# Re: Where has all the horror gone? - author/self pub perspective



## anotherpage (Apr 4, 2012)

I'm interested in knowing if anyone has had any success in this genre. I love horror movies, but have not read a horror book that has scared me. I'm visual.

Curious though how horror does for sales in short story or full novel market for self-published authors.


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## derekailes2014 (Aug 4, 2014)

Sales are ok for horror short story anthologies.  Horror is a genre that is a hard sell.  The closer we get to Halloween, the more there is a demand for the horror genre.  The Saw movies were good at the beginning but each sequel became just another clone of the previous one.  That franchise and I'm going to put the paranormal activity in with this became overkill.  The zombie fiction genre, I'm guilty of this myself, is heading in the overkill direction.  You can only do a horror style for so long until the reader just says, "Enough of this already!"


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## DanDillard (Mar 10, 2011)

kalel said:


> I'm interested in knowing if anyone has had any success in this genre. I love horror movies, but have not read a horror book that has scared me. I'm visual.
> 
> Curious though how horror does for sales in short story or full novel market for self-published authors.


Sales come and go for me, but I'm a nobody--still fairly new to writing. As for markets, there are loads of them...magazines, small press publishers. 
That's where it gets confusing. If you watch television, some of the top rated shows out there now are horror/dark fantasy based: American Horror Story, The Walking Dead, The Strain, True Blood, Grimm, Sleepy Hollow, Penny Dreadful...not to mention the glut of Paranormal Investigation, Cryptozoology, Medium and Haunting shows that are all over cable.

There's definitely an audience out there.


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## DanDillard (Mar 10, 2011)

derekailes2014 said:


> Sales are ok for horror short story anthologies. Horror is a genre that is a hard sell. The closer we get to Halloween, the more there is a demand for the horror genre. The Saw movies were good at the beginning but each sequel became just another clone of the previous one. That franchise and I'm going to put the paranormal activity in with this became overkill. The zombie fiction genre, I'm guilty of this myself, is heading in the overkill direction. You can only do a horror style for so long until the reader just says, "Enough of this already!"


Zombie fiction is "heading" in that direction??  Not quite as bad as the sexy vampire fiction, but come on... Zombies have been beaten to death in the last 10 years. You're right though. It is a tough sell, although I find my sales are way up (and by way up, I mean literally dozens of books!!  ) in December through May...almost dead around Halloween.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

I've split out the last few posts as they focus on the genre from an author's perspective -- moving to the Writer's Cafe -- sorry for any confusion.


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## aleah.barley (Jul 23, 2014)

My book is Dead Sexy. It stomps all over the line between horror and urban fantasy. It has been selling about fifty copies a week.


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## Guest (Sep 16, 2014)

aleah.barley said:


> My book is Dead Sexy. It stomps all over the line between horror and urban fantasy. It has been selling about fifty copies a week.


The presence of zombies does not make your book horror. Your book is not horror at all. I actually read a few chapters on the recommendation of a friend who said it was a zombie book I could read (I have a zombie phobia, so don't judge me.) He was right. I wasn't scared AT ALL. *If you can't scare ***** with zombies, a person who can't watch a commercial for The Walking Dead without getting freaked out, your book isn't horror*   . It is a very straightforward urban fantasy that is not horror AT ALL.

The purpose of horror is to terrify...to fill you with a sense of dread and provide a cathartic release at the end. People read horror to experience that terror and the euphoria that comes with "surviving" the story. It is a unique genre that too many people throw their books into without understanding it. Just because a story borrows some archetype monsters doesn't make it horror. Horror isn't about the monsters. It is about the primal emotions of fear and terror.

And this, frankly, is the problem with the horror genre today. People are claiming their books are horror when they are not, because people don't know or respect what horror is supposed to be. They think they throw a zombie or vampire or serial killer in the story and it is automatically horror. But those things are just props, not the soul of what the horror genre is about. Horror still sells well, but horror FANS don't depend on Amazon to find it. Because everyone misclassifies their books as horror. Horror fans go to horror-themed websites to learn about where the REAL horror books are. Most of the horror fans I know don't use Amazon to FIND books. They discover horror books elsewhere and then go to Amazon to make the purchase, but they don't use Amazon's search function or recommendations because 8 out of 10 times that recommendation is an urban fantasy or paranormal romance and not an actual horror. (I died a little the day Amazon recommended Twilight to me as a horror novel).

To sell horror, you have to go where the horror readers are. Promote on horror-themed sites, at horror conventions, things like that. If you are trying to use the established Bookbub route to sell horror, it won't work because that isn't how you find horror readers.


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## AngryGames (Jul 28, 2013)

Jules, you scare me, so you must be horror?

Anyway, your description of horror basically cut out about 92.5% of 'horror' books, and if I take your words literally, it cut out 99.9999%  of all books, because the only book I've ever read that was scary was The Exorcist. Okay, 99.999%, because I read "It" when I was like 12, and it scared me pretty bad, but beyond those two... no book has ever scared me, so therefore no other books are "horror." 

The problem with the horror genre today is people claiming the parameters on what is horror. You're scared of zombies, but zombies are so utterly stupid that they can't be scary at all. Vampires, on the other hand, pretty scary unless they are greasy, brooding, furiously masturbating teenagers who can't decide which monster they want to have sex with. Those vampires are only scary because they ruin vampires for everyone else. 

Werewolves? Not scary. Except for "America Werewolf in London." But that's a movie. And it's the only werewolf movie that is scary. 

(I can make these blanket statements the same as anyone and seem like an expert too). 

There's nothing "wrong" with the horror genre. It's alive and well. 

Now, other than silly blanket statements about what is and what isn't horror according to one or more persons who all have different opinions on what horror is... Jules is correct in saying that if you want horror, you have to find it in the horror sections of the world/internet/life. Amazon has 'popular' horror, which is just horror that sells a lot. Kind of like 50 Shades in a sense... not necessarily good, but popular. Britney, Kanye, Snooki, you get the idea. 

If you want a great hamburger, you don't go to McDonald's and ask what everyone else is ordering. You go to Food Network and check stuff like "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives" to see a real selection of real hamburgers, not some kind of horsemeat-on-a-bun "thing" that looks like it came out of a school lunch (YOUR school lunch, from however long it was ago that you were in school).


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## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

Horror doesn't sell.

Right now. (It will be back! They always come back!)

So, if you're ever read _Danse Macabre_, Stephen King has this theory that horror is most popular in "eras of good feeling." Like the 50s, post WWII, everyone doing great, there was TONS of horror. And then in the 80s, when the economy was booming and everyone was having the me decade, horror was seriously EVERYWHERE. But during the 60s, not so much, and now, not so much. Now, there's a recession and a war that's been dragging on for over ten years and the economy is still shaky and... welp, Stephen King figures there's enough real-life horror and no one needs it in their entertainment.

Thoughts?


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## sarahdalton (Mar 15, 2011)

My YA horror series has more interest than sales, I think. I get great feedback from Goodreads readers and bloggers but sales are slow. However, I've only just started the series and I know sales don't usually pick up until at least three books are out. 

There are definitely people out there who want scares. Perhaps quiet horror is an easier sell than gory stuff.


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## Guest (Sep 16, 2014)

AngryGames said:


> Jules, you scare me, so you must be horror?


Don't feel bad. I scare a lot of people.


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## egcamby (Aug 20, 2014)

Valerie, I see your point (and King's) but I think we can also look at the opposite side of that coin: things are crappy, and I want an escape from that.  For me (and I'm guessing I'm not the only horror fan who feels this way), I seek out horror.

I don't want to weep over a romance.  I don't want to give myself a headache reading lit fic after an already long work day.  

I want to feel an emotion that's easy: fear of something spooky, something I know is fake.  A bit of an adrenaline rush, or a chuckle at a cheesey, Creepshow-style tale.  It's a different fear than the kind that bubbles up when I wonder whether I can pay the bills or read about the latest horror in the newspaper.

Of course this is just anecdotal, but I think there are many people like me.  I only watch/read horror and comedies.  It's an escape. 

(I also agree with the previous poster in that you need to go where the horror fans are---they might not necessarily be where the "regular" readers are. )


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## Rick Gualtieri (Oct 31, 2011)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> The purpose of horror is to terrify...to fill you with a sense of dread and provide a cathartic release at the end. People read horror to experience that terror and the euphoria that comes with "surviving" the story. It is a unique genre that too many people throw their books into without understanding it. Just because a story borrows some archetype monsters doesn't make it horror. Horror isn't about the monsters. It is about the primal emotions of fear and terror.


The problem with nailing down what is horror and what isn't is that horror is so diverse and people's tastes toward it are equally as broad. It's hard to call oneself a general horror fan. because of this. Heck, as much as I love a good demonic / monster / creature tale, some psychological horror novels bore me to tears.

Likewise that terror you mention is equally as diverse. One person's screamer is another's yawn-fest.

I might say it's all in the author's intent. If their intention is to scare, terrify, or try to freak you out then they're a horror writer. Whether they actually do so or not is just an indication of whether they're a successful horror writer.


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## Guest (Sep 16, 2014)

Valerie knows what she's talking about  

For me, I feel I wrote some very good horror and got good reviews and not much money

I then wrote bad romance and got bad reviews and made some money


If I could make money in horror, I would. Maybe I will some day. Right now though, the chance for success is so disproportionate I have to write what ebook readers want to read. I'd actually feel bad about all the brilliant stories I could be writing but not, except for the fact no one gives a sh**.


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## egcamby (Aug 20, 2014)

I totally get going where the money is!

I remember reading a King interview once where someone asked him why he wrote the things he did, and he said, "What makes you think I have a choice?" or something to that effect. I guess that's how I feel--those are the only types of stories that come to me.

Publishing my first book, a horror story collection, in October, and have zero expectations. But, I went with my gut and wrote the things that I would want to read myself. Classic ghost/paranormal stories. No gore, no sex. I'm sick of the torture porn, sparkly romantic vampire stuff that has taken over the genre I used to love to read. (And certainly *no offense* if anyone writes or enjoys that stuff, it's just not what I consider classic horror.)

As far as whether there is a market for it or not, I will note that since I started promoting myself as within the horror genre, I have had a huge response in relation to when I did other, non-horror stuff. No idea if that will translate into sales at all, but I do think it's interesting.

Fingers crossed there are a few other weirdos in the world who are into the same stuff I am. If not, you can find me weeping into my old copy of Poe Poems and Tales


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## STOHara (Feb 23, 2011)

valeriec80 said:


> Horror doesn't sell.
> 
> Right now. (It will be back! They always come back!)
> 
> ...


His theory doesn't hold up. There was a horror boom in the late '60s and early '70s with novels like Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcist, which paved the way for King's debut in '74. His success extended the horror boom into the '80s with guys like Peter Straub, Clive Barker, Robert McCammon, etc. But in the '90s, during the height of the economic boom, horror went into decline to the point that most physical bookstores got rid of their horror sections and started shelving the books with either mainstream fiction or SF.


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## Guest (Sep 16, 2014)

AngryGames said:


> If you want a great hamburger, you don't go to McDonald's and ask what everyone else is ordering. You go to Food Network and check stuff like "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives" to see a real selection of real hamburgers, not some kind of horsemeat-on-a-bun "thing" that looks like it came out of a school lunch (YOUR school lunch, from however long it was ago that you were in school).


I get your point. But we aren't talking about the quality of the horror itself. We are talking about the basic goal of the genre. Yes, there is a wide range of what actually scares people, just like there is a wide range of quality in hamburgers. But if someone brings you a plate of lasagna and tells you that it is actually a hamburger simply because they put ground beef in it, you would probably argue with them. The presence of ground beef in a dish doesn't make it a hamburger. There are certain baseline parameters of what a hamburger is supposed to be. THAT is my point. The goal of horror is to scare people. You may not always scare all readers all the time, but the _goal_ should be terror (as Rick noted about intent).


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## CfaE (Jul 25, 2014)

kalel said:


> I'm interested in knowing if anyone has had any success in this genre. I love horror movies, but have not read a horror book that has scared me. I'm visual.
> 
> Curious though how horror does for sales in short story or full novel market for self-published authors.


I love the horror genre. It's always been my favourite one. I spent my teen years reading splatterpunk and the masters of horror, so I'm always disappointed when I see how low horror ranks in Amazon. I've only written one story that would be classed as gruesome and scary enough to contain real horror elements, _Frenzied_, and it bombed. Thousands of beta readers loved it, but apparently the Amazon readers weren't interested. I dunno if it's a visibility thing or if the genre is just not a popular one right now. Paranormal romance does a lot better than horror in my experience.


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## Avis Black (Jun 12, 2012)

If horror has gone into a sales decline in the last generation, that's because its natural fandom of younger males has left to go play video games.  Since video games aren't going to be disappearing any time soon, this generational change is likely to be permanent.  Horror isn't likely to ever recover.  The future will only create more interesting distractions.


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## RipleyKing (Mar 5, 2013)

Horror is. 

I do dark fiction, fantasy with horror sprinkled about, and my horror novels, they're there. Love Dark is doing great in the romance category, as well as action adventure, and it's sub-genre is (in my head) dark fantasy. I'm still waiting for my true horror novels to take off. On my blog, from now until Halloween, I'll be posting bites of horror from my books, along with purchase links. Maybe boost my sales.

The series I'm working on now, I make fun of the traditional elements of horror, past and present. "Kill them all and let God sort them out." or to pit it another way "Vampires are about as sexy as fresh dog shit on a new shoe."


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## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

STOHara said:


> His theory doesn't hold up. There was a horror boom in the late '60s and early '70s with novels like Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcist, which paved the way for King's debut in '74. His success extended the horror boom into the '80s with guys like Peter Straub, Clive Barker, Robert McCammon, etc. But in the '90s, during the height of the economic boom, horror went into decline to the point that most physical bookstores got rid of their horror sections and started shelving the books with either mainstream fiction or SF.


You know, to be honest, it's been a while since I read the book, and he might have included the 70s. He actually might have _written it_ in the seventies. 

Anyway, the early nineties was freaking great for horror in books. You had splatter punk--Poppy Z. Brite, Clive Barker, et. al.

And I do think later in the decade there was a decline in horror books, but there was a boom in horror movies with Scream and the like.

Heck, I got into horror in the 90s as a teenager.

(And began writing it in the early 2000s to no avail. Eventually, I self-published those books. Check out their ranks if you're feeling like a good downer:   .... Hmm, actually, Death Girl must have sold a copy with the past two months. Nifty!)


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## DanDillard (Mar 10, 2011)

valeriec80 said:


> Horror doesn't sell.
> 
> Right now. (It will be back! They always come back!)
> 
> ...


The Walking Dead, Grimm, Penny Dreadful, Dexter, American Horror Story, The Strain, From Dusk till Dawn, There's an Evil Dead TV show in the works, They just remade Rosemary's Baby for TV, There's an Exorcist TV miniseries in the works...oh--and Under the Dome.... I think there's plenty of horror out there in the mainstream and even Stephen King is behind some of it. I'd say his theory is false. False false false. Or the economy has picked back up. I would argue the opposite. When something is real--ie a bad economy, or a war or both, is when real horror comes about. So much of the classic horror was based on real or perceived threats-- government experiments, devil worshippers, threat of nuclear fallout. Themes come from everywhere.


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## DanDillard (Mar 10, 2011)

Ann in Arlington said:


> I've split out the last few posts as they focus on the genre from an author's perspective -- moving to the Writer's Cafe -- sorry for any confusion.


Yay! We're spreading like a zombie outbreak.


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## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

DanDillard said:


> The Walking Dead, Grimm, Penny Dreadful, Dexter, American Horror Story, The Strain, From Dusk till Dawn, There's an Evil Dead TV show in the works, They just remade Rosemary's Baby for TV, There's an Exorcist TV miniseries in the works...oh--and Under the Dome.... I think there's plenty of horror out there in the mainstream and even Stephen King is behind some of it. I'd say his theory is false. False false false. Or the economy has picked back up. I would argue the opposite. When something is real--ie a bad economy, or a war or both, is when real horror comes about. So much of the classic horror was based on real or perceived threats-- government experiments, devil worshippers, threat of nuclear fallout. Themes come from everywhere.


Yeah, there's not nearly as much of a mainstream these days, either. Everything's fractured. So that kind of makes the theory not fit just in general anyway.

Still. Show me the horror books in the Top 100 on Amazon. Show me the indie authors who make a living primarily writing horror.

Even if there are popular horror TV shows out there, no one that I know of is kicking ass and taking names writing horror. (And by horror, I don't mean werewolf porn--not that there's anything wrong with that, check my sig--it's got angst + blood and guts + threesome sex, what's not to love? I mean, like real, honest-to-goodness supernatural horror... like, um, Ania Ahlborn--pretty much the only recent writer I know of who's doing really well with that genre.) Whatever the reason, horror sells poorly in book form right now.

