Letters From the Labyrinth 340

This Too Shall Pass

Something happened this past week that is one of the Top 5 moments of my twenty-five year professional career, but I’m not allowed to talk about it yet. Like, at all. I’m so not allowed to talk about it that all parties involved agree we should make an official announcement sooner rather than later, because word of it will undoubtedly leak, and they all looked at me when they said that.

Suffice to say, I’ve hinted at something Christopher Golden and I have been working on, something codenamed OPERATION: WALKABOUT. Soon, you should all learn what that really is.

Moments like that are always good for personal inventory. When the press release gets made, you pay attention to who is genuinely happy and excited for you, and who is mad or jealous. And you note that accordingly.

Anyway, everyone involved celebrated the thing we cannot talk about in their own fashion. Chris and many others went to Camp Necon, taking place this weekend, and wanted me to go, too. But Mary is in New Jersey this week, helping her mother, who is recovering from hip surgery, and it didn’t feel right to go without her, so I celebrated by turning off the air conditioners, opening all the windows, stripping down to just a pair of shorts, and writing my butt off this weekend. I have never minded the heat, and when I’m in the zone, creatively, I don’t even notice it. And the cats are loving the open windows, too.

Good morning. I’m Brian Keene — the half-naked cult writer who has been left to fend for himself this week and has already turned half-feral — and this is the 340th issue of Letters From the Labyrinth, a weekly newsletter for fans, friends, and family.

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Paperback and eBook editions of OTHER WORDS came out this week, and we hit number one on the first day, which was very nice. Thanks to all of you for making that happen.

OTHER WORDS is a nonfiction collection that was previously only available as a very limited signed hardcover (back in 2017). This is its first time in paperback or eBook, and this new edition contains material that was not included in that hardcover. From the book description: “Other Words collects World Horror Grandmaster and multiple Bram Stoker Award winner Brian Keene's writings about other authors and creatives -- Stephen King, George Romero, Hunter S. Thompson, Richard Laymon, Jack Ketchum, John Skipp, (Keene's future wife) Mary SanGiovanni, Brian Hodge, Wrath James White, J. F. Gonzalez, Holly Newstein, Richard Chizmar, Tom Piccirilli, Jeff Strand, C. Robert Cargill, and many more. An engrossing, thoughtful, and intimate look at the people and the history of modern horror fiction by one of its most celebrated practitioners.”

Signed Paperback: Manhattan On Mars

Paperback: Amazon

eBook: Kindle - Nook - Kobo - Apple

PLEASE NOTE: Autographed copies purchased directly from Manhattan On Mars are currently in pre-order status and will not ship until approximately August 1. Copies ordered from booksellers should ship immediately.

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Tamika Thompson has compiled a required reading list of Horror Fiction written by Black women. I point this out because there are still some pockets of the horror fiction audience who unknowingly or mistakenly go “Black women writing horror? Well, let’s see… there’s Linda Addison, Tananarive Due, L. Marie Wood, and Chesya Burke? I think that’s it?” And look… if it was 2003 maybe you could be forgiven for having that be the sum of your knowledge, but it’s 2023 and a lot of great women have come along since then, so check out the list here and expand your knowledge and experience. (I was particularly happy to see R. J. Joseph on there, as she is quickly becoming a fave of mine).

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Editor and author Wendy Wagner shared that her friend, author Jessie Kwak was hit in the crossfire of a drive-by shooting. She's already had one emergency reconstructive surgery on her eye and faces more. A GoFundMe has been set up to help her with medical costs. Please consider donating here, if you have the means. I speak from experience when I tell you that even ten dollars makes a difference.

