Philip Fracassi's Blog: PHILIP FRACASSI BLOG

I’m excited to share the following dates for my fall tour to promote THE AUTUMN SPRINGS RETIREMENT HOME MASSACRE. I’ve also dropped some links for folks who can’t make a tour stop but would like to order a signed copy. Hope to see you out there!

FanX Salt Lake Comic Con - Salt Lake City, Utah - September 25-27

Book Soup - West Hollywood, CA - October 3 (w/ Brian Evenson)

Mysterious Galaxy - San Diego, CA - October 4 (w/ Brian Asman)

Artifact Books - Encinitas, CA - October 5 (w/ Cody Goodfellow)

The Poisoned Pen Bookstore - Phoenix, AZ - October 9 (w/ Brian Asman)

Books on the Bosque - Albuquerque, NM - October 10 (multi-author event)

Twisted Spine Bookstore - Brooklyn, NY - October 13 (multi-author event)

Doylestown Bookshop - Doylestown, PA - October 14 (w/ Chuck Wendig)

Barnes & Noble - Hingham, MA - October 16 (w/ Paul Tremblay)

Merrimack Valley Book Festival - October 17-19

Nowhere Bookshop - San Antonio, TX - October 21 (w/ Johnny Compton)

Murder by the Book - Houston, TX - October 23 (w/ Johnny Compton)

Utah Humanities: A Day of Horror - South West Valley City, UT - October 25

Louisiana Book Festival - Baton Rouge, LA - November 1

Octavia Books - New Orleans, LA - November 2 (multi-author event)

Horror on the Hudson - Hudson Valley, NY - November 7-9

Books by the Banks - Cincinnati, OH - November 15

JefCon - Dayton, TN - December 6

Can’t make a date but want a signed and/or personalized book? Here’s some preorder links - just be sure to mention you want a “SIGNED COPY” when checking out:

Book Soup

Mysterious Galaxy

Artifact Books

The Mysterious Bookshop

The Poisoned Pen

Murder by the Book

Was blown away by the response today to the announcement for FAIL SAFE, a short story of mine that is being adapted into a feature film, starring Brie Larson, produced by JJ Abrams, with a screenplay by Brian Duffield, and directed by JT Mollner.

DEADLINE was the first to break the news.

“Fail Safe”, the short story, has had an interesting life.

Way back in 2016, I wrote a story about a little kid living with a loving father and mother, both of them scientists of an undefined discipline. The entire story is told from the perspective of the 12-year-old boy, who has a birthday approaching and is excited about the idea of “becoming a man.”

As the story progresses, the reader realizes that something is decidedly off about this family. For one, there’s a massive room being built in the basement. A room that has a chair with straps, a steel door, a communication relay, and, most disturbingly, a “fail safe” that will kill anything inside that room if, well, things go bad.

The next thing the reader discovers is that the thing that can go bad… is Mom.

I won’t spoil anything for those reading this. If you’d like to read the story in it’s entirety, it’s available in my debut collection, BEHOLD THE VOID, which you can buy wherever you buy books (audio, ebook, paperback). This collection, I should note, also contains the story “Altar”, which has been made into a feature film by A24 and is due for theatrical release in 2026.

The one thing about “Fail Safe”, the story, that I think might be of interest to writers out there, is that nobody wanted to buy this story. Meaning, I submitted it to dozens of magazines and websites and got turned down by every… single… one.

When it came time to assemble stories for my debut collection, I knew I wanted the story to be in there. Why? Everyone rejected it! Why put a stinker in your book? Well, because I loved the story. I believed in the story, and so I decided to put it in the book with other stories that had been published and had been well received.

“Fail Safe” went on to be selected for the prestigious Best Horror of the Year series (Volume Ten), and was reprinted numerous times in numerous languages. Next to my story “Altar”, it was definitely a fan favorite for those who read the book.

A couple years later, it was optioned for a feature film by a major studio. How, you ask? Dumb luck, is the answer. I had no film / tv agent at the time. My literary agent fielded requests for my stories, and I navigated those waters the best I could, essentially dumping option money into lawyer fees. That’s how ALTAR happened (they came to us after reading the story) and it’s essentially how FAIL SAFE happened. I’d submitted a story for a magazine, the publisher of which also worked in film (Assemble Media), and when they read my other stories they asked about “Fail Safe”. They then did some shopping of the story, attached a screenwriter, got it to Bad Robot, and optioned it to a studio. When that studio option expired, it was optioned again by FilmNation / Infrared, who worked with the original production team of Assemble Media and Bad Robot, attached Brie Larson and JT Mollner, kept the script by Brian Duffield, and here we are. Convoluted, right? Bottom line, though, is I wrote the story, got it out there, and hoped.

The point, of course, is to believe in your work, even if it seems that no one else does. Don’t chase trends even if it’s what publishers are asking for. Be true to yourself and your voice, work hard, and good things will happen.

Over the last decade, I’ve published over 60 short stories, published 3 standalone collections, 4 novellas, and 6 novels. Each and every one of those stories is an opportunity, but you have to write the stories, you have to put in the hours, and deal with the solitude and be okay with missing huge chunks of what’s going on “out there” while you punch your dreams into a keyboard and give them life. You have to work to find homes—anywhere—for those stories, so readers can find them, so your characters and your monsters and your insane, beautiful ideas can be out there in the world for people to discover.

