Fairy Tales and a New Book

May 05, 2023 5:01 pm

So I did it! Fairy Tales and Nightmares is officially edited and uploaded into Story Origin's beta reading system! Hurray! Also, I got the second Heyward and Andersen story published! Big surprise as it's a month ahead of schedule.

Of course, as my writer life gives me wins, my artist life smacks me in the face with a lemon. If you haven't heard, Redbubble, the platform where I host my merch store is targeting all its small shops with high fees, taking a BIG chunk of our already meagre profits. So as you can imagine, we artists are not happy. Luckily, I had already set up shop on Zazzle, so I'll be shifting focus over there. You can get a sneak peek at my evolving shops below. Now on with other stuff.

Call For Beta Readers!

If you'd like to sign up to be a beta reader for Fairy Tales and Nightmares here is the link.

Click Here to Be a Beta Reader!

I need brave people willing to critique nine dark horror fantasy stories and give me their honest opinions.

Fairy Tales and Nightmares

Happily ever after sometimes just means surviving...

Nine fairy tales reimagined within the worlds of horror, history and mythology.

What if the Evil Queen fell in love with Snow White or Sleeping Beauty’s curse came with a beast? And how far would someone go to avenge their family? These stories upturn your favourite tales and retell them with a horror spin, weaving them into such diverse settings as feudal Japan, the ancient Roman Empire, and Celtic Ireland.

Gone are the damsels in distress and the heroic princes, this is the grim world of folklore where the princesses are the monsters or the champions of their own fate. No one is coming to save them, but they’ll fight their way out of madness and terror or die trying.

Please don't sign up to be a beta reader if you can't spare the time, or don't think you can help. I need feedback critiques to polish the book for publishing.

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And in other good news, Shadow in Scarlet (Heyward and Andersen #2) is now PUBLISHED! As I said, this is way ahead of schedule so it's as much a surprise to me as it is for you.

Did you think Holmes and Watson were the only pair of consulting detectives in London? Meet Heyward and Andersen, consulting detectives in a paranormal London you never imagined… a world of airships, mysteries, and monsters.

Elspeth Heyward has never met a mystery she didn't want to solve or a risk she wasn’t willing to take. Always up for adventure, she is determined to be the best detective and monster hunter in London and outshine her avowed rival, Sherlock Holmes.

New to the detective world, Lars Andersen just wants to stay alive and out of trouble, even if he secretly enjoys their cases. But when your partner likes guns and danger, work can be hazardous. Thank heavens for a good glass of brandy and excellent pickled herring.

The Case: Hunt down a vampire stalking their client, the infamous thrall, Scarlett LeJeune. The investigation leads them across the city as they hunt their suspect, but can they find this obsessive swain before his love becomes lethal?

Set in an alternate, supernatural version of Victorian Britain, Shadow in Scarlet is the second intriguing story in the Heyward and Andersen, Consulting Detectives series.

The price for the short story is 0.99 cents

Read Today!

And if you haven't checked out the first story in the series, The Ghostly Tower, you can download it here for free.

The Ghostly Tower

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SALE

I've put some of my Smashwords books on sale for the month of May.

You can check out the books here.

My Books On Smashwords

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YouTube

I'm doing a series of interviews for Crystal Lake Publishing on my YouTube Channel. The first aired on April 15th with Kyle Toucher where we discussed his book Live Wire and his special effects works on scifi shows.

Check Out The Video

And I have a group interview discussing body horror and the book collection Dark Tides Book 7: Little Mutilations that aired on April 28th.

Check Out The Video

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National Poetry Month

I did my annual National Poetry Month write-a-thon. It went well, and thanks for the poem prompts. You can check out the daily posts I did last month on my website.

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Design Drama

As mentioned earlier, RedBubble has implemented a fee-based tier system aimed solely at gauging the artist's profits. If you are in the Standard tier Redbubble will now claim 1/2 to 1/5 of your profits in fees. They have not disclosed what criteria they use to classify shops and honestly, the whole system feels very shady. Because of this, I'm migrating the bulk of my designs over to Zazzle, and focusing my marketing efforts over there. I won't be closing down the Redbubble shop just yet, not until I see how this move by Redbubble plays out. I won't be shopping at Redbubble anymore though, as I want to support artists and it seems clear Redbubble does not.

I would appreciate it if you all would pop over and take a look at my new shops. Traffic helps boost visibility, and I'm basically starting over on Zazzle. I have three shops now; I divided my designs into separate stores. The selection is a bit sparse right now, as it takes time to move the designs over, but they will expand.