The newest chapbook from LetterPress Publications is “The Sniper” by Richard Chizmar, and as of yesterday all copies have shipped to Patreon supporters on Level 2 or higher!
Thank you again for all of your support! More news to come soon!
Best,
Brian
I’ll try to keep this short since I know everyone’s schedule is crazy busy as the year winds down, but I wanted to give some project updates for those of you interested in what I’m doing on Patreon!
The Sniper Chapbook
We’re in the home stretch on The Sniper chapbook! All copies have been signed by Richard Chizmar and me, so now it’s a matter of preparing the custom-printed linen envelopes, putting together the shipping list, and packing all of them up to go out the door.
If you are a supporter on Level 2 or higher, please be sure to update your Patreon Account shipping address ASAP if you’ve moved because that database is where I get the shipping lists for rewards.
Patreon Stories: Volume Two
The printer managed to complete a partial run of the trade paperbacks before they closed for the holidays, and I expect the rest of the paperbacks and the full run of Limited Edition hardcovers in January. The sample copies they sent me turned out great:
Revival Limited Edition
The Revival Limited Edition has officially shipped to all the US retailers!
For my Patreon supporters on the LetterPress Publications Patreon Levels, your copy will be shipping next week if all goes well. My plan had been for your copies to ship FIRST, and that is the plan for all future books, but I thought up something special at the last second and that something special won’t be here until next week.
Here’s what we’re waiting for: your copy of Revival will be shipped to you in the custom printed shipping boxes I’m having made for VIPs (folks in the business, big name authors I send complimentary copies to, etc). Here’s a mock-up of what they will look like:
I hope this makes the book an even more special addition to your collection.
Thank you again for all of your support! More news to come soon!
Best,
Brian
Here’s a general update on the serial novel, The Echo of Memory, for my Patreon supporters:
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One of the things I’m realizing as I near page 100 of my edit on The Echo of Memory is that I obviously made some attempts to edit the book over the years and stalled out around where I am now.
How can I tell? Well, the overwriting and melodramatic phrasing kicked into high gear around chapter sixteen. Definitely the product of a college age me!
This means a lot more work on each chapter, but I think it’ll be worth it in the end. The stuff I’m cutting won’t be missed by anyone. It isn’t even “texture.” It’s simply too many words! And the parts I’m rewriting are hopefully grounding the story more in reality.
More to come soon! Thank you for your support!
Best,
Brian
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Hey everyone!
Here is a special update just for my Patreon supporters:
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July really turned into a Murphy’s Law kind of month here in the Freeman household. One kid with a concussion, one car accident (minor), one hospital stay for me (damn kidney stones), one hospital stay for my wife, and finally our cat Smokie passed away this past week. (She was 18 years old, and the vet said last October that she was probably going soon, so she held on a good long time and was a very happy cat to the end.)
Here’s where various projects that you might be waiting on currently stand:
1) All copies of the new chapbook, “So It’s Come to This,” are signed. We need to prepare the envelopes with the cover artwork, number the chapbooks, and print the shipping list. I’m hoping all of that will happen this weekend, so they can be shipped the following weekend.
2) I’ve edited several more chapters of The Echo of Memory, and will get those posted soon.
3) The Limited Edition slipcases and Lettered Edition traycases for The Zombie Who Cried Human are due to arrive in the CD warehouse in August, so those should ship by the end of the month.
4) The manuscript for Patreon Stories: Volume Two is just about ready to go to the designer. I just want to work on my story notes and the introductions to the juvenilia one more time.
There’s probably more, but I just wanted to get a quick update out to everyone since I had been radio silent for a bit. More news to come soon!
Best,
Brian
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The first short story I’ll be posting for Patrons Only on Patreon will be ready to post on August 1st. The notes from my first readers are coming in today and tomorrow, so I’ll be making some tweaks this weekend and then we should be good to go.
The really good news is, other brand new short stories are already in rough draft form. I’ll continue working on them to get them into shape, which might take some time.
