[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome back to the Capes and Tights podcast right here on Capesandtights.com, i'm your host, Justin Soderbergh. This episode is once again brought to you by our friends over at Galactic Comics and Collectibles at galactic comics and collectibles.com this episode we welcomed Craig de Louis to the podcast to talk about his novel My Ex, the Antichrist and so much more. Craig is known for books such as how to Make a Horror Movie and survive, episode 13, suffer the children, the Children of Red Peak and many, many, many more. His works have been nominated for major literary awards such as Bram Stoker Award and and the Audi Award.
This was a fun conversation. We checked, chatted my, my ex, the End of Christ and so much more. But before you listen, check us out on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, bluesky, threads, all those places. Rate, review, subscribe over on Apple, Spotify or wherever you find your podcasts. And as always you can Visit
[email protected] for so much more. This is Craig de Luis chatting my ex, the Antichrist right here on the Capes and Tights podcast. Enjoy.
Welcome to the podcast Craig. How are you today?
[00:01:06] Speaker B: I'm doing great. How about yourself?
[00:01:08] Speaker A: I'm doing wonderful. I'm glad we got to hook up and do this conversation because I really like your books.
So there's a benefit there as well as I like the promoting books that I like. So we're here talking your books, My Ex, the Antichrist and more. But before we jump in too far into this, Craig, why don't you tell us a little bit about when or how you got into writing books in the first place. You don't have to be super long but it can be if you want. But just a little bit about your background on becoming an author.
[00:01:41] Speaker B: Yeah, so I was, I first discovered I liked the written word in the 80s. I grew up on a farm outside a small town in New Jersey and often found myself relying on my imagination. My friends and I all, we all did D and D and all that stuff but I, I like the idea when I would read I would be like really in it way more than role playing and I found I wanted to create be the dm. You know I wanted to be the dungeon master for everyone and so found myself really interested in writing. My the author that sort of started it all for me was Robert E. Howard. So a lot plenty of wish fulfillment stuff for 13 year old, 14 year old boy growing up in the middle of nowhere and just found myself falling in love with it and did the whole thing where I was trying to be him.
And I would write like the first act of like five different novels handwritten, and then just get, you know, like a. I'd see a shiny object and go chase that for a while. In the 90s, I got a little more serious about it. I wrote my first novel and it was a novel about original superheroes. It had all these big themes and it was a little bit ahead of its time.
And it was a little bit ahead of its time for me too. I wasn't really ready yet.
Writers are born in that. I think we're predisposed to do it, but we're not exactly predisposed. We're not born to be good at it. And I think that that is.
There's a prejudice in our society that, you know, you pick up a typewriter and suddenly you're a great writer. No, it takes lots and lots of practice. So I got all that in the 90s. I wrote several novels and, and really go anywhere. And I was getting really discouraged by the whole system.
But then in the early 90s, I really opened up and started to democratize. First with on demand printing, which resulted in a revolution in small press and a lot more opportunities, a lot more risk takers. And then of course self publishing with the ebook. And so I was able to get my first publication credit was me trying to be Chuck Polonia with this novel about the whole conspiracy theory world. And that was called Paranoia, was published in 2001 and it did okay for a small press title. Did a sci fi novel with them that did okay. And then I did the zombie novel when I was just about to give up. And like my daughter was born, I was like, I should just be taking care of her instead of indulging this, you know, time pit of a hobby I have.
And that's, that's an agonizing labor, you know, so yeah, and, and that book exploded and I ended up getting with Permuted Press, did a. Two more zombie novels for them, got an agent, and then the agent got me into Gallery Books, which is a division of Simon and Schuster.
They, they published Stephen King, they published authors, and I was able to get in with them with a novel called Suffer the Children, which even Today, that was 11 years ago. And even today it sells really well. It's this underground hit and even got very little promotion, very little attention from the publisher. But they just came out with a new edition and it's re released it. It's just unkillable.
It's an undead book in itself. And.
And then I, you know, from there I got a new agent and they got me into Hachette, which is, you know, owned by Hachette Livre, which I think is like the third largest publisher in the world. And in the US they have Orbit and in the uk, which is their speculative fiction imprint. And then they have a new horror imprint as part of that called Run for It. And I've been with theet for, you know, multiple books now. And then next year I have a duology coming out.
And so I'm one of their, what you would call stable, you know, a stable writer. You're. I'm in the stable, their horror guy. And.
And it's been, you know, it's been an amazing journey. I. I'll just cap this long intro by saying it's been an amazing, amazing journey.
I work at home in my pajamas. I can coffee maker. I'm watching my kids grow up.
It's been. I'm a very lucky man. Extremely blessed. It's extremely hard to get in with Big Five Publishing.
And I can't tell you how I did it. It looks like someone falling up the stairs. And how do you tell someone how you fell up the stairs? Just one thing led to another, and I've been just very fortunate.
[00:06:27] Speaker A: So it sounds like. It sounds like you enjoy doing it, which is great. Which is one of the big things, I think. And I think you see that and you almost read that in people's novels that, like, when there's someone, like, churning things out just to get.
You might see a little bit. Not, like it's not obvious that they're not liking it, but they're just doing it for the money or something like that, which is not a ton of money, but like. But the idea that your novels. I stumbled. Actually stumbled upon you for the first time with how to make a movie, a horror movie and Survive.