So I guess the reason must be that most horror fans don't read anymore. *shrug*


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

If the purpose of horror is too scare or horrify, then most 'horror' is not actually horror. IMO, horror, like thriller, is a victim fantasy. A protagonist who is trapped in a situation way beyond their ability to handle, who must try to fight back against impossible, horrifying odds. As soon as you have a protagonist who is more equal to the conflict at hand, it becomes less of a horror/thriller situation and more action. Grimm, for example, is a cop show with supernatural elements. Just because it has monsters doesn't make it horror.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

kalel said:


> I'm interested in knowing if anyone has had any success in this genre. I love horror movies, but have not read a horror book that has scared me. I'm visual.
> 
> Curious though how horror does for sales in short story or full novel market for self-published authors.


Not sure what you mean by "Where's all the horror gone?"

King is still king of the genre, but a lot of folks here work in the genre. Including me.

Now, IMO, one of the things watering down the genre, or at least muddying the waters, is the recent obsession with "supernatural romance," turning the stuff of nightmares into the stuff of ... romantic fantasy, shall we say?

There's nothing wrong with that, per se; it just confuses the genre, I think, as a lot of that stuff gets mis-categorized as horror, and the scream-inducing stuff gets a little lost among the sigh-inducing stuff.

Here's a taste test:

Does the vampire in a book sparkle and promise not to bite you until marriage? It's supernatural romance.

Does the vampire in a book stick to the shadows, refuse to drink wine, avoid garlic, and most importantly, never consider romancing his food? Now you're probably closer to horror.

There are many good names active in horror (besides me).

David McAfee is awesome. Zane Sachs is a new favorite. Blake Crouch. Jack Kilborne. How many names do you want?


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## kjbryen (Jul 3, 2014)

Glynn James said:


> I make a living doing it. 150,000 ebooks sold in the last two years.
> I haven't hit the top 100, though - 250 is as high as I've managed.
> I must admit that not all of my books are pure horror, but they all contain elements of the genre.


That's awesome! That's what I hope to do... I plan on writing horror as well as paranormal, dark fantasy, supernatural thrillers, etc. Not all straight horror, but everything with at least a dark feel.



ShayneRutherford said:


> If the purpose of horror is too scare or horrify, then most 'horror' is not actually horror. IMO, horror, like thriller, is a victim fantasy. A protagonist who is trapped in a situation way beyond their ability to handle, who must try to fight back against impossible, horrifying odds. As soon as you have a protagonist who is more equal to the conflict at hand, it becomes less of a horror/thriller situation and more action. Grimm, for example, is a cop show with supernatural elements. Just because it has monsters doesn't make it horror.


I agree with this. I've never read a horror novel that actually scared me.


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## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

Glynn James said:


> I make a living doing it. 150,000 ebooks sold in the last two years.
> I haven't hit the top 100, though - 250 is as high as I've managed.
> I must admit that not all of my books are pure horror, but they all contain elements of the genre.


All right, all right.

I know some people are doing well with post-apocalyptic stuff.

 I think I'm just bitter because my post-apocalyptic serial doesn't sell very well. Admittedly, it has a good bit of gay men kissing scenes in it, which may have turned off the target audience. It wasn't very scary though, even with zombies. There were some tense scenes, but nothing real terrifying.

People did say Rough Edges scared them, though, in the reviews. That was basically the best moment of my life (except when the guy on goodreads compared me to Alan Moore!). And some people don't read their reviews. The things they miss.

Anyway, back on topic-ish, I'm about 90% sure that I'm going to spend the rest of the year writing thriller-ish serial killer/murder cult stuff, and that should hopefully give me my horror fix and still maybe stand a chance of selling if I shelve it in crime fiction. FTW! (hopefully)


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

valeriec80 said:


> Horror doesn't sell.


Untrue.

Horror sells when done well.

Does it sell like watered-down, sparkly paranormal romance? Not currently.

Does it sell like erotica? What does, other than erotica?

But well-done horror does sell.


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## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

Horror, like most genres, runs in cycles. What's down right now is just waiting in the shadows to jump out and rip your head off. One day the sparkly vampire lover will fade away. One day the sexy werewolf will fade away. Then the readers who've been waiting for the throat-ripping, entrails-eating supernatural beings will need something to read. Heck, we need something to read now. 

If you are a visual person, I think you're going to find it hard to read a book that will scare you. While I'm very visual, I also can "see" things in my head from the words, and it's very easy for me to read something that scares me. King's "The Tommyknockers" gave me nightmares for months.

I write horror and SF mostly. My vampire short story collection is slowly building sales. My work is more "Twilight Zone" than "Saw", which is what I like to read. I have a story idea that's going a bit darker, involving a haunting, but that's for next year (I think -- not likely to get to it this year unless I'm inspired to bump it up the list).


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## rjspears (Sep 25, 2011)

I feel like I'm in the double whammy.  I write horror and my subgenre is zombies.  I'm getting sales, but not that many.  

I did like the post where the poster said they'd made some money on one of their books, but they would have written it even with making money.

I have two zombies series going. One is about to come to an end and I need to write the 4th and final book in the other series.  Something tells me that I should leave genre behind and try something else, but I feel like I owe to my readers to finish out the series.

I think I'll go back to my first love and try a mystery.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

I'm not going to let trends affect what I write.

I write horror. Mostly realistic horror, sometimes with soft supernatural influences.

And I also write humor.

And sometimes a mix of those influences.

It's best to stick with what you write best, and let the readers find you. Trend-chasing, too often, means writing books that are echoes of someone else's books, rather than your own great books.


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## dkgould (Feb 18, 2013)

rjspears said:


> I feel like I'm in the double whammy. I write horror and my subgenre is zombies. I'm getting sales, but not that many.
> 
> I did like the post where the poster said they'd made some money on one of their books, but they would have written it even with making money.
> 
> ...


Don't worry, stuff comes back around  and there are still tons of zombie fans out there, even if "everyone" says it's tired and played out. Just like there are lots of vampire fans and ghost story fans and everything else. I'm writing zombies (sort of) too and have no immediate plans to stop. It might be taking a little bit, but it's starting to make money.


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## Kathryn Meyer Griffith (May 6, 2013)

I've been reading horror all my life and writing it now for over forty-three years, published since 1984 with 21 novels behind me. I was there on the shelves in the 1980's with King, Straub, Koontz and...Poppy. I never got that big, though. I consider myself a horror writer but have also published romantic horror, murder mysteries, suspense, thrillers and paranormal. The books shown below my post are only the 6 I've self-published in the last two years....I still have 15 with a publisher I can't wait to begin getting the rights back to next June so I can self-publish each one. That's when I expect to finally make the money I should have all along. Publishers took most of the money my books have made over the last 30 years. I got only 4%-18%. Horror is in the eyes/mind/heart of the beholder, er, reader. Some people think some of my books are really scary; some think not. I like the old-fashioned horror that scares subtly, not slasher gory stuff. I love well-written horror with a spooky ambiance.  I believe my time is coming...


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## johnlmonk (Jul 24, 2013)

kalel said:


> I'm interested in knowing if anyone has had any success in this genre. I love horror movies, but have not read a horror book that has scared me. I'm visual.
> 
> Curious though how horror does for sales in short story or full novel market for self-published authors.


It depends on what you'd call 'success.' As for execution, Harvey Click's "The Bad Box" is a stunning example of indie horror.


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## aleah.barley (Jul 23, 2014)

I was calling my books strictly urban fantasy and actually had a few fans correct me. They think it is at least partly horror because of the setting, the gore, and the 'creepiness factor.' I actually had people messaging me about how much they loved my book... And needed to remember not to eat dinner while they were reading book 2. That is horror.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Guest (Sep 17, 2014)

kalel said:


> I'm interested in knowing if anyone has had any success in this genre. I love horror movies, but have not read a horror book that has scared me. I'm visual.
> 
> Curious though how horror does for sales in short story or full novel market for self-published authors.


Short answer: Nope. Long answer: Dismal sales, but good reviews for my one horror novel. So&#8230;nope.


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## Harvey Click (Oct 28, 2013)

johnlmonk said:


> It depends on what you'd call 'success.' As for execution, Harvey Click's "The Bad Box" is a stunning example of indie horror.


Wow, thanks very much, John! 

As for money, I'm afraid my horror novels are scarcely earning a dime and are living under a bridge at the moment--but obviously some horror novels make good money. It's largely a matter of marketing, I suppose, and that's a skill I utterly lack.

I agree with some of the earlier posters who say that most so-called horror isn't really horror. The indie so-called horror market is so saturated with romantic vampires and zombie apocalypse retreads that I think many horror fans have become wary of it and therefore stick with a few publishing house names that they trust.


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## KimFaulks (Jul 8, 2012)

I love writing horror, but it doesn't sell. Secrets Room is my most popular horror and I might sell 3-4 a month with the same amount of borrows. But End of Dreams which literally starts at a murder gets maybe 1 sale a month. I'm keeping horror as my 'writing for me' genre and writing more fantasy/erotica to try and sell more.


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## Graeme Reynolds (Jul 8, 2012)

There's nothing wrong with horror. I do pretty well out of it. My own series, the High Moor werewolf books have sold around 8000 copies between them in the last two years and since I expanded my imprint, the Whisper series by Michael Bray has also been a pretty steady seller. The first book sold around 5000 copies in the year since release and the sequel has done around 2500 since it was launched in May. I know quite a few people who's sales figures blow those out of the water.

The same rules apply for horror as they do with any other genre. Make the book as good as it can possibly be and create an appealing, professional cover. Make sure its widely available, get as many review copies as you can out there, and then follow the promotional tips that you find on this board.

Ghost stories are a hot subgenre based on my experience so far. The werewolf horror side of things is solid and steady, but ghosts have a bigger following. Zombie fiction is still going strong for the moment but the market is getting saturated. Vampire fiction seems to have tailed off quite a bit of late and I expect zombies will eventually go that way as well because of the samey nature of many of the offerings.

At the end of the day, if you are writing for money, go down the traditional thriller route. You will sell a lot more books. If horror is what you love though, then by all means stick at it. There is a market. It's not as big as some of the others, but its there and its thriving.


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## Fredster (Apr 11, 2011)

I write horror and make a pretty good living at it.*

*for someone living in the Congo.


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## DanDillard (Mar 10, 2011)

valeriec80 said:


> Yeah, there's not nearly as much of a mainstream these days, either. Everything's fractured. So that kind of makes the theory not fit just in general anyway.
> 
> Still. Show me the horror books in the Top 100 on Amazon. Show me the indie authors who make a living primarily writing horror.
> 
> ...


You're right on some points...Horror books aren't blowing up the charts--it's a very visual genre. Then again, I don't really like Amazon's top 100...Hell, it has "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" and the Golden Book version of "Frozen" up in the top 25. It's an apples and oranges list. $30.00 Non fiction titles and $2.00 children's learn-to-read titles all lumped together. The algorithms just don't provide good information. The genre is strong. Maybe the books are just hiding in small presses, conventioners, blogs, etc. I still blame the teen paranormal romances for scaring off a lot of fans. For a while there, it was: For instant story, just add vampire.


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## Guest (Sep 17, 2014)

valeriec80 said:


> Still. Show me the horror books in the Top 100 on Amazon. Show me the indie authors who make a living primarily writing horror.


Show me more than a handful of indie authors making a living writing something other than romances, erotica, YA, or New Adult.

Seriously, once you get out of the 'core' genres of popular fiction, most writers indie or trade don't make a living writing. Over the years, a great many industry folks have stated that romance and erotica makes up 50% of the ebook market. FIFTY PERCENT. Followed by YA and NA. That doesn't leave a lot of room in the pond. The fact that you can't find indie authors making a career writing horror doesn't reflect on the horror genre per se. It is the result of the way the ebook industry has developed insofar as which genres actually make up the bulk of ebooks.

You also have the problem of the Amazon bubble. Everyone here keeps referencing Amazon as the point of reference. Amazon is not the end all-be all of life. It is for indies in specific genres. But believe it or not, I know authors who make a living writing full time who DON'T have Amazon as their primary sales point. So just because you don't see horror in the Amazon top 100 doesn't mean there is something wrong with the horror genre. It just means Amazon is not the primary market for horror. Just because WalMart doesn't sell a lot of organic products doesn't mean organic products don't sell (just ask Whole Foods). It means WalMart doesn't sell a lot of organic products.


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## DanDillard (Mar 10, 2011)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Show me more than a handful of indie authors making a living writing something other than romances, erotica, YA, or New Adult.
> 
> Seriously, once you get out of the 'core' genres of popular fiction, most writers indie or trade don't make a living writing. Over the years, a great many industry folks have stated that romance and erotica makes up 50% of the ebook market. FIFTY PERCENT. Followed by YA and NA. That doesn't leave a lot of room in the pond. The fact that you can't find indie authors making a career writing horror doesn't reflect on the horror genre per se. It is the result of the way the ebook industry has developed insofar as which genres actually make up the bulk of ebooks.
> 
> You also have the problem of the Amazon bubble. Everyone here keeps referencing Amazon as the point of reference. Amazon is not the end all-be all of life. It is for indies in specific genres. But believe it or not, I know authors who make a living writing full time who DON'T have Amazon as their primary sales point. So just because you don't see horror in the Amazon top 100 doesn't mean there is something wrong with the horror genre. It just means Amazon is not the primary market for horror. Just because WalMart doesn't sell a lot of organic products doesn't mean organic products don't sell (just ask Whole Foods). It means WalMart doesn't sell a lot of organic products.


Ewwww. Walmart.


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## Victoria Champion (Jun 6, 2012)

I write horror. My sales are negligible. I will continue to write it because that's what I'm good at and love. It's not something I do for money anymore. I think of just not writing any more stories, but it gives my life worth. Gravitas. Otherwise I'm just another consumer.

Someday maybe I will gain some readers and some recognition, but I find schmoozing for attention and networking to try to market via word of mouth soul crushing. I'm ignored, and I can't endure that anymore. I can't afford to buy ads. I don't have enough reviews to qualify for something like Bookbub. I can't seem to gain any visibility or traction and I just can't play the marketing game anymore. I've posted on every horror facebook page, even a local horror society posted about me and listed me, and I've posted all over social media. No one cares. I think readers are sick of authors spamming them and I am sick of doing it.

I love the horror genre with the kind of fandom in my soul that I have never been able to replace with another interest. Books, films, and all sorts of related media give me great joy. But I do think as a demographic we are aging, and that the younger generation have so many other interests: paranormal romance books, action films, scary movies, video games of every variation. I do not see a future for the horror genre (books).

So, what is my plan? I write erotica. Not doing good there either but I'm going to keep doing it because I enjoy it. I might write another genre if I can figure out something that excites me. If the story doesn't excite me I just can't get it finished.

I am also a visual artist: oil paintings, digital art, etc... I'll try to sell more prints and some paintings. In other words, I must remain creative to remain whole of mind, so, while I am disappointed in my sales beyond what I am willing to describe, I finally swallowed the bitter truth and will simply toil in obscurity. That's my plan going forward, as a horror writer.


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## Douglas E Wright (Mar 11, 2011)

I used to call my writing everything from horror to dark fantasy to quiet horror. I still think Dark Fantasy (coined by Charles Grant) or Quiet horror is where I come in at but the meaning of those terms have changed in the last twenty years. I really like the term Quiet Horror for my stories, however most people today have no idea what it means. I read mainly small press horror and have about 3000 books. I like Rick Hautala, Kealan Patrick Burke, Ramsey Campbell, Jack Ketchum, Doug Clegg, Joe Lansdale, etc. And the small press publishers I read are Journalstone, Cemetery Dance, Dark Regions, PS Publishing, Subterranean and so on. Julie is right, you meet these writers and publishers at conventions and so forth. They're on Amazon, but you need to know what you're looking for.


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## Marilyn Peake (Aug 8, 2011)

I'm about to step into the Horror market and am curious to see how it sells. Although I've written a great deal of Dark Fantasy before, I just published my first short story that I felt should be classified as Horror, along with the genres of Zombie Fiction, Apocalyptic Science Fiction, and Conspiracy Fiction. Closely following the news stories about the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, I was completely horrified by those real-world events. In order to deal with it, I wrote a conspiracy-theory horror story about mutated Ebola and zombies, and titled it *Mutation Z: The Ebola Zombies*.


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## dmburnett (Feb 4, 2011)

I always seem to write between the lines. My paranormal romance drifted too much into horror (a ghost reaching into a person's chest and squeezing the heart in a sort of afterlife CPR) for some, but it sells slow and steady through the month and seems to gain ground each year. My horror novel got better reviews from my beta readers than anything else I've written, but it just sits there. It seems harder to get sales in the horror category and I have heard that the readers don't discover books the same way as they do in other categories. I like the idea of trying conventions....If nothing else, sounds like fun.


