Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome back to the Capes and Tights podcast right here on capesandtights.com dot. I'm your host, Justin Soderbergh. This episode is brought to you again by galactic Comics and collectibles in Bangor, Maine. You can check them out on galacticcomicsandcollectibles.com.
yeah, this is Daniel Krauss back again on the podcast to discuss another book here. Last time he was on, he discussed his book Whalefall, which hits stories near you in paperback on September 10. The hardcover is available now, but he's here to talk pay the Piper, a book that he co authored with legendary filmmaker George A. Romero. Yeah, we talked about that. Some other things and some cool news on here about another collaboration and so on and so forth. So check out Daniel Krauss, New York Times bestselling author of books like writer or, sorry, books like writer books like Wailfall, Rotter, Scowler, the Shape of Water, Troll Hunters, the Living Dead, Whale fall. I already said that. But now pay the piper. Enjoy this episode. But before you do, check us out on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, bluesky threads, all those things and so much more, as well as rate reviews. Subscribe, all that stuff over on Spotify, Apple, and wherever you find your podcasts, you can find out way more information about books, comics, news, movies, all that stuff over on capesandtights.com dot. This is Daniel Krauss, New York Times bestselling author of Pay the Piper with George A. Romero. Enjoy, everyone.
Welcome back to the podcast. Daniel, how are you today?
[00:01:31] Speaker B: I'm doing great because I'm here again with you.
[00:01:34] Speaker A: Exactly right. You're ramping right up now. I mean, you're ramping right up. You've been busy, obviously, all summer, but like, you're getting right into the, right into the thick of things here again. I mean, you know, we, the last time we actually talked, either via video or phone or anything like that, other than a quick couple of text messages, was when you were doing this for whalefall last year. So, I mean, how was your time off, quote unquote?
[00:01:55] Speaker B: Well, my time off was great because I was writing, which is what I really love to do. It sort of feels like I'm settling into a rhythm, though, that basically August and September and October, and you could go one way, you know, north or south of that. But those are sort of the months when I'm ahead promoting stuff. You know, I'm kind of more or less in a pattern of fall releases for the most part, so. But that's not too bad. That's like, you know, that's like nine months at home and then three months that are in some mix of being out and about or just doing interviews and stuff, so. But it's, you know, I'm getting used to it. It's. It's not as hard as it was.
[00:02:43] Speaker A: Yeah, it seems like it'll probably be a little bit easier. Is this press like trips and things like this a little bit less than whalefall? I mean, I'm guessing you're doing some, but it doesn't seem as busy.
[00:02:52] Speaker B: No. Whale fall was, I think, possibly a one of a kind situation where there was just tons and tons of demand. But I do have some stuff in the future that I do wonder if it will result in a lot of events. So we can talk about that. Some of that wants to talk about off the air, but.
[00:03:14] Speaker A: Yeah, so. And speaking of whalefall, really quickly, I think it's one of those things with your new book coming out, pay the piper, I think that a little bit is that the paperbacks coming out here pretty soon, too, right?
[00:03:23] Speaker B: Yeah, the paperback comes out one week after pay the piper, so whatever that is. September 10, maybe.
[00:03:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:30] Speaker B: So the paperback will be brand new in September.
[00:03:34] Speaker A: That's pretty exciting. I mean, I get another whole push on that. People who wait for the paperback because maybe they like to save a few dollars or just, like, reading them in paperback. So that's pretty cool.
[00:03:43] Speaker B: It's. Yeah, it's nice because it'll pop up on shelves again. And through various weirdness, it was never an airport, which always annoyed me. So the paperback will be finally an airport, so flying customers can read it.
[00:03:57] Speaker A: Yeah, it's better to be reading a book about being swallowed by a whale on a flight than it would be on a boat. So there's that.
[00:04:04] Speaker B: Unless your plane crashes into the airport, that's.
[00:04:07] Speaker A: That's. Well, you know what I mean? If that's how you're gonna. Worst case scenario, if you could survive a plane crash and survive being eaten by a whale, I. That's a story, man. Like, I don't know, that's a pretty good. Good tale, so maybe that's worth it. Or if you don't survive the whale, that's the way to go, right? I mean, it's, you know. So Justin was flying across the ocean, his plane crashed, and he was eaten by a whale. Okay, cool.
[00:04:30] Speaker B: Yeah, that's. That's some real bad luck.
[00:04:34] Speaker A: But, yeah, we're here. I mean, we're talking about pay the piper, obviously, you've talked a lot some of the similar questions are going to be asked to you over the next few weeks with recent interviews that you probably were asked during the living Dead promotion of that release, because it's like working with George A. Romero and so on and so forth. It's slightly different, obviously, because you found this manuscript, partially finished manuscript, in a, uh, collection. Um, you've told the story over and over again, but like, how did this, um, you know, finishing this novel come to be? Uh, you know, from Georgia Romero.
[00:05:08] Speaker B: I was in the final stages, I believe, of finishing up the living dead, and was going through the Romero archives, which were brand new at the time. Um, they were still being logged by the catalogued by the librarians at the University of Pittsburgh.
And I found, in the last box that I looked through, I found a couple Manila envelopes, and they had the first half of the novel. That really seems to be as close as a secret project as he could have had. Pretty much no one had ever heard of it before, but you could tell just from reading his pages how excited he was about it.
The living Dead pages were good, but this was a different level. His excitement was just bouncing off the page. And I'm convinced that's because had nothing to do with zombies. And he was. He was very exhausted by zombies. He felt he had, you know, like, he really did personally want to make a zombie movie every decade like that. That really was something that he wanted to do, and the world didn't make him do it, but at the end, you know, he was very cornered by zombies. And so this book, pay the piper. It's, you know, it's got all the Romero kind of quirks and trademarks that I love, but is in service of something completely different. It's really all the stuff he honestly loved, like, and his. His. The stuff that he liked to watch. The movies he loved, really, in a lot of ways, reflect someone who, you know, was a kid in the fifties. Like, he liked westerns and he liked pirates and adventures and jungle.
Jungle and gold, and just, you know, all these sort of things that you think about you would see like Tarzan books or something. Like all these kind of adventure y novels for boys that they published in the fifties and the forties.
And this book is just rife with them, but sort of put under a modern lens and still has. Is a great creature feature, too. But as with all things, there's a lot else going on. You know, it's the creature error. Part of it is just one element. But anyway, to answer your question, yeah, I found those pages there were a lot of them. Unlike the living dead, they just cut off. The living dead was like, he had written him a bunch of stuff that was located all over the book, and he had some notes on where some of the plot threads were going. With this one, there was nothing. It was like he wrote what looked like half of a book stopped, like, mid chapter, and that was it. And so it was a really quite a different kind of challenge to figure out from what was there where he might have been going.
