If you weren’t aware, I have a YouTube channel (which you can find here). And over the past several weeks and months, I’ve been uploading videos of me reading from Hannah and Other Stories. And as of earlier this week, I’ve uploaded videos from each story in the collection. And since everyone here doesn’t subscribe to my YouTube channel (a crying shame, I know), I thought I would post all those videos here on the blog for you to see. In the order they were uploaded, too.
First, we have “What Errour Awoke,” which is probably my favorite story to read from:
I know the angle for this one was weird. First video trying to be atmospheric and all that. We had improvement with the next video, which was directly from “Hannah:”
And with the “Queen Alice” video, I got special stands for my candles. They rock!
After that, I went with “The Autopsy Kid and Doctor Sarah,” which is the closest to extreme horror Hannah gets.
And then we get to the carnivorous horses. You know, “Fuseli’s Horses?” That’s a popular story in the collection.
Then we have The Red Bursts.
And finally, we have “Poor, Unfortunate Souls,” which has a similar camera angle as the first video. Totally not intentional, but in a weird way, it was kind of like going full circle.
Well, I hope you enjoyed those. I know they’re not much, but I do these videos so that you may possibly show interest in the collection. And in that spirit, I’ll be posting links below. If you’re interested, please check out Hannah and Other Stories and let me know what you think. Positive or negative, I love reader feedback, and doing so helps other readers decide whether to check out the book.
Also, if you could subscribe to my YouTube channel, I would appreciate it. The stuff I post isn’t like the top YouTubers, but often they’re stuff I love or want to share it. And occasionally I even get ghosts on camera! So check it out.
And if you could, I’m trying to up my rank in the Face of Horror contest, so if you could vote for me, I would appreciate it. Who knows? I may even win. Thanks!
That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. I swear, I’ll do some non-Hannah or Face of Horror posts in the near future. Hopefully, you all aren’t annoyed with all this promotional stuff. Until next time, good night and pleasant nightmares.
Week four. And this time, the story we quote from is the one that tends to get people’s attention the most. Fuseli’s Horses, the one about the carnivorous horses.
To recap, here are the rules to #FirstLineFriday, which I revived just for the release of Hannah and Other Stories:
Create a post on your blog titled #FirstLineFriday, hashtag and all.
Explain the rules like I’m doing now.
Post the first one or two lines of a potential story, a story-in-progress, or a completed/published story.
Ask your readers for feedback and try to get them to try #FirstLineFriday on their own blogs (tagging is encouraged but not necessary).
So, ready for a preview of one of the bloodiest stories in Hannah and Other Stories? Here we go:
“So, you’re getting a bunch of new horses and a cousin?” Matt asked, leaning on the fence posts that divided his family’s property from Pam’s family’s. He was tall for fourteen, with an athletic build hidden under a T-shirt and jeans, and a mop of sweat-slicked dark hair on top of his head.
Are these new horses the carnivorous ones? And what will happen with the cousin? You’ll have to read Hannah and Other Stories to find out. And if you do, please leave a review online so I know what you thought.
That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. We got three more stories to go, so I’ll see you next week. If you would like to do the tag yourself, I hereby tag you. Just copy and paste the rules on your own blog and I look forward to seeing what you post.
Couple of things before I sign off, Followers of Fear. First off, as you know, I’m taking part in the Face of Horror contest. And thanks to your votes, I’m staying in the Top 10. However, that could easily slip, so I’m asking you to keep voting for me each and every day while I’m still part of the contest. If you do, I’ll be able to advance through the rounds and maybe even get to the finals. So, if you’d like to vote, you can use the link below.
Secondly, tomorrow starts Mystics and Marvels. If you happen to be in Hilliard, Ohio this weekend, please stop by the Franklin County Fairgrounds and stop by the HWA Ohio booth. I’ll be there with my fellow Ohio writers selling and signing books. I hope to see you there.
Until next time (or the next blog post), my Followers of Fear, good night and pleasant nightmares.
Run for your lives! Light a magic candle! Pray to the Great Old Ones to be left alone! Hannah and Other Stories releases in just one month!