And that was when I was first getting into doing more reviews of actual novels. And so I was able to get like, you know, the arc, the printed arc, which is somewhere around here, the actual printed arc of that. And then I was like, I heard about you because so many people liked episode 13, you know, I mean, it's like one of those things that was like, oh, people. I hear a lot of people talking about episode 13. And it got put on my, you know, to be read list. And then I saw you had a book coming out called how to Make a Horror Movie and Survive. And again, that title, the COVID all that stuff Made me go, okay, maybe I'll read this first, and then I'll jump into other stuff later. And I absolutely loved it. And so that was really good on that sense. And then I don't know what happened, but I just, like, at that point, I think I wanted to talk to you then. I honestly think at that point I was like, oh, let's get Craig on the podcast. And then something, you know, like how, like, I book out pretty far in advance a lot of times, and I think probably the schedule filled up and then it was like, oh, and then I forgot. And then you came up with this banger of a novel right here that I flew through because I enjoyed it so much. My ex, the Antichrist, again, another novel with a name that goes, I gotta read this book.
And I'm so pumped about it. So it's been a fun kind of journey for myself, you know, discovering your writing and stuff like that. But now I'm hooked. Now I'm like, you see your name on something. I'm gonna be reading it, which is gonna be awesome.
So I'm glad you're writing books and sitting in your pajamas and walking to the coffee maker.
But, I mean, I feel that way. I mean, I work from home as well, so it's like one of those things.
I grabbed the seltzer out of my own refrigerator instead of my lunchbox or something like that. It's a nice little thing.
[00:08:30] Speaker B: Look at your office.
[00:08:31] Speaker A: Yes. I feel like I get more done, too. I feel like there's no one talking to me.
[00:08:35] Speaker B: Oh, yeah?
[00:08:35] Speaker A: Yeah. I just get stuff done and no one's bothering me. There's no meetings. Most of the stuff is an email, which is nice. I don't have to have actual meeting to talk about something that could have been an email. It's really nice. Yeah.
[00:08:44] Speaker B: When I started working at home, I became so much more. I used to work.
I work. I started at an ad agency, and then I met. Went. I was editor of a trade magazine. That's when I lived in New York.
And.
And I was there for seven years. But, yeah, I would spend the entire day, you know, like, having smoke breaks outside, bitching about. So. And so.
And. And what are we going to do next? And, oh, we're being bought. What does that mean? What? I have to do this. And like, you know, and. And then I'd go home that night and work and actually get my work done. Like, so many meetings during the day. It was just. Yeah, yeah. So I. Yeah, I'm. I'm a big Believer in working at home. And I think Covid sort of taught everyone that like human being, you know, people can be trusted. We're grown ups, we want to be productive and work and that, you know, that it's a. Actually, you're actually more efficient and productive if you do.
[00:09:40] Speaker A: I think, and I think one of those things that like I talk to other people that I work with and say that like it's, it's. You almost hold yourself accountable. I always want to be able to be.
Have an answer for when someone that's above me says, well, what did you do today? Do you mean like, I feel like they don't ask that question to me. If I was in the office, if it was sitting in the office, they saw me there, they're like, I don't care what he's doing. He's a body in a chair. He's obviously taking the time to come here. But if I have to answer for what I'm doing at home, I never get that question. But if I ever did have to answer that question for being at home, I want to be able to have the answer. And so I feel like I'm on top of things, crossing things off lists way more here because I'm just afraid the day that they're like, what'd you do today? And that was the day that I.
[00:10:19] Speaker B: Like, I just got the impression executives like to walk around and see serves.
[00:10:23] Speaker A: You know, like, yeah, just like we're just sitting there. Like as long as there's a body in a chair, it doesn't matter what they're doing.
[00:10:29] Speaker B: They could be watching YouTube to see them being VI. You know, that's.
What's the. What's the. Yeah.
[00:10:38] Speaker A: Anyway, but so you have separate.
You have. So if you think back to your. You didn't did a couple books about tv really. And then you had the movies and now you're doing music. And is this passions outside of the horror genre and horror novel that you're writing seeping in? Are you a big fan of tv, you know, ghost story type things? Are you a fan of horror movies? Are you a fan of music? Is that why these books are being written? Or is this just like it feels like it's a space for your book to be placed?
[00:11:10] Speaker B: Mostly a space, you know, I mean, I like music and I like movies and I like movie making. These are all interests, you know. Yeah.
But you know, not, not so much a passion that I was like, oh, I gotta come up with a horror book that I can put that in. I was More like, you know, you. When you're a horror writer, you're. You're going back to the same tropes, you know.
So, you know, like, instead of a haunted film, I did a haunted camera. Like, big deal. I mean, that's not that revolutionary, you know, like, so that. That I. That I switched it up and made it the camera. So when you. When you do think and the Antichrist, you know, like, yeah, that's, you know, that's a name. That's a very old horror trope.
So the two things I try and do with it, one is I try and give it a vehicle to give people something to do outside of dealing with, you know, the monster, and also just, you know, just to make it more interesting and feel more lived in. You know, like when. When I did the Antichrist, I didn't want to be like.
Like, the Omen's a great movie, but the whole thing about the Antichrist sort of falls apart if you think about it too much and you ask questions like, well, why are we doing. Why is it. Why does the devil have to. Why is God? And. And. But then. And it. Then it's, you know, so you want it to be scary, but you want it to be sort of believable. So you have to kind of go all in the Omen style and, you know, just go for that religious awe, or you need to go the other way and make it feel lived in. And I like to try and make these tropes feel lived in. I just feel like it feels more real.
And when the horror trope shows up as sort of the. Just the juxtaposition of the horror trope and the characters who are. Feel like real people and then the real setting, it just makes it all come alive so much more like, oh, yeah, this. This is actually the Antichrist. And how the Antichrist would appear. And it wouldn't be like, you know, this. You wouldn't hear the.
The Gregorian chants in the background, you know, and people wouldn't be dying all over the place. It'd be, you know, it would look more like this.
