How do everyone!
Or perhaps I should say Happy Allhelgensdag Eve! At least that’s what the Forsamling celebrate in Akiniwazi. Their own holiday of remembering the deceased and the anniversary of the first time the dead rose for their own little “zombie apocalypse”. I may have to write a short story about that some day.
Yes, I know the newsletter didn’t go out this month. With all the things going on, it’s amazing we aren’t piles of mush, especially my darling bride. She’s been so busy making things happen behind the scenes. I keep telling her I don’t deserve her. She pats me on my head and agrees, but she wants me anyway. (just our little in joke, folks.)
So what’s been going on?
We had some family business that my darling bride had to attend to earlier in the month. Then we had a month busier than we had since August with 2 shows. Plus we made one special outing to go see “Miracle in East Texas”, the new Kevin Sorbo film. (More on that later). Oh, and appearing on 2 different podcasts, the beta read, editing and formatting for the launch of “The Waking Nightmares”, Book 3 of the Tales From the Dream Nebula series! That’s going to launch on December 8th. No pressure, right? Also, the words have begun to flow with the next freebie story for you newsletter subscribers. You haven’t missed any new treats yet!
The last few months have been a bit of a blow in regards to vending events. The economic downturn has been hurting pretty much every show we go to. As we’ve talked to a lot of vendors they’ve been feeling it too. We’ve been having to re-evaluate what shows we can go to next year. Some of them are already locked in, others are still pending. A couple we’re going to have to let go for now. Maybe as the economy picks back up and my backlist grows plus whatever new items we develop for the booth, we’ll be back.
Speaking of new items. Why has the Darling Bride been so busy? We’re rebuilding our supply of Morris boards. Plus she’s discovered she’s really good at making little stuffed Vikings and Valkyries. So we’re going to have a heaping passle of them for Vikingscon this weekend, and probably another large batch for the following event we’ll be adding on, the Nicholas County Holiday Craft Show coming up this first week of December.
The last month, we went to the WV State Fair Craft Show in Lewisburg and then the WV Book Festival in Charleston. It was a bit of a rough time. The people were nice, but the vibe definitely left us noticing people were clutching their wallets and purses very tightly. Several of the other vendors we talked to had the same experience, and with the trend since June, we’ve come to the conclusion it’s the economy. For the future, we’ve learned a fair amount of things and are going to be altering what shows we can go to, and expenditures we can handle. Several shows we’re already locked into, and will be attending those. We will also be expanding our time with the WV Renaissance Festival. It looks to be a good risk for us.
Now it’s not ALL bad. I will have to point out this much. Despite the whole business side of the game, we have sold more books this year than any other. This blog has had the most visitors ever by almost 300%, the newsletter is growing gradually and I’ve been on 3 podcasts or livestreams since January.
The word’s getting out there a little more every day and we’re entertaining more and more people. In that, both me and the Darling Bride are quite satisfied with what’s going on. Our goal is to keep getting better and better, and adding new merch as well as grow that backlist and fulfill promises to you lovely readers.
One of the new festivals we’re going to try is a bit of a reach and that’s Riseupcon. This is Kevin Sorbo’s new Family & Faith Pop Culture con and we definitely want to support such endeavors that are promoting creatives and culture that loves traditional American and Christian values. That’s where we want our money and time to go, not to those who hate us for who we are and values that were once the pillars of our society.
We also drove 2.5 hours to see Sorbo’s new film “Miracle in East Texas” which I have to say I was delighted by. For those who may not know, I’m pretty hard on Christian and faith based entertainment. Just because it’s got God in it, or God told someone to create this doesn’t mean it deserves my dollar if it’s not entertaining. That’s just now how entertainment works. That’s what made Miracle in East Texas a nice surprise. Outside of two other Christian movies in the last 20 years, I have had a hard time tolerating, let alone finish watching the Christian movies I’ve seen. But this one doesn’t get preachy. It shows it’s principles in action, but doesn’t harp about them or lampshade them so you can’t miss them. The acting was good, and other than the special effects for the oil well gushers being clearly budget limited, it was very well shot. I gotta say I absolutely laughed out loud and hard at two points. One when Tyler Mane shows up and he just nailed his part. The other is when Kevin Sorbo’s character is negotiating a deal. I won’t spoil it, but you can guess why I laughed. I’d recommend giving it a watch. The story, acting and craft are sound and I left the theater feeling good and having things to talk about on the way home.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVgPHEtCsw4
And of course, I’ve revealed the new book coming out Dec 8th. “The Waking Nightmares will be available on Smashwords, Amazon, and direct through your local bookstore via the Ingram Spark system. Of course we’ll be selling autographed physical copies and ebooks at our events that we’re vending at.
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1471745
I hope by the end of the year, for the December newsletter, I’ll have a new story ready for subscribers. This will be for the Akinwazisaga. I’m writing the story of how two characters got married. That’s right, the backstory about Dame Bergfrid and Herr Aske.
So keep a look out for “The Wooing (Courtship? I dunno. It’s a working title) of Dame Bergfrid”.
So that’s all the news that fits, so we print. As always, if you signed up for the newsletter and you never got it, check your spam or junk folder. Same goes for downloading “Cold Pursuit of a Hot Case” (only one or two chances left to get that for free). If you don’t have something lodged in junk or spam, please contact us through the site and we’ll help you work it out and get you set up. We can’t reach out to you directly, you have to let us know (blame the FCC).
Otherwise, till the next time, probably after Vikingscon when we have more news…
Vaya con Dios!
