I never considered that ghost stories and strange local folklore might have regional and cultural significance. I just loved to read ghost stories and that was good enough for me. As a kid, I had cousins (all siblings) who relished telling their own personal encounters with the uncanny. There was a transparent “thing” which would float in your peripheral vision but disappear when you looked straight in its direction (I never saw it).  There was the little pale man who was spotted in the principal’s office at my one cousin’s school when no one should have been there. He was the only kid who saw it. My aunt just shrugged.
I was secretly thrilled with the tales, but was naturally a skeptic. I still am, and others find it unusual that a guy who likes and writes horror stories does not believe in the supernatural. I don’t find it odd at all. Maybe it’s because I’m drawn to the psychological and cultural significance of the tales. That’s an occupational hazard I think—as a psychologist and university professor I look for the natural, the observable, and the empirically based.
My wife and I have been visitors to the Outer Banks of North Carolina for over 20 years. A location like this is loaded with history, much of it sinister. The settlement of Roanoke Island in 1585 founded by Sir Walter Raleigh disappeared without a trace a few years later. Blackbeard, the notorious pirate, hid among the barrier islands and was later killed at Ocracoke. Scores of shipwrecks off the coast of the Outer Banks resulted in the area being referred to as the Graveyard of the Atlantic. From these historical counts came tales of specters, ghosts, strange lights, ghost ships, and the Gray Man who warns visitors to evacuate the coast when hurricanes approach.
While I loved the stories and the mythos of the area—which I tried to incorporate into my latest novel The Disembodied—I realized that these are more than just “stories”. These accounts explain the Outer Banks. The settlers and early residents made use of these accounts to make sense of a setting which, while beautiful, could be inhospitable. Brutal storms could but your life at risk if you did not take precautions. Want proof? Take a look at any of the stories. The individuals who did not take these warnings into account were foolhardy. And, those that did showed great judgment. They were survivors.
Ghost stories and folklore in this day and age reinforce the accounts of stamina and the struggles of the early residents. Tales of ghosts go along well with the Graveyard of the Atlantic, don’t you think? There is a sense of identity, a collective ancestry, that the area shares. This can be reduced to a smaller geographical area as well. The haunted house in a neighborhood—everyone has a story about it. Some bring the story-tellers back to their childhood.
The sense of lore can also be passed down within families and provide anchors for family history. My cousins still tell tales.

I found the image above from Ghetty Images (O. Donmaz).

​I struggled with exactly what to do with The Disembodied. When I finished the novel last fall, I was torn among submitting it to the small press which published two of my earlier novels, self-publish it in order to learn the process, or submit it to a Kindle Scout campaign.
My previous publisher, Damnation Books, had just been bought out by Caliburn Press around the time when I finished The Disembodied. I have full confidence in Caliburn after reading about the new owner’s plans for the company. After all, they already had two of my novels and had acquired the rights to my third which had previously been accepted by Damnation Books. I recognized, though, that the new owner would have a lot of details to iron out - so I decided to consider other options for The Disembodied. That left self-publishing or Kindle Scout.
I quickly learned that I needed to hire an editor to work on The Disembodied whether I went the self-published route or with the Kindle Scout. So, after securing my editor and while the editor was working on The Disembodied, I explored Kindle Scout more thoroughly and decided what the heck. Let’s do it. What really intrigued me more than anything was having the Amazon marketing machine behind me if I was successful in being selected at the end of the 30 day campaign window. Self-promotion is a huge drag and I don’t think I do it well, so the idea of being promoted by Amazon was a convincing factor. More money would be nice, but really, who goes into this to make money? I was honestly looking for more readers.
The editorial process took months, since I went with the whole shebang of story editing, copy editing, and line editing – not to mention proofreading. But Saturday, April 30th, 2016, the Kindle Scout Campaign went live. I have no clue about how many people nominated it. I know I nominated myself (narcissism 101).
Flash forward nearly four months. The campaign was a success! The Disembodied was released on August 16th. Now, all I have to fret about is potential readers becoming aware of its existence. No big deal, right? Sheesh.