And so that's sort of the. The. The approach I take with it. And then, of course, I always try and switch it up. I. I'm sort of Bradley Englert, the edit, my editor's wildman when it comes to editorial. Like, you know, when I was pitching episode 13, I played a lot of phasmophobia, this ghost hunting game, and I wanted to bottle the dread of that. And, And I like the trope of a house Within a house.
It's done so by so many. A couple books and movies have done that really well. And I just love, love that trope. And when I was pitching it to my editor, he said, oh, I need something more. And I knew my editor was into found footage horror, so I was like, I'm gonna write as a found footage horror book. So he's like, yeah, do that. And then I must have mentioned oral history. So suddenly when I was pitching my xiany crazy, he's like, yeah, it's gonna be a normal history, right? And I'm like, oh, I guess so. Yeah, yeah, yeah, do that. And so I'm sort of his wild man.
And it's challenging because when you write these four in these different formats, at first you don't know what you're doing, you know, and you have to read a lot of it and, and figure it out. So you don't.
So you do it right and maximize its strengths and minimize its weaknesses. But the end result of all this is, you know, besides, you know, making the trope feel lived in and then experimenting with the format, what I like to do is try and make it seem like every time someone reads one of my books, they're like, it would be hard to guess it was me. Yeah, they don't feel like they're reading the same book over and over again.
Now the, the cost of that is some readers will read episode 13 and think every one of my books is episode 13. Or they'll read Suffer the Children and I'll think everyone.
So, you know, like, how to Make a Horror movie and Survive in My ex Antichrist are a little more tongue in cheek horror.
Whereas Suffer the Children is about as visceral as you can get. Yes, it's actually horrifying.
Like, really horrifying. And so, you know, there's, like I said, there's a cost to that. But for me as an artist, I just love doing it that way. I love surprising people and making them feel like they're always getting, getting something new, something different.
[00:16:01] Speaker A: I hope there's enough, you know, of your fans now and your readers now that can have a core group that's going to buy your book no matter what, because they enjoy that, that part of your storytelling. You know, to me, this one struck a little bit of a chord because I, I wasn't that great of a musician. I could play the drums to like to keep the beat. But if you wanted me to make it any fancier, you want me to throw anything in there, I was throwing completely Off.
I wasn't that. Both my other brothers, I have an older brother and a younger brother, and they're both extremely musically talented. My parents are musically talented. It's just I got stuck with the anti music thing. So what I did was I was like, I'm pretty good at managing people. Like, that's my skill. And so I managed bands for a while. And so I got my brother signed to an independent record deal and all this stuff. So all this stuff, when I was reading this book, it was like it struck a chord in a way that it wasn't exactly, obviously, because I've never actually met the Antichrist, at least that I know of. I don't know for sure. But you have this thread that I can least go on. I was just talking to someone about the institute from Stephen King and that his new series just hit MGM last night as of recording this. And I was saying, it's so funny because when I read the description of it, I was like, oh, I like Xavier's School for the Gifted Youngsters from Marvel Comics. And then I'm like. And I like Stephen King. I'm like. And they're like. I'm like, this is just the smallest thread that's not even close to being the actual book has anything to do with mutants like that. But in my mind, I'm like, hey, whatever gets me to read the book in the first place. And so seeing that and seeing the musical connection to it was like, oh, this is fun. Plus, I read so many horror novels to have something that's, like, different. Do you know what I mean? It's not. So the whole story itself isn't like, oh, my God, this is the most different book I've ever read in my life. But at least there's something different about it that pulled me out of, you know, any of the generic, you know, horror novels I'm reading right now that made it go okay. There's a lot of music involved in this as well as this. Horror elements in this, Antichrist elements. And. And I loved. I think it was Publisher Weekly. Did they say the Omen meets Spinal Town?
[00:17:58] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:17:59] Speaker A: That was like, yeah, yeah, that. That to me, I'm like, that's a pretty good. You know, that's a pretty good comparison here. Again, you mentioned that it isn't exactly the Omen, but in the same sense that I can understand how someone could compare that. The two of them together and then Spinal Tap, obviously, if you're a music fan or a comedy fan, movie fan, this is like a class One of those, you know, funny music movies of old times. But it's a, like I said that, that thread that I could pull on and say it's music, but horror, which was a lot of fun. And again, standing out to me in a crowd, in that sense, I could turn people off. I don't know.
But in the same sense, to me, it stood out of the crowd, which was really cool.
[00:18:37] Speaker B: Right, right, right.
It's.
[00:18:39] Speaker A: It's a. Yeah. I mean, it's different and that's what's so cool about it. And they mentioned that it's. It's one of those things that, you know, it can annoy people who are big fans of yours, but.
[00:18:49] Speaker B: Well, yeah, readers.
It's really funny. The whole thing about original. Right.
First of all, even original isn't original. Everything we do is derivative in some, some way, shape or form.
And then the other thing that's a consideration is, you know, like, publishers, like, why don't publishers publish anything original? And then, and then as, as artists, we always think we're supposed to give the, the publisher something original, but they don't want original.
[00:19:22] Speaker A: They want.
[00:19:23] Speaker B: They. They want the familiar with a twist. And why? Because that's what readers like. So, so I try and do that, but I do, I do strike out my own, my own territory. And, and that's. It's harder to build a true fan base because, because when you do that, you know, like when every book is. Is different. Yeah.
But, you know, like I said, you know, the story, sometimes you have to choose the reader or the store the story.
Like, oh, well, this would happen because that happens on every TV show. It's like, well, I'm not going to do that because that's not what the story. Story needs. And so you've, you know, as an artist, you serve the story and hope it connects with the readers. And this book so far has connected with a lot of readers. And so I'm very happy to hear about that.
