Fenriswulf Books

A Random Thought...

2012-01-31T15:10:00.000-08:00

Don't you just hate it when you nod off over the laptop during a spot of writing or editing, and when you wake up you find you've filled 94 pages with the letter 'd'...?

Now Active on Livejournal.com

2012-01-21T11:32:00.000-08:00

Chaz has recently started a new account to discuss writing and related matters over at Livejournal.com.

If you have an account there, feel free to add him. His profile page is right here.

The Origins of 'Maranatha', The Trinity Chronicles and Fenriswulf Books

2012-01-07T20:42:00.000-08:00

I'm a sucker for anniversaries, even if they mean nothing in themselves - but it is exactly six years since I started writing in earnest what would later become my first (self-)published novel, 'Maranatha', and lead to the foundation of Fenriswulf Books and this very blog.

Inspired by a Discovery Channel documentary on the Holy Spear of Jesus (of which I'm watching an old video recording at this very moment), I could never have known just how serious that work would become. Nor quite how heavily that documentary would inspire the book and the rest of the series - from the metallurgical examination work undertaken by Dr Robert Feather (that which is attributed to the brilliant but erratic young scientist, Vanessa Descartes, in 'Maranatha'), the mythical origins of the spear and its history, and the subplot of the heroic Roman legionary commander, St. Maurice. The Hitler connection wasn't ignored either but, knowing it was rather suspect and slightly cornball, I played down that aspect as much as I could while keeping the concept of a dreaded 'Fourth Reich' as a publicity tagline.

That hour-long TV programme sent me scurrying to my vast collection of books on King Arthur, the Grail, the Templars, unorthodox Christianity, alchemy, and medieval European history, but even they weren't enough to provide me with the deeply-layered and complex treasure hunt of a plot that I sought - well over a hundred internet webpages also contributed to the conspiracy which pulled Professor Tomas de Carranza, Dr. Emanuel Khalamanga and Vanessa Descartes together. The developing plot convulsed more than a dying serpent possessed by the Devil, but that was part of the fun - for there were times I had no more idea of what was going on, or why, than any of my characters did. It's not a method of plotting that I can recommend to anyone, but it works for me and from my recent correspondences with other writes, I know I'm not unique in this habit.

So, six years on and 'Maranatha' still hasn't made my fortune or my name as a writer, but it continues to sell, and despite a couple of less than ecstatic reviews, nobody has, as yet, actually disliked the book, and the intended entertainment value remains undiminished, it seems.

And as I write this, I consider the future of de Carranza and Khalamanga, and the others. I have dozens of pages of notes for the sequel, 'The Keys of Heaven', and I expect I shall, sooner or later, find myself drawn back to that world of dark religious conspiracy, personal faith, history, myth and science. In any case, I'm sure there will be plenty of exciting twists and turns to come.

'Sword of Lochglen' Issue 3 finally arrives!

2011-12-23T15:07:00.000-08:00

...and well ahead of schedule, too!

It took a while, but Chaz & Frang at Fenriswulf Books are happy (and relieved) to announce that Issue 3 of the Scottish comedy/drama series is now out there in print format.

Chaz received the first print proof in the post today (remarkably quick service from Lulu.com, considering the time of year) and found no problems with the issue, barring a few artistic tweaks required for the front cover.

We'll be putting copies into George Cordeiro's 'Black Hole' comic shop in Dundee as soon as Chaz has received the first printed batch, but in the meantime you can buy it right here exclusively for the special price o' £1.99 direct from Lulu.com or from the Lochglen official site. Why this issue turned out cheaper than previous ones is known only to the bods at Lulu.com who keep fiddling with the pricing structure, but it means we won't be bothering to offer a digital download on this edition - as the print version will only work out a few pence cheaper than the PDF equivalent.

'Lochglen' Issue 3 Nears Completion

2011-12-18T08:15:00.000-08:00

Despite various obstacles and a couple of urgent personal commissions, Chaz has been racing through drawing and scripting pages for Issue 3 of the Scottish comedy/drama series, with only one page left to complete. That amounts to seven completed pages in four weeks - (but not achieved without a whole lot of corner-cutting, copy+paste, and digital trickery to produce the best-looking results in the quickest possible time). As there will be at the very least another one, if not two or even three issues to go yet, we've acknowledged that speed is of the essence to get a project like this finished and out there in a reasonable timeframe. The work has its fans and the next step will be to see how it shapes up on Kindle (although we reckon the lettering - in 6-point OneStrikeScript - will be a tad small for some devices). Chaz's complicated script is taking its own time to develop fully, but the effort's starting to pay off. At this rate, Issue 3 will be out in print and digital format in the next couple of weeks - well ahead of schedule (for once).

In any case, here's the sort-of probably almost-finished front cover artwork by Chaz and Frang for the forthcoming issue 3 featuring - Dr. Mackenzie, Mr MacFaddyen and the eponymous sword with all its jokey nudge-nudge-wink connotations.

News, updates an' a' that at the dedicated home page: http://swordoflochglen.blogspot.com

Chaz Talks Books with Morgen Bailey

2011-12-14T13:56:00.000-08:00

Following on from Morgen Bailey's helpful guest post earlier, Morgen also recently hosted an extensive interview with Chaz, in which he discusses writing, books and publishing in depth on her blog.

It's a long interview but Morgen posts many of these with writers - and is always happy to hear from new people, so if you're a writer, feel free to drop her a line. Submission guidelines are clearly posted all over her site.

The full interview is right here.

Guest Post: 'Writing essentials’ by Morgen Bailey

2011-12-12T09:53:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since we had a guest poster hre on FWB, but recently Chaz caught up with Morgen Baily (another insanely helpful fellow writer/blogger/etc) and invited her to contribute something.

So here's some helpful advice regarding writing style and technique, courtesy of Morgen:

American science-fiction novelist Jerry Pournell is reported to have said “I think it takes about a million words to make a writer. I mean that you're going to throw away.” I started writing for fun six years ago and more seriously three years ago and with three NaNoWriMo novels, one-and-a-half novels in between, three NaNoWriMo anthologies (a cheat on doing a novel this year but I still made the 50,000 words), part of a script, some poetry and loads of short stories under my belt, I’m pretty sure I’ve reached that target. How much of them I’ve thrown away I couldn’t tell you but it’s only a fraction, and if like me, you’ve dabbled before really knuckling down, you’ll feel better for it. It’s all about practice. If someone sat you in front of a piano, would they expect you to play a concerto? Would you expect that of yourself?

In my experience too many novice writers worry about finding their ‘voice’ and understanding their ‘craft’ early on. It can be a long journey, perhaps not as long as a million words, but as long as you write regularly (daily is the ideal but when does life afford that luxury?) you’ll get there… and here are a few basics to put in your suitcase:

• Probably the most used phrase when teaching writing is ‘show don’t tell’. If you have a character who is angry for some reason, saying ‘Andy was angry’ is a classic example of ‘tell’. Simply put, you’re not showing us how. If you wrote ‘Andy slammed his fist onto the table’ you are.
• Dialogue tags – it’s recommended that you can only go up to six pieces of dialogue (between no more than two people) without attributing it to someone. And there's nothing wrong with ‘said’. Don’t be tempted to look at your thesaurus and say ‘Andy postulated’. You could also avoid tags by another character saying “Oh Andy, that’s…” or in the description; ‘Andy laughed. “That’s…”
• Character names are important as we often get a sense of their personality by what they’re called. A Mavis is likely to be older than a Britney and would, usually, act differently. Avoid having names starting with the same letter; if you have a Todd talking to a Ted, the reader can easily get confused. Bill and Ted would be fine and as we know, they had a wonderful time back in the late 1980s.
• I’m a big fan of repetition… of not doing it. Unless it’s ‘the’, ‘and’ etc, a word should only be repeated if the second instance is to emphasise or clarify the first. For example, ‘Andy sat in the car. He beeped the horn of the car.’ You don’t need ‘of the car’ because we already know he’s in the car. If you said ‘Andy sat in the car. He beeped the horn and the car shook’ that would be fine because you’re clarifying that it’s the car and not the horn (because it’s the last object you mentioned) that’s shaking.
• Stephen King’s writing guide / autobiography ‘On writing’ has been the most suggested book in the interviews I’ve conducted. Amongst other things he’s notoriously against adverbs (‘ly’) and fair enough – in ‘completely dead’ you wouldn’t need the completely because dead says it all, and a character doesn’t need to be ‘sighing wearily’ because the sighing tells us enough, but adverbs are necessary in the right context. Again it’s all about clarification and fine-tuning.
• Every word has to count; does it move the story along or tell us about your characters? If not, the chances are it can be chopped.
• If you’re having trouble with a passage move on or leave it and return later with ‘fresh eyes’.
• Read. It doesn’t matter whether it’s your genre or not (one of my Monday nighters writes amazing sci-fi but has never read a word of it) but reading will help you see how a story is structured and balanced between dialogue and description; short sentences speed the pace, long passages slow it down.
• Join a writing group, get your work critiqued. Read your work out loud. It’s amazing what you’ll pick up when you hear it outside your head.
• Subscribe to writing magazines, go to workshops, literary festivals. If you really want to write immerse yourself in all things literary.

There are many more examples I could give you but all you need to remember is that it’s not about clever words (because that ends up becoming ‘purple prose’) but just getting pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard and having fun. When your characters take over (and they will) you’ll have the time of your life!

Morgen Bailey
http://morgenbailey.wordpress.com

Highland Flings

2011-12-04T08:08:00.000-08:00

Chaz has now updated the slightly neglected 'Sword of Lochglen' webpage. As work on issue 3 rolls on, there's a new Origins of... page describing the influences which helped to create the series; new sample pages from Issue 3 in the Sample Art section - and a finished full-colour rough of the proposed cover to Issue 3 in the Cover Art gallery.

Currently, February/March 2012 looks like the most likely time for the release of Issue 3, entitled 'Tyrants & Teuchters'. ('What's a 'Teuchter' when he's at home?' our non-Scots readers may cry. Here's an online definition.)

A romantic moment as illustrated by Frang for Issue 3.

'Sword of Lochglen' - back in production

2011-11-18T20:31:00.000-08:00

After the past year in which Chaz convinced himself (and everyone around him) that he had finally packed in drawing comics for good to concentrate on 'graphic fiction', a recent discussion with long-term Fenriswulf collaborator Frang has suddenly rekindled his interest in the historical Scottish satire, 'Sword of Lochglen'.

This bawdy, surreal and occasionally dark graphic novel features artwork by both Frang and Chaz, and the first two issues have already been made available in print, and digital format at the Lochglen webpage.

It's been over 5 years since Chaz lifted a pen to draw 'Lochglen', although Frang has since produced excellent work for the historical fantasy sequences which tell the tale of the narrator's romantic novel.

Greta Garbo - or just a humble teashop waitress? Hero William MacFaddyen meets secret admirer Rose in brand new panels drawn for Issue 3 of 'Lochglen'.

Expected release date: Spring/Summer 2012.

Prey for Us: Exorcismus

2011-11-15T16:44:00.001-08:00

Northern Spain, 1499 A.D.

Episode 2 of the supernatural medieval horror series debuted on Youtube last night. Picking up from the end of the pilot episode, Brother Domingo prepares to exorcise the Devil, who appears to have possessed the body of a strange peasant woman. Meanwhile Tacitus, our narrator, fears he may have inadvertently inspired Satan to come into the Benedictine monastery by his over-enthusiastic illumination of the temptations of Eve.

Will brave Domingo be able to expel the Prince of Darkness from the monks' wine cellar...? While Bernardo cowers in the cellar awaiting Domingo's return, the Abbot conducts mass, unaware of the supernatural drama unfolding beneath his feet. Here's the Youtube link for episode 2, 'Exorcismus'.

Gothic...? Me? With My Reputation?

2011-11-14T15:28:00.000-08:00

Recently, FWB opened a new account over at Gothise.com. It appears to be a new-ish social network site for 'alternative' people, which these days may usually be interpreted to mean 'miserable teenagers who like dying their hair black', but which also has wider significance for the frequently dark and strange subject matter that we present here. Originally intrigued because we noted that this very blog was getting some referrals from the site, we thought we might as well give the members something to look at over there as well.

If anybody else is inclined to join up, then feel free to add us and expand the network.

We're not convinced yet how useful, friendly or successful this site will prove to be, but we have to do our best to get ourselves, and our works, out there. Don't we?

The 'Black Flag' Keeps Flying...

2011-10-29T14:48:00.001-07:00

Somehow, Chaz's first (and, to date, only completed) graphic novel 'The Black Flag' continues to be FWB's best-selling book on Amazon UK - currently sitting at #2 and #3 respectively in the charts for Fantasy and Sci-Fi in the Graphic Novels Kindle chart.

Ironically, it's also the one book in the whole FWB catalogue Chaz has actively promoted the least, since it's a) over 10 years old and b) Chaz is still a bit scared how well graphite pencil art and small comic-book lettering will actually show up on a Kindle reader. It's also the most expensive in our Kindle portfolio (but it did take five and a half years to complete). But going on the basis that no news is good news, and that nobody has complained loudly at him yet, long may it continue ;-)

For UK readers, the Kindle book is available here.

For US readers, the Kindle book is available here.

Prey for Us - a New Animated Series

2011-10-24T13:47:00.000-07:00

Here's something dark and creepy from the FWB stable in time for Halloween - involving monks, madness, magic and medieval machinations...this is the pilot episode for a new (occasional) series of short films. Things start off badly for the monks at Navarre with a case of suspected demonic possession, but following a failed exorcism, the Holy Officers of the Inquisition are summoned to tidy up the mess...and then the real horrors begin...

This started life as a comic strip over 10 years ago, when Chaz and Frang were working on the first issue of Yokelore, a fantasy/sci-fi/horror comic which never got past the first issue. Chaz kept hold of the idea of a gang of creepy monks, and eventually the project has begun to see the light of day.

Here's the Youtube link to the pilot episode, which sets the scene and introduces Tacitus, the scribe and narrator of the tales.

An illustrated e-book, based on the series, is now also in production.

The Wish & the Will's No. 1 Fan Writes...

2011-10-17T13:13:00.000-07:00

Fellow writer and publisher Alison DeLuca recently read the first three episodes of the series to date, and enjoyed it so much she decided to blog about it, right here on her site.

Thanks a lot for all your support, Alison (readers, be sure to check out her other blogs, too).

And in the meantime, here's something brand new - a sneak preview of the art for the cover of Episode 4, featuring Loxxi, Mr. Sundancer, and a pseudo-steampunk'd Gatling gun. Chaz isn't making any promises (due to other projects and ongoing commissions) but he hopes to have the text-only Kindle version of TWatW available before the end of the year.

The Wish & the Will Reviewed...by a Fan

2011-10-15T07:16:00.000-07:00

Recently, I ran a giveaway competition over at Natasha Larry's blog. Fellow writer and blogger Alison DeLuca won the competition to receive a bunch of digital Wish and the Will goodies - and she liked the first episode so much, she has just posted her review of Episode 1 on Amazon.com.

Getting reviews for the series hasn't been easy to date, due to the serialized nature of the episodes. It looks as if Alison's become the No. 1 fan of WatW so far. She's even planning a blog post of her own about the books very soon...

In the meantime, be sure to check out her blog and her works.

The Proof Editor's Survival Checklist

2011-10-09T11:23:00.000-07:00

Editing, schmediting, eh?

