The ENnie-nominated Buried Tales of Pinebox, Texas

If you follow the ongoing adventures of 12 to Midnight, you might have heard that the anthology we published last summer–Buried Tales of Pinebox, Texas–was nominated for another award. I say “another” because it was nominated and won the Predators & Editors readers poll for anthologies, and it briefly made the “long list” of nominations for the Origins award. Now it’s up for the ENnie award, which will be announced at GenCon in August. You can read about the nomination at 12 to Midnight, but if you really feel moved to vote this instant then polls are open. Buried Tales is in lucky category #13. If you haven’t read Buried Tales, then this is a great time to do so. You can order Buried Tales in print from Amazon, or you can get the e-book for dirt cheap at the FlamesRising store.

Our little book shares the category with some amazing products from well-known publishers. It is truly an honor just to be nominated. I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to editor Matt McElroy and all the contributing authors for making it the success that it is.

I usually don’t toot my own horn, but since this is my blog I guess I should mention that one of those contributing authors was me. My story, The One that Got Away, is a first person account of a fishing trip gone wrong. And when I say wrong, I mean kind of wrongness that only happens in Pinebox. It has everything a good fishing story should have– friendship, sorrow, beer, and the biggest damn catfish you could ever imagine. If you haven’t picked up a copy of Buried Tales yet, I hope its string of accolades will convince you to give it a try.

The d20 version of Bloodlines and our other Pinebox titles are going away forever.

I guess I should mention that today is officially the last day to pick up a lot of 12 to Midnight’s titles. After today, all Pinebox titles for the d20 System (with the exception of Modern Dispatch) will be retired for good. They’ve been for sale at 50% off all month, but tomorrow they’re going away for good.

We’re also selling our military horror titles at 50% off, and the Savaged editions of those titles will be going away for good. We plan on finding homes for the d20 System editions of those titles, but until the contracts are finalized they will be unavailable.

All our fantasy titles are at 50% off. Like the titles above, we plan on finding new homes for them but for at least the short term they won’t be available for sale. When the come back, we’ll have no control over what they’re priced. So now is a great time to stock up on the titles you’ve been missing.

Why are we doing all this? There’s a post over at 12 to Midnight, but the short answer is that Pinebox is becoming an official Pinnacle setting and we’re focusing on our core aptitude.

It also means that the floodgates are about to re-open on Flametoad. For the last three years I haven’t been able to write a post without feeling a twinge of guilt over spending the time on my blog instead of my professional writing responsibilities. Now that the manuscript is in other hands, the prodigal son is returning. As used to be the case with Flametoad, you can expect one (or sometimes more) posts a day beginning today. As before, there is no unifying theme to this blog. Expect posts ranging from serious discussions about religion and politics to jokes and silly photos. This blog is about whatever shiny thing catches my eye… and I’ve been saving a lot of shiny things to share with you.

I’m sorry for the long silence. Spare time has been at a premium, and I’ve been spending what little time I’ve had working on ETU. Quick update on that– it’s coming along well. We’re working on refining chapter 10 at the moment and we just have 3 more chapters to go.

Although it’s nothing you’re likely to notice, I used cpanel to block a repeat spammer’s IP address for the first time. I see from my Bad Behavior logs that it has been blocking harvestors and bots, but–more distressingly–attempts at SQL injection. I’m very thankful that the plugin is stopping them…but I can’t help but wonder about the ones it hasn’t. If you can read this post from a feed (such as at Livejournal, Facebook, your RSS reader, etc.) but are denied access to flametoad.com, please let me know!

Now for the linkdump:

• Buried Tales of Pinebox, Texas was recently voted Best Anthology in the Preditors & Editors Readers’ Choice awards. We also had a pretty nice review at Bitten by Books recently. We’ve submitted it for the Origins award, so keep your fingers crossed that we get on the ballot.
• I’m signed up for the Google Buzz, so if you’re interested in connecting, here’s my public profile. I do share items of interest from my Google Reader feed, so that should be good for a laugh.
• “Offline Lending” Costing Publishers Billions
• Viagara might be useful for pregnant women in promoting healthy fetal development. (I just painted a giant target on this post for spam-bots, haven’t I?)
• It costs a business roughly $204 per card in fines and restitution when they are hacked and your card numbers are stolen. Often when this type of thing happens, the number of cards affected are in tens of thousands if not millions. It’s enough to put a mom and pop store out of business and cripple a multi-million dollar operation.
• There are some seriously neat technology improvements on the horizon for e-book readers. They’re going to make these first generation e-ink books look like… well, first generation iPods.
• Shopping for a new digital camera? Lifehacker recommends staying under the 7 megapixel range, for good reason.
• Finally, some problems can’t be talked out.

