Codorus Press Heads Home

Author Tom Joyce (right) and unpaid, underage intern Andrew Pruden (son of author Scott B. Pruden), hold down the Codorus Press booth at Central PA ComicCon.

The Codorus Press crew was back on our ancestral turf of York, Pa., this past weekend joining in the fun at Central PA ComicCon.

This was our second year participating in the con, and wow, it’s grown! This year we were at the Old Main building of the York Fairgrounds, which made for a great and wide open venue with lots of room for vendors, customers, cosplayers and celebrities to mingle, buy merchandise, take pictures and just revel in the awesomeness.

A Death in the Extended Codorus Press Family (Plus Some Happy News)

The literary world  mourned the loss of Amiri Baraka last week and we here at Codorus Press were especially sad to hear of his death at the age of 79.

For a man who, for much of his life, was perhaps known the most for being controversial, it’s important to note the positive ripples one person can put out into the universe without even realizing it.

In many ways, Amiri Baraka was the godfather of Codorus Press, since working on his final book of poetry was one of the moments that made our founder, Wayne Lockwood, suspect that he could start his own publishing house. You can get a better perspective on the influence Baraka had on Wayne in this post from his jazz blog.

And Now, the Good News …

Alex Segura, author of “Silent City,” speaks to the crowd at Books & Books in Coral Gables, Fla.

Codorus Press had an absolutely epic fall 2013, with the publication of three excellent works which spent the subsequent months garnering some excellent attention from all corners. Gerry LaFemina’s Clamor, Alex Segura’s Silent City and Tom Joyce’s The Freak Foundation Operative’s Report were all stellar additions to the Codorus Press catalog.

Each title made its own splash and covered the spectrum of writing from literary fiction to crime thriller to satirical horror. We’ve received a great combination of positive notices from other authors and impressive reader reviews. Each author has participated in his own events – such as Alex’s signings at the Mysterious Bookshop in Astoria, N.Y., and Books & Books in Coral Gables, Fla. – as well as a couple of great group events like the Frostburg State University Indie Lit Festival (organized, incidentally, by Gerry LaFemina).

So what’s on tap for 2014? Well, a little rest, for one thing. But not so much that we won’t be busy hustling to sell all our titles at a variety of venues. Along with the regional book festivals that we’ve come to love (and who hopefully love us back), we’re branching out. A good portion of the Codorus crew (Tom, Wayne, Alex and possibly Gerry) will be in the house Jan. 25 at Enigma Bookstore in Astoria, N.Y. Tom and author Scott B. Pruden – the guys behind our two speculative fiction titles – will be appearing April 6 with their sci-fi/horror/fantasy brethren at the Central Pennsylvania ComicCon in Carlisle, Pa.

And that’s just within the next few months. Keep you ears open for more events by our authors individually and in groups, not to mention a slate of fall book festivals throughout the rest of the year (Frostburg will again be a pretty safe bet, and we’re hoping to once again hit the Baltimore Book Festival and maybe another ).

And no matter where it is, we hope to see you, our readers, when we’re out and about. If you’ve got someplace you’d like to see us, let us know. And if you want a Codorus Press author to visit you in your town, just give us a shout.

Feeling Frosty – The Codorus Press Crew Heads to Frostburg, Md.

It’s a late festival season for the Codorus Press crew, but we’re getting things off to a great start with our second annual appearance at the Western Maryland Indie Lit Festival in beautiful Frostburg, Md.

The first time we hit Frostburg was a bounty of awesomeness for all our authors. Codorus founder Wayne Lockwood and co-founder Scott B. Pruden appeared on a couple of panels each, and the same goes for this year. We love to talk about writing and we’ll do it until your ears bleed, so please feel free to interrupt us before that happens.

Last year we also go to know über prolific author Jessica McHugh, who we’d originally bumped into at the Baltimore Book Festival, as her publisher’s booth was right next door. When Scott sat on the sci-fi and fantasy panel, he joined now Nebula Award-winning short story writer Andy Duncan, also a fellow University of South Carolina alum, in speaking on the topic. (They each managed to refrain from joining in a call-response cheer of “Game!” … “Cocks!”

