Goodbye OldPub & Welcome to NewPub

It's been quite the year so far, hasn't it?

First it was the winter that wouldn't end, and then it was the virus that must not be named lest the lords of social media drop a hammer on your skull. We are close to the middle of the year and 2020 just doesn't want to give us a break. The virus has demolished just about every traditional outlet in the west from the entertainment industry to the health sector and everything in between. Nothing will walk out of this unscathed, and none of us will be the same when this is all over. We're facing down a new world.

The '20s came out roaring, and they show no signs of stopping. Those who still think they are living in the 20th century are currently in the middle of a rude awakening. Old paradigms no longer apply.

Despite the fact that everything has changed and is currently undergoing massive shifts, many in the big industries still believe everything is going to go back to normal once this pandemic dies down. Perhaps they don't actually believe it, but they have not shown otherwise. They certainly are acting like things are the same, from Disney to Sony they all are acting as if this is a freak storm they have to weather before the clouds clear and routine resumes. Soon enough you will be back in chains again and their pocketbooks can fill up once more.

As we discussed last week, however, that simply isn't going to happen.

Even before Corona came roaring out of Wuhan, these industries were already in trouble. Stories focused on subversion and forcing the audience to alter their personality to engage in it had already been a problem for years. None of these corporations had any rainy day money or plans in case they fell flat on their face. They just assumed this paradise of shuffling out product and having fanatics mindlessly consuming it (as is their duty!) would continue forever. Now they are surprised to see bites out of their bottom line and a cadre of former consumers laughing at their misfortunes while they walk away. They didn't think this could ever happen to them, and it's going to cost them dearly in the end.

The old creaking corporate monstrosities are on the way out. The corporate era of art is over, as is the concept of popular culture. All the virus has done is stop the can from being kicked further down the road. The collapse won't happen overnight, but the writing is burned onto the wall and has been for decades. These industries weren't around before the 20th century, and they won't make it through the 21st. That's simply the reality of the situation.

This is the reason I refuse to call OldPub by the name "TradPub", as there is nothing traditional about what they are. They have also thrown out tradition after tradition from pulp writing to spinner racks and have abandoned selling adventures to prescribing self-help seminars disguised as stories. They are as old and tired as the ironically named NewAge spirituality which they run off in an even more pathetic form today. They aren't traditional in any sense--they are anti-tradition, and they have been for a very long time. They seek to preserve nothing but their bottom line and their image, and if they can mold their audience into the ideal mindless consumer then they will do it. This group is old and lumbering, and they are dying.

Hence they are OldPub.

In the meantime, those of us in NewPub have begun to take advantage of this collapse. There was the Corona-Chan anthology, and then authors such as Brian Niemeier and David V. Stewart put out non-fiction books of their own in order to guide their audiences away from the practices of a dying industry. While things are off the rails for most of us, and OldPub can only weep about their stalled lumber business, NewPub is still cranking it out for the audience's enjoyment.

Myself, I can now announce two things I am working on. One I've mentioned in passing before, the other I have never said a word about. All this is in addition to the other fiction I am currently working on, by the by.

The first is a free novelette coming to readers of my newsletter! It will be out tomorrow, and it is entitled Duel on Dalpha.

You can sign up for the mailing list via the form in the top right corner of this site or through my landing page here. Either way, it will be out tomorrow and it will be FREE.

So what is it about? Well, read on and find out!

"Sheriff Simon Gareth keeps his town of Philomena clean of outlaws, but when a call takes him out to the swamp he soon finds more than he has bargained for. Giants in the mist, aliens from another world, and strange dark creatures, have run amok. Now he must protect his planet with nothing but his wits, his blood, and his guns! Get ready for a Duel on Dalpha!"

I was inspired to make this via many different sources. Mainly I liked the idea of a western horror in a swamp with aliens and giant robots. There's plenty of action, of course. Don't think that I don't know what my readers enjoy.

To explain where this came from is a bit tough. Most ideas I have for stories are just ones that come to me when I least expect them. This is one I had a while back but had to put on the back-burner while writing so many other things last year. As I let it simmer I had more and more of an idea what it was to be about.

So what you get here is a combination of western, lost world, mecha, horror, and legendary Knights based on the Round Table. There is a secret on the prison world of Dalpha that some nasty characters want. Simon Gareth will have to do some digging of his own, but what he finds might end up changing the destiny of the planet itself! Shootouts, traps, and hidden temples await! All this in a small novelette you can get for FREE.

But I had a problem. I never submitted it anywhere, but I knew one thing for sure: nobody would buy this story. It is too long for the markets I usually submit to, and there is too much action for any of the other outlets to give a second glance to. This is pure entertainment, and doesn't exist to lecture the audience about anything. There wasn't any way to sell it, despite how much I love this story. That's just a reality of the modern market. Only certain types of stories are profitable, ones that fall in a specific formula, other types are simply out of luck. There is nothing normal about Duel On Dalpha, but I still wanted to get it out there.

Naturally, I figured this would be the perfect gift for my readers. The last freebie I sent out lasted a year before it ended up in Someone is Aiming for You & Other Adventures, so they needed something new that was entirely different from the last story. That something new would be this novelette I had percolating in my head for some time now.

However, I wasn't going to just throw it out there myself. So I hired an artist to do a cover for me, and I hired editor Brian Niemeier to sharpen the story up with his skills. His tips allowed me to deliver the final product you see before you. I went all out to make sure this product is top notch because my readers deserve it.

In the end, you now have before you an adventure you won't soon forget and unlike anything you've ever read. And it's free.

Keep an eye on your inbox this Friday! I know you're gonna love it.

But that is only the first thing to announce.

The second piece I want to bring up is not quite ready for prime-time, but I can tell you what it is. I'm still tinkering with this one behind the scenes. It's considerably different than what I've put out so far. For one, it is non-fiction.

I've been working on a short little manual about gaining a pulp mindset for writing and in how to prepare yourself for the reality that is NewPub. It's not a How-To or self-help book, but a guide for how new writers are meant to adapt to this changing climate. It's a book on adjusting your mindset. I'm actually not quite sure how else to describe the thing since I haven't read another book like it. Nonetheless, if you like this blog you will enjoy this. It is very much in that vein, though it is original.

Hopefully that will be out before summer's end. I'm already pretty far into it and have been focusing quite a bit of attention on editing as I'm between projects. But there isn't much more to say right now other than to keep a lookout for when it's ready for prime-time!

On the other hand I still have other books and stories on the way, despite Corona-Chan's interference. I wanted to at least double my output from last year and I'm still well on the road to doing that. The Planetary Anthologies have helped with that. Be sure to keep checking out the newsletter and blog for future updates. This train won't be stopping anytime soon, God willing.

At the end of the day that's more or less where NewPub is right now. While the rusting wheels of OldPub creak to a stop the rest of us continue to blast on regardless towards new destinations. We are leaving them behind.

The world is changing and the '20s are showing us that in a crystal clear way. But we can't stop this train, it has to keep rolling. By the time we reach the next station we'll be so far ahead we won't even see OldPub's steam blocking out the sky anymore. Only blue skies ahead.

Welcome to NewPub, enjoy your stay.

Stories too hotblooded for OldPub!