Merry Happy, Readers! As the holiday season unfolds, Santa brings forth a gift to illuminate your festive nights — Social Vampire. This witty, tender, and pacy YA novel, shortlisted for the Bath Novel Award and The Letter Review Manuscript Prize , invites you into a world where secrets, love, and the transformative power of resilience converge. But that’s not all the magic Santa has in store; stay tuned for thrilling news from the Click Your Poison universe!
Sink your fangs in Social Vampire: Head to a small mountain town obsessed with vampires and follow Gordy and his dad as they navigate the aftermath of a family tragedy. Social Vampire is a heartwarming coming-of-age story that playfully incorporates screenplay elements, delivering a unique and endearing narrative. As you unwrap this literary delight, let the pages humorously guide you through the secrets of self-reinvention and the beauty of living one’s truth.
Special Delivery: Picture this: Santa himself, donned in crimson and white, delivering a personalized, signed copy of Social Vampire directly to your doorstep or that of a loved-one. A comedic and heartwarming tale of intrigue and secrets arrives just in time for the holidays, making your festive season a bit more extraordinary.
Exclusive Preview for Click Your Poison Fans: Hold tight, fans of the Click Your Poison series! Usually, my holiday sign & ship events are for any and all of my books, but this year I’m excluding CYP while Santa is busy delivering good readers their copies of Social Vampire.
Why? In the coming days, prepare for a revelation that will turn the page on what’s next for the series, involving a deluxe illustrated hardcover edition of MURDERED. Stay tuned for a crowdfunding project that will not only bring this vision to life but also offer signed special editions of your favorite Click Your Poison books. Don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss out! In the meantime, enjoy this exclusive preview:
Concept Art for the 10th Anniversary Deluxe Illustrated Edition
Ordering Details: Ready to receive your special delivery from Santa? Head over to my contact page or fill out the form below and let me know you’re eager to unwrap Social Vampire this holiday season. See what all the critical acclaim is about in either paperback or a few limited hardcover copies.
Stay tuned for more thrilling announcements on the horizon, ensuring that your Click Your Poison collection is about to become even more extraordinary. Merry reading and happy holidays!
I’ve been writing a lot of short stories recently, and there’s a question that naturally begs itself: what do you do with a short story?
Eventually, the plan is to publish my own collection…but first? Story competitions and (hopefully) publication in various literary magazines and anthologies.
I’ve written nine shorts so far, and I’m submitting these to competitions while I work on other stories. I’ve already had results back from a few such outlets, as you’ll see below, and the biggest lesson I’ve learned thus far is: it’s all subjective.
Just like book reviews, where one reader might offer a scathing 1-star critique, another reader might shower the book with 5-star praises; it’s all about connecting with the right reader at the right time.
As I’ve been looking for reputable contests to submit my shorts, I’ve also found some novel competitions, and I’ve decided to submit my work there as well. How is it going, you ask?
Aug 1st update, by the numbers:
Novel Competitions:
12 contests submitted to thus far
10 pending
2 rejections
1 longlist/shortlist*
*I can’t say much about this one yet, because I don’t want to jeopardize the blind judging process, but I’ve made the top 2 cuts thus far! As a shortlisted finalist, I’m eagerly awaiting the competition results in September. Stay tuned for updates!
Short Story Competitions:
33 contests submitted to thus far
24 pending
7 rejections
1 withdrawn
1 win/placement*
*Wait, whaaaaat???? That’s right! I won 2nd place in a short story competition!
Okay, let’s talk about my second place finish!
The Deepest Part of Man is an Edwardian epistolary tale of dread told in the style of Edgar Allan Poe and HP Lovecraft. It was a fun exercise to put myself in the shoes of these forefathers of the horror & Sci-Fi genres, and I hope you’ll enjoy reading my story as much as I enjoyed writing it!
