able to write at all, let alone create coherent sentences that others might want to read, you are privileged. But in all honesty, a meme like this isn’t directed at people unfortunate enough to have no education or to spend all their waking hours simply not dying. We need to direct aid and care to those people wherever we can, not trite internet memes.

This meme is targeted squarely at the “I’d love to write but I just don’t have time” brigade. No one has time. We’re all busy living life. Unless you are incredibly privileged, and it’s a sad truth that a lot of successful writers are the ones who actually are incredibly privileged. We can’t ignore that truth. The ones who have independent wealth in the form of a trust fund or a partner who’s happy to pay all the bills. They don’t need to fit writing in around work, because they can make writing their work whether it’s actually paying anything or not. This meme is not for them, either. If they can’t find time or motivation to write, then fuck ’em. That’s just lazy or they don’t really want it.

This meme is directed at the regular people. Those folks privileged enough to have an education and a job and a roof over their head and no fear of starving to death in the immediate future. Those people are busy as hell, sure. We have jobs to go to, families to take care of, social engagements to meet, sleep to get somewhere if the kids will let us. But if people in those positions want to write, they absolutely can do so. They have to make the time, that’s all.

Let me use myself as an example. When I wrote RealmShift I was working a nine-to-five office drudge job to pay the bills and I was training and/or teaching six nights a week. I had a wife who wanted to see me sometimes. So I made time in the middle of the day. I used to have a bunch of stuff in the fridge at work and every lunch time I would quickly make a sandwich, then sit at my desk and eat it while I worked on the book. I wrote that entire novel, and a large part of MageSign, during lunch hours, plus any other time at weekends or evenings that I could make a space. Because that’s how badly I wanted to write.

Subsequently, I began building a life that included writing. I retrained to get my full fitness professional qualifications and I went into business for myself as a personal trainer. I had early morning and lunchtime clients, I taught martial arts in the evenings, and I had chunks of time between those things – a few hours mid-morning or mid-afternoon a few days a week – where I wrote. I made writing as important as those other things to make it happen, because that’s how badly I wanted it.

When my son was born, I’d just sold a trilogy to Voyager. I did most of the editing of those books one-handed, with a sleeping newborn cradled in in my left arm. And no, he didn’t sleep like a baby (what a fucking inaccurate piece of garbage that saying is!) But whenever I did get him to sleep, I would sneak into the study and edit. He’s two and a half now, and currently napping. I might get an hour or so to write, so I’m writing this. I’m sacrificing an hour on the current novel because I thought this subject was important.

And that’s the heart of it. Sacrifice. Like the meme says, How much do you want it? If you want it badly enough, you will make time. And if you don’t want to make time, if you don’t actually want to write – need to write – that badly, then that’s okay. Really, it is, there’s no shame in that. But don’t go around acting like anyone who is writing is doing it because they have all these bags of empty time on hand and they’re just having a lark. Those people writing are working fucking hard. They are sacrificing. Because that’s how much they want it.

How badly do you want it?

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CI-A, Me and the Battle of the Worlds

I was looking through some old stuff my mum had saved and discovered a bunch of old exercise books. Most of it is pretty rubbish, appalling “religious education” that was nothing but Christian indoctrination and so on. In truth, I always hated school, never got on well with a classroom environment, with one exception: I loved English. The chance to write stories and read books? That was my kind of schooling. It’s the only thing I was ever good at, academically, so it’s no surprise that these days I’m a writer and a martial artist.

I remember my first ever experience of storytelling. I was about seven years old and we were told to write a story about what we did on the school holidays. Most kids came back with paragraph or two about nanna’s house or whatever. I came back with seven or eight pages about a dude who went back in time and got chased around by dinosaurs. The teacher didn’t believe I’d written it and rang my parents. They said they had no idea about it, I must have done it all in my room. So my teacher, duly impressed, got me to read it to the class. As I stood up there with my knees trembling, reading this thing, I realised all the faces were enraptured. After class, kids were coming up to me saying how great it was and how they wished it wouldn’t end. I was amazed. I had discovered the power of storytelling. I never looked back.

Sadly I can’t find that time travel story I remember so well. Maybe I will one day. But I have found other stuff. One was a story I wrote when I was nine years old, and it shows my influences so clearly already. There’s science-fiction, horror and fantasy, shameless pillages from Star Wars and Doctor Who. It’s classic early Baxter. So I decided to transcribe it for posterity here. Below you’ll find the story, accurately transcribed with all my spelling errors and so on included. But I have added paragraphs. Seems I had a thing about not using them – lots of other stories in big blocks of text with my teacher getting more exasperated about it every time.