[00:07:56] Speaker A: Did you. I mean, is this one of those things that, like, you had not carte blanche, but, like, the estate, George Romero's estate and his people, were you just, like, able to do what you wanted with the base story, or was this something that you had a little more like, or did you feel like you wanted to pay, you know, a little bit closer to the actual original story?
[00:08:14] Speaker B: Well, it's always both, you know, like, as with living dead, I'm very aware and appreciative of that. There's a finite number of pages here that Romero wrote, and so I want to preserve as many of those as possible.
And so there was a little bit of what I did with living dead, which was, this chapter doesn't work where George puts it. Can I work? Can I make it work somewhere else? Can I combine two characters so I can save this chapter that doesn't seem to go anywhere?
And so forth. Ways to conserve what we have from him. And I did that with this book, too.
But, yeah, I wouldn't say carte blanche, but, like, I have a lot of. I think I. With living dead, I earned from the Romero estate a lot of. A good length of leash, you know, where I could do what I thought was right, and, you know, always giving them the right to veto anything they never did on either book.
But I would, of course, have been happy to hear them out if they. They had any issues, which they, you know, they did not.
Yeah, you know, they know I take this more seriously than almost anyone on the planet would take. I go through these manuscripts with a fine tooth comb and treat them like I'm. I always say it's like I'm repairing the Sistine chapel. Like, I take. I go about the job very carefully.
[00:09:38] Speaker A: Well, I also think it's slightly different than I say. Most people don't finish other people's novels, in a sense that aren't, you know, knowledgeable about the person. But you've been a George a Romero fan basically your entire life, and so it's obviously, you want to also protect his legacy in the sense that it must. It might have been difficult to. I'm guessing that there's moments where you're like, I'm going to cut that or move that, but I also don't want to screw with it because I do respect this person and I've always have. Uh, but, yeah, so you've been a Romero fan for a long time, so that also goes into it, I'm guessing, as well.
[00:10:10] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, there are a lot of Romero fans. Uh, and I. I count myself among them. I think in my adult years, I became more of a student, sort of, you know, really studying and digging into the kind of person he was and the worldview he has. And certainly when I approached the living dead, I really got into that stuff. Like, I really tried to learn how his brain works, what sort of things inspired him, what he took out of the art that inspired him, and tried to apply that to myself. And I think after a time, there is a third character who's arisen. There's sort of George and there's Daniel, and then there's the George Daniel Hybrid that is kind of the author of these books where I sort of blended our styles together into a third voice.
But, yeah, it was hard in the living dead, and it was harder here. This was pound for pound, like, this isn't a very long book. Yeah, I think page by page, it was one of the. The absolute hardest things that I've had to do.
[00:11:16] Speaker A: I can imagine. I mean, there is this. You mentioned the two.
The two people in the third, like, amalgamation of the two of you. I do feel like that when I read this book, not in a bad way, but it felt like it was written by two people, but not like I felt like. Like some people might say that's a bad thing, but there's certain things in here where I felt like I felt heard your voice from reading your novels and then hearing George's voice from maybe hearing reading, watching his novel, watching his movies, and reading, you know, youre a living dead collaboration. I just. There was one of those things where I felt like there was moments where I'm like, I don't want to guess, and I never want to know which lines you physically wrote and potentially that he wrote. But I'm thinking to myself, I'm like, oh, it feels like something Daniel would say, and then it would be like, oh, that seems like a George a Romero thing, but not in a bad way. I feel like, I hate saying that because I think some people take that wrong. I think some people, like, can see when chapters are specifically written by another person, if you also take chapters on something or so on and so forth. I meant in a really good way, that they just felt like you paid respect to what George's voice is like, and you also still had your voice. Any fan of Daniel Krauss's writing should like this book. It's not like if you don't like Daniel's writing, then you might not like it either. I don't know. It's hard to say.
[00:12:25] Speaker B: Well, it reminds me of when I was a kid. I remember reading an interview with Stephen King and Peter Straub, and they just put out the talisman. And I remember they were saying how, as they wrote, they would try to write like each other. And so a lot of the lines that people assumed were Stephen King lines were Straub lines and vice versa.
So I'm sure there's some of that in pay the pepper, too, where I'm trying to sort of be the Romero element of it as much as I can.
[00:12:59] Speaker A: You've watched all of his stuff, you've read some of his things. You've seen his archives, so on and so forth. So it's probably your student, you've learned these things to be able to speak and write and have influence on his I stuff. So it makes sense that you would make it so that it's smoother in that. But like I said, I didn't know what it was. It was like, I could definitely be like, if you just had your name on it, I'd be like, oh, it's a Daniel book. I can understand that. And if it just had George's name on, I'd be like, oh, it's just a George's book. So, like, I can see both sides of it. I think it was well written. It was beautifully written. And people say that George is the godfather of zombies and things like that. He's really a godfather of horror in general. I think that's what I see in this book is that you mentioned you put a little video out on your newsletter. For anybody who doesn't sign up for your newsletter via email, you should, because it's wonderful. Personal also has one of the greatest names for a newsletter ever, right? I mean, last krause on the left is absolutely wonderful. We put a video in there, and I watched the video last week, and you talk about how it's a horror book, but that it has influences on other things and so on and so forth. I don't know where I was going on this now because I got on a tangent with the whole last cross on the left thing, but, yeah, it's a different book for George A. Romero to write, but it still fits in his wheelhouse of horror. So I guess I'm trying to say.
[00:14:19] Speaker B: Yeah, I guess that if there's, you know, if there's one thing about this book that really couldn't have come from me, it's really the entire setup of it. Like, one thing I wouldn't have done is decided to write a book in the Louisiana Bayou starring a sheriff who's obsessed with John Wayne and this little girl named Pontiac. I mean, it's just such a bizarre cast of characters.
And that what was, that's what was so fun about discovering it and was part of the challenge, too, was like, wow, this is way out of my wheelhouse. When I was working on Living Dead, it was like, well, you know, I've grown up with the zombies, his zombie movies. I kind of know this world. This I didn't really know at all. So it was, you know, I had to research the battle of New Orleans and the pirates, Lafitte and John Wayne.
Just all sorts of bizarre things that somehow all had to be tied together.
[00:15:22] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, you can feel like when you're reading this, that you're in Louisiana Bayou. Like, you feel like. Almost like, I feel like I'm sweating when I'm reading it in the descriptive words and things like that, but also the Cajun dialect, but it's not overwhelming. I think that some people, if you hear that terminology, like, oh, it's a Cajun dialect, that they might actually be like, oh, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to read that and understand that. But I do think that it's, like, the right amount, if that makes any sense, that it's like, it's there to feel authentic, but not to the point where it's overwhelming. And I think that there's sometimes when I watch books that are based, you know, years and years and years and years ago, and it's all. Or in South American, it's all in English, and you're like, well, that's not really what happened because it probably wasn't English that they were speaking at that time. And the same thing, if you're in Louisiana, likely this is going to be mostly Cajun dialect in southern accents, where you able to balance that pretty well in this book.
