Lust, Hunger, and Terror in the Canadian Wilderness

My latest novel, DEAD OF WINTER, is a historical horror thriller set in Canada during the blizzard season of 1870. The story is based partly on true events and an old Algonquin Indian legend that still haunts the Great Lakes tribes to this day. It’s also a detective mystery and even includes a couple of love triangles, since I am also a fan of romance and steamy sex scenes.

The Victorian mystery takes place near the end of the 19th Century at an isolated fur-trading fort deep in the Ontario wilderness. Inspector Tom Hatcher, a troubled detective from Montreal, recently captured a deranged serial killer, the Cannery Cannibal. Gustav Meraux is Jack-the-the-Ripper meets Hannibal Lecter. Even though the cannibal has been locked away in an asylum, the case still haunts Tom, so he has moved out to the wilderness, bringing his rebellious teenage son with him. At the beginning of the story, Tom has taken a job at Fort Pendleton to solve a case of strange murders by a cannibal more savage than Gustav Meraux. Some predator in the woods surrounding the fort is attacking colonists and spreading a gruesome plague—the victims turn into ravenous cannibals with an unending hunger for human flesh. In Tom’s search for answers, he discovers that the Jesuits know something about this plague. My second main character is Father Xavier, an exorcist from Montreal. The Vatican sends the priest to Ontario to help Tom battle the Devil’s Plague.

While indeed a work of fiction, I wanted this book to feel real and authentic. Throughout the story I interweave several facts I pulled from history books and an interview I did with a descendent from a Canadian Ojibwa tribe. During my research, I came across some unexplained stories that the Ojibwa and Algonquin tribes all around the Great Lakes region, including Ontario, Quebec, Michigan, and Minnesota, feared a supernatural creature that lives in the woods and stalks people every winter. The tribes migrated every year because of this superstition. This legend also spooked the white fur traders, like the men of Hudson’s Bay Company, who lived in isolated forts all across Canada and traded with the Indians (now called First Nations). In my novel, Fort Pendleton is a fictitious fort named after one my characters, a tycoon by the name of Master Avery Pendleton. When the mysterious killings start plaguing the colonists living within his fort, Pendleton hires Tom Hatcher to solve the case. Tom teams up with an Ojibwa tracker and shaman, Anika Moonblood. She doesn’t believe the killer is a man or animal, but something much more terrifying. In the book, everyone in the neighboring Ojibwa tribe is spooked by the stalker in the woods. I studied the customs of the Ojibwa people of that era, as well as shamanism, and put much of what I learned into the book. To authenticate my priest characters, I studied Jesuit history, demonology, and countless cases of real priests performing exorcisms. From the scriptures I gathered on battling demons, I could probably do an exorcism myself, not that I would ever want to.

As I researched Canada’s legendary evil spirit even deeper, I discovered an article about a real isolated fort in Quebec where all the colonists went crazy and turned cannibal. In the late 1700s, a Jesuit priest who visited this fort documented the case in his journal, describing the deranged colonists as possessed by the devil. This is all factual and documented by the Catholic Church. I also did extensive research on the history of frontier life in Canada in the 1800s. During the long winter months, cannibalism became a way of survival for isolated villages that ran out of food. After consuming human flesh, people often turned insane, or what the Jesuits would describe as “possessed.” Sometimes soldiers would arrive at a fort to find that all the colonists dead except one man, who survived by eating the others.

While my novel is definitely a horror thriller, I mix in other genres like the detective mystery and romance. As Inspector Hatcher hunts for a backwoods serial killer, two women residing at the fort fall in love with him. One is his boss’s wife, Lady Willow Pendleton, a spoiled debutant who hates her cheating husband, Avery. The other woman is Anika Moonblood, the native tracker who has been assigned to work with Tom. Theirs is a love-hate relationship, because Tom only sees Anika as a heathen. To make matters more complicated, she is Avery Pendleton’s mistress, albeit against her will. While Tom feels burning desires for both Willow and Anika, getting involved with either has dangerous consequences, for Master Pendleton is not a man to cross.