After the transcription are scans of the original pages with my teacher’s notes. Perhaps my favourite thing about this story is the teacher’s comment at the end:

“Very good, Alan. I think you enjoyed yourself too. 1 house point.”

You’re right, teacher. I really did enjoy myself. And I still do – nothing is more fun than writing stories. And I scored a house point! That was a big deal back then. Anyway, don’t expect anything brilliant, but here I present to you:

 

CI-A, Me and the Battle of the Worlds

(A story from California)

by Alan Baxter (age 9 ½)

 

“Com’n CI its time to get up.”

“Bleep Bleep Bleep Bloop.”

“No I won’t let you lie in I’ve gotta catch my breakfast.”

“Bleeeeep.”

“bleep bleep or not I want my breakfast. Look CI if you get up you can have some of your favorite drink.”

Bleep bleep bleep.

“Yes oil. Now you get up while I catch my breakfast.”

Bleep bleep bleep sis bloop?

“Yes you can pour your own.”

I caught my breakfast and ate it. Then we got in our spaceship and flew to ALPHA-Z-6 (which was CI-A’s home planet) and landed on the spacestations landing pad and went inside the station. When we got inside the station we found out that it was completely demolished.

“My god CI is this the right planet?”

“bleep bleep athermative.”

“Com’n CI I’m gonna get to the bottom of this.”

“DINCAS APPROCHING.”

“Whats approching”

“DINCAS master”

“What the heck are dincas”

“Those are dincas master”

“Stop calling me master will you. Suffering sausages are they the dincas.”?

“ATHERMATIVE.”

“HECK, their just the daleks CI.”

“Athermative they are the second type of daleks.”

“Second type would they attack us”?

“Athermative. But I could fight back with my lazers beams.”

“What.”

“Lazer beams”

“All right I heard you the first time. But you couldn’t fight all of them theres dozens of them you’ve only got 7 lazers.”

CI gave a loud whistle and hundreds of CI-A’s came zooming in.

“We are going to attack the DINCAS they have completely destroyed our planet so we are going to destroy them! CHARGE.”

All the CI-A’s went zooming off fireing their lazers at the DINCAS. After a long and very noisey fight the DINCAS were all destroyed and not one of the CI-A’s.

“Well thanks CI you and your brothers sure did destroy them.”

We all helped build a new space station and after 2 ½ years the new space station was built. CI interduced me to his best friend. I made friends with him and he was called 8-9-Z CI-A 8-9-Z and I lived on the planet for a couple of years and then we had a spacestorm on the part of the planet where we were. A space storm is very colurful, but very dangeous aswell. It is a storm of colured lazer beams. One of the beams hit our ship so the robots and I could not get home.

When the storm finished we all went out to look at the ship to see weather it was re-buildable or not. We were all dissapointed. “O well you two we’ll have to start building one from scratch. After 6 months we had finished building it and 8-9-Z, CI-A and I flew home only to find that the dreaded wherewolf had attacked the village. There were dead people lying everywhere. O well here we go again another adventure to sort out. Just then CI-A sent up a rocket jet flare and all his brothers came down in their space-ship to help us out again. All CI’s brothers and sisters said that they had brought some equitment for catching wherewolfs. That made me pleased because it would make it easier to catch it. Just then there was a low growl.

“Ut, oh here he comes.”

Cis brothers went forward to attak but they retreated when they saw how huge the monster was.

“Look at the size of it CI is that the one that attaked your planet last month”?

“Athermative it is the one that attaked our planet.”

“Holy mackeral its eating the houses”

“Hang on a minute whats 8-9-Z doing with that spray”?

“He is using the water of life to bring the dead people to life.”

Just then the wherewolf came into full view of us CI-a swung round and fired all 7 lazers at it. It fell down dead and 8-9-Z CI-a and I put it in a little rowing boat and sunk it so all Cis brothers went home and CI 8-9-Z and I could settle down to a happy life again.

THE END

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Ticonderoga to publish my first short fiction collection, Crow Shine

So this is news that makes me happier than a drunk in a brewery. Ticonderoga Publications, one of Australia’s premier presses, is going to publish my first collection of short fiction in September. It’s going to be called Crow Shine, and just look at that amazing cover!

It’s no news to regular readers here what a fan I am of short stories. Ever since I was about 11 years old and picked up a Roald Dahl book called Switch Bitch, expecting something like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or Danny the Champion of the World and got… well, I got my mind blown. I think the short story and novella are a unique art form, one that is incredibly hard to do well, entirely different from novels, but one that is utterly captivating. They’re something I’ve loved reading, and subsequently writing, ever since I was that wide-eyed eleven-year-old holding Switch Bitch like it was both beautiful and dangerous. Which is was. Which all good short fiction is, hopefully. Like a brightly polished and finely honed knife.