Yes, it can be a pain. But it's an essential one.

Let me start with my favourite author's quote, by Hemingway: "You never regret cutting anything out of a novel". And I never have, either – I probably have several novels' worth of excised material that wouldn't even make it into the most self-indulgent “director's cut”. Everyone edits a different way - I usually just bash down words first and then go back (repeatedly) and chip away, or add arms and legs, in what I call 'sculpturing' the writing.

Here's a few things I'd advise every writer to aim for in their editing:

i) keep it tight: don't waffle, stay on track. Don't do tangents. Consider 2 or 3 brief sentences over 1 long one. If you're stuck over a particular passage, try recording yourself reading it aloud, play it back, and see how it sounds then.
The ear (or indeed, the voice) often picks up on things that the eye doesn't.

ii) consider your vocabulary. Who's your audience? Are they likely to feel insulted, or intimidated, by your choice of words? That is, don't pepper your prose with Graeco/Latin highbrow terms if you're writing simple general fiction, or 'dumb down' either if you're aiming for a more sophisticated readership.

iii) avoid slang in the narrative voice - it's easy to slip it in, but it cheapens writing and makes it feel amateurish. Look out for it and kill it when you find it.

iV) cut down descriptive passages. Everyone writes them. But not everyone wants to read 'em. Readers need enough for the scene to be set, but not too much or they'll get bored and skim. Once they start that carry-on, you've lost them. On the other hand, don't skimp on setting - pick up on a few key points to suggest the mood, the surroundings, and how they relate to the characters. Be sure to consider all five senses - smells and sensations as well as sights and sounds.

v) Grammar, punctuation, spelling. Those three are so important, I'll repeat them: grammar, punctuation, spelling. Sounds picky, but it's not. Trust me, any serious pro editor/reviewer/book industry employee will bin anything that looks like it hasn't even been shown to a spell-checker. Ditto for paragraphing, layout, indents, etc. Reviewers will trash you for it - just check out some of the killer comments in the Self-Publishing Magazine (on serious, expensive ISBN'd books, not just typical Lulu fare). If you're aiming to be a pro, or stand alongside professionals, you have to look like you deserve to be there. Don't let down good writing and ideas by not tightening up the nuts and bolts.

vi) really READ what you've written. Don't skim passages, thinking “Oh, but I know this bit off by heart” - because you don't. If, like me, you tend to hammer out words fifty to the dozen to capture those valuable stream-of-consciousness seams of ideas, then chances are you'll miss out words, or even use the wrong word ('theres' and 'theirs' can often creep in unwittingly in a kind of subconscious word-association substitution type thang). Re-read such passages to death, to hone them and shape them to what they ought to be.

vii) dialogue. Less is more. Nothing reads more amateurish than two characters having a bitching argument for two pages which does nothing to either define character nor advance the plot. Yes, real people do talk like that, but as countless 'reality TV shows' over the years have shown, reality is actually incredibly boring. Drama, as Hitchcock said, is 'life with the dull bits cut out'. So identify all those dull bits, cut them out, and what's left ought to be a lot more interesting.
To see just how klunky and repetitive real dialogue can be, read the transcripts to JFK's tapes of the Cuban Missile Crisis meetings, or Nixon's Watergate tapes. Then watch one of the excellent movies based on those events, and see how completely different the dialogue runs.

New Reviews for the 'Trinity Chronicles' !

2011-09-28T13:36:00.000-07:00

Chaz came home tonight to find not one, but two, reviewes waiting for him in his email inbox.

These were provided courtesy of Readers Favorite.com, who provide a free-of-charge book review service (as well as a paid-for premium review service). Chaz decided he had nothing to lose and submitted both books in the 'Trinity Chronicles' for their attention.

For a free service, Chaz is very impressed, and would recommend this to any writer seeking reviews. The reviews, though not long, show careful reading and understanding of the texts which makes the reviewer's points (both good and critical) profoundly valid.

'Venus in Saturn' is reviewed here.

And 'Maranatha' is reviewed here.

These reviews are also scheduled to go live on Amazon.com in the next few days, another exciting and helpful aspect of the RF review service.

The Wish & the Will: A New Angle

2011-09-20T13:40:00.000-07:00

While Chaz continues to puzzle over the finer details of Episode 4 (which will most definitely not be entitled 'A New Hope'). here's a visual sample of the forthcoming episode, courtesy of Mr. Frang.

Chaz commissioned Frang this year to produce a few pieces of artwork for the series, focusing mainly on architecture and aircraft design. As various forms of flying machine are integral to the books, and Chaz was never much of an aeronautics engineer, he was curious to see what Mr. Frang would come up with - and this one-man, hand-held flying device really caught his imagination:

We think this one ought to be filed under 'steampunk', even while Chaz has since refused to use that term any longer in connection with WatW.

As always, the first 3 episodes are still available for download from the banner links upon this very web page.

'Angel of Vengeance' Descends to the Web

2011-09-10T15:58:00.000-07:00

After juggling various client commissions over the past few weeks, Chaz finally made some time to pull together his previously-abandoned angels & demons/urban fantasy comic book project that was started about a year ago.

Knowing he no longer has the strength or the time to draw full-length comics anymore (at least, not within a reasonable timeframe), he's compromising these days and developing 'graphic fiction' - heavily illustrated prose - in this case, featuring cut-up panels from the old comics pages interspersed throughout the text. He's always loved the characters, the dark humour and the backstory to this tale, and felt it a shame it never saw the light of day after some great feedback from friends on the artwork on Deviantart. It also brings together a few of Chaz's favourite subjects - dualist cosmology, Enochian angel mythology, epic storylines and a cast of characters who are painted neither 'good' nor 'bad', but complex beings with deep virtues and flaws.

As such, "Angel of Vengeance - Episode 1: South of Heaven" has finally materialised.

We're still limited only to publishing these works as digital downloads via Lulu.com as Kindle still doesn't like big illustrations. Once that platform is up to speed we'll seek to expand, but in the meantime it's been fulfilling simply to bring this thing all together and come up with something that is interesting and a bit different. A lot of so-called "urban fantasy" these days seems to be aimed at teenagers or feature friendly werewolves or jolly goth vampires. No such kid gloves exist in AoV - this is adult-only material, both in image and word. Darkness and evil abounds, but at the core is a rather human, story, with extraordinary characters torn between opposing poles of love, pain and morality.

But don't take our word for it: Episode 1's out now, right here.

Art from Issue 1. All works (c) C. Wood 2011.

Chaz Interviewed on the 'Paranormal Wire' Blog

2011-09-04T15:41:00.000-07:00

Writer and blogger Natasha Larry has just posted an interview with Chaz at her Paranormal Wire page.

Chaz discusses his work on the Wish & the Will fantasy series, tries to show some humility (and humour), and also has some free goodies on offer.

You can read the full interview here.

Thanks to Natasha for the support!

A Chat with Rainy Kaye

2011-08-23T15:10:00.000-07:00

Earlier this month, Rainy Kaye ran a little interview with Chaz over at her web base for world domination.

The full post is available to read, here.

As Rainy makes a good habit of helping to promote other writers and creators, I'm sure she won't mind me saying that if you're one of the above, feel free to drop her a line anytime. She doesn't bite.

The Wish & the Will - on Wallpaper

2011-08-21T10:44:00.000-07:00

Having twanged something in his shoulder early in the weekend, Chaz has been rather out of sorts lately. Weight-training may be one thing, but lawnmowers...grr (though it never helps that the grass is close to a foot long). In the meantime, to keep his hand in, he's come up with a few wallpaper designs based on characters from the Wish and the Will. 1024x768 only at this stage, but he may work on more as the series progresses. Enjoy!

Mr Jeth Sundancer

Miss Claudia

Captain Ssorg Ethdril Kthorn

King Paimon

Geekz Still Going Strong

2011-08-16T15:40:00.000-07:00

It was back in 2009 that Chaz first had the whimsical idea of creating a web comic based around an email technical support helpdesk (and in no way inspired by his own day job on an email technical support helpdesk). Some time later down the line, Chaz stumbled across fellow web cartoonist Jeff Swenson (the mind behind the Freethunk Freethinkers website - sometimes controversial, often edgy but always worth checking out), and that old webcomic idea returned fully-formed.

And so it was that the strip "IT's All Geek to Me" was born (a convoluted pun if ever there was one - hence it now being universally known as 'Geekz'). Well over a year later, and the weekly strip (updated every Monday) shows no signs of running out of steam, such is the bonus of working in an environment which feeds inspiration and ideas into the work. It also helps to have a colleague who is just as adept at coming up with strange and bizarre ideas and gags as Chaz is, and who can probably be named as the Geekz No. 1 fan (Mr. Dave, that's you - take a bow.)

Wouldn't it be great if all writing could be so easily inspired...with enough material to keep us going well into the foreseeable future?

'Geekz' is hosted by the most excellent Mr. Ofer Israel over at his 'Humor Portal', which can be every bit as daring and edgy. There's also a compilation 'Geekz' book planned before the end of the year, which will collect together the first 70-odd strips as well as some new content. Some of the earlier, then-topical iPhone gags might look a bit dated now but a true geek would never criticize such a thing - that sense of the retro just adds to the whole geekishness of the thing (we're hoping...)

'Geekz' has its own Facebook page with regular strip updates and some behind-the-scenes content too. Pop along and give us the thumbs-up if you like!

'Venus' on Kindle!

2011-08-01T14:46:00.000-07:00

'Venus in Saturn' is now live on Amazon Kindle - in the standard text-only edition without any illustrations. Chaz has experimented by dropping his royalty share on this one to see if the lower price will attract more sales. In any case, this is still dark and creepy stuff - the darkest Chaz has ever written.

US Customers can get it here.

Our UK customers can download it here.

The third volume in the Trinity Chronicles series is now in production, and sees the return of many old characters from the first two books.

Venus in Saturn: Just Published!

2011-07-30T21:44:00.000-07:00

At long last, the prequel to Maranatha is out there, in a special illustrated edition available only from Lulu.com.

While Maranatha was in many ways an occult thriller with some horror trappings, Venus has more of a horror mentality with much of the action (and weirdness) taking place in the mind of heroine Vanessa Descartes, and contains some of the most disturbing material Mr. Wood has ever written to date. (He concedes that if a writer can freak himself out while writing something, then it bodes well for readers who enjoy that kind of thing!) While avoiding gratuitousness, Venus is nonetheless a macabre exploration of the deepest reaches of the human psyche, and is recommended for readers who like their horror with a cold, cutting edge, and a forensic level of detail.

Still as complex and layered, however, Venus has been almost three years in production, and sets up the cosmic background for the third book in the Trinity Chronicles series, The Keys of Heaven.

A Touch of Science...

2011-07-29T07:24:00.000-07:00

Today, we welcome another guest blogger in the form of Joe Mogle:

'Have you ever read a story that pulled you in completely? It didn't matter what the story was about, you just felt like it was real. Then again other stories, tales with amazing plots and creative characters, just never seem to have what it takes to draw you in. What is it that some stories have that other don't?

While there may be many possible answers, I would like to pick out two to focus on. But first, a science lesson!

Why do people react to aggressive behavior just as strongly as aggressive statements? The answer is in our brains. Our subconscious mind processes visual data from people and analyzes it, coming to conclusions about their psychological state based on appearance.

Yet the brain goes even further. When we read descriptions of aggressive behavior, some parts of our subconscious respond as if there was a real person acting aggressively in front of us. Preposterous? Nope. The Id (one of the three parts of consciousness described by Freud) doesn't know the difference between imagination and real life.

This little quirk, which leaves us in cold sweats after nightmares, can be harnessed to sharpen works of fiction. Not surprisingly, books that explain the science of body language and mannerisms may give new depth to old characters. Insights into the minds and emotions of a not-so-talkative person in a story are now simple. By combining simple facial expressions with body positions, new facets of your characters can be expressed. For example saying 'he looked enraged' doesn't quite have the same feel as 'his eyes widened under his furrowed brow as his nostrils flared over his grinding jaw.' The second line uses an Id response to make you feel the situation in a way that the first can't.

A great new way to write up people in your works of fiction, no doubt. But you can go further with the other point I'd like to discuss. That other point is in the environment. Symbolism, like body language, creates a sense of reality, though for the setting rather than the players in the tale. The Id processes symbols just like it processes body language. We have certain emotional responses to particular objects and images. Most of us will feel a tingle up the spine when looking at a spider or a snake. Though some people will feel different. Each culture has set values or views for some symbols. A snake may be evil to one group and holy to another. Knowing what each symbol means in each culture helps to create a truly realistic setting, which draws your reader in further.

Just like body language, books of symbols and their meanings can be found at the local library or online.

This simple bit of science can have a great impact on your writing.'

Thanks for the very interesting contribution, Joe - and one which Chaz especially appreciated, being a keen exponent of this type of psychological characterization himself.

Be sure to visit Joe's author site here.

Creating a Niche vs. Writing the Blockbuster

2011-07-23T18:29:00.000-07:00

An author guest post, by David Mark Brown

Like all of us, I have made infamous decisions in my life which have long outlived their immediate effects. For instance, dropping off the football team to try out for cheerleader -- in a small Texas town. (You know, the land of Friday Night Lights and King of the Hill. I made alternate by the way, but was offered the job of mascot to save the town from scandal. And no, I've never fully recovered from the psychological effects of being a pubescent, wedgie-shield.)

One such decision I have made more recently has been to deep six my long held dreams of being a New York Times best selling author in exchange for pursuing a more attainable, double-digit salary as a professional niche-genre writer. When I say, "niche-genre" I don't mean science fiction or romance. I don't even mean paranormal urban fantasy or steampunk, the shooting stars of sub-genre genre fiction. Nope. In my case I'm referring to dieselpunk weird western alternate history pulp, with a twist of granola. (And yes, you saw the word western in the mix, otherwise known as the kiss of death).

I call it Reeferpunk, and it was what leapt from the fire once I finally developed the cojones to ask myself the million dollar question -- "What were you born to write?" Screw market forces. Forget the critics, the agents, the gatekeepers, Oprah. Throw away all the lectures given by snooty professors on how the short story is the only true form of American literature. Lose the personal desire to impress and mold society. Push Henry Thoreau off the docks at Walden Pond. And finally fly the double bird in the face of reason.

What can I write that no one else can? It's a matter of calling. I don't suspect that I've perfected the answer yet, but I'm closer than I've ever been. And it feels good.

A series of preliminary questions rattled around my brain before I could answer the big one. First was the simple question, "What do you enjoy reading?" When I first asked myself this simple question I was in the midst of my fifth rewrite on a novel that I would've never picked off the shelf (unless my reading club had dictated it).

I like science fiction. I like thrilling and speculative stories based on real human desires and characteristics put to the test in outlandish situations or alternate realities -- human stories in sensational environs. I like fast-moving yet brain-punishing fiction. I like Frank Herbert's Dune and Orson Scott Card's Ender's Shadow.

Then came the question, "What do I know?" I'm no scientist. I'm a liberal arts slacker through and through. I'm no Isaac Asimov (I can grow some wicked sideburns, but that's where the comparison ends). History and political science, those are within my grasp.

