Posts Tagged ‘publishing’

It’s finally getting warmer here in Ohio. Or, at least, more and more days the weather is above fifty degrees instead of below it. Honestly, Ohio weather is a bit of a lottery sometimes.

But on the bright side, something’s coming that isn’t so hard to predict: my new book, Symphony for Walpurgis: A Collection, will release on Thursday, May 1st, 2025! Which means it’s exactly two weeks from release day!

Now, if you’re unaware, Symphony for Walpurgis is a collection of nine novelettes, some previously published and some original, that I am releasing in one big book. The stories include “Blood and Paper Skin,” about several college-aged kids who wake up locked in a jail by a very strange man and who slowly start to disappear; “Trauma and Disillusionment Sometimes Go Hand-in-Hand,” about a teen girl who gets wrapped up in a revenge plot after her best friend is murdered, and ends up summoning creatures from ancient times in an occult ritual; “The House on Lafayette Square,” about a Jewish exorcism (yes, we have those); “Mother of Spiders,” about a small town in Ohio that comes to a reckoning with its sordid past one Halloween night; “Famous,” about a Las Vegas wannabe starlet who will do anything to achieve fame, including making a deal with a mysterious creature; “The Little Goddess of Horror,” where a podcaster interviews an old man about a famous actress he knew, and gets way more than he bargained for; “The Parasite Man,” about a rich man whose family finds itself under assault by a mysterious entity using parasitic organisms; “Cressida,” about a man keeping a mermaid who looks like his daughter in his basement; and “Natural Predators,” about a summer camp that becomes ground zero for a terrible pandemic.

That’s a lot of words, but it does give you some idea of the stories inside, doesn’t it?

Anyway, I’m very excited for everyone to read this book. I’ve already gotten a few advanced reviews, and they’ve been very positive, which makes me hopeful that plenty of people will hear the buzz and want to read the book. I’m working hard to make that happen.

As part of that effort (and as a special treat), here are the latest graphics with quotes from the book. I’ve been posting them regularly, and I think they’re getting people interested.

What did you all think? Any of it get you intrigued? You want to read the book now?

If you do, I’ll leave links below. Right now, Symphony for Walpurgis is still only available in ebook format from the below stores, but more stores and a paperback edition are on the way. I’ll also leave a link to the Goodreads page, where the advanced reviews have all been posted.

And speaking of reviews, if you like what you read, please consider leaving a review somewhere. Positive or negative, I love reader feedback, and it helps me out in the long run. Plus, it helps other readers figure out whether or not they want to read the book.

Anyway, that’s all for now. I hope you’re as excited for this book as I am. And until next time, good night, pleasant nightmares, and I can’t wait to welcome you to Symphony to Walpurgis.

Is it just me, or is time moving so fast, it’s kind of crazy?

Anyway, as you’re likely well aware at this point, Symphony for Walpurgis is only three weeks away from being released! And if you’re not aware, Symphony for Walpurgis is my latest book, a collection of nine novelettes with a range of stories focusing on cryptids, malevolent spirits, and even a Jewish exorcism! And it will be releasing in exactly three weeks from today, on May 1st, 2025, AKA Walpurgis Night 2025 (for what Walpurgis Night is, click here).

To say the least, I’m really excited for this book to come out. Not only do I feel that the novelette-length story isn’t given enough love by publishers and readers (7,500-17,500 words, if you didn’t know), but I feel that these stories, some of which have been previously published and some of which are original, represent some of my best work and I’m looking forward to hearing what people think. Will they enjoy “The House on Lafayette Square,” which is my story about the Jewish exorcism? Or will people find “Mother of Spiders” and “The Parasite Man,” which both involve some literally skin-crawling imagery, terrifying?

Luckily, some of my advanced readers have already posted their reviews online, so I already have some idea on how people might feel about the book (one described the imagery in a couple of stories as disturbing, and another said it was a very imaginative book, which I appreciated). But, like every author working to get their stories into readers hands, I want more people to read my work and give me their thoughts.