I just read in Slate that The Shining is now an opera. Is nothing sacred any more?
Actually, the article makes the production sound quite fascinating. Hmmm.
I'd almost be tempted to see it...
It has the creepy little girls and the dead lady in the tub. Check out the pictures in the article.

Well, so much for my intentions not to check on the status of my Kindle Scout campaign for The Disembodied. Full disclosure: I have been checking daily.
And, I mean daily.
The first two days I was listed as “new”. Then, I spent portions of the next six days in “Hot and Trending”. The total number of hours (in H and T) was 88. Not huge, as many authors spend all the time – that is, 24 hours – from the get-go. Sadly, interest in The Disembodied has waned over the last two days as I am no longer in H & T. Sigh. I’m still plugging away, though, with social media. Maybe something will happen.
Overzealous as I tend to be, I misread the instructions for the Kindle Scout campaign. They, the Kindle Scout people, mention to have to have your book professionally edited. I did that—actually I had two different editors—but I thought that meant getting your book formatted in mobi format to upload to the Kindle Scout site.
Nope. It turns out that Kindle wanted a Word version uploaded. I, however, pushed ahead with the whole shebang. Since I wanted a print version as well, the editor prepped the book into pdf format. Then, we started with preparing the book for conversion to Kindle format—the mobi format.
It was at this stage that my editor noticed that Kindle requires you to upload the Word version for the campaign. However, I no longer had that since the manuscript, with all accompanied editorial changes, was now a pdf file.
The folks from The Editorial Department who were doing the line editing tried two different programs to convert pdf files back into Word. There were numerous conversion errors with both, but I took the one with the fewer errors. That didn’t mean, however, that there were only a few conversion errors. For instance, one annoying conversion error was the joining of two lines of dialogue (from two different characters) into one line. So, lines like the following:

“Do you think it’ll snow?”
“Sure feels like it,” Shelley said.

Turned into:                                
“Do you think it’ll snow?” “Sure feels like it,” Shelley said.
​
You’d be surprised how often that happened. Or, maybe you wouldn’t. Anyway, I was able to save the converted Word version as a second Word version—and for some reason that was easier to revise for the Kindle Scout upload.
Lo and behold, though, after I uploaded the book, it turns out I missed some additional conversion errors… right in the first 5000 words that everyone sees. Amazingly, the Kindle people were really helpful. They went into the document and made the changes.
Now, though, I’ve been finding some more…

I struggled with exactly what to do with The Disembodied. When I finished the novel last fall, I was torn among submitting it to the small press which published two of my earlier novels, self-publish it in order to learn the process, or submit it to a Kindle Scout campaign.
My previous publisher, Damnation Books, had just been bought out by Caliburn Press around the time when I finished The Disembodied. I have full confidence in Caliburn after reading about the new owner’s plans for the company. After all, they already had two of my novels and had acquired the rights to my third which had previously been accepted by Damnation Books. I recognized, though, that the new owner would have a lot of details to iron out - so I decided to consider other options for The Disembodied. That left self-publishing or Kindle Scout.
I quickly learned that I needed to hire an editor to work on The Disembodied whether I went the self-published route or with the Kindle Scout. So, after securing my editor and while the editor was working on The Disembodied, I explored Kindle Scout more thoroughly and decided what the heck. Let’s do it. What really intrigued me more than anything was having the Amazon marketing machine behind me if I was successful in being selected at the end of the 30 day campaign window. Self-promotion is a huge drag and I don’t think I do it well, so the idea of being promoted by Amazon was a convincing factor. More money would be nice, but really, who goes into this to make money? More readers was what I was looking for.
The editorial process has taken months, since I went with the whole shebang of story editing, copy editing, and line editing – not to mention proofreading. But Saturday, April 30th, 2016, the Kindle Scout Campaign went live. I have no clue how many people have been nominating it – after all, the campaign just started. I know I nominated myself (narcissism 101). So, at least there is one vote for me.
Authors can check their “progress” by examining  a page called “My Campaigns” on Amazon and see how often their pages have been examined and whether they are considered “hot and trending”. I have no idea what constitutes hot and trending, and I’m not even sure if Amazon tells you. My plan at this stage is to not log into my campaigns to see if I am “hot”. That will only drive me crazy. Instead, I will end up promoting the campaign through social media and try to avoid the temptation of looking. Of course, I say this now. There are 20 some-odd days to go.
I’ll be posting more thoughts on the Kindle Scout process and The Disembodied in the weeks to come.
Do you feel like nominating me? Here is the link: https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/38077YOXC700J
​

