Crazy Horses Riding Everywhere

Crazy Horses is LIVE!

And get this - I set it up on pre-order - in part to push myself to hurry up and finish = pulp speed don't you know, and it worked. Just really glad I found a great editor who works fast - thanks Jana.

But as I was saying, it was on pre-order and STILL hit #1 already in the Old West category - I'm stoked! That's a first for me a #1 before anyone can even read it!

As always much thanks to everyone who has helped me out - you are acknowledged in the back. ;)

here is the back cover description.

A kidnapped girl. A desperate father. A murderous slaver bound for old Mexico. And a certain untouchable gunslinger. Things are going to get a lot worse before they get better.

Infamous gunslinger, Porter Rockwell made a blood oath with the Ute War Chief, Redbone, to help him no matter what. Now that the Chief's daughter has been kidnapped by the desperado Matamoros, and that favor is getting called in at a most inopportune time. Of course, Porter's closest friends--buffalo soldier Quincy Cuthbert Jackson and card sharp Roxy LeJuene--are coming along too. Too late, they learn that chasing down the kidnapper is only the beginning of a deadly path.

As they follow the Old Spanish Trail, secrets threaten to tear the rescuer's bond apart and an unexpected stowaway increases the danger. Clues to a more sinister plot quickly unfold, and dark native magics breath terrible spells over their mission. Can Porter and his friends resolve their differences and save the girl or will they sacrifice more than life somewhere along the dark trail?

Crazy Horses is a Western with colorful characters and wit straight out of an Eastwood flick. If you like strong, admirable heroes, surprising action and eerie weird Westerns, then you'll love the second book in David J. West's Porter Rockwell series.

Buy Crazy Horses to ride the trail today!

I am so happy with artist Anna Stansfield's cover for me and as a bonus here is a the new cover for Cold Slither she did too - and I am so excited to see what she comes up with for the next one in this series - YOU ONLY HANG ONCE! It is gonna be epic!

"Scavengers" Chapter One on Audio!

Hey guys and gals!
Not only has Scavengers hit #1 bestseller, my good friends Jason King and  Zach Bjorge even went and surprised me with an audio reading of chapter one! Check it put!

and if your so inclined Scavengers is still on sale for .99 cents for the next 48 hours.

Utah Halloween Expo

I'm a special guest at the Utah Halloween Expo this coming Friday, Saturday and Sunday in Sandy Utah at the Southe Town Expo Center. I'll be at booth 139  - signing books and speaking on the awesome nature of fear in writing on Saturday at 3:00 on the DIY stage.

They'll have a lot of horror related guests and what I'm sure will be some of my kids favorites some of the folks from SyFy's Face Off. My kids do love making masks.
Plus I'll get to hang with some good friends and hopefully make some new ones.

It promises to be a scary good time!

Salt Lake Comic Con 2016 Recap

I had a good time hanging with friends and even got interviewed three separate times! I'll share those when I know they are up. Would have liked to have sold more books but on the bright side I did get a few new fans!

The Space Balrogs Choose your Own
Apocalypse game went over real well - we packed the house!

I did get several books from friends which will be making it into the review Que. Overall it was a good time. I even got a photo with the Utah state Governor who stopped by our book booth.


And here are a few more pics I thought were cool.

And of course connections were made more books are in the works!

Comic Con Time

This is the big one - for me. Salt Lake Comic Con  is new, just a couple years old now and doesn't have near the name recognition of a slew of others like San Diego, New York or even Dragon Con but it is big. Around 150 K people are in attendance and by Saturday it is crazy. I do most of my looking around on Thursday before the crowds swell up. My boys will come with me on Saturday - they are cooking up their own cosplay for it. Mathias is thinking about being the Demogorgon from Stranger Things and Bear wants to be a steampunk Deadpool.

In any case, of course I'm a guest this year and will be signing books at Booth 2220 with my friends the Space Balrogs. I'll be on several panels as follows.

The Rocketeer- Celebrating an Overlooked Classic

Thursday September 1, 2016 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm 

25 years ago Disney's THE ROCKETEER starring Billy Campbell, Jennifer Connelly, and Timothy Dalton soared into cinemas, but never found the mass audience it deserved. We take a look back at the highlights, making-of, and more about the film, as well as the franchise that never was (but should have been).
Room: 255C

Killing the Stigma - Combating Mental Illness Misinformation in Popular Culture

Friday September 2, 2016 10:00 am to 11:00 am 
(Hey, that's frigging early!!!)
Ranging from Batman's gallery of villains, the mad scientist and the homicidal socially awkward killer, fandom is rife with poor portrayals of mental illness and how it affects the person with the diagnosis. This panel will dissect and examine movies, television, comics, and books and their use of mental illness to drive their plots.
Room: 1551 A

Choose Your Own Apocalypse: Marvel Monsters Edition
Saturday September 3, 2016 12:00 pm to 1:00 pm 

The bad news is, the world is gonna end. The good news is, you get to pick how you go out. Will it be at the hands of the seductive Enchantress, or will humanity be consumed by Venom, Carnage & other corrupted Klyntar? Or will the world fall to the oldest mutant alive; a monster god appropriately named, Apocalypse? You get to decide in an interactive panel game of epic proportions! In Choose Your Own Apocalypse, each panelist represents a different way the world is going to end. A moderator conducts the panelists and audience through a series of rounds in which the panelists have to make their case for their specific apocalypse. They do this using campaign speeches, witty rhetoric, and performance art. Then the audience gets to choose who is the winner.

