Douglas Clegg

Archive for the ‘News’ Category

New! Alkemara Press Trade Hardcovers

Wednesday, November 10th, 2021

Signed & Inscribed from Doug’s Office

The 2021 Alkemara Press Hardcovers from Douglas Clegg

Click image to enlarge.

 

Right now there are eleven new Alkemara Press hardcover editions up for sale.  More to come!

About the Hardcovers & Getting Them Inscribed & Signed:

First set of books in print: The Hour Before Dark, Bad Karma, Coming of Age, Night Asylum, Afterlife, Neverland, The Nightmare Chronicles,  Goat Dance, Nightmare House, Mischief, and The Poisoner’s Garden & Others.

Signed Book Cost: $32 per novel,  INCLUDING U.S. Media Mail shipping/packaging. One price exception is The Poisoner’s Garden at $25. Scroll down if you’re outside the U.S.A.

Order Your Books: email DClegg@DouglasClegg.com with the books you want and who you’d like them inscribed to or if you prefer “flat-signed.” I’ll email you back to verify with the total. Then you’ll pay via Paypal. If you hate Paypal, let me know what you prefer to use and I’ll see if that can be arranged.

You can also buy on Amazon (but not get a signed copy that way). Hoping to add more bookstores over time.

About these editions:

 

  • Size: 6″x9″ interior (standard hardcover size).
  • Type: Case-laminate P.O.D. hardcover. This means there is no dust jacket; the cover is printed right on the book. They look GREAT. This printing and binding technology is light-years ahead of what it was even a few years back.
  • Because of the current “supply chain” and other issues (including my own), you’ve got to give me 4-6 weeks to get them out the door to you. Might be faster but I cannot guarantee that just yet.

NOTE: I will only sign/inscribe books bought directly from my office.

Outside the USA? It’s crazy expensive to mail to you, even to Canada or Mexico. Might take a long time, too. But if you really want to get signed books, email me, let me know what shipping method you’ve used before that works well for you from the U.S. I’ll check it out, weigh the books and box and tell you what the total would be. But I’ve seen amounts that would double the book’s price. I hate doing that to you but if you really want to, we can make it happen.

 

These are NOT limited or deluxe editions. Alkemara Press editions are trade hardcovers.

Find out more about the new Alkemara Press hardcover line of Douglas Clegg novels.

Click images to enlarge.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How My Patreon Works, Post #2

Saturday, September 12th, 2020

The pandemic care mask-Douglas Clegg  Dear Reader,

Yesterday I posted 6 basics of my Patreon page at Patreon.com/DouglasClegg. Here I’m going to enumerate the various tiers of membership currently available (I may add one or two more, depending on your interests.)

Become a Patron?

You choose your level of support both based on how you want to support my writing as well as what you’d enjoy receiving in return for that support. If you want, click any image below to check out the tiers and their pricing at Patreon.com/DouglasClegg

Once you’re there, the page may show you only 3 tiers, but there are currently 6. So scroll down a little and find this:

On the site you’d need to click that to see all 6 levels. Most members choose the Night Crawlers and Undead Poet’s Society levels for reasons of price and offerings, but don’t skip looking at the other ones in case they appeal to you.

Okay, here are the tier level names and what you get with them. Click any of them to go find out more about them.

 

Ghost Breakers, $1 Membership on Patreon

The tip jar of the spirits. Ghost Breakers are the members who want to support the writing of my fiction with a tip.  At this level, you won’t get any new short story, but I will offer some extras to you, a  brief excerpt of upcoming fiction, some insider scoop on projects, upcoming cover reveals, and now and then maybe an older classic story of mine.

Some of you asked for a way to support my stories without having to pay more than $1 and I really appreciate your support. I’ll be making our Patreon community a bit more flush with features as time goes on. Thank you.

Then there’s…

 

Night Crawlers Member Douglas Clegg's Patreon

The Night Crawlers level of membership is the primary one and was the first one created. Each time I have a new short story finished, I’ll send it to Night Crawlers in either ePub, ePub for Kindle, or PDF to be read on your computer, for your eyes only. At some later date, this will go up for sale either exclusively through my own ebook store or widely on all ebook selling platforms.

Price is $2 more than the Ghost Breakers level.

At this point I should pause to say that every single tier “above” or pricier than Night Crawlers gets everything that’s less pricey beneath it, too.

For example, if you choose a Harrow Haunters membership, you not only get the audio of my reading of the month’s story, you also get the ebook of it as well as the Undead Poet’s Society offering and your name in the acknowledgments of the story.  So each tier you step up, you get something new plus all the rest.