[00:16:21] Speaker B: Yeah, and there were. There were lots of variations within that, too. Like, I had to kind of keep a record of which of the characters were Cajun which of them were just sort of Louisiana Southern? There were degrees of how Cajun or how southern they were. Like, which ones drop their G's on their sentences, which ones don't? So there was a lot of, you know, tracking the various dialects carefully between each of the characters. But, yeah, you know, I took a cue. There's a little disclaimer at the front of the book where I borrow kind of how I approach the Cajun dialect from this great book called Bayou Farewell by Mike Tidwell. It's a non fiction book, but he, in that book, tried to do the same thing, which was convey the basic sounds of Cajun English and Cajun French without being overwhelming, without making it just sort of incomprehensible to read.
[00:17:22] Speaker A: Yeah. Because I feel like you could get over. Well, I think there's. There's one of those trying to make it authentic as possible and then also thinking that, like, the majority of the people who are going to read this are not going to be as authentic as possible. So some of us might be like, let's turn off of the book. If you just. If the whole book. Well, I know that's the same thing with the devil that takes me home. Is it with a gambino?
There's parts of that are just written in Spanish, and it's like there's a. There's a translator guide that goes with it to help you with it, but, like. But it's a mixture. It's so perfectly put in there. I think it's the same thing. I think with this was just like, it's there to make it feel authentic, but that not there. That's overwhelming to the point where you're like, I can't read this book. I need a little book to translate it at the end.
[00:18:03] Speaker B: And I do that all the time. I mean, that's a very distinct method. Like, I'm writing this World War one book right now, and that takes place in France, and so there would sometimes just be french, and. And I don't translate it. And it's okay, you know, or in some other books where I'm just talking a lot of jargon where maybe, you know, like, the aircraft carrier section of the Living Dead, where there's a lot of technical stuff that I don't really expect people to understand or follow. It's part of the texture. You just kind of go with it. And part of it is so that the reader feels comfortable knowing that the author knows what they're talking about, so they know the author gets it. We're in good hands. And let's continue.
[00:18:49] Speaker A: It's.
We've talked about this before, and we talk about the difference in books. You just mentioned your World War one book you're writing, and then whale fall and all the other books that you have out there and that this book is horror, which is. Some of you've written horror before. This is not the first time you dabbled in horror, but you like to change it up like you'd like to. Whalefallen was more a thriller, but also like, your Sci-Fi or your not Sci-Fi but like your. Would you consider it Sci-Fi I mean, I don't know.
[00:19:19] Speaker B: It's hard to say because I don't consider it Sci-Fi, but it is. If you look in the cataloging at the front of the book, it is.
[00:19:26] Speaker A: Technically, it's science specified as Sci-Fi.
[00:19:30] Speaker B: It is fiction with science, certainly, but it's not what we would commonly think.
[00:19:35] Speaker A: Is Sci-Fi sci psi. There you go. Fiction, science.
[00:19:38] Speaker B: I agree. It's.
[00:19:40] Speaker A: But no, but you have this. You dabble in different genres and it keeps you fresh. It keeps you. And say that I was speaking for you on this, but like, it's. It's different. And I like that about that. And I think that one of the things I get with your originality on these books, again, this is not your original idea. This is George's original idea, but, like, you still feel like your originality, and I think you get that in all your books. And I think that's what makes pay the piper stand out as well. And I think that's, you know, I think you could do that as an author. I feel like if you were an artist, like a musician, people might get upset with you. I guess post Malone's been doing that recently, right? I mean, he's been dabbling in a bunch of different genres. He's got a country album that just came out. So I don't want to call you the post Malone of, you know, first one.
[00:20:24] Speaker B: I love it.
You know, it's not easy to do as, as a writer. Like, I, you know, Romero was very, very trapped. Like, his archive is just filled with things that aren't horror, and he never got to make any of them.
And I think I have, through part cunning and part luck, been able to do it. And I've been kind of all over the place with my genres, and it's really, really hard to do.
I know great writers who have just been turned down flat at the even supposition that they may try to go outside what they normally write, it is really tough to do.
But for me, even if you just look at my horror stuff, one thing you won't see is like, oh, here's. Here's Krauss's vampire novel, here's where.
But the exception of zombies, which of course, what came straight from Romero. So that's a big question. I'm not really interested in, like, giving my take on sort of established icons, although you could make a huge argument that shape of water was. Was just that.
But Pippa Piper then really spoke to me because it's an entirely original monster, an entire original idea. There's just been nothing else like it.
[00:21:45] Speaker A: I agree, but I also think that whalefall was similar to that too. I think it's one of those things that. And I'll go back to rotters and things like that were like, I mean, let's be honest, the whole premise of rotters is pretty. Could turn some people off. Me wanting to pick it up. Like, if it wasn't for you visiting here and meeting my family and my wife and me being a fan of yours and reading your books, I don't know if she would have ever read rotters. She read it. She loved it. So it's like, it's one of those, you know, you have to kind of be a fan of yours. And I think that's, I didn't read it when you first released it, but I obviously read it after I started reading your books. I'm like, oh, I'll go back and read rotters. That makes it. And now it's one of my favorites. And so you have this ability to write these different novels, and I get you write. You're lucky enough to do that. Like, there are definitely people who don't. And George was one of them. Maybe George would have done it if he had a different name, you know, pen name for doing a book. Maybe he would have been able to read, release more books. But, like, you know, the name George A. Romero is what a lot of authors are, sorry, publishers and media companies want on their things if they're going to put out something.
[00:22:43] Speaker B: Well, he had a couple chances in his career. Like, after Don dawn of the Dead came out, it was such a huge hit. He used that to make Knight Riders, which is his, and one of his strangest, most esoteric films. Like, that's what he wanted to put all his, all the capital that he had gained, he spent it spent on that.
He did that a few different times in his career.
The problem was they never made money. And then once you got to the last leg of his career, he couldn't get money for anything. It wasn't zombies, much less horror.
And I want, and as a, you know, as a student of his, I'm very aware of that, and I don't. I don't want that to be where I've ended up. So I've been very careful ever since around, like, blood sugar and then shape water and Teddy saga, like, trying to. Trying to thread outward. So I've got multiple things going on, and often that I think you do pay a price with financially or with leadership in the short run. But I think in the, in the long run, it's good. In the long run, diversity is really, really good for your career. In the short run, it's difficult. And then every once in a while, you do something completely different and it's like, will fall, and it's a home run, you know?