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## RGPorter (Sep 19, 2011)

Unfortunately, my fantasy sells better than my horror, but I prefer writing the horror. I'm all about visual/psychological horror though. Definitely a hard genre to make good tracks in.


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## egcamby (Aug 20, 2014)

Victoria Champion said:


> I write horror. My sales are negligible. I will continue to write it because that's what I'm good at and love. It's not something I do for money anymore. I think of just not writing any more stories, but it gives my life worth. Gravitas. Otherwise I'm just another consumer.
> 
> Someday maybe I will gain some readers and some recognition, but I find schmoozing for attention and networking to try to market via word of mouth soul crushing. I'm ignored, and I can't endure that anymore. I can't afford to buy ads. I don't have enough reviews to qualify for something like Bookbub. I can't seem to gain any visibility or traction and I just can't play the marketing game anymore. I've posted on every horror facebook page, even a local horror society posted about me and listed me, and I've posted all over social media. No one cares. I think readers are sick of authors spamming them and I am sick of doing it.
> 
> ...


Victoria, I read the free section of Zombie Flood and just had to tell you how great I thought it was. I'm at work now, but thinking of buying it later when I get home to my Kindle. I hope you don't give up, I'm quite a picky reader and I write/edit for a living, and I think you're very good. Hope things pick up for you!


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## C. E. Stocker (Sep 18, 2014)

I'm too new to answer the question of whether horror sells, but I'll add my name to the list of authors who still publish horror. I just recently jumped into the self-publishing world and added a couple of stories to Amazon which I classified as Horror/Ghost but not sure if that classification really works in today's markets. I grew up a fan of Stephen King stories/fiction and Ray Bradbury--I think my two stories fit somewhere along the same vein. I don't know if it's the only genre I'll publish in, but I enjoy writing them. Hope to write and publish more longer formats in the future.  

It's daunting, though, to consider the prospects on sales. I'm also not good or that willing to spend all my energies marketing, and it does seem that only a few genres as noted above really have that much success with sales.

However, it seems like the "real-world" publishing success stories would be just as lacking. I could probably spend the next two years trying to find a market for the two stories I published, and would more than likely have to publish them in an online market/magazine for no pay. I'd much rather publish here in a genre I enjoy and can share with readers who enjoy the same--if I make a couple bucks in the process, all the better.


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## Victoria Champion (Jun 6, 2012)

egcamby said:


> Victoria, I read the free section of Zombie Flood and just had to tell you how great I thought it was. I'm at work now, but thinking of buying it later when I get home to my Kindle. I hope you don't give up, I'm quite a picky reader and I write/edit for a living, and I think you're very good. Hope things pick up for you!


Thank you! It's comments like yours that keep me going.


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## DanDillard (Mar 10, 2011)

ShayneRutherford said:


> If the purpose of horror is too scare or horrify, then most 'horror' is not actually horror. IMO, horror, like thriller, is a victim fantasy. A protagonist who is trapped in a situation way beyond their ability to handle, who must try to fight back against impossible, horrifying odds. As soon as you have a protagonist who is more equal to the conflict at hand, it becomes less of a horror/thriller situation and more action. Grimm, for example, is a cop show with supernatural elements. Just because it has monsters doesn't make it horror.


Just because someone is equal to the task to handle the monsters doesn't mean it isn't horror. Grimm for example, has the hero...but consider the ones who are in peril, his fiance/wife (whatever she is now, I haven't kept up), his friend the reluctant werewolf, Werewolf's wife, and there is a new target every episode. I'd call it horror. The idea that a creature like the Aswang exists is pretty horrifying. That episode did a pretty good job of presenting that.


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## DanDillard (Mar 10, 2011)

Glynn James said:


> I make a living doing it. 150,000 ebooks sold in the last two years.
> I haven't hit the top 100, though - 250 is as high as I've managed.
> I must admit that not all of my books are pure horror, but they all contain elements of the genre.


Congratulations, Glynn! Any tidbits of advice you'd like to share with the floundering masses? --Although I'm certain the moderators would prefer that on another thread


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## DanDillard (Mar 10, 2011)

CraigInOregon said:


> Not sure what you mean by "Where's all the horror gone?"


"Where has all the horror gone?" was in reference to the kindle boards. I read through ten or twelve threads on the subject that lasted all of about fifteen posts. Most were over a year old. So I rekindled it --see what I did there?-- and then it got off on this tangent so the boards moved it to this spot.

As for Mr. King, as much as I love the guy...it's time to turn that crown over, but who is a worthy successor (for King fans)? And how would you find them in the ever-growing sea of words?


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## DanDillard (Mar 10, 2011)

Kathryn Meyer Griffith said:


> I've been reading horror all my life and writing it now for over forty-three years, published since 1984 with 21 novels behind me. I was there on the shelves in the 1980's with King, Straub, Koontz and...Poppy. I never got that big, though. I consider myself a horror writer but have also published romantic horror, murder mysteries, suspense, thrillers and paranormal. The books shown below my post are only the 6 I've self-published in the last two years....I still have 15 with a publisher I can't wait to begin getting the rights back to next June so I can self-publish each one. That's when I expect to finally make the money I should have all along. Publishers took most of the money my books have made over the last 30 years. I got only 4%-18%. Horror is in the eyes/mind/heart of the beholder, er, reader. Some people think some of my books are really scary; some think not. I like the old-fashioned horror that scares subtly, not slasher gory stuff. I love well-written horror with a spooky ambiance. I believe my time is coming...


Fingers crossed for you, Kathryn!


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## DanDillard (Mar 10, 2011)

C. E. Stocker said:


> It's daunting, though, to consider the prospects on sales. I'm also not good or that willing to spend all my energies marketing, and it does seem that only a few genres as noted above really have that much success with sales.


If you aren't willing to spend energy on marketing, pay someone who is or nothing will sell. Unless selling isn't your goal. For some folks it isn't. There are just too many books out there that will crush you if you don't market your work.


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

DanDillard said:


> Just because someone is equal to the task to handle the monsters doesn't mean it isn't horror. Grimm for example, has the hero...but consider the ones who are in peril, his fiance/wife (whatever she is now, I haven't kept up), his friend the reluctant werewolf, Werewolf's wife, and there is a new target every episode. I'd call it horror. The idea that a creature like the Aswang exists is pretty horrifying. That episode did a pretty good job of presenting that.


Just because a story has an element that's horrifying doesn't make the story horror. One aspect that determines if a story is horror is the POV it's being told from. Grimm is Nick's story, and it's told mostly from Nick's POV. And while some of the things Nick fights might be pretty nasty, he's not really scared of them. He's equal to the task of fighting them, because he's a Grimm, and he has abilities that make him more than capable of taking them out. Someone watching might be scared by what's going on in an episode, but the episodes aren't set up as horror. If you take an ep of Grimm and compare it to other shows, it shares far more points of similarity with a cop show like Blue Bloods than it does with a horror series like Harper's Island.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

DanDillard said:


> As for Mr. King, as much as I love the guy...it's time to turn that crown over, but who is a worthy successor (for King fans)? And how would you find them in the ever-growing sea of words?


King's only 67... I believe he has some mighty impressive books left in him, if he maintains his health and is blessed with another decade or so of good writing time before he slows down.

I think there are plenty of potential folks out there who work in horror, who could eventually become the next big thing in the genre.

Part of the problem, though, is that so many focus on the genre and not on King's approach to it, which I think played a large role in his success. Even his sons, Owen King and Joe Hill, have a markedly different approach than their dad. And frankly, I prefer them to be their own writers, rather than trying to fill the literary shadow cast by their father.

I can think of a few names in horror, especially indies, whose work I admire. And it's a genre I write in, primarily, too.

That said, I don't think it's up to any of us.

It's up to readers.

When a strong new voice in horror comes along, who can combine the right mix of genre thrills with telling stories about characters with beyond-pure-genre appeal, and readers decide to embrace that writer, then we'll have a new master of the horror genre.

Not until.

It can't be manufactured, either, even if you're one of the Big 5 publishers.

If it could be manufactured, Clive Barker or Neil Gaiman or Peter Straub or the formulaic John Saul or any number of others would have been much, much, much bigger than they have been. The closest they can come, of late, is Dean Koontz. And Odd Thomas isn't quite the same thing... though very appealing.

But I, personally, like the work of David McAfee, Blake Crouch, J.L. Bryan, and Zane Sachs, just to name a few off the top of my head.

Doesn't mean any of them, or me, will ever come close to being embraced by readers to the extent King has been.

And that's fine... you don't just replace the strongest voice of the genre in history overnight. Especially when he is still around and writing some darn fine work. (Loved his Joyland novel, haven't gotten round to Mr. Mercedes yet.)


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

ShayneRutherford said:


> Just because a story has an element that's horrifying doesn't make the story horror. One aspect that determines if a story is horror is the POV it's being told from. Grimm is Nick's story, and it's told mostly from Nick's POV. And while some of the things Nick fights might be pretty nasty, he's not really scared of them. He's equal to the task of fighting them, because he's a Grimm, and he has abilities that make him more than capable of taking them out. Someone watching might be scared by what's going on in an episode, but the episodes aren't set up as horror. If you take an ep of Grimm and compare it to other shows, it shares far more points of similarity with a cop show like Blue Bloods than it does with a horror series like Harper's Island.


There are many types of horror, Shayne, and many subgenres within horror.

And Harper's Island was more of the "slasher" genre of horror, not to mention a ratings flop.

I mean, by that logic you're using, then just because not every single episode was terrifying but sometimes even FUNNY because Joss Whedon is a genius at genre mash-up, then we couldn't count BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER as horror, and without Buffy, I doubt Grimm would even be on the air.

The problem isn't whether other people "understand horror," I think... it's that some people really have too narrow a definition of the genre.

That's one of the gifts people like Stephen King have given to the horror genre; they've stretched the borders, made it more acceptable, because one doesn't have to expect every tale to be about a Cthulhu-like supernatural threat. 

I mean, there's nothing even vaguely supernatural about MISERY, and yet that has been a nightmare-inducing horror tale even before Kathy Bates gave Anne Wilkes a "face" on the silver screen.

Finding horror in the ordinary as well as the extraordinary is part of what has made King as broadly popular as he is.


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

CraigInOregon said:


> There are many types of horror, Shayne, and many subgenres within horror.
> 
> And Harper's Island was more of the "slasher" genre of horror, not to mention a ratings flop.
> 
> ...


I never said horror had to be supernatural. In fact, I said before that Grimm wasn't horror just because it had monsters. I wouldn't count Buffy as horror, either, just because it had monsters. Or at all. IMO, Buffy was an action hero. JW even said that when he was setting up the pilot ep, he wanted to turn the 'helpless female victim' trope on his head, and he did.

I don't have a narrow view of horror at all. Off the top of my head I have only one hard and fast rule for something to be called horror: it must have been written with the intent to cause fear and horror. And, I think, to truly make something scary, there needs to be a victim, and a bad guy/thing that's imbued with some sort of malicious intent. So that seems like a pretty broad definition in my book. Horror can be supernatural, psychological, ghost, creature, slasher, and tons of others. I just don't happen to think Grimm or Buffy fit even that broad definition. It has nothing to do with 'acceptability' of horror as a genre.

ETA: Coming at this from a completely different angle, I'd argue it's impossible for Grimm or Buffy to be true horror, because the protagonists are basically superheroes, who have powers beyond the average human.


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## ChrisWard (Mar 10, 2012)

I've written some quality horror. It used to be my primary genre, but I'm a bit all over the place now. As for where it's gone, well it seems to me that everything zombie-related is now labeled as dystopian, something I find kind of strange. To me dystopian fiction was about dark political situations and oppression-type stuff, but I recently joined a facebook dystopian group and probably 99% of the posts are about zombies. I don't care all that much, I just never thought of zombies as anything other than horror before.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

.


ShayneRutherford said:


> I never said horror had to be supernatural. In fact, I said before that Grimm wasn't horror just because it had monsters. I wouldn't count Buffy as horror, either, just because it had monsters. Or at all. IMO, Buffy was an action hero. JW even said that when he was setting up the pilot ep, he wanted to turn the 'helpless female victim' trope on his head, and he did.
> 
> I don't have a narrow view of horror at all.
> 
> ETA: Coming at this from a completely different angle, I'd argue it's impossible for Grimm or Buffy to be true horror, because the protagonists are basically superheroes, who have powers beyond the average human.


So your argument is you don't have a narrow definition of horror, but then argue two of the most successful horror franchises are not horror at all and it is impossible for them to be horror?

Nope, nothing narrow about that.

Go for the triple play and deny The Walking Dead is horror while you're at it, even though Kirkman himself has said it is and he loves the label and the genre.

Whedon considers Buffy horror, even though he mixes genres freely. And Grimm is horror according to show runner Greenwalt, a Whedon disciple from Buffy and Angel.

You can hold your own view, but I'll stick with the creators' own definitions, thanks.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

_edited to comply with Forum Decorum. Thanks. --Betsy_


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## Rae Scott Studio (Jan 26, 2014)

Well, I just pubbed my dark horror short series book 1 just over a week ago and I sold 7 books... does that count as success? I count it as that. Hey, selling ONE book in a very very limited Genre as a new author with NO other books out is hard! One sale is a success to me... it beat the hell out of zero sales!


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

CraigInOregon said:


> .
> So your argument is you don't have a narrow definition of horror, but then argue two of the most successful horror franchises are not horror at all and it is impossible for them to be horror?
> 
> Nope, nothing narrow about that.
> ...


I wasn't representing Whedon's views even a little. My intention was not to represent his view but to make my own point, which is that when a writer starts subverting genre tropes, I don't think it takes very long before the entire genre becomes subverted, too. And that's not a shot at JW, because I adore him. But by giving Buffy powers above a normal human, I think he took out a large piece of what would have made the show horror.

And just because I disagree that TWO shows aren't horror doesn't mean I have a narrow definition. It simply means that those two shows don't happen to fit my definition. Maybe I'm way more hardcore than I always thought, but I never found Buffy even a little scary, and it never felt like it was intended to be.

Don't watch Walking Dead, but I suspect I'd probably think it was horror if I watched it. And I have no issue at all with the horror genre. I like horror (most genres of it, anyway), and if I have any grievance at all, it's that horror is used as a catch-all for too many things that aren't actually horror, just because there's something supernatural in the story. The last time I went to Chapters, the horror section was four drops wide, and including King and Koontz, who take up an entire drop on their own, a good half of the horror section was taken up by urban fantasy books.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

ShayneRutherford said:


> ...But by giving Buffy powers above a normal human, I think he took out a large piece of what would have made the show horror.


Hmm. That general rule leaves out a lot of horror.

For example, True Blood isn't horror by that definition, because Sookie eventually discovers she's a fairy and she can read minds from Book 1. So I guess all that sex, blood and violence are something she just giggles at?  LOL



ShayneRutherford said:


> And just because I disagree that TWO shows aren't horror doesn't mean I have a narrow definition. It simply means that those two shows don't happen to fit my definition. Maybe I'm way more hardcore than I always thought, but I never found Buffy even a little scary, and it never felt like it was intended to be.


Ahh, it's usually best to avoid absolutes like that.

There were many episodes of Buffy that I think definitely had real chills to them.

For example, the episode of Buffy called "Hush" (S04, E10) had one of the creepiest villains of the show's run.

The infamous post-Columbine episode of Buffy that was temporarily banned from airing in the wake of the tragedy, then aired as the first episode of the next season, Earshot, (S03, E1, explored a different kind of horror in how closely it was themed to that real-life tragedy (though written and filmed long before it).

Another favorite for some real chills is "Conversations with Dead People" (S07, E07).

And I loved the writing in "Normal Again," (S6, E17) because of how effectively it plays with Buffy's sense of reality... the ending left open the possibility that Buffy's just a nutcase in a mental hospital and the entire show are her own fevered hallucinations. Boy, that is a concept that had a great sense of horror to it that had nothing to do with slaying vampires.

Killed By Death has a particularly disturbing plot, about a monster who feeds off the life-force of sick children... and he's never detected because the kids were sick to begin with. A concept worthy of any horror author.

Buffy's a show that is a mix of many influences, but there were genuine chills to be found, just as there are certain episodes of Doctor Who, both original series and current incarnation, which are more about inspiring fear than explaining it away... and SF shows generally sap the fear out of horror concepts by explaining things away.

But, like, I can't think of many villains scarier than Steven Moffat's Weeping Angels, and the episode that introduced them, Blink, is far scarier than it is SF-ish. It is often cited as the best episode of the modern series of Doctor Who, in order to intrigue people into watching the show.

The whole idea of "killing" someone by displacing them in time, and giving them a happy ending, but separated from everyone they know and love is both terrifying and tragic... and that's what the Weeping Angels do.



