When Ian Rogers, Richard Gavin, and I attended ReaderCon 2009 last week, we didn't go empty-handed. With us we brought a small chapbook called
TUNDRA: THREE CANADIAN CHILLERS. The booklet was a sampler of our work that we freely distributed to anyone we met. The idea was that the three of us did not have much by the way of name-recognition in the USA market, and the booklet, along with our smiling faces, was our way of addressing that. People who had only met or spoken to one of us previously could now take home a sample of all our work. The idea occurred rather organically, and in hindsight worked spectacularly well. Beyond our expectations, frankly. Among the three of us, we found we knew or had some contact with everyone with whom we wanted to speak, so getting the book into hands and introducing ourselves was incredibly easy. Best of all, the booklet was very well received, and I hope that everyone who got a copy took it home that night and if not read it right away then at least put it on the list of things they plan to read very soon.
Because of how well the booklet did, we thought it might be interesting to distribute copies of it electronically as well. This way anyone interested in our work (or even just the work of one of us) has something they can read.
You can download the PDF here.The book contains three stories, all previously published:
"Leavings of Shroud House: An Inventory" by Richard Gavin
"The Tattletail" by Ian Rogers
"Pinholes in Black Muslin" by Simon Strantzas
The cover art and book layouts were done be me over a few weeks. The cover actually is a repurposed bit of art. Originally, it was designed as a possible cover for my collection
COLD TO THE TOUCH, but when that didn't happen I thought it would work splendidly in this context. Any other artwork inside the PDF has its source listed in the copyright text.
I know there are a few beginning writers who visit this blog, so I wanted to tell the story of
TUNDRA to show that sometimes it doesn't take a lot to make a name for yourself. Get yourself some sort of tool that will let you break the ice with people and then don't be afraid to use it. Believe me, few are more shy than I, yet by the end of the weekend I was giving the thing out to anyone who'd stop for more than a moment to talk to me. I made some good friends and contacts with it, and all it took was a few pieces of paper and some staples... and a working knowledge of design and layouts and the skills to pull both off.
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