Letters From the Labyrinth 287

Typing this from a hotel room in Springfield, Missouri. I’m in town for Tremendicon, and head back home tomorrow. Mary didn’t come because she’s sick (not Covid, just the good old-fashioned flu). Mary’s daughter is in Colorado, having adventures the way young people should. My youngest son is in Florida with his mother, visiting extended family and Cape Canaveral. And my oldest son has started a new job. Even the outdoor kittens have scattered and spread out, exploring the boundaries of my front yard, back yard, and the neighbor’s yard, and having a ball chasing mayflies and lightning bugs. I wish we were all home together. But there will always be books to sign. There will always be people to meet. There will always be readers to whom I want to show my gratitude. There will always be selfies to pose for and panel discussions to participate in and Q&As and local press interviews to do.

There will always be the road…

I started writing a sequel to END OF THE ROAD recently. It is called THE LAST MILE. I’m not sure what it’s about yet. Finding that out as I go along. So far, it seems to be about how horror writers end. There are four possible endings:

1. You make it big and achieve wealth.
2. You keep your day job and writing is a side thing.
3. You quit writing altogether.
4. You earn a decent middle class living by staying prolific and spending your weekends on the road, signing books while sandwiched between other authors, actors, cosplayers, and the demon dog from Ghostbusters.

Good morning. My name is Brian Keene and I walk the fourth path.

This is Letters From the Labyrinth, a weekly newsletter for friends, family and fans of my work. Previous issues can be read here. You can also leave comments, which I’ll read and answer as time allows.

Thanks to everyone who stopped by the table this weekend. It’s always an honor to meet new readers and connect with long-time readers. Special shout-out to Adam, Elizabeth and Mr. Macabre. And to my old pals Cullen Bunn and Dave Stanfield, and Heath Amodio.

Cullen and Heath had a brand-new short film debut here this weekend. I got to attend the premiere, which was a lot of fun. The movie is called Swumpwater and you can watch it for free right here. It has a run time of twenty minutes. Do check it out!

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The following was first published earlier this week on my Patreon. I’m reprinting it here because I know there are a lot of writers who read this newsletter, as well. If you’re not a writer, and don’t care about business stuff and writing advice, you can skip ahead to the next segment.

THE STORM APPROACHES

I've had a 90% flawless track record at predicting what will happen in the horror marketplace for almost thirty years now. I'm not saying that to brag. I'm saying it so that you will understand why my email, phone, and Twitter direct messages have blown up this past week with people wanting my opinion on where we are heading.

Because make no mistake about it -- we are at the beginning of a global economic crisis that most of us have not seen in our lifetimes. Things are bad, and they're going to get worse. My stock portfolio (the one bit of actual retirement savings Mary and I have) is so red right now that it looks like it went ten rounds with Jason Voorhees. There has been a noticeable drop in book sales and thus, royalties. (However, curiously, it's not an across the board drop, and I am still parsing the data and talking to peers who are noticing the same thing with their sales, and trying to figure out what it all means). Mainstream publishers are quietly hitting the pause button on slush piles and are being more cautious with acquisitions. Small press publishers who specialize in collectibles, hardcovers and limited editions are at the mercy of supply chain issues that they've never seen before. And indie publishers are, for the most part, starting to worry. Well, the veteran indies are. The newer indie publishers are going about business as usual, because they weren't in business during the last recession. And many of them won't be after this one is over.    

"So," people ask me, "what's going to happen to Horror? And what's going to happen to my career?"

First of all, know that Horror will be just fine. It always is. You've heard me say over and over and over and over again that horror fiction runs in cycles. It can not be killed. It didn't die with the end of the pulps and it didn't die with the mid-1990's collapse, and it didn't die in the aftermath of the Dorchester Wars or the late-2000's small press apocalypse. And it won't die now. Horror fiction endures. There are periods where it goes underground, but sooner or later, it emerges from the grave again.