[00:24:09] Speaker A: And, I mean, obviously you hoped that it would have been with whale fall. Like, you obviously don't write a book now without them. Like, oh, hopefully this is gonna be a flop, and I can just, like, hide and no one can see me. You want it to be a success, but I'm guessing it was a success that you saw hopeful, but, like, that was. It was a pretty big success. We'll see that. I had definitely had people speaking the name whalefall outside of my inner circle more than I expected to hear, meaning that there was definitely some people out there reading the book that I was like, oh, that's pretty cool, seeing that person post about it or so on and so forth, which is pretty awesome. And so, yeah, you also have to release more books more often, I would think. Right. If you were someone who produced a book every five years, it's a little harder to diversify your genre because of the fact that they're expecting the next thing you have been coming out with you. Whalefall, that, you know, these books are coming out every year or so.
[00:24:57] Speaker B: Right.
[00:24:58] Speaker A: It's a little bit easier to keep your feet off of the last one, even if it isn't the same genre.
[00:25:02] Speaker B: That's a great point. I mean, if you're putting a book out every, let's say, you know, three or four years or something, the, the risk factor is a lot higher. You know, like, if you, if you're a horror author, let's say, who puts out a book every three or four years and your next book is a western romance, like, if it flops and there's a good chance it will, that's eight years between books that you could maybe make some money off of or whatever. But if you're like me and you're really productive and you're regularly putting out at least a couple books a year, it lowers the, the impact, lowers the downside.
I can have a book flop financially and it not ruin me because I've got so many other projects going.
[00:25:50] Speaker A: Yes. You can hopefully pick up with the next one and the next one.
[00:25:53] Speaker B: Totally.
[00:25:54] Speaker A: Yeah. And here's the deal. Say this, this is going to be amazing. I do think that anybody who bought the living dead is likely going to buy this one, let's be honest. Because, you know, the partnership, if they like that book, they're going to like this one in a sense, that it's the partnership between the two of you. Again, it is a different book. It's a different, you know, it's not zombies or it's a creature feature, but it's not zombies per se and so on. And so there's that. But then there's going to be the additional people who maybe saw red whale fall who were like, oh, I'll take a chance on this. Yeah. And so you have that ability to do that. And if it didn't work, your whale fall paperback release comes out right now. So you have, you can hopefully piggyback on that until you get to the next book you come out with. Not that I wanted to fail, but.
[00:26:34] Speaker B: It'S really interesting because all the readers who sort of showed up for Wailfall, who had never read me before, you know, I really expected them all to really love this book. I've come down next year called Angel down. Like, it, it seems built for that readership. But I've been kind of warmly surprised by the people I've seen so far who have readdez pay the piper, who only know me from Wailfall.
And pay the piper is a much more, it's clearly a horror. It's not kind of a more populist sort of genre bender like whalefall.
And they've, and they largely, from what I've seen, have really liked pitifiber. So it's, I'm, that's what I want for all readers. That's the kind of reader I am, is that that genre is, almost, has no bearing on what I choose to read. I just want really good writing. I just want. I just want to be surprised at sort of a story level or more than that, at a page level, at a sentence level. It's writing that I'm interested in. Really?
[00:27:41] Speaker A: Yeah. And I'm similar on that sense, too. If you can give me a well written, unique story, I'm going to go into that thing. I mean, I'm reading Chuck Wendig's monster movie right now, uh, which is a middle, middle grade horror, uh, book. And it's like, it's just, you know, I fan of Chuck, so I'm gonna try to do this. And I. And I feel like it's like Chuck working on his RL Stein, uh, impression, in a sense, not in a way that it's the same or a ripoff. It's just, it's his version of this book. And I I'm reading it. I'm going, it definitely seems like Chuck's read some RL Stein, but also has his own flair on. And I think that I'm in for a well written, unique story, and that's where we're getting. And so it's same thing with this angel down coming, pay the piper well fall. They're all unique stories in the sense that people are going to want to pick those up for that. But you've also gained a following, and I do think that if I would have paid attention to your social media following, it probably has grown since the beginning of Wailfall release.
[00:28:38] Speaker B: Probably. But again, that kind of coincided with the disintegration of Twitter, so who knows?
[00:28:46] Speaker A: Who knows? Exactly, right? I mean, uh, we were. My wife has post posted a picture of our daughter's five month birth. You know, the picture you do every, every month, and she's like, wow, we got, like, six different bots that are. Have, like, onlyfans following us now. And, like, yes. I'm like, yeah, I don't know what's going on.
Yeah, I can't. I don't know what. It seems like a very odd picture for someone from onlyfans to, like, I'll tell you that much.
[00:29:09] Speaker B: But, yeah, totally. Yeah. And that's why I'm glad you mentioned the newsletter that, like, I mean, social media is just really, really falling apart.
[00:29:19] Speaker A: But it's like, how do you know as, I mean, you have, you have a publisher that's behind you on these books. They're hopefully helping to try to push these, these books for you to help sell the books and so on and so forth. You know, publishers, your publicists, your people are all helping to help you, but, like, there's people out there who are creators that don't have as much of a bigger publisher or trying to do this on their own, and they really, like, well, how do I get this out there because even your, even your, your email list has to become from somewhere. So you have to tell someone to then sign up for it. So you have this avenue if people know your website or if they google your website or whatever, but there's a lot of people out there being like, I don't know what to do if social media is imploding. It's the, where I was telling people on Twitter to follow my stuff and buy my stuff. Now I can't because half the people are leaving and it's hard.
[00:30:05] Speaker B: Yeah. In the old days, you would show up to, I guess, like literary conferences with a clipboard, with a, with a signup sheet. Like, that's almost where we're back to again. I mean, I was never there. I missed that phase. Yeah, but that doesn't sound very.
[00:30:21] Speaker A: No, we did it either for the podcast and for our website. Be like, oh, it'd be nice avenue to get to people as an email list and. But the only way to get people to sign up for it, too, is to give away something. And so I was like, get finding things. And I was like, oh, a signed copy of this. I'll put this in there. Put your name on a list, put it in there. We'll draw it. Like, if I just said, here, sign up for my mailing list, I would have three people on it. But if I would, I said, hey, I'm going to give you, potentially give you something, something. Then I got like 30 people, and then I have to go through and put all that in. So it's like, it's a lot of work and it's just, and you have to put the thing together. I'm guessing. I'm guessing you sit at this desk that you're at right now and put that. Mailing that email together, which, like I said, I always enjoy because it's. You don't take yourself too seriously. You promote your stuff, we tell a few jokes in there and so on and so forth. You're pretty good at, I'll say. But also the name, like, you got lucky with that name. It's a pretty good name. You are a writer, so obviously that makes sense, but.