The Henshaw Press competition is run by Hobeck Books, a small, independent publisher based in Staffordshire, UK. The competition runs quarterly, with anthologies of winning entries (that’s me!) published as they’re collected.
But you don’t have to wait that long to read my story.
What’s next? Well, I plan to continue writing stories and submitting to competitions! I’ll post collected results like this periodically on this blog, or you can follow me on social media for more instantaneous results announcements.
Thanks for reading, and in the meantime, wish me luck!
Summer is heating up! In this blog post you’ll learn more about a Click Your Poison update, author life, and new opportunities ahead.
Up first: it’s the 10th Anniversary of MURDERED this year!
As such, I’ll be making a deluxe illustrated hardcover edition to celebrate, full of bonus goodies like a new cover, behind-the-scenes illustrations, photos and stories from my own travels to Brazil, the jungle, and the favelas, and more! (if you have any other ideas, let me know in the comments)
It seems like everything is getting more expensive these days, and the publishing world is no exception. The cost of book printing is increasing. In some ways, its a minor miracle that printing costs haven’t changed in my ten years as a professional author, and I think we’re fortunate they haven’t gone higher.
What does this mean for you?
You’ve probably seen some price hikes already, but for my titles, I’ll need to increase prices of physical books by about $1. I keep my margins low, but with the printer increases, I need to raise the price so that expanded markets like libraries can still order my books.
The price change will go into effect by the end of next week, so if you’ve been waiting to complete your Click Your Poison collection or try out Social Vampire, now’s the time!
Hair today, gone tomorrow. Time for a new look! What do you think?
On the writing front, I’ve been working on short stories, which I hope to collect in an anthology later this year. I’ve been submitting a few of these to contests and literary journals, as well as submitting my novel to various book awards.
On a personal note, my wife and I are expecting our third child, who’s scheduled to arrive next month! Hopefully, short projects like these and the deluxe illustrated edition of MURDERED will still be doable with a full house…
I’m also going to do a few book signings, starting with the grand re-opening of The Book Archive on July 1st, which has featured my stories in the Fountain/Colorado Springs area since last fall.
That’s about it for this update. In the meantime, you can find me on social media, on my website, or in my books. Happy summer reading!
Fashions change and the internet is no exception, so every few years I’ll give a facelift to my official online presence (namely, this site). For 2023, I’m going to use remodeling as the metaphor, since these changes are more than cosmetic.
My homepage, and all the other pages, should now be complete and ready to receive visitors!
Please, take a look around, make yourself at home, and–most importantly–let me know if you see any cracks in the foundation or leaks in the plumbing.
Tell me: what do you think?
If you’ve been here a few times over the years, let me know in the comments how this new look compares. Or, if you’re here for the first time, welcome! I’d love to hear what you think as well.
In case you missed it… 15 chapters of “Social Vampire” are waiting for you!
We had a long holiday weekend, so in case Wednesday’s post was lost in the shuffle, today is the FINAL DAY of the Kindle Vella sale. There are 15 episodes waiting for you to unlock on Social Vampire, and best of all, I still get an author royalty. Win/win!
Some final points: -Even after this flash sale ends, Prime Members will receive 200 free “tokens” to unlock future episodes. Which is great news, because episode 16 drops tomorrow! -If you’ve started reading and you’re following the story, THANK YOU. Please consider leaving a review before the story has completed. The idea is to get people to jump on the bandwagon while the wheels are still in motion. -I appreciate you. This is different from my other works, but if you appreciate my prose, the humor I generally suffuse into my writing, and the care with which I try to craft compelling narratives — then I think you’ll love Social Vampire as much as I do!
I actually finished this novel back in 2019, but I told myself I’d try the traditional publishing route because it was a book I was both extremely proud of and one I thought had an important message and needed to be put in as many hands as possible. But, as it turns out, sitting in a folder on my computer for three years has put the story in as few hands as possible.