Right now, we are in a Horror boom, and I think that will help us. I think it will particularly help horror authors currently being published by mainstream houses. But it is my opinion that, in the coming year and the next few years, it will become harder and harder for new horror authors to land at one of the mainstream publishers, because the mainstream publishers will be focused on a handful of authors who already have provable sales data. That's exactly what happened during the mid-1990s collapse, and when it did, those authors turned to the small press and the then-new indie press. These days, we have both of those outlets, as well as do-it-yourself venues such as Amazon's KDP, B&N Press, and others.

(An interesting aside: during those previous downturns, dependable mid-list authors also had to turn to the small and indie presses. These days, the indie press has become the new de-facto mid-list. So that’s a new twist on this old cycle.)    

I can't really advise anyone on their specific career, because we are all at different stages and places, and we all want different things, and we all measure success differently. But I can say this. I've been a professional writer for twenty-five years. I have financially supported my loved ones solely on what I earn from writing for the last seventeen years. And while doing that, I've had over eight publishers either go bankrupt or close their doors for other reasons. I've managed to keep writing professionally through two global economic recessions.

And I will keep writing professionally through this third.

What should you expect? Well, like I said above, it is my opinion that the mainstream publishers will begin tightening their belts. Smart indie publishers and small press publishers will do the same. So, the first thing to keep in mind is that your competition -- which was already tough -- is about to become even tougher.

Hopefully you listened to me in the past when I told you to diversify your publishers and not put all of your eggs in one basket. If you didn't, then let's hope that your publisher is strong enough and smart enough to weather the storm.

Regardless, now is definitely the time to check in with your publishers and make sure they are up to date on paying you royalties and such. Because if they aren't, this is the time to part ways with them, if you can contractually do so. If your royalties were already late, then how much more timely will they be in the coming months, as inflation rockets higher and recessions digs deeper? If they've been dicking around with your money, now is the time to call them on it. Don't wait until they have no money to pay. When that happens, it becomes even more difficult to get what's owed you, and to get your rights back. Particularly if it is a small indie publisher who can just literally delete their website and social media presence and stop returning calls.

This is absolutely the time to cultivate your community of fans and readers. If you've wanted to start a newsletter but haven't had the time, do it now. (Although you should have done it last year, because now everyone is starting a newsletter).

I do not think comics or film will provide safe haven this time around, as they have in the past. Indeed, the comic industry is in even worse shape than prose publishing right now, and on the film side, we’ve all seen the headlines. Video games, however, seem like a good place to flee to, in my opinion.

In times of economic uncertainty, everyone likes something for free. During the last big recession, I began serializing EARTHWORM GODS II: DELUGE on my website. It was free to read. All you needed was a web browser and an internet connection. It became one of my most-read novels, rivaling bestsellers like THE RISING, DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN, and END OF THE ROAD. More importantly, when people did have a few extra bucks in disposable income, they spent it on the first book, EARTHWORM GODS. Of course, these days, serialized fiction is everywhere -- on Patreon, on Kindle, and all over audiobook and podcast platforms. Do you know why that is? Because people are still spending money on serialized fiction. If they weren't, it wouldn't exist. Now is the time to start exploring that. Maybe you give it away for free. Maybe you charge a small, nominal fee. Maybe you put it on your website or publish it as a podcast. But I strongly suspect that in the near-term, serialized fiction and audio fiction will continue to dominate.

Most importantly, keep writing. That's the key. Economies tank. Horror goes through cycles. All you can do is keep writing, because that's what writers do. Keep writing, and when things begin to go the other way, you'll have something ready.

Keep writing. It provides shelter from the storm.

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By now, most of you have read THE SEVEN: THE LABYRINTH Book 1 (and if you haven’t then you can get it in Paperback, Kindle , Nook, Kobo, Audible Audiobook and Apple Audiobook.

I’ve been delighted by reader response to the book, particularly the ending, and what it set up for the next book, SUBMERGED: THE LABYRINTH Book 2.

Well, your wait is almost over…

SUBMERGED: THE LABYRINTH Book 2

Signed limited edition preorders coming this summer from Thunderstorm Books.