Finally came the questions, "Who am I? And what has made me what I am?" Born and raised in rural Texas, I grew up working on a ranch. I attended university in the midst of the Rocky Mountains at the U of Montana (the Berkeley of the Rockies) where the police were on record saying about marijuana, "it's so common we hardly try to stop it anymore," and the school paper published editorials on how to weatherstrip your dorm room so your R.A. would never know. I'm the Redneck Granola.

What more did I need to know? All I needed were the яичка ("eggs" in Russian) to put the answers together and write the royally whacked-out speculative fiction I've been called to write -- invent the niche-genre that is David Mark Brown. Maybe later in my career I'll be talented enough to write what others want me too. But for now I'm writing refried alternate-history about what could have become of the southern half of North America if cheap oil never got cheap (due to the birth of the evil nation of Texicas), and instead brilliant minds devised an early cellulosic ethanol from the wondrous cannabis plant. Mein Hanf! (Spanish, Russian and German in the same post!)

As for reality? Well, thank God for ebooks, the digital wrecking ball of the publishing industry. Current conditions seem perfectly suited for the self-published, super-niche ebook. Forums, facebook groups and hashtags on twitter make it easier than ever before to participate in cultural and literary ghettos of our liking. To survive as a professional writer of super-niche genre fiction all I need are the enthusiastic downloads of 15,000 fans.

New York Times? Not a chance. But at 70% of $2.99 for two books a year I'd rather have my 15,000 fans for fiction I was born to write, than a pipe dream and a job at Home Depot.

Will it work? It'll probably take a miracle. You could always download the book (available for pre-order now!) and find out for yourself.

Thanks for the cool post, Mark. And a big nod to Erin Mehlos for the crazy and utterly brilliant cover artwork. Chaz is currently reading a complimentary copy of Fistful of Reefer and a review will be forthcoming on this very blog in the future...

The Fenris Wolf Pack

2011-07-19T14:38:00.001-07:00

Taking a break from fantasy and dark thrillers for a time, Chaz has recently begun work on a new book for the Fenriswulf catalogue: an Alaskan wilderness adventure for younger readers, that currently goes by the working title of Prince of the Hunt. Looking for something simpler than multi-layered epics of cosmic complexity, this slightly whimsical tale is definitely a case of "something completely different".

Originally conceived some years ago as a movie script, the simplicity of publishing via the Amazon Kindle platform has resurrected this idea, and it is now well into production of the first draft. The stars of the story are wolves, and the tale is written with just a hint of Kipling (the Just-So stories have long been some of Chaz's favourite bedtime tales for...decades).

The illustration here depicts the main hero of the piece, an exile named Cikuq, who ventures out to found his own pack with two young orphans...and meets an unlikely ally on the way. A tale of courage, thrills, and deep friendship soon blossoms. Release date: likely late summer, or early autumn.

Wish and the Will: Episode 3 Now Available!

2011-07-04T09:57:00.000-07:00

Chaz published the text-only Amazon Kindle version of Episode 3 over the weekend. Somehow we've also managed to bring the price down, too.

The fully-illustrated version will be available in due course via Lulu.com, once the interior artwork is completed - this will take a little while due to current client commitments.

Here's the blurb:

Back in the City of Old Mid, outlaws Jeth Sundancer, Renzo K. Castello and Claudia get their 'biggest ever bank job' off to a shaky start when a bank manager confuses a vault with cask-conditioned whisky. Once underway, however, unexpected spanners are thrown into the works and Claudia is once again reminded that being a natural redhead has lethal disadvantages.

Therein they encounter a Droxen lavatory repair man, who may secretly be the legendary saviour of the Grotmongers, a race of repulsive sewer-dwelling creatures who believe he will deliver them into a promised land of light and wonder (as foretold by the quatrains of Justin the Pustulant).

Desperation and misunderstandings combine to push Claudia and Jeth into an impromptu music-hall appearance in front of the Daemonlord Prince Marbas, and a highly excitable audience of Sli'ix aristocracy. But Marbas and his lords have eyes only for one beautiful performer – and it isn't Claudia.

However, events soon take a turn for the sinister as the forces of law muzzle the growing cries from the people of Old Mid for political representation and an end to tyranny at the hands of the Daemonlords. And as Duke Barbatos, Lord of Justice, begins to pursue his own agenda, a new and terrifying threat is unleashed from the secret cellars beneath the Headquarters of the Gang, the Duke's elite secret police...

(That is, in fact, Mr. S on the front cover...in one of the weirder scenes to grace this quirky series so far.)

Here's the link for UK readers.

Here's the link for US readers.

A Warm Fuzzy Feeling Inside!

2011-06-29T14:00:00.000-07:00

No, Chaz hasn't been eating Vindaloo curry or drinking ginger wine again. But he did check his bank statement recently and found that he had been paid a small amount of money from a cheque he took to his bank last month...

A rather special cheque, as it happens, as this was his first ever royalty cheque, courtesy of Lulu.com! The sum was a princely $20 US and serves to illustrate how little a creator makes at Lulu if they wish to have any hope of keeping a sensible pricing structure on their books and other products.

The problem was, he couldn't pay it straight into his business account - the bank charges for that would have been more than the cheque was worth! - but by some jiggery-pokery arranged by the very helpful staff in his local branch, he managed to pay it into his personal account and only got hit for £7-odd charges for cashing a cheque in a foreign currency. But 50% of a cheque is better than -10% and besides, it's the symbolism of the thing which counts.

Ironically it's also likely to be his last cheque from Lulu too, having parted company with them for print completely, and only keeping on the fully-illustrated editions of The Wish and the Will, which at present are too big and colourful to be accommodated on Amazon's kindle platform.

Maybe in a few years' time he can expect to find a royalty cheque in the post from Kindle, too...

The Wish & the Will: An Illustrated Excerpt

2011-06-28T13:59:00.000-07:00

Presenting a recent illustration for the epic fantasy series, episode 3 of which is due out soon...a Karityldian warrior chief of the tribe of people to whom one of the heroes, Captain Ssorg, belongs. The Karityldians are native to the mountains and jungles of Garuda, and their story is not unlike that of the Zulu nation at the hands of the British in the 19th C. The following excerpt is from a field guide published after one of the earliest expeditions to the Karityldian homeland...

Karityldians: A singular and quite abominable reptilian race to be found in the jungles of the North-Eastern Outlands, sufficiently far enough from the hub of our great civilisation to prevent offence to our refined sensibilities. Their primitive hunter/gatherer society could benefit from several thousand seasons' worth of contact with our own infinitely superior culture. Central to their society is the ludicrous belief that they are somehow superior to other races by virtue of their great antiquity and adherence to absurdly primitive spiritual beliefs which refer to unknowable, unseen beings referred to as “gods”. In short: I humbly propose to their Daemonlordships that an expedition be launched to exterminate these monstrosities and claim their mountainous jungle lands in the name of Middengarth's Geological and Surveying Society.

-From Notes on the Peculiarities of Diverse Races of Middengarth, And Why Gnoems are Better than All of Them by Grath Galladon, Gnoem first generation explorer

Text and art (c) Chaz Wood, 2011. All rights reserverd.

Writing For Fun, Profit and Other Reasons...

2011-06-22T07:32:00.000-07:00

Another guest post from Chaz - this time, over at Natasha Larry's Paranormal Wire page.

This was a little piece discussing the relative merits (and otherwise) of commercial writing, writing for personal pleasure, and whither the twin may met.

Read the full article here!

Thanks to Natasha for having me. Check out her page and her friends while you're over there!

To Illustrate...or Not to Illustrate?

2011-06-11T09:36:00.000-07:00

Chaz has a new guest blog article, 'A Problem in Promotion' over at Rainy Dark's writers' and bloggers' page. In it, he addressed the nature of illustrated fiction, and the preconceptions surrounding it, an issue which is very pertinent to Fenriswulf Books at the moment. The Wish & the Will series is being produced both in text-only and fully-illustrated e-book editions, while Maranatha has just seen its second revised edition, without the original illustrations.

The article ought to be of interest to any writer who is considering illustrations for their works, or anyone with a passing interest in the concept of illustrated fiction, as distinct from the more common 'graphic novels'.

Read the full post here.

Left: illustrated page from Episode 1 of The Wish & the Will: Sundancer's Regret

Labels, Genres, and Pigeonholes...

2011-06-06T09:51:00.000-07:00

Chaz recently contributed an article on the use and value of labels, genres and pigeonholes in promoting and publicising fiction to a friend's blog. The post addresses general issues of promotion, and also deals with his current progress in determining exactly how to promote the 'Wish & the Will' fantasy series - specifically, how far one should go in making use of sub-genres and categories to reach one's target audience.

Read the full article here and show Julieanne some support on her page while you're there!

Book Reviews: Chaz's Views

2011-06-01T09:52:00.000-07:00

Chaz just got another guest article featured over at Erin o'Riordan's 'Pagan Spirits' blog - all about the value of reviews for writers (with just a hint of personal experience thrown in).

Read the whole post here.

We hope you find something there of interest. Be sure to check out the rest of Erin's pages while you're there!

'The Wish & the Will'...Slight Return

2011-05-27T14:37:00.000-07:00

Chaz has been thinking (and working) hard on restyling the visual identity of his current series of steampunk-flavoured fantasy adventures of late. The web poster above is the first of his new attempts at adding some depth and distinctive design elements to the books, as well as hinting at their medieval occult and magical origins.

Guest Post: “Wolf Bites” by Erin O’Riordan

2011-05-24T13:12:00.000-07:00

Introducing a brand new guest blogger this week, Erin has compiled a collection of lupine links for fans of wolfish writings, in tune with this very blog's own mascot...

'Fenriswulf is the perfect name for a publisher of quirky, eerie, dark fiction. The Norse myth of the terrifying son of Loki who is unleashed at the twilight of the gods, after his fellow wolves have devoured the sun and moon, fascinates and terrifies. Fenris even appears in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. The wolves in my writing tend to be less horrifying and more sensual, but they also refuse to be leashed or tamed. In honor of fiction’s nocturnal, howling canines, I present these short bites of some of my favorite wolf tales.

“The Bella Coola Indians believed that someone once tried to change all the animals into men but succeeded in making human only the eyes of the wolf.”
-- Barry Lopez, Of Wolves and Men

“I noticed her when I went to the bar to refresh my Manhattan. She stared at me. Her eyes were piercing. They were green, I think. If not green, then yellow. Lupine…She wore a silvery gray dress with black spots. It must have been an animal print, because I could not (indeed, still cannot) shake the impression that she was covered in a silvery gray fur.”
-- “Animal Appetites” by Erin O’Riordan, Encounters Magazine Fall 2009

“Thy desires
Are wolfish, bloody, starved and ravenous.”
-- William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

“Badhu shook her head. ‘Hairy, with eyes the color of honey. His teeth are too large for his mouth, and sharp. He bites, and he makes wild noises. He’s one of those men who shifts between the worlds of humans and of animals. In the land where I was born, we know of men who live in the village as men, and in the forest as elephants. He is one of them, Raven. Only not an elephant, but a wolf.’ Raven snorted. ‘You sound like a Polish peasant woman, talking about werewolves. There’s no such thing. He’s just a fisherman, one who happens to like to bite.’”
-- “Fall of the Estrela” by Erin O’Riordan, Midnight Times Summer 2008

“Quand on parle du loup, on en voit la queue.” -- “Speak of the wolf and you see his tail,” French proverbial equivalent of the English “Speak of the devil”

“The most curious legend about my nautical ancestress, however, regards her third child, a boy named William, also called Guillermo after the Spanish fashion. William was born later in Rachel’s life, when she was in her forties. Family legend has it that while raiding a Portuguese slave vessel, Rachel took as her prisoner a crew member who spoke no Portuguese. His name was Milos, and he was impressed by the Portuguese from the Adriatic isle of Vis, now part of Croatia. The Croatians recognize Vis for two things: its superior fisherman, and the strange legend that claims the inhabitants of Vis are werewolves.”
-- “Olivia Going Native” by Erin O’Riordan (unpublished)

“Darling it is no joke, this is lycanthropy
The moon’s awake now with eyes wide open
My body’s craving, so feed the hungry…”
-- Shakira, “She Wolf” lyrics

" ‘I’m never too tired to cook for your kind,’ Oliver said. ‘Werewolves are my favorite customers. Do you know why?’ Matthew shook his head. ‘Because you’re omnivores. You have the sophisticated palates of modern human beings, and the raw instinctual thirst for blood of ancient predators. No ingredient is off the list. It brings out my…’ He paused, looking Natalie up and down. ‘…Creativity.’”
-- “Oliver’s Famous Clam Chowder” by Erin O’Riordan. Love Bites, Torquere Press, 2008

Video trailer for “Oliver’s Good Night Kiss:”

Guest blogger biography: An adolescence of staying up late on Fridays nights, eating junk food and watching films such as Satan’s Cheerleaders has influenced Erin O’Riordan. She reads obsessively and writes compulsively. Her favorite lycanthrope is Werewolf Flanders. Erin says, "Howl at ya girl at www.aeess.com, preferably at midnight while the moon is full." '

Many thanks for that, Erin. It was great to see something new and different.

Be sure to drop by Erin's places online, or contact her, via the following:

Visit her Pagan Spirits blog
Find Erin on Facebook
and on Twitter

The Wish and the Will Episode 3: A Sneak Preview

2011-05-22T05:32:00.000-07:00

Episode 3 of the quirky comical steampunk fantasy series is well under way at present. Chaz is working on bringing a wealth of new characters and increasingly surreal situations into the series, all of which combine to create an intricate weave of weirdness and wonder. Due to the epic scale of the work, Chaz has just hired long-time artistic partner-in-crime Mr. Frang to provide some art and design works of a technical nature, and we hope to be showcasing some of those on this very blog in the near future.

In the meantime, here's a sneak preview from one of the aforementioned scenes from Episode 3, wherein Mr Sundancer and Miss Claudia, in ever-desperate attempts to evade the clutches of the Constabulary, inadvertently find themselves on stage during a Royal Command Performance...for an excitable male-only audience.

Chaz Interviewed on the 'Upper Kingdom' Blog

2011-05-20T19:33:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the readers/writers social networking site Goodreads.com, Chaz met up with writer Farida Mestek, who was seeking other authors to interview for her blog, The Upper Kingdom.

She posed some very interesting questions, and the full interview is now up on her blog, right here. There's talk about Chaz's earliest days as a writer, as well as details of Maranatha and The Wish and the Will.

Be sure to check out her other pages and interviews while you're there.

The Wish and the Will Episode 2: Promo Trailer

2011-05-17T13:08:00.000-07:00

A new promo trailer for Episode 2 of the 'Wish & the Will: Sundancer's Regret', again featuring the further voice talents of Mr Dave Allison. With his help and collaboration, we may end up even extending these into small animations (rather than glorified slideshows), as he is proving particularly adept at producing individual character voices for many of the cast!

I feel the first effort was a bit too epic and ambitious for its own good, so I'll be making shorter, snappier clips in future. In any case, it's great to have somebody else on board the Fenriswulf boat who's enthusiastic about the projects and getting involved.

(If any browsing reader is interested in Mr. Allison's voice talents, he's readily available for all occasions, including weddings, birthdays, and bar mitzvahs.)

Guests Bloggers & Writers: Welcome!

2011-05-15T05:50:00.000-07:00

Following the recent flurry of interest in Rainy's recent and very helpful guest post, we'd now like to extend this offer to any blogger or writer who has something to share. We're now looking for guest posters for this very Fenriswulf Books blog.