Equal parts heartwarming and humorous, “Social Vampire” is a coming-of-age story about a kid who pretends to be a vampire at his new school to get the attention of a girl. It’s about young love, loss & grief, and growing empathy. I think it’s the best thing I’ve written.
Early draft cover image for “Social Vampire”
I decided to do an initial run publishing the story serially on Kindle Vella. If you haven’t heard of the platform, it’s only available to readers in the US right now, but it’s for short, episodic reading. After this initial run, which is going from now through December, I’d look to publish the book as a paperback and ebook in April, 2023.
You can wait until then, orrrrrrrr, you’re in luck. Amazon is running a promo that starts today. You get to read Vellas for free (including mine) and I still get paid royalties. For the next week, which will include two new chapters being released, you get a free look at “Social Vampire.” Amazon is taking the hit, hoping you’ll want to continue reading on this new platform.
At a new school, you get a chance to reinvent yourself, so…why not be a vampire? When we first meet Gordon, he claims he can’t physically tell a lie, yet says he’s stopped aging and that his peers believe him to be a vampire. He tells us his mother left him, but doesn’t give us the full story.
It’s soon clear that Gordon is an unreliable narrator, if an entertaining one.
Gordon is a California native, a theatre geek, and an aspiring screenwriter. His life starts to unravel when his special-effects artist dad loses his job and relocates the family from Los Angeles, CA to Bozeman, MT. If that wasn’t hard enough, through a comedy of errors, Gordon’s new classmates—who are obsessed with self-pubbed vampire fiction—think he’s secretly a vampire.
With help from Gordon’s improv background, Dad’s special effects gear, and a little luck, this new school might be the perfect place for Gordon to shine—or, better yet, sparkle. But will the costs of living a lie outweigh the newfound popularity that comes with being a social vampire?
This is a difficult post to write, but one that’s long overdue.
If you were to have asked me at the start of the year, I’d have told you that 2022 was going to be my best year ever. I was hitting my 10th anniversary as a published writer and I had a lot to look forward to on the horizon:
INFECTED had just been turned into a fantastic audiobook app, with both the narrator’s production company and the app developers hungry for more Click Your Poison content. We were scheduling 2-3 new CYP apps per year, starting right away.
The CEO of a board game company commissioned me to write a follow up to the most successful gamebook Kickstarter of all time, offering a very generous payment with tons of creative freedom and collaboration with game designers to add board game elements.
A pair of Hollywood producers asked me to write an interactive film for streaming on a major platform, with an eye toward producing my CYP books as interactive mini-series as well.
I was, of course, over the moon.
No, even more, I was terrified that I wouldn’t have time to do all of these projects. We were set to move from California to Colorado in May due to my wife’s job, and with two kids under two-years-old, the complications were myriad.
One by one, each of these projects fell through in some form or fashion. I went from feeling like working on interactive books for a decade was finally starting to pay off in some life-changing ways, to feeling like I wasn’t anywhere further along my writing journey than when I started.
By April, it was clear none of them were moving forward.
All of this has led to a deep and profound depression, one that I’m only beginning to climb out of. Instead of throwing myself into work, I threw myself into moving. The new house turned out to be quite the fixer upper, so I spent most of my days learning new skills on YouTube and working with my hands, trying not to rest long enough to be left alone with my darker thoughts.
It’s been a sabbatical that was useful, even if it wasn’t fulfilling my wildest dreams. Still, it gave me time to examine my thoughts and feelings more deeply.
Some Reflection
I’ve realized a few reasons why the loss of these opportunities hurt so much.
First, was a sense of validation. It feels petty to say that out loud (or write those words, as it were), but it’s true. I’m “just” a self-published author. I had never sought out a publisher for my interactive books, but for the past three years I had been querying a traditional novel without success. Each rejection letter had been a small blow to my confidence, which weakened my resolve to the point where these three larger blows completely knocked me over. I felt the sting of imposter syndrome. Like a fraud. It felt like anyone with internet access could accomplished what I had professionally.
