Five months out
INCARNATE ARCs have arrived, can chaos be far behind?
It’s funny: you never know how a book is going to be received. That’s what makes putting out a book a gamble. It amazed me when I started how much of an appetite publishers seemed to have for it. That’s the difference between commerce and working in government, I guess.
At five months, things (finally) start to heat up. The galley is put up on Netgalley and Edelweiss, sites that makes ebook versions available to people in the business (booksellers, librarians, influencers). You cross your fingers and hope that your book gets great reviews, which gives your publisher some idea how the book might land. So far, reviews have been awesome:
The meeting with Putnam’s marketing and publicity teams is coming up. We’ll brainstorm, I’ll hear their thoughts regarding a tour, I’ll give them a list of ideas for things like swag1 and which authors we might partner with at events (a LOT of horror novels coming out around the same time as INCARNATE).
The thing is, all of it is subject to change. It can all be adjusted upwards (yay) if, say, it starts getting starred reviews in the trade press or (miracle of miracles) it gets picked up for one of the big book clubs. It can go the other way, too (boo) if something bad happens, which I don’t even want to speculate about.
Since I know everyone is interested in the Hollywood side of things, I will say we’ll be going out on submission soon. I’ll let you know if we get any nibbles.
THE HUNGER ebook is on sale through May 16 for the low, low price of $2.99. All platforms! Now’s the time to snap it up before, ahem, some big exciting news.
One of the editors of THE BIG BAD BOOK OF KAIJU made this fun fun fun trailer!
And you can pre-order the anthology here. Coming August 2026.
Events
May 16 at 10:15 am I’m speaking with Christina Henry at the Gaithersburg Book Festival in Gaithersburg MD.
Odds and Ends
If you missed the panel I did with Becky Spratford, Tananarive Due, Jennifer McMahon and Rachel Harrison for Wake County Public Library during Women in Horror month, you can catch it here.
Did you know that Bouchercon, the annual big mystery and thriller conference, puts out an anthology for every event, and I’m going to be the guest editor of next year’s anthology! Bouchercon is coming to D.C. in 2027 and there’s no better time to go if you’re from DC/MD/VA. Click here for more info on Bouchercon and click here to register for 2027.
I have these sweet stickers, pictured above, but am thinking of getting silicon wristbands, white imprinted with “incarnate” in pink. What do you think?
The cover of the Fiend still is one of my favorite book covers. So deliciously creepy. Loved the book, too!
Congrats! Can't wait to read it (and give a 5 star review!). Are you attending Thrillerfest?