Book Covers As Greeting Cards

Marketing for any author, regardless of being self-published or going the traditional route, is a task that is unavoidable. For the introverted and the shy, marketing is seen as a necessary evil. For the extroverted, promotion can be overblown and annoying. Finding the perfect balance between too little and too much is no easy task. No author wants to be merely the world's greatest secret and yet, no author should want to be an annoying pest.

Recently, I ventured the idea of turning my book covers into greeting cards with a blank interior. And the samples are below. The programs I used in their creation were a combination of Microsoft Word, Paint.Net, Adobe Acrobat Pro, and the free Avery plug-in for Word. Detailed instructions are below:

I used the following:

1. Matte White Greeting Cards from Staples (compatible with Avery 3265) 
2. The title and author's name was placed on the print using Paint.Net, a free graphics program from  (see IMPORTANT note below)
3. I used Microsoft Word using the Avery template creator that is free from the Avery website.
4. I then saved the finished document as a .pdf file that was used to print out the cards.
5. An extra step, using Adobe Acrobat Pro, I turned the .pdf file into a .png file for posting on social media. (I chose .png format over .jpg as it has better clarity.)

Note: The program Paint.net is free but has a slightly steep learning curve. However, do NOT download the program from ANY website other than the one linked to in this message unless you really, really hate your computer or are a huge fan of malware.

Return to the Vicarage

For those who have read my short collection, Come Into My Cellar: Darker Tales From A Cerebral Vault, you were introduced to the Vicarage, a recurring nightmare I have suffered from for years:

All my life I have enjoyed the experience of being a dreamer. At night, I wander dreams flowing with color, rich in plot, and often stay with me upon awakening. Yet, no other dreamer has ever mentioned one aspect of my daily nocturnal wanderings. My subconscious, much like a Grade-B film director, has for six decades repeatedly used the same sets as if the budget for backdrops and scenery had vanished. One place I always return to is the Vicarage.

I have been dreaming about the Vicarage for almost four decades now, a setting so commonplace I can actually draw the floor plans for you.

Well, last night I returned to the Vicarage and it felt like I was there all night long. However, unlike other nights spent avoiding the unholy, otherworldly, and invisible Presence that walks its halls "primal and serene," I met a young lady of about 14 who is as much trapped in the house as I am, but she never leaves simply because she can't.

Looking at her oddly dated clothes, a strange thought came to me and I asked her what year it was. "Oh, it's 1897."

Poor child.

So, when I awoke, a full-blown story popped into my mind, a story about a young child trapped in a nightmarish mansion that others visit in their dreams, a Vicarage that holds a primal terror that walks its halls and, if it finds you, it will kill you, but only if it's in a merciful mood.

(sigh) I'm busy as it is, but as the cliche goes, you strike while the iron is hot.

I'll keep you abreast of my travelogue as I plumb the mysteries of the Vicarage and try to save a young girl who has been trapped inside its walls for almost 120 years.

I've got a gut feeling this is NOT going to end well.

What If The House You Lived In Was Alive?

Since the tenth century A.D., Shingon Buddhism has entertained a concept known as Tsukumogami. It is a difficult concept to define, but loosely described, it is the belief that when any object has reached its 100th birthday, it becomes alive and self-aware.

My first introduction to Tsukumogami was through Le Portrait de Petit Cossette, a very odd animated Japanese film. In the movie, items from the young French girl’s boudoir enact a brutal revenge on the reincarnation of her murderer, an assistant to an antique dealer.

Though I cannot say I’m convinced of the reality of Tsukumogami, my fascination with old houses embraces the concept. In my novella, Yew Manor, my essay, The Vicarage (found in Come Into My Cellar: Darker Tales From A Cerebral Vault), and Coventry House (found in Opal Wine) and various future works, my houses all become characters in their own right.

Last night I was musing on the old homes I have been privileged to live in and visit and thinking about Tsukumogami I wondered, if true, does the house develop sentience in a flash or is it a gradual growth of self-awareness? You may think me addled in the brain, but I do entertain a subjective belief that some houses inherently make me feel welcomed. Some make it clear that I am most unwelcome. Some feel like I am in a house trapped in a waking dream and the aura of the house is, dare I say it?, wistful.

I can imagine a house, filled with family, and on the celebration of its centennial, there is within its walls, a spark of awareness, much akin to that of a newborn child. As I allowed the fantasy to evolve in my imagination, I followed its developing personality affected by the attitudes and actions of those that lived within walls. Those houses that entertained a family that was loving and supportive took on a personality of love and support. Those homes that harbored hatred and perversion within their walls were destined to have their newborn hearts twisted and malformed to become, like the Vicarage in my essay, a Bad Place.

And then there are homes that contain within their walls, the lonely and the unloved, the aged who dream of a better past and others who can seek refuge only in their memories. What of those houses, I wondered? Could it be that when they lay empty they cry for love and yearn for true life to blossom within their walls, longing for what they have been denied. Making it worse, it is unable to define what it is it cries for as it never experienced love to begin with.

Mayhap when a loving family moves in, the house responds with joy, and those who walk its halls may find an odd reluctance to leave its embrace.

This house does not like you. Welcome home.

And for those lonely houses forced to suddenly harbor evil tenants? How they must rage to have their needs denied, their own hearts darkened into murderous fury to be forced to home parasites instead of the love they long for. Their vengeance must be terrible to behold.

And that, my Dear Reader, is where my ideas for my stories come from.

A Free Essay For You?

Well, well, well.

It appears the opening essay to my collection, Come Into My Cellar: Darker Tales From A Cerebral Vault, is completely available for free if you click on Amazon's Look Inside feature.

Bad news for me, great news for you.

Oh, well, things like this happen in the smaller universes.

Enjoy the opening essay, my dark love letter to the English language, by clicking here and then clicking on the Look Inside command and scrolling down.  You'll also get to read the opening to the first chapter of Doll Wars that I hope to complete and release before the heat death of the universe.

Go ahead. They are just words on a screen. They don't bite.

Maybe.