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Sunday, December 9, 2012

Reviving Horror

There are 34,891 horror books on Amazon's kindle store. Some of them are big names: Dean Koontz, Stephen King, Ramsey Campbell or Jack Ketchum, but most of them are indie authors like me whose books are languishing at the basement of Amazon, hopelessly awaiting the light of day.

And that is why I decided to start this project.

Every week, I will try to read and review 2 Amazon-forgotten horror books in the hope of uncovering a new gem. I know that there's a lot of rubbish in there but I've always felt that the kindle system needed some sort of filtering mechanism. Traditional publishing usually acts as an automatic filter: "You're not good? You're out!" but what about the thousands of genuinely talented horror writers who are struggling to squeeze in a couple of blood-hungry monsters in between their day job lunch-breaks and house chores. Every marketing book out there will advice you to build your own platform and let interest seep in little by little, but let's face it, most of the talented writers out there are horrible marketing managers ( and that includes me). I am not hoping of saving the horror world here, but simply to give a little push in the right direction. Maybe, who knows, this idea might take off and other horror lovers like me will follow and start posting reviews. Maybe there are hundreds who are already doing this and my work would be simply building upon theirs. Whatever the outcome, I feel that horror is an extremely artistic and rich genre ( when tackled well) which is at the moment in our lifetimes on literary life-support. Maybe a new Clive Barker or Stephen King will arise out of the ashes one day and give this glorious genre a well deserved boost. Until that day arrives, I hope to contribute my 2c with this blog.

I hope you enjoy my reviews and please: COMMENT COMMENT COMMENT!!!

3 comments:

  1. You're so absolutely correct about there being a lot of junk out there. Its rare these days for me to be scared by even some of the most highly attributed of horror writing. I think of The Shining as probably one of the scariest books I've read where I was actually afraid of turning pages. Any attempts on my part to create that same reaction in a reader have been lost on the availability now of so many books and fewer readers than ever. In King's book "Writing" he uses the darker sides of his memoirs to show that he is and has been in touch with that darkness - even intimately, and its my humble opinion that to write true horror, one needs to experience some horrors in their life - lived it and came out the other side - perhaps even experiencing it as "normal", whatever that means. I like what you say in your "About Me" script, particularly your last statement that "My hope is that throughout my life, my questions lead to changes of mind and, more importantly, changes of heart." I think this is the quest of every writer who is also a thinker. Self-awareness keeps us in touch with our dark side, which is also the part of us that provides strength . . . and heart. Nice blog.

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  2. JC,

    A very interesting endeavor! Its a daunting task trying to sort through the oceans of mediocre authors that comprises the horror genre these days and I'm certain there are at least a few gems out there. But one of the reasons I sat down and began writing a couple years ago was pretty simple - after years of reading I said to myself, "Hey, I can write better crap than this crap!' Whether that's true or not will be for others to decide.

    Despite a long career that included advertising & marketing as a fledgling horror writer I'm struggling with that side of things as well. I have managed to develop a whole website around my series (www.wyvernfalls.com) but how helpful that will be in getting things launched this coming year is hard to tell. All I know is that I write every day, pouring all my life experience (along with generous doses of dark humor and satire) into it and most importantly, I have a blast doing it. Keep you posted on where I get to with all of it.

    Regardless, for what its worth I think you are on the right track with all this and looking forward to your reviews (I see there are two new ones already). I recall some old Chinese saying about making a mountain one handful of dirt at a time....you have to start somewhere. Also, I'm looking forward to picking up 'Disequilibria' - I'm finally caving in and getting a Kindle next week.

    Best of luck,

    Robert

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  3. I'd like to humbly offer you a free copy of my book, The Amazing Morse, through Amazon, but unfortunately they have not chosen to match the free price from other vendors. But you can pick it up from Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/237891
    It might not be to your liking, it might not even be considered horror, but I believe I've dotted most every "i", crossed every "t" and put a lot more into it than the casual reader will ever notice.

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