Michael David Wilson 0:28
Welcome to this is horror, a podcast for readers, writers and creators. I'm Michael David Wilson, and every episode, alongside my co host, Bob Pastorella, we chat with the world's best writers about writing, life lessons, creativity and much more. Today we are chatting to Brian Asman. He is the author of books including, I'm not even supposed to be here today. Jail broke none. Chuck city Man, fuck this house, and, most recently, good dogs. So a lot to talk about with Brian is wonderful to welcome him back to the show. But before we get to that, a quick advert break

Bob Pastorella 1:26
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Michael David Wilson 2:27
Okay? Without saying, Here it is. It is Brian Asman on, this is horror, Brian. Welcome back to this is horror podcast. Hey,

Brian Asman 2:42
Michael Bob, thanks for having me on. It's great to be back.

Michael David Wilson 2:46
Yeah, it's great to have you back. And I can't believe it, but it's almost been two years since we last spoke with you.

Brian Asman 2:55
Yeah, yeah. It has 2022 was the last time,

Michael David Wilson 2:59
yeah, and I know that a lot has happened for you in that time. So that's kind of where I want to go. I want to know what the biggest changes for you have been, both personally and professionally in the past two years, right?

Brian Asman 3:17
So the single biggest change is my new book just came out good dogs. It's available in audiobook, ebook and paperback from Blackstone, and you can get it wherever books are sold. So I just came off a tour. I went to Colorado, Louisville, Chicago and New York, and did a bunch of events there. I was actually supposed to do one in Toronto, and unfortunately, they wouldn't let me into the country because of some stupid passport bullshit. So in America, we have a our passport, and we also have a passport card that they give us, right? And the passport card is good for entry into like Mexico, Canada and a few other places like the Bahamas. And so I looked up before I went if I could use my passport card to get into Canada, just double checking it said yes. So I get to the airport, and they're like, Oh, you actually, you this is only good for land and sea entry. You can't use it to fly into Canada. And I was like, Are you fucking kidding me. So unfortunately, I was so bummed because I was little, ghosts is such a cool shop, and I was looking forward to going, like, just going to to the shop, let alone having an event, and had to cancel that one the last minute. So hopefully we can reschedule for next year, and I'll be more prepared for the bureaucratic bullshit next time, yeah,

Michael David Wilson 4:43
I was not familiar with those constraints, but so frustrating. It's like, well, can't you put me on the plane, and then can, can I order a taxi, and then it's car entry, it's kind of land at that point, or I'll swim across a small. Body of water, not, not a large one, a small body will do,

Brian Asman 5:05
yeah, yeah, exactly. I was like, this is kind of ridiculous, but luckily, you know, Chris at the bookstore was really cool about it. I felt so bad. But, you know, again, hope to get there next year,

Michael David Wilson 5:16
yeah, yeah. So, I mean, I feel in the next year or so, you need to cultivate a crazier story just every time, add a kind of different constraint and what they wouldn't let you do or bring in until you've got border tail. What a pain. I mean, aside from that, how did the tour go. And I mean, what? What does the typical Brian Asman live experience look like? Yeah, so every

Brian Asman 5:49
event was a little bit different in so I started here in San Diego, and I did an event at mysterious Galaxy here with Jonathan Mayberry, who is kind enough to agree to be my conversation partner, and he asked just a bunch of really great questions, both about the book, the craft of writing, and things like that. And it was just a wonderful event to kick off the tour. And in Colorado, I did a conversation with one of the booksellers there at tag recover. Louisville was more of a straight signing, as was the event in Chicago, and then at the stanza books in Beacon, New York, I did a conversation with Christophe Paul from Clash books. So a lot of it's really more conversation based. I don't really do as many readings. I enjoy doing readings, but if I'm going to do one, I'm going to do something a little a little unique I tried to do, versus just, you know, sitting there reading my book, you know, I try to put on a little bit of a show. So, yeah,

Michael David Wilson 6:49
can you give us any examples of times where you've put on this performance when at a reading event?

Brian Asman 6:57
Yeah, absolutely. So one, I like to do more of like a spoken word thing, so I'm almost doing like, stand up. Well, I'll just tell some stories about how I got into writing, or things that influence me and stuff like that.

Michael David Wilson 7:11
Yeah, yeah. I totally agree with you as well that if I'm doing a live reading, or even if I'm hosting one, I want it to be different than just a straight read through, because you know, you well, you can get the audio book for that, or you can read it yourself. It's like, what is the extra dimension? And I think the two people who really take it to the next level are Josh maleman And Chuck Palahniuk. I mean, with Josh maleman, he essentially turns it into some sort of music or theatrical performance. And with Chuck Paul, and if you don't know what's gonna happen, is there gonna be an actual kangaroo running through the bookstore? Could be to find out anything's

Brian Asman 7:59
possible. Another person I'll throw in there is Carlton Melik. The third, he writes pieces that are meant to be performed, and that's where I get a lot of my inspiration from. It's just, if I'm gonna get up there, I'm gonna try and do something a little little more geared towards a performance versus, you know, it's obvious to say, but books are meant to be read or, you know, enjoyed in a particular way, right? So it doesn't translate well to a live performance, necessarily, unless you adapt it or make it work with good dogs, I have done a few straight readings from good dogs because there are three sections in the book that are flashbacks to different time periods, and with each of those time periods, they're written in the voice of the time. So, for example, I have a section set in the 1930s where the voice is very like, hey, yeah, see, yeah. What's going on? Yeah. And so it's a little more fun to read those sections, because I can turn into a bit more of a performance, versus just, you know. And then Delia walked into the woods and there were branches snapping and trees and blah, blah, blah, blah,

Michael David Wilson 9:05
blah, yeah, especially if you deliver it in monotone,

Brian Asman 9:10
yes, exactly.

Michael David Wilson 9:12
But we will be returning to those three sections shortly, but I suppose what we should do is for people who aren't familiar with good dogs. What is the elevator pitch?