And I hope those thoughts are pretty universal in agreeing that the stories are scary and that they like what they read.

I hope people read passages like this, and get chills up their spines.

Anyway, if you’re in the mood for a scary collection, if I’ve somehow persuaded you to check out Symphony, or you’d like to support me, I’ll leave links below the collection’s book trailer. You can read the reviews I’ve already gotten on Goodreads, or you can preorder a copy of the ebook. And don’t worry, more stores and a paperback edition will be available as we get closer to the release date.

And, after release day, if you like what you read, I would appreciate it if you would leave a review anywhere just letting people know what you think. Positive or negative, I love reader feedback, and it helps me out in the long run. Not to mention, it helps other readers out as well.

And that’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. Thank you for your support all this time and as we get closer to the release of Symphony for Walpurgis. I look forward to sharing this new book with you and hearing what you think. Until next time, good night and pleasant nightmares.

No other way to say it: it’s important to use the right words when telling a story.

That seems to be an obvious statement, but yet it’s something that needs to be stated. Depending on your audience, the genre you’re writing in, the characters you’re working with, and a dozen other factors, what words you choose when telling your story is important. After all, you can’t use complicated, SAT-level words for children’s literature, and you shouldn’t use too simplistic language for work geared exclusively towards adults. You also shouldn’t use futuristic terms or contemporary slang in works taking place in an old-fashioned medieval setting (can you imagine someone saying in a Game of Thrones book, “Dude! The calculations state that winter is only 7.8 parsecs away!”), and you shouldn’t make children sound like adults in their dialogue, though the latter can sometimes work (do you now how often I use the word “dude” myself?).

But more important than this, is finding away to put your carefully-gathered vocabulary together to keep the story together. At least, that’s how it feels to me.

As you may be aware, I’m working on the third draft of The Shape of Evil, a novel I wrote last year about a 3D printer from Hell. I’m hoping to pitch it to agents at StokerCon in a couple of months, where you actually have the opportunity to pitch novels and other works to editors and agents. And I am working hard to make sure the words in that story are compelling and interesting and work cohesively together for that purpose.

That wasn’t such a big problem with the first and second drafts. With the first draft, the point was just to get it out. To make sure it exists and has some semblance of making sense. And with the second draft, the point was to clean it up so that it wasn’t so messy and so that the future beta readers wouldn’t have too many complaints regarding either spelling/punctuation/grammar or the plot (especially since my protagonist is non-binary and my beta readers were also sensitivity readers).

As you are no doubt aware, I’m working especially hard to make the words in this book be the right ones before StokerCon in June.

But with this third draft, the point is to impress agents and/or editors enough that they’ll want to work with me in bringing this book, as well as possibly others, to publication. And with that in mind, I’m putting a lot of pressure on myself–perhaps too much pressure–to make sure those words come together and work well with one another. Like the gears in a clock, moving with one another in beautiful harmony, rather than grinding against each other to make a messy pile of word-vomit.

Then again, why am I putting so much pressure on myself? As with almost all of my books, especially the ones published with publishers, it took way more than three drafts before it was ready for publication. Usually up to seven! And even then, none of my books were perfect. They were just done.

That’s how my high school English teacher, Mr. G, put it. “No story is ever perfect. It’s just done. You’ve done all you can to improve it, and any more edits will only hurt it. Even so, it’s not completely flawless. It’s just done.”

That lesson has stayed with me fourteen years after graduating high school, and I not only try to keep it in mind while writing, but I pass it on to other writers as much as possible. And, occasionally, I’ll remind myself of that lesson when I’m working on a project and have high hopes for it. Hell, I know that no matter how much editing I do, The Shape of Evil won’t be anywhere near done by the time I’m ready to pitch it.