ShayneRutherford said:


> Don't watch Walking Dead, but I suspect I'd probably think it was horror if I watched it. And I have no issue at all with the horror genre. I like horror (most genres of it, anyway), and if I have any grievance at all, it's that horror is used as a catch-all for too many things that aren't actually horror, just because there's something supernatural in the story. The last time I went to Chapters, the horror section was four drops wide, and including King and Koontz, who take up an entire drop on their own, a good half of the horror section was taken up by urban fantasy books.


Well, we'll just agree to disagree on some things. But I don't even come close to defining something as horror just because of the presence of the supernatural in it.

But for a show like Buffy it'd be silly not to acknowledge that horror is a healthy dose of the several influences Whedon built into that show.

Where we find common ground, though, is toward the end of the above comments.

I've hated that many bookstores have done away with proper "horror" sections, mixing them into romance and fantasy/SF. Hate it! Horror can broadly be applied to a lot of things, but it IS its own genre... it's NOT fantasy, and I have a purely personal dislike for the "dark fantasy" term many apply to it.

I'm not even that wild about so-called "urban fantasy" as a term that replaces horror.

And sparkling vampires. I hate sparkling vampires. And vampire boyfriends for sulky, anti-social girls no one else "appreciates."

I mean, I've read plenty of that stuff.

By hate, I just mean I like vampires to be a threat, not a form of supernatural wildlife. 

When horror sections DO exist anymore, it's often stuffed with books I'd never put there.

But, that's part of why I embraced the eBook revolution when I did. I didn't have to deal with searching for Stephen King under "Fantasy and Science Fiction" while looking for Darkly Dreaming Dexter over in mysteries....


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## DanDillard (Mar 10, 2011)

ShayneRutherford said:


> Just because a story has an element that's horrifying doesn't make the story horror. One aspect that determines if a story is horror is the POV it's being told from. Grimm is Nick's story, and it's told mostly from Nick's POV. And while some of the things Nick fights might be pretty nasty, he's not really scared of them. He's equal to the task of fighting them, because he's a Grimm, and he has abilities that make him more than capable of taking them out. Someone watching might be scared by what's going on in an episode, but the episodes aren't set up as horror. If you take an ep of Grimm and compare it to other shows, it shares far more points of similarity with a cop show like Blue Bloods than it does with a horror series like Harper's Island.


We'll just have to disagree here. I get elements of fantasy and elements of action/adventure, but it's still horror. A reluctant hero, thrust into a role he didn't want to fight paranormal creatures. Ash Williams would be proud. Van Helsing would be proud. Ellen Ripley would be proud. Nancy Thompson would be proud. Laurie Strode would be proud. Blade would be proud. Fathers Merrin and Karras would be proud, Jack Crow would be proud...and Seth Gecko would be proud.


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## DanDillard (Mar 10, 2011)

CraigInOregon said:


> King's only 67... I believe he has some mighty impressive books left in him, if he maintains his health and is blessed with another decade or so of good writing time before he slows down.
> 
> I think there are plenty of potential folks out there who work in horror, who could eventually become the next big thing in the genre.
> 
> ...


Agreed...but he is 67 and he has almost that many novels to his credit. And almost that many films credited to his works. He might up and retire at any time. I think the better question might be: How many writers will it take to fill that void? I'm not sure there's one out there that sticks out as the great storyteller. There are plenty of folks who tell a good story, but I haven't found another one who really spins a yarn out of control, while keeping it under control.

I did love Joyland. I'm enjoying Dr. Sleep as well--though I didn't think I would. Love the nod to Joe Hill's N0S4A2 

And aren't we readers, Craig? Don't we get a vote?


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## DanDillard (Mar 10, 2011)

Rae Scott said:


> Well, I just pubbed my dark horror short series book 1 just over a week ago and I sold 7 books... does that count as success? I count it as that. Hey, selling ONE book in a very very limited Genre as a new author with NO other books out is hard! One sale is a success to me... it beat the hell out of zero sales!


 I think success is up to the individual. If you're happy with your progress= success! Finishing a story is a success of sorts, isn't it? I dig typing THE END.


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## Z. Rider (Aug 15, 2014)

CraigInOregon said:


> I'm not even that wild about so-called "urban fantasy" as a term that replaces horror.


I don't think of "urban fantasy" as a replacement term for horror; I think it describes a specific genre that has horror elements but is different from (what I think of) as straight-up horror. Shayne actually made clear for me in this discussion one of the things that sets urban fantasy apart from horror. (I've been wrestling with how to define the two beyond an "I know it when I see it" feeling.) Urban fantasy tends to have a protagonist who's special in some (positive) way (though of course that specialness can also carry a burden--of being extra-attractive vampire food, in the case of Sookie, for example, but her fairy status still elevates her above mere mortals). In my mind, when Whedon subverted the horror trope of "the little blonde girl who goes into a dark alley and gets killed," he created an urban fantasy story--with horror elements, sure. But with the main character being endowed with exceptional strength and agility, plus accelerated healing, Buffy is no longer the "regular person" that horror tends to happen to. I also categorize True Blood as urban fantasy--Sookie is special from the very start of the story, and a trajectory of the story is Sookie growing into her special skin, as it were--learning who she is, learning how to _be_ that supernatural person and wield that power.

The Walking Dead is horror (to me) because the zombie apocalypse happened to a bunch of regular people who are struggling to survive it--it could have happened to any of us. American Horror Story's first and second seasons were horror--an unknowing (and unspecial) family moves into a haunted house; regular people are committed to (or work in) an insane asylum and terrible things happen. It could have happened to any of us! (Not _really_, but that's the general sense you're supposed to have, that there's nothing special about these poor people, that they're not any different from you or me except that they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. That's often where the horror comes from. _Saw_, for example--the horror is that some guy could take it upon himself to decide that you're not living your life to your full potential and punish you horribly for it. In _The Shining_, what if the person we loved and trusted and relied on went insane? It's a "there but for the grace of God go I" thing.)

Season three of American Horror Story moves to urban fantasy because the protagonists are witches with special powers, and the story's about them discovering the true depth of their (special) powers and conquering their foes. They don't end the story


Spoiler



broken, as so often happens in horror stories (when the protagonists actually survive)--they end it empowered.


 This could only happen to any of us in our wishful thinking and daydreams, because we have no special powers. With urban fantasy you are more likely want to be (or be like) the protagonist (wouldn't it be cool to zap anyone who annoys us?); with horror, you usually _don't_ want to be the protagonist (though you might imagine how you would fare or "do it better" if you _were_). Yes, there is scary stuff and creepy stuff happening in season three of American Horror story--the horror elements _within_ the urban fantasy story--but the protagonists' story arc makes it urban fantasy, not horror. (Though I'm hoping for a return to horror with the upcoming season.)

You might be wondering, then, if I consider something like The Dead Zone urban fantasy. That's a good one to point out the differences. In the novel and movie (I didn't see the TV show), Johnny was a hero in the sense that he saved the world from a potential apocalypse, but he wasn't A Hero in the urban fantasy sense. The story arc wasn't about Johnny embracing his powers to conquer his foes; it was about a regular man with a terrible knowledge who felt he was the only person who could stop a terrible thing from happening, and in the end...well, if you've read the book or seen the movie, you know what happens to him in the end.

On the other hand, Horns treads closer to urban fantasy for me (though I'd probably call it "dark fantasy"--please don't ask me why; it's taken me a year to get just my thoughts on horror vs. urban fantasy straight). Like the Dead Zone's Johnny, Ig is burdened with a special power, but the story arc _is_ about Ig


Spoiler



embracing his specialness in order to defeat his foe


. (I think I probably lean toward "dark fantasy" because the story's so self contained;


Spoiler



there is only one person who's wronged Ig, and when that's done, that's done...


 but should


Spoiler



Ig emerge from treehouse someday to fight other foes,


 I'll probably move it to urban fantasy in my head.)

All that said, an urban fantasy can lean hard toward horror, with the protagonist ending up broken by the end of the story, but the fact that the protagonist has something special that makes him not "just like any of us" keeps it from crossing completely into the other genre...and his story arc may not be finished because because another thing to note is that urban fantasy lends itself to series more readily than horror does. The protagonist (tends to) livesto fight another fight; his quest is not complete, his job is not done. Meanwhile, the quest for a horror protagonist is simply to escape/survive the horror that's befallen them, and by the end of that, (if they're alive) they just want to get on with a normal life (if they're not so broken that that's impossible). I'm not saying that horror _never_ lends itself to series--we have the Evil Dead franchise, Freddy, Jason, Michael, Hellraiser, Final Destination, Wrong Turn (I'm listing movies mostly because I can't think of book series off the top of my head--I'm only on my first cup of coffee this morning).... Often (but not always) when it does become a series, it's the antagonist who's the common thread from book to book (or movie to movie), with the victims changing from story to story (mostly by necessity since the original victims were all killed or driven insane), or the protagonist from story one plays a smaller role in story two, or the protagonist in story two is someone who had a small role in story one. Sometimes the protagonist is the same throughout (as with Evil Dead), but in urban fantasy it's far more common for the protagonist to carry through the series.

As always, your mileage may vary on genre classifications, but I don't think it's an insult in any way to say, "No, that's actually urban fantasy" about a specific story or franchise. It's a way of clarifying what kind of story the reader can expect, and in fact because the two genres do share common elements, it's important to be able to clarify that. It makes it easier for people who prefer stories featuring A-Hero-who-is-dealing-with-horror-elements to find what they're looking for, and for people who prefer stories about regular people experiencing horrific circumstances (whether those circumstances be supernatural, psychological, other human beings, alien, etc.) to find what _they're_ looking for, with decreased risk of winding up with a story that doesn't suit their taste (or, for people who enjoy both genres, their taste "at the moment.")

And it's been important for me to get it straight in _my head_ because I want to make sure that all the elements of my marketing--cover, blurb, categories, keywords, the venues I choose to promote the book on--speak to the intended audience, not accidentally to the audience of another--similar but different--genre who may be disappointed when they find that the story isn't what they thought it was. Disappointed readers do not loyal fans make.


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## egcamby (Aug 20, 2014)

Rae Scott said:


> Well, I just pubbed my dark horror short series book 1 just over a week ago and I sold 7 books... does that count as success? I count it as that. Hey, selling ONE book in a very very limited Genre as a new author with NO other books out is hard! One sale is a success to me... it beat the hell out of zero sales!


Congrats!! I'm happy for you! I'm publishing my book of horror shorts on October 2, and I'll be pleased to see a number higher than zero


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## derekailes2014 (Aug 4, 2014)

I'm glad that there are other authors jumping into the horror genre.  My stories are falling more into the Twilight Zone and Tales From the Crypt area.  I grew up watching all those shows and the old time horror films.  Even though a couple of my short stories fall into the science fiction realm, I could never branch out away from horror.  The thought of me writing a romance, makes me want to throw up all over my laptop.


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## DanDillard (Mar 10, 2011)

Z. Rider said:


> I don't think of "urban fantasy" as a replacement term for horror; I think it describes a specific genre that has horror elements but is different from (what I think of) as straight-up horror. Shayne actually made clear for me in this discussion one of the things that sets urban fantasy apart from horror. (I've been wrestling with how to define the two beyond an "I know it when I see it" feeling.) Urban fantasy tends to have a protagonist who's special in some (positive) way (though of course that specialness can also carry a burden--of being extra-attractive vampire food, in the case of Sookie, for example, but her fairy status still elevates her above mere mortals). In my mind, when Whedon subverted the horror trope of "the little blonde girl who goes into a dark alley and gets killed," he created an urban fantasy story--with horror elements, sure. But with the main character being endowed with exceptional strength and agility, plus accelerated healing, Buffy is no longer the "regular person" that horror tends to happen to. I also categorize True Blood as urban fantasy--Sookie is special from the very start of the story, and a trajectory of the story is Sookie growing into her special skin, as it were--learning who she is, learning how to _be_ that supernatural person and wield that power.
> 
> The Walking Dead is horror (to me) because the zombie apocalypse happened to a bunch of regular people who are struggling to survive it--it could have happened to any of us. American Horror Story's first and second seasons were horror--an unknowing (and unspecial) family moves into a haunted house; regular people are committed to (or work in) an insane asylum and terrible things happen. It could have happened to any of us! (Not _really_, but that's the general sense you're supposed to have, that there's nothing special about these poor people, that they're not any different from you or me except that they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. That's often where the horror comes from. _Saw_, for example--the horror is that some guy could take it upon himself to decide that you're not living your life to your full potential and punish you horribly for it. In _The Shining_, what if the person we loved and trusted and relied on went insane? It's a "there but for the grace of God go I" thing.)
> 
> ...


Confusing. I don't need to think about all of this when I'm writing. It wwould become too contrived (my opinion). Maybe that's the problem. If I'm thinking about marketing while I am writing, I feel I've lost already. I won't tell the story I want to tell.

John Landis (The Director) has a great quote. "How do you kill a werewolf?" And, you know, people answer silver bullets or whatever... His response was, "Any way you want. They don't [email protected]#$%g exist." Making rules may make some people feel better, more comfortable, but this genre--art in general--isn't really about that. I don't want to be comfortable and in a defined world when I read or watch a film or TV show, especially when that definition keeps getting smaller and smaller with more and more categories for people to argue over. I want the world to be open, where anything can happen if the writer can make it real enough.

And what about the Sookie Stackhouse Chronicles is "Urban"? Bon Temps is hardly urban. So much effort seems to go into categorizing a book so it rates higher on the Amazon/Google SEO or whatever algorithm is sexy this month. But I do think we're at the heart of the problem. It's not where the horror is...it's that no one knows what it is or can agree on a definition.  How can we expect readers to have a strict definition of horror, urban fantasy, dark fantasy, or whatever if the writers can't even define it clearly?

Is this an artifact of self publishing? I mean all of this used to be a problem the publishing house/marketing/library/bookstore had to deal with. Where do I put this on the shelf? Now, with so many self-publishers doing it all... I guess I don't write with a specific subgenre in mind. I write my stories as they come to me. Are my protagonists magic? Not normally, no. Are they up to the task? Sometimes. Are there supernatural elements? Not always. Can we curse Amazon on the Kboards?


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## Griffin Hayes (Sep 20, 2011)

I think many horror writers nowadays were heavily influenced by Stephen King's work from the mid 70's to the mid 90's. But the style of graphic horror that was huge in the 80's we grew up loving is really not in vogue nowadays. The genre has been watered down in a way. Just look at the this top 100 horror best seller list from Amazon. It's filled with books that are mostly thrillers, some romance and plenty of zombie stuff. 
http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/digital-text/157060011/ref=pd_zg_hrsr_kstore_2_4_last

If someone wants horror all they need do is turn on the news.

I think when people say 'horror is dead' what they mean is that the style of horror they grew up reading and loving is dead or perhaps in hibernation. My first editor who worked for Signet (and apparently SK) back in the 90's told me that horror (see definition above) wasn't really selling and that I should classify my novel as something else. Thrillers were selling great, so why not call your book a supernatural thriller! Hell, call it anything but horror and you have a shot at selling. I have seen authors I know achieve some success with haunted house stories and psychological thrillers. Seems to me that monsters are out, unless they sparkle. I learned that the hard way.

Even with Bookbub, a horror listing is fairly low on the totem pole. But as others have said, the genre is going through some growing pains and will surely circle back sometime in the future once people's lives become safe and cozy again.


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## Z. Rider (Aug 15, 2014)

DanDillard said:


> Confusing. I don't need to think about all of this when I'm writing.


You're right; you don't need to think about all of that when you're writing. The time to think about it is when you're ready to publish and promote: when you're designing or having your book cover designed, when you're writing your blurb, when you're choosing your categories and keywords and where you'll promote it. You're not creating your story to fit a genre (unless you're one of those writers who can and want to do such things); you're making sure that the people who are looking for the type of story you've written recognize it as such when they see it, and that people who aren't looking for the type of story you've written will recognize that it's _not_ what they're looking for when they see it. And you're perfectly fine calling an urban fantasy story "horror," because readers don't necessarily make a distinction; they just know what they want when they see it. But by understanding the genres and subgenres, and what makes each one what it is, you have a leg up on getting the story you've written in front of the audience that is looking for it, because you can tailor the message you send about the book.

For example, my novel SUCKERS has something like vampires in it. So I looked at ilovevampirenovels.com, which is a promotional newsletter/website specifically for vampire fiction. Sounds like a good match, right? Except that the vampire novels there are more paranormal romance than horror. SUCKERS has no romance, it's not paranormal, it's not even urban fantasy (which might also do all right with ilovevampirenovels.com, but I didn't look hard enough to be certain on that one). Yeah, maybe I'd pick up a few sales, but 1) would I pick up enough sales to cover the cost of the promotion, 2) is there a more effective place to use that money, and 3) how many readers would accidentally grab my book thanks to the promotion and wind up disappointed...and leave a low-star review because of it?