Brian Asman 9:24
So the elevator pitch is, it is Friday the 13th meets the howling. It's a slasher novel about a group of werewolves that go off to the woods so they can essentially wolf out in peace, and a mysterious killer begins to pick them off one by

Michael David Wilson 9:39
one. Yeah, and I think this is really, you know, where original ideas come from. I know that people struggle like, how am I gonna tell an original story? And it's like, well, reframe it, take two ideas, not necessarily original, but then meld them together in a way that. Never been done before, and I can't think of a single story or movie that was werewolves meets the slasher genre. Yeah.

Brian Asman 10:10
Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, when I hit on the idea, it seemed like a chocolate peanut butter idea that was kind of like, these things go really well together, but I haven't seen this done before, and so I was very excited as I was writing the book. I was just very excited, like I I'm often excited when writing books, but this one especially, just because, you know, I love the slasher genre. It's such a fun genre, but I've never seen, you know, a slasher flick where the victims are monsters themselves, let alone werewolves. So just seemed like a really, really fertile playground, and it was a great time writing the book.

Michael David Wilson 10:47
And I know that one of your tutors when you were at university was, of course, Stephen Graham Jones, who has perhaps written the novel that you think of in terms of modern day werewolf novels, which is, of course, mongrels. So I'm wondering, first of all, did you feel any pressure knowing that your tutor has done this and now you're going to embark on the werewolf novel, and in terms of him teaching you, what is the timeline in terms of you writing this book and having cutelage from Stephen Graham Jones,

Brian Asman 11:26
that's a great question. So I wrote the book specifically because I was working with Stephen, so I had this opportunity, and I was like, Well, you know, he had just at that time, this was 2018, 2019, and mongrels was still pretty hot off the process back then. And, you know, I thought to myself, Okay, I got a bunch of ideas that I could work on with him, but this one is a, it's about werewolves, check, and it's also a slasher, and he's known as the slasher guy, so it just seemed like the perfect idea to work on with him. And it was, it was a lot of fun. I certainly during doing during the draft. There are points where I had to be like, okay, maybe I might be hewing a little too close to mongrels here, because, like, mongrels, this book is about a group of people who are outsiders. Their condition makes it hard for them to live in society, and so they they're all kind of outcasts that have found each other in or living, sort of like this almost underground existence, sort of within, but also apart from society. And so, yeah, when I, when I was working on it, that's one of those things where you have to balance the inspiration and homage with just straight up becoming like a like a Xerox. And that's not what I wanted to do. I wanted to hopefully diverge in interesting ways and put my own spin on things. And judging by the initial reaction, people seem to be vibing with that.

Michael David Wilson 12:52
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't think anyone would say it was a copycat of mongrels. I mean, it's clearly a very, different book, or if they did say it was a copycat, it's like, whatever you're smoking, pass it here. Yeah, exactly, good. But, I mean, I know that you've said before that you often pants your stories, so I'm wondering if this was the case with this one. I'm also wondering, now that you've moved into being a hybrid author, where you've got some traditional publishing deals, how does pantsing kind of mesh with that? Because quite often, the publisher will want you, not unreasonably, to pitch an outline or a concept to them, but if you're pantsing, it's probably gonna be a little woolier.

Brian Asman 13:46
Yeah, yeah. So with this one, I certainly did pants this one as well, which I get to the end and I get to the end, and I was like, Man, I really need to become a plotter. Because after I wrote the first draft, I realized, oh, wait, this book would be so much more interesting if a different character was responsible for the inciting incident versus the one I initially had be responsible for it. So that required, like, a basically ground up rewrite of everything in the book, right? Because that just changes the way the characters interact with each other, changes every other scene. So I was like, oh, man, this is just creating so much extra work for me. But the same time I it's just not how I've tried to plot things, and it's just not how I write. I need to kind of work up ahead of steam with the story, you know, and I compare it to basically, like, it's sort of like an eye test when you're at the eye doctor, and they're like, you know, which one's blurry and which one's clear, right? And like, when I'm first looking at the characters, they're all just kind of, like, these vague smudges where I can be like, okay, that person has, like, you know, two arms or whatever, and two legs. But like, I can't really see a lot of the detail about who they are until I get going. And then. Everything, the resolution becomes clearer and clearer as I go along, and the characters really drive what happens in the story. And I think that's why I can't plot, because I need to get to know the characters and understand who they are before I really understand what's going to happen, what decisions they're making in the different situations that they're in. Now that said, when I pants, it's not pure pants in I do have, like, essentially an outline in my head. So I have, you know, essentially a start point. I have an end point. I know how the story is going to resolve, basically, and I know what some of the major milestones are along the way. So I am writing towards things I'm not just like, you know, complete seat of my pants when I do this. So. But to your other question about working with publishers. So this novel was already written when I sold it to Blackstone and then my other the other part of the two book deal was man fuck this house, which is coming out in October 2025, with an expanded edition and some additional short stories in it, which I'm really excited about. So, you know, those those two were essentially already complete when they bought them, and I haven't really had the experience yet of trying to sell like an outline to a publisher, although I'm about to, because, you know, right now I'm going, I'm working with my agents. I have like, seven different pitches of what the next book could be. And so we're going through that together, figuring out, and then we're going to meet with my film agent and figure out, like, okay, out of all these ideas, which ones are most likely going to sell. And then from we'll go from there, basically, yeah, I

Michael David Wilson 16:39
think it might be Josh maleman. We were talking to who. He pitched an outline to a publisher, but then by the time he submitted the you know, finished manuscript, it's like, okay, this doesn't really resemble it, because the characters you know, influence it so much. And I guess the way that I describe my own planning method is like, it's the hybrid. What we have is we have a plan, but then anything goes, anything can change. Because, yeah, you know that the character might do something called be something that I didn't anticipate, but yeah, I think like you having at least something that you're aiming for is a good idea that the times where I've tried to pure pants, it's like, well, I know that they're stuck now, and we can't really end the story at 22,000 words, just being like, No, I Don't know what to do. I still kill ourselves.