[00:20:14] Speaker A: That's good. And it's a. At least you're in the horror genre. Like, you know, I mean, like, at least these books are all in the horror genre, whether it's touching a little bit or extremely, you know, visceral, like you mentioned, for the children. At least it's in that. I talked to Philip Fercas and he did Third Rule of Time Travel, and he says, he said he probably pissed off a bunch of sci fi fans not knowing this book was going to be sci fi and missed out on it. Or all of his fans that are fans of his horror is like, okay, now that they read this book and it's not horror at all. And it's like, what the hell? But I said, but the truth of the matter is if you're a fan of the author, you should potentially get at least get something out of it. And that's what's really cool about your books being a little bit different, is that at least I got something different out of it every time. And again, I'm not bored. Yeah, I feel the same base around that. Yes, yes, that, that.
[00:20:59] Speaker B: Oh what I'm going to. It's like I'm opening a present. I don't know what's in there.
[00:21:03] Speaker A: What's Craig going to do next? Like, yeah, exactly. What's going to happen here? I mean, you mentioned editor, the oral history part of it, which was obviously a pretty cool way of telling a story, a fictional story like this. But we talked a little bit about how you change things up from book to book. But like, where did the original idea and conception of this specific book come from? Was this something you had tooling in your brain for a while or is this something that came up more recently?
How did this specific novel come to be?
[00:21:30] Speaker B: Well, the oral history format is what we call epistolary meaning foundation, found footage really or found media.
Dracula was, you know, largely found media.
And the oral history version of that is, you know, VH1's behind the Music, Rolling Stone. There have been lots of books in fiction. It's been done by various authors. Chuck Planet did a, an. An oral history.
Daisy Jones and the 6 was. Was probably popularized it more than. Than other authors.
But I just thought, I just love the idea of the oral history in that it, it.
When you do epistolary you can mix things up. So it's always something different. Something different, something different. So one of the things that was great about episode 13 is every time you turn a page, it was like some. There was a journal, someone reacting to events or there was a video script. This is the spooky thing that happened in the house. The researchers found.
Here's an email, here's a text. And so it's. Even though it's a. It's kind of a big book, it really flies by for that with oral history. I found it's the same kind of effect. Someone difference, always speaking. But you, you have that charm and comedy of unreliable narrators.
You know, they're all being interviewed separately, but all the. It's all mixed up like the quotes.
So everyone gets their say, they're criticizing Each other. They're remembering things differently. There's a lot of fun you can have with that. And I just thought it was striking. You know, it was a. It's a striking form and I thought really fit this story of how, you know, we all know the story of the band's rise and fall. But what about before, while it was just getting started and they. One of the band members is. Turns out to be the Antichrist. They figure it out, and he figures it out about the same time.
And, you know, and there's a big regional battle. The band's called Armageddon coming up.
[00:23:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:23:52] Speaker B: And so what happened during that year, so now. And so you have the lead singer of this band. You know, she confessed. She walks into a police station 10 years into her. Into her band stardom, and confesses to murder.
And then years later, she decides to break her silence. She's going to tell it all. And so now the shift, the rest of the band, the Shivers, they all come forward and say, we're gonna tell all.
And if she's gonna agree to be interviewed, we will, too. And so now. So there's this whole kind of, like, gossipy kind of feel that it's real and that they're telling us this inside scoop. And all the thrill and all the popularity of the actual oral history form in nonfiction translates super well.
[00:24:39] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:40] Speaker B: Into fiction and aids and willing suspension of disbelief. And this idea that maybe this actually happened. And it's a lot of fun to pretend that like that. And so that was. That was kind of why I went with the oral history as a. As a form. Plus, I, you know, I kind of cut my teeth on it with episode 13.
And when I pitched it as found footage to my editor and he said I. He loved it, I was like, oh, my God, what have I done? Because I. I don't. I don't read. I haven't read a lot of Epistolary.
[00:25:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:15] Speaker B: I wasn't even sure I liked it.
And I thought that the form had a lot of. Had some big flaws, which is you feel like you're a fly on the wall. And that's. That's delightful. That is just the absolute great thing about the form.
[00:25:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:30] Speaker B: But you lose that intimacy. You don't know what's going on in their heads.
And so I did. So I came up with this idea of, like, okay, they're going to do journals and while they're in the house, because in ghost hunting, the body is a sensor. So you write down everything you're feeling, and then you that would be published on the ghost hunting TV show's website as a marketing ad.
And so that kind of balanced it out. So all the big events I could show in video and give you that fly on the wall feeling, that titillating feeling. And then I would say, okay. Then the characters would react to it with the journal. And then the same thing with my ex. I think there's just this.
You have to find the strengths of the form and mitigate the weaknesses.
[00:26:15] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:26:17] Speaker B: The weaknesses of the. The. Of the oral history form.
I wrote 10,000 words and threw them all out because I was indulging it and doing so much bird walking. Because I was like, but this is real. But this is how people talk, and this is real. And then I was like, oh, my God, I'm not telling a story.
So I had to throw it all out, start from scratch and. And, you know, and go from there and remember, I was telling a story, but within this format and use its strengths.
[00:26:49] Speaker A: I loved it. And I think that that's. I'm a big proponent. I love to learn. Like, I, like, just like, learning things. Like, I watch documentaries, you know, read. I read historical books and things like that, too.
[00:26:59] Speaker B: But.