Likewise, SUCKERS has alien parasites in it, so I'm okay with sending it to review sites that cover science fiction _and_ horror, but I didn't put any straight-up science fiction review sites on my reviewers list because it's horror with sf elements, not sf. Someone reading it specifically for sf is going to be disappointed.

Understanding genre isn't important to writing your story; it's important to marketing it. It saves you wasted effort and money.


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## Rick Gualtieri (Oct 31, 2011)

Z. Rider said:


> For example, my novel SUCKERS has something like vampires in it. So I looked at ilovevampirenovels.com, which is a promotional newsletter/website specifically for vampire fiction. Sounds like a good match, right? Except that the vampire novels there are more paranormal romance than horror. SUCKERS has no romance, it's not paranormal, it's not even urban fantasy (which might also do all right with ilovevampirenovels.com, but I didn't look hard enough to be certain on that one). Yeah, maybe I'd pick up a few sales, but 1) would I pick up enough sales to cover the cost of the promotion, 2) is there a more effective place to use that money, and 3) how many readers would accidentally grab my book thanks to the promotion and wind up disappointed...and leave a low-star review because of it?


I ran an ad with them last year and they were pretty upfront about the fact that most of their readers are looking for vampire romance.


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## horrordude1973 (Sep 20, 2014)

Horror is alive and well. I write horror and sell around 1500+ ebooks a month and growing. However there is a caveat. Mainstream horror is a tough sell. Everyone wants King or Koontz. I call them entry level horror, which isn't a bad thing or a knock on them.

Most horror readers start with King as their intro to horror. I read his books for years, but then moved on exploring other authors. 

My writing started out more mainstream/psychological horror with meh results. I then moved into extreme/splatterpunk/torture porn. There is a good cult following in that genre. They are fiercely loyal and starving for new stuff as there just isn't much coming out in that area. 

A word of caution, they are also picky. Torture porn is torture porn...like hardcore stuff. I've written stuff that made me want to throw up lol but you have to go for the jugular. If you're going to tip toe, then readers will be pissed. They're expecting a bloodbath and gorey madness, if you give them a lot of talk and drama you'll get flooded with 1 stars. 

I suggest if you with to research such reading Headers by Edward Lee, Depraved by Bryan Smith and Off Season by Jack Ketchum to get an idea what I mean.


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## Z. Rider (Aug 15, 2014)

Rick Gualtieri said:


> I ran an ad with them last year and they were pretty upfront about the fact that most of their readers are looking for vampire romance.


Oh good. That's to their benefit too--they're successful when they give their readers what they expect. How'd your ad do? (Was it for vampire romance?)


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## horrordude1973 (Sep 20, 2014)

As far as who will fill King's void when he's done or gone...I honestly don't think there will ever be another King, Koontz, Barker.

I say that because publishing has changed so much since they have been around. They were the spearheads of mainstream horror and got paid huge sums of money by publishers to do so. 

I truly think Indies will lead the way when it comes to horror. Big pubs want to hit the big audiences, so they will only put out things that are "Safe". But people aren't as shocked now as they were in the 70s. THey want MORE.

Indies aren't afraid to push the envelope and give the readers what they want.


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## Rick Gualtieri (Oct 31, 2011)

Z. Rider said:


> Oh good. That's to their benefit too--they're successful when they give their readers what they expect. How'd your ad do? (Was it for vampire romance?)


No, I mostly do horror/comedy, but I also like to occasionally stretch beyond my genre to see how I can fare in untested waters (i.e. I once had my Bigfoot horror novel reviewed by a YA romance site...it did quite well all things considered .

In my case, I'd say it was worth the try. I didn't break even, but it wasn't a dismal failure...minorly in the red ROI-wise.


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## SkyScribe (Aug 18, 2014)

I waffle back and forth between horror and dark fantasy, but the horror writing is more a labor of love than anything else. I think the most likely direction to succeed with horror is to position it as a really edgy and suspenseful thriller. Have a character who's a cop or ex-cop and hold back just a tiny bit on the blood and you're opening up your market exponentially.


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## Fredster (Apr 11, 2011)

I will volunteer to make Stephen King's money once he's no longer writing.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

DanDillard said:


> And aren't we readers, Craig? Don't we get a vote?


Most writers are readers, sure. And we get a vote, but we don't get, like, a SUPER-vote or anything.

When a guy like King sells millions of copies per release, he's appealing to more readers than just those of us in the minority known as "readers who are also writers."

The next horror scribe who appeals to mass quantities of readers in that way will be elevated by masses of readers. And his or her work will probably be accepted by "readers who are also writers" only slowly and grudgingly, just as King's work was.

There are still grumblers out there who dismiss King as a writer of substantive fiction, but it took him four decades to diminish those voices into the minority. Back when Carrie and The Shining and 'Salem's Lot" came out, those dismissing him as "an overrated pulp writer who just writes books about blood and monsters -- cheap genre thrills for empty-headed mass-market readers" were far more numerous.

In the late 70s and most of the 80s, King even had to walk a tenuous line, describing his own work as "the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and fries... but a really GOOD Big Mac and fries."

It's only been in the past 20 years or so that there's been a shift toward realizing, "This guy really knows what he's doing, here."

I think he always has, but such is the lot in life of those who work the horror genre.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Z. Rider said:


> I don't think of "urban fantasy" as a replacement term for horror...


Z.,

I appreciate the level of detail and thought you put into your post. Quite a bit.

But even your own definitions create some... complications, don't you agree?

For example: in the initial Evil Dead storyline (1 and 2, which was essentially a remake of 1), Ash may start out as "one of us," but by the end of 2 and definitely throughout Army of Darkness, Ash is a bit more elevated than an everyman. He's a male Buffy.

Ash the Zombie Slayer, or something akin to it.

So would you suggest he starts out horror and becomes urban fantasy? (And urban's not terrific as a term, either, considering most of Army of Darkness takes place in what Bill and Ted might describe as "groddy Middle Ages times."



See... I know Buffy started the modern trend toward romanticizing vampires.

After all, her two main loves were both vamps... Angel and Spike.

I don't really count Marc Blucas' character as a main love, because he was there mainly to help Buffy learn that she'd never quite be happy with a (mostly) normal guy. His storyline was all about how he didn't fit in.

But, despite how much Buffy-Angel set hearts aflutter, Whedon never let go of the horror concept that vampires are DANGEROUS, EVIL CREATURES.

In fact, the S02, E07 episode Lie To Me is basically Whedon kind of reacting to the trend he started. The "pro-vampire" cult, the labeling of vampires as "the lonely ones," reflects what vampires have devolved to at the hands of Stephanie Meyer... brooding and beautiful and toothless... unwilling to "bite" you until marriage. Idealized boyfriends.

Angel/Angelus has a great moment in that episode, where he confronts a "fan" and basically gets across that the horror trope of vampires is still alive and well in the Buffy-verse: something about how to be a vampire, the real you gets murdered and dies, and a demon hops inside, takes of residence, and starts pretending to be you.

I can't remember the line exactly, but it tells me that under Whedon, vampires were still more of the horror variety at their core, even though he used Angel and Spike as unlikely romantic heroes and suitors to Buffy's slayer.

That's very different from the Twilight trope, where most of the vamps act like "Good, church-going boys."  The idealized boyfriends trope.

Even in True Blood/Sookie Stackhouse novels, Harris keeps a sense of danger hovering around Bill and Eric. In fact, Sookie's identity as a half-fairy only serves to increase her risks.

Whatever the creatures are who are called vampires in Twilight and its clones are, they're not vampires in the regular sense of them.

Maybe they're actually blood-drinking drow. (Dark elves.) LOL j/k.

I have a tongue-in-cheek way of separating horror vamps from urban fantasy vamps:

If your vampire wants to spend time with you, get to know you better, protect you, and never ever bite or turn you before marriage, and even then would rather impregnate you than have you for lunch? It's urban fantasy vamps.

If your vampire doesn't consider it proper to "play" with his "food," you're dealing with traditional horror vamps.

A bit over-simplified, but the essence of it gets a point across.

BTW... the way slasher movies tend to work, Freddy becomes the defacto anti-hero and is he therefore more like the Buffy (elevated powers) of his series, rather than the actual villain?

And remember, in slasher movies, the hero(ine) who survives has a super-power none of her murdered friends possess at the time they are slaughtered: VIRGINITY INTACT!  LOL

Yup, 80s slasher films could have easily been conservative church-funded propaganda against promiscuity, because the only ones who survive are Super Virgins!

After the first movie, I actually sat in theaters where Freddy was cheered every time he offed some nameless graduate of Hollywood High School (except for Heather Lagenkamp or however she spells her last name).

Same with all the Jason Voorhees and Michael Meyers flicks.

They start out horror but become this odd thing that's not quite as scary because the villain becomes the anti-hero at least half of the audience is rooting for. I'm not sure even what to call that.

What was refreshing for me, was when Jeff Lindsay embraced the "villain as antihero" trope honestly, with his Dexter novels, rather than just stumbling into it, as with Jason/Freddy/Michael.

Okay, enough rambling from me...


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Stray food-for-thought:

Can horror be horror in a series format?

Horror more or less subsists on the basic fear of death, manifested in various ways.

A series demands survival, at least of some characters, or one, at minimum.

A series, therefore, reduces the risk, because you KNOW that Buffy ain't dying, not even when she did at the end of Season 5, because we knew the show was coming back.

To Whedon's credit, it was a hard-earned resurrection and not without consequences...

But when survival is guaranteed, at least to certain focal characters... how possible is it to create a true sense of horror?

I think King's Doctor Sleep documented the pitfalls, in some ways:

His chosen new villains for Danny to face, the "gypsy-like, feed on psychic kids" race.. were genuinely creepy, but


Spoiler



they were incapable of taking out a single good guy.



Sure, there's a successful kidnapping in the story, but


Spoiler



that lasts all of a half-hour or whatnot.

No one died who wasn't a "bad guy." At all.



So, I enjoyed Doctor Sleep... but it wasn't horrifying, really. It was something else.

So, that's my new question to throw open for discussion:

Does making something a series (of books, movies, TV) rob creators of the ability to really push the envelope enough to create a sense of horror?

About the only show I can think of that's genuinely chill-inducing while also being a series, of late, is NBC's excellent HANNIBAL.

Somehow, show runner Bryan Fuller works within the limits of network television and knowing that Hannibal, Will, and Jack have to survive, because it's a prequel, and still manages to create some horrifying content.

(Interesting side-note: In season 1, Fuller had major involvement in writing 10 of 13 episodes; in season 2, he is credited at least partially in 11 of 13 episodes. Part of the show's high quality is probably how much direct control he maintains over the show, but that level of such is quite rare in TV production. Even Joss Whedon and Doctor Who's showrunners Steven Moffat (and Russel T. Davies before him) delegated script-writing duties more widely than Fuller.)

But boy, does Fuller have to go over the top at times to keep Hannibal scary...


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## Z. Rider (Aug 15, 2014)

CraigInOregon said:


> But even your own definitions create some... complications, don't you agree?


Absolutely-very little is cut & dried (even in, um, horror ).



CraigInOregon said:


> For example: in the initial Evil Dead storyline (1 and 2, which was essentially a remake of 1), Ash may start out as "one of us," but by the end of 2 and definitely throughout Army of Darkness, Ash is a bit more elevated than an everyman. He's a male Buffy.


Yes, I thought about adding something about things that start out horror evolving into urban fantasy, or something closer resembling urban fantasy, as they go on...but my post was already waaay long. (And I agree that urban's not terrific as a term because fiction that takes place outside of urban areas can have the same feel as urban fantasy...and there's no term for that.)



CraigInOregon said:


> See... I know Buffy started the modern trend toward romanticizing vampires.


I would have blamed Anne Rice for that--five of her Vampire Chronicles books were out before Buffy aired. Laurel K. Hamilton had six Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter books out by the time Buffy was on.



CraigInOregon said:


> Whedon never let go of the horror concept that vampires are DANGEROUS, EVIL CREATURES.


Right, but as I said, it's not the antagonist (or the dangers) that determine whether it's urban fantasy to me; it's the protagonist.



CraigInOregon said:


> If your vampire wants to spend time with you, get to know you better, protect you, and never ever bite or turn you before marriage, and even then would rather impregnate you than have you for lunch?


To me, that's getting more into the area of paranormal romance (like Twilight) than urban fantasy.



CraigInOregon said:


> They start out horror but become this odd thing that's not quite as scary because the villain becomes the anti-hero at least half of the audience is rooting for. I'm not sure even what to call that.


I also think it becomes not as scary because the tension of the unknown is gone. You know how the script goes.


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

CraigInOregon said:


> Z.,
> 
> I appreciate the level of detail and thought you put into your post. Quite a bit.
> 
> ...


I think, if you take urban fantasy as a way to designate fantasy that's set in this world, in modern times, rather than using a dictionary definition of urban, it would probably work okay. (Was Army of Darkness a time-travel story? And I would definitely say that the ED movies changed over time, from horror to something that wasn't any longer. For one thing, as someone said upthread, horror tends to have victims while UF has heroes. Buffy gets to save the world. And yes, she died. Twice. But she still got to be a hero. The kids in Nightmare/Halloween/F13/etc. just try to survive until they can escape, and they usually don't. I haven't seen ED, but I remember the trailers for AOD, and I seem to remember Ash had a chainsaw for a hand. If he was the bad guy, I'd say horror. But a hero with a chainsaw for a hand seems pretty [email protected]$$ to me.

Actually, isn't it Anne Rice we can blame for starting down the road to romanticizing vampires? And Forever Knight came before Buffy, too. And that role-playing game? Can't remember the name of it. I think there was a rather sexy movie called Embrace of the Vampire, with Alyssa Milano, back in the 90s. There was also a vampire detective series back in the early 90s by PN Elrod that had a vamp as the good guy. And I'm sure there are others I'm forgetting, too.

Sookie's power does put her in more danger, but that's usually how it works in UF. The protag is special, and therefore the only one who can perform the spell/fight the demon/channel the ghost/save the day, and so they're always in more danger because they're the hero.


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## Rae Scott Studio (Jan 26, 2014)

I figure is I can make the reader cringe from book 2 onward its horror. Well either that or make them go "oh my GAWD!!!!!" then yep goal achieved.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

ShayneRutherford said:


> Actually, isn't it Anne Rice we can blame for starting down the road to romanticizing vampires? And Forever Knight came before Buffy, too. And that role-playing game? Can't remember the name of it. I think there was a rather sexy movie called Embrace of the Vampire, with Alyssa Milano, back in the 90s. There was also a vampire detective series back in the early 90s by PN Elrod that had a vamp as the good guy. And I'm sure there are others I'm forgetting, too.
> 
> Sookie's power does put her in more danger, but that's usually how it works in UF. The protag is special, and therefore the only one who can perform the spell/fight the demon/channel the ghost/save the day, and so they're always in more danger because they're the hero.


Anne's vampires weren't quite the Cullen clan.  Her biggest genre contribution was attempting to give a vampire a moral conscience. And the movie was made mostly to have Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt lust over each other, which gave birth, in all likelihood, to the modern M/M erotica addiction of female readers.  LOL j/k

And, really? Forever Knight? I get the reference, but I'm probably the exception to the rule.

In terms of cultural impact, and I'm being GENEROUS here, Forever Knight had maybe ONE PERCENT of the cultural influence that Buffy did. 

As for Embrace the Vampire, that was pure CineSEX / Show(me your boobs)time smut, not a serious entry into the horror genre.  And that includes the recent remake.

(There's a market for smut, don't take that wrong... but smut does not equal a legit horror movie... necessarily. Especially in the case of Embrace of the Vampire, which was made purely for the prurient "see the girl from Who's the Boss kiss another girl" interest, so far as from what I recall of it.)


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

CraigInOregon said:


> Anne's vampires weren't quite the Cullen clan.  Her biggest genre contribution was attempting to give a vampire a moral conscience. And the movie was made mostly to have Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt lust over each other, which gave birth, in all likelihood, to the modern M/M erotica addiction of female readers.  LOL j/k
> 
> And, really? Forever Knight? I get the reference, but I'm probably the exception to the rule.
> 
> ...


I didn't say Louis and Lestat were the Cullen clan. My comment was in direct reference to you saying that Whedon was responsible for... I think you said romanticizing vampires. I was simply pointing out that there were plenty of romanticized vampires out there before Angel and Spike and the 'lonely ones', not making a comment on horror in general. I wasn't saying any of those examples should be included in the horror genre at all, actually, just that Whedon wasn't the first to cast vampires in a far less horrific light.

