GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #376: I HAVE A CUNNING PLAN

 

Hopefully mine works out a lot better than his usually did.

I've been focusing my week of shameless self-promotion on ebooks today. There is a reason for that. Very soon I'm going to do a few more Kindle-only books, but they won't be standalones.

I have two finished books I'm sitting on right now. One of them is my splatter western, the other is my splatter SF. They're kinda making the rounds, but I'm pretty sure no one wants either one. That's fine. I have a plan for them anyway.

The splatter western is part two of a series that doesn't have a part one yet. Kind of like A Fistful of Dollars, in which the last in the series takes place first. The first part of my splatter western was written years ago, and I'm going to do a couple more drafts of it before it comes out, but the second part was meant to be read first. And then . . . hold that thought.

My splatter SF bears a lot of influences on its sleeve. The most obvious is The Expanse, and it's something I stripped out to the best of my abilities. And the first chapter is heavily influenced by Richard Matheson, and again, I stripped out as much as possible. The same for chapter two, which bears a lot in common with Robert E. Howard. It's OK to borrow from others, just so long as you strip out as much of the original influence as possible and make it your own.

But I am shamelessly ripping off the way The Expanse is published. Between each book in the series, the authors publish a Kindle-only novella. They're not technically a part of the series, but they enhance your enjoyment of the bigger story.

My splatter SF book is the first in a kinda-sorta series. The thing is, I'm bored with multi-book SF epics. The books in this series are not a continuing story. They're just about the same characters, that's all. And while there will be connections between them, they will be standalone books. Furthermore, not a single one of them will be doorstops. I'm going to try to keep them all under 60,000 words.

Yeah, there will be subtext. Everything I write has subtext if you're looking for it, even stuff like "Monster Cock." But these books will be first and foremost pulp adventures. Dark, grim, funny, fucked up pulp adventures.

And between each book there will be a Kindle-only novella. I already have a good idea what the first two will be. I'm toying with the idea of publishing one before the first volume. We'll see.

And I'm doing the same for the splatter western series, which will be a trilogy.

So there's my cunning plan. It will come to fruition probably by the end of the year, depending on when I hear back from the publishers that are probably going to say no. Naturally, I'll keep you all in the loop.