Whether personal experiences, advice, or anything interesting relating to the world of writing and self-publishing, we'd be interested to hear it.

Generally we'll accept mostly any pieces that are on-topic: self-publishing, fantasy/sci-fi/thriller writers, graphic artists who also write - graphic novels, writers' experiences when it comes to dealing with Print on Demand suppliers, etc. Feel free to contact us with ideas for content.

All-out promotional items won't be considered at this stage but if you can give it a spin and tell an interesting story of creative development, discovery or personal advice along the way, then feel free to include links, images and such. Also if anyone's interested in banner or link exchanges - as a graphic designer I've no problem throwing together a banner for someone who wants one, so long as we can add our banner to your page in return.

Where to Find Your Audience: A Guest Post by Rainy

2011-05-11T12:47:00.000-07:00

In the first of what we hope will be a new phenomenon here at the Fenriswulf blog - featuring guest bloggers and writers with something to say - here's Rainy getting us off to a flying start with a thoughtful article on targeting your potential readership. We've shared many interesting views on promotion and marketing for the indy and self-published writer in the past, and that looks set to continue. So, take it away...

When Rainy Kaye isn't plotting world domination, she enjoys coaching others about it on her blog. She also likes fluffy kittens.

The word "platform" is making authors squirm more than ever. Because publishing houses are cutting costs, writers are turning to self-publishing, and the internet is becoming the primary avenue for marketing, artists are becoming aware of what it means to create their own platform. For some, a platform is the matter of pinpointing where their art belongs and then amassing followers of the genre.

But what about those who are carving out their own niche? Where do the entrepreneurs of the artistic world begin? Creating a platform with defined followers is hard enough, but it requires even more creativity for those who aren't following a well explored path. More work, yes. Impossible, no. Here are a few ways to get started:

What is it at the essence? No matter how creative your project is, it's still something familiar at its core. For example, it's still electronic music, a comic book, or handmade art. Forget the enthusiasm (or horror) that you've created something never seen before, and strive to find its most basic foundation.

What makes it different-and why does anyone care? Now that you've concluded what makes your project like everything else on the planet, decide what makes it different. Write down three points that make it unlike anything else you've seen, and what that means to your potential audience. These are your selling points. Even artists with a fairly common niche has to understand what makes their work the same, and then what makes it different, than others on the market.

Now, sum it up. I've talked many times about how important it is to be able to explain your work in 140 characters. This has nothing to do with Twitter; it has everything to do with the short attention span of your potential audience. If you're marketing something extremely different, you should be able to tell someone what it's like, why it's different, and why they should care, also in about 140 characters. Work this into your normal pitch. You do have a pitch, right?

Once you've completed the above-and I do mean, completed it, not just skipped down to the next steps-consider where to find your people. I know, you want to get right to the people, but if you don't know how to pitch your idea to them, then you're only going to annoy them. And depending how different your work is, you may have a limited audience, anyway. Have a perfected pitch before you even think about talking to people. Then try these ideas:

Branch out your partnership. You may feel like there are no partnerships available because your work is so different. Wrong. Check out the first step above, when you concluded what your work is at the core. Now find others who also fall into that simple niche. Remember, most people are also trying to promote their own endeavors, so they are often willing to exchange links or other promotional activities even if your projects are slightly different. Ideas don't have to be identical to be successful together.

Consider your audience's other interests. This one is not fool-proof and certainly doesn't apply to all artists. However, for some, it might be the golden ticket. Consider what other entertainment your potential audience might like. For example, what movies and TV shows would they watch, what music would they listen to, what book they would read, what locations would they hang out at, etc. Not sure what your audience would be into? Chances are, many of these answers will be the same as your own.

Go get 'em! Now that you have a solid pitch and can answer what your project is like and why it's different, as well as have an idea of who your potential audience is, go seek them out. Join standalone forums and community groups (GoodReads, Facebook, Ning etc) on not just your "essential" niche, but ones pertaining to your audience's potential other interests. When you find someone who enjoys your work, mesh into their world. Get to know their friends (don't spam!), comment on their blog (don't spam!), follow them on various social networks (don't spam!).

Finding, and then creating, your platform is never easy. Take the time to understand a few simple rules of thumb, such as why a pitch is so important, and that people usually have a pattern to their interests and tend to hang out with like-minded individuals. Then you'll not only be able to develop your platform, but meet interesting people along the way.

Thanks again, Rainy.

Additional: Rainy asks - "What creative ways have you found an audience for your project?"

Feel free to post a comment and share your views.

The Wish & the Will: Live on Kindle!

2011-05-08T12:03:00.000-07:00

As promised previously, Fenriswulf are now throwing (just about) everything they have at the Amazon Kindle platform. The brand new, revised 2nd edition of Maranatha is now out there.

And the first two episodes of The Wish and the Will: Sundancer's Regret have just joined them:

Episode 1.

Episode 2.

Unfortunately, the limits of the Kindle platform have meant that we are unable to present these editions with the full-colour illustrated steampunk experience that is The Wish and the Will - however for those hungry for more, information is provided in the Kindle e-books to obtain these (free of charge).

And for good measure, here's the brand new promotional trailer for The Wish and the Will, which has just debuted on Youtube:

Busy old weekend so far, really.

The Wish & the Will Continues

2011-05-05T11:53:00.000-07:00

Due mainly to the long-term holdup with Lulu's ISBNs, Chaz got cracking on with the steampunk fantasy serial...and has rather forgotten how to stop. Episode 3 is now well under way, with a good number of illustrations for that, and the fourth and final episode now in the bag. The entirety of Book 1: Sundancer's Regret will, at this rate, be completed inside the next couple of months. In truth, Chaz is enjoying working on this project immensely, and we hope this shows in the final product. Episode 1 is due out on Kindle in the near future, inspired by recent sales of Maranatha and The Black Flag (the latter which was seen to be sitting at #82 in the top #100 for Graphic Novels in the sci-fi and fantasy categories last week!)

However, due to the limitations of that platform, it has had to be shorn of all the full-colour illustration work which has become such an integral part of the stories - however, the complete, unexpurgated versions are always available from this very website, in PDF format. Just click on the WatW banners on the left.

In the meantime, we hope you enjoy the sneak preview image from the fourth episode of Sundancer's Regret. There'll be many more to come soon...

'The Black Flag' Flies on Amazon Kindle

2011-04-28T13:25:00.000-07:00

Chaz originally submitted his first full-length graphic novel to Amazon's Kindle program back in December, then promptly forgot all about it during that period of the lousiest weather ever, becoming officially self-employed, and doing lots and lots of commission works while stuck in the house.

In the meantime, 'The Black Flag' has shifted a respectable number of copies both on the UK and the US Amazon sites - something Chaz was very pleased and surprised to discover tonight. Now that the Kindle project appears to be bearing some fruit, this is definitely a medium into which Fenriswulf Books will be planning more releases in the future (despite some of Chaz's earlier dismissive comments regarding the future of the e-book reader...well, times do change!)

Channeling the likes of 2000 AD's Slaine through the mythical Irish background of the Morrigan and the Battle of Magh Tuireadh, 'The Black Flag' pushes the notion of a Celtic revolutionary underground through a darkly futuristic vision of the British Isles. Anti-heroine Georgina Buadach Macdubhgaill invokes the myths of the good gods of ancient Ireland to bring blood and battle to the streets of London...and in the process, draws another cycle of history to a brutal conclusion.

Here's the link for UK Kindle shoppers.

And for US Kindle shoppers.

This is the End, My Friend…

2011-04-27T07:26:00.000-07:00

No, not of Fenriswulf Books or anything, but of the long-winded Lulu.com support query involving our missing block of ISBNs.

Seven weeks after the support query was first raised, and last night Chaz received his details as originally requested. While the relief has been tangible and welcome, it’s not encouraging that this simple query took so long to resolve, and seems only to have been accomplished with a good deal of wailing and gnashing of teeth, not to mention prodding Lulu’s support agents, and their public Facebook provile page, with long sharp objects.

So, the arduous mission in to the heart of darkness is over, and a new era can begin: when Fenriswulf can once again publish and globally distribute its current and pending catalogue of new books. This awkward voyage has resulted in Chaz’s original plans to release the new edition of Maranatha on Easter Sunday being completely shredded, but no matter – the book ought to be out in the next few weeks, with its new prequel, Venus in Saturn, to follow soon after (or as quickly as Chaz has figured out how to use Lulu’s new global distribution services).

As such, normal service is resumed!

The Wish and the Will Episode 2: Now Available

2011-04-25T11:01:00.000-07:00

...and it's STILL only £0.99 as well!

In the world of Middengarth, where fairytales and folklore are history, and magic still lingers in the air, strange things are afoot...

Outlaws Jeth Sundancer, Renzo K. Castello and Claudia have been chased out of Middengarth City by the forces of law and order, and now struggle for survival in the harsh realm of the Outlands. Herein, they have to contend with a crusty riverboat captain and his rag-tag crew; a psychopathic First Mate on board a trading vessel and an incredibly ill-fitting corset, all on the road to the 'biggest bank job ever'. Things are further complicated when Renzo & Jeth's old friend, Smiffy Smurkin, takes an instant dislike to Claudia on account of the colour of her hair and threatens their entire operation. How can our hapless anti-heroes hope to throw a spanner in the clockwork wheels of the tyrannical Daemonlords against such continued opposition?

You can download the new episode right here.

The characters now also have their own Facebook page!

Lulu.com Reply...at Last

2011-04-18T15:29:00.000-07:00

Further to an earlier (and rather belligerent) post on this very blog regarding Lulu.com's lack of response to Chaz's ISBN problem (now 6 weeks and climbing), and a few comments and responses on the front page of their Facebook profile, Chaz has finally found someone at Lulu who has been willing to apologise for the delay, acknowledge his patience in this matter, and escalate his query.

That was really all Chaz had been wanting to hear from someone - anyone - at the company, yet it has taken 1 month of waiting, regular emails to their support team and finally the threat of public humiliation in front of Facebook's half-billion users to get a result. But Chaz is happy that at least some movement on the issue has occurred, with promises of the case being put to the top of the queue.

We shall wait and see. With luck, our next major releases: Maranatha (2nd edition) and Venus in Saturn will be out before too long, with Last Rose of Summer to follow. In any case, we'll keep you posted.

P.S Chaz has now removed the earlier 'complaint' post leveled at Lulu's customer service teams. It served its purpose at the time, to vent his frustration in public and try to raise some awareness of the issue, but its time has now passed. And it is now time, as they say, to move on. (Ironically, it also proved the most viewed post on the Fenriswulf blog this year, by far...perhaps our readers enjoy rants and complaints?)

The Wish & the Will Comes Alive on Facebook

2011-04-16T11:52:00.000-07:00

While the silence in the Lulu.com corner continues to be deafening, Chaz is continuing work on the surreal fantasy digital e-book series, 'The Wish & the Will' (which at least doesn't require ISBNs to get out there). The series has already attracted some interest and sold a few downloads, so Chaz is understandably keen to keep the momentum going.

As such, he has recently decided to set up a fully interactive and in-character Facebook group for readers and interested parties:

The Facebook Group is here.

Currently the principal five characters are in the process of bickering among themselves as they struggle to get acquainted with the wonders of social networking, and take each other to task both on matters related to events in the books, and elsewhere. If time allows, Chaz hopes to expand the cast of Facebook personalities to include 'bad guy' individuals and even some of the strange and sinister Daemonlords who rule the fantasy world of Middengarth.

'Surfeit of Mandrake' Reviewed...on Amazon, and Elsewhere

2011-04-11T13:05:00.000-07:00

While 'Maranatha' has been notching up some good press in recent months, that other stalwart of the original Fenriswulf catalogue, 'A Surfeit of Mandrake', hasn't been so lucky in finding reviewers of late. Possibly because anthologies are so difficult to review and sum up, especially ones as eclectic as this which features poetry, drama in blank verse, short stories, artwork, comic strips and a mini sci-fi saga as the centre piece.

However, that's all changed now thanks to the extremely generous and helpful Trevor, over at Bookophile Reviews. True to his every word, he's written a damn fine review and shared it not only at Amazon and his own blog pages, but at Goodreads also (where Chaz and Fenriswulf have a growing presence).

The new 'Mandrake' review is online at Amazon, here. While you're at it, pop across to Trevor's pages and show him some support too! If you have a book you'd like reviewed, drop him a line - he's a great guy to chat with, as well.

The Wish & the Will: Episode 1 Now Available!

2011-04-03T17:17:00.000-07:00

THE CARDS ARE STACKED...

The world is in turmoil!

In the solitary city of Middengarth, the strange and sinister Daemonlords rule the inhabitants with ever-increasing firmness. The great City Clock stands still at one stroke before midnight, and the whispers on the street are that soon the Clock shall strike - to signify an event of literally world-shaking proportions that none could ever foresee.

In the Outside, the untamed lands far beyond the City, a cruel warlord known only as the Moderator kills or enslaves all those who wish a new society free of the Daemonlords and to exist in peace.

But one insignificant human is worrying only about his own skin. That is, until Fate decides to lend a hand.

When down-on-his-luck gambler Jeth Sundancer reluctantly teams up again with old partner Renzo K. Castello to perpetrate the 'biggest-ever bank job', the brainchild of the appealing but mysterious Claudia, he soon wishes he had stayed among the anonymous outcasts in Middengarth's Warrens...

For Jeth Sundancer; sardonic, weary and distrusting of his only friends; the cards do indeed seem to be stacked.

You can download the e-Book version of Sundancer's Regret: Episode 1 right here. 77 Pages, illustrated in full colour. Price: 0.99 GBP.

Read more about the Wish & the Will series here.

'Maranatha' picks up a 5-star Amazon review already!

2011-03-31T07:27:00.000-07:00

It took a while, but it finally happened...some very kind (and happy) reader has left her thoughts on the recently-added Kindle edition. This was a very welcome surprise when Chaz last checked on his presence at amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Maranatha-C-Wood/dp/0955975107/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1301581546&sr

Forthcoming Fenriswulf Fiction…with Freebies?!

2011-03-29T10:07:00.000-07:00

Things haven’t been quiet on the Fenriswulf Books front of late – in fact, they’ve been positively deafening (or at least that’s Chaz’s excuse for not getting enough sleep of late).

While Lulu.com go about the interminable process of trying to re-discover Chaz’s remaining block of ISBNs (purchased in 2008 and now seemingly lost in their cavernous system somewhere, and still no customer support in 4 weeks of emailing and livechat), Chaz has pushed on ahead with 2011’s release schedule as follows:

Trinity Chronicles - Maranatha (2nd revised edition): to be released ASAP
Wish and the Will: Sundancer’s Regret, Episode 1: ASAP!
Trinity Chronicles – Venus in Saturn: scheduled for summer 2011
Last Rose of Summer: Late 2011

Jolly good, you cry. Glad to hear Chaz is so busy and creative. So what about those freebies you spoke of earlier?

Well, we’re seeking “beta readers”, as they seem to be referred to in these circles, or kind people who love reading, with lots of time and their hands, who don’t mind going through the proof of a text and providing constructive feedback and opinion to the author.

If anybody out there would like to take part in this, we’re currently looking to gather opinions on Venus in Saturn and Sundancer’s Regret, ideally within the next 4-8 weeks. Leave a comment here or send us an email and we’ll pop you a proof of the text in PDF format. Your payment, should you wish it, will be a free copy of the finished product (signed, print edition of Venus, full-colour illustrated edition of Regret in e-book format) when all the work is done.