However, it may be far enough along that, when I pitch it, whomever I pitch it to is enchanted enough, and sees enough potential in it, that they’ll help me get it done. And then out into the wider world. And to that end, I’ll try to keep the pressure off myself, so that this metaphorical clockmaker doesn’t feel like he’s forcing the words into the clock and making them work together when they don’t want to.


That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. I felt like I needed to get this off my chest if I was going to move forward with working on The Shape of Evil. And man, do I feel exorcised of some worries! (Though not of my demons. Those are never going away.)

I’ll be sure to check in if there’s any more news, my Followers of Fear. But until next time, good night and pleasant nightmares!

Was that an unseasonal chill in the air? Nope, it’s the warning that Symphony for Walpurgis will arrive in T-minus four weeks!

If you’re unaware, Symphony for Walpurgis is my new collection of novelettes, featuring stories of cryptids (“Famous”), malevolent spirits (“The Parasite Man”), and even a Jewish exorcism (“The House on Lafayette Square”). Yes, Jews have our own exorcisms, too. My parents tried to do them on me on and off throughout the years, but it never worked, so far as I can tell. Anyway, the new collection comes out on Thursday, May 1st, 2025, and today’s Thursday, April 3rd, 2025. Meaning we’re a month away from the book’s release!

I’m super excited for people to read this book. I tend to write stories that fall into the novelette range (around 7,500-17,500 words), but finding them homes are a challenge. Only so many presses and magazines accept novelettes, usually on the shorter side, and then the places that do accept them either only have so many slots available that competition is fierce, or they’re invite only. Hopefully this book brings out a bit more interest for novelettes. At the very least, people will be able to read a lot of them at once. Some of them have even been previously published, while the rest are original.

So yeah, I’m hoping to get a lot of people to read this book. And in the meantime, I’m doing everything I can to get people interested. Just this past week, I’ve been uploading graphics with quotes from the book’s stories, and I like to think people have been enjoying them, and even getting chills from them.

I mean, look at this one.

Brrrr! Spooky! I knew going for shorter, snappier quotes would be helpful.

Anyway, if you’re at all interested in a spooky collection this late spring/early summer, or if you’d like to support me, I’ll leave links below. Walpurgis is available to preorder as an ebook from a certain stores, but more formats and stores will be available as time goes on.

And if you like what you read, please leave a review. Positive or negative, I love reader feedback, and it helps both me and other readers out in the long run. In fact, I’ve already received some awesome reviews on Goodreads for Walpurgis, including a new one yesterday, and they’ve helped immensely. I’ll link to those as well.

That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. Until next time, good night, happy reading, and pleasant nightmares!

Well, that took longer than I expected. But raise your glasses and let out an ear-piercing wail of terror, because I finished my first short story of 2025!

As some of you remember from earlier this month, I was originally working on a witchy Halloween story, but that blew past novelette range into novella territory, and I promised I wouldn’t write any new longer stories until the ones I was already working on were finished and had homes. Thus, the witchy Halloween story got put away for later, and I started working on something new.

And thankfully, this story managed to stay in novelette range, at just under 9,300 words. “The Manhattan Well” follows a young woman in Victorian England meeting a young man from New York who relates his traumatic experience meeting a ghost related to America’s first sensationalized murder.

This story actually has a cool story behind its inspiration. I’m a big fan of the musical Hamilton (I’m actually seeing it live for the third time this summer), and a while back, I had the song “Non-Stop” stuck in my head (I even wrote a blog post about it). As sometimes happens when I have a song stuck in my head, I looked up the lyrics.

Here’s the song in question if you’re unfamiliar or just want to jam.

So, early in the song, when Hamilton and Burr is doing that murder trial, I always thought Burr was saying, “Our client says he’s innocent, call your first witness.” But as it turns out, when I looked up the lyrics, Burr was saying, “Our client Levi Weeks is innocent, call your first witness.”

Dance and celebrate like nobody’s watching.

