Centrist Simon Steele

Well, to the bolded, you know what I mean be "fun" then. Ha. I'll be sure to post a positive review once I read it. Solidarity, friend.

Oh thanks--that's really kind. Now I'm nervous. And you've increased my sales 100 percent. P.S. I bought your book too. I am really trying to get back to reading good, fun books. I'm graduating with my PhD in May, and the last seven years have been lots of reading, but no fiction.

Well, I haven't found the fulfilling part yet! But yes, if you get some time, just PM me or something. Thanks!

Hey pals, if anyone is interested in reading my horror novel (The Watchman) and giving me reviews (Amazon!), I'd appreciate it. I'd be happy to send you an e-copy if you're interested. I spent a long time working on this book, living in query purgatory, before I decided to hire my own editor and then self-publish it. A brief rundown: A story about vampires, demons, and an average--maybe above average--monster hunter. Amazon link: Amazon.com: The Watchman eBook : Lee, Simon: Books

I was talking to a new student to our ed program last week. She's in the military/national guard, and she's an MP (military police). She says that local police come in to train them sometimes, and it goes against everything the soldiers learned in their MP training--they learned restraint, friendliness when on gate duty and interacting with people, de-escalation tactics, etc. The police try to tell them that everything is dangerous, guns should always be at the ready, etc. These cops think they're green berets, but they lack the discipline to be effective soldiers. Couple that with our police shouldn't even be comparable to any military, it's all just fucked up.

I truly think that's something to worry about later, and, for now, I'd say just be consistent in how you do it. You could look at Chicago Style guidelines as I hear that's the most commonly used formatting style guide in fiction writing--at the very least, it could help give you a format that you remain consistent to.

It's not my style of cover--but I can absolutely see it works and is excellent work for the audience. Your cover looks like a professional Manga cover. Ugh. (Ugh in reference to thinking about mine) I paid about the same (2020), and she did lots of small edits/proof reading, though she said it was very clean when she got it. I hope so--I revised and edited for years! My guess is I'll never "break even" after spending a chunk on editing, but if a handful of people were to read my book and love it, that's more important. And to provide them a quality product for their time is more important to me than a cover. Though, like I mentioned, I'll be recommissioning my cover soon enough.

Sometimes a person just clicks with you--I published my first novel back around 2010, and though I've since pulled it (I want to get it professionally edited as well--I found that to be a truly meaningful expense), the cover just with me. It's one I look at now and still love it. The cover's super important though, and I'm really eager to get a new one. Do you have covers you're willing to share?

It's tough for sure--I feel like the story itself isn't anything new or crazy--just an old-school Dracula-esque take on a vampire in rural Pennsylvania. Feedback I've gotten is that it is the characters that make this story work, but I guess I just couldn't communicate that well enough in the query. Sure, I'm happy to share: Amazon.com: The Watchman eBook: Lee, Simon: Kindle Store I will say, I hate the cover, but having it professionally done and suffering from two conditions--namely, being perpetually broke, and perpetually nice--I just went with what I got. I'm putting some cash together to recommission the cover down the line. It's a bummer too--the artist had lots of good covers, but I just feel like mine ended up super different from what he normally did. What can you do? I like it! The strange thing to me is that vampires always have a home--people love vampires. But it seems like we're in a patch where those who decide have decided "enough for now."

I just can't seem to interest a literary agent with my work--though I suppose that my currently finished novel about a vampire is kind of at the top of most horror agents "don't want" lists (no more vampires!). Since I'm just in the frame of mind where I want to continue this story, I had my book professionally edited, and I put it on Amazon last month, and now I'm happily writing the next book in the series. But, I guess we're at a strange time where stories about monster hunters and vampires are still everywhere and have huge audiences, but the agents and possibly book publishers are tired of the genre, sadly.

Hey I'm gonna PM you on the reviewers, I always have a hard time finding ones who will do it. Edit: Or I said I would, but the PM won't let me send. Oh well. You are right, when you get those legitimate praises that come in from strangers...man, that's the best. I just read those over and over again on shitty days.

I've found self promotion to be the most difficult part of the process. I find I'm not nearly so interesting to others as I am to myself. I just don't get it.

Was Jon's moment when he was like "we're fooked, I'm going to go give up and talk to Mance and kill him without a sword because we're sooooo fooked"?

That was the most boring episode ever. So much changed from the book for no point. I feel bad that Martin has to be so closely tied to this--at least when Stephen King's books were mostly ruined into film/tv he wasn't a part of it (though I guess he was a part of it in some cases too). I wonder how much input Martin gets anymore, I think he's lost control of this thing and is just watching it spiral away from what he wanted. Then again maybe he loves it. Did Tormund say "har" once since he showed up? I suppose I shouldn't be upset at how small the battle felt, that's a budget thing, but it never seemed like the Watch were overwhelmed at all. Ever. Had Stannis had his moment it would have had no punch at all. If Ygritte's group hadn't attacked then they would have just stood on the wall and taken zero losses. Well one, one of the two giants in the army did kill one man of the Watch. Jon Snow being such a good leader of men (show wise) decides that they don't have a chance now? I mean they aren't going to be attacked from the south again. Then again, he should have known they were going to be attacked from the south as he came over the wall with those guys and knew how many of them there were. SO MUCH DUM.