Second, I’m equally ashamed to say, was due to money. I’ve been a working writer for the last decade, but not because I can afford to do so. I’ve long called my wife the patron of my art, and I’m grateful that her career gives me the freedom to pursue my dreams, but I’d like to be able to return that favor and offer her financial freedom as well. These projects promised a payday more than I had earned in a cumulative ten years and at least some of that validation I craved was financial.
Lastly, I think I’m ready for something different. I love movies, I love games, and I love audiobooks — and I loved the idea that I could write these things for a living. Even if the novel I was querying took off, I have several non-interactive books inside of me and would have been happy to turn to that. Don’t get me wrong, I’m proud of my Click Your Poison book series and I’m grateful for every one of my readers. But I never planned to solely write interactive books and I think I can reach a wider audience with something different. It’s my hope, that if you like my writing, you’ll follow me to whatever that may be.
The Steps Forward
Before I tell you my plan to dig myself out of this hole, I’m going to appeal to you to join my author mailing list. Much of what I’ll be working on for my steps forward will be released at a later date, and if you don’t want to miss those announcements, you’ll want to subscribe to both that and this blog.
1) I’m getting that novel out into the world. It’s my favorite thing I’ve ever written and I feel like it’s too important to keep it hidden because I can’t find the right agent to champion the book. I’ll be the one to champion it. My readers will champion it, I’m certain. I’m starting by publishing it serially on Kindle Vella, and you can follow that journey now. I’ll tell you more about “Social Vampire” later, so stay tuned
2) I’m going to make a Deluxe Illustrated Collector’s Hardcover of every Click Your Poison book, starting backwards. I did INFECTED first, and that’s available now, but the HAUNTED hardcover has also just launched. That also deserves its own post, but suffice it to say these are beautiful editions that take a lot of time and care to create. For the time being, however, these will be the only CYP launches on the horizon.
3) There will be more novels. I have plans for a zombie western, an entire sci-fi series, and more. And there will be audiobooks of those, eventually. If there’s an appetite for it, I could see a CYP tie-in book. For example: a full, sprawling sci-fi epic with world building and multiple trilogies, that then has a Click Your Poison book allowing you to play in that world.
4) There (might) be other games. I’ve been tinkering with the idea of a Kickstarter or something similar for an interactive book that also has gamification elements. I’m not sure about this yet, but it’s a strong possibility.
5) Stop feeling sorry for myself. I apologize for a rambling, self-pitying rant here, but I think it’s worth sharing my struggles with other creators and my fans, as well as documenting the way I feel at the end of my first professional decade. Because one thing is for sure — I’m not done. Will I read this one day and think, “Well, not much has changed”? Or will it be something to point at when I feel like I’ve reached greater heights to inspire others to push through dark times? We’ll have to wait and see.
Until then, I remain faithfully your author,
PS – I still have hopes that more CYP audiobook apps will arrive at some point in the future, but it won’t be this year. The Hollywood folks have never “officially” cancelled on me, I’m just reading between the lines due to a lack of progress. The board game, however, appears that not just my project was cancelled, but the whole company has gone caput.
People seem to be drawn to the humor in INFECTED. As such, I was asked to create a list of the funniest zombie novels by a new book discovery site called Shepherd.
The Best Books of 2021 (according to author James Schannep)
Of course, this list is incredibly subjective, but these are the books that resonated with me in 2021.What were your favorite reads (or listens) of the year?
Best Debut
The Island of Dr Moreau by KJ Shadmand
The first book on this list comes from a teacher who grew up as a fan of interactive fiction and gamebooks. He blended his love of classic literature and branching path narratives to create this impressive first gamebook in what the author intends to be a series of reimagined classics focusing on the works of HG Wells.
Most Impressive
Dracula: Curse of the Vampire by Jonathan Green
This modern master also took inspiration from the classics to create a momentous accomplishment. Unlike the last entrant, Jonathan Green has been entrenched in the world of gamebooks for decades, and brings that expertise to bear in this impressive tome. Greatly expanding upon Bram Stokers mythos while gamifying the story and creating several playable narratives in one.
