Publisher, Rural Fiction Magazine; publisher, The Chamber Magazine; founder, the Farmington Writers Circle. I have written short stories and poetry for many years. In my careers as a Naval officer and in the federal government, I have written thousands of documents of many types. I am currently working on a second edition for my poetry collection and a few novels.
This being Veteran’s Day, I had the day off. I intended to spend most of the day writing on Shadows and Stars, on which I have spent a few hours so far, but I have also accomplished something else. After some editing, I submitted the stage version of “Murder by Plastic” my flash fiction thriller, to Lakeshore Players Theatre 17th Annual Ten-Minute Play Festival. I should know if I am a semi-finalist by the end of January.
Phil Slattery
March, 2015
The Lakeshore Players do not pay a lot, therefore for me the reward is more publicity and exposure for me and my works (should I win, of course). Sometimes this is more valuable than the financial rewards. This is how I feel about short stories and flash fiction. Short stories, for most of us, pay little if anything. The biggest payment to an author is in the exposure. It keeps your name in front of the public.
I am also finding out that there is more than one way to gain exposure as a writer. There is the publication of the work itself , the pre-publication publicity, and the subsequent sales and critical opinions (which, granted, may be good or bad) and renown if it a popular work. And there is the publicity to be gained by writing about the creative process and/or publicizing it before the work is published. Everything I see about publicizing and marketing one’s works boils down to getting one’s name in font of the public as often as one can. This often involves blowing one’s horn for the most miniscule of reasons.
As you may have noticed, getting my name before the public is what this article is doing right now.
I managed to get three hours editing done on my first draft today. I really enjoy it. It’s great only refining the text but also making sure all the details sync together to minimize plot holes. So far I have edited 92 pages out of about 300. These are 8.5″ x 11″, 12 point, Times New Roman, single-spaced pages.
I hope to have the new Gillett edition of Nocturne out by this weekend. I may add a few public domain drawings to it.
I came across this gem of UCLA professor Richard Walter talking about how does someone know that he/she is good enough to be a writer. Even though he is talking specifically about screenwriting, I can relate to a lot of what he says.
I am up late tonight. I don’t have insomnia per se at the moment, but I am only now starting to feel sleepy–and it’s 4:00 a.m.
I am, of course, surfing YouTube. I came across this gem of UCLA professor Richard Walter talking about how does someone know that he/she is good enough to be a writer. Even though he is talking specifically about screenwriting, I can relate to a lot of what he says.
Check it out.
Prevent the spread of Coronavirus/COVID-19 for the sake of yourself, your friends, and your family.
Forgetful growth I learn that it’s easier to remember an existing memory than to form a new one It’s easier to learn because forgetting is seamless and all learning is really in the end is a seamless task of forgetting little details around as I close my eyes to wake to A whole world sleeps…
Filmkritik: Nicht nur der Oscarpreisträger „Parasite“ (2019) von Bong Joon-ho, der auch den Monster-Horror „The Host“ (2006) schuf, und die Arbeiten von Park Chan-wook wie „Oldboy“ (2003) zeigen, dass Südkorea erstklassiges Genrekino produzieren kann. Genauso fiel das Debüt „Train to Busan“ (2016) von Yeon Sang-ho auf, das zwar das Zombiegenre nicht neu erfand, aber perfekte…
Here in England September represents completion of Summer season and the start of Autumn along with the start of the new academic year and the start of various new efforts in service, life and lots more. When anybody is looking for to make any type of adjustment in their life, regularly the method they take…
“From seasoned animator Carlos Baena (ILM, Pixar) and a crowd-sourced community of over 100 people, “La Noria” tells the tale of a grieving young boy who one day encounters dark creatures that turn his life upside down.” from Short of the Week
This film is from the YouTube channel Short of the Week. I will probably be watching them a long more often. Short of the week says about what you are about to see:
“From seasoned animator Carlos Baena (ILM, Pixar) and a crowd-sourced community of over 100 people, “La Noria” tells the tale of a grieving young boy who one day encounters dark creatures that turn his life upside down.”
“LA NORIA Directed by Carlos Baena A NightWheel Pictures Film https://www.lanoriafilm.com/ “The minute you press play and the initial images of La Noria wash over your eyeballs, one’s immediate reaction is a simple “wow”. Maybe you’re more jaded than me, and the sheer insanity of modern CG animation fails to move you, but speaking for myself, despite 10,000 hours of short film watching under my belt, a life-long love of animation, and the existence of recent photo-real short films like Garden Party, the level of design polish in great, commercially-minded 3D animations can still take my breath away. Fortunately La Noria has a couple of minutes of setup in the beginning, because shortly thereafter my breath taken away again for altogether different reasons.