I had a blast writing DEAD OF WINTER and I hope you enjoy reading it. My imagination was running wild at the time. I also enjoyed seeing the mystery unfold. When I write, I never know how a book is going to play out. I have a general idea that gets me started writing, but most of the time I’m solving the riddle right alongside my detective. I did my best to make DEAD OF WINTER the scariest book that I could write, while igniting not just fear and terror, but all the emotions to offer readers a truly visceral experience. I am grateful that Samhain Horror released my novel and I’m excited to share this story with readers. Enjoy the adventure!

DEAD OF WINTER is now availble in paperback and e-book.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Brian Moreland writes novels and short stories of horror and supernatural suspense. He lives in Dallas, Texas where he is diligently writing his next horror novel. You can communicate with him online at http://www.brianmoreland.com/ or on Twitter @BrianMoreland.

Radio Interview Geared Toward Writers

On Friday, October 21, I spoke for an hour about writing, publishing, and marketing books on the blogtalk radio show PAGE TURNERS with hosts Nancy Denofio, Meg Collins, and Bennet Pomerantz. I also share details about writing my latest novel DEAD OF WINTER.

To hear the recorded podcast, click on this link:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/rrradio/2011/10/21/page-turners-with-hosts-meg-collins-and-nancy-duci-denofio

Using Twitter to Market Books & Blogs Part 2

Here are some more tips on how to use Twitter to market your books and blogs and build your audience. This is a continuation from Part 1.

If you're promoting a book or blog, be sure to include the name of your book(s) and website in your Twitter bio that goes beside your photo. You have about 160 characters to write something to introduce yourself. Here's my Twitter bio as an example:

In the website space in "profile settings" I inserted the link to where readers can buy my book: http://store.samhainpublishing.com/dead-winter-p-6507.html . This goes underneath your bio. You want to include your website in your bio, because that gets emailed directly to people every time you follow someone, and it gives people the opportunity to click on your website link right from their email. The designated website space below the bio allows you to post a second link to a blog, Facebook page, or Amazon page of your book.

Now that your bio is set up to best promote your book and website(s), you want to search for people who are most likely to read what you write. There are a number of ways you can search Twitter for readers that fit your demographic. I will cover many of them in this series of blog posts. Today I'm focused on searching for key words in the Twitter search. If there's a certain author in the same genre that you write, then do a search on the author's name. This brings up a list of everyone talking about this author and their books. Those tweeters would be good ones to follow because they have an affinity for your niche. For my genre, I might do a search for a popular horror author or key words like zombies, werewolves, ghosts, vampires, supernatural, or horror novels to find my audience. This will take me to a results page with people talking about horror novels. I scan the tweets on this search list and read not only their tweets, but their bios as well. I look for key words in their bios like: avid reader, love reading, book junkie, love horror, or love Stephen King. These are the booklovers that I choose to connect with.

If I were a cookbook author, I'd search for people talking about recipes. If I were promoting a health book or diet book or a how-to book, I'd search for people tweeting about topics that matched my subject matter. When you follow them, they are now aware that you have a book that matches their interest. You've now introduced yourself, your book title, and your website to a person who has a high-probablity of buying your book. If they follow you back (and many of them do with gratitude and enthusiasm), you can message them with a "thank you for following" and start a dialogue. In social media, selling books is about building relationships with people who share your common interests. The more time you spend getting to know readers and letting them get to know you, the more likely you are going to sell books. What's phenomenal about Twitter is that your fans that you connect with will eventually become your promoters, as well. They will tweet about your books with high praise and spread the word, attracting you more fans and book sales.

I have more Twitter tips to come ... to stay tuned, subscribe to this blog.

My author website: http://www.brianmoreland.com/

Using Twitter to Market Books & Blogs Part I

Here are some tips on how to use Twitter to market your books and blogs and build your audience. For those who are new to Twitter, it's a social media site where you set up a profile and post short messages about what you're doing. These messages are called "tweets." People from all around the world can "follow" you and read every message that you post. Just about every celebrity imaginable now uses Twitter to give their fans a personal connection. Twitter is also great for authors connecting with their readers. This is a goldmine for marketing books and blogs.

