Book Five Update

If you’re following along, I was slated to go on a business trip back in July for my actual job. That fell through for reasons, and since I was planning to use the train ride to work on my next book, I wasn’t able to.

Cut to August 20th. My wife, daughter, and I were on our annual vacation to the beach, and I brought my laptop with me, even though I usually never use it when on vacation. One of the mornings when my wife slept in and my daughter was watching Inside Out 2 for the fiftieth time, I cracked out my laptop and got started writing. I only wrote about 1,400 words that day, but it jump-started me getting back in the habit.

I’d been toying with three different ideas for my next book, and honestly, I couldn’t decide which to get started on. Ever since I released Dudley Road last year, I’ve been saying, “I’m never writing another scary story.” Well, I lied. The truth is, Dudley Road outsells my other books by about twenty to one. And while I’m not in this for the money, I do want people to read my books.

So, here we are. I’m about 40,000 words into the first draft of the next book, tentatively titled “Upstairs.” It is in the horror genre, and I will reveal more about the plot, story, and characters as we get closer to a release in 2025. I plan to write about 100,000 words, but the story usually tells itself. I hope to be done with the first draft by the end of September.

Also, like Dudley Road, I will be doing an audiobook for Upstairs because who doesn’t love a good scary story being told by the person who wrote it?

If you like to read early copies of books and don’t mind telling everyone you know about it, please sign up for my ARC (Advance Reader Copy) team here. You’ll get to read the book before anyone else and provide your feedback about what works, what doesn’t, and what you liked or didn’t like. It’s a crucial part of writing a book and I sincerely appreciate your help!

Last, if you’re on Threads (Meta’s new social networking platform that rivals Twitter), I post lots of updates there, so please follow me.

Next Book Starts Soon!

It’s been almost four months since My Best Friend, Marty came out. And, if I’m being honest, it didn’t sell as well as I’d hoped it would. I thought people would resonate with the idea of a simple tale of best friendship. Maybe the synopsis and blurb weren’t perfect. Maybe the artwork didn’t hit. I don’t know. But I thought it’d do better than it did.

Which is to say that I’m a little bummed out about it. I think that’s why I haven’t started writing the next book yet. I came up with three great ideas. Well, I think they’re great anyway. I suppose time will be the judge. Of those three ideas, I picked the one I thought would be the best to knock out.

And the good news (?) is that I plan to start writing it in two weeks. I have to travel down to New York for my new job, and I’ll have four hours on the train where I can, hopefully, write uninterrupted and knock out at least a handful of chapters. And since I won’t have parental duties while I’m there (shoutout to Megan, who’ll be single-handedly holding down the house while I’m gone), I’ll also have a couple of hours each of the four nights I’m there.

As is usual, for no reason whatsoever, I’m not telling you what the book will be about. Not yet, anyway. I don’t know why I like to keep it a secret. Possibly because before I started writing Dudley Road in 2022, I started writing something else entirely. After writing a handful of chapters, I didn’t feel the story was jumping off the page like I had wanted it to. So, for now, I scrapped that story. Don’t worry, I never delete anything. I just archived it for the time being, in hopes that I’ll revisit it someday. Had I told you all about that book right when I started, you might have been disappointed that I didn’t see it through. Or I would be disappointed in myself, or something. I don’t even know.

But the point is, when we get closer to having a finished first draft, I’ll spill the beans on what it’s about. If you’ve been following me for some time, you know that each of the first of my four published books are slightly unique in their genre. I know that’s not good for business, or whatever, but I like to read a plethora of genres, so I like to (try to) write in different genres, as well.

I’ll report back in a couple of a weeks and let you know how my writing sessions went while I am away from home.

Thanks, as always, for your support. Hearing from readers about something they loved in one of my books is the motivation I need to keep going. You have no idea how much it means to me to hear from you all!

Come See Me at My Author Talk!

In conjunction with the Friends of Southborough Library, the wonderful folks at my town library have extended a special invitation for me to share my insights at their highly anticipated annual event.

On June 12th, at 7 p.m., please join me at the Southborough Library for a half-hour talk on the art of writing, publishing, marketing, and (hopefully) selling a book.

I’ll discuss the entire process, from ideation to writing a million drafts, to publishing through Amazon and other services, and then shouting from the rooftops about your book.

I’ve created a Facebook Event for the night and would love it if you could RSVP there.

After my talk, I’ll be answering questions and selling and signing copies of all four of my books. I hope to see you there!

Happy Tenth Anniversary, “A Sour Chord” – Big Sale Celebration!

Let’s flash back together. It’s May of 2014. I’m about to click publish on Amazon for my very first book, A Sour Chord. Up until that moment, the only person I’d told I’d written a book was my now wife, Megan. And even then I’d only told her a couple of months beforehand. I don’t know why I kept it a secret, but I did. Other than Megan, my editor, Austin, was the only person to know this book existed.

That day was filled with anxiety, fear, imposter syndrome, and, most importantly, hope. I don’t know what I planned to get out of writing that book, but I knew I wanted to. And now, ten years later, I’m here celebrating its anniversary. I published that book ten years ago next month, though I’d written the short story that was its foundation—a play, of sorts, really—way back in 1999. It’s been a journey, and I’m grateful to have you all with me.