This led me to ask, “Who the hell is Levi Weeks?” One internet rabbit hole later, not only did I learn about one of America’s earliest true crime stories (and if you’re interested, it’s a rather cool story, so I’d check it out), but I had an idea for a horror story.

And now that the story is written, is it any good? Well, it’s a first draft. It’s not supposed to be good! It’s just supposed to exist and have potential. And on that front, it fulfills both requirements. I’ll give it an edit and see about finding a beta reader later this year. However, I have to do one more edit of The Shape of Evil before I (hopefully) pitch it at StokerCon later this year, so that’s the focus now. After that, we’ll see where we are and what I feel I should be doing.

Anyway, that’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. I just wanted to share the good news with you. If anyone needs me, I’m going to go celebrate and have a super-late dinner. Until next time, good night, pleasant nightmares, and don’t throw away your shot!

Time, for better or for worse, is moving along quite quickly. And that means we are a week closer to the release of my new collection, Symphony for Walpurgis!

For those of you who are unaware (though at this point, given how much I talk about it, I’d be surprised if you weren’t aware), Symphony for Walpurgis is a collection of nine novelettes I’m releasing on May 1st, 2025. The stories include tales of cryptids (“Famous”), malevolent spirits (“The Parasite Man”), and even a Jewish exorcism (“The House on Lafayette Square”). Yes, we Jews have exorcisms. Not often, but we do.

Here’s the blurb I wrote for the back cover:

What’s the difference between humans and monsters? Is there a fine line, or is it more gray and blurred? Rami Ungar, author of Rose and Hannah and Other Stories, explores this question in his latest collection, Symphony for Walpurgis. From legendary cryptids to malevolent spirits and from Ohio in the 1950s to modern-day California, readers will be treated to nine terrifying stories of the weird and macabre. So settle down and be prepared. For you have bought your ticket to Symphony for Walpurgis.

Neat, isn’t it? I think it gets the mood of the book across quite well.

Anyway, I’m very excited for this collection. Novelettes don’t have a lot of places you can submit to, and the ones you can often prefer shorter novelettes (for those who aren’t aware, a novelette is around 7,500-17,500 words). I tend to write stories in the novelette range, so I’m hoping if this book does well, more people will want to read and write stories in the novelette range, and maybe there will be more publishers for them.

At the very least, though, I would like this book to be successful. I really enjoyed working on these stories, about half of which have originally been published, and I want others to enjoy them. If I can, I would like to sell 500 copies within the first year. I’ll certainly work hard to make that happen.

Anyway, if you would like to check out Symphony, I’ll leave links below. It’s available to preorder now as an ebook, but there will be more formats and stores in time as time goes on. And there are even some early reviews, which you can find on Goodreads, also linked below.

And speaking of reviews, if you like what you read, please leave a review somewhere. Positive or negative, I love reader feedback, and it helps me and other readers out in the long run.

Also be sure to check out the book trailer I made. Is it the most amazing book trailer ever designed? But does it include hints of what’s in the book and gets its mood down perfectly like the book blurb? I like to think so.

That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. I hope you’re as excited as I am for this new book. Until next time, good night and pleasant nightmares.

(For the first two quote filled posts, click here and here. You can also see all of them at once on the Symphony for Walpurgis page.)

Well, it’s that time again. As many of you know, I’ve been creating graphics with quotes from my upcoming collection, Symphony for Walpurgis, and posting them every couple of days. This is to hopefully generate some interest in the collection by giving people short previews into what’s inside. I usually go through graphics for all nine stories in just three weeks, then I make more. But first, I’m posting the most recent round of graphics here for you to enjoy.

Who knows? Perhaps you’ll see these quotes and be interested enough to want to read Symphony yourself.

I have to admit, finding the right quotes for these graphics, making sure I can fit the quotes in the graphic templates, and then finding imagery to match the quote, is not easy. In fact, a few times, it’s been kind of frustrating. You do not know how hard it is just to find a good demon image for “The House on Lafayette Square,” or the right quote to use from “Famous.”

