News

I’m really pleased to report that more than 10,000 readers have downloaded a copy of my new novella, The Painted Darkness, for free from DownloadTheDarkness.com — months before the trade hardcover will be published this fall!  A lot of people said we were crazy for giving the book away for free, but the results of this experiment have been amazing:

* The $75 signed Limited Edition of 750 copies sold out within 24 hours

* The $175 deluxe Lettered Edition sold out within a week

* Customer preorders directly from the publisher for the Trade Hardcover Edition are much greater than we had hoped

* Purchase orders from retailers and distributors are pouring in much faster than expected — the only comparable situation is when a book has received major coverage in the big trade publications

I’ve also now heard from hundreds of readers who had never read my work before, which was one of the major ideas behind this experiment, and I know a lot of you are now on this mailing list because the list membership has tripled in size this month.  Thanks for sticking around, I’m thrilled to see you here.

In addition, readers and reporters all over the world are talking about the book.  The “What People Are Saying” page on DownloadTheDarkness.com has just a few of the blog posts, articles, reviews, etc, that I’ve had time to find and post:

“Cemetery Dance experimenting w radical marketing: Giving away ebook & audio of Brian James Freeman’s PAINTED DARKNESS”
— Ron Charles of the Washington Post on his Twitter account

“Check out this book – It’s great…!!!”
— Actor, writer, and director Johnathon Schaech on his Facebook wall

“In a move relatively unheard of in the publishing world, THE PAINTED DARKNESS, the new book by Brian James Freeman, will be released as a free e-book for a limited time four months before it hits hardcover.”
— Fangoria.com (‘The Painted Darkness’ Gets Advance E-Book Release)

“Author Brian James Freeman has a new book, The Painted Darkness, set for release by Cemetery Dance in November, but he’s not going to make you wait that long to read it.”
— Examiner.com (Brian James Freeman’s new novel ‘The Painted Darkness’ is now available – for free)

(Also on Examiner.com is my first interview about the experiment: Give it away now: Freeman discusses ‘The Painted Darkness’)

“As you might expect, Bradbury is hostile to ebooks and much of modern technology, so the publisher is being quite clever to include Bradbury’s hostility as part of the ebook itself.”
— Bradburymedia

“Mr. Freeman has done a wonderful job of writing a horror story that both dedicated horror fans and casual readers can enjoy. It’s an easy read and you’ll find yourself losing time as you don’t want to put the book (B&N nook in my case) down.”
— Anthony R. Miller

There are dozens more there, with even more to come, so I just wanted to take a moment again and thank everyone on this list who has helped spread the word about this special promotional offer.  If there’s anything else you can do — tweet the link, post on your Facebook wall, email a friend, or review the book on your website/blog — I am always grateful for the help. It’s hard to get your work in front of readers who might enjoy it, so this is a rare opportunity for me.

Oh, and one more thing: If you’ve already read the book, be sure to visit The Painted Darkness page on the Cemetery Dance website and write a Customer Review.  It hasn’t been announced yet, but Cemetery Dance will be giving one lucky customer reviewer a Gift Certificate for their online store.  All you have to do is write and post your review within the next week, so there’s still time to download and read the book if you want an easy chance at a big shopping spree.

Be sure to visit www.DownloadTheDarkness.com while the book is still available for free!

Or place your order via the Cemetery Dance website!

Or you can preorder a copy from almost any other bookstore — see the website for a complete and updated list!

Thanks, as always, for your support!

“The tone and building dread reminds me of classic Stephen King.  Great velocity and impact, and super creepy.  Don’t go in the basement!”
— Stewart O’Nan, New York Times bestselling author of The Night Country and A Prayer for the Dying

Hi Folks!

The big news today is the launch of DownloadTheDarkness.com where you can read or listen to my new novella, The Painted Darkness, for free months before the $19.99 trade hardcover will be published this fall.

(Seriously, the download is completely free and there are no strings attached.  Click on DownloadTheDarkness.com and start your download.  Don’t worry, I’ll be here when you get back.)

I’ve been lucky enough to land some wonderful early praise for the book from a few of my favorite authors (see below) and early bookstore orders are strong, which is why some people are already asking if we’re crazy to be giving the book away like this.

I address that question and a few others in my afterword to the eBook, which also has some exclusive Bonus Features that won’t be in the hardcover:

* Comments from bestselling authors such as Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, William Peter Blatty, Jodi Picoult, Carolyn Parkhurst, Anne Perry, Jane Green, MJ Rose, Douglas Clegg, JA Konrath, Seth Godin, Michael Marshall Smith, Scott Adams, and many others about eBooks and the future of publishing.

* An exclusive new interview with Ray Bradbury: “We Have Too Many Inventions!”