As you’re probably aware, Hannah and Other Stories is my new collection of short stories which is releasing on September 23rd, 2023. This collection contains seven original tales, featuring tales of ghosts, budding serial killers, and carnivorous horses, among other things. My publisher, BSC Publishing Group, and I have been working on this book for two years, so we’re very excited for people to read it. Hell, I’m kind of hoping it becomes one of the most talked about books for the Halloween season this year.
At the very least, I want to get the book in paperback. Right now, it’s only available in ebook, but if it does well, it’ll get a paperback. Maybe even an audio book.
With that in mind, we’re also doing everything we can to get people interested in the book and in maybe preordering a copy. On my end, I’ve been posting YouTube videos where I read sections from the book. A couple of the videos I’ve done are below.
Not bad, right? I tried to create an atmosphere to go with the stories, and I plan to do the stories I haven’t covered before it releases.
And BSC has been doing some amazing excerpts as well, only they’ve been posting these beautiful graphics that they do in-house! I absolutely love them. Here’s some of the most recent.
Anyway, I’m super excited for people to read it. These stories are all beloved to me in each their own way. What Errour Awoke is a story that not only allowed me to tap into my love of cosmic horror, but helped me to deal with world events that were causing me anxiety at the time of writing. Hannah and Queen Alice were both fun to write, with the former being inspired by a ghost story that’s always fascinated me, and the latter being an interesting mashup of Alice in Wonderland with Slender Man. The Autopsy Kid and Doctor Sarah was a story where I experimented with extreme horror and splatterpunk that I hadn’t done before, while Poor, Unfortunate Souls made for a heartfelt story of acceptance and hardship in the midst of the Paris catacombs. The Red Bursts gave me an unexpected story of finding faith in dark situations, and Fuseli’s Horses allowed me to have fun with a new monster while also playing with some teenage drama.
I can’t wait to see what people think when they read them.
And if any of this has made you want to read Hannah and Other Stories, I’ll include the links to preorder it below. That’s right, “links.” As of this past weekend, Hannah and Other Stories is available to preorder from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other retailers, including a few international ones. I’ll include links for all the shops below, and I’ll be sure to update future posts as BSC lets me more stores are carrying the book.
And if you like what you read this September, please be sure to leave a review online somewhere. Positive or negative, I love reader feedback, and it helps me and other readers in the long run.
That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. I’ll be sure to post more updates as we get closer to the release date. Until next time, good night and pleasant nightmares!
Did you know that we’re only a hundred days away from Halloween? It’s true. And I can’t think of any way to celebrate the opening of spooky season than preordering what will surely be one of the best horror releases of 2023.
Okay, terrible opening aside, it is both 100 days away from Halloween and two months till the release of Hannah and Other Stories. For those of you who don’t know (I’m sure there are a few of you out there), Hannah and Other Stories is my new collection of short stories. It’s being released on September 23rd by BSC Publishing Group and features tales of ghosts, budding serial killers, and carnivorous horses, among other things.
And I am so excited for people to read these stories. The seven stories are all plenty fun and strange and unique, which is what I love. The title story, “Hannah,” is about a pair of ghost hunters who get more than they bargain for when they investigate a haunted school. The one that follows it, “Queen Alice,” combines Alice in Wonderland with Slenderman, which I’m sure would intrigue many of you. The story “What Errour Awoke” combines classic English literature, cosmic horror and some of the biggest events of the past few years into an epic tale of magic and horror. “Fuseli’s Horses” contains those carnivorous horses I mentioned, and come on! Don’t you want to know how that works?
Plus, half of the stories contain LGBT characters and “What Errour Awoke” deals with a lot of the conspiracy bullshit we’ve been dealing with these past few years, so I’m sure someone’s going to try to get it banned from a library or school at some point. I’m sure more people will want to read it just for that.
But back on track. I’m so excited for people to read these stories, and I’m doing all I can to get people interested in preordering copies. It hasn’t been easy (see my recent post on marketing), but I feel I’m making headway. For example, I’ve posted some videos on my YouTube channel, and they’ve gotten some attention. Below are some of the ones I think really help with the sell.