I’m so thrilled that some of my crazy ideas are going to be reimagined for a new medium by brilliant, creative people like Egor Abramenko and Will Soodik, the director and writer of the A24 film, ALTAR, and by Brian Duffield and JT Mollner and Brie Larson, who are going to take what I created for FAIL SAFE and do something original and unique and incredible.

I love the idea of creativity spawning creativity. I love the idea of seeing these stories evolve and grow and transform. And I hope that all the writers out there reading this will have the opportunity to experience the same thing, and I hope you’ll keep grinding, and chasing, and working, and hustling, because if you believe in yourself, and your stories, and put in the hours and persevere, I know you’ll succeed.

Now, go write something.

PF

Another turbulent, exhausting, but overall successful year is in the books (pun intended).

Overall, a lot of really good stuff happened. I read a bunch of great books (but wish I could have read more). On the writing side, I feel good about what I accomplished, but there was also some frustration.

Let’s get into it.

On the writing front, 2024 was the Year of the Rewrite.

It was CRAZY how much of my time this past year was devoted to rewriting stuff instead of writing new stuff. To be honest, it was incredibly frustrating to look back on the time spent this year reworking stories instead of the much funner job of creating new ones.

Welcome to publishing, right?

That said, I was able to complete a new horror novel called THE AUTUMN SPRINGS RETIREMENT HOME MASSACRE, which will be coming out on September 30, 2025 from my friends at Tor Nightfire in the US and Orbit Books in the UK.

On the short story front, I was only able to eke out a handful of new work, all of which was first offered to my awesome Patreon members. I was lucky to sell the few stories I did have time to write, and one in particular will be appearing as a standalone novella from Shortwave Publishing in May of next year. That one’s called D7.

But as I stated above, the theme of 2024 was rewrites. For at least half of the year, I was editing or rewriting three different novels: Sarafina, The Third Rule of Time Travel, and The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre, all of which were under tight deadlines.

Sarafina was released this past October in a beautiful limited edition from Earthling Publications. That particular edition is Sold Out, but there’s a handful banging around from secondary market dealers. (Note: The trade edition of this novel will be out from CLASH Books in April 2026).

The Third Rule of Time Travel will release from Orbit US & UK on March 18, 2025.

The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre, as mentioned, will be out in the fall of next year.

Now that these three books are all cozily tucked away in their editing beds, I should have more time in the new year to write original material. My hope is to knock out another novel and 8-10 short stories. #goals

As far as publishing goes, I had a lot of great stuff come out in 2024 that I’m really proud of.

A brand-new story collection, NO ONE IS SAFE!, was released by Lethe Press in April, and received Starred Reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist.

Deluxe editions of two novels were released: A Child Alone with Strangers, from Lividian Publications, and the aforementioned Sarafina from Earthling.

A beautiful deluxe edition of my newest story collection, NO ONE IS SAFE!, came out from Thunderstorm Books in November.

I also had stories appear in a couple anthologies and a magazine, and I produced two original chapbooks for my Patreon members under my Altar Publishing imprint: I Think My Treehouse is Haunted and Point Oh One.

I always like to take a family photo of each year’s publications. Below are the kids from 2024.

2024 Publications

Lastly, I have to mention how exciting it is that one of my stories - ALTAR - was produced by movie studio A24, with Will Soodik writing the script and Egor Abramenko directing. I had a blast visiting the set for a week, and hopefully the movie will be out next summer (along with a brand new edition of the story from A24). More details HERE.

I think that pretty much wraps up the year for writing and publishing.

If interested in more info on my books, click HERE.

Now, let’s talk about what I read.

As I mentioned, this was a down year for my reading. I read more for blurbs than I ever have, and because of the extensive novel rewrites I just didn’t have a lot of free time. In addition, I read a few chonkers that were well over 1000 pages, so that lowered the overall quantity.

That said, I always like to mention some books that I did read over the year, and recommend some of the ones I enjoyed the most. I’ve noted where the books have not yet been released.

Of the 50+ books I read, this is a list of titles I’d recommend you pick up:

When the Wolf Comes Home - Nat Cassidy (releases April 2025)

Lone Women - Victor LaValle

The House of Last Resort - Christopher Golden

The Swarm - Andy Marino

Night Watching - Tracy Sierra

How to Make a Horror Movie and Survive - Craig DiLouie

Not a Speck of Light - Laird Barron

Small Things Like These - Claire Keegan

Horror Movie - Paul Tremblay

Incidents Around the House - Josh Malerman

Small Town Horror - Ronald Malfi

The God of the Woods - Liz Moore

The Way of Kings - Brandon Sanderson

The Bang-Bang Sisters - Rio Youers

Lost Man’s Lane - Scott Carson

Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir

The Ferryman - Justin Cronin

The Passage - Justin Cronin

Night of the Long Knives - Tyler Jones

The Insatiable Volt Sisters - Rachel Eve Moulton

Presumed Innocent - Scott Turow

Nobody’s Fool - Richard Russo

White Line Fever - KC Jones (releases March 2025)

We Used to Live Here - Marcus Kliewer

Of all the books I read this past year that were new or upcoming releases, my favorite was probably When the Wolf Comes Home by Nat Cassidy. I had a lot of fun reading this novel and thought Cassidy took the story some super interesting directions I was not prepared for. Crunch that preorder button!