We also got to know Gerry LaFemina, part of the faculty at Frostburg State University (which hosts the festival), and will be publishing his forthcoming novel Clamor before the end of 2013. Codorus author Tom Joyce, meanwhile, perpetrated the usual lunacy and built some buzz for his novel, The Freak Foundation Operative’s Report, which launched over the summer.

All in all a pretty productive visit, wouldn’t you say?

Tom will be back with us again this year with actual copies of Freak Foundation ( or FFOR, as we like to call it), promotional information on forthcoming title Silent City by Alex Segura, and we’ll also be joined by Junior Deputy Codorus Press Intern, Andrew Pruden, Scott’s 9-year-old son, who’ll be offering his own original work, the short story “Animal Crime Fighters.”

Perhaps best of all, we got to meet and interact with dozens of writers, publishers and – most importantly – readers. We have no doubt the same will be said for this year’s event.

We hope you can join us if you happen to be rambling around the mountains of western Maryland tomorrow at the Frostburg State University Creative Writing Center. Things get rolling at around 11 a.m. and we’ll be in the house until 6 p.m..

 

Tom Joyce Welcomes You to the Freak (Foundation) Show

We’re thrilled to announce that this week sales of The Freak Foundation Operative’s Report by longtime Codorus Press compatriot Tom Joyce went live online, and that the buzz that had already been building about its release is continuing now that it’s out there in readers’ hands.

Lucky early-adopters had already been able to grab copies through hand sales and Goodreads giveaways, but now it’s out there for everyone to enjoy.

And enjoy, you shall.

What’s it about? Here’s a little taste from the book jacket:

Masked worshippers of a bloodthirsty, ancient god — calling themselves The Slain — have the Central Pennsylvania city of Batley under siege. Between slugs of rotgut, a skeptical operative must use wits and bare knuckles to connect a part-time faerie queen, the sordid history of a carnival and a reclusive cult leader who may have unleashed unearthly evil. The Freak Foundation Operative’s Report is a shell game of a novel that combines elements of hard-boiled mysteries, occult thrillers and dark social satire. It’s H.P. Lovecraft meets Elmore Leonard by way of the Marx Brothers.

Wow! A little something for everyone. Early reviews are enormously positive and so far reader response has been wonderful.

Linda D. Addison, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of How to Recognize a Demon Has Become Your Friend, calls FFOR “Mind-altering mystery.”

“Each character was so real that I found myself forgetting this was fiction,” she adds. “It’s impossible to believe this is a first novel. I can’t wait to read the next work from this highly inventive author.”

Not too shabby. But we’re not surprised. Tom’s ear for dialogue has been finely tuned from years as a voracious reader and newspaper journalist, and the plot is a whirlwind of unforgettable and absurd situations that keep the story moving forward at a breakneck pace.

We’re thrilled to have this full-length work from Tom, and we’re looking forward to pulling together a number of his excellent short stories in an anthology sometime soon. Pester him on his website to see if he’ll post one to give you a little taste.

In the meantime, Tom and Scott B. Pruden, author of our debut title, Immaculate Deception, are working to team up on some appearances at horror and sci-fi conventions in late 2013 and through 2014 (complete with Tom’s signature sword-swallowing, Three-Card-Monte games and various feats of sleight of hand).

Stay tuned for details on those, and make sure to order FFOR right away so you can see what all the fuss is about.

Don’t Be a Summer Reading Scofflaw!

We’re certainly not opposed to heavy reading around here, but let’s face it – Fourth of July week is not the time to be diving into some deep tome about man’s place in the universe or the long, thankless slog of birth, school and work that most people endure before succumbing to an unremarkable and wholly unforgettable death. That kind of stuff will get you hauled off the beach by the Summer Beach Reading Patrol in a skinny minute.

Instead, it’s a time for reveling in the things that make America the amazing place it is – wacky religious movements, Elvis impersonators, Dumpster diving, badass gay Marines (and their crossdresser friends), Nirvana, sultry redheads, law student strippers and diets consisting mainly of fast food!