Once your profile is set up, search for hundreds to thousands of people who match your reading audience, click on the person's name and follow them by clicking the "follow" button beneath their name. Their descriptions and what they tweet about will tip you off to what they love. Whatever subject or genre you write about, type in key words in the "search space" next to the Twitter logo, then hit return. It will pull up a list of recent tweets from people talking about your topic. Go down the list and follow each profile that you like.

For instance, I write horror fiction. I also blog about writing, publishing, and the adventures of being a professional author. On Twitter, all I have to do is search "horror" or "horror novels" or use the ashtag #horror, and there are hundreds upon hundreds of horror fans out there who say so in their descriptions.

"I'm an avid reader of horror.

"I love skiing, my dog, watching movies, and reading horror."

"Reading novels is the air I breathe. I love mystery, romance, and horror."

When you follow the people who fit your reading audience, they often follow you back. Now they know who you are, and since you blog about a topic they enjoy or you write the types of books they love to read, they will most likely visit your website at least once, and if your blog or book is engaging enough, they become fans.

In one sitting I might follow 20-30 people who are my target market. Often within minutes, I get emails from Twitter showing me who's following me back. I've made a lot of new friends this way. And several times new followers have written to tell me that they just bought my book on Amazon. Thanks to the world of Twitter, it has never been easier to find your fans.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brian Moreland is the author of the horror novels Dead of Winter and Shadows in the Mist. He also writes for two blogs.

Official website: http://www.brianmoreland.com/

Book services: http://www.morelandcreative.com/

Follow @BrianMoreland

Farewell, Borders Books; Hello, e-Publishing

My favorite local book store, Borders, where I used to love to hang out and buy books, has recently closed its doors, as are all the Borders stores across America. Today, I discovered another local independent book store, Legacy Books, which did a lot for the community of authors and book lovers here in Dallas, Texas, also shut its doors forever. Before that, I had witnessed other smaller Mom-&-Pop book stores close, because they couldn't compete with the bigger chains. In the world of books and book sellers, as Bob Dylan once sang, "the times they are a-changin'."

What's causing this change? Online book stores like Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, and Booksamillion.com have changed the way readers buy books. And more and more readers are buying e-books over paperback and hardbacks.

"According to the Association of American Publishers (AARP), sales figures for the first half of 2011...paperback sales dipped nearly 18% and hardback sales fell 23% compared to the same period the previous year."

On the contrary, e-book sales are up 160% from this time a year ago. Every publishing professional I've talked to sees ebooks as the future for books. My own publisher, Samhain Publishing, one of the largest e-book publishers, told me last year their ratio of e-book readers to trade paperback readers was one e-book to two paperbacks. This year it has reversed; they now sell two e-books for every one paperback. And the trend seems to be expanding for e-book sales.

According to a Janaruy 2011 article in Today @ PC World, "Amazon says that, for the first time, it has sold more e-books than paperbacks. Since the start of the year, Amazon has sold 115 Kindle books for every 100 paperbacks. Kindle sales continue to outpace hardcover sales; during the same time period, three times as many Kindle books were sold as were hardcover books."

So the e-book trend is alive and thriving. Just ask some members from the younger generations (readers in their early twenties to teens) who have been raised in a digital world surrounded by electronic gadgets, and you'll discover that a growing percentage of them own some form of e-reader (Kindle, Nook, or Ipad) and enjoy reading e-books.

Does that mean paperbacks and hardbacks are following Borders to extinction?

Hopefully not for a very long time. I still love holding a book in my hand. I love the smell of the paper and the feeling of turning the pages. I also enjoy seeing the book cover on my nightstand, reminding me there's an exciting fictional world to dive into or a
how-to-book that inspires me to learn something new. While trade paperbacks and hardbacks seem safe for the moment (although the high-priced hardbacks could be threatened by the state of the economy), the smaller mass-market paperbacks are the ones in most danger. The paperbacks on the grocery store racks that I used to flip through as a kid are now being phased out, just like the popularity of DVDs pushed VHS out of the market. E-books are doing the same to mass-market paperbacks. Dorchester Publishing/Leisure Books, who is one of the oldest mass-market publishers, took a huge hit because of this trend and had to release many of its established authors, as well as layoff talented members of its publishing staff. Now, most printed books are coming out as the larger trade paperbacks.