'Maranatha' - New Teaser Trailer revealed

2011-03-10T20:07:00.000-08:00

The old, twitchy black-and-white trailer has now bitten the dust. Chaz decided to reveal his newly-completed full-colour illustrations of the main cast of 'Maranatha' in the form of a new and much-improved teaser for the forthcoming second edition of the Trinity Chronicles novel.

The soundtrack is a little quirkier, and as such fits well with the whole Fenriswulf ethos. (Trivia note: part of the audio was achieved by Chaz himself throat-singing through an echo box).

The new trailer is on show at the bottom of this very blog page. Alternatively, you can catch it right here, on Youtube.

'Maranatha' Finds Another Review

2011-03-07T14:58:00.000-08:00

Thanks to the wonders of Facebook, some of Chaz's new-found friends and associates have proved to be very helpful and accommodating, with a special mention here to Mary and Gerry at Our Book Reviews Online.

Gerry made the effort to contact Chaz beforehand to discuss the book's content and influences, and also seems to have genuinely enjoyed the read.

The full review is on the Book Reviews blog, here.

Maranatha: the Second Coming

2011-03-05T12:34:00.001-08:00

The new edition of Maranatha is effectively in the can, with work completed on the new front cover:

We felt it was about time that Vanessa Descartes got included in the artwork, and now that the interior black and white illustrations of the old first edition have been removed, Chaz saw a prime opportunity to come up with a brand new portrait of the Trinity Chronicles' heroine.

Release date for this new edition is tentatively set for this Easter, assuming our current problem with assigning ISBNs can be overcome by Lulu.

'Maranatha' in the Self-Publishing Press

2011-02-21T14:50:00.000-08:00

Well it took some time, but finally Chaz's campaign to find some serious press for Maranatha is beginning to pay off. The following write-up appeared in the Winter edition of The Self-Publishing Magazine and is reproduced with permission, and without any 'judicious edits':

"...Religion-peppered thrillers are fast becoming cliches these days, and Maranatha immediately suffers by sporting a pedestrian cover with a tagline that sounds more like the fusion of two computer games than an introduction to a novel. Wood demonstrates flair and potential in his writing style and some passages draw the reader in. But this is not sustained throughout the text and clumsy, overly-descriptive passages rear their heads at opportune moments and jar with the edge-of-your-seat pace the novel needs to create to hook and hold the reader.

The presence of pictures is a puzzle as one thing Wood does excel in is the creation of characters. Indeed, the illustrations do push the novel into graphic novel territory, which in turn pushes the text towards a niche genre. Holding onto an understanding of the plot without a degree in Theology can be a struggle at times, but Wood keeps things just on the right side of accessible to the average reader. A lingering, almost voyeuristic preoccupation with the precise details of the violence of the murders in the story does mar things somewhat, and feels unnecessary given that there is a fine line between ritualistic murders and a gore fest.

Maranatha reeks of talent and potential but often finds itself treading water. The cover does not stand out or entice, which is a shame as, nestled on the bookstore shelf, it could easily be missed or passed by. Clumsy phrasing disturbs the flow of the thriller, but there is method to the madness of the plot and, if you like your thrillers to have that touch of the ritual and 'outside normal', then this is the book for you."

Chaz was very happy with that, deeming it fair on all counts. The presence of the illustrations and the issues with the cover are of course documented in this very blog (all the way back to late summer '08) when he was making the first steps into the big world of publishing, and was not at all confident in his own abilities as a book cover artist. Now over 2 years down the line, and Chaz has just completed his second official book cover commission (Dr. Frank English's Magic Parcel children's series), and far happier with his abilities as recent postings of the forthcoming Venus in Saturn cover will show. With the core text of Maranatha now over 5 years old in places, he has also learned a trick or two when it comes to writing in that time.

As a result of the above, Chaz is now in the process of revising Maranatha for a new, second edition, this time with no interior art, a full-colour pictorial colour, and Trinity Chronicles visual identity to tie it to Venus in Saturn and the forthcoming sequels. The text will also be given an overhaul and this new edition launched around the time that Venus goes live, in March or April this year. He's long wanted to make changes to the original edition since it was first released, but with the strict rules governing what can and cannot be altered under the same ISBN decided to leave it until he could resolve all the issues in one go. And Troubador's review has helped to do just that.

He's also now considering quoting the last line of the review on the cover...

The Self-Publishing Magazine is published by Troubador. Review content (c) 2010 Troubador Publishing Ltd., used with permission.

The Origins of the Trinity Chronicles

2011-02-18T19:58:00.001-08:00

Prior to the release of the next book in the Trinity Chronicles series (Venus in Saturn), Chaz has been working on a piece to set the scene for the whole background to these labyrinthine and layered books. In this short story, Beneath the Lion, we are taken back over ten millennia to outside the walls of the Garden of Eden...and a date with destiny for a certain notorious fallen angel. Heavily influenced by the forbidden lore of the Watchers and the Nephilim, Beneath the Lion also helps to set the scene for the third book in the series, and which sees the ultimate resolution of the complex mix of themes and conflicts which have entwined themselves through the past twelve thousand years of human history.

For Fenriswulf's Followers - A Springtime Freebie

2011-02-04T14:24:00.001-08:00

Taking a break from editing Venus in Saturn, the next book in the Trinity Chronicles, Chaz thought it might be a nice idea to offer a free sample of the text to Fenriswulf's visitors and followers.

Simply browse to the e-Book page here and download the PDF. The free 63-page sample contains the first half-dozen or so chapters of Venus as things stand at present. Some of the work is still in 'beta' format, so any feedback or opinions at all will be gratefully received.

Warning: some disturbing and adult content lies within.

Venus in Saturn: Cover Preview

2011-01-31T16:43:00.000-08:00

Among other art and design projects, Chaz has still been finding valuable time to coax the final draft of Venus in Saturn towards a conclusion. With so many plot threads it's taken a long time to get there, but official release is now slated for this Spring.

Here's Chaz's finished artwork for the cover, front and back, featuring heroine Vanessa Descartes (in the background) and the sadistic 'Destroying Angel of Dunkelsburg', nazi war criminal Dr. Else von Hinterstoisser. As with all of Chaz's works, however, the lines between good and evil are somewhat blurred...as our tormented protagonist soon finds out to her cost:

As a further taster, here's the back cover blurb text in full:

"Days before the turn of the Millennium, it is Vanessa Descartes' last criminal forensic case and seven years before the events of Maranatha, where Vanessa first met Dr. Khalamanga and Professor de Carranza.

A brutal psychopath stalks the streets of Whitechapel, echoing the crimes of Jack the Ripper, 111 years before.

The police are scratching for clues. Only Vanessa believes she understands the true meaning of the case from a series of bizarre occult, historical and scientific anomalies that stretch their
dark shadows over 10,000 years of human history.

As she infiltrates a cultish church based around the mythology of fallen angels, she begins to uncover even more terrifying details of a past she has tried to forget for so long...and one
that she never knew she had, until now.

How can she convince the police that the trauma she experienced as a child, and the strange propensity for madness and suicide in her family, are essential to the investigation?

As she struggles to reconcile her lingering guilt over the tragic suicide of her elder sister with the baffling twists and turns of the case, Vanessa is forced to examine the depths of her own mind in a shattering descent into psychological horror which drags her to the blackest depths of human depravity, madness, and purest evil...and beyond..."

Maranatha Makes it to Kindle

2011-01-15T03:01:00.000-08:00

It took a while to get the official Amazon-branded e-book out there, but Chaz has now released Maranatha in Kindle format. This edition is branded with the 'Trinity Chronicles' series title, foreshadowing the release of Venus in Saturn later this year and the second book in the series:

for Amazon.co.uk customers;

for Amazon.com customers.

The whole practice of uploading and conversion takes a little longer than that of Lulu.com, which is pretty instantaneous, but was still completed inside 48 hours.

Promoting and marketing e-books seems to be somewhat easier than pushing print copies, and Chaz will soon be turning his attention towards certain online groups and communities devoted to this very practice. Details of his experiences in this field will follow in due course...

Fenriswulf in the Self-Publishing Press

2011-01-12T17:17:00.000-08:00

While in the process of seeking reviews for Maranatha, Chaz started talking to Sarah at the Self Publishing Magazine, a UK-based periodical devoted to all aspects of this very subject. While the review may be forthcoming in future, Chaz also submitted an article on Maranatha and his decision to go it alone with it through the medium of Fenriswulf Books - a personal case study in self-publishing, if you will - which saw print in a splendid 2-page spread in the recent autumn issue of the magazine.

Content from Self-Publishing Magazine issue 16

Packed with wholesome advice and useful information, the Self Publishing Magazine is well worth tracking down, either in print or online, here. They also provide highly-rated publishing services with Matador Publishing.

Carving the Bloody Eagle: A History Horrors Article

2011-01-07T16:42:00.000-08:00

Jeff Swenson, over at Freethunk.net, is posting a new series of articles exploring the darker side of history: 'History Horrors'. Here's Chaz's first contribution to the series, with a look at Viking-style vengeance...The Blood Eagle. Writing and researching some of this stuff really brings tears to the eyes!

On Marketing One's Own Books

2010-12-29T18:15:00.000-08:00

In the last month or so, Chaz has been making new online friends, seeking (and finding!) reviews for Maranatha (remember that?) and also, considering the vast and, at times, rather intimidating world of marketing - specifically, how, and how not to go about it.

Having done the easy bit (write and publish a book), the self-published or small-press writer then decides that a quick plug somewhere like Myspace or Facebook with a hyperlink and a begging note attached will get sales. Typically it will follow this kind of formula:

"Buy MY book! Look at MY stuff! Vist MY website!"

To which the neutral, casual viewer could be forgiven for replying: "Why?"

This is little short of spamming, and usually about as successful.

That question "Why" is one of the biggest, and stickiest problems, of any kind of marketing campaign - how to convince an apathetic somebody that their life experience will somehow be enriched by the end of whatever sell (hard or soft) you're about to unleash upon them. That's if they stay around long enough to get to the end. (One way to ensure this is, of course, to make your marketing tag-line exceedingly short - but that takes skill, and practice.)

Film studios, publishers, record companies and such spend very large sums of money to people whose job it is to do nothing but answer that "Why?" question for thousands and millions of their potential customers. Authors are by their nature not generally pushy salespeople. Yet in the field of self-publicity, they will have to assume some aspect of that role in order to get their works to the widest possible readership.

It's really a case of psychology. How many people in all honesty would really buy something from someone who was basically begging you to do so? "It's great, you'll love it, honest". A certain coldness, detachedness, can be desirable in this situation. Look on the work as a product, not your personal beloved baby. Decide why it's worthy, why you spent so long on it, and how well it ought to sell. Get inside the head of your ideal customer (not reader - customer) and give them a quick sentence or two advising why they really must buy YOUR book, look at YOUR stuff, visit YOUR website. Appeal to their emotions, to their mind, to their desires, to their fears, even. Hint at a great mystery to be solved, an unthinkable conclusion, a dastardly conspiracy, of success against all the odds. There's a reason why many successful writers produce formulaic work - they found a way to give readers what they were looking for in a certain genre.

Look closely at how succinct and punchy most adverts are. Be the customer, that indifferent, apathetic slob who couldn't care less whether you were a writer or an air-traffic controller. Then tell them why they should care.

As an example, here's a quick tag line I constructed for a hypothetical ad campaign for Maranatha:

Through the dark, distorted mirror of history and religious heresy, it is the dawn of the Second Coming...and the Fourth Reich.

Or, to elaborate: So, it's a dark book - great for anyone who likes gritty, graphic, sinister stuff. It's got historical background. Good for people who like something that's got a bit of research behind it. It's got heretics in it. It's got Jesus, and nazis (and they're always popular subjects for all kinds of fiction). And it sounds like people are messing with the past in order to really mess up our future. How can they be stopped? Will Jesus return and save us all, or is it He and His name that is being manipulated by bad guys? What sort of heroes can stand up to such strange unpleasantness? Why is this happening?

...and so on. I only gave that five minutes' thought, but I'm sure you could all do a lot better for your own book. After all, it's your book - you must love it to have come this far - so share that love and enthusiasm.

Try a role-playing situation:

"Buy my book."
"Why?"
"It's amazing."
"Prove it."
"You have to read it first."
"No-oh. I'm not one those who was born every minute."
"Look, have you ever read X written by Y?"
"Yep."
"Well, if you liked X, then you'll love this!"
"OK. Tell me more."
"It's a rollercoaster ride of emotion, and a physical adventure from the plains of South Africa to the highlands of Scotland...all in the name of love!"
"Sounds vaguely interesting."
"And you'll never believe how it ends...but you'll love the journey that takes you there, a journey you'll wish you had taken yourself!"
"Fair enough. Where can I see some samples? I'm a miserable cheapskate, you know."
"Just visit this website. You can buy a book there too. But don't take my word for it. You can read some reviews of people who loved it."
"Awesome. I'll buy an e-book now, then."

That wasn't so hard now, was it? So we went from desperate to sold in less than ten steps.
You may not always get the sale. But you surely won't get anything if you don't pique the interest of the casual browser, give them a reason to do more than glance over your first half-dozen words and move on to the next random website or distraction. And these days, you have to grab people from the word 'go' - web browsers have attention spans shorter than hey look up there, a helicopter!

A Very Geeky Christmas...

2010-12-26T12:47:00.000-08:00

Jeff Swenson, over at Freethunk, recently commissioned Chaz to produce a 2-part festive edition of his ongoing tech-support webcomic series, Geekz, which is usually published every Monday at 2Laugh.com.

There's an interesting interview there too detailing the origins of the strip, its characters, and development. Part 2 will be following soon.

Here's the link.

You can follow the Geekz series every week at: 2Laugh.com.

'Waiting for Anais' - a midwinter horror tale

2010-12-19T13:08:00.001-08:00

Another horror story commission from the good folks at Freethunk, this may be one of the darkest things I've ever written. It was conceived as a story set around Christmas which wasn't remotely festive, and as bleak as the season and its weather can be (and looking out my window right now, believe me - it doesn't get any bleaker).

Here's the link.

The inspiration came from the accompanying illustration, something of a random sketch I started a few months back. It was nice to have a reason to finish it off.

The Sword of Lochglen continues...

2010-12-16T17:53:00.001-08:00

Chaz & Frang's surreal Scottish satire sees the release of Issue 2, both in print and in downloadable digital format. Wherein our hero William Stanley MacFaddyen realises he has fallen hopelessly in love with his tutor, Dr. Jeanette Mackenzie, and finds a finds a serious obstruction to his romantic ambitions in the form of her stoic and snobbish husband, Gregor.

Deciding to use the grim facts of his life as fuel for his fantasy fiction, MacFaddyen casts those around him as the heroes and villains in his epic novel, 'The Sword of Lochglen'. As reality begins to blur, life begins to get very complicated indeed...

You can pick up a copy of Issue 1 or 2, or read more, at the Lochglen homepage.

A Change of Tone...