And where can you find all those things? Why, right where you found this – with us good folks at Codorus Press. So when you’re tempted to tote that 500-page biography of Hubert Humphrey out onto the sand, think again and go for a fine Codorus Press title instead – all of which, incidentally, are available in the very beach-friendly Kindle format.

Oh, and don’t forget – not long after the extended holiday weekend we’ll be adding more fun to the mix with the release of Tom Joyce’s debut novel The Freak Foundation Operative’s Report, full of con artists, carnies, pagan idolaters, faerie folk and other all-American literary elements.

Dispatches from the Codorus Universe

The holidays are hopping around the Codorus Press offices as our band of elves looks ahead to 2013 (assuming we don’t all die in a flaming apocalyptic ball later this week … if so: Waiter? Another pint, please?).

But we’re not really focusing on the end of the world. We’ve got too much going on to waste our time on silly things like extinction.

Want to get an idea of how busy we’ve been? Just take a poke around the Interwebs, my friend. There’s plenty of Codorus Press treasure to be found.

You know you’ve made an impression on a book reviewer when a few months after he’s reviewed your book he’s drawing upon it to make a point in a subsequent issue of his publication.

That’s the happy situation our founder, musical director and shaman, Wayne Lockwood, has found himself in this month. Andrew Andrews, publisher and editor of the blog True Review, gave Wayne an extensive shout-out, referencing our great and glorious leader’s essay collection, Acid Indigestion Eyes: Collected Essays and Musings on Generation X, in his column Tyranny of the Same.

In it, Andrews riffs on personal damage the devastation of Superstorm Sandy wrought and notes Wayne’s assertion that the Internet has made it possible for all things from all periods of culture to exist at once. We’re nothing if not deep around here.

Earlier in the fall, Mike Argento, author of Don’t Be Cruel, announced the release of the novel’s e-book version through our friends at Crossroad Press. That means the novel is now available for nearly every electronic reader device out there.

But Mike isn’t just an author of gut-bustingly hilarious crime fiction – he’s also a full-time (and highly regarded) newspaper columnist with some prestigious awards under his belt. You can always keep up on his latest work at the sight for his newspaper (and former employer of much of the Codorus crew), The York Daily Record.

We’re excited about the spring 2013 release of longtime Codorus Press team member Tom Joyce’s first novel, The Freak Foundation Operative’s Report. This multi-layered satirical occult thriller promises to appeal to fans of everything from H.P. Lovecraft to Stephen King to the Marx Brothers.

Over at Tom Joyce’s Chamber of the Bizarre, he’s been working away perpetrating his usual lunacy and taking some time out to post a favorable review of the new novel Pins by Jessica McHugh, a frequent flyer at many of the book festivals the Codorus crew attends and a valued friend of the press. Oh, and in case that isn’t incentive enough, her book is about strippers. Now, doesn’t that … Hey, where’d you go? Ah, never mind.

Those of you who haven’t abandoned us to go page through Pins looking for the good parts might also like to know that Scott B. Pruden, author of debut Codorus title Immaculate Deception, had a nice essay on his former boss Ray Daub published in the Philadelphia Inquirer on Dec. 12. He followed that up with a blog posting relating how Ray influenced a particular character from his novel.

It turns out Ray, who Scott worked for as he designed, built and installed a 3/4-scale walk through display of Charles Dickens‘ A Christmas Carol in the mid-1980s, served as the physical inspiration for William Z. Robert, a low-rent, chain smoking demon featured as a major secondary character in Scott’s novel.

Sleight of Hand, Mighty in Marketing

Codorus Press founder Wayne Lockwood has put forth several great posts recently on our visit to the Baltimore Book Festival Sept. 28-30, discussing how the sleight of hand and magical illusion skills of Codorus author Tom Joyce contributed immensely to our success there. At the risk of redundancy, we’ll talk about a few of them here, too.

