Survival of the Fittest

On 10/10/10, the dead will walk again.

This is World Zombie Day's tagline on their website.

This is a day for zombie walks across the world. United, the undead will lurch through various streets in various cities and probably scare the daylights out of any passersby.

As I noted in a previous blog entry, this is also the day that my novella, Hub City Survival, is to be published. In the wee hours of this morning, the book was completed. The editing was finished, the formatting done, the information compiled and all acknowledgments written. I am now considered published.

That feels pretty good.

I went to bed at 4 AM, feeling almost too excited to sleep. I managed anyway, and despite my late sleep, I got up at around 9:30 and took a look at the page, ready to start spreading the word of the book's release. To my surprise, I had already sold two copies!

Today also marks Canada's Thanksgiving, and how better to celebrate it than by giving thanks for being able to live to accomplish a dream of mine? I may not be an established author, and this may be one of the only journeys in the realm of self-publishing that I take. But this is definitely a good start in the direction of my lifelong goal.

I hope to one day have an actual publisher and distributor, but I decided to self-publish Hub City Survival for a few reasons. For the first, it is a novella. For the second, regional horror fiction is somewhat of a niche market, and I really think I'd have a lot of difficulty finding a publisher for it. For the third, I already have an established audience from publishing the story online as it was written. I would hate to make any audience members feel as though they had to purchase the book in order to finish reading the story, so I decided to add a few things at the end of the book as a bonus, rather than stopping the story online and stabbing my readers in the back for the sake of money.

I don't expect this book to become a sensation. The fact that two people have purchased my book already means more to me than I could even say.

For those of you who are interested, you can purchase the book here. The book contains artwork by fans and a bonus side-story that I didn't publish anywhere online. I wanted to make readers feel as though they were getting something extra.

Until next time. Thanks for reading, and happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Canadians. To the rest of you, I hope you have an enjoyable World Zombie Day. Try not to get bitten!

K.