Brian Asman 17:40
Yeah, exactly. I found that before too, sometimes with books where I get, like, I get so far in and I realize I'm just kind of stuck somewhere, and that's unfortunate. But, you know, those situations, I've had to either toss it out and start over, or, you know, pivot to a different project, essentially. Yeah,

Bob Pastorella 18:00
my previous project that I did, I did, I wrote in, you know, is 30,000 words novella, and I did it without any outline at all. I just had a premise and a really, really good playlist. So you know that that helped out a lot once I realized that certain albums from a certain industrial band that I really love, Nine Inch Nails, actually fit this, this dynamic. I was like, Oh, this is perfect. The one I'm working on now, which is a much longer project, probably estimating around 80,000 words, I'm guessing I'm having to plot parts of it out, because there's so much there. There's there's things that that happened in the past that are echoing things that are happening in the future and are happening now and so and it's like I have to kind of know that backstory. And so that's where the plotting comes into play. And so it's just, it's writing these really loose, short, easy notes, you know, about, about events, that way I've got some type of archival record to where I don't, I don't, you know, screw up the event, like, you know, the timeline, or anything like that. So, but I've only, only plot just a little bit, just a little bit. I stopped myself because the creative process, the momentum is where I where I crave writing the most.

Brian Asman 19:33
Yeah, I'm kind of the same way, basically where I need that, that in the moment, creation and, like, you know, like, both you guys seem to have the same, similar approaches, where it's like, well, it doesn't have to be a binary between pants in and plotting. And, you know, in practice, most writers have some mix of both. You know, there's, I don't think there's, there's some very pure plotters, I think, but there's, I think most people are some sort of mix between. Union if they don't realize it, or when to admit it?

Michael David Wilson 20:02
Yeah, and I mean the situation you found yourself in where you completed that first draft and then realized actually, this needs to be told from a different perspective. It's not a kind of uncommon situation, but it can be, for a lot of writers, a very demoralizing one. So, I mean, I wonder, for people listening who have found themselves in or are in that situation. I mean, what kind of advice could you give them, or how do you approach that? Did you find that everything you'd written was essentially out the window. Did you cannibalize it? To use that bizarre term,

Brian Asman 20:46
yeah, yeah. So I think the piece of advice I give the audience is it's only demoralizing if you allow it to be right. So we have control over how we choose to perceive situations, and there's always more than one way to perceive any given situation. So for example, in my own situation, right? I could have said, Wow, I just wasted all that time writing 80,000 words or whatever, of something that's unusable. But that's not true, right? Because every time you're writing, you're making progress, even if it doesn't feel like it, you're learning something, you're creating something. You're just, you're, you know, you're slowly, slowly, slowly getting better. The more that, the more you do it. So, you know, in my case, I was able to, like, salvage a lot from the original draft and, you know, including some entire scenes. And I was able to, like, you said, cannibalize it and use that as a basis of something else. But like the other thing is, even if I couldn't, I have the lessons I learned while writing that first draft that no one I can't take away from myself, no one can take those away from me, right? And so I think that's it's really like much of writing, much of the adversity that comes with writing, boils down to how you choose to look at it, right? Is each is a rejection telling you that you're not good, or is a rejection telling you is every rejection one step closer towards achieving the goal, right? You know, I don't believe there's any such thing as wasted time writing.

Michael David Wilson 22:15
Yeah, I know that there are some people that they get very demoralized again if they're getting all these rejections. But my approach has always been, I would rather have answers to questions than have this. What if you don't want this lingering What if you know? What if I'd submitted it to that publisher or that agent or that market, just fucking submit it. If they say, No, you're still in the same position. Nothing bad happens. You don't submit to Ellen datlo, and she's like, right? Motherfucker, we're going to Twitter. We are gonna shame you for submitting that story. No, you just get a rejection, and you can submit to her again. Yeah?

Brian Asman 23:01
Well, unfortunately, there have been a few instances of certain presses deciding to post public information that they shouldn't have, including one this past week where apparently they posted very specific feedback about plots. And according to some tweets I saw, possibly even portions of a manuscript which is not, definitely not the norm, and wildly, wildly, wildly unethical. And to your point, though, like, that's, you know, in the indie press ecosystem, there's all kinds of people, right? There are some very professional people. So yeah, if you submit a story to Ellen datlo, she's not gonna go on Twitter and make fun of you, because she's a professional, right? And the other thing I'm a believer in is, if you're submitting to different markets, they will notice that. So even if you're even if your stories aren't very good at first, if they're not what they're looking for, you know, they will remember your name if they see you a bunch of times, and over time, they will notice a change in your work as you grow as a writer, I think. And I, you know, I think there is something to be said for presses notice, you know, presses in different markets, notice when you're not giving up, right? The people that kind of are the flash in the pan, and they just do this for like, a year or something, and submit a couple places and then give up. Like, no one remembers that, right? But some, I'm sure their editors, are like, Okay, this guy has been sending me stories since 2015 and, you know, oh, I've noticed a bit of an improvement. And eventually, someday, they might be like, yep, this one hits. Let's

Michael David Wilson 24:37
modify the original statement anywhere worth submitting to go and out you and publish all types of information like I haven't even seen what's happened this week. I'm unfortunately not surprised, because we see just some micro, insignificant. And press every once in a while do something like this, but they're not the people worth worrying about. And then if they do do that, then the majority of people who are professionals within the industry will just so much be on your side and will be against that press that actually it might work out into something good for you anyway, you know, I there's been instances where people have, you know, called out this bad practice, and then they've got retweeted by Stephen King, or they've got an offer from a publishing company that's, you know, infinitely better. So, yeah, basically, original point stands, keeps admitting, don't leave the questions unanswered. Yeah, exactly.

Brian Asman 25:48
And you can't let just the bad behavior of a very, very small minority of actors in a given area dictate what you do and how you approach things like even with this latest example of bad behavior at the end of the day. Like, yes, this was kind of a big controversy on Twitter for like a day, but people have short memories. The writers in question who are impacted, no one has a negative view of them. The negative view is of the press.