Room: 255C

An interesting thing to me about this Con in particular is I'm not on any writing tracks - which I always was before and you know what - that's a good thing. Who goes to writing tracks? Other writers. Do they want to get your book? Not very often. Usually they want to talk to you about their books. So as far as sales and fans its kind of a wash - talking fandom is usually the better way to go - so its all good this way.

I have print copies of Cold Slither I'll be signing and I'm very pleased with how its been doing online -its been sitting in the top ten for western horror and Whispers Out of the Dust has been joining it as of today. So that's pretty cool. I have admittedly tried to learn a little more about marketing this week than before when I just put stuff out there and hoped it would sell.

Oh and I believe the 12th issue of Utah Geek will be there as well featuring the 12th chapter in my ongoing noir fantasy serial Walking Through Walls. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna wrap it up in chapter 13 and then figure out what to do with it. Either release it as a novella or cannibalize it for another work - I'm not sure yet. I'll have a lot of pics to post next week when its over. Til next time.

Preparing to Pimp Thyself

Happenings!

My weird west collection COLD SLITHER print copy is up over on Amazon - though I'm not doing the real launch push just yet - I've got the kindle set for pre-order and I'm hoping to push that on August 30th for the sake of rankings etc. In fact I don't think as of this post the kindle slot is even up yet.


I'm excited that the book is finally done- considering I had wanted to release it on my birthday two months ago. But I think its an amazing book that a lot of people will get a kick out of. I was tickled pink that one of my friends said he thought the first Porter tale = Cold Slither itself reminded him of a Conan type yarn.

I made a banner for use at the upcoming Salt Lake Comic Con - it was fun trying to come up with something that I hope will grab attention at our booth and hopefully entice some book buyers. I used the Horror Flick font - same thing I used on my new business cards - gotta love that retro pulpy look.

I do know I'm on at least one panel each day at SLCC
The Rocketeer on Thursday
Mental Health in Popular Culture/Entertainment on Friday
and a Choose Your Own Apocalypse game with the Space Balrogs on Saturday.

I've got a lot more book reviews lined up shortly that I'll be trying to post up on before summer is over.

Oh and I finally put together a mailing list newsletter because I've been hearing how necessary that is for self-promotion etc - so there's that BURNT OFFERINGS - https://tinyletter.com/DavidJWest

Now back to work on just novels for the foreseeable future this year.

Coming Soon: Porter's Weird West Collection

Things always take longer than you'd like.

I sincerely wish and strive and hope to get things to a point wherein I can accomplish all I'd like to in a day but that is still a ways out.
In the mean time I'm still plugging away and trying to keep up the good fight and get my creative demands met.

Cold Slither which I had hoped to release late last month couldn't make it for July either - but I'm in the home stretch and it will be out sooner than later in a couple weeks - I think I will experiment and have it available for pre-order too and see how that fares.

Part of what happened was the collection of Porter Rockwell tales were mostly already written - I was only going to do one new novella Cold Slither itself - but then a few more inspiration points took hold and I came up with one more new piece - so the book closes with a new ghostly, vampiric, M.R. James inspired tale - Striding Thru Darkness. The cover much more resembles that story than Cold Slither too.

I'm doing edits now and have already formatted what I think will be a very handsome stylish book. With great native monsters like the one beside us here: I always think the print copies trump the ebooks even if that is what people usually buy - I hope I can keep some of those formatting treasures intact for the ebook but am not sure just yet.

In any case here is the cover and backside - much thanks to Nathan Shumate for his support and help in the endeavour. And to Jason King among others for some editing and suggestions. And of course to anyone else who looked the previously published tales over too - Theric Jepson, William Morris, Jaleta Clegg, John Palisano, etc.

Here is the TOC:

Contents

Foreword 1

Cold Slither 2

Black Wings in the Moonlight 45

Soma for the Destroying Angels Soul 58

Rolling in the Deep 74

Tangle Crowned Devil 85

Fangs Of The Dragon 98

Garden of Legion 147

Red Wolf Moon 163

Killer Instinct 178

Right Hand Man 194

Striding Through Darkness 220

Oh and Keith - I hope you know your Amazing Stories quote means the world to me - hence it being on the actual back cover - I purposefully left your name off though just because of the Amazon thinking we're related nonsense - I sincerely hope there is no offense at that. Let me know.

Tying the Tales All Together

I love how some writers link a lot of the stories in their own universe together.

Robert E. Howard does it (the Ring of Set turns up in tales all through time)
Stephen King does it (The Dark Tower saga)

And I love the concept so much that while I have thought on it at length (already in my own mind some of my tales do connect in the same universe) I have yet only briefly mentioned points that touch.

But in the current tale I am working on, Cold Slither - a weird western with Porter Rockwell, it directly relates to another project The Bastard Prince an adventure historical that is itself very loosely based on the Welsh Prince Madoc ~ (and how I think Conan of the Isles should have been done) and if you read between the lines they link to Heroes of the Fallen/Blood of Our Fathers.

I never planned it that way, it just came about~but I have to admit that when I realized it was doing that on its own (the Muse, as Steven Pressfield calls it) I was excited.

While I am sure that some of my tales will never tie in to anything else, these in particular are beginning to weave together and its just something I as the creator/writer enjoy.

How about you?