Still, I’ve seen these graphics help attract readers, so I think I’ll stick with it for the next couple of weeks until the book comes out.

And in the meantime, if you’re at all interested in Symphony, you can preorder copies or read early reviews using the links below. The book comes out on May 1st, just less six weeks from now, and I’m very excited for people to check it out. I’m very proud of these stories, which include tales of cryptids, malevolent spirits, and even a Jewish exorcism! Yeah, those exist. They don’t happen often, but they exist.

And if you end up reading the book, I hope you’ll leave me a review. Positive or negative, I love reader feedback, and it helps me out in the long run.

That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. I’ll probably be back soon, so be sure to keep an eye out. And until next time, good night and pleasant nightmares.

I’m at the point in my marketing plan where I get super annoying with reminders that I have a book coming out. But hey, can you blame me? If it gets one more person to read the book, then it’ll have been worth it.

So, if you’ve been living under a rock, I have a new book coming out on Thursday, May 1st, 2025. The book is a new collection called Symphony for Walpurgis. What’s Walpurgis, you ask? You can find out here. But back to the collection. This is a collection of nine novelettes, four previously published and five original, that I’ve gathered together because there’s just not enough publishers of novelettes out there these days. So, if you can’t find homes for them, make a home for them yourself and show the world how awesome they are!

At least, that’s what I’m hoping to accomplish, along with letting people read some amazing stories.

Here’s the back cover blurb for the collection:

What’s the difference between humans and monsters? Is there a fine line, or is it more gray and blurred? Rami Ungar, author of Rose and Hannah and Other Stories, explores this question in his latest collection, Symphony for Walpurgis. From legendary cryptids to malevolent spirits and from Ohio in the 1950s to modern-day California, readers will be treated to nine terrifying stories of the weird and macabre. So settle down and be prepared. For you have bought your ticket to Symphony for Walpurgis.

Sweet, right? And get this: the collection already has some reviews on it! Yeah, a couple of advanced readers posted their thoughts on Goodreads, and they really liked the collection. So much, in fact, they each gave it five stars! Considering that the book is not even out yet, that’s a really good sign of things to come!

And I really hope good things will come with this collection. I like sharing my stories with people, and I’ve noticed that short story collections tend to be very popular, especially at events. Maybe that’s because you’re getting several digestible stories in one package, rather than one gigantic story in a single package. If that’s the case, perhaps the release of this book will not only be well-received with readers, but will help me get closer to writing full time (that’s the dream, after all).

Careful, folks. There’s a lot of these beasties in one of the stories!

Besides, what horror fan could resist a collection featuring tales of several college-age kids waking up in a strange jail (“Blood and Paper Skin”); a teenage girl becoming an unwitting accomplice in a revenge plot using occult means (“Disillusionment and Trauma Sometimes Go Hand-in-Hand”); a Jewish exorcism (“The House on Lafayette Square,” and yes, Jews have exorcisms on occasion); a town filled with spiders and sordid history which is quickly catching up with the residents (“Mother of Spiders”); a Las Vegas performer who will do anything to make her mark on the world (“Famous”); an interview revolving around an unusual actress (“The Little Goddess of Horror”); a family under threat by multiple parasites (“The Parasite Man”); a young man who discovers a mermaid in his uncle’s basement (“Cressida”); and a campsite becoming ground zero for a new pandemic (“Natural Predators”)?

I couldn’t , that’s for sure.

And if you can’t, either, I’ll include links for the book, including its Goodreads page. Right now, it’s only available in ebook from a few stores, but more stores and a paperback edition will be available soon, so keep an eye out for that announcement.

And if you like what you read, please leave a review online. Positive or negative, I love reader feedback, and it helps me and other readers in the long run.

Thank you for your support, my Followers of Fear, and I look forward to sharing with you Symphony for Walpurgis. Until next time, good night and pleasant nightmares.