Michael David Wilson 26:16
Yeah, I think, as well as a kind of wider point, and we'll probably get away from this pretty quickly. But I think people inflate Twitter controversies to be bigger than they are. The vast majority of things that seem to be big, seem to be widespread, seem to be all over Twitter, the general world and the publishing world probably don't even know what's going on or if they happen, then it's like, okay, that happened for a day. Now we're getting on with business as usual. So I think it's important as well for one's mental health to not get too obsessed with it. And you know, put things into perspective. I'm saying this all inelegantly, but Twitter is not life. Is probably the sound bite

Brian Asman 27:09
it is. It is not life. Most people aren't on Twitter or whatever other social media platform. Most people aren't going to see or care about what happens. You know, I'd say probably all of publishing Twitter or whatever is probably smaller in whole numbers than, like, fucking anime gooning Twitter or whatever it is, you know. So, like, this is all like, just niche, niche stuff that doesn't all the controversies. Most of the controversies essentially just boil down to personality conflicts that become overblown and people like to take sides, and, you know, none of it really matters that much. And I think you see the the most successful writers, yeah, sure, they might like get into some Twitter stuff here and there, but for the most part, like, they're not focused on tearing people down on Twitter. They're not focused in taking sides. They're focused on the work, and they're focused on promoting things that they like and things that they care about,

Michael David Wilson 28:04
right? Because that's what this is ultimately all about. That's what we're interested in. And I mean, shifting back towards good dogs, one of the inspirations was seeing a central California ghost town for sale. Now for those who have read the story, it will be very obvious why that was an inspiration, but I want to know absolutely everything about this. Where did you see it? Did you consider buying the town? Would you buy a town in general, or have you seen too much shits Creek? You know what's going on?

Brian Asman 28:47
Yeah, that's it. That's a good question. So yeah, I in the late 2010s or whatever. My when I was getting ready to write this book, I remember seeing a news story about a central California ghost town that was for sale. And then stories like this will pop up like every other year or so. So there's a number of these ghost towns throughout the throughout the Southwest that occasionally come up for sale. And you know, there are a bunch of run down buildings and a plot of land, and you can literally just go buy them. And usually there it's something like $250,000 which sounds like a lot of money, until you realize that, like a studio apartment where I live is twice that. So yeah, of course, everyone's had the fantasy of being like, Screw it. I'm gonna buy my own town, my own little kingdom where I can make my own rules, man. And so, yeah, I certainly thought about buying one. I'm not going to because I like living in cities and all the amenities that cities have. But it's a fun fantasy.

Michael David Wilson 29:47
Yeah, I like that idea. If ever my stories, or this is horror gets big enough, it's like, right? We're, we're buying a town. This is horror town. Yeah,

Brian Asman 29:57
exactly. Yeah. Yeah,

Michael David Wilson 30:00
I don't think, you know, ultimately, there'd be that much power, because, you know, you've got the state power and the country power, but there'd be a little bit that I could influence

Brian Asman 30:15
zoning laws at least. So, you know, you decide, like, you know, people are allowed to build ad use in the backyard if they're ghost town at least, and things like that. So

Bob Pastorella 30:25
I can already imagine, not only am I the postman, but I am the sheriff, Yep,

Michael David Wilson 30:34
yeah. And I mean talking about buying things if I'm remembering correctly you said last time you were on that if man this House reached a certain amount of sales, you would buy somebody a haunted house. Or perhaps it wasn't a haunted house, maybe it was just a house. But how is that going in terms of the sales? Or should we erase this from the record? And it's like, you know how you say things on a drunken night out, don't remember that. Forget it aboard.

Bob Pastorella 31:11
Oh no. That

Brian Asman 31:12
was a serious contest. So I said, if man focus house sells a million copies, I will buy a haunted house or allegedly haunted house, because those do come on the market. This was actually inspired by you guys seen that ghost adventure show, right? With, like, the again, like the tap out, looking

Bob Pastorella 31:30
for ghosts. Yeah, whatever his name is, yeah. Jack

Brian Asman 31:34
Baggins, yeah, yeah. I was home sick with a fever one day, and I just said I was flipping through Amazon looking for something to watch. I'm like, oh, there's a Ghost Adventures movie. I'm like, This sounds like the perfect kind of low effort thing to put on while. I'm like, you know, have 101 degree fever. So I put the show on in this in the movie opens with him buying a haunted house in Indiana, and that's where I got the idea, I was like, Oh, wait, you can just buy a, buy a house that is allegedly haunted. And these, like, like ghost towns, these come on the market from time to time. You know, you can see in Zillow listings where people like, yeah, this place is totally haunted. You should buy it. And often they're in places like Indiana and Ohio where, you know, houses are still affordable, and so, yeah, I did the math, and I was like, Okay, if I sell a million copies of man fuck this house, I will buy an allegedly haunted house and give it away. That was a real contest. And it wasn't just like me being drunk one day. I was sober when I proposed it, although not afterwards, after I after, I tweeted out there, I definitely got a little loaded to deal with the deal with that. But yeah, and that's one of the reasons why the book got as popular as it did. I think was like part of it was this whole virality of this insane contest attached to it. And so the book, The novella itself, did very well for an indie published novella. It sold in the 10s of 1000s of copies. However, that book is now off the market, so the contest is over. I did not hit a million copies sold. So if the new version comes out next year and sells a million copies, that would be rad. But the pay, you know, the royalty terms are much different for that new edition, so you know, and it's a different edition of the book. So that's my Weasley way out of buying anyone on a house. Although I don't know if the new book sells 10 million copies. Contest is back on.

Michael David Wilson 33:38
That was exactly where I was going. I was hoping we could get you to commit to a number. I

Brian Asman 33:46
will recommit to a number with this is just, I want to remind everyone, this is a separate contest. Is over, but I'm down to do a new one.

Michael David Wilson 33:58
There you go. Maybe this is the marketing tip that we didn't know that we needed. So, you know, when my next book comes out, it's like, right? If we sell a million copies, then I'm gonna skydive off Sky Tower in Tokyo. Now that's an example. I haven't admitted. Like, I don't even know, like, what are the rules like? How am I gonna convince the Japanese government and officials that this is a good idea? They're pretty tight.

Brian Asman 34:33
Ask forgiveness, not permission, essentially. Yeah, you just have to do it. But yeah, that wasn't the first time I've done like a ridiculous contest attached to one of my books with my novella, nun chuck city, I had a contest where it sold 10,000 copies in its first month, or whatever. I would change my middle name to nun chuck.

Michael David Wilson 34:53
Can we confirm your middle name right now? Just it's

Brian Asman 34:57
currently Peter. So unfortunately, the book did not sold $10 Copies in the first month, although I'm down to renew that contest, if the book sells 10,000 copies in this next month, by November 14, I will again legally change my middle name to none, Chuck. Okay,

Michael David Wilson 35:12
we've got to really try and edit this episode quickly so that people have

Brian Asman 35:17
mentioned I can extend it through December 1, because I really love that. I love that book, and I wish you know more people would discover it. And if I have to change my middle name to nun chuck, then I will totally do that.