* Norman Prentiss interviews Brian James Freeman about The Painted Darkness

* Author’s Afterword: “Did I Really Commit ‘Career Suicide’ by Giving The Painted Darkness Away For Free?”

* $5.00 off coupon valid on an order for the trade hardcover edition of The Painted Darkness for a limited time only

So obviously I hope you’ll take a moment to swing over to DownloadTheDarkness.com and give the book a try, especially if you’ve never read my work before or you’re on the fence about placing an order.  There’s absolutely no reason not to check out the book right now.  You can’t beat free, right?

If you know any other readers who might be interested in what we’re trying here, I hope you’ll pass the link along to them.  We’d appreciate any assistance we can get in spreading the word.

For those who prefer print, the hardcover editions include an exclusive introduction by Brian Keene and over a half-dozen interior illustrations by Jill Bauman that you won’t find anywhere else. There are also two different signed editions for the collectors, which you can read more about on the Cemetery Dance website.

About the Book:

The Painted Darkness
by Brian James Freeman

When Henry was a child, something terrible happened in the woods behind his home, something so shocking he could only express his grief by drawing pictures of what he had witnessed.  Eventually, Henry’s mind blocked out the bad memories, but he continued to draw, often at night by the light of the moon.

Twenty years later, Henry makes his living by painting his disturbing works of art.  He loves his wife and his son, and life couldn’t be better… except there’s something not quite right about the old stone farmhouse his family now calls home.  There’s something strange living in the cramped cellar, in the maze of pipes that feed the ancient steam boiler.

A winter storm is brewing, and soon Henry will learn the true nature of the monster waiting for him down in the darkness.  He will battle this demon and, in the process, he may discover what really happened when he was a child — and why, in times of trouble, he thinks: I paint against the darkness.

But will Henry learn the truth in time to avoid the terrible fate awaiting him… or will the thing in the cellar get him and his family first?

Written as both a meditation on the art of creation and as an examination of the secret fears we all share, The Painted Darkness is a terrifying look at the true cost we pay when we run from our grief — and what happens when we’re finally forced to confront the monsters we know all too well.

The Book Trailer by Russell Dickerson:

The Painted Darkness on YouTube

Early Praise for the Book:

“The tone and building dread reminds me of classic Stephen King. Great velocity and impact, and super creepy. Don’t go in the basement!”
— Stewart O’Nan, New York Times bestselling author of The Night Country and A Prayer for the Dying

“Brian James Freeman’s evocative tale about the dark corners of an artist’s imagination is elegant and haunting. This beautifully designed book with splendid illustrations by Jill Bauman is a pleasure to read and a joy to hold.”
— David Morrell, New York Times bestselling author of The Shimmer

“Spooky stuff!”
—  Richard Matheson, New York Times bestselling author of What Dreams May Come and I Am Legend

“The Painted Darkness is a dark, terrifying, and deeply moving gem of a novella.  Brian James Freeman managed to both scare me and move me to tears.”
— Tess Gerritsen, New York Times bestselling author of The Keepsake

“Wonderfully reminiscent of the quiet horror of Charles L. Grant, The Painted Darkness takes readers on a gently chilly walk through the forest of fears both conscious and subconscious. With Straubian lyricism, Brian James Freeman evokes not only the irrational terrors of childhood, but addresses the roots of creativity and the vital importance of art. A very impressive achievement.”
— Bentley Little, author of The House and His Father’s Son

Be sure to visit www.DownloadTheDarkness.com while the book is still available for free!

Or place your order via the Cemetery Dance website!

Or order from one of these booksellers that will be carrying the book:

Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

Barnes & Noble

Books-A-Million

Borders

Chaos (Australia)

Powells.com

Or click here to locate your local independent bookseller on IndieBound.org!

If you have a chance, please let me know what you think of this promotion and (hopefully) the book itself.  Thanks!

Hi there!

Welcome to my new website.  If you’re not entirely sure how you’ve stumbled across this page, that’s okay.  Maybe we know each other.  Or maybe you’ve read something I’ve written.  I’ve been on the web in one form or another since the early 1990s, and I’ve published short stories, novellas, novels, and other things under the names Brian Freeman and James Kidman since 1994.

Back then, there really wasn’t anyone else named Brian Freeman active in the world of publishing, but that has since changed, so starting this year I’ll be using the byline Brian James Freeman to prevent confusion with the works of other authors with similar names.  (A few older projects are already going to press with the shorter version of my name, but they should all be out this year.)

Next week I’ll be switching my old mailing list over to my new mailing list program, and hopefully everyone will make it to the new list okay.  There are also other ways of receiving my news including Facebook, Twitter, and an RSS feed.  Those links should be on every page of this site.  I’ve also included some of last year’s news here on this page, just so it won’t look so empty.