[00:31:11] Speaker B: Well, yeah, I mean, there's a few words that rhyme with crowds, so it just seemed natural.
[00:31:16] Speaker A: Exactly.
It's so with will fall, you came up with this unique story, this unique book that came out, that got adapting. It's being adapted into a feature film, which is pretty awesome.
You came off, you know, obviously the living Dead with George A. Romero. You're now back into it you say this is the last collaboration between you and George A. Romero. Is that because there's none left or are you just done with. Are you sure there isn't anything left or.
[00:31:43] Speaker B: I am. It's because there's none left I think is as far as the archive as it exists now, there's no other novels. There is a start of what looks like a novel, but we're talking like it's twelve pages or something. You know, it's like there's nothing really else.
[00:32:05] Speaker A: Daniel Krauss's so and so, so and so based on the idea behind Georgia.
[00:32:09] Speaker B: Yeah right. So as far as things that were intended to be novels, no, there's nothing else.
[00:32:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
You went through these things could. Do you think that you, you now such a student of George A. Romero that you could potentially even contemplate the idea of writing some sort of book about Georgia?
[00:32:30] Speaker B: Funny you should say that. We're going to have to talk offline but yes, I think I probably could.
[00:32:39] Speaker A: And that's like I said, I just, I don't know, I guess you're, if you're a fan of them and so on and so forth, it just makes sense to, I don't know, it's not always in there either. I mean you've just cause someone likes someone doesn't mean that you can also tell a story about someone either. But yeah, but with, with wailfall you came, visited us here in Maine. We were lucky enough to have you up in Maine which is pretty cool. And we did a cool collaboration where my day job working for orno brewing company doing a beer with whale fall which was pretty awesome. A big, big exciting time. It was cool because I do think, and I was telling I had Adam Caesar on an episode before yours and we were talking a little bit about and you and Adam did a in conversation together in Pennsylvania around Whale Falls release. And I remember because Adam had put a picture of the beer out there and I'm like hey yeah, this is kind of funny. And so Adam and I have had a, he's been on the couple times and you know we've talked back and forth and so on and we're saying that, that I think I sold some books for you and im not taking credit for that but I do know for at least a handful of people, if not more, that would not have bought in whalefall if they didnt know the beer was there. And thats only the people that I talked to. So it was kind of cool. And Im not trying to pat myself on the back or pat us on the back because obviously youre the one that approached us about it, but its pretty badass to be able to do that because its a different avenue. And Im guessing it works the same way with dark matter coffee. Im guessing that they probably sold, uh, some books as well for people buying coffee that didn't know that it was a novel and didn't know who you are and so on and so forth. So what do you have? Like, I'm guessing you have fun with these, these kind of collaborations?
[00:34:14] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:34:14] Speaker A: And doing these things? Yeah, yeah.
[00:34:16] Speaker B: I mean, it's super fun. I mean, there's so much about, like, promoting books that isn't fun to me that I really.
[00:34:24] Speaker A: Social media?
[00:34:25] Speaker B: Yeah, largely. Largely that.
But there's certain kinds of, there's certain kinds of press that isn't fun. So, yeah, anytime there's something that just feels one unique or two, just like something you already enjoy, I don't know, really how many books.
Well, fall beer or the living dead coffee sold, I'm sure sold some. Yeah. But it's just I like coffee and I like beer, and, and being able to, like, have something to sort of hold up that isn't the book.
It just makes you feel. It makes me feel good, you know, like, it makes me feel like I'm stretching into other areas, which is an extension of how I'm already doing, you know, don't books, youth books, graphic novels, screenplays, whatever. It's just another way to stretch out. And it just, I don't know. At the, at the end of the day, it just makes me happy.
[00:35:37] Speaker A: Well, I mean, I saw, and actually, I'm a person. I listen to. I hybrid read, so I listen to all the audiobooks at the same time as not the same time. It's like reading the book and listening to it, but, like, I'll listen to it in the car on the way to the office, and I get home and I'll pick up the actual novel, find out what chapter I'm on, read. It's a little bit annoying, but that way I can actually read more. And if I'm really entrenched in a book, I can keep going. I'm doing dishes. I got one earphone. In trying to do dishes. It's this mundane task. I can pay attention or whatever. Um, but I'm not a kind of, kind of person who can sit in a bar or a coffee shop or anything like that and read. It's just too much going on. I want to know what's going on. Someone will inevitably walk in the door that I know. And then I'm talking to them, having coffee or beer with them and so on and so forth. But there's like a handful of people that come to our brewery, both our Bangor or orno location, and sit at a table on like a Wednesday night, have a beer and read their book, and they were just flipping through their novels and so on and so forth. And I'm like, first of all, props to you for doing that, because I just couldn't do that.
But there's. But there's only. I mentioned five or six people. That's it. In the thousands of people that come into my brewery. And so the conversation, every time someone ordered a whale fall beer, it was, oh, cool. The name whalefall and the story about what whale fall was and all that stuff became a very normal conversation in a place that typically wouldn't have it. And it's not like, even if you call us and be like, oh, we'll pay you $1,000 to put a poster up, it still wouldn't have that same conversation. And we've talked about this in the past in the brewery. It's like we were going to make a beer in that tank anyway. Like, it wasn't, you know, this is not one of those things is like, oh, we had to do something special. Like special timing. And unless, yes, obviously we had to make it at a certain time. But it made sense because it's like, okay, all we have to do is work together with you, your publisher, you know, artists that work on the covers of to do this, because. And let's do something special with it. So we did order the special hop thing and all that stuff for it, which was really cool. But the conversation got up in a bar to have a conversation about whale fall.
[00:37:30] Speaker B: That's really great. I hadn't thought of it like that. The fact that suddenly book discussions are happening in a place where book discussions don't normally happen. And maybe that was happening in some of the coffee shops that sold the various.
[00:37:43] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:37:44] Speaker B: Coffees that I've done.
That is fantastic. Like, that is really kind of a dream, and it's a good reason to keep doing it, I think.
[00:37:54] Speaker A: Yes, and I think that. So when we had a conversation about it, we reached out. So if anybody doesn't know that story ahead of time, as Daniel, you were on a couple years ago, and we talked about your graphic novels, and we talked about things living dead a little bit. And you had reached out saying, you have wailfall coming out, and it would be kind of cool. We're from Maine here, you know, and we have whales, and it makes sense. Looking for a brewery. You have this connection now with the brewery, and you've done it with dark matter over in Chicago. Yeah, right here in Chicago that you've done a collab with them. Let's do this for whale fall. I was like, this is an amazing idea. So we talked to ownership. They thought it was a great idea. And so we did this. We did this whale fall beer, and it came out limited batch, and we did a couple of signings, and we did some fun stuff with it, and we sent them to your different stops along your trip. Some of them got there, some of them didn't, but we won't talk about that. Uh, we actually did get a package back, I think, uh, like, three months later.