Michael David Wilson 35:31
Yeah. See, I, I normally do like crazy challenges in terms of, like, this is horror podcast episodes or Patreon goals. But I, I like this upping the stakes with book sales and like these ridiculous numbers, like a million, I'm gonna have to to do something like that. But one day, one of us setting these challenges, we're gonna think it's not gonna happen, and then we're gonna have to do it. Maybe I'm gonna have to have daddy's boy tattooed on my forehead. Maybe I would need to be paid a lot of money, and probably because I'm gonna probably need permanent protection at that

Brian Asman 36:14
point. Yeah, then you would retire. And,

Michael David Wilson 36:20
yeah, yeah,

Brian Asman 36:23
security behind you, because I'm sure that would attract a lot of unwanted attention.

Michael David Wilson 36:27
I know, yeah, yeah.

Brian Asman 36:29
Although you live in Japan, if you get it in English, like, I don't know, like, you know,

Michael David Wilson 36:34
it's gonna minimize, yeah, yeah, minimize efforts. I

Brian Asman 36:39
mean, a lot of people in Japan speak English. So what if you got in like, Portuguese or something like that? Right?

Michael David Wilson 36:44
There you go.

Brian Asman 36:46
You're still fulfilling the challenge. It's just like, you know, the average person that you run into that on the street will probably be like, What the fuck is on that guy's head? And they'll cross the street, but they won't know what it means. So

Bob Pastorella 36:59
we should do something like that. Michael, we should do like, hey, if we sell a million copies of their watching, we'll get you Indian dinner for a year.

Brian Asman 37:11
Bob, you get there and Michael gets watching on your forehead.

Cosmic Horror Monthly 37:14
Oh,

Bob Pastorella 37:15
yeah, no,

Michael David Wilson 37:22
yeah, we progressed into the very niche topic of only getting tattoos on that is the challenge.

Brian Asman 37:32
Welcome to this is forehead tattoos.

Michael David Wilson 37:36
Yeah, well, moving Julie away from that onto another type of challenge. I mean, as you said, you wrote different sections and different time periods. So I mean, what challenges did you face in terms of doing that, and in terms of having the very fun and almost over the top voice for those periods. And did you know early on that this was going to be a part of the book? Yeah,

Brian Asman 38:11
in the very first draft, actually, I get to the part where I want to do these. And so the reason why I have these flashbacks in the book is essentially because I wanted to up the body count, and it's a way just to have more murders in the book. And so that's the main reason why I put them in there. But that also be interesting to give people a sense of how long things have been going on in this town. And you know, what are the different scenarios and things that might happen? So, yeah, early on, I hit on the idea of doing these flashbacks, and because I like to experiment and do different fun things, I was like, I'm just gonna write them in this particular voice from, you know, just because I think if you're gonna move into a flashback, I mean, you can just say this is a flashback, you know, like 1985 or whatever, but I think It's more fun to give to really transport your audience. You know, it's like, how can I I'm always thinking about, how can I bring my audience along with me and make sure that they're fully in the moment of whatever is going on? And so I think a trick to do that is to modulate the language so that when they dip into one of these flashback chapters, they're really, it's the they're reading it differently. The voice is different. The experience is different than the chapter that they just came out of. So they really are going on a journey, frankly. So the sections were actually pretty easy to write, because once I got, you know, figure out the voice, I went for each one that was just kind of like the most fun kind of writing for me, where I'm just kind of cutting loose and doing, like, this stream of consciousness, hey, this is super fun type thing. But it did, there was it did prove to be a bit of a challenge during the editing process, because my editor was like, Well, I don't know that we need these. And I'm like, Well, no, we need them. Yeah. Yeah, and especially the last one, the one said in the 1930s he was like, I don't think this actually adds anything, and I think we should cut it. And I really had to, you know, I fought hard for that because I truly believed in that section. And it's funny, a couple people have been like, yeah, that's one of my favorite parts of the book. And so it's very that was very validating for me to be like, Okay, I wasn't just being, like, overly precious about my own bullshit as a writer. I was actually, you know, it's actually something that makes the book better for at least some people. Yeah,

Michael David Wilson 40:32
and I think that leads into this interesting dilemma when we're talking and working with an editor, you know? How do you decide what things to fight for and what things to say? You know what? Okay, I'm gonna go with that change.

Brian Asman 40:50
Yeah, it's a bit of a balancing act. I'd say anything an editor gives me, I'm going to try to address one way or another, because it's a they're, pretty much always valid notes, you know? And so it's, it's like that note within a note, thing that they tell you to look for in screenwriting, right? If someone says they got they got bored in the second act, and that's where all the car chases are, well, they might actually mean they got bored in the first act and started feeling, really, feeling it when they got to the second act, right? And so it's that process of looking for a note within a note, I think is very important. So anytime I get feedback from a note or the first thing I do is, you know, scream some profanity really loudly, because my work is perfect, and how dare they. I think every, every, every writer has some sort of, like, knee jerk response like that, that they just have to kind of process and then reorient, and they go, okay, all right, now that I've got that out of the way, let's get down to business, because this is, in fact, a business, and this is literally a job. And the editor's job is not to tell me how cute and precious my crayon drawings are and put them on the fridge. They're to help me reach the widest possible audience and to tell the story in a way that is going to resonate with people. So I go, essentially look point by point, and go, Okay, what are they saying here? And sometimes I do hit on things where I'm like, I need to push back, but I try and make sure I have a reason for it beyond just like my own feelings. There have definitely, definitely been instances where, you know, I've gotten a certain note, and then I'm like, Okay, well, here's what I was actually trying to go for here. And so what if we change these two things over here to emphasize this? And then they're like, Okay, that actually works for me, for example.