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I’ve got an updated list of signings and appearances for the rest of the year. Catch me in the following places:

August 11 to August 13
Killercon 2023
Holiday Inn Austin-Town Lake, 20 N Interstate 35, Austin, TX 78701

September 24
2:00 PM 4:00 PM
Dark Delicacies 822 N Hollywood Way, Burbank, CA 91505

October 5
6:00pm to 8:00pm
Ephrata Public Library 550 South Reading Road, Ephrata, PA 17522

October 13 and October 14
Voidcon
DoubleTree by Hilton Huntington 1001 3rd Ave, Huntington, WV

October 21
3:00pm to 10:00pm
Snowdon Square, Brownsville PA 15417

November 3 and November 4
Barnes & Noble 5501 West Broad St Richmond VA 23220

November 5
Noon to 6:00pm
Lovedraft's Brewing Co. 165 Gateway Drive Mechanicsburg, PA, 17050

November 16 to November 19
Bizarrocon 15
McMenamins Edgefield 2126 S.W. Halsey St. Troutdale, OR 97060

And a reminder that if you don’t live near any of these locations, you can order signed books by me from here.

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Currently Playing: Fallout 76 (Xbox — I’m ObRulz13 if you want to visit my camp)

Currently Watching: What We Do In The Shadows (Hulu), The Outer Limits (BluRay)

Currently Reading: Interrogating The Shield, edited by Nicholas Ray

Currently Listening: Brian Keene Radio

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Work this past week was mostly dominated by two things — OPERATION WALKABOUT (which we talked about at the beginning of this newsletter) and alterations to my Patreon page. Patreon has finally rolled out an indexing feature, called Collections. It’s in Beta and not available to all creators yet, but I was allowed to give it an early test drive. The feature is live on my Patreon now, and replaces the wonky and bulky Patreon Index I had on my website.

It’s very easy to use. You simply go to my Patreon and then click on whichever Collection you want to peruse. Lets say, for example, that you want to catch up on the serial of BENEATH THE LOST LEVEL or read INVISIBLE MONSTERS or SPLINTERED: THE LABYRINTH Book 3 before they get released in book form, or you want to peruse my Writing Advice or Short Stories. You simply click that Collection and then all of that material is there for you.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — I challenge you to show me any other Patreon creator who’s giving you more content. I post every day, so there are hundreds and hundreds of things there to read, and it only costs you five bucks to unlock all of it. People often ask “What’s the absolute best way to support my favorite author?” I can’t speak for your other favorite authors, but in my case, subscribing to my Patreon for five bucks a month is the best way. Click here to do that. Patreon is my number one source of monthly income. I make more from that each month than I do from combined book sales. The money earned there goes directly toward our monthly bills and expenses, so your five bucks a month literally pays for our groceries, the utilities, gas for the cars, etc. And if you don’t want to pay five bucks a month or you don’t like reading things on Patreon, there’s a one dollar per month tip option, as well.

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For example, I posted this essay there earlier in the week, but I’m sharing it now in the newsletter because I think it will speak to concerns many of you currently have.

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This is a longer, more in-depth and nuanced extension of a comment I left on Cynthia Pelayo's Substack a few weeks ago. It's primarily about the current fracturing and splintering of social media, but it's also about the state of horror fiction right now.

Horror sales are cyclical. About every 7 to 11 years, there is a sales slump, usually brought about by oversaturation of the marketplace and global economic factors. We can trace this all the way back to the pulps. In living memory, we can look at the mid-Nineties crash (Zebra, Dell Abyss, etc) or the mid-2000’s crash (Leisure, 70% of the small press, etc). I have been through two such crashes, so I speak with some amount of credibility when I say that -- in my opinion -- we're nearing that phase again. We’re not there yet, and most people will not see it, but I do. I see it lurking out there on the horizon like some black iceberg set adrift from slime-coated R'lyeh.

Consider the known factors: 

1. The increasing cost in shipping and manufacturing -- everything from the price of paper from the paper mills to the cost of fuel for the trucking companies. That's why you see most distributors raising their costs, and most publishers raising the costs on the books. In addition to the rising prices, there are also shortages of everything from material goods to employees. All of these costs get passed on to the consumer, i.e. the readers.

2. The oversaturation of the market due to mainstream publishing now getting full-throated back into Horror as a genre label, and the predominance of an indie publishing market that has never -- in living history -- been stronger or more accessible than it is right now. There are more horror stories, comics, novels, movies and games being produced now than at any time in recorded history. That's a great thing, but the blade itself has two edges, because that much material needs to be purchased to justify its continued production rates. We are competing with more fellow writers than ever before, as well as the new surge of AI-written garbage by scammers flooding the marketplace in an effort to get quick cash. 