Someone also mentioned Hamilton's Anita Blake books came before Buffy as well.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

ShayneRutherford said:


> I didn't say Louis and Lestat were the Cullen clan. My comment was in direct reference to you saying that Whedon was responsible for... I think you said romanticizing vampires. I was simply pointing out that there were plenty of romanticized vampires out there before Angel and Spike and the 'lonely ones', not making a comment on horror in general. I wasn't saying any of those examples should be included in the horror genre at all, actually, just that Whedon wasn't the first to cast vampires in a far less horrific light.
> 
> Someone also mentioned Hamilton's Anita Blake books came before Buffy as well.


Whedon popularized the romanticizing of vampires... and only a small step, even though it lead to the Stephanie Meyers sparklers.

The episode Lie To Me basically predicted the movement that direction, which is where that "lonely ones" phrase came from.

There are always predecessors; Whedon's show simply popularized it, and, well... his vampires still had fangs, not just fans.


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

CraigInOregon said:


> The episode Lie To Me basically predicted the movement that direction, which is where that "lonely ones" phrase came from.


Yes, I remember the dippy chick who said it. But I disagree. I think it was a reaction to what was already out there, not a prediction of what was to come.


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## CfaE (Jul 25, 2014)

horrordude1973 said:


> Horror is alive and well. I write horror and sell around 1500+ ebooks a month and growing. However there is a caveat. Mainstream horror is a tough sell. Everyone wants King or Koontz. I call them entry level horror, which isn't a bad thing or a knock on them.
> 
> Most horror readers start with King as their intro to horror. I read his books for years, but then moved on exploring other authors.
> 
> ...


Are we talking Richard Laymon and beyond, because I can so go there (under a pen name) lol.


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

Z. Rider said:


> Right, but as I said, it's not the antagonist (or the dangers) that determine whether it's urban fantasy to me; it's the protagonist.


This is a huge part of what decides between horror and urban fantasy for me, too. Basically, it's about agency. Does the protag have victimhood thrust upon them and then do their best to survive the deadly circumstances, or do they choose the mantle of [email protected]$$ action hero/monster hunter/detective, and go out bravely to rescue the victim/slay the monster/catch the killer? That makes a huge difference to me.


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## SRWitt (Jan 4, 2011)

ShayneRutherford said:


> This is a huge part of what decides between horror and urban fantasy for me, too. Basically, it's about agency. Does the protag have victimhood thrust upon them and then do their best to survive the deadly circumstances, or do they choose the mantle of [email protected]$$ action hero/monster hunter/detective, and go out bravely to rescue the victim/slay the monster/catch the killer? That makes a huge difference to me.


I see this delineation between urban fantasy and horror quite a bit, and I find it curious. Going back and looking at some of the classics of the splatterpunk genre, like Slob by Rex Miller, and more recent novels like the Infernal series by Edward Lee and The Beast that Was Max by Gerard Houarner, we have definitely hard-edged horror with protagonists who are kick-ass monsters in their own right. Should we consider these more urban fantasy than horror?

I've been considering this a lot lately, because I've got a book about to drop and I have no idea how to categorize it. It's filled with horrific moments, but the main characters are all supernaturally gifted/cursed. Is it horror? Is it urban fantasy? Something else entirely?

I've got no idea, still, but it's always enlightening to read threads like this one where the distinctions get sliced and diced.


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## horrordude1973 (Sep 20, 2014)

ClaireChilton said:


> Are we talking Richard Laymon and beyond, because I can so go there (under a pen name) lol.


Yep! I didn't mention him cause he's dead. Some asked me why I don't write under a pen name. I don't know really. I guess when i first started I wanted people to believe it was me LOL.

I think fans like that I use my real name as many are almost afraid to admit to anyone they like this stuff. They like to see an unapologetic splatter author.


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## DanDillard (Mar 10, 2011)

Z. Rider said:


> You're right; you don't need to think about all of that when you're writing. The time to think about it is when you're ready to publish and promote: when you're designing or having your book cover designed, when you're writing your blurb, when you're choosing your categories and keywords and where you'll promote it. You're not creating your story to fit a genre (unless you're one of those writers who can and want to do such things); you're making sure that the people who are looking for the type of story you've written recognize it as such when they see it, and that people who aren't looking for the type of story you've written will recognize that it's _not_ what they're looking for when they see it. And you're perfectly fine calling an urban fantasy story "horror," because readers don't necessarily make a distinction; they just know what they want when they see it. But by understanding the genres and subgenres, and what makes each one what it is, you have a leg up on getting the story you've written in front of the audience that is looking for it, because you can tailor the message you send about the book.
> 
> For example, my novel SUCKERS has something like vampires in it. So I looked at ilovevampirenovels.com, which is a promotional newsletter/website specifically for vampire fiction. Sounds like a good match, right? Except that the vampire novels there are more paranormal romance than horror. SUCKERS has no romance, it's not paranormal, it's not even urban fantasy (which might also do all right with ilovevampirenovels.com, but I didn't look hard enough to be certain on that one). Yeah, maybe I'd pick up a few sales, but 1) would I pick up enough sales to cover the cost of the promotion, 2) is there a more effective place to use that money, and 3) how many readers would accidentally grab my book thanks to the promotion and wind up disappointed...and leave a low-star review because of it?
> 
> ...


So how are you gauging sales on a book that doesn't release for several months yet?


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## DanDillard (Mar 10, 2011)

Fredster said:


> I will volunteer to make Stephen King's money once he's no longer writing.


Get in line, dude. I think Joe Hill might be heading that line...and he's well on his way.


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## DanDillard (Mar 10, 2011)

CraigInOregon said:


> Ash the Zombie Slayer, or something akin to it.


Ash the Kandarian Demon Slayer would be more accurate. Sorry-nerding out a little bit.


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## bskelhorn (Aug 13, 2013)

I read a lot of horror in my spare time and still have a love for the "classics" of M.R James, Poe etc but every now and again there is a new writer that really hits the nail on the head. 

One trait that I have seen emerging into the horror genre (but not just limited to) is the trilogy for trilogy sake - if it needs to be split for the story then fine but just because of a sales funnel? Come on!

Anyway, ending on a positive, this type of thread is great for getting to know the writers of works that I have picked up over the years - keep up the great work guys.


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## DanDillard (Mar 10, 2011)

CraigInOregon said:


> Most writers are readers, sure. And we get a vote, but we don't get, like, a SUPER-vote or anything.
> 
> When a guy like King sells millions of copies per release, he's appealing to more readers than just those of us in the minority known as "readers who are also writers."
> 
> ...


Nope. No SUPER-vote. Actually, I would consider writers' votes sub-votes...just because there's that ego factor. But--votes nonetheless. When any artist achieves commercial success, much of which might be due to being in the right place, with the right idea, at the right time...it's part magic. And once you have that fan base and that controversy over "is it good or is it bad" that brings in new and curious folk. King, Koontz, Barker and the like are of legendary status. They're rock stars and it's thanks in part to them that the genre is what it is. Fries, I like. Big Macs, not so much.


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## DanDillard (Mar 10, 2011)

ShayneRutherford said:


> Actually, isn't it Anne Rice we can blame for starting down the road to romanticizing vampires? And Forever Knight came before Buffy, too. And that role-playing game? Can't remember the name of it. I think there was a rather sexy movie called Embrace of the Vampire, with Alyssa Milano, back in the 90s. There was also a vampire detective series back in the early 90s by PN Elrod that had a vamp as the good guy. And I'm sure there are others I'm forgetting, too.


Anne Rice's Vampires were romanticized and their act of drinking blood equated to something more sexual than monstrous...but they were definitely still monsters.


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## Z. Rider (Aug 15, 2014)

DanDillard said:


> So how are you gauging sales on a book that doesn't release for several months yet?


I'm not gauging sales at this point (since there aren't any to gauge of course, aside from the Kickstarter that ended last week). I'm keeping an eye on website traffic, Twitter interactions, mailing list signups, people who direct message or email me. It's a slow build, but I only just started in July (not writing the book; that was nearly done by then, but setting up the website, etc.). I'm also not (aside from the Kickstarter) _trying_ to sell the book yet, beyond noting that it's coming next year, and occasionally blogging, Tweeting, and Facebooking bits about where I am with it. At this point, I know what audience I'm targeting, I've researched where that audience can be found, I have a marketing and promotion plan, and I'm working on getting the early phases of that off the ground (which still doesn't involve trying to sell the book to people; it's back-end stuff that I hope will pay off later). It's a timeline: Write the book, determine the audience, find where that audience is, work up a plan to reach that audience, implement the plan (which is what I'm barely starting on), then gauge the results. (It's a year-long plan, actually, taking me up to the release of the next book, so the last two steps are more like a waltz-implement, gauge, refine; implement, gauge, refine...)

It's not the typical self-publishing release process, but I love an experiment. (I also, because I don't get it in my day job, love the opportunity to do something in a methodical, organized fashion. Yay for self-publishing, where we get to call the shots and run things in ways that fit our personalities.) Hopefully some of this stuff will work well enough that it'll be worth sharing. Likely some of it (gosh, hopefully not all of it) will sink like a turd, and I can share that too, so others can avoid it (or go, "Well, duh. I could have told you _that_ wouldn't be worth the effort."  ). Maybe someday we can look back on this "Where has all the horror gone?" thread with amused nostalgia-I mean, there's really good new horror out there. There are a lot of different _kinds_ of horror out there, and a lot of different voices telling those stories. We need more visibility. We need the people who don't actively look for horror but do occasionally enjoy reading it to know about these books (which doesn't have anything to do with the horror vs. urban fantasy discussion we've been having; that's a whole other thing). (And also I'm not (_at all!!_) saying, "Hey, guys! I'm your new savior of visibility!" (ugh) I'm just experimenting with my one book, seeing what happens, and hoping some of it might be fruitful. I don't actually _know_ anything; I just have a lot of thoughts, and I love that I can try them out and see what happens.)


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

DanDillard said:


> Ash the Kandarian Demon Slayer would be more accurate. Sorry-nerding out a little bit.


Been a while since I sat through some Bruce Campbell; thanks for the assist.


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

ShayneRutherford said:


> Actually, isn't it Anne Rice we can blame for starting down the road to romanticizing vampires? And Forever Knight came before Buffy, too. And that role-playing game? Can't remember the name of it. I think there was a rather sexy movie called Embrace of the Vampire, with Alyssa Milano, back in the 90s. There was also a vampire detective series back in the early 90s by PN Elrod that had a vamp as the good guy. And I'm sure there are others I'm forgetting, too.


Actually, the gradual humanising/romantising of traditional horror critters goes back even further than that, all the way to the TV show _Dark Shadows_ in the 1960s and its sexy and tortured vampire Barnabas Collins and sexy and tortured werewolf Quentin Collins. It's a gradual process that took decades and happened in parallel to the horror genre itself becoming bloodier and more graphic.

Plus, the romantisation of traditional horror monsters is actually the humanising of said monsters. First, the old monsters became characters with inner lives and conflicts of their own. And once they became more human-like, they also became viable as romantic partners.


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

CoraBuhlert said:


> Actually, the gradual humanising/romantising of traditional horror critters goes back even further than that, all the way to the TV show _Dark Shadows_ in the 1960s and its sexy and tortured vampire Barnabas Collins and sexy and tortured werewolf Quentin Collins. It's a gradual process that took decades and happened in parallel to the horror genre itself becoming bloodier and more graphic.
> 
> Plus, the romantisation of traditional horror monsters is actually the humanising of said monsters. First, the old monsters became characters with inner lives and conflicts of their own. And once they became more human-like, they also became viable as romantic partners.


I totally forgot about Dark Shadows. My bad. I didn't watch the 60s series, although I know it was a cult favorite. But I loved the miniseries from the 90s.


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## Z. Rider (Aug 15, 2014)

CoraBuhlert said:


> Actually, the gradual humanising/romantising of traditional horror critters goes back even further than that, all the way to the TV show _Dark Shadows_ in the 1960s.


Oh gosh, I'd forgotten about that too. I'm going to stop blaming Anne Rice for sparkly vampires and point my finger at Dan Curtis.

(My husband is still longing for someone to do justice with Dark Shadows. The "desecration" by Tim Burton made him apoplectic. (He has a good sense of humor..._except when it comes to Dark Shadows_.))


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

Z. Rider said:


> Oh gosh, I'd forgotten about that too. I'm going to stop blaming Anne Rice for sparkly vampires and point my finger at Dan Curtis.
> 
> (My husband is still longing for someone to do justice with Dark Shadows. The "desecration" by Tim Burton made him apoplectic. (He has a good sense of humor..._except when it comes to Dark Shadows_.))


Oh god. I totally forgot about the Burton movie, too, but I think that's likely because I was trying to forget about it. I can't recall a movie recently that I was more disappointed in. Although... Hmm, maybe I forgot those, too.


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## Kirkee (Apr 2, 2014)

Horrordude: Agree with so much of what you say. If you're in it––you better hit & hit it hard, otherwise go find something else to write about. This was my point & attitude while writing Lustmord: Anatomy of a Serial Butcher.

Did the subject matter "mess" with my head? Let me put it this way, it took years to write...because I had to leave it alone from time to time and work on something a little more uplifting. I don't regret writing it, nor do I regret not pulling punches. I went all out on the thing...and it took its toll in the end, too. But I stayed with it & did it. I believe one should be true to the material.  I get enough fan mail from genre fans who tell me I pulled it off. Makes you feel pretty good.  

The thing that makes me chuckle, though, and lets me know that the piece works the way it's supposed to is when certain "supporters of the genre" let it be known in their reviews that the novel nearly made them vomit and that they had to put it down.
They were repulsed & the thing scared the living crap out of them. 
My reaction? Good. It was supposed to.    

RE: Ketchum's Off Season. (Not withstanding that he borrowed a couple of things from Romero's Night of the Living Dead there) Ketchum is generally such a good writer he can write about anything and make it interesting. He's better than Koonts, in my humble O.  Love Poe, of course.   

Best,

K.


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## davidhaynes (Sep 30, 2012)

Even though horror doesn't sell as well as thrillers or mysteries, unless you're a demi-god of the genre, I couldn't write anything else now.
I was bitten a long time ago as a reader and now its happened again as an aspiring writer.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Okay, I know I'll reap the whirlwind on this one, but I might as well say this:

Granted, maybe I'm just a straight white male and don't "get it," but... I never understood the "sex appeal" of the original Barnabas Collins actor Jonathan Frid.

Ben Cross? Johnny Depp? Both are actors who I can understand women swooning over.

But Frid?

He didn't even seem like anything special among the male soap stars of his day. Of course, I was a bit young and was more of that "Luke and Laura/General Hospital" generation... a brief young-teens obsession based mostly on me thinking Genie Francis was hot, at the time. 

But then, look at her back then... who can blame me? I was a young teen boy not yet old enough to look beyond the physical, and she was a cute blonde. LOL #Early80sNostalgia










P.S. I *just* noticed this, but how hilarious is it that screen legend Liz Taylor is practically, totally doing "bunny ears" behind Genie's head LOL!


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## Z. Rider (Aug 15, 2014)

I never understood the sex appeal of Barnabas _or_ GH's Luke. I think, as far as the original Barnabas can be said to have sex appeal (when I squint and try to see what was so captivating about him), it comes from his being a tragic vampire...which was a novelty on TV at the time (whereas now you can't cross a street without having to step over two or three of them). Otherwise, Jonathan Frid was not exactly young (he was in his 40s), not exactly handsome, not exactly a great actor.... But the character sparked people's imagination.



ShayneRutherford said:


> Oh god. I totally forgot about the Burton movie, too, but I think that's likely because I was trying to forget about it.


I thought it started out promising-I was really optimistic. I didn't mind it being a little flakey and freaky. It was kind of fun. And then...oh god. What a train wreck. (Even so, it did turn me into an Eva Green fan.)


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Z. Rider said:


> I never understood the sex appeal of Barnabas _or_ GH's Luke.


See, being young and dumb at the time, I got into GH/Luke-and-Laura after they'd already been on the show for a while and it was all about them being secret agents and chasing bad guys and stuff...pretty oddball stuff for GH.

And, I mean, they worked for that guy named Robert with an Aussie accent. What kind of American spies have an Aussie boss?

I didn't learn until much later about the storyline that brought them together, which is actually extremely disgusting and wouldn't even pass muster on KDP!

(For those blessedly not in the know:


Spoiler



Laura and Luke, as characters, first met when Luke was a "bad guy" who raped Laura ... and then Laura promptly fell in love with him, because women just LOVE to be raped, apparently, according to late-70s/early-80s television soap operas ... why it's just the most ROMANTIC way to meet your future hubby, and OH! the stories you can tell your kids one day when they ask how mommy met daddy ... and some of the rape-culture rationalizations they used to support it? Like that "Luke always loved her" and "he only did it because he knew she'd never act on his attraction to him any other way"?!?! Seriously!!!?!!! Ugh... garbage.