[00:26:59] Speaker A: And so this is kind of like one of those things where, like, it touched multiple bases on that. Like, it gave me that ability. Like. Like I was learning something. Like, I'm learning about the shivers. I'm learning about this brand. I'm learning about this Antichrist, all in the same sense. And at the end of the book, you're like, wait, this isn't. This is fiction. This is not real. But I also laughed at the end because I was like, any band that's ever had struggles with someone in their band being kind of a, you know, mean person, whatever, just show them this book and be like, it could be worse. It could be 100 worse. But, yeah, so now I'm like, on a laugh at anybody. Oh, this band broke up because they couldn't get along. And, like, see, it could have had the Antichrist in your band, but no, it feels like it had the sense of me learning something, but really I just was enjoying it. And at the end, you're like, oh, that was a very enjoyable experience because again, I felt like that same muscles I was using in that same part of my brain I was using when I was watching a documentary or Some sort of VH1 behind the Music or something like that. But again, it's a fictionalized version of that, so you were able to play with that, too, and add some More unbelievable parts to it because it was this fictional story, which was really cool. But. Yeah, I just thought it was kind of funny, the idea that. That, you know, I've always been in Seen Bands. The one man member that's kind of a dick. But, like, they've never been the Antichrist again. They might have been. They're just not showing themselves yet. I can't. I can't promise you that. But. But I think it's a cool way. And now you've done episode 13. You've done this book in that format too, in multiple. Is this something that you would like to toy with again? Or is this something that, like, okay, now I've done it. I don't want to be no other person who does this. Oral histories hypebook only.
Or is this something that, like, I say, hey, if it comes up and the right stories is there for, I'll do something similar.
I'm putting you on the spot right here. You make your decision right now.
[00:28:40] Speaker B: Well, you never say never.
[00:28:41] Speaker A: Yes, exactly. Yeah.
[00:28:43] Speaker B: But if the story requires it.
But I feel like I've done this, so I'm moving on.
[00:28:49] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:28:50] Speaker B: Next year I am doing something slightly experimental where we're doing duology.
So two books will come out in the same year, though very similar covers. They'll be published months apart.
So it's like kind of a part one and part two of the same.
The same story. And it's about. It inverts the trope of the camp summer camp slasher. Okay, there you have. One of the tropes is the bumbling deputy who's not too bright. And he always arrives too late to do other. Anything other than bear witness. And the sheriff doesn't care and doesn't believe the kids. And so I was like, okay, well, let's. I'm gonna tell his story. This is. This is a. This is kind of a murder mystery in a way that there's been a summer camps murders, and it's been claimed it's a supernatural killer. And the deputy arrives too late and he saves the final girl, but that doesn't save everyone else. And he feels guilt about this. So he wants to make. He wants to redeem himself by catching the killer. And so this is his redemption story that. That particular horror trope. And again, I do all my signatures. So I went back and I looked at every single, you know, like, Jason Voorhees and like every. Every single trope used in all those slasher movies.
And I was like, okay, well, he gets shot. But why does he go down but then get back up or how is he always in front of people? Like, what is it? How does he get there? And so I explain it all. I just gave him, gave him a mythology and my, my villain a mythology and explained every single, you know, trope to again, make it feel lived in and believable. And there's also. They also serve as little Easter eggs. It's like, oh my God. I know that from that this next, you know, so, so I'm doing that as something that's a little more experimental. And then after that it really, you know, I'm, I'm pitching. I would love to do a book like Electric State where it's a team with an artist and it's, you know, half art and half text and, and there's creative non fiction. I would love to do a creative, a fictional creative non fiction book.
That would be really fun. So yeah, I, I'm always interested in doing experimental things.
It's not really my thing. Yeah, it just kind of come. Comes out that way. You know, it's just opportunities and the editor's up for it. So I'm like, yeah, let's give it a shot.
But as far as oral history or the other type of epistolary. Yeah, maybe. Yeah, maybe. But probably not.
[00:31:42] Speaker A: You're not, you're not, you know, you know, burnt out by it in that sense that you'd be willing to with the story. Like I said, I think a lot of this.
Yeah.
[00:31:52] Speaker B: I just, I just want to be careful about developing a shtick.
[00:31:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:31:57] Speaker B: But I think someone will get mad.
[00:31:58] Speaker A: At you for not doing that anymore.
Yeah.
[00:32:01] Speaker B: And then of course, if I had a shtick, it'd be good. Right. You know, oh, episode 13 was my best selling R title. I should just do episode 13 over and over again.
Yeah, exactly.
Or just, you know, the exact same, the same thing with a twist. The same thing with a twist. But, but that's just not me. And.
[00:32:23] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:32:24] Speaker B: You know, nobody's at fault here. It's just, just. That's just not me.
[00:32:28] Speaker A: Let's put that. Well, I think, I think it's good. And again, I don't want to harp on the idea that you're doing some different stuff and you're in, you're having some fun with it is just, you know, for as someone who reads a lot of horror books, it can get, you can get into some sort of a slump if you read this book that's very similar by four different authors. And so if you get that, that, you know, you have four books in a row, and they're all in the same vein. You're like, oh, I really like this horror movie, you know, trope or this, you know, camp slasher or whatever it may be. And you read three, four camp slashers in a row. You're like, okay, they were different, but they weren't that different. And again, that's what I liked about this, my ex, the Antichrist, is the fact that there are horror novels that deal with music out there, but there wasn't like, an abundance of them. It's not like one of those things that you go in. There's a section at the store, like a horror subsection of, like, horror music, you know, stories. And so that this, to me, like, add that whole. I was like, I'm mowing the lawn or whatever, listening to an audiobook. And you're like, oh, crap, I missed an entire section of the lawn because I was too entrenched in what was going on in the audiobook or something like that.
[00:33:26] Speaker B: The audiobook is. Is.
[00:33:27] Speaker A: And I was gonna bring that up.
Fantastic.