If you watched all those videos, or even just one, thank you. That helps immensely.
I’m also releasing tons of excerpts, some of which are below. And I’m appearing on podcasts soon. Plus, with the eARC almost ready, that will mean I can do a lot that will surely heighten Hannah‘s profile, not the least of which will be the eARC readers, some of whom are very well known in horror, may help spread the good word about it.
Hopefully by September 23rd, there will be plenty of buzz for Hannah.
In the meantime, I’ll leave a button down below. If you click it, you’ll be taken to the preorder page for Hannah. I hope you do and you decide to preorder a copy. Every copy helps immensely. And I know it’s only going to be in ebook at first, but if Hannah does well, a paperback version isn’t out of the question. Maybe even an audio book.
So if you’re at all interested, preorder a copy. And be sure to talk about Hannah on your social media. The more people talking about Hannah, the likelier it is to be ordered and read and reviewed. All that will help this book be as successful as possible.
Anyway, that’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. I look forward to Hannah‘s release and what you think of it. Until next time, good night, pleasant nightmares, and–look out! There’s a carnivorous horse behind you!
So a few weeks back, I posted some excerpts for Hannah and Other Stories that my publisher and I had created. These excerpts each had beautiful backgrounds and graphics to match each story, and I was really proud of each and every one of them (even though I only made three). And at the end of that post, I promised to post the other graphics as soon as they were available.
I should have said as soon as there were more of them and I had the time, which is what happened. But oh well. All the excerpts are out on my other social media, so let’s post them all here.
For a refresher, here are the ones from the last post. These first two are from BSC Publishing Group and are from “The Autopsy Kid and Doctor Sarah” and “Fuseli’s Horses.”
Then we had one from “Queen Alice,” which I made. If you can’t tell, Alice in Wonderland is a big influence on this particular story.
And now for the new stuff. Here’s two more from me. One is another from “Fuseli’s Horses,” while the other is from “Hannah.”
Pretty neat, right? I wanted to use some atmospheric quotes and combine them with matching images. I’m happy to say, I think I succeeded.
Now, check out these excerpts from BSC Publishing Group. I swear, Peyton, my editor, went all out on these and they’re amazing. First, we have “The Red Bursts,” with the most scenic background.
Then we have the inciting incident, “What Errour Awoke,” which combines classic English poetry with cosmic horror and contemporary events.
I wonder what he’s screaming about? Well, I know, but I’ll never tell. Next, we have another from “Hannah” which introduces the main characters, Dominic Holmes and Diesel Berkowitz. They’re ghost hunters with their own ghost hunting show. Maybe you’ll want to check it out?
After that, we have an excerpt from “Poor, Unfortunate Souls,” which takes place in the Paris catacombs. Finally get to publish a story with that beautiful and terrifying location as the setting.
Did that make you feel claustrophobic? I’m hoping it did.
Finally, we have another one from “Queen Alice,” which BSC dropped yesterday. Don’t be fooled by the sweet prose or unassuming background, however. This tale is as dark as a pool of water on a moonless night.
So there you have it. Ten excerpts, seven by BSC Publishing Group and three by me. And who knows? Maybe more excerpts will drop between now and September 23rd. Maybe even other types of content. I already put a video about “Queen Alice” on my YouTube channel (you can check it out here), and I will probably add more videos (so subscribe there as well). Whatever there is, I’ll be share it with you, no matter the platform.
And, of course, you can preorder Hannah and Other Storieshere if these excerpts have intrigued you at all. Right now, it’s only available as an ebook, but if it does well in preorders, sales and reviews, we may see a paperback and even an audio book version in the near future. That’s even more incentive to preorder a copy, if you ask me.
And if you want one more excerpt, you can click here for that. It’s a digital copy of the chapbook I’ve been giving away at events. It’s quite popular.
That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. I’ll be back soon. Until then, good night and pleasant nightmares. I’m off to do some reading before bed.
So, some of you may have seen on my Facebook, Twitter and Instagram that BSC Publishing Group and I have been releasing excerpts with cool images or backgrounds as part of our marketing campaign for Hannah. And because not everyone here is on my other social media, I thought I would post those images here as well.