Bottom line: Book stores that you can walk into are a dying breed and digital e-books are the next wave for publishing and selling books.

So, if you are an author in today's market, how do you respond to these changes? Well, if I you are with a mid-size to large publishing house, you can relax, as your books are most likely already coming out as both paperback and e-versions simultaneously. Just remember to include e-book readers in your book campaign.

If your publisher doesn't produce e-books, it's time to find a new publishing house that's on the cutting edge. If you are an independently published author and you don't have a digital version of your book selling on Kindle, Nook, and Smashwords, then you better catch up quick, because it won't be long before paperbacks and hardbacks are just a small percentage of the market. And if you're a YA author, publishing your book as an e-book is an absolute must to tap that expanding teen market. Within the next five years, all your books should be selling in digital formats if you aim to sell books in this ever-changing high-tech world. Because who knows if there will be any brick-and-mortar book stores left by then?

So, with a bittersweet feeling in my heart, I bid farewell to Borders--my old cathedral of books--and goodbye to all the other local Mom-&-Pops that tried to compete with giants like Barnes and Noble, Wal-Mart, and Amazon. As an author of the twenty-first century, I embrace the popularity of online book stores and e-books, and I admit that I even own my very own Kindle now. But in secret, when the time comes to curl up in bed with a riveting book, I still enjoy reading a good, old-fashioned paperback.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Brian Moreland is an internationally successful author of supernatural novels (DEAD OF WINTER, SHADOWS IN THE MIST) and a number of short stories. He also helps other writers achieve success through consulting and creative services: creative brainstorming, editing, complete book design (interior & cover), ebook formatting, and assistance with authors ready to explore independent publishing.

http://www.morelandcreative.com/
http://www.brianmoreland.com/

My New Book Cover

"A frightening and chilly romp through a winter wasteland, Dead of Winter will freeze your soul! Sharply written and scary as hell, this one is a must-read for all horror fans. I am in awe of Brian Moreland."

-- Ronald Malfi, author of Snow and Floating Staircase

Well, it's just months away until the release of my next horror novel, DEAD OF WINTER. The official release date for the ebook is October 11, 2011. To read an excerpt of the first three chapters visit my DARK LUCIDITY blog.

"Moreland's novel is a unique blend of historical fiction, thriller, and horror--and it all works flawlessly. Dead of Winter had me breathless. This is one hell of a great read."

--Nate Kenyon, award-winning author of The Reach, Sparrow Rock, and StarCraft Ghost: Spectres

“From lust and greed to duty and piousness, the cast of complex characters in Dead of Winter erupt to life in historical splendor. Drawing on several horror elements, the reader will be swept away on this canoe-ride of excitement, terror, and mystery. Tom Hatcher takes his son, Chris to the isolation of the Ontario North to repair the wounds of their past. When the blizzards bring an evil to the fort that mysteriously turns the inhabitants into vicious cannibals, Tom’s detective skills are insufficient weapons against the menace that lurks beyond the walls of the fort. Grab a warm blanket and throw another log on the fire, and delve into the terror that only winter can snow down on the soul.”

--Aurora Nominee Suzanne Church, author of "Destiny Lives in the Tattoo's Needle" and "The Tear Closet"

Just Landed a New Book Deal

My previous post promised some big news. Well, I just inked a book deal for my second novel, DEAD OF WINTER. It's been a long journey since I published my first novel, SHADOWS IN THE MIST, five years ago. My World War II supernatural horror novel has done well, publishing first as a trade paperback, then as a mass paperback through Berkley/Penguin, then as a hardback in Austria and Germany under the title Schattenkrieger. Now, it is still selling as an ebook for Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble's Nook.

DEAD OF WINTER is a horror novel I started researching and writing back in 2006 and finished the winter of 2009. It sat in limbo for a little over a year before it found a home with Samhain Publishing. I'm thrilled to be working with legendary horror editor Don D'Auria and I'm eager to get my second novel out to all the readers who've been asking, "When's your next book coming out?" Well, now it's very soon. I'll announce the release date as soon as my publisher has set one.

In the mean time, you can read an excerpt of DEAD OF WINTER at my fiction blog DARK LUCIDITY.