“The annals of CG horror shorts in this sort of mainstream style is rather limited—”9”, by Shane Acker, certainly played in this space, and “Alma” is a creepy holiday classic. Both films are over a decade old though, and neither can really match “La Noria” for sheer terror. From the monster design which feels ripped out of some the most twisted corners of the Resident Evil game franchise, to the tense horror-chase mechanics, this film is, in spite of its seemingly kid-friendly design, truly adrenaline-producing.
“The story itself is a touch less impressive, but ultimately satisfying. It has elements of heart-string pulling, as it focuses on a ferris wheel-loving child who is torn up over the loss of his father. Gathering photos and other mementos together into a sort of shrine, the child’s heart-ache seems to birth the darkness that soon threatens him. Details from the photos hint at a back-story—the military uniform his father wears for example—and naturally create associations in one’s mind to the work of Guillermo Del Toro and his masterpiece “Pan’s Labyrinth”. While this setup is nicely pulled together into a cathartic and feel-good ending, it is mainly table-setting for the action, which is intense, and in comprising the bulk of the 11min runtime, quite long by short animation standards.
“One can’t question the exquisiteness of this action—a spooky old mansion, replete with string lights and stained glass windows, provides a splendid backdrop for scrambling chases and doors frantically being shut in the face of grasping monsters. More so than even the design quality, it is in these sequences that the experience and skill of director Carlos Baena seems to show.
“Baena has over 20 years of experience in animation with tenures at Industrial Light & Magic, and Pixar on his resume, with credits that include work on massive franchises such Star Wars, Toy Story, and Jurassic Park. Produced under the banner of his own production company, NightWheel Pictures, Baena took advantage of his status as co-founder of Artella, an animation platform that allows for virtual collaboration, in the creation of the film. Baena used the platform to source a diverse crew of independent artists to work on La Noria, with over 100 contributors ultimately joining the project, hailing from all over the world.
“The result paid off—not only is “La Noria” a stunning showpiece for Baena and Artella, it has received widespread acclaim, winning dozens of awards, including Best Short at Tokyo’s prestigious Short Shorts Asia. Dropping online this week with an exclusive post on Variety, the celebration from worldwide audiences is sure to spread. As for Baena’s next steps, he is currently set up at Paramount Pictures. Details on his projects there are under wraps for now, but with luck, we’ll be seeing a feature film from Baena on the big screen in the near future.” – S/W Curator, Jason Sondhi
CREDITS
Written & Directed by Carlos Baena Produced by Sasha Korellis & Carlos Baena
Here are a few of the book retailers where you can find my works.
Yesterday, I became curious as to what booksellers I could find that carry my works now that I am publishing through IngramSpark. I went to different bookstores online and simply searched for the ISBN of the new edition of A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror, after which I searched for “Phil Slattery” to see which of my Amazon books they carry. To my pleasant surprise, I found that most of the major bookstores carry both. I also found out that IngramSpark also distributes through Amazon, because the new edition of A Tale of Hell popped up there in each site for the US and other countries.
In any case, here are the bookstores where you can order each of my works via print-on-demand, i.e. you have to order them from the store. Also, if you are looking specifically for my latest version (i.e. the IngramSpark edition), use its ISBN to ensure you get it and not one of the earlier Amazon editions: 9780578759913. Search the bookstore for “Phil Slattery” to get one of my other works, which are available through Amazon.
Don’t forget to retweet and share this post with your friends.
Bookshop.org
Books A Million
Parnassus Books (Nashville, TN)
Wordsworth Books (LittleRock, Arkansas)
Joseph Beth (Lexington, KY)
The Strand Bookstore (New York City, NY)
Book People (Austin, TX)
Collected Works (Santa Fe, NM)
Elliott Bay Bookstore (Seattle, WA)
Word Bookstores (Brooklyn, NY and Jersey City, NJ)
Blackwells.co.uk
bookdepository.com (UK)
allibris.com (UK)
literatibookstore.com
Also check the Amazon page for each county (e.g. amazon.de, amazon.fr, amazon.uk, etc.
I am beginning to see sales via IngramSpark that are better than I saw at Amazon. I will be moving more books to IngramSpark soon.
Just now I checked my IngramSpark account to get the ISBN for A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror. I was pleasantly surprised to find that since having published A Tale of Hell… on October 21, I have sold five copies (including one author’s copy I bought at a discount). This is definitely more print copies (and probably more than the number of Kindle versions) than I ever soldin four years on Amazon. I did give away a lot of Kindle versions as promotions. So, maybe the promotional giveaways are working in a weird, ironic way.