Looking into next year, when I glance at my TBR stack for 2025, I’ve got sneak peek books from Christopher Golden, Eric LaRocca, and Ronald Malfi, plus titles such as The Reformatory by Tananarive Due, James by Percival Everett, Flint Kill Creek by Joyce Carol Oates, All Fours by Miranda July, American Rapture by CJ Leede, and The City and its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami… just to name a few sitting next to my reading chair.

I hope to get a lot more time in that reading chair in 2025, but we’ll just have to wait and see how the new year plays out. There’s a lot going on and a lot of work to do, so time will tell.

Anyway, that’s my big wrap up! So Happy Holidays, my friends and, as always, keep reading, stay healthy, and remember to be good to each other, and to yourselves.

PF

(Header Artwork by Chris Nurse, for Sarafina)

In October of this year I suffered my first-ever case of burnout.

And I’d like to talk about that for a few reasons, the biggest of which is so that other writers who may experience similar feelings know that A) It’s okay, you’re not alone and B) It does get better.

My entire life, writing has been a passion. When I was a little kid, I would stare at Stephen King’s black and white image on the back of one of his hardcover books and dream of my adult face being there on my own title. I loved writing ever since I was in 3rd grade, when I’d write cartoon pastiche and bad detective stories. In 7th grade I graduated to novella-length horror and, believe it or not, poetry. Dozens of poems. Don’t believe it? Here’s one I’m particularly fond of (in the way one is fond of a favorite fingerpainting from childhood).

In my 20s and 30s, I wrote dozens of short stories, poems, and three novels (two of which are in print!). I was also writing screenplays (had a couple movies made) and worked part time in the film/tv industry.

In my 40s, I discovered my love of writing horror, and was able to start building a career in publishing. After a few years of hard work and some luck, I was able to start writing full time.

Dream come true. Cue the swelling violins.

For a year or so, I was rabid. Dangerous. I was so excited to have finally achieved my lifelong goal of being a full-time fiction writer that I would do anything, sacrifice anything, to succeed. Or, you know, succeed enough where I could continue to do what I love each and every day.

So I worked. We’re talking 10-12 hours a day, 7 days a week. At the desk. Pounding keys.

Since 2020, I’ve written 6 novels, 27 short stories, and 3 feature-length screenplays.

And everything was fine… until it wasn’t.

In 2023, while rewriting my novel SARAFINA, my father had a severe stroke and began to suffer from dementia. I spent two months in Michigan taking care of him (along with a few of my siblings) before he sadly passed away. During this stretch I was doing edits on the novel in order to make a publisher deadline (for a book we ultimately ended up parting ways on). At the time, I thought it was good to slip into my writing world for an hour or two when I could. In the long run, I’m not so sure.

In 2024, I started writing my next novel, THE AUTUMN SPRINGS RETIREMENT HOME MASSACRE. Before I was 100 pages in, my mother passed away, somewhat suddenly. Again, I was under deadline to have a draft of this book completed, and ended up writing a majority of the novel in the weeks following the funeral, while I was still very raw and grieving (still grieving of course - that doesn’t go away). But I wrote through the pain, and exhaustion, and pushed myself to get the book done on time. Which I did. Stupidly, I think.

From June until October, I was hit with massive rewrites — all under strict deadlines — for SARAFINA, THE THIRD RULE OF TIME TRAVEL, and AUTUMN SPRINGS. During this time I was also promoting my new story collection, NO ONE IS SAFE, as best I could, and dealing with all the usual day-to-day work of a full-time writer, plus traveling for events, keeping up with social media and my Patreon and, you know, dealing with general life stuff.

My plan for 2025 was intensive. I was hoping to write 2 more novels and was working with my agent to push for a deal with one (or both) of my current publishers. I also planned to write a novel for my Patreon. Of course, I knew I already had 2 novels coming out in 2025, and both of those novels would need promotion and travel in order to get them off the ground. And I won’t even get into external stressors like our HOA fees skyrocketing, a nasty bronchial infection, the pending election, or, you know, wars everywhere.

With all of this going on, and all these future plans in my head… I snapped.

In October 2024, I finally pushed myself past my limit and suffered a nervous breakdown. Everything shut down, physically and mentally. It got to the point where I’d see an email that required my attention and I’d get a surge of nausea, or I’d think about what I needed to get done in the upcoming weeks and would essentially go fetal and sleep until I could regain some psychological leverage. And as a guy who spent a majority of his adult life dealing with clinical depression and anxiety, I was very aware of what was happening to me.

I also knew what I had to do.

The first thing I did was inform my incredible patreon members that I’d be scaling back plans for 2025. No novel. I explained why, and the support was overwhelmingly positive and gracious. I have the best readers in the world, for which I’m very thankful.