 

Talk about horror...? Horror, thy name is GH show runner/head writer Gloria Monty!


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## DanDillard (Mar 10, 2011)

And as usual...my beloved Horror turns to soap opera. Ugh.


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## DanDillard (Mar 10, 2011)

bskelhorn said:


> I read a lot of horror in my spare time and still have a love for the "classics" of M.R James, Poe etc but every now and again there is a new writer that really hits the nail on the head.
> 
> One trait that I have seen emerging into the horror genre (but not just limited to) is the trilogy for trilogy sake - if it needs to be split for the story then fine but just because of a sales funnel? Come on!
> 
> Anyway, ending on a positive, this type of thread is great for getting to know the writers of works that I have picked up over the years - keep up the great work guys.


Apparently, sequels are where the money is hiding. Make a trilogy or more...give away the first book, hope readers get hooked and have to know how it ends. It's one thing if an author has a character that can span more than one story and keep it interesting. If they simply split a larger work and tag on a cliffhanger at the end of each volume--that sucks. 
Serials need to work like good television. You have an arc for the show, and arc for the season and an arc for the entire run. Each book must have its own standalone story--a mystery to solve or a killer to bring to justice. I could ramble on for a long time, but I'm sure none of this is a secret.


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## DanDillard (Mar 10, 2011)

Z. Rider said:


> I'm not gauging sales at this point (since there aren't any to gauge of course, aside from the Kickstarter that ended last week). I'm keeping an eye on website traffic, Twitter interactions, mailing list signups, people who direct message or email me. It's a slow build, but I only just started in July (not writing the book; that was nearly done by then, but setting up the website, etc.). I'm also not (aside from the Kickstarter) _trying_ to sell the book yet, beyond noting that it's coming next year, and occasionally blogging, Tweeting, and Facebooking bits about where I am with it. At this point, I know what audience I'm targeting, I've researched where that audience can be found, I have a marketing and promotion plan, and I'm working on getting the early phases of that off the ground (which still doesn't involve trying to sell the book to people; it's back-end stuff that I hope will pay off later). It's a timeline: Write the book, determine the audience, find where that audience is, work up a plan to reach that audience, implement the plan (which is what I'm barely starting on), then gauge the results. (It's a year-long plan, actually, taking me up to the release of the next book, so the last two steps are more like a waltz--implement, gauge, refine; implement, gauge, refine...)
> 
> It's not the typical self-publishing release process, but I love an experiment. (I also, because I don't get it in my day job, love the opportunity to do something in a methodical, organized fashion. Yay for self-publishing, where we get to call the shots and run things in ways that fit our personalities.) Hopefully some of this stuff will work well enough that it'll be worth sharing. Likely some of it (gosh, hopefully not all of it) will sink like a turd, and I can share that too, so others can avoid it (or go, "Well, duh. I could have told you _that_ wouldn't be worth the effort."  ). Maybe someday we can look back on this "Where has all the horror gone?" thread with amused nostalgia--I mean, there's really good new horror out there. There are a lot of different _kinds_ of horror out there, and a lot of different voices telling those stories. We need more visibility. We need the people who don't actively look for horror but do occasionally enjoy reading it to know about these books (which doesn't have anything to do with the horror vs. urban fantasy discussion we've been having; that's a whole other thing). (And also I'm not (_at all!!_) saying, "Hey, guys! I'm your new savior of visibility!" (ugh) I'm just experimenting with my one book, seeing what happens, and hoping some of it might be fruitful. I don't actually _know_ anything; I just have a lot of thoughts, and I love that I can try them out and see what happens.)


I'll be interested in seeing how this all turns out for you. Sounds like a lot of time that could be spent writing! But that's the dilemma of self-publishing. No staff.


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## DanDillard (Mar 10, 2011)

Kirkee said:


> Horrordude: Agree with so much of what you say. If you're in it----you better hit & hit it hard, otherwise go find something else to write about. This was my point & attitude while writing Lustmord: Anatomy of a Serial Butcher.
> 
> Did the subject matter "mess" with my head? Let me put it this way, it took years to write...because I had to leave it alone from time to time and work on something a little more uplifting. I don't regret writing it, nor do I regret not pulling punches. I went all out on the thing...and it took its toll in the end, too. But I stayed with it & did it. I believe one should be true to the material. I get enough fan mail from genre fans who tell me I pulled it off. Makes you feel pretty good.
> 
> ...


I can't write in this style...at least I don't think I do it well. I've tried and it always seems to bog down.

Isn't splatterpunk and torture porn more about the aftermath than the chase? The horror, for me comes during the chase. The kill is the release. Even if the kill is drawin out over a series of horrific,torturous activities. I enjoy endurance films that throw buckets of blood and pain at the protagonist. The Evil Dead films are a good example...especially the latest one. Torture on screen gets old for me...I'm not sure reading it would translate any better, but I am willing to learn  Will they send me someplace special?


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## horrordude1973 (Sep 20, 2014)

Kirkee said:


> Horrordude: Agree with so much of what you say. If you're in it----you better hit & hit it hard, otherwise go find something else to write about. This was my point & attitude while writing Lustmord: Anatomy of a Serial Butcher.
> 
> Did the subject matter "mess" with my head? Let me put it this way, it took years to write...because I had to leave it alone from time to time and work on something a little more uplifting. I don't regret writing it, nor do I regret not pulling punches. I went all out on the thing...and it took its toll in the end, too. But I stayed with it & did it. I believe one should be true to the material. I get enough fan mail from genre fans who tell me I pulled it off. Makes you feel pretty good.
> 
> ...


Thank you!!

Yes, I tried too hard to be mainstream and not to offend. I didn't start selling until I just went below the belt and keep going for it.

I was about to give up on this thread with all the talk about romantic vampires and such lol

Oddly its never messed with my head. Not sure why. I was a corrections officer for 6 years and worked part time at a funeral home for 2 years so maybe the stuff just doesn't bother me. Though I had a scene in one book where a guy cut open a pregnant woman and ate her baby lol.

The one I'm doing now has been really gross too. I guess I find some of it funny. In one of my book, two bad guys were fighting each other with a chainsaw and a machete while anyone who came near them got hacked to pieces. One of my favorite reviews of that one the person said "I was squealing with delight at all the bloody mayhem." lol Just can't buy that kind of stuff from people.

I've gotten mostly away from supernatrual stuff in horror with a few exceptions. Mainly to me ghosts and demons aren't scary because that isn't real. What is scary is the idea your car can break down somewhere, or a cop can pull you over out in the middle of nowhere and not really be a cop and do terrible things to you and you have nowhere to go. My stories take place in south texas which to me is scary. Even if you do escape, you're out in the wilderness with the 100+ temperatures. If the heat doesn't kill you then a wild animal will. spooky stuff

I really love Bryan Smith's work. He seems to be under the radar but his stuff is crazy.


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## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

DanDillard said:


> Isn't splatterpunk and torture porn more about the aftermath than the chase? The horror, for me comes during the chase. The kill is the release. Even if the kill is drawin out over a series of horrific,torturous activities. I enjoy endurance films that throw buckets of blood and pain at the protagonist. The Evil Dead films are a good example...especially the latest one. Torture on screen gets old for me...I'm not sure reading it would translate any better, but I am willing to learn  Will they send me someplace special?


Yeah. I think a lot of good fiction is rooted in anticipation, regardless of the genre.

I've never read a book that claimed to be "torture porn," but I've found some of the movies in the genre surprising in their depth and meaning. Hostel, for instance, was actually a really nice little eff-you to American tourists. I thought it was witty and well done. And the torture parts were really not that bad. Plus, there was some interesting commentary on the psyche of the businessmen who'd come to do the torturing. They were so disconnected from actual humanity that they had accepted the idea that other people's bodies could be bought and sold for their entertainment. Which is, you know, a real issue in the world. So, it was--dare I say it--an allegory?

I like horror primarily for its ability to tackle big questions and to really turn over the nasty side of humanity and force the audience to look at itself in a mirror. I think it's the most moral genre out there--when it's done right. Aaand... I'm off topic.

What I think I meant to say is that I can handle pretty much anything if it's got a good soul. But I hate soulless horror in which it really has become about sort of glorying in carnage. I feel like Rob Zombie movies are often like this. They make me want to take a shower.

And that I agree that fear comes from knowing what is going to happen and then... it not happening... yet. Heh heh. 

A whole bunch of goriness might be really uncomfortable, but it's not scary. It's just gross.


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## Z. Rider (Aug 15, 2014)

horrordude1973 said:


> Yes, I tried too hard to be mainstream and not to offend. I didn't start selling until I just went below the belt and keep going for it.


I amuse myself with tortureporn in my head, but I don't think I'll get around to writing it because it would fall somewhere between mainstream and what tortureporn fans are looking for-too much for one audience, not enough for the other, and the audience in between is likely smaller than the ones on either side. (But that's all right; I have a backlog of other stuff to write anyway, and I like having something that there's no pressure to actually write going on in my head.) But then again...never say never. Who knows what I'll be doing in a year or five.

I agree that the idea that your car can break down, or a fake cop can pull you over, or strangers can break into your house and just eff up your life is scary. It's what keeps me watching things like Saw, Funny Games, The Strangers...


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## CfaE (Jul 25, 2014)

horrordude1973 said:


> Yep! I didn't mention him cause he's dead. Some asked me why I don't write under a pen name. I don't know really. I guess when i first started I wanted people to believe it was me LOL.
> 
> I think fans like that I use my real name as many are almost afraid to admit to anyone they like this stuff. They like to see an unapologetic splatter author.


I grew up reading Richard Laymon and James Herbert, and now they're both dead. They both left amazing horror legacies behind them though. I loved the action in Laymon's books. He was amazing at grabbing you with his stories.

I think I'd have to go pen name if I tested out my horror skills though. I've got some YA books out, and some Harlequin romance. If I write a hardcore horror, I'd confuse the hell out of my fans. The closest I got was Frenzied (paranormal romance with guts and gore). I dunno. So far, I've stuck with my real name for everything, which probably confuses the crap out of my readers, but they seem to be okay with that. It's just the 12 year old readers that concern me. I'm careful to keep the sex and violence down to 15 rating because of them. But then, I was reading Laymon when I was 14, so I wonder if I'm worrying over nothing.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

DanDillard said:


> And as usual...my beloved Horror turns to soap opera. Ugh.


Hey, I wasn't the one who brought up Dark Shadows...  LOL

Oh, and even though she wasn't GH, I wanna blame something on AMC, OLTL, and Loving showrunner Agnes Nixon. Not sure what, but she has to be blamed for something!

Why?

Because: Nixon.


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## horrordude1973 (Sep 20, 2014)

ClaireChilton said:


> I grew up reading Richard Laymon and James Herbert, and now they're both dead. They both left amazing horror legacies behind them though. I loved the action in Laymon's books. He was amazing at grabbing you with his stories.
> 
> I think I'd have to go pen name if I tested out my horror skills though. I've got some YA books out, and some Harlequin romance. If I write a hardcore horror, I'd confuse the hell out of my fans. The closest I got was Frenzied (paranormal romance with guts and gore). I dunno. So far, I've stuck with my real name for everything, which probably confuses the crap out of my readers, but they seem to be okay with that. It's just the 12 year old readers that concern me. I'm careful to keep the sex and violence down to 15 rating because of them. But then, I was reading Laymon when I was 14, so I wonder if I'm worrying over nothing.


Yeah I have one YA book about an autistic teenager who becomes a vampire slayer. I wrote it under my own name.

I wrote that one for my daughter who is autistic and can't read my other stuff. She loved it


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

ClaireChilton said:


> I grew up reading Richard Laymon and James Herbert, and now they're both dead.


Are you saying a childhood spent reading them caused this condition?

There's an idea for your next novel: READ TO DEATH by Claire Chilton.

Scary Side-Note: Someday, years from now, someone will utter the words, "I grew up reading Claire Chilton and Craig Hansen, and now they're both dead." 

Let's hope that day doesn't come TOO soon...

P.P.S.: Readers with scary "you'll die if I read you growing up" powers, please consider some of our OTHER fine writers of horror... 

(Scary how grisly the mind of a horror writer works, isn't it?)


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## CfaE (Jul 25, 2014)

horrordude1973 said:


> Yeah I have one YA book about an autistic teenager who becomes a vampire slayer. I wrote it under my own name.
> 
> I wrote that one for my daughter who is autistic and can't read my other stuff. She loved it


Did you get any problems from reviewers for it? I got so much Goodreads hate for have a teenager swear in one of my books, that I just stopped writing YA after that.


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## CfaE (Jul 25, 2014)

CraigInOregon said:


> Are you saying a childhood spent reading them caused this condition?
> 
> There's an idea for your next novel: READ TO DEATH by Claire Chilton.
> 
> ...


lol Yep, that was my fault.

I was going to read your books next, but I'll give you a few more years before I send my curse your way. *Glances over with bloodshot eyes and flashes an eerie smile*.

(I might have been coming down from 16 hours of coding my new website when I wrote it ^^)


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## horrordude1973 (Sep 20, 2014)

ClaireChilton said:


> Did you get any problems from reviewers for it? I got so much Goodreads hate for have a teenager swear in one of my books, that I just stopped writing YA after that.


No, I don't think there is much language in mine. I'm donating some of the money to a local Austim charity so maybe they figured giving hate would look kind of stupid lol


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## CfaE (Jul 25, 2014)

horrordude1973 said:


> No, I don't think there is much language in mine. I'm donating some of the money to a local Austim charity so maybe they figured giving hate would look kind of stupid lol


Yeah, I can see how swearing might not go down well in an autism book. That's really cool that your giving some of the proceeds to charity too.

In my teen fiction, the swearing is really just teenage-speak. I don't think I'd class it as hate. There's no anger behind it. The teens enjoyed it because they could relate the characters that swore a bit, rather than saying 'oh phooey' or whatever. I can't write characters that don't swear at least once. It makes me think I'm writing in Stepford.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

ClaireChilton said:


> The teens enjoyed it because they could relate the characters that swore a bit, rather than saying 'oh phooey' or whatever. I can't write characters that don't swear at least once. It makes me think I'm writing in Stepford.


Each writer should write to their own comfort level, to their own audience, to be sure.

I balance things by indicating cursing via narration, without necessarily quoting it in dialog. That's where my comfort level is.

I'll sometimes strategically use profanity in dialog, but I think it carries more power when I'm selective like that and use it on a less-frequent basis. Which fits my personal goals as a writer.

Some writers use profanity to good artistic effect.

For others, it just seems to be there for it's own sake, or to fill out some word count, like the elementary school scenario where a kid is asked to write a 100-word essay on how he spent his summer, and he writes something like this:



> This summer Mom and Dad took me to Disney Land. I had a really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really good time. Really.




LOL

Also, I think sometimes (not always) profanity can be a shortcut to greater creativity.

Take, for example, William Goldman's The Princess Bride.

Westley, recently resurrected, is found by the prince in Buttercup's bedroom, and threatens to duel Westley, who's in no shape for a duel.

When the Price confronts him, it'd be easy to have to go like:

PRINCE: A technicality that will soon be remedied. But first things first. To the death!

WESTLEY: No, **** you. I'm gonna ****ing cut your ****s off!

For shock value, it might have elicited a laugh.

But instead, we get one of the more memorable scenes of that movie:






"Miserable vomitus mass" and "warthog-faced buffoon" are a tad more creative, and story-appropriate to TPB, than any string of expletives.


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## CfaE (Jul 25, 2014)

CraigInOregon said:


> Each writer should write to their own comfort level, to their own audience, to be sure.
> 
> I balance things by indicating cursing via narration, without necessarily quoting it in dialog. That's where my comfort level is.
> 
> ...


I do like a good warthog insult lol. But there is an interesting stigma around swearing, especially on a historical level, which attracts me to it. I'm probably the only person who has looked up the etymology of the c-word lol, but the places these words came from are interesting. They first appeared in poetry and classic literature. I suppose, I find that the words we take as offensive are far less offensive than the words we don't. A vulgar way to say sex isn't more offensive than the word 'genocide' is in meaning, for example. If you look at the meanings behind the words, why we love one and hate the other seems ridiculous to me. Society deems the f-word as a bomb that will inspire shock and cringing, but I can say genocide whenever I want to. I've actually met people who fear the c-word. Fear of word, a little four letter one at that, is just pure silliness.

Another side to it is culture, I suppose. I once ran into a 13 year old reader who was swearing like a trooper. She was British. I'm British too, so I wasn't really offended. Teenagers swear over here. In fact, if every other word doesn't begin with 'F' then it's a bit abnormal. But a 24 year old male American, who I knew also swore like a trooper most of the time, was disgusted by her. I asked him why. He said because young girls shouldn't speak like that. I pointed out that he did and asked if he would have the same reaction to a boy swearing. He said he wouldn't and that this girl was vulgar. I disagreed with him on that. She wasn't any more vulgar than any one else in the forum. She was just young and female.

