Here’s a copy of my newsletter from April 16th, 2024. Sign up via my website to get newsletters directly to your inbox (and remember to check your Spam folder for the confirmation email when you sign up!)

Hello fiends!

Moving is stressful as fuck. Holy crap, friends, I haven’t moved house for 16 years and the last time I did it was from a two-bedroom apartment to a house only a couple of hours away in the same state. This time, I’ve just moved from that house (with 16 years of accumulated shit) into a new house not only in a different state, but overseas as well. Still Australia, but to Tasmania, which is like moving to a different country, really. The Bass Strait is 450km across between Geelong in Victoria and Devonport in northern Tasmania, which is the route the ferry takes. I drove the 850 km to Geelong with my dogs then took that ferry after weeks of packing up the old house, throwing away stuff we didn’t want any more, cleaning, fixing, and more. My wife did an amazing job of cleaning and repainting lots of stuff to leave the old house in as best shape as we could and now it’s on the market. Fingers crossed for a good and quick sale. But after all that stress, what a relief it is to finally be in our new place.

It’s bloody lovely down here in Tasmania. We’ve wanted to move here for years and finally stopped talking about it and took the leap. It’ll take a while to settle in, but I’m so glad we did. And in case you’ve been wondering why it’s been a while since the last newsletter, well… now you know.

In the meantime life has been progressing in spite of us. There’s a few bits and pieces to share here. Firstly, and very exciting, is that pre-orders for my new novel, Blood Covenant, have started. At this point you can only pre-order the paperback direct from Cemetery Dance Publications or the Kindle from Amazon. Other stores will follow presently and the release date is officially May 24^th. It’s all very imminent. I’m really excited about this release and hope you’ll give it a go.

Here’s the official blurb:

Whatever happens, don’t bleed.

What should have been a breeze of a bank heist for James Glenn and his crew goes violently wrong, forcing them to flee, blood-stained and angry. They stumble onto a remote lodge that doesn’t open for another month – a perfect place to lie low until the heat’s off.

Except it’s occupied.

The Moore family, just arrived to prepare for the season, are taken hostage by the criminals, but not without bloodshed. And when blood gets spilled, something ancient notices. Something malevolent. Something ravenous.

Their only hope is the youngest Moore, teenager Rueben, outside and unseen when James and his gang arrive. It’s up to Rueben to get help and save his family, but the influence of the ancient evil is taking a toll on him as well.

And here’s the page on my website dedicated to the book, where you can read the first three chapters for a taster. Those pre-order links are live there too and there’s also a Goodreads button, so please add it to your Goodreads shelves if you’re keen.

Nothing works better magic in publishing than word of mouth, so please tell people about this book. And second to that is pre-orders, so if you are able to, a pre-order helps enormously. Thank you!

In other news, my novella from last year, The Leaves Forget, has been nominated twice in the Aurealis Awards. Twice! It’s a finalist for Best Horror Novella and Best Fantasy Novella. It’s a thrill to score those nominations and the all the shortlists are simply packed with amazing talent, so check out everything there for some good reading.

And on the awards front, my story “All the Eyes that See”, which was published in Cosmic Horror Monthly (issue 42), has been nominated for an Australian Shadows Award for Best Short Fiction, which is also a solid thrill. Again, check out those jam-packed shortlists for a plethora of great reading.

Fingers crossed on all counts there.

As for what’s happening now and in the future, my new novel is with my agent right now, so I’m looking forward to some feedback on that before too long. And the one before that, which is yet to find a home, will probably be my next big project. I had a chat with my agent about that book and how I might rewrite it a little bit to make it more appealing to publishers. I’m a bit daunted by the task, but I will tuck into it with gusto because I am a fucking professional.

Before that, however, I have a couple of short stories I’ve been commissioned to write, so I think I’ll probably tackle those first. Staying busy as always.

What I’ve Been Enjoying

With the move and all the subsequent mayhem around that I haven’t been reading and watching as much as usual. However, I have been slowly working through the American Horror Story franchise. I fell out of watching those some time ago and decided I needed to catch up. I recently wanted AHS: Roanoke, which was a clever idea and pretty well-realised. I almost stopped watching because Kathy Bates’ accent was so atrocious and you only find out why about halfway through. I’m glad I stuck with it though. That was season 6. Season 7 was Cult and that had loads of potential. The problem there was that it felt like it was written by committee and stayed on for too long. If it was only about 8 episodes it could have been amazing, but it was just dragged out too far. I’m about to start in on season 8, Apocalypse. We’ll see where that goes.

As for reading, I’ve been catching up on more Charlie Parker thrillers. I bloody love this series by John Connolly. There’s something like 20 books in the series and I’m up to about 15 now. I get the audio versions read by Jeff Harding, who does a brilliant job. Highly recommended.