The next thing I did was get on the phone with my agent and explain that I needed to pump the brakes. Again, she totally understood and immediately withdrew all the work being considered, informed folks that all deals were on hold (aside from one deal we were already negotiating), and told me to take my time in figuring out what came next.

The last thing I did was inform my support system (i.e. my amazing wife) that I’d be scaling back next year—likely only writing a handful of short stories, tinkering with ideas, etc.

In other words, slowing down.

In real time, I made a point to cut back my hours at the desk, at least for a bit. I try to give myself at least one full day off a week now, and limit my office time to around 8 hours instead of the 10-12 I’m used to putting in. I focus on spending more time reading, getting a full night’s sleep, and doing little things like getting to the gym twice a week, or spending more time hanging with my son. In other words, enjoying life a bit more.

The relief was immediate, and impactful.

And now, headed into the new year, I feel I can breathe again. By giving myself that space, I’ve found that I’m eager to write a new book, but will do so at my own pace, and in my own time. I still have a ton to do, but all the hard work of the last few years has set me up to be able to relax a bit more, pull back on the throttle, and take care of myself while I’m doing it.

Look, I know how lucky I am, and please know this isn’t a bitch post. Ultimately, the point of writing all this down is really just to relay my own experience in the hopes it might help someone else going through what I went through, and let you know it’s okay to take a step back; it’s okay to take care of yourself. The world’s not going anywhere (yet), and the work will still be there when you get back to it. But I suggest doing it at a pace you’re comfortable with, that allows you time to breathe, and allows you time to enjoy the other parts of life we’ve all been given.

Sometimes you need to go outside and look at a tree, or trace the path of a butterfly, to know it will all be okay, and that the passion burning inside you shouldn’t be painful, but empowering.

PF

I’m thrilled and grateful to announce that my short story, “Altar”, is being adapted into a major motion picture by the incredible A24.

The feature will be directed by Egor Abramenko, who directed a wonderful sci-fi/horror movie called Sputnik, that you should definitely check out if you haven’t seen it.

The screenplay was written Will Soodik, who worked on the television juggernaut Westworld. I’ve read his script and it’s bonkers and amazing and is an incredible expansion of my original story. I couldn’t be happier that Egor and Will are taking the helm on this adaptation.

Variety broke the news exclusively that the cast has been confirmed - and what a cast: Kyle MacLachlan, January Jones, Lily Collias, David Krumholtz, and newcomer Hudson Behling as “Gary”.

To read the full article: https://bit.ly/altarmovie

Filming is scheduled to begin filming in Canada next month, and I’m hoping the movie will come out sometime in 2025 (but that’s just an educated guess!).

While A24 is purposely keeping plot details under wraps, you can always read the original short story, which is available in my collection, BEHOLD THE VOID.

PF

Hey folks!

I’ve received some queries over the last several months from authors asking about the 3-month tour I did last fall to support BOYS IN THE VALLEY. Did the publisher pay for it? Did you pay for it? Did it “work”? Was it a good idea? Should I do it??

To answer some of that and hopefully help out other authors who may be wondering about some of the questions above, here’s a quick breakdown of how I did the tour and what I thought made it, well, make sense for me.

Let’s start here: A while back I signed a 2-book deal with Tor Nightfire. The first book was BOYS IN THE VALLEY, which was scheduled to be published in July 2023.

Once we had a set date, I made the decision that I wanted to do a big, old-school road tour for the book.

Now, here’s why it made sense for me (in theory) to do this:

It was my first “big 5” trade release and I wanted to get the book on the radar of as many bookstores and readers as I possibly could, and a tour felt like the best way to achieve that.

I’m fortunate enough that I write full-time. Meaning, this is my job. So taking off work, as it were, wasn’t an issue. As it turned out , because of the writer’s strike, my wife (who works in the entertainment biz) was also able to take some time off because, frankly, nothing was happening in Hollywood for a while.

So I figured I’d tour the country, starting on the book’s release date and finishing up at the end of August. Two months seemed like a good amount of time to do a coast-to-coast tour.

The first thing I did, starting in March 2022 (over a year ahead of time!), was reach out to some local stores here in Los Angeles and San Diego and book the opening dates (because you gotta start somewhere).

Then I started organizing a list of stores I wanted to have events with. Names I knew well like The Poisoned Pen, BookPeople, Murder by the Book, Powell’s, etc. You get the idea. I also looked at stores where other horror authors had events, such as certain Barnes & Noble’s that were horror enthusiasts, and local indie stores such as Mysterious Bookshop in NYC , Copper Dog Books in Massachusetts, and Doylestown Books in Pennsylvania. Essentially, I was creating a road map from LA to Boston, with a lot of travel in-between.

Of course, I knew it would be expensive, and there was no way I could afford to go out of pocket. When I approached my publisher about tour dates, they effectively told me I was on my own (not bashing my publisher here, this seems to be the industry standard these days for authors who are not perennial NYT Bestsellers).

When I sat back and looked at the stores I wanted to hit, and the time and expense involved, I came up with a tally of approximately 25 stores and $10,000 of expenses, give or take. And those expenses are pretty much travel (planes and rental cars) and hotel. I wasn’t really including food, but if you wanted to toss on another couple grand for grub and booze, you’d be in the ballpark.