Best Graphic Novel
Captive by MC & Manuro
Published by Van Ryder Games, this is part of a series of interactive graphic novels. The navigation system is ingenious, and is so visually based, it’s no wonder it has been translated into several languages (it was originally written in French). I played this book with my wife and we made the choices together. Great fun.
Best Classic
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
While plotting and researching HAUNTED, I read and listened to myriad haunted house stories, but one stood out among the rest–a forerunner and standard-bear of this medium, and well deserving of its reputation. Part horror, part psychological drama, you’ll likely see inspiration pulled from Hill House should you choose to enter the Tansky House in HAUNTED.
Best Audiobook
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Like most of the audio-listening world, I fell in love with Andy Weir’s The Martian narrated by R.C. Bray. I’m pleased to have partnered with this award-winning narrator for my new version of INFECTED and I’m also happy that Andy Weir has returned to survival space drama. I didn’t quite connect with Artemis as much as I’d have liked, but with Ray Porter narrating, it feels like Mark Watney is back in this new book.
Best Nonfiction
The Believing Brain by Michael Shermer
Another book I listened to while deeply immersed in ghost stories; I found Shermer’s insight into why we as humans believe what we believe incredibly useful. I’d add Carl Sagan’s The Demon Haunted World as an honorable mention in this category of books that highlight how thinking skeptically is actually a learned behavior, while being quick to believe comes naturally.
Best Bookish Podcast
Instadeath Survivors Support Group with Brian Hazzard
From neonate gamebook fan to expert interviewer, Brian Hazzard used the past year to dive deeply into the world of interactive fiction. He blends author interviews with playthroughs of branching-path books to bring a compelling podcast into this growing community. Yours truly is featured in an interview and it was a pleasure.
And that’s my list for 2021! But speaking of books… there’s still time to get signed and shipped Click Your Poison books before Christmas if you missed my Holiday Sign & Ship announcement. If you’re reading this blog post prior to December 20th, reach out to me and we’ll make it happen!
As always, thanks for reading. Let me know in the comments if you have any books that you fell in love with this year. Until next time, I remain…
Signed books for Christmas! Or any holiday. Or birthday. Or no special occasion; just because you want to buy something for that special someone (who could be you!).
It has now been over two years since my last in-person book signing, and I miss you guys. But — that means my garden shed is overfull with paperbacks ready to be signed and shipped directly to your doorstep! This is my first major signing event since releasing SPIED, and likely your first chance to pick it up with personalized graffiti on the inside cover. Want me to scribble an encrypted message for you?
“On the sixth day of internet shopping, my true love gave to meeee….”
Shipping rates have gone up in recent years, so here’s the new deal: $25 flat rate for a signed book anywhere in the US. Shipping can be combined on any order above four books. Once you go above four titles, it becomes $20 per book. That means if you get five books, one is essentially free. Plus, if you do happen to order the whole series, I’m going to throw in a little something extra…
One book: $25
Two books: $50
Three books: $75
Four books: $100
Five books: $100
Six books: $120
Shipping rates are fairly obscene elsewhere in the world right now, but if you’re not put off by the thought that you might pay more for shipping than for the books themselves, feel free to contact me for an international quote.
What’s more, I still have some first editions of PATHOGENS, so if you act fast, you can choose your cover art. Or, if you’re a super collector like me, you can get both:
The only book I *can’t* offer to sign and ship to you is the new 10th Anniversary Deluxe Hardcover Edition of INFECTED. Unfortunately, hardback books are more expensive to produce, and I can’t get author copies the same way as paperbacks. But I do want to remind you that you can get it off Amazon, because (signed or not), this would make an amazing holiday gift.
That’s it for now. Want some signed books? Reach out to me on my contact page and we’ll make it happen.
Author James Schannep 