 

Undead Poet's Society Patreon Tier 3, $5

 

The Undead Poet’s Society membership is a new one. I decided I needed to get some of these unusual novels out that I’ve been working on for years  and I’m using serialization here as the mechanism. Up first is not a traditional novel, but a novel in the form of narrative free verse. It is called The Mermaid Cage and when a new short story goes out, I’ll also send out progress on this one. After that serialization is finished, I’ll figure what’s up next for this category.

I believe you’ll want to get this, but remember, you can always move around the tiers if you decide you don’t like one or the other. Just do it before the next short story goes out.(And yes, you get the new short story as well. In fact the serial can’t go out to you unless I have a new short story to send.)

I posted a brief poem-excerpt from The Mermaid Cage at the Patreon blog. Want to read it?

Price is $2 more than the Night Crawlers level.

Click to go check it out.

 

Crypt Keepers Patreon Tier 4, $7

 

Crypt Keepers members get everything from Ghost Breakers, Night Crawlers, and Undead Poet’s Society but they also get their names in the acknowledgments page of each story in its first publication.

Price is $2 more than the Undead Poet’s Society level.

 

Harrow Haunters Patreon Tier #5, $10

The Harrow Haunters gets the coolest digital swag. Not only do you get the short story and the serialized novel segment, you also get raw audio from my phone’s voice app reading that month’s story (but not the serial). While I hope someday to get these up for sale somewhere, that’s a ways off, so you won’t find this anywhere else for awhile.

This will go out one to two weeks after you get the story for digital reading, but you’re only charged once when the short story first goes out. You also get your name in the acknowledgments page of each story when first published.

Price is $3 more than the Crypt Keeper’s level.

 

 

Necromancers Patreon Tier #6, $40

The Necromancers  get ALL the rest listed above, plus signed and inscribed paperback versions of the books, though if you’re interested, definitely click that image “Necromancers” above to go find out how it works and what restrictions there are for it.

There are 8 slots left at this tier, after that, it’s closed.

The price on this one is a jump.

$30 more per send than the Harrow Haunters level.

All of these from Ghost Breakers through Necromancers are huge support for the fiction I’m completing. I may add a tier for specific writing-informational stuff but haven’t figured out what would work best for those of you looking to write fiction or pursue publication or self-publication.

If you’re enthusiastic or curious about this? Come on over! Ask me about it if you have concerns, don’t be shy. Email me at DClegg@DouglasClegg.com

There’s more information about all these tiers at Patreon.com/DouglasClegg so be sure and click over there to check it out

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In the third post on my blog tomorrow, I’ll tell you what I’m hoping to do to make my Patreon area the one you’ll want to be part of.

Cheers,

Douglas Clegg - DClegg@DouglasClegg.com

 

 

Douglas Clegg

Become a Patron?

How Patreon Works, Post #1

Friday, September 11th, 2020

Douglas Clegg is creating fiction and would love you as a patron on Patreon.

 

The pandemic care mask-Douglas Clegg  Dear Reader,

I’m ramping up my Patreon area as the place to get early pre-publication access to new fiction.

Become a Patron?

This post is the first of a series to show how my version of Patreon works for you, as a reader of my fiction, and for me. Thanks for reading.

I recently sent out a newsletter with a survey in it and part of the survey asked a question about Patreon and in particular my Patreon.com/DouglasClegg page.

Among the possible multiple choice answers was a line for the newsletter subscriber to comment. Most of the comments were about not knowing what Patreon was or how it worked.

Which makes sense. Even I had to figure out what Patreon was or was not for a full year before I decided to try it.

So I’ll explain in 6 brief points how how Patreon works with my readers and me:

    1. On Patreon, creators (artists, writers, musicians, etc.) set up an area where their fans and readers can get early access to their work or some aspect of their creative process.
    2. I write short fiction via Patreon (although I’m adding a serialization aspect for longer work.)
    3. While many creators on Patreon charge an automatic monthly amount, I don’t.
    4. On my Patreon account, you only pay when I’ve sent a story out.
    5.  If I only send out three stories in a year, you’re only charged those three times and only for the amount you decided on.
    6. However, my ambition is to reach a point of sending out one story per month.

There’s actually more I’m planning with Patreon to benefit you and maybe have some fun in doing so, on my side of things.  Despite writing horror and suspense, I want to bring you some joy. And some for myself, as well.

But first, I’ll post a note tomorrow about the various current tiers of membership I have up at Patreon. The cheapest is $1, a kind of tip jar, but the main two to look at for getting fiction in digital form are the $3 and $5 tiers, and then there’s audio and even paperback in further tiers.

Each time you pick a tier, you get everything that the tiers before you also get. But I’ll explain that in this post:

Click here to go read Post #2

Or you could just check out my Patreon page and scroll around to see what’s what:

Patreon.com/DouglasClegg

Thanks for checking this out.