Paperback, E-Book and Audiobook editions on sale in time for the holiday shopping season.

Here’s the full cover by Ben Baldwin.

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Here is a wonderful, heartwarming news story: Man Gets Swarmed By Thirteen Tiny Kittens.

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THE RISING made this list of the Best Zombie Books of All Time.

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All Lifetime Subscriptions are now sold out. Thank you to our three new Lifetime Subscribers.

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A reminder that CURSE OF THE BASTARDS comes out on June 28th — just a week and some spare change away. You can preorder it here. This is the last book in the award-winning trilogy.

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Currently Listening: Various albums by Sugar Hill Gang, The New York Dolls, Queen, PM Dawn, Sick Of It All, Alice Cooper, Marvin Gaye, Depeche Mode, Waylon Jennings, and Suicidal Tendencies.

Currently Watching: The Last Kingdom (Netflix)

Currently Reading: #thighgap by Chandler Morrison

The Last Kingdom was fantastic. If you like historical drama, period pieces, or want something to make you forget about the thud that Game of Thrones ended with, then this is the show for you. All five seasons are available to binge.

#thighgap was also fantastic. Here is my official blurb: “No blurb will be able to fully convey how great this book is. Chandler Morrison’s voice is unique, stylish and powerful. Required reading for fans of Bret Easton Ellis, Tom Piccirilli, or Chuck Palahnuik.” — Brian Keene

#thighgap will be available in August.

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Spent a day earlier this week meeting with various hotels and conference centers in Baltimore, Hunt Valley and Towson Maryland, trying to find the best spot for Borderlands Boot Camp 2023.

I also worked on GWENDY’S BUTTON BOX, SPLINTERED: THE LABYRINTH Book 3, ISLAND OF THE DEAD, and edits to INVISIBLE MONSTERS. And also on some various tasks for Scares That Care.

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When I’m traveling, I always fall asleep with Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim programming on in the background, which means I wake up to their Cartoonito programming block. It’s always jarring to fall asleep to American Dad, Rick and Morty, Family Guy, etc and then wake up to pre-school shows like Cocomelon and Lucas the Spider.

Both of my sons went through the pre-school programming phase. For my youngest son, it was The Wiggles, Sid the Science Kid, Caillou, and Kipper the Dog. For my older son, it was Barney, Thomas the Tank Engine, and Sesame Street (when the latter was transitioning from excellent children’s programming to one big Elmo infomercial). For me and Mary’s niece, the show of choice was Bubble Guppies.

I’ve always been fascinated by the subtly sinister undertones in some of these shows. Barney or Caillou parents will know what I’m talking about. Cocomelon has a similar vibe. On the surface, it’s all fine. It’s all sunshine and light. But there’s something there, underneath it all. Something no parent can put their finger on.

I don’t have a lot of unpublished novels. Maybe a half dozen that are either unfinished or finished but never published. One of them is a Bizarro novel called BINKY which is a horror-comedy send up of children’s television shows. A kid and his mother move to a small town in Illinois. He meets some other kids, all of whom hang out with a sinister purple dragon named Binky. Turns out Binky and the kids are an evil cult, and our young hero goes on the run, fleeing through a twisted landscape dotted with children’s television parodies.

I don’t know that I’ll ever publish that novel. I’m content to let it sit in the trunk. But Binky did show up in my short story “Keepsakes”, so…

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And so, we come to the end…

The final episode of DEFENDERS DIALOGUE went live earlier this week. Christopher Golden and I were joined by Cullen Bunn, J.M. DeMatteis, Scott Edelman, and Thomas Sniegoski for a discussion of the Marvel Comics stories we never got to write. Plus -- Chris got bloody and I got maudlin. Available wherever you listen to podcasts or via this link.

I said my goodbyes and shared my thoughts on the show in last week’s newsletter, so let me just say thanks to all of you who listened over the last five years.

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And that’s it for this week. If you’re home, I hope that you’re enjoying it. If you’re not home, I hope you get there soon. Stay safe, and I’ll see you back here next Sunday!

— Brian