So to be in a position now where a publisher as respected as Ticonderoga are publishing a book collecting the best of my own short stories? My mind is blown again. It’s amazing. Crow Shine will contain nineteen short stories and novellas, and is named after one of the three stories original to this collection. The other sixteen are drawn across many years of my yarns exploring the dark weird fantastic that I love so much. Crow Shine will be released in ebook and papaerback, of course, but also in hardcover and (get this!) Limited Edition signed and numbered hardcover. The Limited Edition will be restricted to 100 copies. Honestly, it just gets better and better, right?

Here’s what editor, Russell B Farr, had to say in the official Ticonderoga Publications press release about the deal:

“Alan Baxter is rapidly becoming one of Australia’s premier dark fantasists, and Crow Shine showcases some incredible work. While his stories can be dark, they also show an incredible respect for the human condition, and each one enriches the reader.”

That’s some sweet praise right there. And thanks to my wonderful agent, Alex Adsett, for brokering this deal. Crow Shine will be launched in early October, so watch this space and keep an eye on my social media to know when things are happening, especially if you want one of those 100 Limited Edition hardcovers.

Now, please excuse me while I Snoopy dance.

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I won the 2015 Paul Haines Award for Long Fiction

I’m still in mild shock, but absolutely chuffed. The Australian Shadows Awards winners were announced last night and I won the Paul Haines Award For Long Fiction for my novella, “In Vaulted Halls Entombed”, which was published in the SNAFU: Survival of the Fittest anthology, published by Cohesion Press.

Holy shit! To be nominated for these awards was awesome. To be nominated in the one named after my buddy, Paul Haines, was especially cool. To win it is more special than I can really convey. I wish Paul was still around to celebrate with me, but in the circumstances this is about as sweet as it gets. And huge thanks to Geoff Brown at Cohesion Press for publishing this story.

Here’s the official announcement from the awards ceremony:

Our next award is the Paul Haines Award for Long Fiction (novella). The award is named in memory of one of the association’s most generous, talented and respected author’s Paul Haines. If you’ve never read his work, go do so now (well, after the awards) and if you’ve got a glass nearby raise one with us now.

This year’s winning entry really embodies the soul, energy and nightmare inducing imagery that would have come straight from the mind of Mr Haines. We believe he would have approved.

And the winner is…

In Vaulted Halls Entombed – Alan Baxter

“In Vaulted Halls Entombed seamlessly blends modern military action tropes with classic Lovecraftian cosmic horror to create a fresh, compelling and genuinely frightening story. Baxter uses the subterranean setting to devastating effect, creating a powerful sense of claustrophobia and exquisitely mounting tension.”

That’s so cool I can hardly believe.

Here’s the full list of winners and nominees:

Novels:
WINNER: The Catacombs – Jeremy Bates
The Haunting of Blackwood House – Darcy Coates
The Transgressions Cycle: The Mothers – Mike Jones
The Transgressions Cycle: The Reparation – Mike Jones and Leonie Jones
The Big Smoke – Jason Nahrung

Comics/Graphic Novels:
WINNER: The Road to Golgotha – G.N. Braun & Amanda J Spedding
Troll – Michael Michalandos
The Monster – Ben Rosenthal
Undad – Shane W. Smith

The Paul Haines Award for Long Fiction:
WINNER: In Vaulted Halls Entombed – Alan Baxter
The Haunting of Gillespie House – Darcy Coates
Night Shift – Dirk Flinthart
The Whimper – Robert Hood

Edited Works:
Bloodlines – Amanda Pillar
Lighthouses – Cameron Trost
Midnight Echo 11 – Kaaron Warren
WINNER: Blurring the Line – Marty Young

Collected Works:
The Abandonment of Grace and Everything After – Shane Jiraiya Cummings
WINNER: Peripheral Visions: The Collected Ghost Stories – Rob Hood
Cherry Crow Children – Deborah Kalin

Short Fiction:
The Bone Maiden – Greg Chapman
Eight Seconds – Pandora Hope
El Caballo Muerte – Martin Livings
Perfect Little Stitches – Deborah Sheldon
WINNER: Mine Intercom – Kaaron Warren

Rocky Wood Award for non-fiction and criticism:

The Literary Gothic by Marija Elektra Rodriguez

Congratulations to all the winners and nominees, and huge thanks to the AHWA and for hard work of all the judges.

