Why Shadow Children?

I am John Vault. I write dark fiction, short stories and novels.

Originality is my driving force, so I stay away from the run of the mill horror fodder. There are no vampires, werewolves, zombies or flesh eating aliens in my work. They've already been done, spun and respun, and even if I get a great vampire idea I throw it on principle. It's not sufficient merely to write. We indies have to bring something new into the mix.

We need to get back to the drawing board instead of revamping (no pun intended) ideas from the 1940s. Stephen King gave it a go, but alas I think even he has been battered into submission by publishers who think they know what sells.

Unfortunately, much like the music industry, the common man is only presented with material that the publishers believe to be marketable. 'We sold this stuff last time and we made a fortune, so let's do it again.' is the clarion call, and inevitably the death rattle, of the fossilised few big publishing houses. They don't live in the modern world. They don't understand the way that on line media has bypassed the walls of their ivory towers and flooded around their feet. They are doomed because they wilfully limit the level of choice within the market that they presume to serve. It's the consumer that gets to choose what they consume. It is the consumer after all, who fronts up with the cash. It you see a shop window with only three items in it, you're gonna walk on by.

More unfortunately, the big publishers still control the route to market. This thankfully is the only vestige of power remaining to them and it is fading fast. Why? Because their market is the brick and mortar bookstore. For the most part, traditional booksellers are influenced by advisors who, in turn, work for the publishers, and again their advice is based on what has gone before.

I therefore ask the question: How can you possibly foster originality based on what's already been done? There are no prior sales indicators for purely original work, which means that the publishers are in exactly the same situation as you and I when it comes to helping you to decide on your next reading purchase.

Luckily the answer is not only afoot, it's sprinting toward you.

If you have a manuscript ready - don't waste it on a publisher who will never get around to reading it, will send you a rejection slip out of hand, or worse, will take up your work and then fail to give it the support it deserves.

Instead, place your work with someone who will understand it, cherish it and do their utmost to see it put before the right people.

In other words, do the job yourself.

Yes there's more work involved. Actually writing your story is perhaps twenty percent of the task. There's proof reading (several times), editing, styling for publication, cover work, pricing, genre selection and registration, ISBN management... The list goes on.

And then the work really begins, because the hard part, the really hard part, is getting noticed.
 
That's the challenge, more than anything else facing the indie author, regardless of his or her talent, because if no-one knows you're there how are they going to read your work?

This then, is the purpose of my blog. I'm shouting out, waving a flag, whatever it takes to get seen.

Shadow children is a term that well defines the dark fiction indie author. Or perhaps shadow orphan may be better. We're on the outskirts, of publishing and of genre.

Horror and dark fiction are not the big genres that they were. Why? See above.

Horror is more at home in the cinema these days. Why? See above.

Because of this the publishing houses seem to have moved away from the horror genre which serves to compound the issue. Low interest equals low sales equals less support equals lower interest, and so it goes.

I have often asked myself if readers are becoming less imaginative these days. If they need all the visuals to be dished up and spoon fed along with the popcorn. I sincerely hope not or we're all doomed to writer's hell.

I want indie horror to flourish like a dark flower, a black rose amongst the compost that the big publishers are trying to pass off as quality.

The potential market is huge. It's our job to be noticed.

Do you have a tale to tell? A short story or poem perhaps? Darkly themed and dripping red?

If so I'd like to hear it, and if it moves me I'd like to add it to a blog page.

It's worth a freebie, I think, to wave your flag.

I've thrown my hat into the ring. It's called:

Tiw's Cup.

John Vault.
Author of Thaddeus, The Mushroom Man, Crones and Uncle John's Bedtime Tales.

email: authorjohnvault@gmail.com