[00:33:31] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. With. It has a cast, it has some music in it. Like, they. They really went all out on it. And there's a lot of passion in the. In the delivery. It's almost like a radio play in a way.
And I just. I just thought that.
[00:33:49] Speaker A: It was phenomenal.
[00:33:51] Speaker B: Thirteen's like that too.
[00:33:52] Speaker A: There was a full cast and yeah.
[00:33:54] Speaker B: Really went for it.
[00:33:55] Speaker A: I was saying. I pointed it out because one of my favorite horror novels of recent years has been the Clown in the Cornfield series by Adam Caesar. And Jesse Valinsky does the audio narration for those books. And Jesse is actually on my ex, the Antichrist, too. So that threw me in there. We're like, okay, I gotta listen to the audiobook now. If I like the voice that she has in those, I'm gonna like the voice in here. And was like, the second she started talking, I was like, ah, yeah, that's what I signed up for right here. But I think she's excellent at it.
[00:34:22] Speaker B: I didn't know there was that connection. That's.
[00:34:24] Speaker A: Yeah, the same, exact same, same audiobook narration, at least one of the four that does it. But I'm a big fan of that. There's a lot of people in this book. And so having.
It's either going to be, to me, like four or five people narrating or just one. Do you mean, like, I can't. Like, I listen to audiobooks where they've done, like a male and a female and one the male reads all the male voices and the female reads all the female voices. But, like, I still get lost sometimes and I'm listening to those audiobooks because, like, at one point you're like, wait, wait a second, isn't she dead? And then you're like, wait, does the female just doing all the voices and so on and so forth. With this section, there's like at least enough of a difference between voices that it was like one of those things where I could least. Because you're listening to it, you have to focus a little bit differently than you do when you read it, read a physical book. And so having the different voices actually helped, you know, drastically, like we said, mowing the lawn or something like that, where I would listen to audiobook, but I listened to, I do a little hybrid reading as people listen to this podcast, know that I do a lot of, like in the car, listen to the audiobook, get home, sit on the couch, read the physical book. And so it's nice to have that. And then I could put those voices to myself in my mind. Now I hear Jesse reading her lines and things like that in the book, which is really kind of cool. But yeah, the audiobook is fantastic.
[00:35:31] Speaker B: Audiobooks. More. I find myself zoning out.
I just don't have the attention span and.
Yeah, but it's weird if it was radio, like talk radio. I love talk radio in the car. So like NPR or something. Yeah, yeah. So it's. I don't know, it's. It's weird. But I wish I did because I, you know, I do some self publishing as well. So I, you know, I use Garrett Michael Brown for all of that. And he actually did the audiobook for how to Make a Horror Movie and Survive.
He and I worked together a lot on a lot of World War II fiction. I write at self published, but I always found that when I read, when I'm listening to audio, like I'm proofing the book or I, I catch snippets or whatever.
I always find I'm, I, I feel like a reader reading my own work.
[00:36:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:36:32] Speaker B: Whereas where you're the author, you can read your book. Like you've read it so many times.
[00:36:37] Speaker A: You.
[00:36:37] Speaker B: Yeah, the story's internalized. That's why it's so hard to catch typos in the 11th hour.
[00:36:42] Speaker A: Yes, exactly.
[00:36:43] Speaker B: Every word's internalized. Yeah.
But yeah, with an audiobook, it's like really fresh. You really feel like you're, you're experiencing as a reader. It's.
[00:36:52] Speaker A: And I tend to do that either at the same time, or if I. You know, for. Obviously, for most of the advanced copies that you get, you get the physical copy. So I tend to read that and then say. Say, this wasn't. You know, obviously, the book just came out on July 1st. My ex, the Antichrist. If we didn't talk this, like, in the past couple of weeks, and I had just read it, like, if I had this book came out last year and I was reading it then, and then we were getting ready to talk, I'd probably throw the audiobook in because it's a different experience to me. I feel like I'm reading the whole thing over again for the first time. And so that I understand. I heard a lot of people who have trouble with reading audiobooks, and then they said they started reading nonfiction audiobooks where you. Where it's something, you know, like, the base information about, like, if you were to read, like, a JFK assassination audiobook. But, you know, okay, he was assassinated. He was killed. You know, it was in Texas. Like, you know, those pieces that if they started talking and you zoned out, you'd still be able to get the facts around what they were talking about, so you didn't really miss much. And that's how they got their brain tuned into actually reading audiobooks or listening to audiobooks. But, yeah, I can understand that. There's definitely been times where I've zoned out before, and I'm like, wait, I thought she died, and then she's back again or whatever that. Or when did she die? And, like, the chapter or, like, the sentence before that she gotten killed, and I just zoned out. And so I have gone back and had to listen to. But my wife can't listen to him either. My wife's one of those. She flies through novels, like, physical novels, but she. She's just like, I just can't do the audiobooks.
[00:38:14] Speaker B: And I'm like, I wish I could. You know, there's a lot of. Yeah, just like, as a writer, I wish I could listen to music while I write.
[00:38:21] Speaker A: While I write.
[00:38:21] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, everybody's like, Stephen King's like, yeah, I'm listening to, you know, like, Black Sabbath while I'm typing some. You know, like. I'm like, yeah, you're cool. I'm not. You know, I did. To me, it's like even a clicking, a ticking talk.
[00:38:35] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:38:35] Speaker B: Like, shut up. You know, I'm writing.
[00:38:38] Speaker A: I can paint.
[00:38:39] Speaker B: Six hours, I'm just sitting there. I'm, like, stooped on my. My chair with my feet up and you know, just. But in my head all hell's breaking loose. But it's just me. Like, it's like watching paint dry me.
