Twenty Days and Counting...
CURSE OF THE WHERE WOLF is coming!
Self-promotion is hard. When I was young, I used to be really bad at bragging about stuff. New toys, upcoming vacations, R-rated movies my parents let me watch - within five minutes of talking to somebody, I’d go full-tilt braggadocio. My mom, overhearing me telling an uninterested neighbor about a new Ninja Turtles toy I had just procured, pulled me aside one day and told me that nobody likes a bragger. Nobody? I didn’t want to be liked by nobody… So I took my mom’s words to heart.
Here’s the thing, though - in order to be successful in this world, you need a little self-promotion. That lesson came from my dad. “Nobody is ever going to hand you opportunities,” he told me one day. “You have to work for them.” Every success I’ve had in my life was because I took a chance on myself and, more importantly, convinced somebody else to take a chance on me too. The line between “confident” and “too confident” is a thin one, but to be successful and have the opportunities you want in life, you have to sell yourself to other people.
I sell myself at work every day. I sold myself to my wife, even if I’m still not sure how I pulled that one off. And, currently, I’m trying to sell myself as a writer. I’ve been writing professionally since 2003. And, by professionally, I mean getting paid for my words. I’ve written about film, comics, music, myself, and - as of six years ago - werewolves at a furry convention. It’s the most recent gig that excites me. I love writing comic books. I want to write more of them. But self-publishing comic books is expensive. I’ll never reveal in public how much I spent to make WHERE WOLF and its sequel a reality. I’ll take the exact financial breakdown to my grave. Not because I’m embarrassed by the amount I literally invested in myself and my writing career, but because I’ve blocked the actual amount from my memory as a self-preservation tool. I’ve forced myself to forget the actual amount because to really stop and think about the money I spent on making two graphic novels would leave me drooling in a corner, the witness to some Lovecraftian horror.
I want to make more comics, and eventually I will do so again. I may finance them myself. I may try and crowdfund them. I will definitely try to get somebody to pay me to make them, or at least pay the artist to work with me. But if I’m going to make more comics, I need to develop an audience. That means self-promotion.
I did my fair share of self-promo when WHERE WOLF came out. I bought a billboard in College Station to promote the book.
Apparently that billboard inspired a regular game of Werewolf among Aggies. Did they read the comic? Probably not, but they still reference the billboard, so that’s something.
For CURSE OF THE WHERE WOLF (hitting bookstores on Friday, August 7), I’m really trying to up my game. I hired a wonderful PR specialist who focuses on the comic book scene. And it’s paying off!
https://aiptcomics.com/2026/07/16/exclusive-curse-of-the-where-wolf-horror-comedy/
I am running ads on Meta (boo! hiss! Yes, Meta is terrible, but their online ad program is one of the more robust options right now). I am doing interviews and sending ARCs out and really trying to get the book in front of people. If you live in or near Houston, you can even come to three werewolf screenings I’m doing at the River Oaks Theatre in August: THE HOWLING, AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, and WOLFEN. I’ll be signing copies of the book and workshopping a werewolf-in-film mini-lecture I’m hoping to take on the road later this fall.
I’m doing the work, but it all feels forced. Every time I post a self-promotional link to the book or cold email somebody about the graphic novel, it feels like I’m peeing in their front yard. I’m extremely proud of WHERE WOLF and CURSE OF THE WHERE WOLF, and nothing would make me happier than more people reading the comics - but, baby, it ain’t easy. It, of course, doesn’t help that a big chunk of my day job is marketing, so the idea of self-marketing after a long day of film marketing makes my butthole clench. But self-promo is the name of the game if I want to write another funny book.
So how can you help? I’m glad you asked!
If you’ve read CURSE OF THE WHERE WOLF or WHERE WOLF, please consider leaving a review on Goodreads, Amazon, The StoryGraph, or the blog or platform of your choice. If you haven’t read the books, please consider doing that too! You can read WHERE WOLF for free at GlobalComix and pre-order CURSE OF THE WHERE WOLF at your friendly neighborhood bookstore. If you order from my webstore, I’ll sign it and ship it out within the next few days.
You can request both books from your local library. You can post about the books on social media. You can leave a copy in a Free Little Library. You can ask local comic book conventions to invite me out. You can ask your local movie theaters to do the same. There’s a brand new DCP of GINGER SNAPS, and I’ll introduce the hell out of it if you let me sell copies of my book before and after the screening. You can send a copy to Greg Abbott so he decides to ban it from public schools. Honestly, that’s probably the best promo I could dream of.
Werewolf-willing, CURSE OF THE WHERE WOLF will not be my last comic book. But, in the meantime, I’m going to be a self-promotional machine over the next few months, so apologies in advance. But also, not sorry. I want to write more funny books.
I’ll leave you with this - Christopher Nolan’s THE ODYSSEY is now playing in theaters everywhere, but most people may not realize that Nolan’s film is actually an adaptation ... an adaptation of a movie I made in 1999.
It’s OK, Mr. Nolan. I won’t sue.