​I watched the midseason premier of The Walking Dead last night, and found the episode thrilling – one of the best in recent seasons. I haven’t read online discussions of the show in the past for the sole reason that I have a life that I must attend to. But, something made me check today to see the comments and reviews. There was a wide range of opinions; most loved it, others really disliked it. Some of the latter reactions were due to plot holes and inconsistencies. I find these criticisms amusing. I mean, we’re talking about a show that depicts a zombie apocalypse. Nonetheless, some people were troubled by head scratching moments. (Okay, I’ll give them one. When Sam was frozen in place due to panic, instead of trying to talk him into moving, Rick--or any of the cast--could have just picked the kid up and continued on…). More intriguing, though, were those individuals who were troubled by the on-screen death of a ten year old kid. TWD has never hesitated to kill a child character. I thought the episode where Carol “executed” Lizzie was a dynamic, and intense plot development – and solely necessary given her psychotic behavior. Yet, within short order during the midseason premier, a little boy was eaten alive on-screen and then his mother suffered the same fate seconds later. The boy’s older brother was then stabbed with a machete to avoid his shooting of Rick, our main character. Graphic and unnerving for sure. But, highly “believable” within the context of a random series of events that could happen within a zombie apocalypse. Not to be outdone, Rick’s teenage son was shot in the eye in the melee. When Carl turns toward the camera with a mangled face and a hole where his eye should be, the shock of the scene is complete. All-in-all, this was a three minute segment which was gripping and devastating. And, it worked.

I posted a review of the novel Ghosts of Eden by Keith Deininger on my blog yesterday, November 20th. My practice is then to tweet the blog, post it on Facebook and Google plus. I also post the review on Amazon and Goodreads as a service to authors.
As you can see by the photo, I received an email from Amazon thanking me for my review of Kotex Natural Balance Light Pads. In addition, they post my review of Ghosts of Eden right next to the picture of the Kotex product.
Okay, this has to be user error on my part. I emailed Amazon but have yet to hear back from them. I hope Keith gets some good publicity out of this...

We’ve been out of town on vacation for nearly two weeks – one of which was spent at a beach house on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

We had no Wi-Fi connection – which was wonderful. The downside was that I couldn’t post any blogs, but I wrote a few and will post them over the next few days. I could have gone to a Starbucks, I suppose, but I figured I was on vacation so why worry about it.

I read two outstanding horror novels: Sunblind by Michael McBride and The Boy Who Drew Monsters by Keith Donohue. I will post reviews on those two books shortly. They were both quite good by the way.

Sadly, I must have added an additional 5-8 pounds to my frame. If I put on more than that I will be quite disappointed.

No one seems to have the answer when it comes to book promotion when you are a small press author or a self-published author. Some people do okay, and I wish I knew their secret – at least they seem to be doing okay when I see their sales rank relative to mine on Amazon.

When you come right down to it, a frequent presence on social media is probably the most effective way to promote your work. The only problem is that countless other authors are doing the exact same thing. How many are there? Hundreds of thousands? Millions? I have no idea. But, I will believe whatever large number that anyone throws out.

As many authors know, social media promotion efforts are exhausting and they have a rather small payoff. In my case, I sell a handful of books (150ish) when they’re released and then my ranking goes into freefall on Amazon. I tried one of those twitter services where they blast the world with tweets about your book for $59 or $199 or whatever package you buy. The result: Nothing at all. No impact. Finally, I read a blog where the writer advised not to waste your money on these things. Many tweets land in fake accounts or the accounts of other authors who are trying to sell - not buy - a book. The blogger made a good point when she said, “If you think about it, do you pay attention to these kinds of tweets?” The answer, of course, is “no”. Well, neither does anyone else.

