What’s new, even?
I have no clear goal for this month’s blog post, as not much as been going on. At least as it pertains to publishing. Things in my personal life have actually been quite eventful, which is even more of a reason why I haven’t put proper thought into what June’s blog post should even be. Things have quieted since the initial excitement of signing contracts for THE MONSTERS AMONG US and A STATE OF EMERGENCY. Which is to be expected. Can’t be offered publishing contracts every month, despite how much I’d love that!
So today I’m going to meander a bit. Speak generally and briefly about what I’ve been up to:
My head of marketing, Poe, a beautiful English Labrador, is days away from being ten months old. Growing up so fast… though he’s still beautiful, and very large. Sometimes too large, as he’s prone to jumping atop me, trampling, and playfully biting me. I do love him to death though. Even if the death in question is mine caused by his insanity. Upon the occasion of my sudden disappearance, check beneath the floorboards.
Personally speaking, things are also going well. I’ve recently fallen in love and realized why I’m prone to giving many of my characters romantic subplots. Love really does make life worth living.
This is all to say, or to shout into the abyss, that life is good! Which despite my relaxed and somewhat flippant tone here, is the first time in my life I’ve said those words without irony or sarcasm. And I would very much like it to continue to be good, so I shout, attempting to manifest even more good (more published stories, please and thank you).
At the time of writing, I have three short stories out for consideration for an award. The same is true for my creative non-fiction memoir that I mentioned in last month’s blog post. I’m tempering my expectations, but boy, would it be nice to win. Especially the memoir. I’m especially proud of how it turned out and would very much like people to read it.
Other than that, I’m currently coasting until August, when the cover reveal for THE MONSTERS AMONG US is scheduled. And while I wait, I have officially begun work on my fifth novel, the first of three sequels to THE MONSTERS AMONG US. Slow going, but that’s okay. I’m relishing it. And I must say, it feels good to be back in familiar territory. Living amongst these characters I spent six years writing, in the world they live in, so deep with philosophical power.
The full series is as follows:
1. THE MONSTERS AMONG US (out next year!)
2. In the Wake of Gods
3. The Hollow King
4. This Long, Bright Dark
I’m also considering writing a collection of short stories centered around a particular group of particularly interesting humans found in THE MONSTERS AMONG US, but writing a four-book series with worlds as philosophically and conceptually enormous as these is already daunting, so who knows.
But that’s really it, for now. As mentioned above, the cover reveal for THE MONSTERS AMONG US is scheduled for August, so look forward to it! I sure am, as things will begin to grow more exciting again.
PUBLISHING ANNOUNCEMENT and praise for Rowan Prose
This month’s blog post is very much a follow up to last month’s entry, where I spoke about how things have been since signing the publication deal for my novel, The Monsters Among Us. It’s funny… what I’m going to talk about here could have been in that post, as the news broke a couple days after I wrote it, and before it went live on the blog. But I didn’t want to disrupt the focus of that entry, so I abstained from including the news.
You should all know what I’m referring to, so I’ll come right out with it:
My short story, A State of Emergency, will be published next year in a horror/thriller anthology from Rowan Prose Publishing.
That’s right. That makes two of my stories that will be available in 2025. My debut novel, The Monsters Among Us, and A State of Emergency. The two are very different and yet similar as well. That’s because the short story was the first of two side projects I wrote while working on The Monsters Among Us. While the two are different in tone, they pair greatly together so I could not be more thrilled that both will be releasing in the same year. Also, it’s all the sweeter that, out of all my stories, the two getting published are my favorite novel and my favorite short story. Both through Rowan Prose, to whom I am eternally grateful.
Now, if I could find a publisher for my other side project from the era I wrote The Monsters Among Us, then I would just be giddy. But since that other side project is a memoir and I’m not yet a notable personality, that’s a bit tricky. But regardless, my year has already been made.
Sure, just simply receiving publishing deals for these two stories is exciting on its own. But I bring up this other side project for a specific reason, and that’s shown in this excerpt from this currently unpublished memoir:
“I said it in the beginning of this series of reflections. This will be a journey similar, but different from the events of The Plague Journal. I felt that to be true well before reading this entry, and what do you know, I’m dealing with many of the same struggles as I was before. I have a knack for that. I’m not psychic, and I don’t believe in that drivel. But when I have a strong gut feeling about how something is about to turn out, I’m often right. 2016 was a great year, when I finally got fed up with my small, insignificant existence, then got angry enough to do something about it, and went back to college. After a couple terrible years that snuffed my inner flame, eventually, at my darkest point, I felt a shift. In 2018 I got on the dean’s list twice, finished the draft of my novel, and got accepted into Bard College. In 2021, after another interval of misery, I finished my novel, graduated with honors because of it, and that special book of mine received praise so high, I still can’t believe it.