[00:38:51] Speaker A: I, it's funny because I've, I've actually tried to, to write something or do something with like the vocal tracks taken out. So it's just instrumental. And even that to me was like, I was like, oh, that was a cool note. They just did. I, I, that to me is like, I, I've zoned out. I'm like, I can't even listen to that kind of stuff. But I can do audiobooks. It's weird. It's weird how the brain works in that sense. But to me it's. Now we have such a gluttony of great fiction out there that it's trying to hard find time for people to do all this stuff. So an audiobook adds that other element of people being like, I have an. I have a half an hour commute when I go into the officer. And so when I go into the office, it's a half an hour. So that's an hour of my day that I feel like I'm useless. I feel like I can't do anything else. And so at least at that point I can be like, oh, I could get an hour of an audio book. And this is great. And so there's that use of time, in my opinion. I mean, I woke it up in the middle of the night before. I've been like, I shouldn't be sleeping. I need to get stuff done. And so I'm. I need some do something all the time. I can't just relax. And so to me, the audiobook is helpful. Helpful in that sense because I can fill it with that. Or outside, I'm just mowing the lawn. I'm like, I'm accomplishing mowing the lawn.
But I also could accomplish reading some books at the same time, which would be great.
[00:40:00] Speaker B: So no, I'm the guy who's in line at the bank.
[00:40:05] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:40:05] Speaker B: For the teller. And I've got my Kindle.
[00:40:07] Speaker A: Yes. Like.
[00:40:11] Speaker B: People notice, like, they're like, oh, he's actually reading a book. That's fun. You know, other than just the phone and. But you know, as far as audiobooks go, though, it's funny that because, man, there are a couple things in publishing I, I totally called. Right.
I'm gonna give myself some credit. But then there's some stinker predictions I had, like, or things that I completely, completely got wrong. And one of them was audiobooks. I, I really thought you Know, audiobooks, traditionally, you know, me growing up was always for truckers and, and joggers and, you know, like, you know, people are visually impaired. Yep.
And so you. You didn't.
It was, it wasn't really a big market, and.
But then all of a sudden it was, it was huge. And when my first big five published horror novel, Suffer the Children, was R.C. bray.
And R.C. bray was big, but not that big yet. And that. But my agent, David Fugit, I share with that agent, this guy named, you may have heard of Andy Ware. So. And he did this book called the Martian, which was self published, but then, you know, got picked up. And then R.C. bray did the narration and he did such a good job with it. Like, you know, the, the book, it was already exploding. It exploded more. R.C. bray exploded. And suddenly. And then I ended up partnering with R.C. bray on this little World War II series I did on a lark called Crash Dive.
That book is still selling like crazy and, and really selling like crazy on audio. And I think that's R.C. bray.
[00:41:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:41:55] Speaker B: And I learned this lesson, like, oh, my God, this. It's not only big, but the person you partner with on the narration can get you as many readers as your story is getting itself. Like, it's pretty amazing how big.
How big it is. And you go into an. I remember the first time I went into an airport and I'm like, there's an Audible ad, you know, Florida wall. Audible ad for bucks.
[00:42:24] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:42:25] Speaker B: Someone's advertising books in a public space like that. You know, you don't see that very.
[00:42:31] Speaker A: No.
[00:42:31] Speaker B: Very often. So I was like, holy cow, this is huge. And, and it has been, it's just been absolutely.
You know, I just love to see how many people. Yep.
Are enjoying it that way. And, you know, I've. I've never been one. You know, I remember, I'm old enough to remember the whole trad. You know, print is gonna die.
[00:42:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:42:54] Speaker B: Ebooks, you know, so I'm like, I don't care. I just want people to enjoy my stories. And so the format doesn't matter. So audio coming on as like this third huge thing is just wonderful.
[00:43:08] Speaker A: What I feel like it's another. It's just if you look at it, like, if you go to Amazon or bookshop.org or any of these ones, it's listed. There's like three different buttons that says hardcover, it says ebook, it says audible or audiobook. And it's like it's just another way to collect it in a sense too. And not that people are collecting on Their iPhones, like their audiobooks. They're reading it and then storing it. If they ever want to listen to it again, they'll listen to again. But I think that to me, it's like, I listen to a lot of audiobooks, but I also, I buy the print copy too because I'm like, I don't know if I ever want to read this on print again or read it for the first time in print and then audio. And so it's just another way for people to. It's making people reading your novels have more accessibility to them. And I think that's what's really cool about it. If you can only you, you cannot find time. You've got three kids at home, you've got a full time job and you cannot find time to sit down and read a physical novel, but you can crush through a couple novels on audiobook. Yeah. And it's great.
[00:43:56] Speaker B: It's also like in its own way, an adaptation.
[00:43:59] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:43:59] Speaker B: It's not just your book. There's. There's an artist interpreting your work and presenting it and someone is buying that and reacting to that.
So, you know, it's just fascinating to me.
I love the audiobooks and I'm glad so many people enjoy them. It's just amazing.
[00:44:21] Speaker A: It's really cool. And I just talked to Paul Tremblay and his book Horror Movie, the adaptation on that. They actually did things in the adaptation of the audiobook that were slightly different than the physical book where there's lines that the people were reading that they read more than one time on the audiobook because they were trying to get it right and someone had messed. Hey, you know there's an error in your podcast or your audiobook, right? Because it says, he goes, no, that was on purpose. It was what would actually sound like if they were reading the lines and they were messing up on the lines, they were saying again, and that was some sort of liberty they took in the audiobook, which gives you an entire other experience. It's an adaptation of, of the physical, physical book, which is really cool. So and so like you mentioned with this one, there's a little bit of music, a little bit of sound effects, and that kind of just adds a little bit more of a, of a production to what your story is when it's on paper, which is really cool. And again, it's another whole way of reading a book. And to me I'm always like, you write these books so other people can be entertained by them. So however they entertain themselves with it, it's up to them, but you're the one writing the story. And if they want to read it on physical copy, in a hardcover, print, ebook, audiobook, whatever it may be, they're getting this story that you spent a hard time and work on, which is really cool. And so audiobook, print, copy, whatever it is. It's hard to sign an audiobook though, right? If someone. Someone. If you go to a signing, like, here, can you sign my phone, please?