And if you haven’t read any of the winning publications, I suggest you rectify that ASAP! Apart from my own story, everything listed above is well worth your time and money.

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Beechworth Asylum Writers’ Retreat

I just spent three days, and two nights, in a haunted abandoned asylum. It was fantastic fun!

Geoff and Dawn run Asylum Ghost Tours from the amazing Bijou Theatre at Beechworth Asylum in country Victoria. They also organise writing retreats there where a bunch of writers sleep in the big theatre hall and a professional author guest gets their own room at the end of the theatre, and everyone does loads of writing. Over the course of the weekend, the guest author runs workshops for the others. Geoff kindly invited me along as the guest and I happily accepted. 0I did a couple of workshops which the writers seemed to really enjoy, and I got a chunk of my own writing done too.

Not only do Geoff and Dawn throw a fantastic, fully catered retreat, but they combine it with their main business of ghost tours. So all the retreatists (totally a word, shut up) also get to go on tours and paranormal investigations in the middle of the night through the broken down old Asylum.

The tours were brilliant – the guides are superb (we had Laura for the ghost tour one night and Craig for the paranormal investigation the next night). Walking through these old buildings in the dark, torchlight dancing nervously off the walls, being told stories of the horrible atrocities that befell so many poor psychiatric patients is both heartbreaking and proper creepy. A really unique experience that I highly recommend. Did you just hear that..? *stares into the darkness*

Strange stuff goes on at night in Beechworth Asylum. If you get a chance to go along, do it. Take advantage of the tours and see (and feel) something very different. Believer or skeptic, it’s great fun. And when the writing retreat comes around, jump on that too. I can’t think of many places that got my creative juices flowing and my story brain in gear quite like this place! Here’s the link to all the info you need about Beechworth on their Facebook page.

And here’s a link to a set of photos I took over the long weekend (on my Facebook page). This link will work whether you have Facebook or not and there’s a bunch of descriptions with the photos to give you a better insight into the place.

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Primordial sells to Cohesion Press

A little bit of awesome news to share with you all today. Primordial, a giant monster thriller co-authored with my podcast buddy, David Wood, will be published in early 2017 by Cohesion Press as part of their new Natural Selection line. It’s exciting stuff. After Dave and I wrote the horror novella, Dark Rite, together, we knew that we could work well as a team, so we decided to take on a full novel project. Primordial is the result and I’m so happy it’s sold to Cohesion Press.

If that name is familiar, it should be! They’re a small press making great waves lately and they’ve published me a couple of times before, with stories in their anthologies Blurring The Line and SNAFU: Survival of the Fittest. I’ve also got another story with them soon, coming out in their next SNAFU anthology, Future Warfare.

Here’s a little blurb for Primordial about it to whet your appetite:

Sometimes, the legends are true.

When eccentric billionaire, Ellis Holloway, hires marine biologist Sam Aston to investigate the legend of a monster in a remote Finnish lake, Aston envisions an easy paycheck and a chance to clear his gambling debts. But he gets much more. Something terrible lives beneath the dark waters of Lake Kaarme… and it’s hungry. As the death toll mounts, Aston faces superstitious locals, a power-hungry police chief, and a benefactor’s descent into madness as he races to find the legendary beast of the lake in PRIMORDIAL.

So we have nefarious Australian marine biologists, lunatic American billionaires, a mysterious lake in Finland, myths of a giant monster, missing people, blood, suspense, even frickin’ Nazis, dude! It’s a great book with loads of action, so I hope you’ll pick up a copy when it comes out. I’ll be sure to keep you informed of progress as things move along. Now please excuse me while I happy dance.

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New Alex Caine Series covers revealed!

This is so very exciting! The entire Alex Caine Series will finally be available in print everywhere in Australia and New Zealand in July. All three books will land in bookstores and you can at last get the whole set in paperback. And they’ve got these amazing new covers. The ebooks are out now, so get on board at your favourite ebook retailer if you can’t wait for the paperbacks. Check them out:

These covers are so much better, really conveying the dark thriller style of the books. What do you think of them? I can’t wait to see them actually for real, all papery and solid and in my greedy little hands! In the meantime, we can enjoy the dark awesomeness of these new covers. Magic, monsters, mayhem and martial arts, coming your way in just a few short months. Tell your friends!

And for the rest of the world, you’ll remember a little while ago I revealed in the international cover for Bound: Alex Caine #1, which will be available in the US, UK, Canada, etc. Well, that should drop in December this year, with Obsidian and Abduction hopefully not too far behind. Sorry you have to wait a bit longer, but it’ll be worth it!

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