2010-12-13T17:39:00.000-08:00

Made an executive decision to "jolly up" the Fenriswulf home page tonight. After two and a half years of sombre black with splashes of red and white, Chaz decided that enough was enough and that it was time to let a little light shine through these wolfish pages for once. After all, it's dark enough outside as Midwinter and the Solstice approach...is it any wonder that the most popular and widely-celebrated festival of the Western calendar is held only a few days after the shortest day of the year? Even Muslim friends at work buy into the cheer and warmth which is so necessary at this bleakest point in our eternal voyage around the Sun. Decorations and seasonal greetings are universal, and speak across all boundaries.

All of which was a rather highbrow attempt at explaining why Chaz didn't want his beloved website to give the wrong impression to any passing visitors. Black can be very oppressive, and upon reflection, the choice of supporting colour scheme (white and red) does have unfortunate political and historical overtones, though none of which are at all relevant to either the public works of Fenriswulf, or any thought or overriding philosophy behind the scenes. The original red/white/black concept was chosen purely as a striking graphic design element. However, again, upon reflection, its connection with Old Norse pagan imagery was perhaps somewhat unfortunate - especially when such concepts and ideas have often been distorted and forced to serve sinister motivations in the past (which is itself something of a recurring theme through the Trinity Chronicles).

First impressions can linger, and some viewers can, and will, look beyond the innocent and accidental to find hidden meanings where none actually exist. Of course, those who know Chaz personally and who have read his works know that no explanation is required; the two heroes of the Trinity Chronicles are a Nigerian, and a Spaniard of mixed heritage (Jewish, Muslim & Catholic) - not in any cynical attempt to be "politically correct" but to underscore Chaz's eternal desire to promote the 'underdog' to heroic status, and show up the inherent lie within all racialism - that there is only one race, the human race.

After all that, to conclude: we hope you like the new colour scheme! Any suggestions or comments will be more than welcome.

Networking Works!

2010-12-08T10:05:00.000-08:00

During a busy old week of being snowed in, Chaz decided to use all that time in the house to do some real networking online, meet like-minded people and even try to find a couple of book reviews. Result: success, in spades...

Facebook has been a bit of a revelation lately. At first very sceptical about its use for an unknown writer, Fenris managed to make some very interesting, and extremely helpful and kind contacts (you know who you are!), with the result that both the blog and the books are now getting some attention. In return, we'll be doing what we can to promote anybody via this very page, or on Facebook, with links, banners, or anything else that can be conceivably useeful.

Also highly recommended is the site Goodreads.com where authors and book fans can meet, talk, share views and texts.

On top of all this activity, Chaz has still found time to re-edit Venus in Saturn (again), keep on top of illustration commission works, and a new un-festive short horror story may also be making an appearance before too long. Keep watching this here space ;)

Venus in Saturn: Sneak Preview

2010-12-01T18:45:00.001-08:00

Something a little different: a taster of some content from Venus in Saturn, the soon-to-be-released prequel to Maranatha.

Wherein Inspector Jack Carpenter expresses his frustration with his top freelance CSI investigator, Vanessa Descartes, for going above and beyond the call of duty...

“You’ve gone and done what?”
Carpenter threw his pen to the desk in exasperation, though Vanessa knew he would have preferred to have stabbed it into her eye at that moment.
“Look, someone needed to get close to them.”
She had guessed that Carpenter might have had some quiet reservations about her activities that morning, but the volume of voice was far in excess of what she had ever feared. “Now, you can’t get any closer than being on the inside, can you? I won't be billing you for it. Call it freelance undercover work.”
“No. I'll tell you what I call it: sodding up our enquiry. You realise I can’t do anything for you in there? Any possible future sting or inside job we could have had planned, is out the window for as long as you’re involved with that shower? And if you make one slip - one wrong word - and blow your cover, then they could do a moonlight and then we're all stuffed! Or even worse – they suss you out, and you're the next one to end up gutted like a bloody kipper.
"Now think, Vanessa. If they’re involved, then we have to approach very carefully. And if they’re not involved and it’s just a coincidence, you’re gonna get yourself all stressed out over nothing. You can't be neutral and rational in there, because you have an emotional stake in all of this. Worst case scenario, anything you pick up gets thrown out as inadmissible, and there'll be no justice for Sandra.”
“Then why can’t you set up something, using me as a decoy?”
“Jesus, what did I just say? I know we all think they’re involved, in some kind of way. Whether they had anything to do with Sandra's death is up for debate, but you’ve already convinced yourself that they were responsible for what happened to your big sister as well.”
She shrugged, jerked her head. Not so much of a nod, more an acknowledgement of his words. “I’m still hoping I can be proved wrong.”
“But you’d prefer to be proved right. Because it gives you a rationale, someone to blame. Right?”
“Wrong. There's a connection somewhere in all of this, Jack, and I intend to find it. It combines me, my sister, this case, and this unorthodox religion on some level and if I don't get a better idea of where they're coming from, we may never solve this one. I've had weird shit happen all through my life when I never asked for it. It's time I went looking for some answers, to all of it.”
Carpenter's gnawed fingertips played a slow funeral march on the edge of his desk.
"You know, Vanessa, you're brilliant. You really are. You've helped me get results on every case I've worked with you in nearly two years. But sometimes, you really piss me off. Now get out, and don't come back until I call you, or you have some facts so hard, they could crack diamonds. Okay?"

Work-in-progress illustration for the above scene:

All content (c) C. Wood, 2010.

Of Swords, and Other Tools of Mayhem...

2010-12-01T15:54:00.000-08:00

The second issue of 'The Sword of Lochglen' comic series is now just about to be released! The cover is a true collaboration between Chaz and Frang, with Frang pencilling the whole thing and doing much of the inking and colouring. As a result, 'Lochglen' now has its own dedicated webpage, located here. Currently we're only awaiting the arrival of the first set of proof issues from Lulu.com (which with the current weather could take us into 2011...though I seriously hope not!). Once the proofs have been approved, then the direct link to buy a download, or a print copy will become active on the Lochglen homepage.

Speaking of which, it appears that Lulu are current working on some new APIs to improve the digital commerce side of their services - out of all the new improvements, the addition of a 'shopping cart' for creators to place on their websites looks like the most useful so far.

In other news, Fenriswulf has now made it onto Facebook. The profile page is here, where we're looking forward to meeting lots of interesting people, and sharing opinions on comics, books and other things.

The Black Flag Finally Flies

2010-11-08T19:14:00.000-08:00

After the near-disastrous attempt at producing my turn-of-the-millennium darkly futuristic graphic novel in print a year ago, I thought it was about time I had another go at getting it out there.

The story of Irish urban guerrilla Georgina Buadach Macdubhgaill is finally now available, as a digital download. I'm staying clear of print this time due to the problems the printers seemed to have in rendering the subtle pencil artwork, so at least now it can be viewed and read exactly as it was intended to be.

You can read more and buy the download (in PDF format) here.

One of these days I may still get around to creating a complete digital 'remaster' of the whole thing, suitable for the printed page...but not before I invest in my first A3 scanner.

A Halloween Horror...

2010-10-16T17:01:00.000-07:00

Mr. Jeff Swenson (who helped me get my IT Support webcomic online) recently commissioned a pulp horror story from Yours Truly as a Halloween treat for his Freethunk website.

It was a lot of fun to get back into commissioned writing again, especially something that was designed to be short and punchy like this. Entitled "Witch Fire", it's currently online for you to read here. (The illustrations on the page are mine, too.)

While writing this piece a couple of weeks ago, it occurred to me that composing a decent short story (at least, in the horror and ghost-story genres) is not so dissimilar from writing a joke, or a gag. If the punchline doesn't work, nobody's really going to care how well-written and beautiful the prose is up to that point, if the final lines just unravel themselves and flop off the page in a flaccid anticlimax. I thought about the classic works by M.R James, Le Fanu, Poe and Lovecraft, where often the whole dynamic of the thing is channelled in towards the last paragraph, the last few lines, or even the last half-dozen words - the needle-sharp point at the end which pokes the reader and makes them cry "Owch!". It was one reason why I decided to go with a triple-whammy ending on this one, because it is Halloween, a season of excess. I hope at least in that respect that I succeeded.

Perhaps I had some of those classic old Hammer House of Horror episodes floating through my mind too, where the final scene is built up to have the viewer chittering over the end credits, or even a Twilight Zone quickie.

I'll have more prose up on Freethunk in the future too, it appears. More on that nearer the time...

The Secular Trinity...

2010-10-12T16:44:00.000-07:00

After a bit of trial-and-error, I succeeded this evening in adding a new dimension to the Fenriswulf site. Take a quick glance at the top of the main page, just underneath the title bar, and you'll notice some new hyperlinks.

The first of these has just been added, leading to an information page of characters featured in Maranatha and the other forthcoming books in the Trinity Chronicles series. It also features sneak preview of some of the illustration work which will feature in the new books. I figured that the Fenriswulf page ought to be a little more forthcoming in promoting the book (and subsequent series) which kick-started the whole project in the first place, so now the heroes and villains of Maranatha have their very own page.

Next up will be a page for plot synopses, and any other interesting trivia and bits-and-bobs that the casual browser may find to be of interest. Suggestions, of course, are more than welcome.

Spring Cleaning...in Autumn?

2010-10-03T14:41:00.000-07:00

It's getting darker, colder, and Fenriswulf's Chaz is spending a lot more time indoors again. With that comes the availability of more time to spend on books and writing. The "Trinity Chronicles" (begun with Maranatha) is still shaping up very well, and the prequel "Venus in Saturn" now looks set for a 2011 release, with the first of half a dozen interior illustrations recently completed. The third book is being written concurrently, and that too is coming along nicely.

Somewhat inspired by a fellow writer, Chaz has also trimmed down this very Fenriswulf site with a view to adding more content relevant to books and prose. The site had begun to gain some fat, and as a result, the comic-book and more lowbrow content has migrated to its own dedicated home page, led by the scruffy kings of cutting-edge underground toilet humour, Arf & Mo.

"Surfeit of Mandrake" reviewed

2010-08-14T14:54:00.000-07:00

Ant, over at the rather good sci-fi and fantasy book review site has just posted his review of "Surfeit of Mandrake". All in, it's a fair and balanced one, given the eclectic and wildly uneven nature of the material.

The full review is for you to read here.

Start Press

2010-07-24T20:51:00.000-07:00

(Or, Better Late than Never?)

In between art commissions, Chaz finally found the time to query one of his clients on good sources of reviews for self-published and small press books. A fair old list was put together and not before time - in almost 2 years, neither Maranatha or Mandrake have had much in the way of publicity, apart from a few column inches in the local newspaper and some self-penned press releases back in the day (however, some kind buyer or passer-by has recently awarded our Lowbrow Pinup Art Calendar a 4/5 star rating...)

The delay was mainly due to other ongoing projects getting in the way, and Chaz's total distrust of any company or individual requesting payment for book reviews - which also happen to be the ones most likely to show up in internet searches on the subject ("Professional marketing packages for YOUR book from ONLY $499! Use your credit card NOW!" screams the typical blurb on such sites, and their associated spammy/scammy robotic emails which find their way into the Fenriswulf mailbox on a daily basis).

So, some reviews for Fenris' two full-length books ought to be forthcoming before too long. Watch this space...

Dundee Comics Conference 2010...Been there, done it...wore the t-shirt!

2010-06-27T19:52:00.000-07:00

A long day for Mssrs. Chaz and Frang began early on Sunday morning, and involved a frustrating argument with Dundee city's increasingly annoying system of 1-way traffic and strategically-placed roadworks, seemingly engineered to make their timely arrival at the opening of this event in the Dundee Literary Festival calendar as difficult as possible. There were times when reality felt as if it had been substituted for an interactive episode of TV's "Spaced", with comic geekiness and eternal obstacles intertwining to create a rather surreal journey to the Dundee University tower building.

Chaz left Frang in charge of setting up the stand after a brief and breathless Bisley-esque conversation before dashing off to move the car to a less illegal parking spot (which turned out to be 10 minutes' walk away...)

Following this inauspicious opening, Fenriswulf eventually staked out their merchandise stand at the far end of the main entry hall, sharing space with George Cordeiro's Black Hole comics store table, and a couple of other stalls selling relevant merchandise. The main point of the event for us had been more networking than profit, as well as meeting some very interesting people, and all of the above was happily accomplished. George sold a few of his self-penned "Far Out" comics titles (with art by Frang), and also agreed to promote Fenriswulf as much as he could - by taking on stock for his shop, as well as distributing business cards to customers throughout the day.

Chaz caught up with - surprise, surprise - Neil Cunie, onetime sales manager of Dundee's Borders store, who had been instrumental in getting Fenriswulf's first products out there to the public in the earliest days of the project. Frang attended a talk while Chaz chatted happily with the chap behind the "Fine & Dandy" DC Thomson licensed merchandise stall - and in the process learned much about the complex business of licensed products.

While the event wasn't as well-attended as maybe had been hoped, all those who were there seemed to enjoy themselves and all of the talks were educational, funny, and interesting. Alan Davis gave his personal angle on drawing comic art for the American market; a very animated Dez Skinn shared many amusing anecdotes related to the birth of his early editorial projects with IPC and UK Marvel in the 70s; and Pat Mills contributed some fascinating personal details of the differences between working in the Franco-Belgian, and the British, comics markets.

Friendly books signings concluded the day, which also included a genuinely-heartfelt tribute to the late local Beezer comic artist Bill Ritchie, and everyone adjourned to the DCA art bar for after-conference relaxation. Frang and Chaz spent the rest of the evening in discussion over the next phase of the Fenriswulf campaign for independent writing and comic art, with plenty of new material on the horizon. Products haven't been mega-selling yet but then nobody expected them to be - at this still very early stage in the game, brand recognition and networking are really the prime goals. Profit is mere vanity and was never even figured into the equation, though the day will come - not before too long, with any luck - when it does become a serious goal. Rome, after all, wasn't built in a day.

The Fenriswulf Corner

2010-06-14T06:26:00.000-07:00

Only a few weeks now 'til the Dundee Comics conference. My man Frang has secured us a spot on a local comics dealer's stall...but some serendipity came my way today when I found this rather handy rotating display stand dumped literally outside my house.

Cleaned up and customised in a couple of hours, it was pressed into service and fits the full range of Fenriswulf products really well! Also hoping that my custom URL t-shirt should attract some interest on the day.

In other news, I've this week had to renew the domain name "fenriswulf-books.co.uk". Has it really been two years since I kicked off this very website on the back of a single tentative release, "Maranatha" ? So much seems to have happened since then. In the meantime, here's to another two years of creativity and independent publishing!

Arf & Mo...are Coming!

2010-06-09T19:21:00.000-07:00

Now available: the first issue of Arf & Mo - anarchic animal antics featuring the titular duo of Chaz & Frang's warped creation: Arf, a bloated beer-swilling German Shepherd and Mo, his psychotic and twisted white lab rat buddy. Together, the pair have lurched through a series of bizarre, satirical and downright crazy lowbrow adventures over the last ten years, and this compilation brings together some of the best moments of their cartoon careers to date.

The original Arf & Mo was privately printed in 2001 and barely saw the light of day, but now they're back, in a big bumper collection that no fan of scabby, underground toilet humour should ever be without. At 40 pages, including a new foreword from creator Chaz detailing the misfit duo's origins, it's a must!

The Geeks are Out There...

2010-06-03T09:52:00.000-07:00

...thanks to a couple of buddies across the water (well, one in the US and one in Israel).

A high-profile home for my gang of IT support clowns has been found at last: here.