Right, that’s about it for me for now. Sorry I’ve been quiet and I’ll try to get back onto the roughly monthly schedule of newsletters again now as things settle down.

Take care of each other and especially of yourself.

Al

BLOOD COVENANT pre-orders are now live at Cemetery Dance. You can grab yours by clicking right here. Pre-orders make a huge impact on a book’s release, so if you’re keen, please jump in. It gives the publisher confidence in the book and that can mean a great marketing push. And it’s best for the publisher and me if you order direct from them. Please and thank you!

You’ll also find the Kindle edition at Amazon if that’s your preferred flavour. You can find that here.

I really hope people get behind this book, and I can’t wait for it to be out in the wild.

Screenshot

I had a great chat with Mike Davis of the Lovercraft Ezine. We talked about about social media for creators, about small-town horror, about my books, and more! Find it all here:

YouTube: https://youtu.be/F-kT3HCfMfI

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/…/tips-on…/id1044839323…

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5Qy28wStyoHenOGE97Yf9j

Download: https://lovecraftezine.libsyn.com/tips-on-social-media…

This is something that comes from movies, but I find it really useful for books too. Everyone’s heard of the elevator pitch, right? The idea there is that you explain your book in the time it takes to ride an elevator a few floors. So if you’re at a party or you suddenly meet a big Hollywood producer and you get the chance to explain your book, you need to hit ’em hard and fast. Distill your novel down to its absolute core. It’s shitty and hard but it’s really useful.

For example, the elevator pitch for my novel Devouring Dark is:

A supernatural assassin, whose power is slowly killing him, gets caught between a corrupt cop and a gangster boss, who both want to use him for their own benefit. He thinks he has nothing to lose until he meets someone else, with a power just like his, except it isn’t killing her.

Or the elevator pitch for Sallow Bend:

When two girls go missing from the small rural town of Sallow Bend, everyone starts looking for them. Even the carnival folks, recently arrived and prime suspects, pitch in. When the girls are found, everyone celebrates. Except one man. Caleb Jackson seems to be the only one who sees that something else has come back with the girls, and it’s deadly.

One more? Elevator pitch The Gulp:

The isolated Australian harbour town of Gulpepper is not like other places. Some maps don’t even show it. And only outsiders use the full name. Everyone who lives there calls it The Gulp. The place has a habit of swallowing people.

Some of these you may recognise are very similar to, or direct pulls from, the back cover copy. The blurb on the back and the elevator pitch are often very similar.

But none of those are a tag line. A tag line says a lot less, but simply captures a vibe. Think of some famous movie tag lines:

Alien – In space, no one can hear you scream.

The Thing – Man is the warmest place to hide.

The Truman Show – On the air. Unaware.

You get the idea right?

So these days I really like to use a tag line for my books. It’s really useful in this age of multimedia and especially social media with limited characters available. And it’s great for hashtags, to keep track of stuff. It’s also really useful when I do signings. I always personalise a signed book, and I usually write a little message too. But I started noticing some things on Instagram and places like that where people would compare what was in the book and I saw a couple of complaints that some people didn’t get as long a message as others. I felt bad! Sometimes I have more time when I’m signing. So I decided I would start using the tag line instead, So now I write:

For [Person]

[Tag Line]

Signature

If someone asks for something else, I try to accommodate, of course. Anyway, this brings me back to the point of this post. I was having a nightmare coming up with a good tag line for my new book, Blood Covenant (out in May!)

Those examples above all had good tags:

Devouring Dark: Embrace the darkness.

Sallow Bend: It’s happening again.

The Gulp: Welcome to The Gulp (or sometimes I write above the title “Don’t go to…” and with the sequel, The Fall, I write “Prepare for…”

But I was really struggling with something good for Blood Covenant. Then last night it came to me:

Blood Covenant – Whatever happens, don’t bleed.

And that also gives me the hashtags:

#BloodCovenant #DontBleed

So now I’m excited. I can use those tags on any promo for the book and I have something to write when I’m signing. The cover is going to look amazing and we should have ARCs available any day now. I’m looking forward to May 24th.

What do you think? Does the tag line grab you?

If you’re in the Wollongong region, I’m teaching a writing workshop on March 30th for the South Coast Writers Centre (the workshop is in Coledale). Pace, Tension, Action! All the details at the link.

https://events.humanitix.com/pace-tension-action-with-alan-baxter 

Just a quick note to let folks know that my novel Devouring Dark, the Eli Carver novella series, and my short story collection Served Cold are all currently out of print. Hopefully this will only be a short-term situation and we’ll see these books available again soon. If you want hard copies of any of them, I have a few (are they rare first editions now?) so just give me a shout if you’re keen. Otherwise, watch this space for news about re-releases in the future.