Announcing FEEDERS, my next original novel, coming in 2025!

Simon & Schuster / Gallery Books is publishing my wildest work yet.

Feeders, is a darkly satirical novel about a teenage girl who discovers a social media app that rewards only the most insidious human behavior. It will be out sometime in 2025 through Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.

You’ll be hearing more about this in the future, but for now here is the Publisher’s Marketplace announcement:

I’ve always wanted one of these write-ups and it took eleven years to get one. Which is what I’m writing about today. I didn’t know Feeders was going to be announced this week, but it’s the perfect segue for a broader topic.

Back in October, I gave a talk at a local art center to a room of up and coming authors. They asked questions about trad publishing versus indie publishing, how to market yourself in a world of increased distractions, and how to get started shopping your work in the first place.

The discussion took me back to when I completed my first novel, Feral, around 2010. At that time, I was eager to publish with Leisure Books, whose slick-looking paperbacks dominated the horror section of my local Borders (RIP). Authors like Brian Keene, J.F. Gonzalez, and Ed Lee (to name a few) — I consumed their work on a steady diet throughout college and those gnarly paperbacks were a direct inspiration on my earliest books.

The demise of Leisure / Dorchester has been well-documented, so I’ll just say the company imploded as I was preparing to submit my debut book, meaning I was back to square one without a clue what to do. And while I doubt he remembers this, it was Brian Keene himself on a message board called Horror Drive-In who took the time to nudge me along by offering a few suggestions.

Man, that was cool of him.

It taught me something about taking a minute for those currently in the place I used to be, which is why I was glad to chat with that writers group and share what I have learned…

This week, a fellow indie author posted on Facebook that they were hanging it all up, taking their books out of print and going off the grid. The reason? They’d published several books and hadn’t been able to get where they wanted to be in their career. It reminded me of something I said to one of the authors in that writers group a few weeks back:

Never give yourself a timeline.

During a Q&A at the New Dawn Arts Center. Photo courtesy of Amy Kukta

If I’ve learned anything in the world of publishing it’s that you need to get good at waiting. Stuff takes as long as it takes, and you’re the last person who gets to dictate time.

I’m not attacking that author. I really do hope they will reconsider removing their books from circulation. Because it takes as long as it takes, and everybody’s goals are different.

We never stop trying to make “something” happen, but my something and your something are probably not the same things. Whatever you’re after, whatever inspired you to first feed words into a processor, if it’s just a matter of wanting more readers/more recognition, well, stopping now isn’t going to get you there.

There are, of course, other considerations that might force one to withdraw from a writing career. No judgment or superiority here. Others might learn along the way this life isn’t for them and again, no judgment. This path is hard and lonely and everyone who once did it or currently does it deserves respect.

But I wanted to write this article because of my conversation with those authors and readers back in October and I’ll reiterate something else I told them, what I always tell other writers because it’s worth repeating:

Do not compare yourself to other authors.

Not their output, their success, their accolades or criticism. Nothing. You’ll only drive yourself crazy. These comparisons inspire a lot of author burnout.

“Everyone’s successful but me…”

Social media has a nasty way of making that feel like the truth.

We’re barraged every day with the announcements and accomplishments of others. It’s okay to admit these things can make you feel a bit anxious or depressed. Not out of jealously or resentment, but because we’re hard on ourselves. These things make us look inward and question our own growth, make us a little less comfortable with our place.

That’s normal.

When I first started writing novels, I craved the validation of others. Specifically, people who’d been in the game longer than me. In some stupid way, I thought, “I’m not really doing this unless others say I am.”

Silly stuff. Eventually I got over it, but that urge to be “accepted” was real for a long time.

Social media is always forcing us to measure ourselves against others. At least try and be conscious of that because it’s easier to defend against the negative thoughts if you are.

Doesn’t mean you’ll automatically purge yourself of your neuroses, though! Just means in all likelihood you’ll find other things to be beat yourself up over. We’re all works in progress that way.

On most days, my biggest competition is myself. For example, one of my books consistently performs better than the others and I’ll sit here pouring through analytics like there’s a pattern to be located. A formula to replicate.

But of course there’s not.

What there is, however, is plenty of things to be neurotic about. My point is, we should stop being so hard on ourselves. It’s a tough business at every level.

Thank you for reading! If you’d like to read more, my latest release is Graffiti Tombs, a hallucinatory horror noir set in the crumbling New York City of 1984. A claustrophobic, spray-painted ghost story that follows three characters in a game of cat and mouse inside the city’s most haunted locale.

Consider giving it a read and thank you for helping me to spread the word:

Until next time, go easy on yourselves!