Culturally, I think it's a lot different in the States than it is in the UK when it comes to swearing. No one wants to see a five year old swear. But in the UK, if you see a teenage girl swear, it's normal. In other countries, there seems to be a great divide between who is permitted to swear and who is not. I guess I like to break down the boundaries between what is allowed and what isn't, and I like to explore where words come from. That's mostly why I don't hold back on swearing. I don't believe it is vulgar. I think it's all just word-stigma.

... and I like to put that fear in the eyes of those who are scared of the c-word because I'm a little bit evil .


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## bobbic (Apr 4, 2011)

valeriec80 said:


> Yeah, there's not nearly as much of a mainstream these days, either. Everything's fractured. So that kind of makes the theory not fit just in general anyway.
> 
> Still. Show me the horror books in the Top 100 on Amazon. Show me the indie authors who make a living primarily writing horror.
> 
> ...


Well, somebody out there is buying all the Koontz and King books. I wonder if the best-selling horror is cloaked in the "psychological suspense" genre? The kind of horror I want to write is the spooky, more traditional stuff with ghosties, etc. but it doesn't look like that kind of stuff is popular right now (except in the big name authors).


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Claire,

I appreciate your points and they are well-argued.

That's why I specified my choices as the right ones for me; I'm not proscribing them onto anyone else.

Genre-choice has as much to do with it as anything, too.

After all, how hot would an erotica story be if it were written in polite language at all times?

It'd sound, at best, like badly-written romance novels.



> Terrance thrust his male appendage into the most intimate depths of his romantic partner.
> 
> "Oh yes, Terrance," Phillip shouted with joy. "Just like that! Make sweet love to me, you manly man, you!!"


It'd work as parody (even if South Park-inspired), but it wouldn't work as erotica.  LOL


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Side-note:

Without being book-specific or author-specific, this is why SOME (not all) satire ends up boring me.

I recently paged through a satire of "The Fault In Our Stars."

I nearly bought it, but after a few pages, realized the parodist was doing little else than reproducing John Green's text, while replacing most of the dialog with cuss words and sex jokes.

As such, it came across as a paper-thin satire, rather than anything more substantive.

I appreciate satire that goes beyond the surface level. There are several Weird Al Yankovic songs, for example, that do more than just replace standard lyrics with rude lyrics.

When he's at his best, Yankovic's satire simply uses the familiar environment of a well-known song to present something far more original than it first appears.

For example, his recent release "Foil," is a play on "Royal" by Lorde... but he uses it as an opportunity to comment on things that are nowhere near the territory of Lorde's original song, such as poking fun at conspiracy theorists.

Or take "Amish Paradise," which goes well beyond being a direct parody of "Gangster Paradise" and becomes a bit of a commentary on Amish life.

But discussing satire and parody, now, is quite a drift away from the OP, so I'll shut up on this tangent.

Other than to point out that the title of the OP sounds like it could be a song parody, too:



> _*Where Has All the Horror Gone?*_
> With apologies to Pete Seegar of Peter, Paul, and Mary
> 
> Where has all the horror gone, long time decaying?
> ...


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## CfaE (Jul 25, 2014)

CraigInOregon said:


> Claire,
> 
> I appreciate your points and they are well-argued.
> 
> ...


Oh no, I didn't mean you were forcing your language on anyone. I just think the subject is really interesting. On some level it's cultural and on others it's historical. Language just interests me, so any opportunity to babble about it, and I jump in. Sometimes, how words develop are really strange. But I do agree with you that it comes down to the writer, the story and the characters.

Like you said though, a lot comes down to the feel of the story. And I think character voice has a lot to do with it too. You wouldn't have a bad ass biker saying 'oh fiddlesticks'.

I'm now imagining a clean South Park erotica, and it's actually working as hilarious in my head. lol


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## DanDillard (Mar 10, 2011)

CraigInOregon said:


> Hey, I wasn't the one who brought up Dark Shadows...  LOL
> 
> Oh, and even though she wasn't GH, I wanna blame something on AMC, OLTL, and Loving showrunner Agnes Nixon. Not sure what, but she has to be blamed for something!
> 
> ...


 I had to say something.


----------



## DanDillard (Mar 10, 2011)

ClaireChilton said:


> I grew up reading Richard Laymon and James Herbert, and now they're both dead. They both left amazing horror legacies behind them though. I loved the action in Laymon's books. He was amazing at grabbing you with his stories.
> 
> I think I'd have to go pen name if I tested out my horror skills though. I've got some YA books out, and some Harlequin romance. If I write a hardcore horror, I'd confuse the hell out of my fans. The closest I got was Frenzied (paranormal romance with guts and gore). I dunno. So far, I've stuck with my real name for everything, which probably confuses the crap out of my readers, but they seem to be okay with that. It's just the 12 year old readers that concern me. I'm careful to keep the sex and violence down to 15 rating because of them. But then, I was reading Laymon when I was 14, so I wonder if I'm worrying over nothing.


What better place to celebrate authors who have passed on than a horror thread? And the great thing about books is that there will always be new people who haven't read them


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## DanDillard (Mar 10, 2011)

horrordude1973 said:


> Yeah I have one YA book about an autistic teenager who becomes a vampire slayer. I wrote it under my own name.
> 
> I wrote that one for my daughter who is autistic and can't read my other stuff. She loved it


I write things for my kids as well. I felt bad that they couldn't read most of my writing. Oldest is fifteen now, so it's on!


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## DanDillard (Mar 10, 2011)

ClaireChilton said:


> Did you get any problems from reviewers for it? I got so much Goodreads hate for have a teenager swear in one of my books, that I just stopped writing YA after that.


WHA Have any of those people been around teenagers before? Some folks are that way...want everything pristine. But I think, if you're being honest in your writing, the kids can sling 'em. It does depend on the book, too.


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## DanDillard (Mar 10, 2011)

CraigInOregon said:


> Claire,
> 
> I appreciate your points and they are well-argued.
> 
> ...


This all depends on whether or not Terrence and Phillip were, say, insects...instead of merely Canadian.


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## CfaE (Jul 25, 2014)

DanDillard said:


> WHA Have any of those people been around teenagers before? Some folks are that way...want everything pristine. But I think, if you're being honest in your writing, the kids can sling 'em. It does depend on the book, too.


Yeah, that's all I can figure. I've had a lot of great reviews on the same books too. I get emails all the time from readers telling me to report the reviews on Goodreads because they misrepresent my stories so much. But I figure it's all personal taste, so I just left it alone. I reckon my Dora series is like Marmite. Some people love it and some people hate it. There is no inbetween. At least they're passionate about it .


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## harker.roland (Sep 13, 2014)

DanDillard said:


> As for Mr. King, as much as I love the guy...it's time to turn that crown over, but who is a worthy successor (for King fans)? And how would you find them in the ever-growing sea of words?


How can you say that? While I am very quick to dismiss some of King's work as pandering, some of his best work has been within the last few years, 11/22/63, Dr. Sleep, & The Dark Tower VII to name a few. True his earlier work (Salem's Lot & The Shinning) held a unique voice and charm, but that's no reason to write-off a man still producing at very high level.

As for the horror, I moved mine to mystery, suspense, and thriller writing. The independent sales haven't come yet, but I have been successful in getting my smaller works picked up.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

harker.roland said:


> How can you say that? While I am very quick to dismiss some of King's work as pandering, some of his best work has been within the last few years, 11/22/63, Dr. Sleep, & The Dark Tower VII to name a few. True his earlier work (Salem's Lot & The Shinning) held a unique voice and charm, but that's no reason to write-off a man still producing at very high level.


Doctor Sleep was a good enough read, but the victory was far too easy. No good guy snuffed it as a price of overcoming what had been built up as an overwhelming opponent.

So, I'd prefer to substitute Joyland for Doctor Sleep on the "recent great reads by King" list.


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## harker.roland (Sep 13, 2014)

CraigInOregon said:


> Doctor Sleep was a good enough read, but the victory was far too easy. No good guy snuffed it as a price of overcoming what had been built up as an overwhelming opponent.
> 
> So, I'd prefer to substitute Joyland for Doctor Sleep on the "recent great reads by King" list.


I can see that argument being made, but for me, the final confrontation held enough drama, especially with King's history of relying on Deus Ex Machina, to be a satisfactory payoff. I especially enjoyed the homage the final scenes played to the previous work  (spoiler free).

I'd really like to see a third entry in the Talisman/ Black House series myself.


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## DanDillard (Mar 10, 2011)

ClaireChilton said:


> Yeah, that's all I can figure. I've had a lot of great reviews on the same books too. I get emails all the time from readers telling me to report the reviews on Goodreads because they misrepresent my stories so much. But I figure it's all personal taste, so I just left it alone. I reckon my Dora series is like Marmite. Some people love it and some people hate it. There is no inbetween. At least they're passionate about it .


I think a love hate relationship with my books is what I strive for. People talking about them one way or the other. You'll never please everyone, right? I once had a 1 star review for a book because the person said it was "scary and disturbing." Well, that's what I shoot for in my horror writing. Hate the 1 star, but goal achieved


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## DanDillard (Mar 10, 2011)

harker.roland said:


> How can you say that? While I am very quick to dismiss some of King's work as pandering, some of his best work has been within the last few years, 11/22/63, Dr. Sleep, & The Dark Tower VII to name a few. True his earlier work (Salem's Lot & The Shinning) held a unique voice and charm, but that's no reason to write-off a man still producing at very high level.
> 
> As for the horror, I moved mine to mystery, suspense, and thriller writing. The independent sales haven't come yet, but I have been successful in getting my smaller works picked up.


I didn't say I wanted him to stop writing...just to turn over the burden of best sellers and movie deals to someone else! I've liked books from all of his decades...and disliked books from all his decades. If you ask me, he's prolific and quite consistent. Brilliant story teller, even if it is hamburger and fries.


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## DanDillard (Mar 10, 2011)

CraigInOregon said:


> Doctor Sleep was a good enough read, but the victory was far too easy. No good guy snuffed it as a price of overcoming what had been built up as an overwhelming opponent.
> 
> So, I'd prefer to substitute Joyland for Doctor Sleep on the "recent great reads by King" list.


I have just started Dr. Sleep...but I absolutely LOVED Joyland. A lot of fun to be had. Doesn't hurt that I lived in that part of the world for a long time either.


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## bobbic (Apr 4, 2011)

DanDillard said:


> I have just started Dr. Sleep...but I absolutely LOVED Joyland. A lot of fun to be had. Doesn't hurt that I lived in that part of the world for a long time either.


I don't read a lot of King's longer books, but LOVED Joyland. It reminded me of some of his earlier novella length stories.


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## CfaE (Jul 25, 2014)

DanDillard said:


> I think a love hate relationship with my books is what I strive for. People talking about them one way or the other. You'll never please everyone, right? I once had a 1 star review for a book because the person said it was "scary and disturbing." Well, that's what I shoot for in my horror writing. Hate the 1 star, but goal achieved


lol I had a 1 star once that said 'amazing book!' I figure the reader thought that one gold star was good, and why not. It was in school if the teacher gave you a gold star. I took that as my view of stars in general. Ooh yay! I got a gold star! It totally changes your perception of reviews .

Mind you the new highlight thing on Wattpad is special. You really get to see the readers thoughts as they read, and you have to remember that it's impulsive, and that 90% of the time they're speaking to your characters and not you. I'm quite used to opening my morning emails to: Your fan left you a comment on Wattpad: 'Screw you!'. It's kind of weird that I've become accustomed to reading that, or variations of it, every morning.


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## DanDillard (Mar 10, 2011)

ClaireChilton said:


> lol I had a 1 star once that said 'amazing book!' I figure the reader thought that one gold star was good, and why not. It was in school if the teacher gave you a gold star. I took that as my view of stars in general. Ooh yay! I got a gold star! It totally changes your perception of reviews .
> 
> Mind you the new highlight thing on Wattpad is special. You really get to see the readers thoughts as they read, and you have to remember that it's impulsive, and that 90% of the time they're speaking to your characters and not you. I'm quite used to opening my morning emails to: Your fan left you a comment on Wattpad: 'Screw you!'. It's kind of weird that I've become accustomed to reading that, or variations of it, every morning.


I have an account on Wattpad... maybe I should use it. So many things to keep track of.


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## DanDillard (Mar 10, 2011)

Okay, self pubbers...well, authors in general. What outlets are there for horror writers to learn from, find mentors, advertise?

There has been a lot of discussion on here about finding an audience, not relying on Amazon or the categorization to locate readers...How and where are the horror readers hiding? Dark chasms and caves? Haunted houses and abandoned asylums? Or are they at Central Perk with Ross and Phoebe? Facebook/twitter/goodreads/wattpad are not the places I'm talking about. Are there any recommended blogs, websites, etc that you've found?


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## bobbic (Apr 4, 2011)

DanDillard said:


> Okay, self pubbers...well, authors in general. What outlets are there for horror writers to learn from, find mentors, advertise?
> 
> There has been a lot of discussion on here about finding an audience, not relying on Amazon or the categorization to locate readers...How and where are the horror readers hiding? Dark chasms and caves? Haunted houses and abandoned asylums? Or are they at Central Perk with Ross and Phoebe? Facebook/twitter/goodreads/wattpad are not the places I'm talking about. Are there any recommended blogs, websites, etc that you've found?


I've heard that membership in the Horror Writers of America *might* help, but you have to be published first, I think, before you can join. And it's expensive, like a lot of the pro writer's membership groups.

Other than FB groups and Goodreads, I don't know. I did see quite a few horror and gothic readers on GR, but haven't really interacted with them yet.


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## DanDillard (Mar 10, 2011)

bobbic said:


> I've heard that membership in the Horror Writers of America *might* help, but you have to be published first, I think, before you can join. And it's expensive, like a lot of the pro writer's membership groups.
> 
> Other than FB groups and Goodreads, I don't know. I did see quite a few horror and gothic readers on GR, but haven't really interacted with them yet.


I used to be a member of the HWA and now I'm not a member of the HWA... I'm not noticing a difference. Truth is, with social media and a decent google search, you can make the same contacts and get the same information without paying the dues. But there are a lot of good connections to be made in that group if you can deal with the politics. They have criteria for self-published authors to gain membership now.


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## A.A (Mar 30, 2012)

Just noticed my Dollhouse book is in Stephen King's also-boughts 

(Well, kind of not really... in fact, not at all... I should be so lucky... it's just a compilation of which he is a part... http://www.amazon.com/The-Best-Horror-Year-4-ebook/dp/B008258I9U/ref=pd_sim_b_4?ie=UTF8&refRID=1DXASW1SQYG005BTDTTM) 

It's the little things sometimes that make us smile


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## DanDillard (Mar 10, 2011)

A.A said:


> Just noticed my Dollhouse book is in Stephen King's also-boughts
> 
> (Well, kind of not really... in fact, not at all... I should be so lucky... it's just a compilation of which he is a part... http://www.amazon.com/The-Best-Horror-Year-4-ebook/dp/B008258I9U/ref=pd_sim_b_4?ie=UTF8&refRID=1DXASW1SQYG005BTDTTM)
> 
> It's the little things sometimes that make us smile


Congrats! I look forward to the day my stuff will sit on shelves (or kindles) next to some household names


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## DanDillard (Mar 10, 2011)

Hey! I was asked to write a screenplay based on one of my novels this week...by someone who has produced films in the past--and knows the genre! Hush-hush at the moment, but exciting stuff. Million to one odds it'll ever get made, but I'm excited nonetheless. Okay! Back to the day job.


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## psychotick (Jan 26, 2012)

Hi,

Late to the conversation as usual - but really where have they gone? Weren't the sparkly vampires horrible enough?!!! And they were bloody everywhere.

Cheers, Greg.


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## DanDillard (Mar 10, 2011)

psychotick said:


> Hi,
> 
> Late to the conversation as usual - but really where have they gone? Weren't the sparkly vampires horrible enough?!!! And they were bloody everywhere.
> 
> Cheers, Greg.


Still are, Greg. Between brooding romantic vampires and zombies, there must be something else. That's what I'm looking for. Hoping to uncover for those like me who want something wicked and scary. I know I'm the only guy who doesn't like zombies. Just don't find them scary.


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## DanDillard (Mar 10, 2011)

Since we're on the author/self-pub perspective...Who takes their books to conventions? How does that work for you? It seems expensive, but it also seems like a great way to put your face and your books in front of a lot of people. Especially a genre convention/horror convention, where you know every person through the door is already on your side.
I'm thinking of moving into an RV and just travelling con to con selling grilled cheese sammiches and paperbacks. Like a deadhead.
Thoughts?


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