And it was. It was a test to us because we're like, okay, this was in the mail. Because the funny thing is, I just made me. Someone must have been filling it in that ups route, because it. They said wrong address or something was wrong about, like, delivery. And I'm like, you don't think that the delivery driver for UPS didn't know where they're supposed to go? So someone must have been filling in for a vacation or something like that and used as an excuse not to deliver it. But the quality of the beer was still there that was being sent across the country, so on and so forth. We cooled it back down. We drank. It was like, oh, cool. We got this beer back. I could drink three months later. But it worked so well. We had so much fun with it that we thought, I reached out to Daniel again. I was like, okay, we might not. Do you have a bunch more books coming out? It's not like we're going to do this yearly. Maybe we'll. Maybe won't. But I'm just saying, hey, let's do it again. We have the time, we have the energy with the. Let's just feed off of it and see what happens. And so we discussed the idea about putting pay the piper on a beer label, and we. We came out with pay the Piper IPA, and we thought it'd be kind of fun to do it again. And I think that the artwork is phenomenal. When I saw the original art or the artwork come off in the picture, you posted the COVID reveal, I'm like, oh, my God. This is gonna be perfect. This is gonna work so well. I love it.
[00:39:57] Speaker B: It looks really nice on the beer. It looks great in the beer can. I've got a couple of my foods right now, and the. The nice thing that we haven't mentioned yet is the welfall beer was delicious. It was really. It was also just really, really good.
[00:40:13] Speaker A: I thought you said the word delicious because you said it in your poke, your quote. We put in the pr, the press release, and I got, I think your publicist wrote back being like, can we pick a different word for this? Because I used it. You used it, and we used it somewhere else in the press. Like, the word delicious in here. A lot. Like. But it is delicious.
[00:40:28] Speaker B: So I guess you could say tasty. I don't know.
[00:40:30] Speaker A: Tasty. I think I said delightful. I think I changed mine to delightful. That's good, too. But, yeah, you're right. And so, because it tasted so well, we just decided to do a very small tweak on last year's beer.
[00:40:39] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:40:40] Speaker A: Very similar. But this uses that phantasm, which is a special thing from Jakova chief, that gives it a more softer feel. And when you drink this, it's going to. You're going to get a. Remind you of whale fall.
To me, I work in the beer industry. I try so many beers, too, that I can't say, oh, it's just like whale fall last year, because I don't remember exactly what whale fall tasted like. But there is a similarity to it. But it's. But it's also different, which is kind of cool, which is, again, your writing is similar but different in the sense that this is a horror novel versus the whale fall. And so we were able to do that, and I think it's pretty sweet to be able to make this beer again. That really matches the COVID of the book, because I do have the book here, too, actually.
The COVID of the book, it matches the.
Look at that.
[00:41:22] Speaker B: Nice.
[00:41:22] Speaker A: There you go.
The people's names. Cover design with Patrick Sullivan and Igor Satanovsky. Sounds like Satanovsky. Evangeline Gallagher took the. Did the COVID images, and I can guess. I can say Shutterstock, too, but that's just legality. We don't have to actually say center stock.
[00:41:40] Speaker B: Yeah. Evangeline Gallagher did the artwork, and she's a huge fan of her and always want her to do a cover. And then this year, I got two.
[00:41:52] Speaker A: Covers by her, pay the piper and.
[00:41:55] Speaker B: The issue of monster variations.
And I had no idea. Even after I saw the pay the piper cover, I didn't know she had done it until much later. And then I was like, oh, my God, I have two covers by her now. Didn't. Didn't have any idea?
[00:42:09] Speaker A: That's great. I mean, maybe have a whole line of them. Anytime you have a release years later, if you get another release of routers, you can do a new cover for routers.
[00:42:17] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, that would be. Maybe release all my old books, Gallagher box set or something.
[00:42:25] Speaker A: Yeah. They all roughly the same size and so on and so forth. And you got a hell of a poll quote on the COVID there, too, with Tenerife. Do is. That's pretty.
[00:42:31] Speaker B: Yeah, Tenerife is. Yeah, she's awesome.
[00:42:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:42:35] Speaker B: And also, and the reason I wanted her to read the book above all else is that she's a big Romero fan and teaches. Has taught Romero in her college classes. And, you know, I just thought she might respond well to this book. And so that was, yeah, awesome to get her involved, but yeah.
[00:42:55] Speaker A: So back on the beer just really quickly before we get off of that subject. But, like, because we wanted. We liked it so much, we wanted to do it again. I think it was an awesome idea. And I talked to, you met Gibran Graham, who owns the briar patch here in Bangor, Maine, where we had some signing last year for whalefall. But I said, hey, we'll do this, so on and so forth, but, like, we'll do. I think we're going to continue doing literary beers, but I'm like, maybe we'll start to open the floodgates up there a little bit and ask different people, because it might be nice to have different parts of the country or different authors. I'm not saying that we won't do one with Daniel in the future, but I was like, I think at some point people are going to go, why Daniel?
[00:43:30] Speaker B: Live there. Okay.
[00:43:31] Speaker A: At some point the connection is going to go farther, farther away from why the original beer was made, to the point where unless there's actual beer, it's like, you know, book based in Maine. I was like, yeah, some people could be like, we're fans of Daniel, but that's. At some point, people are going to be like, oh, that's like.
[00:43:50] Speaker B: You would think. I live in vanguard.
[00:43:52] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
Like, oh, you came up here and visited. So now forever we're going to do beers with Dano. No, but it's coming out on. On August 28, which I think is actually the date that this episode drops. So it comes out the same day. So if you're coming to the Bangor area in Maine and throughout Maine, actually, it's going to be in throughout Maine. But yeah, you can grab pay the piper to be on draft. It'll be in, you know, cans and. Yeah, I'm super excited. I, and I don't want to, obviously, you don't know for sure. Is dark matter going to work with you too? Or is this not on this one?
[00:44:21] Speaker B: No.
[00:44:21] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:44:22] Speaker B: Um, but, yeah, I'd love to work with them again. Uh, the cop is phenomenal. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Dark night is the best. Um, yeah, it's always, it's one of those weird things where you'd say, you know, I was about to say, you have to figure out which projects you want to do, which things on, and you would like, you might think, well, how do you decide that on a coffee?
[00:44:43] Speaker A: Like, what books make sense for a.
[00:44:46] Speaker B: Coffee and some don't. And yet there's a, there's a, I have a gut feeling, you know, that. No, not this book. Yes, maybe this book. So I do hope to work with them again. But we'll see.