Pour the libations! Light the celebratory bonfires! Chant to the eldritch wonders that wait beyond our reality and offer them sacrifices! The sensitivity readers sent me their notes for The Shape of Evil! We are one step closer to my being able to pitch this baby at StokerCon in June!

Now, for those of you who don’t know, The Shape of Evil is a novel I wrote last year about a 3D Printer of Hell. I started it thinking it would be a long novelette or a short novella, but it ended up becoming a whole freaking novel of around 75,000 words. And as I got further along with it, the idea to pitch it to agents at StokerCon, which always has sessions for doing just that, came to me. So, for the past year, that’s what I’ve been working for.

And as part of that process, I had to find at least one sensitivity reader to look it over. You see, my protagonist is non-binary. And I, despite being bisexual, am only cisgender. So, I wanted to have someone who had firsthand experience look over my story and make sure I was being both respectful to the community and portrayed accurately.

As luck would have it, I managed to find two trans horror writers who agreed to look it over. And they both got through the second draft within days of each other, with the second one getting their feedback to me earlier today. This means I’m going to be ready to work on the third draft starting next month!

I’m incredibly thankful to my sensitivity readers for reading through the manuscript, finding issues and giving me their feedback, and doing so in such good time. I’ll do my best to incorporate their feedback and improve the manuscript. That way, when I pitch it to agents and editors, they’ll be that much more likely to want to help me find a home for it.

For now, though, I want to write a spooky short story inspired by Hamilton. Afterwards, I’ll start on the next draft.

That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. I wanted to make sure you all knew that the next step in this book’s crazy journey is going to start soon, and I wanted to do it today, so I’m glad I got it done. Now, if you need me, I’m going to get ready to bed. Today I was totally drained, so I’ll need sleep if I’m going to get anything done tomorrow.

So, until next time, good night, pleasant nightmares, and be careful with your celebratory rituals tonight. Just Friday, I did one wrong, and my dad’s dog was turned into a cat. She turned back, but she’s still coughing up hairballs. Oops.

Don’t tell anyone I said this, but I can be a real idiot sometimes.

So, back in December, I posted about my plans for 2025 in terms of what I want to accomplish with my writing (you can read that post here). What I didn’t mention was that I had no plans to write anything longer than a novelette. I’d edit the novellas and novels I’d already written, like The Shape of Evil and the four I hope to shop around when I’ve finished editing them. But I wouldn’t work on anything longer. Just short stories and novelettes until those stories were finished and edited and published. And only after I’d gotten back to my mummy novel, Crawler, and finished the first draft of that.

(For those of you who are unaware, the Horror Writers Association defines a short story as 1,000-7,500 words, a novelette as 7,500-17,500, a novella as 17,500-40,000, and a novel is 40,000 words and up.)

So, with my plan in place, I started on a witchy Halloween story that I thought would be maybe a long novelette at most.

And that story ended up going up to 20,000 words! And it’s not even done!

Now, by that point, I had been working on the story since before New Year’s, and I was so frustrated by how busy my life has been, so I completely forgot about my promise to myself and just forged on ahead for a while. But then I found myself just hesitating, not wanting to get further when I knew it could take me another month or two, given my current life.

That was when I remembered my promise to myself. And I slapped myself in the head for not keeping it!

So, the witchy Halloween story is now on hold until I’ve finished Crawler. In the meantime, I’m going to work on something I know will be shorter.* After that, the sensitivity readers should both be done with The Shape of Evil (one’s already sent me their notes), so I’ll probably give that one more round of edits.

After that? Probably another guaranteed short story. We’ll see.

But for now, I should head to bed. I’ve got the Akron Book Fest tomorrow, and I’ll need all the energy I can get.

After I get back home, however, I’ve got a great scary story idea to look forward to writing. And did I mention the story was inspired by Hamilton?

Anyway, that’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. Until next time, good night and pleasant nightmares!

*Then again, I thought the witchy Halloween story would be short. So who knows?!