Do you see where I’m going here? Deep misery followed by grand achievements. The eternal recurrence. The heaviest of burdens. I don’t feel it yet, that strong gut instinct that tells me achievement is near. But what I do feel strongly is that it’s time to return to New York. Once I do, who knows? Making myself known in New York again, reoccurring there, might trigger the next step in my publishing journey.
I’ve been working at it for long enough now. Shouldering this heaviest of burdens. Think about the years when I achieved accomplishments. 2016 → 2018 → 2021. I can’t know for sure, but 2023 or 2024 seems ripe for something great to come my way. It’s about time for another great shift. A repurposing of life. Nature’s rebirth in spring.
Something big must be coming.”
This blog post isn’t about this memoir, so I’ll make this short, but you may be wondering how this was a side project to The Monsters Among Us, considering the specified dates. This book is a strange one, and when I say it was a side project, I mean that its Part One was a side project. What is written above is out of Part Two, something I originally had no intention of writing. But I did, and it was written in early 2023.
Now, I wouldn’t go so far as to call myself prophetic, but here I am a year later with two publishing deals! The shift occurred and things have finally started to work out for me. And I have Rowan Prose and my editor Kelly Moran to thank for this. They looked at two stories that are heavily intertwined in dark themes of mental health, and they gave them a chance. Now, neither of these stories are lighthearted gags about a quirky neurodivergent person. They’re grimly honest portrayals of what living with things such as depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorder is actually like. All the nightmarish neuroses, as well as the grand, illuminating gifts found within the mental turmoil. In other words, both The Monsters Among Us and A State of Emergency are stories that others in publishing would have wanted nothing to do with.
But not Rowan Prose. They saw the stories for all the artfulness they hold, for all the value they contain. And as I stated above, these are two of my favorites I’ve ever written. So I hope Rowan Prose understands just how much this means to me. Not only giving me my break but breathing life into these stories that have grown so desperate for someone to give them the chance they deserve. So, thank you, Rowan Prose. Your goal of being a publisher for authors by authors is shining through as deeply genuine. Which is just what these stories need. They and I are in good hands, I feel very confident about that.
And I also feel confident that Rowan Prose’s interest in these stories will be quite fruitful for them. To refer again to the excerpt above, the novel mentioned as having “received praise so high, I still can’t believe it,” is none other than The Monsters Among Us.
The specifics of that praise is something I’ll talk about as the book’s release nears, but I’ll end with this: you have great cause to get very excited about it!
Seven Weeks After Signing…
So, it’s been about seven weeks since signing the publishing deal for my novel, The Monsters Among Us. And this may sound dramatic, as its still early and the release date is a bit far off… but everything feels different. Throughout the first few weeks, it felt unreal. Like the world was dangling something precious in front of me, only to rip it away from me. Of course, that was irrational to think, but after what I’ve gone through to publish this novel, I just couldn’t believe that I indeed signed the contract.
As I mentioned in last month’s blog post, this novel has been with me for nine years. The creation of it took six years, then I spent the last three years querying it. And until Rowan Prose Publishing accepted it, I was drowning. Not a single agent asked for even a partial request. And that had me gutted. More so than any other story of mine, it was eviscerating when this novel was rejected. Because again, I spent six years writing it. Six years I stood side by side with these characters that, because of the time spent and because I went to painstaking lengths to ensure the novel is deeply immersive, those characters I created feel very much alive and real to me. And I hated seeing them rejected. To have to grieve their unlived potential.
That’s what it felt like for so long. Like I was a parent holding within my hands a stillbirth. I know how great the book is and even have my old college professors to back me up on that, so to watch it flail about in the querying trenches was devastating and confusing.
But then, after three years and over three hundred rejections, the book’s worth was finally recognized. And it’s funny that it was picked up only a couple weeks into me giving up on querying agents and deciding to submit to independent presses instead. Makes me think that independent presses are the ones truly seeking art, and agents not so much. I’m not trying to talk badly about agents. I understand their position. But unfortunately for burgeoning authors, the talented but unknowns like me, agents are not likely to pay us any attention. Pay being a very purposeful word because what an agent is after is money. They want sure things so they can make the most of their 10%. They also may be champions of art but profit always trumps that for an agent. Hence why on their querytracker submission forms, they ask questions like, “Have you published a book before and if so, how many copies did it sell?” When it comes to agents, an author could have a future Pulitzer winner and they would still ignore it if the author were an unknown, and therefore not profitable.