But yeah, you know, I was going.
[00:45:39] Speaker B: To say Tromble is one of those authors who, like, it's always. Yeah, you know, you never know exactly what you're going to get.
There's. He's not. I'm not. I wouldn't call him super experimental in form.
[00:45:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:45:51] Speaker B: But in. In storytelling, I would consider him more.
And it's less off the beaten. It's more off the beaten path. Yes. His interpretations of tropes. And so I'll give him that.
[00:46:04] Speaker A: The other one I would add into that category when you mentioned that earlier, was Daniel Krauss. I think Daniel Krauss has that. He has no, like, he has, like, horror novels. He's doing sci fi novels. He's doing a bunch of other things. But he's also not only doing that, he's experimenting with how it's written. Like angel down right now, being one full sentence in that style and so on and so forth. So it's really cool. And so you can put yourself in those categories, which is really cool of like, again, it's not so different that you're gonna be like, all of a sudden, now we're out of nowhere, your book's in a different language that you can't read that if you don't speak that language. But it's different enough. Again, to me, it's a refresher. It's like, okay, I think I'm gonna enjoy this book from you because I know what your other books are like, but I don't know really what I'm getting into fully until I read the last page and go, oh, that's what that was. And so I think it's fun. I think it's fun. It keeps you on your toes, too. I feel like you'd be bored if you were just writing the same thing over and over and over again. But changing a few things and things like that. I feel like your creative juices work better when you're doing something different and fun. This duology, obviously, is changing some things up for you, and so you have a little bit more fun with that. A Little bit more. And then we get the best out of you. You know what I mean? Like, if it's, you know, you're not just phoning it in, you're not. There's some authors out there that I'm not going to mention that seem like they have a book coming out every six months. They're just like, oh, cool. It's the same thing with a different name on the book and that. To me, they've got their fans. But to me, I feel like I just. I can't get into it.
[00:47:21] Speaker B: Somebody.
[00:47:22] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:47:23] Speaker B: People are winning in that arrangement.
And, yeah, that's who it is.
[00:47:29] Speaker A: We're not gonna mention.
[00:47:30] Speaker B: I've been on the other end of that where I've read an author and I've been like, oh, I like this author's voice. So I'll read like five books in a row, and then all of a sudden I'll OD on it and I'll read that author again. I'll be. Even though I was, like, obsessed.
[00:47:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:47:44] Speaker B: Like, I love that voice. And then I like, oh, I can't. I can't do this anymore.
[00:47:49] Speaker A: I can't do it anymore. No, it's. It's.
[00:47:51] Speaker B: Yeah. I listen to the song over and over again, and enough.
It's like an earworm almost. Yes.
[00:47:59] Speaker A: You're saying you're reading the book in the shower. Like, which book is that? They're all the same now.
But, you know, I'm pumped and I'm so glad that you. Your books are being well received because, again, I'm a big fan of yours. So that just adds more to the fact that you'll get more books published so that I can read them in the future. I don't care what they're about. I want to read them in the future, which is really cool. But my ex, the Antichrist is phenomenal for horror fans, for those fans that are like music stuff, the oral history part, that whole way of storytelling of it is pretty awesome. And I do believe I will say they aren't the same. But if you do, are friends of episode 13 or how to Make a Horror Movie and Survive, I do think that you'll like this book. So it's not like we talked about how they're not all the same, but in the same sense, I do feel like they have at least a small thread that goes through that makes it so people will like all three of them. If you haven't read any of them, I recommend reading them. But it came out July 1st, which is awesome.
Started the Summer off really well for us here as book fans and I'm excited for more from you. But yeah, my ex, the Antichrist is available at bookstores everywhere. Everywhere. And I will say this again, I feel like I'm a broken record. For those who listen to the podcast that, that yes, buying local is awesome. Go to your local bookstore, buy this book, give them the business, give them the sale.
Bookshop.org is a great spot for that if you're looking to support your local bookstore. But here's the deal. If you're going to buy it and the only way you can buy it is on something like Amazon, just buy the book. That's my whole big box stores and those big, huge conglomerates and not all the library. Oh yeah, that's a good point right there. But my whole thought was like, if it's between not reading the book or reading the book because you don't want to buy it on Amazon, it's one of those things that I'm like, I want people to read this book because I really enjoyed it. So buy it wherever you can buy it.
Don't not buy it because you don't want to buy it on Amazon.
But your local library is a good point there too. And if they don't have it, just tell them because that obviously does really well for you, you and your publisher as well, showing that you're worth the investment into in that sense too. But I appreciate you taking the time out, Craig, and coming on here and chatting my ex, the Antichrist, and so much more. I really do take. You're a busy person. I'm glad you took some time out to talk to us.
[00:50:09] Speaker B: Oh good. Thanks for having me on, Justin.
[00:50:10] Speaker A: We'll get you on in the future when your next book comes out and stuff like that. We'll be in touch. It sounds good, but I really do appreciate it and thank best of luck and all that stuff. And hopefully in the next month or two you'll see this sales are just rolling in for this book, in my opinion. So I really liked it. So I enjoyed it. Thanks a lot, Craig.
[00:50:25] Speaker B: Thank you, Sam.