I have no indication of where these were sold or who bought them.
I have always thought that Amazon prices its print copies so high that it drives customers to their Kindle versions. Its print copies are not great nor vey professional in their quality. These factors also undoubtedly drive customers to Kindle.
Yeah, branching out to IngramSpark was a good idea.
Thank you very much to those of you who have purchased a copy.
For those of you who haven’t yet bought a copy, IngramSpark distributes to over 39,000 book retailers worldwide. Ask for one at your local bookstore. I am researching which stores do sell these. So far I have found that you can get them through Books A Million (though these may be just the Amazon version), Barnes and Noble, and Powell Books. These are print-on-demand, so they probably won’t be on the shelves. You will probably need to order them.
Please retweet or share this article with your friends.
Since I published A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror with IngramSpark, I am going to different bookstores online and searching them for my works. Just now, I found that Powell Books can order my print books. I know Barnes and Noble can get them as well. I will keep you updated as I find more. IngramSpark is supposed to make my works available via print on demand to over 39,000 retailers. Ask your local bookstore for them.
While I am still working on editing Shadows and Stars, sometimes I want to take a break and work on something else, particularly if I feel I need to get something published while working on Shadows and Stars. Sometimes I write a short story when in these moods. Lately, I have gone back to writing a poem now and then.
Having completed Nocturne: Poems of Love, Distance, and the Night…which contains my early poetry, I am thinking I should write a sequel, which I am calling for now Remnants (of a Life). It will basically be my reflections on life and getting older and a few poems that weren’t suitable for Nocturne. I may throw in some short prose. I hope to have around a 100 poems to include in it. Currently, I have about 7-10. I may publish a few in small magazines before publishing them in a collection.
Some years back, I started on a horror novel called The Man Who Escaped from Hell. I alternated working on it and what is now Shadows and Stars and other works for several years. In the winter of 2018, when I was living in Chaco Canyon (an isolated and remote spot in the New Mexican desert), I endeavored to spend my time writing on The Man Who Escaped from Hell, but was becoming overwhelmed with it while coming up with a lot of ideas for Shadows and Stars. I decided to focus on Shadows and Stars, which I have been doing since then.
One of my concepts of cover art for The Man Who Escaped from Hell using an alternate title.
My wife loved the ideas behind The Man Who… and kept urging me to finish it. She said that if I didn’t publish it while still alive, she would publish it after I was gone. That started some wheels turning in my head.
The protagonist’s name is Jake Brody. I went through several arguments with myself over whether to write The Man Who… in first or third person, sometimes going through the current draft and changing it from one person to the other. I finally settled on the first person, as it would make things more personal and dramatic. I kept writing down ideas and notes but was having a difficult time making a cohesive narrative out of them. Somewhere along the line, probably stimulated by my wife’s statement, I came up with the idea of publishing the novel in a very rough pre-first-draft form. So long as I kept a perceptible storyline, I could keep the entire work in finished pieces, rough pieces, and notes. Then, if I did die before finishing it completely, my wife could go ahead and publish it as a finished work. I adapted the plot to account for this. In the novel, Jake has been working on an autobiography/confession of sorts, but dies before completing it. The reader learns this in the foreword, so I am not spoiling the novel by saying that. In fact, the foreword is by a fictional friend of Jake’s named Malcolm Flynn, who explains that this is Jake’s draft autobiography he was writing when he died and that was found among his papers. Now that I am thinking of it, Jake may will this draft and a few other things to Malcolm.
So, yesterday I was thinking that maybe I should just go ahead and publish The Man Who… as it stands now. However, there would be a few plot holes. Now, I am thinking that if I come up with something to fill those holes, I may go ahead and publish it. It also needs a little more editing for grammar, spelling, and conciseness.
We will see which I publish first. It’s sort of a race at this point. You will be reading more about The Man Who…in the coming weeks as I have learned that I need to start publicizing a book from the get-go. I will probably be posting a few cover ideas and other illustrations as they occur to me.
As of October 23, 2020, A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror is being printed and distributed by IngramSpark. With their immense distribution network of over 39,000 retailers, A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror is now available by print on demand. Be sure to ask for it at your local book retailer. It will continue to be sold via Amazon in Kindle and in print (though the IngramSpark version will be much nicer).
In this collection of published and previously unpublished stories of horror, I take you on a journey into the minds of people who perpetrate horrors, from acts of stupidity with unintended results to cold-hearted revenge to pure enjoyment to complete indifference. Settings range from 17th-century France in the heart of the werewolf trials to the Old West to the present and on to alien worlds in the distant future. Order yours today!
Phil Slattery, Writer, Publisher 