It's like horror is being blasted through a firehose directly at readers and consumers. Right now, they are happy to drink. But soon, they're going to be engorged and some of them will need to step away from the hose lest they drown. More importantly, their wages aren't increasing along with those costs we mentioned above. They're making the same amount of money each week, but being asked to spend more money on books. Sooner or later, they're going to begin to cut back. 

And when they do, the market for horror fiction will retract again, and then -- after a few years -- slowly begin to expand again, and then blow up, and then we'll be right back here, except next time, I probably won't be alive to remind people that horror sales are cyclical, and it will be Wile or Wesley or Somer or Kozeniewski or Gabino reminding everyone that their kindly old mentor used to say back in the day. 

Social media also goes through cyclical phases. When early internet message boards and AOL chat rooms first began to collapse, we all fretted about how we’d find readers and build our audiences. Then MySpace and Blogging (Livejournal, etc) came along. And we found those readers and audiences. We also had major next-gen message boards like the Warren Ellis Forum and my own forum, which -- between the two -- averaged 100,000 users per month. 

Eventually, all of those things began to fracture and fray, replaced by baby upstarts like Twitter and Facebook, and that same cycle of fear and dread started all over again. "How will I find my readers? How will I build an audience?"

Right now, Twitter is imploding. I'm not one who believes that it will ever truly die. After all, MySpace never truly died, nor did AOL. But I absolutely believe Twitter will become pointless for promotion -- just like those other two did in time. Facebook and Instagram are also losing cache as their user base grows older and spends less time on the platforms. Now we have Threads, Bluesky, Substack, TikTok, and countless others, and everyone is asking which one they should go to.

Well, if you are a writer, you should go to all of them. I don't mean post to all of them, because no one has time to do that. Writers don't get paid to post on social media all day. They get paid to write books and stories and such. But you should absolutely stake a claim to your real estate on each platform. This is something I do with every social network, soon as it is open to the public. I get my piece of real estate there, so that a) some nutbag Nazi can't pretend to be me, and b) so I'm there in case it does become the next big thing.

Currently, I'm all about Bluesky and Substack. That's where I choose to post. But promotional stuff -- book announcements and things of that nature -- still get posted across all my platforms, because right now, the audience is spread out across all those platforms.

I think it will be that way for the near future -- different audiences on different platforms. Sadie Hartmann, for example, has publicly proclaimed she's making her stand on Threads. John Scalzi is utilizing Bluesky. Then you've got folks like myself and Bryan Smith who are using Bluesky and Subtsack both. Wesley Southard is sticking with Facebook, because he still gets good results there. And that's really what a lot of this comes down to -- where do you personally get the best results.

I know it is a frustrating and maddening time right now, but here is the important part. Yes, social media is a wonderful tool to help build your audience, but at the end of the day, you build a better audience one reader at a time, one book or story at a time. Make each reader who takes the time to buy your book and comment on your book feel special. Make them feel heard. And focus on your writing. Give them a reason to pick up the next book.

Fields of wildflowers bloom in the debris. The 90s crash led to the explosive growth of the small press and indie market. The mid-00s crash led to explosive growth in self-publishing and distribution opportunities for indies. The coming changes will lead to some wonderful things, as well. Yes, it will be nerve-shredding and scary and disheartening, but eventually IT WILL PASS.

In the meantime, Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Don’t just publish all your books with one publisher. Don’t just self publish all your books. Don’t just keep writing the same thing. Diversify, diversify, diversify. That’s how you survive and stay standing, and then when things start to pick up again, you’re already on your feet and have a head start ahead of everyone else. The same rule should apply to your social media usage. 

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And that does it for this week. Me, my two sons, and author John Urbancik have tickets to see Oppenheimer at noon today, so I’m heading out for that. Thanks, as always, for subscribing and reading, and for letting me into your home every Sunday morning. I’ll see you back here next week.

— Brian Keene