WHERE THINGS STAND WITH ME
an appeal for help, my novel Blood Trip, some news about friends
WHERE THINGS STAND WITH ME
For all my new followers (and old): Welcome. I hope you are enjoying my writing. I put a lot of heart and soul into this newsletter and I’m always thinking of things to tell you about. I’m planning to write better Substack posts and the recent responses have been encouraging, with new subscribers and some good data on how people are reading me. The whole point is to establish a connection and provide content for hungry readers who might want something thoughtful to absorb over their morning coffee, a distraction during the day, or a nocturnal treat as you get weird in your living room with a drink or a bowl packed with the purple urple. I’m committed to entertain and transport you.
But times are tight. In these tough economic times I have to think about how to make money from my pen. I hope you have perceived from either reading new posts or going back and looking through the archives, the quality that I try to put into this. I need your help.
This is partially an alert that while you may be new arrivals, there is an opportunity for you to support my writing in a substantial way by going backwards in time slightly. My debut crime novel Blood Trip came out in April 2022 on Amazon and has gathered 11 reviews so far with an average of 4.7 stars. It’s $9.99 for a paperback and $3.99 for a Kindle e-book. It’s a thriller that is intended to take you for a ride and entertain you while unearthing some ugly human emotions that I’m hoping you can recognize and be aware of.
Here is an excellent, very thoughtful and thorough review of Blood Trip from outstanding reviewer Dave Fitzgerald at Daily Grindhouse. If you’re not sure about buying the book, I hope you will take a look at what Dave had to say. Also, incidentally, follow Dave Fitzgerald on Twitter at @DFitzgerraldo to get put in the way of some excellent book reviews, he’s one of the best out there right now.
http://dailygrindhouse.com/thewire/the-illusion-of-control-on-jesse-hilsons-blood-trip/
And here are some snapshots of balanced, realistically fair (not 100% positive) Amazon reviews left by readers of Blood Trip:
Down below I will give you the Amazon link where you can buy the book. Or you could just search “Jesse Hilson Blood Trip.”
If you don’t deal with Amazon I’m very sorry, that’s how I have to do this right now as the publisher Close to the Bone goes through them. I would offer to sell you copies myself in the mail but I don’t have many copies and shipping books out right now is not convenient for me. Maybe in the future.
This brings me to another point I’d like to make. I appreciate your subscriptions to Chlorophyll & Hemoglobin as it really boosts me and gets me fired up to write for you. I am not at this point yet but I am toying with the idea of making some Substack posts paid instead of free. I’m not sure about this at the moment but it is a possibility and I wanted to let you know about it. I hope some of you would come along with me in this new phase. Again, it would support me and monetization is a logical next step for content providers right now. I am going to explore how to do this and vary the content so some of it stays free and some more exclusive writing is paid. That will take some planning as I’ve just been putting it all out there for free up to this point. It’s not 100% popular to do this and some people will balk. That’s just how the cookie crumbles and I understand, but I hope you can understand me when I say that I would like to start getting remunerated for this work that I feel like has value for other people and myself. Once again, I’m not ready to implement this yet and I don’t even want to start thinking about the tax repercussions and requirements of reporting writer income via a thing like Substack. Let me know in comments how you feel about this if you have any input, advice, commentary, etc.
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In other news, my friend Adam Johnson shared with me some funny news about his novel Cialis, Verdi, Gin, Jag which I helped him publish at Anxiety Press this year. Somehow through the contortions of fate his book got placed at the famous Chicago bookstore Quimby’s. I guess Quimby’s specializes in zines and comic books. I suspect Anxiety Press EIC Cody Sexton took the book there. Anyway, recently the staff at Quimby’s made a video talking about their new releases and CVGJ gets mentioned! Adam and I talked about this and we have our doubts about whether Quimby’s staff have read the book or know what it’s about as they describe it as a book of poetry you can have a cup of coffee with and curl up with. Frightening to think about! Here’s the link to the video. At 19:50 Adam’s terrifying, bruising, monster of a psychological horror novel makes its appearance.
https://www.quimbys.com/blog/new_stuff/new-stuff-this-week-590/
Finally, this is a head’s up that appearing sometime early next year at Apocalypse Confidential there will be an interview I conducted with writer and journalist Gabriel Hart in late 2021. Gabriel, for those of you who don’t know, is a terrific writer of neo-pulp fiction of multiple genres and a journalist with apparently deep resources and long reach who interviews other writers for LitReactor. He also contributes to the LARB (Los Angeles Review of Books) regularly which is no small feat, and rubs elbows on twitter with heavy hitters like Joyce Carol Oates. He wrote a great book which was my intro to him called Virgins in Reverse/The Intrusion, which is a pair of linked novellas set in LA and dealing with people having surreal freak-outs over relationships and alcohol. It’s really good, I recommend picking it up. Gabriel has also written several books of poetry (Unsongs Vol 1 and Hymns from the Whipping Post) and a collection of short stories Fallout from Our Asphalt Hell. These last three are from Close to the Bone which you’ll notice is the publisher of Blood Trip. I also understand that Gabriel is working on getting some novels out there into the public eye that, from his writing I’ve seen so far, are sure to be explosive.
The interview has a particular value because it’s usually Gabriel doing the interviewing so the tables were turned and he gave excellent insights into writers in our scene and beyond. Guy’s very well read and has high standards which you will see. The interview happened like I say in late 2021 and can be seen as a kind of time capsule of how things stood before the watershed year of 2022 when many things changed, including the graceful (or graceless) endings of online publishers Misery Tourism and Surfaces.cx, as well as the devastating loss of the legendary outlaw writer Eris (Elizabeth V Aldrich) who Gabriel knew quite well and whose prolific work the final estimation of has not been written. So the interview is positioned at a time that, while recent, is important for illuminating the granular changes and passage of time for those of us who are in this local pocket of writers toiling in the cyberwriting vineyard. So watch for that interview next year and get familiar with a major character.
In summary, I hope you are having a good December so far and watch for further essays, fiction, music/podcast recommendations, and news from me here in your inbox…things are going to get exciting.
Completely with you on Gabriel Hart's "Fallout from Our Asphalt Hell" - that's one crazy short story collection! Loved it.