Once I had about a dozen stores confirmed at key points across the country, and a rough timeline and plan of how I was thinking about getting around, I knew I had to figure a way to come up with the dough.

My first (and only) plan was that I’d have to raise the money via a Kickstarter.

Now, being transparent, I’m fortunate enough to have a wonderful, passionate fanbase of readers. Most of whom hang out in a Facebook group called Fracassi Freaks, which was started by three readers of mine who wanted to create a place to chat with other folks who enjoyed my stories. A couple years later, the group grew from a dozen members to over 500 (and is currently just over 600 amazing members). In other words, I had a head start, a core group of people who I thought would dig it if I could create some cool content and some exclusive merchandise to sell through the Kickstarter to fund the tour (or at least most of it).

The Kickstarter launched in April 2023 and, in about 2 months, raised just over $14,000, which blew me away, as you can imagine. I was hoping, at best, for $5-6k.

Now, here’s some facts you need to understand before we go spending all that money:

Kickstarter takes a cut. I believe it’s 8% (a 5% commission plus processing fees). Not insignificant.

I had promised folks a lot of stuff, and we’ll get into that momentarily. But suffice to say that about $5,000 was dog-eared to create the books and special items I’d promised backers. So now we’ve gone from $14k to approximately $8-9k. Still great! But it’s getting crunchy.

Lastly, there was a ton of work involved creating all the things I’d promised. So I knew I’d be devoting some serious hours to that, as well. Which I’m still doing today - almost a year later. In other words, it ain’t like turning on a faucet and the money pours out, you need to be ready to put in some time and effort.

Now, what did people give their hard-earned money for? Good question.

The big winner of the KS was a unique item. I was going to create a limited edition of my novel, BOYS IN THE VALLEY, that would so cool, and so exclusive, that I knew a lot of my readers would be excited to have it. I created something called BOYS IN THE VALLEY: HOLY BIBLE EDITION.

Essentially I bought a couple cases of the book from my publisher and hired a binding expert to remove the covers and replace them with blue leather, embossed with the title. Inside the book we’d tip in a unique limitation page that would be Lettered A-ZZ (in the end, I created 52), signed by myself and the binder. Here’s the mockup:

The other things I did that worked out pretty well included:

Signed copies of a bunch of my books.

Tuckerizations (meaning I write your name into a published novel or story).

Some rarities of my early work from my personal collection.

A unique, limited edition book of two of my early screenplays.

Here’s what didn’t really work:

Paying me to edit / offer feedback on your story.

Zooms with me.

A raffle to win a handwritten short story.

I also want to add here that I had a friend - one of the admins of the aforementioned Fracassi Freaks FB group - jump in and help me with the Kickstarter. Mitch set the whole damn thing up, helped with shipping all those signed books, and generally ran that show for me. Yes, I know, I’m fortunate to have help. My point is - if you can get help, get it. You’ll need it.

If you want, head on over and check the Kickstarter out for yourself, and you’ll see what “sold”.

Cover of the Screenplay Book

It’s also important to point out that all the above cost money. It cost money to pay artists, binders, printers, and designers. Publishing books is no easy task, ditto with creating unique editions of your trade books, but like I said, it’s what worked and it got me on the road, and that was the goal.

Now that I was funded, I started calling all the other stores I thought I could drive or fly to without, you know, dying from exhaustion or lack of sleep. Most of the stores I called were totally cool and excited to have me come visit. I did focus on independent stores, which helped, and as I said earlier, I hand-picked certain locations that I knew were “horror-friendly”, as they’d hosted writers with similar books to my own.

The next thing I did was reach out to a lot of authors. Some of whom I’d spoken with before, some of whom I had not. Some were friends, some I’d never even met. But all of them were gracious and I think every author I asked to share an event with me agreed, which blew my mind. I want to underscore that having another author at your event is HUGE. It takes a boatload of pressure off of you to sit there alone and try to be entertaining, and it also brings out a few more people who are fans of said author, thereby filling the room a bit, if you get me.

So, in July 2023 I finally launched the tour.

You can see my entire schedule of tour dates HERE.

On the road, you’re pretty much either traveling, sleeping, or doing an event. Also, and here’s a thing you probably don’t think of when planning something like this, promoting. Trust me when I say that it’s a HUGE part of making the tour even remotely successful..

You need to be ready to create graphics (a lot of graphics), and constantly feed all your socials with schedule updates. You need to promote the tour dates on your website, and via your newsletter. You’ll likely want to create bookplates to sign if the store runs out of copies (this happened twice), as well as bookmarks and/or postcards to hand out. This means stuff to design, print, and haul around. The publisher will not do this for you, so everything — every single aspect of doing this — is up to you.

In my case, we also created a special beer called, aptly, Beers in the Valley, which was brewed by Rapture Brewing in Tulsa. They handled all of that, but I did haul around giant cans of beer to hand out to folks, which was a blast.

Photo by Chad Grider

At one point, we also decided to help add more funds by creating tour t-shirts. These were a huge hit, and folks really seemed to enjoy getting them! It also got a small part of our UK leg paid off, which helped tremendously. These were sold through an online store we created.