From a cash-free shell game crafted to reflect the process of writing a novel to just plain ol’ sword swallowing, Tom’s antics were actually a concerted effort by us at Codorus to ramp up our opportunities to interact with passers by and hopefully sell them some books. Here’s a look:

What we got from this was fourfold. First, people walked by with their mouths gaping 0pen, not really believing what they were seeing. Second, this set up a crowd for Tom’s shell game. Third, since the shell game bit was performed on top of our handy-dandy sheet of butcher paper, we could then invite folks to share with us their favorite books by writing them down (we’ll feature the books from our Baltimore weekend in an upcoming post. Fourth, seeing what they wrote would give us some insight into what they might like from the Codorus Press catalog.

It was easy to see the results. Sales for the three festival days jumped considerably over those from last year, and we saw a noticeably surge in traffic through our booth. And perhaps the best part is that Tom’s interest in things magical directly informed the plot of his upcoming Codorus Press title, The Freak Foundation Operative’s Report, slated for a 2013 release.

A Bit of What If

To follow up on our earlier post about really bad book covers, we offer this bit of whimsy from Cracked.com on what famous titles original covers might have looked like. Pretty hilarious, if we do say so ourselves, especially the one here. Check the rest (and plenty of other funny stuff) out here.

(Bad) Cover Story

We at Codorus Press pride ourselves on our great book covers – whether it’s the pop art goodness of Acid Indigestion Eyes or the Elvis-inspired mannequin on the cover of Don’t Be Cruel.

But there are plent of really bad covers out there. Here’s a collection of a few cringe-worthy examples.

Love – and Books – for Sale

No, this is not a blog entry about prostitution. But given the reaction some authors have about getting out to beat the pavement and actually sell copies of their work, you’d think it was.

Here’s the attitude that usually results in that reaction. “My book is a work of art, and was born from the deepest depths of my tragic, tortured soul. Therefore, for me to indulge in something as base and crass as selling it to people … for money, is simply wrong. People should instead be drawn and ultimately obligated to buy and read my deathless prose because of the sheer gravity of its deep and poignant observations.”

That, of course, is bullshit (I think I’m quoting Hemingway there, but I’m not sure).

No one will buy something that they don’t know exists, and that’s one of the biggest reason the Codorus Press crew is frequently seen out at regional book festivals braving inclement weather, fickle crowds and the prospect of not selling a single damn thing.

But this past weekend we broke our streak for all of the above, landing in lovely Gaithersburg, Md., Saturday for the Gaithersburg Book Festival, where we were greeted with warm sunshine, an amazingly well-organized event, friendly and engaging attendees and a gratifying number of sales for all our authors.

After spending the last two years or so attending these festivals, we’ve honed our approach to selling quite effectively, toying around with what has and hasn’t worked for us and also borrowing (cough*stealing*cough) a few ideas from some folks we see along the way. Our visit to Gaithersburg provided a couple of thoughts that we’d like to share for others looking to get out and market their books at festivals, whether they are published with a large or small press or giving indie or self-publishing a go.

• We don’t wait for you to come to us. We will come get you – Whether it’s smiling and saying hello, inviting people to our booth to write their favorite or most highly recommended book on a sheet of butcher paper or just randomly complimenting someone’s t-shirt, we constantly engage people as they walk by. This accomplishes several things – 1) it gets them to pull out of the stream of humanity walking by and come over to chat. 2) It allows us to start to engage them on something other than what we’re selling. 3) It lets them know that authors and publishers are human beings and not freaky mutants. 4) It’s an exchange of gratification (thus the title of this post). We have chosen to interact with them, giving them a little ego boost, while we hope they will do us the favor of purchasing (and enjoying) our works.
• We have refined our shtick … and continue to refine it– We have formulated great quick pitches for all of our books are 

  able to convey each title’s essence in just a few words. We are also equally passionate about the work of our fellow authors in the booth. The other authors can sell copies of Mike Argento’sDon’t Be Cruel almost as well as he can. That said, even as we worked the festival Saturday, author and Codorus founder Wayne Lockwood and author Scott Pruden realized emphasizing the “sexy” in Scott’s novel Immaculate Deception would tap the slightly underground market for sexy lit that has bubbled to the surface with the mainstream popularity of erotica aimed at women. For Wayne’s title Acid Indigestion Eyes, knowing that memoirs are immensely popular, we started to emphasize the memoir elements of the book, which is a collection of his work at Generation X columnist for Knight Ridder newspapers in the early 1990s.

