It has been about a week now since I unveiled Readers Digested (dot) com to the world and showed everyone what I have been working on the last couple of months. A week prior, I published my seventh novel Lunacy’s Dance on Amazon for Kindle and Paperback, a novel that I believe acted as a catalyst for reinvigorating my affection and enthusiasm for horror and dark storytelling in-general.
I have been kept in my house a lot more than usual because of the ongoing Corona virus outbreak with Illinois currently on lock-down until early April, which has made me a little restless and stir crazy, but has no doubt been an ideal situation as far as online content creation is concerned.
I have been surprised by the energy and sense of community I have discovered since development began. I have been able to interview and have a conversation with a lot of different filmmakers and content creators.
For instance, I was able to talk to director Josh Stifter and interview him about his films The Good Exorcist and Greywood’s Plot in a way more intimate than I expected. I was able to talk to him on Twitter and have a back in fourth, while I watch his films, which was a very cool experience to have.
As I am certain some of you may know, I have written for and run a lot of websites prior to Readers Digested. The website is a sister website to Mishmashers.com, a more generalized and mainstream domain for some of our stories. Meanwhile, I also write reviews and articles for Mashers Club. About six years ago, I discovered a film called .found at a rental store and bought a copy of it, intrigued by the cover work. I enjoyed the film and I wrote a review of it, which ended up on the .found promotional website. Over half a decade later and I now had the chance to interview and have a conversation with Scott Schirmer and Shane Beasley about their participation in the film and the spin-off film Headless.
Not only that, but I have begun developing a rapport with Todd Rigney, the writer of the novel that the film was based on, and he will a contributor on the Readers Digested website, and an eventual Rabies & Germs anthology novel, hopefully available by Halloween this year.
I have one interview in-particular that I have lined up that I am not entirely certain will happen. The person agreed to do the interview and I have sent them everything needed to do it, but it has been a couple of weeks and I haven’t gotten a reply yet. If they did do it, however, it would be … a definite milestone for the website in-terms of what the person meant to me and meant to the horror genre.
I interviewed Dowell Dean, the director of 13 Eerie, Wolf Cop, Another WolfCop, and SuperGrid, which is another review that’s available on Readers Digested (dot) com.
I have had a lot of fun sharing with filmmakers and writers about their creative process and what went into creating their films, and it has been a very rewarding experience. One story in-particular that Dowell shared was about 13 Eerie and how we was brought on as a director-for-hire for the film with no significant experience behind the camera prior other than a couple of short films. Imagining being thrown into a film a 3 million-dollar budget with known names like Katharine Isabelle, it is no surprise he said one of the hardest parts was the mere anxiety of having to be in over your depth among individuals with more experience than you.
The first few days have went well for Readers Digested. I have a lot of ideas and a lot of goals I have in mind, but I know I have to take it one step at a time and build on.
At the moment, it is all about procuring quality worthwhile content and attracting talent artists who are willing to contribute to the website’s growth and reputation.
Obviously, Mishmashers and Readers Digested are not yet households names nor are they juggernauts on the worldwide web, and thereby, payment of time and effort is mostly done in the form of exposure and taken as an investment that it will one day payoff. I have exerted a lot of effort in-order to build Readers Digested to what it has since become, but it will be through the financial investments like advertising and book conventions that we will really start to see the website’s progression.
Unfortunately, our entire lineup of Comic Conventions, which would have brought us to Indiana and Kentucky, have all either been canceled or postponed. This is an unfortunate, but if it is for everyone’s safety, it is a sacrifice I am willing to make. Just know that, if you’re in the Midwest, we will have Mishmashers and Readers Digested brand novels with us as we attend conventions in the Summer.
I think the next order of business for Readers Digested, other than continuing the day-to-day operations, will be on the Rabies & Germs magazine and the Rabies & Germs anthology. Todd will be contributing, Scott Moore will be contributing, and I am nearly 10,000 words into a novella called The One Two Punchline for Rabies & Germs as well. We are still in-search of fellow contributors and I am hopeful that when the time comes to publish Rabies & Germs, our organic build and paid advertising will help it become a success.
As you wait, I am barely a couple of weeks removed from Lunacy’s Dance’s publication, and if it behooves you, I would really appreciate your consideration. The novel is available on Kindle for only 99 cents and is available for $9.99 on Paperback, if you do decide to buy a copy, I hope you will also consider leaving a review on the Amazon page, it would really help. This is The White Fox Podcast, my name is McConnaughay, and next-up, I’ll either be talking about The One Two Punchline, my upcoming fantasy novel Roxwale: The Heir’s Brother, or something else that’s on my mind. Thanks for listening, and I’ll see you again shortly. Take it easy.