The last thing I’ll say about the actual tour is this: It was hard.

The logistics would scramble your brains, and I was fortunate enough that my wife was happy to come aboard as tour manager and essentially work with me on coordinating hotels, cars, travel plans, routes, timing, and everything else that goes into a cross-country, two-month long trek.

Here’s just one page of a 36-page tour itinerary, just to give you an idea (yeah, that shit’s color-coded):

I’ll also offer another piece of advice: If you do something like this, give yourself breaks. At one point I think I did six tour dates in six days and by the end of that stretch (remember I’m traveling between each and every event) I was about ready to collapse. The events are fun, of course, but they’re also work, and they can be a bit stressful (will anyone show up? who’s our contact? can we get there in time?). So, you know, give yourself a breather now and then.

In addition to the US tour, I also made the decision (smartly or no, to discuss!) to head to the UK for a few dates to support my UK publisher’s release of the novel. Again, this was entirely on my dime, and honestly there was no money left from the KS, so this all came out of pocket. I spent almost three weeks in the UK with my wife. We did events in London and Bristol, with a stop in-between at FantasyCon in Birmingham. We tried to make it a pseudo-vacation, seeing Stonehenge and the like, but after spending 2+ months on the road just prior, believe me when I say it was a work trip.

The short answer here is YES, it was worth it.

Again, every author’s situation is unique. For me, it was worth it for the following reasons:

One, I met a TON of readers, got to shake their hands, sign their books, and have beers with some amazing people from all parts of the country.

Two, I met a TON of bookstore folks. The value in meeting bookstore owners, buyers, event planners and workers is immeasurable for an author, and everyone I met was generous and kind, and supportive not only of the event, but in a desire to do future events.

Three, I sold a lot of books. Even if I didn’t have a huge crowd (generally speaking I had anywhere between 5-50 people show up at each stop), the bookstores usually bought a good amount of books, and what they didn’t sell at the event they asked me to sign, then continued selling them long after I was gone.

That all said, I thought this was an important thing to do to support my first wide release. It helped lay some groundwork for future releases, and I created some invaluable friendships by doing this crazy, extensive road tour.

Best of all? I created a trunkful of wonderful memories I won’t ever forget.

And so, the big question: Would I ever do it again?

Probably not. And here’s why:

For one, it was insanely expensive, as I’ve outlined. And even though the Kickstarter funded the US tour, it also created a mountain of work for me to do to fulfill those promises. I’m not complaining, of course, but it would be hard to do it on any sort of regular basis and still get all the writing done. Point is, great to do it once, but not a sustainable model.

Second, it was exhausting. To the point that it took me weeks to recover once I got back home after 3 months on the road. That’s a lot of time to not see your kid, or your house, or your cats.

Third, I think the value of doing it once was not a value that would repeat itself by doing it again. So much of what made the tour worth it, as I said, was meeting bookstores and readers, shaking hands, taking photos. In other words, creating relationships. Selling books took a back seat to those things, in a way, which sounds ridiculous but it’s the truth, and it was something I knew going in, so not a bad thing.

Lastly, it was a lot of work. I spent a year putting the tour together. All the things I just outlined, from contacting stores, to creating graphics, to promoting the dates… all of it took a toll and took considerable time away from creating new fiction. So again, not sustainable.

What I would and will consider doing in the future is hand-picking some stores, maybe 4-6 places, and throwing all my labor and effort into making those stops the biggest and best I can make them. If I’m fortunate, future publishers will support some or all of that plan. If not, I’ll have to decide what I’m willing to put into it, financially and time-wise.

Well, that’s the big explain.

I hope this was somewhat helpful to other writers, and if you have any specific questions please feel free to contact me.

In the meantime, I’d suggest you check out my official tour page, my tour diary (I’ll get the UK uploaded one of these days!), and the Kickstarter.

Wishing all of you the utmost success, and who knows, maybe I’ll see you on the road sometime.

PF

Man, what a year.

Since I’ve started publishing fiction (way back in 2015), every year has had its own flavor, its own distinct flow. 2017, for example, was a juggernaut. I wrote an absolute ton of fiction that year, was reviewed in the The New York Times, and published (or was published in) a good amount of books. Let me see if I can dig up that photo… ah, here:

2017 Family Portrait

But then you look at a year like 2018, where I think I published exactly two things: a limited edition chapbook (Overnight) and a story for Dark Discoveries magazine. Not a banner year, and because my day job that year was so consuming, I hardly wrote at all.

2023 was unusual because I was essentially on the road for over half the year. For a few months I was dealing with family issues away from home, and for a few months I was touring the country to promote my new novel. And while I had a good amount published, I didn’t write, or read, as much as I would have liked.

But hey, enough of the history lesson, Fracassi! Let’s jump into it.

As noted, I didn’t have a ton of time to write this year. I was away from home, and away from a keyboard, for nearly 6 months, so my production was literally cut in half.