Michael David Wilson 42:36
Yeah. So it sounds like a lot of this as well is making it a discussion and looking for what is it that both of you are going to ultimately be happy with when you know you're putting this book out? And I wonder too, if that has kind of differed quite a bit you know, going from indie to more Trad publishing,

Brian Asman 43:02
it is, it is different. When I was doing indie publishing, I was certainly working with editors, but that was more of a situation where I was paying those editors for their time than moving to Blackstone. Blackstone, there's more. There's more iterations with moving into Trad publishing, for sure, and it depends when I worked with there are certain editors I worked with that were more focused on, like the proofreading and copy editing aspect, whereas moving to a traditional publisher, that's completely separate the development, developmental editing is a much longer process. And then, you know, you have different rounds proofreading and copy editing and things like that. So overall, I really like the experience better, because I feel like it just all those rounds led to a much better book, right?

Michael David Wilson 43:50
And the last time that we spoke, as I said, it was about two years ago. I think you had just signed the Blackstone deal at that point. So I mean, now fast forward. You have a book out with them. You have another one that is coming next year. So what has the overall experience been like working with them? And I do want to talk a little bit about the man fuck this house side of the deal as well. Because, I mean, was it quite difficult for you and your agent to sell them on a new version of a book that had already been published? You know, to go for Eric La Rocca, to use the modern parlance,

Brian Asman 44:38
yeah, so I'll take the second part. First, I can't really speak for my agent, because I wasn't there in the negotiations, but from my side, the deal didn't really feel that difficult to get done. And I think the reason for that is twofold. One is Eric laraka deal had just gone through at the time, so there was a big precedent for this. There was a, like, just a direct comp look. Here's this really popular indie horror novella that Titan bought and is put down new version. Hey, Blackstone, you're trying to develop your horror program. Don't you want to do the same thing? Don't you want to compete in that space too? And I think, I think there was definitely some of that. The other thing was, at the time, when we signed the book, I mean, it was doing like 5000 copies a day on Amazon. So that was kind of a no brainer for the publisher, I think, to just go, you know, you know, of course, it did do that for very long, granted, but when it went that viral moment, it was really going nuts on Amazon for a while. And so I think the publisher just went, Okay, I think there's a lot of opportunity here to take this novella and turn it into, like a full fledged book, and then working with them has been fantastic. Blackstone is very interesting, because financially, they're kind of up with the Big Five, but they have like an indie, you know, mid sized press mindset, and so everyone there is super accessible and super easy going and very focused on just, you know, how can we make your book the best year book it can be, versus making ends or whatever else you know. So I think, you know, it's, it's great working with them. They've got some very great resources and but they have a little bit of a family feel, which is nice.

Michael David Wilson 46:21
Yeah, it really sounds like you've got the best of both worlds, the hell with Blackstone. And I mean, of course, as well, it means that you're guaranteed to get amazing audio every time you know the clue in the name being Blackstone audio and that being what they are most famous for, but with Man fuck this house. So I believe that the New Deal sees it as part of a wider collection. Are you also expanding the original story? And if so, I suppose what will the new book look like, as opposed to the original version?

Brian Asman 47:05
Yeah. So

the new version is expanded, for sure. And so when I wrote the first version, it had to be a novella, so I had to get in under 40,000 words. And there was like an entire like, you know, pretty big. There was like an entire day's worth of stuff that I either cut or didn't put into it, essentially. And so the story was a little bit truncated when it came out, because I had to make those concessions for for length, basically. And your audience might might be wondering, well, why did it have to be a novella? And that was part of the deal with my agent, where, when we decided that I was going to self publish, we agreed that I would only do novella length works self publishing. And the reason for that is so that a press like Blackstone could put out my debut novel. And also, I believe bookstores look at novella sales versus novel sales a lot differently, and, you know, a poorly selling novel can really hurt you, you know, with new with subsequent releases, right? Because they'll look at sales numbers and go, Okay, well, I'm not going to order too many copies of this one because the last one didn't sell versus, I believe, at least, from what I've heard, they don't really look at novellas the same way. So it's not really an Achilles heel from that, from that perspective. So I had to do it as a novella. Had to cut out a lot of stuff I wanted to put into it. So with this version, you know, it's you rarely get two cracks at the same book like this. It hardly ever happens in a writer's career, and it probably won't happen again in mine, right? So it was really fun going back through, and then also, like, I wrote the book in 2021 and I'm, it's 2024 now I'm a, hopefully a better writer than I was back then. And so going through, you know, I have these new sections I put in that flesh out the story, the backstory of the house, the people involved, new, more spooky things happening, right? And then going through, I was like, there are certain things that have in the book where I'm like, Wait, this is happening too soon, or this is happening too late. So I got to kind of massage, like the rhythm of the book a lot too. And there were also kind of places where I had a yada yada, certain things because I didn't have space. And so there was, you know, you know, telling versus showing right? Where I could, like, take a couple lines of dialog and turn them into into a scene, right, instead of just, you know, yada yada, you know. And so I could just show people everything I want them to see.

Michael David Wilson 49:34
And so at the moment, in terms of your hybrid publishing, does this mean your pattern or your strategy would be in terms of independently putting stuff out yourself. It will only be novellas, and you'll, you know, try to put those novels with the more Trad publishers, or now that you've done the debut novel, do you have more scope to. Out of a novels independently, if you and your agent think that is the right path.

Brian Asman 50:07
So we haven't talked about me doing any independently published novels at this point, I think generally, and I don't want to, you know, I'm on a two book deal right now. I don't want to count any chickens before they're hatched, but for subsequent novels, we certainly want to try and go a little bit bigger with them. And my current publishers, someone who I hope to have a long term relationship with, especially because they're really building out their horror program. They have books coming out from Jonathan Jans, Eric laraka That just Jonathan Mayberry just had a book come out with them. So they're really, uh, there's really a bit of a focus in our genre there right now. And like you said, they put up, obviously amazing audio books. So you know, the goal is to continue working on a relationship with them, if we can. But I think just in general, the novel novels that I do in the future, will be with bigger publishers, and then I will continue to put out novellas myself. I don't have anything lined up right now, you know, so that's kind of probably a year or two out before, like the next thing. And then also, I want to continue to work with small presses. So I had a very interesting conversation over the weekend with a pretty well known, small process about maybe doing a project together at some point in the next couple years. So it's really just, you know, I want to continue working as like a hybrid author, and just do fun projects here, there and everywhere as I can

Michael David Wilson 51:34
Yeah, well, we can't comment on air as to who that, you know, indie publisher could be, but I have a feeling I know who it could be. I was listening to the whole conversation. You mentioned some of the people you met up with on your tour, so yeah, excited to see how that develops. For sure.