This sneak peek is only 32 pages, which is a drop in the bucket compared to the book as a whole. It covers all of chapter one, much of the character creation chapter, character sheets, a new mechanic for creating inventions, and a pair of adventures you can play. We’re calling this a “beta” because we’re seeking your input on the rules, so please head on over to the 12 to Midnight website and download it.

You can read more about the sale on Flames Rising, or you can start buying from DriveThruHorror.com, Midnight Cellar (the official 12 to Midnight store), or RPGNow.

While we’re at it, under the category of Best Adventure, White Wolf’s The Rose-Bride’s Plight was written by Jess Hartley. Jess, as you know, contributed the ghost story Stigmatized Property to our Buried Tales of Pinebox, Texas. I’m sure she’d appreciate it if you’d show her some love, too!

If you’re not sure about the other categories, or if you’re just curious, Matt McElroy at Flames Rising has posted his favorites for this year.

For starters, the book has had two very favorable reviews so far. Jeff LaSalla, New York Speculative Fiction Examiner, wrote an excellent review in which he gave quite a bit of detail without spoiling any of the stories. Just this week, Todd Cash wrote a positive review on Flames Rising. He said (among other things) “This anthology also reminds readers and gamers of just how much fun Small Town America can be for the horror genre.”

The multi-talented Monica Valentinelli also produced a book trailer for Buried Tales.

We’re continuing to spread the word about the book, and I’ve been humbled by the support shown by friends, family, and fans of myself and my fellow contributors. If you’re in the mood, there’s another easy way you can help. If you visit the Amazon pages for the print and Kindle editions of the book, you can choose to “tag” the books with keywords. The more people who tag the book, the more likely it is to appear in communities related to those keywords. You can check the tags that are already there, or you can add your own. It only takes 30 seconds to do, and but it’s a big help in terms of increasing the book’s visibility at Amazon.

If you’re a gamer, 12 to Midnight has also announced a Buried Tales contest. Read the book, answer some questions, and win the entire 12 to Midnight catalog in PDF format. That’s $400 in RPG titles. Furthermore, once a week we’ll be posting clues to help out with some of the trickier questions.

Finally, if you’ve read the book, I would personally appreciate it if you’d take the time to write a short (or long!) review for whichever online retailer that sold it to you. Reviews and word-of-mouth recommendations are critical for small press, and your help in spreading the word can help make or break a book.

It’s definitely worth a read. The fun thing is that it never comes out and says that weird stuff is going on around campus. However, if you enjoy reading between the lines then you’ll find The Raven’s Report packed with fun weirdness. Check it out and if you like it then subscribe to the RSS feed. Also, don’t be shy about submitting your own “scoops”.

Am I excited? Heck yeah! I got a nice little writeup on my local business organization’s website, but I felt like saying “It’s not about me. Honest!” I take great pride in the book, but it’s the kind of pride a parent feels for his child. Yes, I wrote one of the stories. I even think it’s a good one. This somewhat hard to explain and may be even harder to understand, but my real pride comes from everyone else’s contributions. Even though I’ve read each story several times by now, I still get thrill from reading David Wellington’s Off Radio, or Shane Lacy Hensley’s Guitar Zero, or Jason L. Blair’s Lovable Creatures, or Jess Hartley’s, or Derek Gunn’s, or any of them. They’ve brought to life the strange little corner of Texas that I and the other 12 to Midnighters have been building for the last five years. This experience has been equal parts thrilling, exhausting, and humbling. I feel deep gratitude to our Editor, Matt McElroy, who got the project off the ground and led it so ably.

If you want a copy of Buried Tales, head on over to the Midnight Cellar or ask for TWL6001 at your local game shop. The e-book will also be up for sale in the near future.