My man Jeff Swenson (he of "The Cynic" fame) has taken on colouring duties to scrub up my low-fi scribbles into something a bit more presentable, and it looks like these will be published on at least a weekly basis. New stuff due at the start of next week.

Watch this space, as they say...

"Last Gas Pump" Now Out of Print...Thanks, Lulu

2010-05-28T09:58:00.000-07:00

Busy old week.

While desperately trying to knock together final editions of "Lochglen" and get "Arf & Mo" issue 1 re-issue, I thought it would be an idea to update and revise the "Last Gas Pump" issue 1 and take some copies of the X-rated spoof along to the Comics Conference next month.

Until I saw the price shoot up mysteriously from £3.99 to £5.59 as I tried to complete the update.

"Obviously a mistake," I thought. Tried numerous updates, but the price hike remained. One communication with Lulu support later, and seemingly: "We recently repriced many of our books. Our most popular books have had a drop in price...by reducing the price of these books we have had to also increase the price of some specific sized books. Unfortunately the books you have revised have been affected by the price change and the price you are currently seeing is accurate."

Ah, so I see. With no warning, update, or any other kind of announcement...in other words, fairly typical of the kind of service I've come to expect now.

Which means that as of now, the "LGPotL" is officially out of print (£5.59 is a ridiculous price for a 28-page colour comic, even before adding creator commission and punter's postage & packing) and is now downloadable only - at least until I can find more favourable print costs elsewhere.

Dundee Comics Conference 2010: A Prelude

2010-05-13T16:18:00.000-07:00

Much business followed a get-together with Fenriswulf collaborator Frang the other week. The hot topic of conversation was comics, and what we should be doing to get those that we have out there.

Arf & Mo is still hot on the agenda, but currently long-term collaboration project "The Sword of Lochglen" has finally seen print. Book 1 "Bejants & Blethers" of this quirky Scottish historical/fantasy satire is now available to buy online (see banner on left!), with Book 2 to follow later this year. Lulu didn't disappoint this time, and delivered a spot-on proof of Book 1 with sharp black and white interior printing, and a very good job on the front cover which does justice to Frang's painted artwork.

So, with the 2010 Dundee Comics Conference just a few weeks ago, we decided to get ourselves out there and put ourselves about at the event.

Highly professional Fenriswulf business cards were knocked up in good time by the highly-recommended Cards Made Easy, while I also banged together a US comic-format folio art book, showcasing some of my more professional art pieces from the last couple of years (just in case any talent scouts happen to be hanging around at the bar after the Comics exhibition!)

Local shops in Dundee are likely to be badgered before too long with regards to stocking some Fenriswulf products, as Frang & I work together to raise our local profile and branch out from online sales back into bricks and mortar stores, following the sad and very unexpected demise of Borders.

Actually going out into the outside world and mixing with human beings, rather than the electrons which clump together to form the Internet, can be a bit daunting for head-in-the-clouds hermit writers and artists, especially when it involes pushing their work in people's faces and saying "Look at this, isn't it funny?", but what better way to kick off that process than mixing with like-minded comics fans in a relaxing environment? Especially when the legendary Pat Mills of 2000 AD fame will be in attendance...

For more info and tickets on the Dundee Comics Exhibition, see here.

Beware Geeks Bearing Gifts...

2010-04-21T11:02:00.000-07:00

...especially if it's any of this bunch of dysfunctional IT support clowns.

The idea of a webcomic based around an IT support desk came to me a couple of years ago but it was only last year in 2009 that I started to do something about it, and only now that I've found a (albeit temporary) place to display them publically.

As anybody who draws comics knows, it's really 80% writing and 20% artwork. Most of the real work is in thinking, writing, fine-tuning a few words for the best possible payoff. If the gag, the joke, the concept are great, it doesn't matter how lame the artwork is - two of the greatest cartoonists of the 20th Century, Schulz and Thurber, had minimal technical ability.

If the joke is a dud, or the writing lame, I don't think it matters how eye-catching the art is, the strip will fail. As such, in this series I'm seeking to focus my energy on honing something that is written as succintly and with as much character as I can pack into three frames. This means that the art is more minimal than I would normally prefer, but that is also a bonus - it means I'm not spending countless hours drawing the thing, and on a different level, the recycling of stock scenes and characters throughout helps to enforce the sense of repetition and familiarity of life day in, day out, in an office environment, a sense of tedium which perhaps only the off-the-wall personalities of the characters can penetrate.

As to why I decided to write about a bunch of geeks on a technical helpdesk, this was in no way related to my own personal experiences of working beside a bunch of geeks on a technical help desk. Reality could never translate into the world of Tomasz, Arnie, Mungo and company, which is more akin to a little-remembered 1990s TV comedy show I used to enjoy a lot, titled "Dweebs".

For sure, there are plenty of other IT-related strips out there. But this one has one difference: set on an email-based helpdesk, many of the gags are text-based rather than sight, or dialogue, based. This is where the writing comes in that I mentioned earlier, though I will be mixing it up with a variety of humour styles.

In any case, it's early days yet but enjoy these free samples, I hope. I may post more in future here if a more high-profile home can't be found in the short term...

Back to Books

2010-03-30T15:18:00.001-07:00

Well, it's been a while but with heavy commission work, illness and day-job upheavals over the last couple of months to contend with, I am, just about, back to books again. Specifically the prequel to Maranatha.

A friend on Deviantart recommended a fine book entitled "How to Write a Damn Good Novel", and I picked this up at the start of the year. It's not a big manual, it isn't stuffed with the usual "Thou Shalt/Shalt Not" statutes that most books in this field try to ram down the writer's throat. It gives concepts and advice, and illustrates them amply to show why this advice should or should not be followed. It was rather heartening to go through many of the chapters with "Maranatha" in mind and mentally tick many of the boxes which James N. Frey presents. So, in a roundabout way, it got me back to "Venus in Saturn", the prequel, which has remained a bit stuck since last year due to the enormity of the story arc, and the need to build up the concluding backstory which concludes in the sequel, "The Keys of Heaven".

Slowly but surely, I'm beginning to see the emergence of the finished first draft. And in the meantime, because I've been on a bit of a roll artistically, took another shot at putting together a new cover for "Venus":

Venus in Saturn WIP 2 by ~Lord-Retsudo on deviant ART

It still needs work but I'm a lot happier with this one now. And it helps that my digital art ability has improved enough for me to be confident enough to put it out on a book cover. But paid client commission work can have that effect!

Cafepress deliver the Goods

2010-03-01T15:37:00.000-08:00

I ordered a few bits and bobs for myself from the Fenriswulf Cafepress.com store the other weekend, and they arrived today. It's always nerve-racking when you first open a package of something you've created this way - suddenly you have crises of thought: will the printers have messed it up in some weird and totally unfathomable kind of way? Was my original source file formatted properly, and of a high enough resolution? Or will the quality overall be a bit disappointing - just a general kind of "bleargh" ?

I needn'e have worried. I'd used Cafepress in the past for a couple of T-shirts, one of them designed to promote the "Last Gas Pump" comic (available here), and their quality really impressed me. To be honest, the art has printed beautifully, on really high-quality glossy stock. Sure, they're not cheap - and I wouldn't like to have to use them regularly for stuff that wasn't a one-off or a present - but they definitely do deliver the goods, and don't seem to outsource to unreliable third parties the way Lulu do (that said, I'm still with Lulu for the meantime - they continue to hold the entire Fenris back catalogue to date).

The print of the mythical Princess Andromeda really blew me away. It's the first time I've ever seen digital artwork of mine reproduced profesionally, and I can foresee a few more before too long. It's almost worthwhile considering a Premium cafepress shop, to be able to sell an entire series of such things...maybe once I've been paid from my current book illustration job, and have some money to invest. I'm also looking ahead to getting some Fenriswulf-branded postcards or notecards produced for my next (as yet unscheduled) trip to a new bricks-and-mortar store to try to offload some produce...

Amazon A-No-Go

2010-02-27T13:11:00.000-08:00

Well, as expected I didn't get selected for the second round of the amazon.com book contest, but that was hardly a surprise. A rush job at best on my part in order just to get the full submission in on time, from looking at the number of next-round contestants it would appear that selection was based pretty much on who could come up with the most intriguing 300-character storyline pitch.

In other words, this part of the filtering process is more about marketing than anything literary, where a snappy title and a few buzzwords are probably all that could be required to fox the panel. Good luck to those who made it through, but I do get the feeling that an awful lot of rather good stuff has probably fallen by the wayside simply because the writer wasn't quite able to come up with the kind of advertising tag-lines that seem to be required nowadays.

Which has made me think, that the marketing side of FB hasn't quite been allocated as much time and attention as the works deserve. It's all very well knowing that the stuff is out there for the world to see - and copies are selling, now and again - but I do still need to do more. Everyday I get a Spambox filled with junk from US-based businesses trying to screw cash out of me for book promotion, guaranteeing me reviews in high-brow publications and exposure to trade: all for a price, of course (in USD, via credit card). This is the backside of promotion, where it's assumed that somebody vain and rich enough to publish their own book is also willing to be ripped off blind for the possibility of "getting it noticed", for a price. I have no doubt that "the Trade" are perfectly well aware of such companies and how they operate, and I don't believe for a minute that they treat many, if any, books which come via those channels on the same level as real-world published works - in much the same way that all known "Vanity Presses" are blacklisted by stores worldwide. (On a side note, Vanity Publishing - paying a third party, usually on the strength of exuberent promises, to publish and promote a book used to be equated with self-publishing - simply going it alone. In the last 10 years, the advent of DTP, DIY web-publishing and POD services have helped to distinguish between the sharks, and the writer-creators).

With more works planned for later this year, and FB also looking to branch out into other media, marketing is going to be big on the agenda. How much promotion and marketing is enough? To be honest, there's probably never enough. There are always new avenues and openings to be explored, though finding the balance between being a laid-back lazybones and a pushy nuisance probably takes trial and error. I feel awkward about pushing my work at people I know, and slightly intimidated doing the same to total strangers. It's not easy, though I do understand the background theories of sales and promotion - possibly because it's my works that I'm pushing, for my own benefit, not somebody else's. Had I been busier with the promotional side of things up to this point, things may have turned out better with the Amazon contest - I would already have had a half-dozen juicy pitches, tag-lines, and 2-line soundbite Tweets or Twits or whatever the hell you call the things people post on that website, all good to go and geared up for grabbing the attention.

But nobody said going it alone was easy...

Of Books, and More

2010-02-20T16:02:00.000-08:00

Taking a break from commissions and artwork for a moment (okay, for a whole day...), Mr. Chaz decided to get back to basics and get some more Wolfish "product" out there. The old Cafepress.com shop has had a new batch of stock added, including greetings cards featuring lowbrow comic characters Arf and Mo in their first piece of merchandise their debut small-press comic of 2001 (at the Fenriswulf shop, here). This is but the beginning of what Chaz is intending to be Arf and Mo's renaissance year, with the duo's comic strips repackaged and rebound for a whole new audience (insofar as there was ever an old audience...). Art prints and other items featuring one-off characters and concepts are also up for sale there, and more will be added in months to come. The limitation of the free cafepress store is that we can only produce one design of any particular item. If sales allow, we will consider looking at a premium package but at the moment, overheads need to be kept to a minimum. I'm a bit bummed that cafepress don't have lower prices, but I'm still shopping around for the best long-term deals.

This month we notched up another couple of US sales of "Maranatha", not long before entering that same book in Amazon.com's Breakthrough Novel Award, a contest for unpublished and self-published works. It may not make the grade as all the supporting material for the entry was written and thrown together the night before the closing date, finding out about it only by chance while cleaning out my spam email folder. Still, never having previously considered entering any such competitions in the past, it gave me the idea of actively looking for more in future.

In other news, Mr. Frang, Fenriswulf artist and contributor to the "Surfeit of Mandrake" anthology, has joined Chaz on his commercial commision adventures due to the arrival of an unexpected, but rather welcome, deadline. So everyone has been busy with artwork of late, and the end of March may see a little relaxation and the commencement of some serious work on the Arf & Mo volume for production.

Round-Up of the Year

2009-12-20T08:17:00.000-08:00

The recent and very unexpected failure of Borders has, of course, left its mark on Fenriswulf's current production schedule. Gone (but not forgotten) is the ashcan project - small freebie (or low-priced) paperback samples of our catalogue to date, designed to sit by tills in similar locations in-store. Once we find another bricks-and-mortar outlet for books again, this project will return. (It is in fact complete, and good to go straight to the printers - but as with all print-on-demand, I will get them printed when there is actually some possibility of demand...)

Mr. Chaz has been happily busy with drawing and illustration commissions since the Spring of this year which is why not much has been happening on the new books front, and this looks likely to continue well into next year too. Fenriswulf in general is not so much on the backburner, but rather branching out. There's a possibility of new personnel appearing on the scene before too long also, so watch this space.

A new comic strip, originally conceived as a traditional 3-panel webcomic, is also due to make an appearance somewhere in the very near future. A couple of publishing collaborations may also be on the cards in the New Year, but with nothing definite as yet, we can't say too much at this juncture. More info, of course, will be revealed as and when we have it, however, with Fenriswulf becoming at least as art-oriented now as book-oriented, we're in the process of considering some projects based on visual art - such as those listed in the experimental Cafe Press store - for example, a series of T-shirts, greetings cards, or calendars (which is looking like the most likely option so far).

In the meantime, have a good holiday and we'll see you all in the New Year for what we hope to be a busy and productive 2010.

Bad Day at Borders

2009-12-04T08:39:00.000-08:00

Wednesday night: I had the rather unpleasant task of stopping off at Dundee's Borders store for the final time. I'd heard that they were closing down very soon and were selling off stock, so had decided to reclaim all of FB's remaining in-store copies before they vanished completely off the face of the planet. The huge "Closing Down! 50% Off!" banners had attracted browsers like vultures to a dying buffalo - I have never, in the past year and a half of regular visits to the store, seen it even so remotely busy.

After I'd navigated the knots of bargain-guzzlers, I asked the staff ( pleasant and polite as always, despite the circumstances ) if I could remove my stock. The whole business was over in a few minutes - a cancelled receipt signed, a chat about the general crumminess of the timing of the closure 3 weeks before Christmas, and I left with thanks for their support so far, and an armload of Maranathas and Mandrakes. One or two seemed to have been sold, but I didn't have the heart to hassle the staff to find out for me - I only hoped the buyers were happy with their purchases.

A strangely dispiriting experience, all told. One shouldn't feel sorry for huge global chain stores, who have systematically wiped out the smaller independent and family-run shops - and I don't, really. It's the ordinary people at the sharp end of it all which makes you feel sorry. At the end of it, I have a stack of books that I can split up and redistribute elsewhere, but they're all looking for a new job at the most expensive time of the year, should an unlikely last-minute buyout not occur.

What it does mean for FW is that I should probably get off my proverbial in the New Year and seek some smaller, more varied, stockists for the back catalogue, as well as the forthcoming new titles. We shall just have to wait and see what 2010 brings...

Bad News for Borders and Bookstores Everywhere

2009-11-28T08:08:00.000-08:00

I was very unhappy to hear the news during this week that Borders had filed for administration, having hit a very rocky trading period:

Link to UK Reuters

Of course, Borders, with their policy of stocking and promoting local writers and publishers, have been the main high street outlet for Fenriswulf Books to date. The view that the online book stores such as Amazon are responsible for this slump is probably not inaccurate - online stores have no overheads, don't need to pay expensive high street store rent, electricity, or pay staff to stand around all day when business is thin. You can order just about anything from Amazon, and not have to queue up to buy it, or wait 6 weeks for the retailer to import it from abroad.