Brian Asman 51:55
You know, you know, you know, like you go to conventions and you go to events and you have different conversations with people, and sometimes things pan out, and some things sometimes they don't, but there are a few indie presses that I think are really doing a great job, and they're on my short list of presses I would love to work with if I could going forward. So you never know what will happen, but there are certainly people that I do want to collaborate with.

Michael David Wilson 52:20
Yeah, yeah. And it's always interesting kind of hearing different people's paths to publishing and their strategies. And we've said on this as horror many times before. You know there's no one definitive path. There's only the one that works for you at that time. But it certainly is an interesting one to place the novellas independently, to put the novels out with Trad publishers. But I know that early on, this is something that you've been focused on. This isn't something you just decided. You know for as long as we've known each other, I think that's been the strategy, that's been the vision and well, it's working out pretty well for you so far.

Brian Asman 53:07
Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, as much as I'm a pantser when it comes to the writing itself, when it comes to the business aspect, like I do try and do things like a little bit strategically, and think through, you know, the pros and cons and how to how to get where I want to go, you know. And I think, you know, Michael, you mentioned we've known each other a very long time. And I think, you know, one of the things I started doing, when I first started learning about this, specifically the industry, was sort of plotting out my roadmap, you know, where I had, okay, I need to get, you know, if I can, I kept looking at things as stepping stones, right? So if I could get a story published over here, then that's, I've got a right? I've got a credit. If I get a story published in this market, well, you know, then I'm working towards my active Hwa membership. And if I get something published over here, they're like, you know, just kind of putting together, accumulating, like a career, essentially. And then, you know, trying to do things as strategically as possible. I think one mistake that a lot of writers make, and especially with indie publishing, is that they rush their first publication. Because, Dear God, I understand. I wanted so badly to be published on, you know, when I first started, I wanted more than anything. And I remember I went to a convention here called mid summer scream in 2017 when I first joined my local Hwa chapter. And you know, I was working, I was working the table. And you know, people would be like, Oh, so you're a writer? I'm like, yeah. They're like, what do you have? Do you have anything published? I'm like, No, you know, and that was, you know, kind of a rough I think everyone goes through that where they're like, I'm a writer, and I really want to tell people that I'm a writer, but I don't have anything published yet, and you feel the stigma right that you're grappling with as a writer, writer, you need that validation of having publications. And I think people will sometimes rush into publishing a book that isn't ready. Just to get it out there. And they don't take the time to learn about the business of publishing. They don't take the time to learn what makes a book Good, I think, a lot of time they don't actually like reading that much. And instead, once you they want to be known as a writer versus they want to create, they want to contribute to the ultimate body of work in this area of artistic achievement that a lot of us love, and that's why we're here, right? Is because we love, we love books, and we love horror, and we want to contribute to humanity's understanding of horror fiction, right? Not to be too pompous about it. But then there are other people who are like, Well, I just want to, I want to have a book, and I want to be able to tell people that I'm an author. And, you know, you see sometimes with indie published stuff where it's like, we stay again an editor. And I just want to tell those people, like, as much as you want it, sometimes it's better just to slow down and because you only get that one first shot at a debut book. So make it count.

Michael David Wilson 56:03
Yeah. And I think when you talk about contributing to horror and to literature overall, I mean, it seems very evident to me that in terms of what you're releasing, the Satya breadth. I mean, perhaps when you initially put out, I'm not even supposed to be here today. People might have thought, you know, okay, this is kind of the brand of Brian Asman books, but, but actually not at all. I mean, if you Now contrast that to Man fuck this house and now good dogs, it's like the only commonality is that it's written by you, and you're going to have a good time, but in terms of sub genre, in terms of style, so, yeah, I I love that approach. It's something we've seen with Josh maleman as well. I think it's something we've seen with Chuck Wendig, perhaps initially in his career with the Miriam Black Books, people felt, Oh, we figured him out. And it's like, surprise, mother, fuck, I know you haven't Oh, and he's releasing things like, I think it was called Black River orchard. Then it's almost the stand like length in terms of the tone, whereas before they'd been these quick, almost hard boiled action novels, so I think it's important to not get, I suppose, in acting, we might say typecast, and you, you have dispelled that completely. And that's what's exciting about a Brian Asman release. Like, I don't know what I'm gonna get from you.

Unknown Speaker 57:42
Thank you.

Brian Asman 57:43
Thank you. Yeah, that's certainly what I was, I was going for. And you know, one of the writers that's inspired me in this respect is Joe Lansdale, where he is a genre of himself, and he can write pulp and he can write crime fiction, he can write horror novels and all kinds of stuff. And you know, going in, you know that you're getting, you're getting certain things of a Joe Lansdale book, right? And no matter what the genre or the tone or whatever is, you know, and that's kind of what I was going for. And I'm glad to hear that I, you know, when I say I did everything strategically, that doesn't mean my strategies were always the right ones, but I'm generally pleased with how things have gone, you know, I go back, and I think if I had to do it over again, I'm not sure I would have started my career with horror comedy as much as I love it. I think that did, you know, introduce the danger of me being typecast in a certain area, you know? And luckily, you know, luckily, I think I've been able to shift out of that and just continue to demonstrate to people, look, I can write a whole broad breadth of different things, right? And hopefully people are seeing that.

Bob Pastorella 58:52
Oh yeah, definitely I'm seeing it. And when you said the Joe Lansdale thing, that's and, you know, I think we're getting, we're starting to get to point to where we have a Brian Asman book, you know, we don't know what it's going to be. We know that it's going to be over the top. It might be funny, but it's going to have, it's got, it's got your unique flavor, your unique approach to the story is, you know, any in good dogs, there's, there's a lot of really, really funny stuff. I mean, I cracked out loud on a lot of stuff, but man, that that action sequences were, well, just, just beautiful. They they were just, it's perfect pacing. And I really, really like that. And I see that that's, that's, to me that's like an area that you that you've kind of grown in, and if you can apply that, and, you know, I imagine that you'd probably would have something dreary and serious, you know, later on in the future. But also I feel that you could probably go back to the horror comedy. Me with some some action in there, and we would just see that, that that natural progression. So, you know, keep all the arms into fire.