I am not a fast writer because writing, for me, is 50% getting SOMETHING on paper and then 50% trying to FIX that SOMETHING through repeated editing and polishing and rewriting. One of the stories I’ll be posting this fall is based on a rough draft written when I was in college… in 2000 or so… But I’m really pleased with how it has finally come together!
More news soon, including the announcement of a surprise “bonus” gift I’ve decided to send to all of you.
Thank you again for your support!
Best,
Brian
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“So It’s Come To This: A Poetry Chapbook” by Brian James Freeman will be my third Patreon-only chapbook, and it should ship around the end of July.
These Patreon exclusive publications are now labeled “LetterPress Publications [Private Printing]” on the title page and include this notice on the copyright page: “This is a Private Printing by LetterPress Publications for Brian James Freeman’s supporters on Patreon and has not been designated for sale through any retail channels.”
Each chapbook is “housed” in a custom-printed envelope with a fine linen finish and the LetterPress Publications logo printed on it in silver metallic ink. To make these chapbooks a little different from others I’ve seen, the inside-covers will feature some kind of artwork or faux marbling, sort of like illustrated endpapers. Each chapbook is also signed and hand-numbered.
Photos:
Well, it’s been quiet around here because I was really busy with the LetterPress Publications launch of Revival by Stephen King when I got a kidney stone on May 14! Which then went silent until last Saturday when it came roaring back while I was in the mountains camping in the middle of nowhere… and it tormented me until yesterday morning when I finally passed the little bugger! What fun!
So, I missed out on doing a bunch of the promotions I had planned for Revival, and it goes without saying that nothing all that productive (except maybe thinking up some new swear words while dealing with the extraordinary pain) has been done in the past week!
But, that lost time cannot be called back, and all I can do is focus on getting things done in the here and now, so I returned to my laptop yesterday afternoon, ready to catch-up on a bunch of things… only to discover the R key on my keyboard had decided now was the perfect time to just stop working.
It turns out, when your company is called “LetterPress” and the book is called Revival, you use the R key a lot… ha…
For now I’m pasting in my Rs as I need them (take that, Paul Sheldon!) and a replacement keyboard should arrive later today. It’s been a long time since I replaced anything in a laptop, but this is supposed to be easy. We’ll see. 🙂
Anyway, it’s been one of THOSE weeks, but luckily I’m surrounded by very talented people who have kept on working, and thanks to them you can now see the full cover for “So It’s Come to This,” my next signed Limited Edition chapbook that will be published exclusively for my supporters on Level Two and above on Patreon as of the end of the day today! (That means if you’ve been thinking of signing up, today would be a great day!)
As a bonus, I thought I’d also show off the “faux marbled endpapers” that will grace the inside-cover of the chapbook to make it a little different than most chapbooks you see published:
Lots more updates to come in June! Thank you again for all of your support!
Best,
Brian
“So It’s Come To This: A Poetry Chapbook” will be my third Patreon-only chapbook. Complete details will be posted here when it’s published in July, although my incredible supporters on Patreon already have a pretty good idea of what they’re getting themselves into! 😉
Here’s the cover artwork:
For those who haven’t heard my spiel before, my first love in life is writing stories, and Patreon allows me to post those stories directly for readers who dig my work, which really is quite awesome.
Because I really like to “make” things, I’ve created different Rewards Levels, for every type of supporter, which you can read all about on the JOIN page. I would love to see you there, if you’re interested. Every little bit helps, and I’m extremely grateful for all of the support I’ve received from readers these past two years. Thank you!
Since October of last year I’ve been putting together plans to do a little more with my personal press, LetterPress Publications, beyond just publishing my own chapbooks and books for my Patreon supporters — although LPP will still do that! — and I want to share some important information with you today since I’ll be making a pretty big announcement for LetterPress Publications tomorrow, May 15.
A LITTLE HISTORY:
I’ve worked at Cemetery Dance Publications full-time since 2002, and I’ll be there for as long as Richard will have me, but something has been missing these past fifteen months.