Here we are, today, together, celebrating this work. And what better way to celebrate than to get my books into your eager little hands, no? From April 22nd through May 22nd, all paperbacks in my online store are $10, and hardcovers are just $15. But you need to order them from this special link. If you go right to the books themselves, the special pricing isn’t going to be there. So be sure to click that link.

And, as always, I wanted to say thank you. For those of you who’ve just stumbled onto my work, welcome. For those of you who’ve been here since the beginning, thank you for your support, kind words, encouragement, and nagging me to keep writing when I feel defeated or unsuccessful. I won’t delve into how hard it is to be an independent, self-published author, but I will say that it’s more work than I could have ever anticipated. If you’d told me ten years ago that writing the book(s) is the easiest part of the process, I may have reconsidered doing it.

Last Chance to Pre-Order My Best Friend, Marty

I’m happy to report that the first batch of paperbacks arrived yesterday.

I spent the morning signing and packing up pre-orders to get them out before next week’s release.

If you want a copy before release day (March 14th), tomorrow, March 6th will be the absolute last day you can get your order in with enough time for me to sign, pack, and ship it out to you.

You can pre-order your copy here. Thanks for your support!

30 Days Until “Marty” Arrives!

Several things about “My Best Friend, Marty” are hard to believe.

If you haven’t been following along, “My Best Friend, Marty” is the tale of two unlikely best friends who meet at random one night. It follows the journey of their lives over twenty years, documenting their ups and downs, their loves and lives. It’s written in the first person perspective and is semi-auto-biographical.

The first thing that’s hard to believe is that it’ll be available in just thirty days! I can’t believe the time’s gone by so quickly. Pre-order for Kindle will be available next week. Paperback and Hardcover through Amazon will be available on March 14th.

This brings me to item two, which is hard to believe: “Dudley Road” just came out 11 months ago. I’ve never written something so fast (and got through all the nonsense of editing, artwork, etc.) in my life. You’ll have to believe me when I say the story flowed out of me. It did. The more I wrote, the quicker it just came out of me. It’s probably because a good portion of what happens to Matt (the main character) and Marty (the best friend) are things that happened to me over the years. It is very much semi-auto-biographical. Those of you who know me in real life will probably try to pick out the real things and those that I made up for the book.

The last thing that’s hard to believe — at least for me — is that I just uploaded the final copies to Amazon. I’ll give them a day to process the new files and then order all of the copies I need to have on hand to fulfill pre-orders. If you haven’t pre-ordered your signed copy yet, now’s your chance! You can grab your copy here. Pre-order pricing is less than it will be on launch day, so order now and save!

I also want to thank everyone who’s supported me over the last year while I wrote this book. Everyone who’s read an advanced copy and offered suggestions. Everyone who’s commented on any post I’ve made about the book. Everyone who has already pre-ordered a copy. Everyone who’s read any of my work over the last ten years since I first published A Sour Chord. I’ve never been into writing books to make money. From the first time I published, I knew that I wouldn’t get rich doing this. But I do it anyway for a few reasons:

  1. I love telling stories. Whether in person or on paper (or eInk, as it were), I just love to do it.
  2. Knowing someone’s read something I wrote and it touched them in some way means the world to me.
  3. There’s something special about holding a physical copy of something you created.
  4. As silly as it is, having something to leave behind after I’m gone seems profound. Maybe, in a hundred years, someone will find a copy of one of my books while cleaning out their great-great-great grandmother’s basement and read it.

So, again, thank you. For continuing to pick up a book full of nonsense, I smashed into the keys of my computer over many, many days and nights and then smushed it into a cohesive story.

Oh, and Happy Valentine’s Day! I hope you get to spend time today with someone you love. And that there’s maybe chocolates involved. Happy Valentine’s Day, Megan. Thank you for loving me and letting me love you. I don’t know what voodoo I did to convince you to marry me and spend your life with me, but I’m glad it worked. ❤️

Dudley Road Audiobook Now Available WorldWide!

If you know me by now, you know I can never focus on just one thing. So, while working to promote My Best Friend, Marty, I’ve also been working behind the scenes to get the audiobook of Dudley Road on a bunch of platforms other than Audible.

As of this morning, you can now listen to Dudley Road on Spotify, Chirp, Nook Audiobooks, Kobo, Storytel, and Libro.fm

I have 25 free codes to listen on Spotify. If you want to listen to the only spooky story I’ll likely ever tell, just get in touch and I’ll get you a code!

And if you haven’t pre-ordered your signed copy of My Best Friend, Marty yet, what are you waiting for‽‽

My Best Friend, Marty Pre-Order Now Available!

Well, friends, we made it. As of just a moment ago, My Best Friend, Marty is officially available for pre-sale in paperback and hardcover.

The Amazon versions, including Kindle, will be available on the 14th of March, which is the official release date for the book.

If you pre-order today, you’ll get discounted pricing, perhaps a little surprise offering in your shopping cart, as well as getting your hands on the book before the launch date. (I’ll start shipping them in early March).

If you want to check out the book description, it can be found here. The artwork was done by the incredibly talented Megan Handley of Definitely Pink.

Thanks so much for your support and motivation while I wrote this book. It’s the quickest I’ve ever written and published a book, which speaks volumes about how this story just poured out of me over the last twelve months. I really hope you’ll enjoy it!