So, without further ado, here are the excerpts of Hannah and Other Stories.
These first two are from BSC Publishing Group. My editor Peyton created them. Aren’t they awesome?
Of course, I got in the fun, too. Here’s an excerpt from Queen Alice that I released yesterday.
Not bad, right? It gives readers a good idea of what to expect with this story. And I think it would make a good movie, too. If it is made into a movie, I hope John Noble plays the protagonist Blumfield.
Anyway, those are the ones that have been released already. More are coming from BSC and from myself in the near future. I’ll post more here as they release, but if you’d like to see them first, you can follow my Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts, which are listed on the side of this blog if you’re on your computer and below the comments if you’re on your phone or tablet.
That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. This will likely be my last post before Stokercon,* but I’ll hopefully have more to post afterwards. I want to talk about the new marketing strategy I’m using, as well as the upcoming first anniversary of moving into my condo.
Until next time, good night and pleasant nightmares.
*Speaking of which, if you’re going to Stokercon, be sure to stop by the Brighton I Room at the hotel on Friday at 11:00 AM to hear me, Barbara Cottrell, Jeremiah Cook, and Gabino Iglesias read from our upcoming works, followed by a mass author signing at 5:00 PM. Definitely not to be missed.
So, these past few weeks, I’ve been editing the hell out of the stories in my upcoming collection, Hannah and Other Stories. This collection contains stories featuring ghosts, budding collections, and even carnivorous horses, and it looks like we’ll be releasing it some time this fall.
And as of early this morning, I’ve finished editing the third draft of the manuscript.
I’m not going to lie, this has been the most exhausting editing process I’ve ever gone through. Way more than Rose ever was (and I had to rewrite two-thirds of that novel at one point). Some of the stories, such as What Errour Awoke and Fuseli’s Horses, required extensive editing and rewrites. Autopsy Kid, which at this time is the last story in the collection, had a ton of content cut from the story and a lot of changes made so that it could stay part of the collection. As a result, I actually missed the deadline to get this story turned in!
Yeah, I’m not happy about that. It was due on Friday night at 11:59 PM, but even though I adjusted my schedule to maximize editing time despite being at ParaPsyCon, I still couldn’t finish it by then. I actually had to grab some shut-eye, then wake up at 5:30 in the morning and finish the edits!
Still, I’m not happy that I was late. Yeah, there were factors that contributed to the lateness, such as having a day job and needing to sleep. But it was still a failure on my part, if a minor one. I’m glad I wasn’t like one of those writers in the movies and books, who are one to six months past deadline. Or that one writer whose next book is…nine years overdue?! Good Lord, we are never going to get that series finished, are we?
Anyway, now that the third draft and all the major edits and rewrites are done, all that’s left is for the fourth draft. This draft will mainly be editing the stories to be grammatically correct. Any new content will likely just to make an unwieldy sentence read better, or to flesh out something that’s more telling than showing. And after that, provided there’s nothing more to do, we can move forward with getting this book released in the fall.
I’ve actually already done three stories in the fourth draft, and it only took me an hour to get through them, rather than the hours or days for each story in the third draft. Hopefully the next four stories go the same way.
That being said, right now, I’m exhausted. Work has been crazy, so balancing work and the writer life, as well as my personal life and getting sleep, has been insane. And I didn’t get enough last sleep last night. So, although I want to party with wine, cake, and some horror movies or anime, I’m just going to get into bed. Tomorrow, on the way back from ParaPsyCon, I’ll try to pick up some of the good stuff and have a good time when I get home.
Anyway, that’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. I’m hoping to be blogging a bit more now that the third draft is done. Until then, good night and pleasant nightmares. I know I plan to have a few.
Holy crap, sweet Moses, and am I too young for a midlife crisis?
Okay, maybe that’s a little overdramatic. Still, it doesn’t change the fact that I’ll be turning thirty this summer. And I’m feeling a bit…uneasy about it? Maybe some disbelief?