• We get the hell out of our chairs … if we even decide to bring them – It’s stunning how many people we see sitting during these daylong book festivals. In a way, we can’t blame them because we know damn well how tiring it is to stand for eight hours on hot, hard asphalt. But you know what? If you want to sit, you’ve got a couch at home. This goes back to the “readers will come to us” philosophy. The author believes he or she can relax and wait for interested readers (and potential customers) to just wander up. This is a grave mistake. Sitting implies a lack of enthusiasm for the product being sold (and never forget that you are indeed selling a product). This weekend, we were barely off our feet for a moment, putting us at the level of our potential readers rather than forcing them to look down on us. Get up, stand up, sell more books. Which brings us to …
• We get the books as close to people as possible – We tried an experiment this weekend with some new, lightweight folding tables we bought to replace an ancient ironclad monster we had been using. The new tables have adjustable legs that allow us to get them to almost bar height, putting our work about a foot and a half closer than they would be at a normal table level. This made it easier and more inviting for people to pick the books up and handle them, which immediately imparts a feeling of ownership. And if they don’t pick the books up themselves, we’re pretty likely to hand them a copy ourselves. Touching is one step away from owning, which can only be cured by buying. Which brings us to …
• We make it easy for people to buy – This weekend was our first opportunity to use the Square credit/debit card reader for iPhone and Droid to allow our customers to pay electronically, and we are absolutely sold on this technology. We are by no means early adopters on this – the tech and app have been around for more than a year – but we’re now kicking ourselves for not jumping on this sooner. In the nearly cashless society in which we now live, it’s just plain dumb to not offer customers a way to pay electronically. Without exaggeration, our Square vs. cash sales ran at least 10-1 for the day. If you aren’t using this tech or something like it and are depending only on cash transactions, you are losing sales, period.
• We have our gimmicks and we’re not afraid to use them – Really, our gimmicks aren’t that crazy or elaborate, but they serve the purpose of attracting attention. In most cases, our cover art is the best gimmick we could ask for. Adam’s finger barely touching that of an obviously African-American Jehovah? Got it. Department store mannequin dressed as Elvis (and having a gun held to his head)? Got that, too. Bright pink pop art riff on a popular stomach remedy? Absolutely. Variously, we’ve also used fake religious tracts for the sex-and-drugs-based megachurch in Immaculate Deception and place mat menus from the novel’s fictional Cleaver’s restaurants. It never hurts to have a stark or jarring visual to grab people’s attention. Just ask our neighbors at Gaithersburg, who promoted their books using a life-sized Hannibal Lecter mannequin. I think we might need to put an offer on the Don’t Be Cruel cover model now that his keepers at Kenny’s Castaways are closing shop.
• We have fun … and show it – To quote the folks in the booth next to us, “You guys are having a great time over there.” Damn right. Despite the early mornings, lost sleep, long days and occasionally challenging conditions, we dig hanging out with each other and selling books to the people we meet. Walk past our booth and you’re likely to see all of us smiling and laughing at something one of the group has said. And that carries over to our customers. We joke. We kid. We flirt, if necessary. We make our booth feel like a fun place to be. Really, all that’s missing is a keg. And if Tom Joyce, our development editor and author of the forthcoming The Freak Foundation Operative’s Report, is in the house, you can at expect sleight of hand, random trivia, hilariously skewed observations and the likelihood that we’ll be filming another hilarious video clip for his blog Chamber of the Bizarre.

That said, we know we don’t have a lock on brilliant book festival sales tactics, so if you’re a publisher or author (or just a sales person with great ideas), we’d love to hear your thoughts, too