The problem is, if Borders suffer, what about all the other bricks and mortar stores? If this was the start of a trend, then it's a rather depressing one. I'm sorry, but for all the hype over Kindle and paper-free books of the future - for all the convenience of online shopping - there's still no substitute to browsing through endless shelves of interesting book covers in a real shop, looking through real books at beautifully-printed pictures or illustrations. Sometimes a book can seem fascinating and an essential purchase until you flick through it and realise it's not really what you expected - you can't do that with most books online.

I view the whole electronic book reader concept as little more than a gimmick, and an overpriced one at that. It's really no contest, like trying to compare the experience of watching a movie like Gladiator on a portable DVD player with a 3" screen, against viewing it on an HD home cinema system with surround sound. OK for sitting on a long train journey, but pretty worthless as a long-term replacement.

On a personal note, it's a pretty lousy time of year for the 1000+ UK staff to find out that their jobs are at risk. Especially, from my point of few, those few in my local store whom I've had such great assistance from, and rapport with, over the past year or so. I do hope this isn't the end, and that Borders will continue to stay around, in some form or another, for the foreseeable future.

I certainly don't want to see the day when I have to rush in to reclaim unsold copies of books before a final closing down sale.

Slow But Sure...

2009-09-29T14:47:00.000-07:00

...is how things have been Fenris-wise lately. Chaz has been (and still is) insanely busy with art commissions and other projects, but is currently working on an "Ashcan" project to promote the current, and forthcoming, Fenriswulf catalogue. In the comics industry an ashcan is a small, usually cheap or free sample issue designed to gather interest for a new series, and it seemed like a good idea to apply that concept to a "free sample" to be placed in bookstores. Based on the format of sample chapters of new novels given away free with Sunday newspapers, a sample of chapter from "Maranatha", a few short stories and comic strips from "A Surfeit of Mandrake" are already in place, with possible inclusion for the "Last Gas Pump" and "Sword of Lochglen" graphic novels.

The first and most obvious store for these would be the local Borders store, with others possibly to follow. But Fenris is still very much alive and gnashing...

Just Checking In...

2009-07-11T17:49:00.000-07:00

Yeah, it's been a long while since I posted, the reason being (still) due to commission work having to take precedence. Paid work is always a priority, I find! And speaking of getting paid, I finally managed to reach a settlement with Borders over my outstanding pay cheque - yep, the same one I submitted an invoice for back in January - since head office don't seem able to. I've been lucky that everybody in my local branch has bent over backwards to help me out on this venture, with polite and totally professional communications at all times.

I hooked up again with my man Frang to talk about the next project for Fewnriswulf. A compendium of all the "Arf & Mo" strips that were written and drawn over a period from 1998 - 2005, which will be collected into one big daddy volume. The complete unpublished Issue 2 of the titular duo's adventures will form the backbone of the book (in graphic novel format), and will include sketches, one-off character pieces, portraits and other nonsense for the discerning lowbrow funny-animal underground comic book fan. This one will take some time to pull together, and I'm still wondering quite what to do with the Black Flag. I realise now that drawing a graphic novel in pencil was a pretty dumb thing to do, but I didn't know any better back in January 2000. Hell, back then I was still getting over the fact that the world hadn't come to an end...

Due to the projected timescale on the Arf & Mo book (which I don't expect to see completed before the end of the year, and will also have a corresponding website), I've given some thought to what we could bring out in the meantime. Work on "Venus in Saturn" is coming along beautifully, with multi-laytered plot threads weaving a story that grows more complex every time I work on it, but again, that's a loing-term plan. I don't particularly want Fenriswulf not to be able to put out new product for the rest of this year, so possibly another medium other than printed books could be next.

In a possibly related note, my band Jeremiah have just self-pressed our first full-length demo CD. Watch this proverbial space...

Catching a Breath...

2009-05-24T18:02:00.001-07:00

...between commissions, writing, and er, new commisions...

After a month or so in Cuba, Dundee Borders' sales manager returned full of enthusiasm and I had a good chat with him about taking on comic books in future. Graphic novels with ISBNs are the way to go it seems, so I'll be looking to farm out the "Black Flag" project to a new publisher as soon as I have the time. He also helped me restock the shelves with copies of "Mandrake" and "Maranatha", and I was content to leave it at that for the meantime while I press on with the business of writing, and drawing for fun and profit.

Meantime, here's a sneak preview of the proposed cover for "Venus in Saturn", the prequel to "Maranatha", which links to my Deviantart.com account. The book is coming along nicely and has taken some startling twists and turns of late, setting up the backstory for the sequel nicely. The mind-stretching complexity of it all does, however, make me wonder if I'm capable of writing anything that isn't epic, cosmic and labyrinthine in equal measure:

Venus in Saturn: Cover WIP by ~Lord-Retsudo on deviant ART

Last Gasp for Lulu

2009-04-17T05:57:00.000-07:00

I received an email from a loyal fan of the "Last Gas Pump on the Left" comic the other day. He was pleased with the product and really enjoyed the story but was mystified by the presence of blank pages in the middle of the book. He'd sent me photos explaining the problem, and I realised then that I've now had enough of Lulu's outsourced cowboy printers to abandon them completely.

It's impossible for me to understand how a 28-page PDF file can be turned into a 32 or 36-page book with blank inserts, unless somebody at the local print depot was physically plugged into the mains power supply while setting up the print job. Even then, it's unfathomable.

As this is now the fourth serious issue I've had with Lulu, it's time to move on and take my business elsewhere. The last problem, that with the "Black Flag" pencil art printing too faint to be usable, I can almost, just about, write off - although the fact remains that identical artwork in the "Mandrake" book has printed perfectly across two separate batches.

It's not like I'm making a huge profit at Lulu either. Although a full-colour interior comic would normally be prohibitive for a tiny indy comics outfit to produce, a cover price of £3.99 is as low as I can go while still actually scratching a few pence profit for myself (in this case, about 37p per copy). Add the cost of three useless proof copies, review copies and shipping, and the "Last Gas" project has made a terrific loss to date. However, it has its fans from the days when it existed as an online strip over at Drunkduck, an enthusiastic amateur website for free webcomics (which also currently hosts the complete "Black Flag" graphic novel), and projects such as this were never about the money, anyway.

I've submitted my formal complaint to Lulu regarding this botch so my customer can be provided with a product that isn't a complete disaster, and in the meantime am considering my options for future comic works. With the "Black Flag" graphic novel still good to go, plus forthcoming comics projects "The Sword of Lochglen", "Gruoch" by Frang Mchardy and "Arf & Mo" by Frang and I, Fenriswulf will be putting a lot of comic printing business to Lulu's replacement very soon. We've already discussed getting comics into Forbidden Planet stores and other local comic shops.

The two companies who stand out at present are

Comixpress, and Ka-Blam. Ka-Blam have no set-up fee but seem overall more expensive, while Comixpress have a set-up fee (unlike Lulu) but have a correspondingly lower individual price on single issues.

For me, and Fenriswulf, I think Comixpress have the edge when it comes to print on demand comics. They have a decent attitude, though it seems both companies have their fans, and their good qualitties. A very informative web page: Comixtalk describes it in better detail than I have time to do so here.

Looking at the comments on this page, I'm also glad to see that I'm not the only one affected by the sloppy quality of Lulu's European (Spanish-based) printers. I'll begin talks with my assistant art director (Frang) soon, and once my customer has received a copy of the "Last Gas" comic he actually wanted, it'll be time to move on to the next print company.ka-

Intermission...

2009-04-14T18:52:00.000-07:00

Well, things went a bit Pete Tong last month, finally. Unfortunately, at the worst possible time. After author Lesley-Anne & I scrambling around like mad thing for a week or more trying to knock her "Medieval Medicine" book into perfect shape, we pushed through a bulk order from Lulu to get to us in time for her historical talk on the 27th. Unfortunately, a strange and not-very-well-explained Lulu-induced FUBAR concerning the front cover put paid to that project.

I felt pretty rotten, in fact. Hated myself for having to tell Lesley the news, especially after all the effort we, and one of her friends, put in to get the text fully up to scratch. Complaining at Lulu wouldn't get us the cover fixed, nor the order in time. Of all the things to mess up, it had to be the one project that really mattered, the one that I had someone else counting on me for...and so on.

As if that wasn't enough, my printed proof of the "Black Flag" graphic novel was a loser, too. The interior inks printed beautifully but the pencilled artwork...well, to say it looked like a bad photocopy is being polite. My complaints were heard but not upheld. I didn't have the energy or the will left to fight it after the failure of the medicine book, though I couldn't understand how "Mandrake", which contains many pencil illustrations, printed out fine across several batches and "Flag" (which strangely, was sent from Spain) fared so badly.

No matter. I'm currently seeking a new printer for the "Flag". All this, plus some on-the-side commission work (and a birthday) explains why I haven't posted here in 5 weeks. I needed some time out from printing, editing, and publishing. However, being positive, I'm determined to bounce back. A long chat with old-time collaborator Frang at the weekend has rejuvinated my interest, and a new comic-strip series will soon be unveiled.

Added to this, some rather startling news from Borders. While continuing to chase up my royalty cheques, I was informed by the way that apparantly they have had some customers in recently, asking about my next book, and suggesting that we discuss my next title later in the month...

...which would be wonderful if I had actually completed it. "Venus in Capricorn" is still in production, but I've been inspired of late, and currently have over 160pp of prose finished. The overall backstory is still developing and I doubt I'll have anything of any finished quality ready by the end of the month when Borders' sales manager returns, but it's a target to aim for, nonetheless. After all, the first draft of "Maranatha" was written in 4 months flat.

The intermission is now over, and I've just picked up the baton again. Keep watching this space...

Taking Five

2009-03-05T18:04:00.001-08:00

Busy, busy old week I've had of it so far...and it's only Thursday night.

Last weekend and most of this week's evenings were spent fretting and working away on Lesley-Anne's manuscript and PDF files for the "Medieval Medecine" Book. It occurred to me at the weekend that we only had 3 weeks to order a sample copy, wait for it to arrive, check it over, order a bulk order, and wait for that to come...all before the 26th of March. Cutting it very very fine, and after some rapid-fire emails to and fro, we finally agreed to go for the final order tonight without seeing the sample first. It's a case of cross fingers, cross legs and hope the printers (and the Royal Mail) do their bit. Lulu's delivery options have had us rather bewildered, with new options I've never seen before and prices far in excess of anything I've ever paid. But the hard work has all been done, to my (and Lesley's) satisfaction, so all we need do now is...wait.

A trip to Borders last night didn't locate my slightly late royalty cheque from Head Office, but I did notice that "Maranatha" had sold out - again - and we seem to have shifted most of the "Mandrakes" too (2 left on shelves, from 5 or 6 copies delivered). I spent most of Saturday shredding "Maranatha" and have now submitted the 9th revision of the text...with luck it'll be the last, too. Every time I picked up a copy of the book lately and read a paragraph, another glitch jumped out me and made me cringe. So I decided to eliminate all those little problems, some of which definitely have been caused by very late cuts to the text, others by rushed revisions that I didn't have time to proofread properly. Some few, no doubt, have remained simply because having read the entire thing several dozen times over, the eye and the mind tend to skip certain portions of text. I'm a bit peeved at myself for having released books out there with those tiny (but irritating) glitches. But the new edition will put paid to all those annoyances soon. It leaves me, however, with five print copies of the old flawed edition which I'm now rather unsure what to do with.

Last week, flush from the "Last Gas Pump" review, I threw together another little video trailer for that project, which now joins the "Maranatha" clip at the bottom of this very page. I recorded the cruddy slide guitar work completely live and unrehearsed - having aimed at a "retarded Ry Cooder" kind of sound. I think I nailed the first half of that, at least.

As a result of all of the above (as well as my little-mentioned, but still time- and energy-consuming day job), I am now officially Taking Five in the company of some flat cider and a Velvet Underground DVD.

Cheers.

Onwards and...well, Onwards

2009-02-26T19:44:00.000-08:00

Fenriswulf continues to gather momentum (and he's a big lad, so beware. Swallowed Odin back in the day, so he did).

Soon to be released is the new, 1-volume edition of my graphic novel "The Black Flag". Originally published in four issues in 2005 by Brigid's Hearth Press, I had always wanted to collect the four parts of the cycle into a single volume edition, and now that wish is about to come true. A dark, satirical and pretty brutal piece, it's a work I've never quite managed to let go of, which is possibly ameasure of quite how much the characters and the story meant to me. In any case, I'm very glad to have the means now to get the "Flag" out there in an accessible form, and as polished as it can be without me spending six months working on a "director's cut" ultimate edition - unfortunately I had to cut a lot of the concept sketches and storyboards from the art gallery section to keep the page count within Lulu's limits for a saddle-stitched book. But it will keep.

In other, more radical, news, Fenriswulf is also just about to branch out into non-fiction. I'm currently taking a break from working on "Medieval Medicine" by the Cure-Craft Carline, an informative textbook on the working method of medieval doctors, herbalists, and healers. The curative powers of many plants and substances are described at length, as are the legends attached to them and all in all it was a perfect opener for the FW non-fiction catalogue. Release date for this manual will be the end of March, '09, to coincide with a public talk by the Carline herself.

Finally, I managed to secure a review of the first issue of "Last Gas Pump on the Left" over at Horrornews.net. Even though there's not much 'horror' in it, I was still happy to win a favourable and fair write-up.

It's always a nice feeling to see someone else's views on your work. Makes it feel somehow more "legitimate".

Sold Out

2009-01-22T13:14:00.000-08:00

The title refers to Borders' stock of "Maranatha", by the way. Not my artistic principles or integrity (I'm sure I have some, somewhere...)

Yes, that little fact took me quite by surprise last night, as I managed to catch their sales manager just before he left the store (harrassed and rushed, as always, yet still with time to be corteous and helpful). Lucky I also happened to have a couple of copies on my person as well. I'm to deposit an invoice for monies due as soon as I can, most likely this weekend.

"Mandrake" is also out on the shelves too, possibly with a couple of sales notched up already, as I noted a few missing. As such, a new bulk order is on its way. I don't want to flood Borders out with product, so a few copies will be getting plugged at the Dundee Contemporary Arts centre, also. When I have the time.

Now Open for Trading!

2009-01-17T12:11:00.000-08:00

With my new bank account finally set up today, I decided to act upon previous promises to release some Fenriswulf merchandise to the general public. The store is now open, over at cafepress.com. Currently we have a couple of designs - ol' growly chops himself (as I now refer to our wolfish mascot) on a dark t-shirt, and the "Last Gas Pump" front cover artwork which also features the tagline as a backprint. More designs will go up in due course, featuring characters and art from Fenriswulf publications, and other designs which will be in the same vein as our printed works.

Let's face it, it was always going to be only a short step from "Let's publish our own books and comics" to "Let's print our own T-shirts, mugs, mousemats and boxer shorts". I've used cafepress in the past and was always happy with the quality of their work, so I ordered a couple of shirts up for myself. Because one can never have enough T-shirts. At the last count, I think I own about 90 or so. There'll be more to come.