My wife and I worked together at CD from June 2006 until February of 2018, when she jumped at an opportunity with a company closer to where we actually live that we just couldn’t pass up. (Home is actually 90 minutes from the CD offices — it’s a long commute, and even longer now without my partner in crime!) But with our kids, our future plans, and everything else, this fantastic new job was a no brainer for her.
Yet… no longer working with her to juggle all the books and logistical planning and everything else we face as a team at CD has left a big hole in my day to day work life.
Luckily, unlike a lot of the difficult problems people face in real life, there was an easy solution to this. I like publishing books. She likes publishing books. We even already have a little press all set-up for publishing my rewards for my Patreon supporters, which has been a ton of fun these past two years.
So, starting this month, LetterPress Publications will be branching out from a personal press to an actual small press, publishing deluxe special editions of works by my favorite authors. We’ll be working together again… in the evenings… and on weekends… for one book this year, and then three to four books per year after that, if all goes well.
Although I cannot get into which specific projects just yet (watch LetterPressPublications.com for the big news!), I think you’ll be very pleased with what we have planned.
If you want to follow along, please consider “liking” the new LetterPress Publications page on Facebook, or following LetterPress Publications on Twitter, or following LetterPress Publications on Instagram. We could really use a few friends on those pages!
Maybe even more importantly, if you want to be among the FIRST to be notified about any news and announcements — including of this first book by a New York Times bestselling author who is hugely popular among horror collectors — please go to the LetterPress Publications website and sign-up for our FREE MAILING LIST. Thank you!
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR MY PATRONS ON PATREON:
If you’re concerned about the future of my Patreon page or my writing, please know I’ve been juggling the behind the scenes drudgery for officially launching LetterPress Publications as company that sells products to the public (which includes some extremely mind-numbing stuff with the state and local governments, the IRS, my credit union, my accountant, and my attorney that luckily only needs completed once — I hope!) since October of last year.
So I’ve been pretty busy already, but still getting my Patreon work done for the most part. (The serial novel The Echo of Memory is a bit behind schedule, but that’s because I’m too hard on myself about whether a chapter is ready to post! That said, more chapters are on the way soon.)
More importantly, the actual labor of running LPP is the same kind of tasks I’ve handled day in, day out at Cemetery Dance Publications since 2002, just on a much smaller scale since it’ll only be 1 or 2 books in production at a time.
I’m not learning any new tricks — I’m just taking everything I know and applying that knowledge and experience in slightly different ways. You’ll see what I mean when I announce the first book on May 15!
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR LONELY ROAD BOOKS:
No changes there. That’s still a side project for Richard Chizmar and me, and we’re still working on books for this year and beyond. The Night Eternal by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan to name one, and a final William Peter Blatty signed Limited Edition to name another.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR CEMETERY DANCE PUBLICATIONS:
Well, there’s a better than slight chance I’ll get ribbed by Rich, Mindy, Dan, and New Dan for a while. “Oh, there goes Mr. Big Shot Publisher!” That sort of thing.
On the other hand, I can change all of their passwords for the website and the order management software until they stop it, so… 😉
Yeah, this isn’t going to change anything about my work at CD. Everyone there is incredibly supportive of each other’s hobbies, side ventures, creative projects, and the things we do to find personal fulfillment.
If you have any questions or concerns, please always feel free to get in touch! My CD email address remains brianfreeman@cemeterydance.com and my new LLP email address is… well, I don’t know yet. Still working on that, but I’ll post it when I have one!
Best,
Brian
P.S. Here’s the LetterPress Publications Logo, just so something shows up on social media when I share this. 😉
Just a reminder that anyone who wants to qualify for the next exclusive signed Limited Edition chapbook I’m publishing for my Patreon supporters just needs to sign-up for Level 2 or above by the end of the month!
This chapbook is going to be a bit of a surprise and different from the previous ones, and I don’t want to ruin the fun by saying too much, but I just have to show off the cover artwork because I love it so much:
More updates to follow soon, along with more free chapters of my serial novel, The Echo of Memory.
Thank you again for all of your support!
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