Hallowmass on Hold and Ace Sci Fi Doubles

EyesofOdysseus

No Christmas Launch for Hot Horror Book

In case you've been following along this year, there will be no Halloween, Christmas, Christmas eBook out before 2016. Such is life being married to a copy editor/managing editor who is working a a holiday job. I'm still leaning toward pitching a small press. One in particular would put out Hallowmass in eBook form, then see if it sold a hundred copies before releasing it as a soft cover. Fair enough. Strange are the ways of writing. For seven months, all I thought about was Hallowmass. Now it's fading from memory, like a torrid relationship cooling with the seasons.  I will say no more on the book pre-Yule.

Etsy.com

Ace is the Place for Double Sci Fi

For a guy who never finished high school, my Dad was a tremendous reader. He'd be watching the White Sox on TV with a quart of Drewrys beer, a lit Pall Mall, and a book open in his lap, attention on the printed page during commercials. Wide-ranging in his genre tastes, Dad was fond of the science fiction of Andre Norton. And he was a avid lover of the Ace series of double paperbacks.  According to AbeBooks:

"One of Ace’s biggest coups was the Ace Doubles series.  These paperbacks contained two different novels that were bound together in the dos-a-dos style.  Their strategy was to pair a famous writer with a lesser known one and constantly introduce readers to new literary talent.  While Ace did not invent this concept, they did popularize it, and it became a fantastic marketing tool that benefited both the publisher and readers for many years.  Ace published several hundred Ace Doubles in the dos-a-dos format between 1952 and 1973, and many science fiction fans have built collections around these eye-catching paperbacks."

They were basically novellas, but it was really cool to flip one over and see brand new cover art and a different story. That said, I have two novellas from my frenzy of 2013 writing. Since both stories involve hapless travelers set upon by monsters, my wife suggested they'd make a great single edition. I immediately thought of Ace Doubles. These two stories are an Ace Double. But I gather it's a production pain since you have to commission two covers and arrange the text in a just-so manner. 

Maybe I can't swing a double, but the two tales of a mysterious, dangerous, wider world are what I shall write next. 

A most Merry Christmas!