I’m still seeking an agent, now that I’m querying my other books. And it makes me all the more desirable that in my credentials section of my query I can now mention that The Monsters Among Us will be published in 2025 and because of that publishing deal, I am now a full member of the Author’s Guild. So hopefully an agent will bite now. But if not, then hopefully after The Monsters Among Us releases and sells (which it will, I have the utmost faith in this novel).
But ultimately what I’m getting at here is, if you’re in the position I was in just seven weeks ago, struggling to get an agent’s attention and feeling like giving up… please don’t. As I said above, The Monsters Among Us had over three hundred rejections, but here it is now preparing for its new life as a published book. Querying is discouraging, but don’t give up. And consider submitting to an independent publisher instead of waiting for an agent. It doesn’t matter if your book is published through Penguin Random House or a smaller press. The word “independent” is superfluous. It’s still a traditional publishing contract either way, and therefore it’s something to make you all the more impressive. It’s a credit, and a mighty big one at that. So, if agents are standing in the way to getting your book seen, well… go around them. Get seen through a different angle, market the hell out of your book and sell lots of copies. Then go to the agents again and say, “See? I’m profitable after all.”
I used to think that the path was, get an agent, sell book to publisher, market, release, do it all again with a second book. But that trail is unkind and treacherous to unknown authors. And it’s much more fruitful to find your own way around.
PUBLISHING ANNOUNCEMENT and the return of the blog!
It’s been a while since I’ve used this space. Those of you who have read my blog posts before will know that I used to post short stories, poetry, and other such things here, but that’s not what my blog will be used for going forward. It will be, well… a normal blog. You will also notice that I’ve taken down all the stories and poetry, and that the blog is empty aside from this post, for now. That’s because I’ve decided not to waste my work by giving it away for free on a blog only a few might look at. But don’t worry, all those stories will turn up in various forms of publishing with time. Patience and tenacity are essential in this business, believe me.
I’ll be posting once a month, on the first. Maybe sometimes there will be a clear narrative focus, musings or anecdotes, or anything else rich in content. Though other times, like today’s post, will strictly be updates about publishing and anything I’ve been up to within that realm of things.
Which brings me to the reason I’m reviving the blog: my novel, The Monsters Among Us, will be published through Rowan Prose Publishing next year!
I want to gush all about that, so badly. But since it’s still some time away from publication, I must withhold details for now. But I’ll say this:
This book has been with me for nine years. It was the first novel I conceived, as well as my first story, period. I began writing it in 2015, and between writing and editing and researching and writing it a second time, and then much more editing, it was finally completed. And throughout all that time, I was studying hard in college as well as in my own time, all for the sake of making this novel the best it could possibly be. I can, and in time will, provide anecdotes from college about all the great things my professors said about The Monsters Among Us, but I’ll reserve those for later blog posts. They’re too good to talk about now, still over a year from publication. But these stories will come.
So yeah, I’m using the blog again. One of many new venues I’m working toward using to market The Monsters Among Us, with another being a YouTube account where I’ll be doing readings of others’ works, such an Edgar Allan Poe’s A Tell-Tale Heart, The Cask of Amontillado, and The Raven, as well as Plath’s Lady Lazarus and Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom. And when publication of The Monsters Among Us nears, I’ll do a reading of the first chapter. There are no videos there yet, but will be soon, so I suggest subscribing to the channel. And if you find that my voice makes for good readings and would like me to read something of your choosing on the channel, I’m all ears! Send me an email through the contact form to make your suggestions!
Alongside this publication, I’ve been hard at work on new books. Last year alone I wrote three novels, two fiction and one creative nonfiction, and I’m currently readying them to be sent out to agents and publishers. So, the publication of The Monsters Among Us is only the beginning of what will be a large body of work for you all to enjoy.
And I couldn’t be more thrilled to share them all with you.
So make sure to stay up to date by following me on social media (@kentpriore), and signing up for my newsletter would also work in your favor. Its the best way to stay in the loop, as well as receiving exclusive details about The Monsters Among Us, such as character summaries, plot, setting, and more! So be sure to subscribe!