Letters From the Labyrinth 185 - Brian Keene
Hi. I'm Brian Keene and this is the 185th issue of Letters From the Labyrinth, a weekly newsletter for fans of my work. Previous issues are archived here.
Mary made it home safely last Sunday, and I put work aside to reconnect with her this past week, and make up for our time apart. A lot of this past week was also spent helping my 12-year old son with his online schooling, particularly mathematics, more particularly fractions. Fractions were the bane of my existence when I was a kid, and they have not grown on me over the years.
So yeah, not much work done at all. Continued edits on NEMESAI and SUBURBAN GOTHIC, and thought a lot about Patreon.
I have a love/hate relationship with Patreon. I like that it provides me a platform to create for you folks, and I like the revenue it generates for me. Indeed, Patreon has accounted for the second highest source of my annual income the last two years. But it's also not the easiest thing to use, and it's interface isn't always user-friendly for readers. I don't like that subscribers who want to read the serialized novels basically have to scroll all the way back to the beginning or use the hashtags just to read the chapters in order.
I've thought before about migrating those serialized novels over to my website. After all, that's how EARTHWORM GODS II: DELUGE was written back in the day. But if I did that, I'd be giving up a reliable revenue stream that pays my house payment each and every month.
What I've been considering is doing away with the different donation tiers and just charging one flat monthly fee of $5 or $10, and then in exchange for that monthly fee, I'd offer content DAILY. Yes, that would be a big change for the folks now paying $1 or $2 per month, but it would also be a big change in that instead of having one or two things to read each month, they'd have something new to read DAILY.
If you're one of my Patreon subscribers, I'd really appreciate your feedback. What do you think of daily content -- on average 30 new stories, serial chapters, etc -- per month, for a flat monthly fee? The best way is to either respond to this newsletter via email or to Tweet me. if you send me a message on Patreon I probably won't see it (another thing I don't like about the interface).
And look, I know that a lot of folks are strapped financially right now. I totally understand that, and I get that the upgraded tier wouldn't suit everyone. Again, I'm asking because I value your input in that regard.
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if you're stuck at home, you're probably reading more books than normal and watching more television than normal. Mary and I are, too.
We recently watched the 2010 film YellowBrickRoad (that's not a typo -- the title is run together like that). Don't know how I missed this movie, but it's a fantastic, vastly unsettling, surreal horror film. I see a lot of critics comparing it to The Blair Witch Project, but I think it has more in common with the equally-wonderful Session 9. I highly recommend it, particularly for readers who enjoy Mary or Laird Barron's stuff. It's streaming on Amazon Prime and Shudder.
We also finished HBO's adaptation of Stephen King's The Outsider. I liked it, but not as much as the book. My main takeaway is that if Hollywood ever makes an F. Paul Wilson biopic, they need to cast Ben Mendelsohn as Paul.
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I'm going to tell my kids these were real editions of my books.
(Hopefully your email service provider is allowing images. Otherwise this joke will fall flat...)
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I found this article fascinating. It's about a real life Lord of the Flies, and it is much different than the book. An uplifting and enthralling bit of lost history.
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This Week's Podcasts
DEFENDERS DIALOGUE - Episode 100
Cullen Bunn, J.M. DeMatteis, Scott Edelman, and Thomas Sniegoski join Christopher Golden and Brian Keene for this 100th-episode special, discussing the most ridiculous characters of Marvel Comic's Bronze Age. Listen for free on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, YouTube and Brian Keene Radio.
THREE GUYS WITH BEARDS 100 - The Horror Show with Brian Keene - Ep 264
A Horror Show with Brian Keene exclusive! Jonathan Maberry, Christopher Golden and James A. Moore present a Three Guys with Beards finale that you won't hear anywhere else. Listen for free on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, YouTube and Brian Keene Radio.
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With luck, we'll be moving into a much bigger office and broadcasting studio space this week. it will be a long process, particularly since -- due to social distancing -- it's just Mary and I doing the heavy lifting.
There's video of my current office and studio on YouTube. The new space will be three rooms (the entire upper floor of our house) -- an office for me, a broadcasting and recording studio, and an office for Mary. I'll make a video of that when it's done but that will be a few weeks.
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That's it for this week. I hope that all of you are doing well. Hold together. Sooner or later, these times will pass. I'll see you back here next week.