I signed up for another service where you tweet about the works of other authors. In response, you earn points for your efforts. The more you tweet (or advertise) someone else’s work, the higher your own book climbs the site’s ranking – where it is more easily seen by other members who are doing the same thing as you. These other authors are more likely to see the higher ranked items and therefore are more likely to tweet those books in their attempts to earn points. Not a bad idea, really. I felt awkward, however, tweeting about how great another book was when I didn’t even read it. You’re just going through the motions to get a number of tweets out each day to improve your score. In the meantime, you are inundating your twitter follows with tweets about recommended books that you haven’t read and aren’t likely to read. It felt disingenuous. Why mislead your own followers? So, I ended up canceling my membership to that service.

I mentioned before in this blog that I do enjoy, and endorse, Bublish. I’ve had mixed results in terms of sales, but I enjoy my participation. I am able to take excerpts of my books and highlight them in a book bubble. At the same time, I give insights behind that section of the book. It’s a fun activity and the data indicate people do check the site.

I’ve reached a conclusion that the only way become “known” is to build a community. Your social media endeavors should focus on developing a following - one person at a time. You can’t advertise your books constantly. Who wants to follow that? But you offer something to your followers. For instance, in my blog, I review other horror novels of my choosing. I have met some great authors this way. I tweet issues related to science, psychology, and horror (a strange mix, I know). From what I can tell, others seem to enjoy the tweets and reviews. So, you accumulate followers. Ninety-five percent of the time, your followers won’t be purchasing a book. But every now and again, someone does. And then, by God, the labor is worth it.

“I’m not going to watch it. I heard it sucks and I don’t want to contaminate one of my fondest childhood stories.”

            That may not be an exact quote, but it is pretty close. My twenty-two year old daughter was commenting on the movie adaptation of the YA novel The Giver by Lois Lowry. She was at home for three days over Thanksgiving, taking a break from her doctoral work at the University of Chicago.

            I thought I had a good idea arranging my Netflix queue so that the movie version of The Giver would be at our house over the holiday so that we could watch the movie together. It so happens that the December selection for the men’s book club to which I belong is The Giver – a definite departure from our usual fare. For instance, our January selection is The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell. Anyway, I was reading the book (now long finished) and watching the movie sounded like a good idea.

Not to my daughter’s way of thinking.

The Giver is one of her all-time favorites. With the exception of Harry Potter, The Giver holds a special place in her heart. I was surprised, though, about her unwillingness to watch the movie. She stood her ground, and only my wife and I watched it. For the record I thought the film version was pretty good – it certainly didn’t “suck” like her peers reported to her. She had no qualms about watching all of the Harry Potter movies, or seeing other films based on childhood readings (The Thief Lord, Hunger Games). But there is something about The Giver that struck her differently. This work represents something iconic to her and to many people who read the book in middle school.

I think I know why.

The fan base is evidently quite huge mostly because it is a frequently assigned reading for middle school kids. They love it for two reasons, I think. First, the book is accessible to a range of readers. Second, and most importantly, author Lois Lowry has masterfully connected with the developmental stage of pre- and early adolescence. This is the stage of life when the consideration of Big Ideas and Big Thoughts become possible. Abstract and hypothetical reason is growing by leaps and bounds at this age. The content of The Giver involves love, grief, the arbitrary nature of rules, the expression of feelings, and the struggle with the limits of vocabulary to describe deep emotions and cognitions. All of these are weaved into a dystopian tale that is simultaneously safe, heartbreaking, disturbing, and downright creepy. I think for many kids like my daughter, the themes of this work meshed triumphantly with the very struggles of the target age group. I think Ms. Lowry tapped marvelously into the mindset of kids at this age, and every word of her story resonates with them. That alone makes Lois Lowry a genius. And to have her fans hold their memories of the book close to their hearts a decade later has got to be incredibly rewarding.