[00:44:56] Speaker A: And I will say, I mean, I was reached out to David M. Boer.com, book writer and other people, Joseph Schmalke from here, from Maine, they have reached out to me and been like, oh, that was really cool. You did with Daniel maybe one day. And it's like, so at that point also, it's like there's only a finite schedule. We talked about the beers to be made anyway, but there's other commitments that us, as a brewery, for an example, have to other things. And so I've been reached out to someone's like, can they make a wedding beer? How do I get a wedding beer made for me, work for the brewery and have an inn? Like, yeah, that's what you, you. I'm like, no, no, no. You had to physically work in the brewery and have an in to get that made because it's just not on the schedule. And so, uh, we had the ability to this and it fit in. And we had the discussion closer to whaleful, I think, for this, that whalefield beer. So it was like, it was a somewhat closer. We had this discussion nine months ago about doing this, and it got, you know, obviously just caught up on my, oh, my God, it's next week, uh, or two weeks from now. Holy crap. This is right around the corner. Um, and so that, that's why this did this. But I just felt like it made sense to do it one more time, at least one more time again. Maybe in the future there's another one coming, but, uh, you know, maybe that sales sell people. This might be the last one with Daniel's name on it. Um, hurry up and go grab it. This is you know, limited quantity. But that was the other part about it I wanted to do. I wanted to do as much as it is nice to sell a bunch of beer, um, it's also one of those things that makes it this limited size. So, like, our normal batches will be about 60 barrels. This is only eight barrels. And so, like, there's that, you know, you have to get it. Go get it now. It's not gonna be around forever, and I think that's part of it. I mean, obviously, the book's gonna be around, but there's a limited number of cans that are gonna be there. I like that, too.
[00:46:30] Speaker B: There's a part of me that really responds to that kind of thing, too, and I don't know why. Maybe it comes up. Maybe it comes from going up the analog era, where things just weren't available forever.
There's part of me that wants to release a book that only has, you know, 500 copies ever made. Like, there's. There's a. There's a part of me that just finds the scarcity appealing.
[00:46:57] Speaker A: Yeah, it's true. And I think that's the one thing. We've done that with merchandise, too, with t shirts, like, at the brewery. Like, oh, let's just do a t shirt. It's like, okay, we have 72 of these, and that's the only time we're ever going to make them. And they also fly. So it's also a marketing scheme, honestly, at the same time as it is a. As a positive thing, just because it's limited, but people can buy it immediately if it's only a limited number available. And that's that, you know, scarcity part of it and so on. So that's how breweries across the country had lines out their doors for peers for a while there a few years ago. It's because they're like, well, if I don't get it at the brewery this time, I'm never going to get it. And so there was this, like, you know, limited edition part of it. And so it's not as extreme limited as the point where you have to line outside of our door. Uh, but it is limited to the point where, you know, 80 cases of beer, uh, was like, the max amount made. So if you buy a case, you're buying 1181, 80th of the. Of the beer.
[00:47:44] Speaker B: So, yeah, you know, comic books way better than I do, and, like, limited edition comic book covers and stuff, that's a huge thing, right?
[00:47:53] Speaker A: So that's. It's at that too. And I think we had the cool thing. And you mentioned about signing and doing unusual things. We're going to be giving away on our instagram for the brewery. That's going to be probably cost cross promoter with the podcasting one, we're going to give away a couple of books that Union Square and company was willing to. Enough to give us to give away. And we're also going to include, I sent them to you, so you'll have them signed and we'll get them back and we'll get them to people. And there'll be some labels in there that you'll sign. And so there's that label. That's pretty cool too. That's not been on a beer, it's flat, it's a sticker. You stick it on something if you wanted to, but you could put it in a frame or whatever. And that's what I do for the majority of the ones that I've done with other people I've done labels with for the Losers club from it. And they saw all the. Well, everybody that was at this event, it was minus what's his name. We did a robot chicken, I forget his name, whatever. And one of them passed away. And so that obviously couldn't get that signature on there. But I've done ones for terrafire, the movies. So I have Damien Leone and David Howard Thornton's signature on them and your signature on yours in the office that are flat in a thing. So sometimes that's pretty cool. I mean, a book, you sign the inside of a book, it goes on a shelf, you don't get to see it. And so there's another thing that you get to see with this thing on it. So, which is pretty cool. And it's unique in that sense.
[00:49:10] Speaker B: But yes, those are in the mail to you as we speak.
[00:49:13] Speaker A: Look at this. There you go. See? Mailing things back and forth here I got my ups driver is amazing because the beer I wanted, I was like, oh, I want to get it out to you today because I was going to be there the next day and I was like, awesome. Next week. And so I was like, it's not done yet. They're canning it right now. Can you come back in like five minutes? And he's like, yeah, I'll go do my run. I'll come right back. As we came right back. And those cans I sent to you are like the 7th or 8th cans off the line, which is pretty cool. So they're pretty. The first cans, I would say, actually, is there a number on the bottom of this? I don't think there is.
Yeah, there's not, but, yeah. So that's pretty cool. I think it's awesome to do that cross promotion thing. I think it's one of the coolest things. I think a lot of people, even, like the newspaper in the area, has picked up calling it a literary beer because it's this unique way of promoting something.
You're one of the few, I would think. I'm sure there are other people who've done literary beers or comic book beers or movie beers, but I don't know if it's an homage to the movie or the book or a, you know, an afterthought. This is more of a, like, this is coming out actually before the book. A week before the book.
[00:50:14] Speaker B: Right, right. Yeah, it's. It's really cool. I really like.
[00:50:17] Speaker A: It's awesome. I have a whalefell one here.
[00:50:21] Speaker B: Ah, there it is. Yeah, I've got one of those. I have a. I kept one can that I will save for some sort of special occasion.
[00:50:31] Speaker A: Yeah. It's a fun thing. And I think as a designer for Kansas, I always want to use my own artwork, but when I get to use someone else's artwork also, this is, might be a cool thing. I don't know if Evangeline has ever had her artwork on can beer cans, but that's pretty cool thing, too. And. Yeah, probably not, you know, and actually, we'll actually communicate with that, too, because if they are interested in beer, I'd love to be able to get them some of the cans as well as. I've also reached out to your publicists, asked if they wanted to, but they never responded. But we'll. All right, we'll get to that later.
[00:50:58] Speaker B: Let me know.
[00:50:58] Speaker A: Yeah, we'll ping on that, too. I just didn't know if they wanted to try it. We didn't do it the last time, but I wanted to see if anybody wanted it this time. But, yeah, pay the piper comes out September 3 at your bookstores everywhere. Pre ordering it is worth it, in my opinion, people. I like bookshop.org if anybody wants to do that, because that helps local bookstores on there as well as. Will there be an audiobook, do you know?
[00:51:20] Speaker B: Yes. Yes.