Cheers,
Douglas Clegg - DClegg@DouglasClegg.com

 

 

Douglas Clegg
DClegg@DouglasClegg.com

 

 

Typewriterly

Monday, August 3rd, 2020

About Writing Fiction

Click the image to read the larger version.

Douglas Clegg writes: "Every story that is worth writing or reading begins with a transgression on the part of a pivotal character...preferably the protagonist. A story doesn't really begin until someone crosses a line."

Shirley You Jest (or Not)

Sunday, August 2nd, 2020

So we watched the recent movie Shirley. Great performances, interesting concept. It wasn’t what I hoped for, but it was based on a work of fiction, a writer’s interpretation of what she drew from an idea of Shirley Jackson’s life.  Don’t let it deter you from reading the novels of one of the great writers of the fiction of the dark and strange sides of life.

Here are links online and a brief list of what I’d recommend to start with.

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Get Shirley Jackson books on Amazon

On Barnes & Noble

On Google Play

On Indiebound

 

 

Nostalgia

Saturday, August 1st, 2020

The One-Eyed Man with the Yellow Bag

I’ve been called a lot of things in my time but my favorite sobriquet involved broken glasses, a travel bag, and a raconteur who told endless tales on beckoning roads.

I’d just finished fifth grade.

We went on a trip to Mexico. My parents hired a driver and car. When we drove out of Mexico City, we headed to Puebla, Oaxaca, Taxco and many archaeological sites, several only half-unearthed.

We stayed at hotels in various places and then the following day we’d meet our driver for the next adventure. The only resort town we stayed in was Cuernavaca towards the end of the trip.

The driver was a wonderful guy who wore a cowboy hat, had a moustache, and a philosophical outlook. I would guess he was forty (maybe younger or older?) but all I knew at ten was he was a grownup.

I sat up front with him while the rest of the family (Mom, Dad, sister, two brothers) sat in the back where there were two rows of seats.

I carried a Braniff Airlines yellow bag that seemed huge. I don’t know what was in it now but some travel necessities were likely stuffed down within its uncharted depths.

I wore a pair of sunglasses but they dropped on a stone at Teotihuacan when I sidestepped some sunning rattlesnakes and I lost one of the lenses.

I kept wearing the sunglasses anyway.

After this, the man who drove us called me “the one-eyed man with the yellow bag.”

It remains my favorite nickname from childhood.

He’d say it like it was some Homeric epithet. Then he’d tell tales from the road and his various adventures. Sometimes he had beer on his breath, which meant the stories would get wilder as he drove.

Once, after wandering ruins at Monte Alban, he shouted across a distance filled with many people, “At last! The one-eyed man with the yellow bag is here!”

All heads turned toward a ten year old.

I felt famous.

That guy made the trip amazing for me.

The time in Mexico opened my eyes to a deeper world than I’d known before. I have other moments from the trip that felt profound to me—the one-eyed man with the yellow bag—and though I don’t remember his name now and he may never have remembered mine, I’ll never forget his tales or the moment he christened me in the shade of ancient stone carvings of jaguar and Quetzalcoatl.

Do You Get It?

Tuesday, July 21st, 2020

The pandemic mask-Douglas CleggDo you subscribe?

Douglas Clegg News is undergoing a change, and I hope you come on board.

There’s a free ebook when you join, a coupon for my Payhip-run bookstore, and a special offer for my signed book bookstore. But beyond that, I’ll be opening up my life a bit more, posting about writing, my other interests, what I’ve been reading, and more.

 There’s a bit more information here:

DouglasClegg.com/newsletter

Hope to see you there!

Douglas Clegg - DClegg@DouglasClegg.com

Our Dog and Cat: The Official Portrait

Monday, July 20th, 2020

What is this pandemic madness? Pet portraits? Here are our current two, excellent friends, hang out together all the time, even share their bed with each other — scandalous!

 

The Mask of the Times

Thursday, April 30th, 2020

The wonderful Dawn Nassise made my husband and me masks for this pandemic year. This is one of them and it’s perfect. This may also be my 2020 Official Author Photo Look.

Hope you are well and safe in this time of coronavirus 19.

The pandemic care mask-Douglas Clegg

 

Buy me a coffee.Buy me a coffee.

 

 

An Unsettling Springtime

Tuesday, March 24th, 2020

The Whole World Is In This Together

In this scary and unsettled time, when the entire world is dealing with this pandemic, I hope you and those you love (and even those you don’t love) are okay.

Stay well, do your best, and let’s hope others come through this with a sense of joy intact despite the uncertainties and the unpredictable future. Thanks to first responders and medical professionals, those who work in delivery industries, those who keep their grocery stores open, and anyone, any helper, who is on the front lines of this crisis.