That said, I was able to complete a new horror novel called SARAFINA, which will be coming out in Fall 2024 from the wonderful folks at Earthling Publications. More details on that below. Outside of that, I was able to stitch together a few short stories I’d committed to, or had commissioned, and was able to find time on the road to get those done. One of those stories was recently published and the other two are slated for 2024 - one will be a bonus story in a deluxe edition of one of my novels, the other in an anthology.

Normally, as a full-time writer, my expectations are a minimum of one novel and 5-6 short stories a year. A good year for me is two novels (at least first drafts) and 10-12 stories. I mean, this is my job, and I work at it every day, so the output needs to be there or I get down on myself. So, next year I’ll be grinding!

On the publishing front, I’ve had some amazing releases and been part of some wonderful publications. I released my second novel, GOTHIC, with Cemetery Dance, in February, and my third novel, BOYS IN THE VALLEY, with Nightfire (US) and Orbit (UK), in July. Both books have done well, respectively — solid sales and decent reviews.

As far as stories go, I published 7 short stories in 2023. Below is a family picture of my novels and the places my stories appeared in print this year (a web-only story not pictured).

In addition to the trade editions and anthologies shown above, I also published a wonderful pair of deluxe editions of my first two story collections, BEHOLD THE VOID and BENEATH A PALE SKY, with Thunderstorm Books.

Really thrilled at how these gorgeous books turned out. They both sold out somewhat quickly, but are bouncing around the secondary market at reasonable prices, I think. I look forward to working more with Thunderstorm on some not-yet-announced projects coming in the next year or two.

Lastly, as it pertains to future publications, I’ve sold a couple short stories (as mentioned above), am co-editing an anthology, and have sold 4 books slated for upcoming release:

NO ONE IS SAFE (story collection) - April 2024 (Lethe Press)

SARAFINA - Fall 2024 (Earthling Publications)

THE THIRD RULE OF TIME TRAVEL - January 2025 (Orbit Books)

An as-of-yet unannounced novel for Tor Nightfire.

If interested in more info on my books, click here.

If interested in more info on my stories, click here.

Over the last 20 or so years that I’ve been keeping track of my “Books Read”, on average my final tally lands around 60-70 per year. Sometimes that creeps higher, sometimes lower. In 2023, it was much lower (for reasons explained).

Still, I was able to enjoy just over 40 books this year, despite not having much free time to sit and read.

Of the 40+ books I read, this is a list of titles I’d personally recommend:

The Book of Accidents - Chuck Wendig

Midas - Tyler Jones

Mexican Gothic - Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Ghost Eaters - Clay McLeod Chapman

Man, Fuck This House - Brian Asman

Nestlings - Nat Cassidy

All the White Spaces - Ally Wilkes

Road of Bones - Christopher Golden

Episode Thirteen - Craig DiLouie

Between Two Fires - Christopher Buehlman

Lute - Jennifer Thorne

Fever House - Keith Rosson

How to Sell a Haunted House - Grady Hendrix

Red River Seven - A.J. Ryan

Maeve Fly - CJ Leede

Holly - Stephen King

Kosa - John Durgin

The Evening and the Morning - Ken Follett

The Man Who Died Twice - Richard Osman

The Exorcist’s House - Nick Roberts

The Beast You Are - Paul Tremblay

No Exit - Taylor Adams

Whalefall - Daniel Kraus

Of all the books I read this past year, my very favorite was HOW TO SELL A HAUNTED HOUSE by Grady Hendrix. I had so much damn fun reading this novel. I was scared, squeamish, and laughed a few times. Come on, what else do you want from a book?! Loved it. Buy it.

I hope to get a lot more time in the reading chair in 2024, so looking forward to the rest of my TBR stack(s) and some quality time with some great stories. I’ve got books at hand by Owen King, Mariana Enriquez, R.F. Kuang and many others. Can’t wait to dive in.

Until then, my friends, keep reading, stay healthy, and have an awesome New Year.

PF

I’m thrilled to announce a new publishing deal!

In January 2025, Orbit Books will release my sci-fi novel, THE THIRD RULE OF TIME TRAVEL.

Of course, there are rules…

THE THIRD RULE OF TIME TRAVEL is a story of a scientist, Beth Darlow, who discovers a way to send human consciousness through time — to a random point in a person’s lifetime. But there are limits to what the traveler can do.

There are rules.

First Rule: the travel can only occur at a random point in the traveler’s lifetime.

Second Rule: the traveler can only maintain contact for ninety seconds.

Third Rule: the traveler can only observe.

What would it be like to relive the worst tragedies, the most difficult decisions—the things you could do differently that would change your life—while only able to watch those events unfold all over again in real-time?

What would happen if you returned to the present to find it altered, while having no idea of what exactly changed, or why? What if you altered the timeline in a way that changed your life for the worse?

What if someone you loved ceased to exist?

For Beth, her discovery of time travel is both her savior and her worst enemy. It is the thing that gives her life purpose while shattering it over and over again.

In THE THIRD RULE OF TIME TRAVEL, Beth discovers more than the secrets of time. She discovers the costs of playing God.

THE THIRD RULE OF TIME TRAVEL is an amalgam of hard sci-fi, elements of horror, and a ticking clock thriller that will keep readers guessing until the very last page.