Brian Asman 1:00:08
Oh, I intend to, like, I love writing a different, like, a lot of different stuff. I actually had a book that was much more serious come out last year. Black Heart speed is one, which is, you know, no, there are zero pop culture references in the entire book. There are, effectively, I think there's maybe one or two kind of jokes, but there's essentially no jokes. It's, you know, a very dark book about lost love and the pain that brings. And that's also been my least popular book. So who knows? That's the world is telling me, No, motherfucker, we want you to write funny stuff. But, yeah, we'll see. Ideally, I want to be able to bring a blend of things to what I do. You know, when I was having my book launch event last week with Jonathan Mayberry, we were talking and, you know, he mentioned the the funny parts in it, you know, is something that struck him. And what I said at the time was that, you know, when you go back and watch the old universal monster movies from like the 30s and 40s, they're not just one tone, right? They're not just horror. There are moments of action and moments of comedy, and even in Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man, which is one of my favorites. There's a musical number in the middle of it. And I think with the those old movies try to deliver like a full range of human experience to the audience over the hour and 10 minutes of the film, right? And that's one of the things that inspires me with fiction, is life isn't just one note, right? Life isn't just horror, life isn't just comedy, life isn't just action, unless you're John Wick, I guess life, life is a variety of different things. I want to represent that in my fiction and deliver just a full experience to the reader.

Bob Pastorella 1:01:56
You see a lot of those movies actually listed as thrilling, and I think that that because of the genre of thriller, basically, of you know that it's, it's, you know, what I would call mystery, the concept of thrilling is, is lost to to modern audiences. And so you're, you're right, you notice, oh, the universal films, they had to cater to it, to, you know, to a general audience. If you notice, a lot of those films are actually rated G General. Okay, not they didn't really have a ratings classification at the time. But the the whole thing was, is that they had to cater to a lot of different people because they wanted to fill the theater seats. So that's why everything was thrilling. And I think that we need to kind of capture some of that in all aspects of our writing. Is to make things to where they're thrilling, whether it's, you know, romance or mystery, comedy or in horror. And so we want to to broaden at the same time, we need to kind of also narrow down on some shit. So, you know, it's, it's, it's a balancing act that's really, it's kind of hard to do.

Brian Asman 1:03:14
Yeah, it definitely is. And to your point, too, when you think about, like the modern version of this, like Pixar movies, right where they they're capable of appealing to kids and adults, because I think they focus on good storytelling principles. So there's something that everyone can get from it, right? And, you know, instead of just something being one note they have to off, they offer that full breadth of experience to everyone. And they they are do, generally, they are able to appeal to everyone, which is, which is rare. Usually, you know, they say, if you're trying to appeal to everyone, you appeal to no one. But I think there are ways that we can appeal to a much broader audiences. And given how, how horror is still somewhat niche, although it's definitely broken out of its, you know, it's, it's small section in the back of the bookstore, and it's become much more mainstream. You know, I think as writers, it's important for us to think about the future, right? And how can we get can we continue growing the genre, bringing in new readers and appealing to these sorts of people who, you know, when you mentioned that you write horror, they get that look on their face like, you know, like you just farted or something, right? And, you know, I went to this thing called the writers police academy in Wisconsin a couple years ago, and it is, it's a weekend event where you take all these classes with local police officers, and it's generally geared towards mystery writers. And so I'd say probably 70% of the people there were, you know, over certain demographic, generally, like, you know, women in their 50s and 60s who wrote, who write stuff that's more like on, probably on the cozy side, you know, and which so I, you know, I'd be saying their dinner and mentioned that I write horror, and they just get this that, that that far face look on their face that I mentioned. You know, just like, what you know, this is so disgusting, and I just want to be like, Y'all are dropping bodies too. Don't act like you're better than me, you know. I think a lot of the the stigma that horror still has is that, you know, people love horror, but they don't always like think that what they love it is horror, you know. And so, you know, because horror is in all kinds of things, right? It's an emotion. And, you know, there are people who probably like, love The Silence of the Lambs or something like that, and then they're like, Oh, you like horror movies. I'm like, that makes me want to throw my arms, you know, just like, don't you see? Don't you see that something like saw, there's like, not that much daylight between something like saw in Silence of the Lambs or something, you know?

Michael David Wilson 1:05:45
Yeah, this is why I've said over the years with this is horror. I hope to expand the definition for a lot of people in terms of what horror is. You know, it's, this is horror, but this is horror, and this is horror too, yeah, that's what

Brian Asman 1:06:00
I love about it, it's, I always say it's like the broadest possible tent, because you can have like, you can do so much with the genre, right? You can have horror that's set on a spaceship, like with alien, right? You know, that's a horror story. But with certain other genres, there are certain they're they're more restrictive with their conventions, where it's like horror, because it's a feeling horror can happen literally, anywhere, anytime, to anyone.

Michael David Wilson 1:06:28
Thank you so much for listening to Brian Asman on this is horror. Join us again next time for the second and final part of the conversation. But if you want that and every other episode ahead of the crowd, become our patreon@patreon.com forward slash. This is horror. Not only do you get early bird access to each episode, but you can submit questions to each and every guest. And coming up soon, we will be chatting with LP Hernandez, Ross, Jeffrey Wesley suffered amongst many others, okay. Before I wrap up, a quick advert break.

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Bob Pastorella 1:07:49
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Michael David Wilson 1:08:19
Now a big thank you to those who have reviewed or rated this is horror on Apple and Spotify and a big thank you too to those who have rated or reviewed my books on Amazon and Goodreads. A few weeks back, I got this wonderful review for House of bad memories from Brian Bowyer. I had a blast with this one, a fast, dynamic and beautifully written novel. House of bad memories is filled with propulsive dialog that will keep you flying through its pages. I'm looking forward to reading more from Wilson, highly recommended. Well, thank you, Brian. Now that about does it for another episode of This is horror, but until next time for part two, with Brian Asman, take care of yourselves. Be good to one another, read horror, keep on writing and have a great, great day.