That’s all for now, but there is some very cool news coming this year.  Thanks, as always, for your support!

Brian’s new essay, “A Doorway to Other Worlds”, has been published in Don’t Read This! Chilling, Thrilling, Fantastic Tales for the Young and Young at Heart edited by Steven Lee Climer.

From the Publisher:
Don’t Read This! If you’re squeamish of ghosts or squirmy monsters! Don’t Read This! If you scare easily or need your mother! Don’t Read This! If you have to leave the lights on all night! No one is safe!

Don’t Read This! Chilling, Thrilling, Fantastic Tales for the Young and Young at Heart is a unique collection/anthology that fills a missing space on many bookshelves. It is designed to collect together influential short fiction in the genres of sci-fi, fantasy, and horror that popular authors in those genres can point to as important in their formative years. It also serves as a great entry point for young people just discovering these fabulous genres of the imagination.

With contributions from Jane Yolen, Terri Windling, Nancy Etchemendy, Del Howison, Brian Freeman, and many, many more – they explain in their own words what role reading classic speculative fiction played in their formative years and how it influenced their own writing.

Some of the great stories include Anton Chekov’s “In the Graveyard,” Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Rappiccini’s Daughter,” Washington Irving’s “Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” “The Snow Queen” by Hans Christian Andersen, Lovecraft’s “The Dunwich Horror” tales from the Brothers Grimm, H.G. Welles, and of course Edgar Allan Poe.

Don’t Read This! Chilling, Thrilling, Fantastic Tales for the Young and Young at Heart is a must for any collector, fan, or teacher of speculative fiction for children.

Read more at SugerBuzzBooks.

Place your order at Amazon.com

Cemetery Dance #63 is in the hands of the printer and it’s going to be a special “winter” Halloween issue.

We really wanted to do a complete special issue dedicated to Halloween (kind of like October Dreams in magazine form!), but we didn’t want to wait until next fall.

We figured fans of the genre would be okay with a big old issue of Halloween stories and columns during the coldest months of the years.  Contributors include Al Sarrantonio, Thomas Tessier, Rick Hautala, Ronald Kelly, Elizabeth Massie, Simon Clark, Peter Crowther, and many others!

Douglas Clegg’s serial novella will skip this issue and return in Cemetery Dance #64, which is going to be a very exciting issue for our collectors. Watch for some news on that soon!

Visit the Cemetery Dance website for more information.

Today we’re pleased to announce Cemetery Dance #62, the William Peter Blatty special issue, which is shipping now from the printer.

Brian’s interview with horror director Mick Garris appears in the Stephen King Library Desk Calendar 2010. This item is available exclusively through the Book of the Month Club.

Today we’re very pleased to officially announce Cemetery Dance #61, the Peter Straub Special Issue, which is already at the printer. Brian posted on the Apex blog about this issue the other day and also gave some details about the upcoming special issues, the new columnists, and the changes CD is working on right now.

Cemetery Dance #61 is going to be the magazine’s first “Special Issue” for an author in a very long time. Peter Straub is the focus of this issue and he contributed some incredible material: a short story, a long excerpt from his next novel (A Dark Matter, which isn’t due out until next year), and an insightful interview.

Visit the Cemetery Dance website for more information.

The Crane House: A Halloween Story
Featuring Brian Keene, Kealan Patrick Burke, Al Sarrantonio, Rick Hautala, Bev Vincent, Brian Freeman, James A. Moore, James Newman, Ronald Kelly, Norman Prentiss, and Ray Garton

Cemetery Dance has gathered together a group of the genre’s most talented authors to attempt the impossible: tell a coherent and scary Halloween round robin story! This experiment was inspired by the hundreds of encouraging emails we received after we published our first round robin, the Signature Series book Looking Glass, which we’ve since seen sell for over $200 on the second-hand market.

And we have to be honest: having read The Crane House novella several times now, we’re still shocked at how well the story came together! You would think the authors had a plan when they started, but no one had any idea where the story was going when Brian Keene first wrote, “Halloween? Big f—ing deal.”

Each author brought his own unique voice to this terrifying tale set inside and around Bethany Crane’s house, yet together they’ve crafted a unified story. And now the characters are in there, just waiting for you to join them. In fact, right now Gary, Bodie, Rachel, and the others are approaching the woods near Bethany Crane’s house, and although they don’t know it yet, they’re not alone in the dark…

Read more on the Cemetery Dance website.

Over at the Horror Drive-In website you’ll find Brian’s brand new short story, “Where Sunlight Sleeps,” along with an interview where he discusses his writing, his new (unannounced) novella, and how he found himself working at Cemetery Dance Publications.