[00:51:21] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:51:21] Speaker B: There should be an audiobook.
I don't know if it's coming out exactly when the book comes out, but it should be close.
[00:51:28] Speaker A: Okay. I'm excited to see that, too. I think the next time I'll read it, I'll actually listen to it because I think I'm excited to see how that goes. Because, again, with the book having a nice Cajun dialect and all that stuff, listen to it as well as reading it.
[00:51:41] Speaker B: We've got good reader who can do the Cajun.
[00:51:43] Speaker A: Well, that's what you want. You don't want to do it bad. You didn't.
That would be a very bad thing to have the bad accent being read. But you also got wailfall paperback coming out on September 10. And you have. You have three more books announced, right? Or is it two of them are announced and one of them is. The name hasn't been announced. You have a two book deal with Saga, essentially.
[00:52:09] Speaker B: Two. Two book deals. We know the first book of both of those two book deals. So the first two book deals starts off with angel down. So the World War one book, some soldiers shoot down an angel. And then the first book of the saga press contract is called the 6th Nick. And it's my first real Sci-Fi book.
So I'm very, very excited about angel down and six Nick. They're two of my favorite things I've ever done, and they couldn't be more different.
Just, just both of them are radically unlike anything I've ever done. And, of course, that just makes me love them all the more.
[00:52:52] Speaker A: Exactly. Well, one of the things that Adam and I talked about, people can go back to listen to that episode, but, like, it reinvigorates you, too, I think. I think one of the things that there's different people. Adam's now releasing actually tomorrow, as we're recording, this is clown cornfield three. And then you have mostly books that are unlike your. Some of your collaboration books have been or co authored books have been sequels. But for the most part, you write a book and you're done with that book and you move on to the next thing. And so it reinvigorates you, I think. It's fresh eyes, it's fresh stories. It's doing all that stuff. And even in your comic books, you haven't done really, you've done autumnal, Trojan Cemetery, you haven't done the next. It's not like a tunnel, volume two. And so, not that you wouldn't. I'm just saying that it's nice to have that different. And they are different. The tunnel is definitely different than Trojan and so on and so forth and so. And that's what I love, that I, you know, I'm a big fan of Daniel's writing, and that means they can read a bunch of different genres. That's pretty cool. I just want your romance novel.
[00:53:48] Speaker B: Hey, just hang in there.
Some people would say shape of water is the romance.
[00:53:53] Speaker A: Okay, yeah, you're right. You're right. It's more of a. I don't know if my wife would read that kind of a romance novel. That's not your, uh, the kind of romance novel that a lot of the romance fans are looking for.
[00:54:01] Speaker B: But I'll put it this way, like, I've got, there's a romance novel I want to do. Like I've, I've got several other genre projects that are in my head, ready to roll.
[00:54:14] Speaker A: Move over, Colleen Hoover. Here comes Daniel. Right. Get out of the way. But yeah. So you have a lot of stuff you're working on and coming out with. This is pretty exciting to see. I mean, when you were doing whale Falls promotion, you really were doing whale fall promotion. You had, you had your Trojan trade paperback and things like that. Cemeterians, those were all in the works and being put into trades and single issues are coming out and so on and so forth. But like, the last time we talked like this, it wasn't willful paperback, pay the piper coming out and then two more books announced. It's pretty cool. You know, you're a very busy person.
[00:54:45] Speaker B: Yes, it is a, it is a busy time, but it's a good time because I'm working with amazing editor who are, who are really understanding what I'm doing and letting me, letting me do it, which is just the dream.
[00:55:00] Speaker A: It's pretty, that's pretty awesome. And you have your data adaptation of will fall being worked on behind the scenes too, which is pretty cool. You know, I know those take time and energy. I actually just talked to Jay Bon and Senga, who has the killers game coming out in theaters and he had that purchased. The first time was in 1995, was the first time that movie was adapt or being adapted into a film. It took 30 years to get onto the screen.
[00:55:24] Speaker B: That's madness.
[00:55:26] Speaker A: He goes, the benefit of it, and you know this, the benefit of it was that, but every couple of years it was reoptioned. So you got these random checks that he would get in the mail that his agent would be like, oh, by the way, you have a check here, sitting here because you could be good option to get.
[00:55:38] Speaker B: Yeah, that's exactly right.
[00:55:40] Speaker A: Well, free money, hopefully.
[00:55:42] Speaker B: Well, fall won't take that long.
[00:55:43] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
[00:55:44] Speaker B: The script is done.
We're moving on.
[00:55:48] Speaker A: There you go. That's awesome. But yeah, so pay the piper with George A. Romero, the final hopefully co authored book from the two of you, which is pretty awesome. I do think it's a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful book that people should read if you're into, you know, bayou horror, folk horror. You wrote a folk horror book.
It's phenomenal. It comes out September 3 at bookstores everywhere. You can pre order it now or just make sure you let your bookstore know that you want it. But I also highly recommend whalefall, which is great. So buy both of them at the same time. Technically, we preorder one and pre order the other and grab them both if you haven't read it. And then if you're in Maine, grab this. If you're over in the border in New Hampshire or Massachusetts or anywhere in New England, drive to me to get it. There you go. Right. I wish we had distribution in Chicago or Illinois. We would have sent some out, but we don't have distribution out there. So maybe next time we do a beer together, there'll be distribution.
[00:56:42] Speaker B: Yes. We must make it happen.
[00:56:44] Speaker A: But, yeah, Daniel, I really appreciate you taking the time and coming back on the podcast to chat your books and so on, and the beer collaborations and more. I know you're a busy person, and taking time out is always. We're always thankful for that. Jeff.
[00:56:58] Speaker B: Hey, man, anytime, anytime.
[00:57:00] Speaker A: Absolutely. So, yeah, so get back, and I'm looking forward to it. You're doing something in your hometown for the. For the release of the book.
[00:57:09] Speaker B: Yeah, there's a lot of events, so if people want to keep up with them, they can go to my website, danielcrous.com, and click on news and that'll have the full tour.
[00:57:18] Speaker A: Okay, cool. Awesome. That's exactly what I wanted to talk about quickly because I think going to see an author and stuff in person, getting a signature, getting. Getting to hear about the book from them. From the mouth of the horse, I should say it that way, is a great thing.
[00:57:31] Speaker B: So at those events, we will be drinking pay the piper beer whenever possible.
[00:57:35] Speaker A: There you go. Exactly. We got to work on that for sure. But, yeah, I appreciate it. We'll get you back on at some point. I mean, obviously we make this, you're going to come up with a good book every year. We're going to have to make this a yearly thing. So if not before, we'll see you in a year here.
[00:57:49] Speaker B: Sounds perfect.
[00:57:50] Speaker A: Thanks, Daniel.