I’m excited to share this novel with you, and am grateful to Orbit Books US and UK for taking on the project, and to my agent Elizabeth Copps for putting the deal together.

More soon,

PF

To see all my current and upcoming books, please visit my BOOKS page.

To be made aware of all my newest releases, including a handful of upcoming limited, deluxe editions, please consider joining my NEWSLETTER.

I’m so pleased to share the following dates for my summer tour to promote BOYS IN THE VALLEY, my new novel coming from Tor Nightfire on July 11, 2023.

I want to thank all the readers who purchased unique and signed items through my Kickstarter! Every penny of the money I raised will go toward funding the tour (including my UK leg in September - dates pending).

I will most likely not be adding any additional stops at this time, but really hope folks will come out and say hello if you’re within shouting distance of any of these fine bookstores.

If you can’t make a date but want a signed or personalized copy of the book, please consider ordering from one of the stores I’ll be popping into. I’ve added web links to order pages where applicable, and will continue to update this page as more information comes in.

NOTE: Some stores require RSVP, so please click the red links for more information where you see [RSVP] noted.

Thanks so much - see you on the road!

The Village Well (Culver City, CA) – Tuesday, 7/11 @ 6pm – w/ Brian Evenson

Mysterious Galaxy (San Diego, CA) – Friday, 7/14 @ 7pm – w/ Cody Goodfellow

Artifact Books (Encinitas, CA) – Saturday, 7/15 @ 3pm

The Poisoned Pen (Scottsdale, AZ) – Monday, 7/24 @ 4pm

BookPeople (Austin, TX) – Wednesday, 7/26 @ 7pm – w/ Gabino Iglesias [RSVP]

Murder by the Book (Houston, TX) – Friday, 7/28 @ 6:30pm

Word Horde Emporium (Petaluma, CA) – Sunday, 7/30 @ 1pm

Powell’s (Cedar Hills Crossing, OR) – Wednesday, 8/2 @ 7pm – w/ KC Jones

The Book Bin (Salem, OR) – Thursday, 8/3 @ 5pm

Whitty Books (Tulsa, OK) - Saturday, 8/12 @ 6pm

Two Friends Books (Bentonville, AR) – Sunday, 8/13 @ 5pm

Parnassus Books (Nashville, TN) - Tuesday, 8/15 @ 6:30pm [RSVP]

Barnes & Noble (Bowling Green, KY) – Wednesday, 8/16 @ 2pm – w/ J.H. Markert

Butcher Cabin Books (Louisville, KY) – Thursday, 8/17 @ 6pm – w/ J Todd Scott

Conquest Books (Ashland, KY) - Friday, 8/18 @ 3pm

Barnes & Noble – Libbie Place (Richmond, VA) – Sunday, 8/20 @ 2pm

Barnes & Noble (Annapolis, MD) – Tuesday, 8/22 @ 2pm

Doylestown Bookshop (Doylestown, PA) – Wednesday, 8/23 @ 6pm – w/ Chuck Wendig

The Mysterious Bookshop (New York, NY) – Thursday, 8/24 @ 6:30pm

Book House (Milburn, NJ) – Sunday, 8/27 @ 3pm

Barnes & Noble (Hingham, MA) – Tuesday, 8/29 @ 7pm – w/ Paul Tremblay

Copper Dog Books (Beverly, MA) – Thursday, 8/31 @ 7pm – w/ Christopher Golden

After much thought and discussion between my wife and I, we’ve decided to launch a publishing / brand imprint that will encompass small publishing projects, some limited merchandise, and some reissues of my own books.

The imprint is called ALTAR PUBLISHING.

For the most part (as of now, anyway) the AP brand will encompass the following:

Print On Demand Books and eBooks of my own titles that have been printed elsewhere as limited editions.

Merchandise with the name & logo that will include t-shirts, stickers, coffee mugs, and signed bookplates.

Original, limited publications such as chapbooks (this could potentially expand into other originals at some point down the line).

The imprint will NOT include my original trade titles (novels, collections, etc.). These will still be sold and distributed via other publishers.

Book projects that are currently in the works include:

A limited chapbook called I THINK MY TREEHOUSE IS HAUNTED, with illustrations by artist Dave Dick (you can visit Dave’s website here).

A Print On Demand paperback and eBook of my Zagava novel, DON’T LET THEM GET YOU DOWN.

A limited book featuring my original screenplays that I adapted for BOYS IN THE VALLEY and GOTHIC.

All of these projects will launch in 2023. If you’d like to be updated when the books release, or any of my books are made available, please join my NEWSLETTER.

In the meantime, I hope you’ll check out our humble little STORE.

Stephanie and I would like to give a huge THANK YOU to the amazing artist, Francois Vaillancourt, who was incredibly generous in allowing us to repurpose his original design and concept of the sunken Ferris Wheel, which first appeared on the dustjacket of my story collection, BENEATH A PALE SKY. You can visit Francois’s website by clicking here. You can see the original dustjacket at the PALE SKY book page.

Obviously, this is primarily an effort to raise money for both my continued writing and the creation of future products and books, therefore any support is greatly appreciated.

Thanks so very much,

Philip and Stephanie