I mean, I always knew this time would come. And, at times during this pandemic, I felt like I was already in my thirties. I mean, I work a full-time job that pays a decent salary and benefits. I pay a lot of bills. And as of last year, I’m paying a mortgage on my own home. But you know, it always felt far away and nebulous, like the death of the sun or the Andromeda galaxy. And since passing the six-months-away mark, it’s been more concrete. Less nebulous. And I’m a little freaked out by it.
It’s so weird. When you’re young, you look forward to birthdays. It’s not just a day when everyone showers you with attention and presents and you hopefully do fun things with your friends and family. It’s also a day when you get more freedoms and responsibilities, as well as fresh new opportunities. What excitement awaits now that I’m8 or 9 or 10? 13 or 14 or 15? Now that I’m old enough to get a license, or see an R-rated movie on my own, or I’m a legal adult? What about when I’m old enough to buy alcohol?
But then the milestone birthdays kind of end, and you have to deal with being an adult. At 25, which some define as the end of youth, something shifts and you start to slowly feel less like the kid or the teen or young/new adult you used to be, and more like the grownup your parents are. Birthdays come, and they can still be fun, but the feeling of accomplishment and new opportunity isn’t as strong as it used to be, if it’s still there.
And now, approaching thirty, what’s going to happen to me? I’ve always thought of myself as having a strong, youthful side that helps fuel my imagination and my zest for life. All this helps make me the author and human (or creature pretending to be human) that I am. Will that suddenly change when I turn thirty? Will something shift and I’ll suddenly lose that little spark inside myself that I feel is a big part of me? And how will that affect everything else? My writing, my hobbies, my goals, my enjoyment of life?
Yeah, I know. This is probably just some unfounded anxiety giving me unnecessary fears. People change over time, it’s true, but not that dramatically. Still, I know change will be inevitable. My health is definitely going to be harder to maintain once I get to that point, and I bet there will be pressure from various sides to be more responsible or practical with my life. Like, “Why isn’t he doing more at work and climbing the corporate ladder?” Or “Why is he collecting dolls or making wine or writing stories when he’s an adult with a mortgage?”
Or maybe nothing will change. Maybe it’ll just be another day and I’ll still be the wacky, goofy, scary dude people have come to know and love. And honestly, I’m hoping that’s the case. I don’t want to feel like my life is over or all the fun times are behind me once I turn thirty.
Whatever happens, I hope I can make my birthday extra awesome this year.
You know, I never understood people who would claim their birthday was just another day. Yeah, at a certain point you don’t really feel the transition of age, but why not celebrate? Why, except for vanity’s sake, would you want to avoid your birthday? But maybe there’s something in calling it another day. Because that way, nothing earth-shattering or life-changing will happen just because you made another rotation around the sun.
Well, I’m sure I’ll have plenty of time to figure things out between now and the big 3-0. Plenty of time to get used to it and face any changes that may or may not come my way. And if I’m going to turn thirty, I’m sure as hell going to do my best to celebrate the transition. I’m talking multiple parties, some wilder than the others, lots of fun with friends and family, and maybe some splurging on myself.
After all, it’s not every day you turn thirty, is it? And if I’m going to jump over that threshold, for better or for worse, I might as well do it with a bang.
Just two more things before I sign off, my Followers of Fear. First off, thank you to everyone who participated in the recent New Year’s Sale I held on most of my books. It really made for a great start to the year to see so many people purchasing copies of my books. Hopefully it’s the start of a very successful year for me . Anyway, happy reading to you all, and I hope you let me know what you think of the books when you read them. After all, reviews not only help me, but they help your fellow readers.
Second, update on The Great Editing: last night, I finished editing “Fuseli’s Horses,” one of the stories in my upcoming collection Hannah and Other Stories. This means there are three more stories in the collection to edit, and at least five more overall that I’ll be doing a new draft on. I’m looking forward to tackling the next couple of stories and seeing them improve. Hopefully after this latest round of editing, they’ll be ready for publication, or at least that much closer to being ready.
Anyway, that all for now. I’ve got guests coming over to try homemade plum wine soon (hopefully I can get their reactions on camera). Until next time, good night and pleasant nightmares!
Rami Ungar The Writer 