I immediately reported it to Facebook using their “report profile” option. Right there in the options you can tell them you think this profile is pretending to be someone else. In this case, I selected “me.” I sent it off and then also proceeded to report every single post and photo as well. I encouraged my friends to do the same. After all, this is about as easy as it gets for Facebook to take a look and say, “yep, that certainly looks suspicious - why would someone choose to repost pictures that don’t belong to them AND copy the captions as well if not to pretend to be something they aren’t?”

I mean, really, anyone with more than two brain cells to rub together could see this was a fake profile, right?

Well, apparently Facebook doesn’t have two brain cells to rub together. Because later that evening, I got a message from Facebook saying that they had looked at the page and determined it “doesn’t violate our community standards,” and would not be doing anything to punish the offender.

What?

After becoming infuriated and requesting another review, I thought about what it means when a company as large and profitable as Facebook - one that is supposedly using cutting edge technology - cannot even handle a layup of the simplest kind when it comes to making its platform safer. As far as I’m concerned, my situation with this interloper is like having the football on the half yard line and all Facebook needs to do is quarterback sneak it into the end zone.

But they can’t. And after I requested a review, I got the same response. The profile page - despite being flagrantly fraudulent - “doesn’t violate community standards.” Which is utter bullshit. I repeated my request for a review, because after the first escalation, you can’t apparently escalate it any further, so you have to go back and click the same buttons you’ve already clicked.

Is it any wonder why public sentiment is less than favorable toward Facebook? This should be a simple security matter; but instead it’s mired in some sort of automated AI review process that, to be blunt, sucks. Where are the human eyes overseeing this review process? It wouldn’t take more than ten seconds to see this situation for what it is and boot the offender off the platform. But security processes appear to be relegated to AI and a system of automated checks. I don’t know if there are any humans involved in the review process.

Instead, Facebook apparently spends its time throttling page feeds in an attempt to squeeze money out of its users to “boost” posts. They slap arbitrary judgments and sentences to Facebook jail upon people who share a funny meme. They allow the continued spread of disinformation that only exacerbates the intellectual erosion of our society. 

Perhaps it’s not in Facebook’s best interests to clamp down on imposters and doppelgängers like this Olawumi Falusi? Perhaps Mark Zuckerberg and his crew think it better to keep the platform a churning maelstrom of chaos where scammers are welcome because they’re another set of eyeballs on ads that bring in money? Maybe it’s better business to forever change our news feeds and reorient them to what Facebook wants us to see, not what we want to see? Where the illusion of security is foisted upon antiquated members of Congress who have no idea how technology works and gleefully swallow the promises of a tech giant who knows what to say to get Washington off their backs.

Facebook isn’t a social media site; it’s a diseased system badly in need of corrective measures. Late last year I shut down my Facebook Page for readers of my novels and fans of my acting because Facebook’s algorithm wasn’t showing any of my posts to any more than a dozen people out of the 2,500 or so that had “liked” my page in the first place. Pretty sure that could be called extortion in certain circles. And they make no bones about it: “boost this post for $10 bucks and it could be seen by an additional 34 people!”

As of this writing, the doppelgänger profile is still there, along with pictures of myself, my family, and my friends. Typo-ridden captions are also there. I assume it’s only a matter of time before this imposter changes their name to mine and starts sending out fraudulent friend requests to others. And I assume that Facebook will continue to say there’s nothing they can do about it because of their supposed “standards.”

When clearly, they have none.

And Facebook.

I’ve stopped subscribing to author services that “funnel” readers into my newsletter sign-up in order to get free ebooks. I’ve stopped worrying about my ranking on Amazon or how many reviews I have on Goodreads. I don’t chase viral trends on TikTok for #booktok or any of that. I’m not actively trolling social media looking for ARC readers in the hopes their reviews will spur some sort of buying frenzy on Amazon or elsewhere.

I don’t need to do that anymore.

On November 4th, I minted the first book in my bestselling Lawson Vampire series, THE FIXER, with Book.io. In full disclosure, it did not - as had the majority of previous mints - sell out right away. It did sell over 1500 copies within an hour or so but it took me an additional two weeks to finish selling the book out. 2750 copies in two weeks is good thing for any book - traditionally-published or otherwise. And while I was at first disappointed that it didn’t sell out as fast as previous mints, the time I spent pushing sales on Twitter BE (Before Elon) gave me a real opportunity to interact with more readers and minters who went back and minted even more copies of my book.

And that’s why I’m really excited about the future.

Ten years ago (thereabouts), a brand new sensation hit the publishing airwaves: ebooks. Digital files of books that you could download and read pretty much anywhere. And then Amazon introduced the Kindle and things changed…a lot. 

Back then, the naysayers said there was no way people would ever give up printed books and that ebooks were simply a fad. While it’s true many people still do love printed books, a whole lot of people really do enjoy ebooks and being able to read them everywhere. 

Back then, the naysayers claimed that in a year or two, ebooks would be forgotten about. But they haven’t been forgotten. Not by a long shot. Ebook revenue in 2022 is projected to reach $13.62 billion USD and market penetration will be around 15% by 2027.

So much for being a passing fad.

What will change, however, is that ebook consumers will want to actually own what they “buy.” Right now, they can’t. Not unless they do a direct sale through an author’s personal website and get that actual digital file. Amazon and other e-tailers only lease the product to them. As more readers become attuned to this reality, they will start to look for ways to ensure their ownership is protected.

NFT books are the solution.

The current barriers to mass adoption for NFT books are few, but still somewhat complex. First, there’s a general distrust of the crypto markets (sometimes for good reason) in general. Second, the process for purchasing NFT books is currently cumbersome. And third, the only way to currently read NFT books is on the website where you mint them.

Three obstacles standing between novelty and widespread adoption. 

That’s it.

The solution to the first obstacle is simply time. As more shady crypto projects fall away and oversight helps firm up the foundations of crypto, people will start exploring it again. The truly great projects will rise to the top, of which the team behind Book.io are certainly one of the very best.

The solution to obstacle two is technological. The process for buying an NFT book needs to be as seamless and simple as clicking a “buy now” button on big retail websites. It shouldn’t matter whether you use Cardano to buy it or some FIAT currency. Your bank or crypto wallet should simply do all the exchanging behind-the-scenes; you shouldn’t have to buy a currency at one place, exchange it, and then transfer it elsewhere to mint. Once that tech is developed (and it probably is being developed right now) then there won’t be any real friction left keeping people from minting.

And as for the third obstacle, that is also technological. But the team at Book.io is working on a mobile reader that will allow minters to read their purchases anywhere. That’s huge. And it’s coming soon. 

So with all of that said, why am I abandoning the so-called “tried-and-true” practices that most authors have been using since ebooks became a thing?

Because they don’t work well enough to justify the expense. All of the advertising in the world is really just a guess. Sure, you can test and re-test ad campaigns on Amazon (and they’re all too pleased to encourage you to keep experimenting) trying to find a decent ROI. But even the best ads don’t garner enough sales unless you’re prepared to spend huge. 

And those author funnels? Most of the time all you attract are people who want a freebie ebook. They don’t engage, they don’t care about the book itself or the author behind it.

As for TikTok, the salad days of #booktok are probably already waning. Once TikTok figured out they had a potential goldmine on their hands, they started figuring out ways to monetize it and work their algorithm to its maximum earning potential. Sure, some folks have had tons of success with it. But are the odds in your favor? I highly doubt it.

Instead, I’m spending my time interacting with a brand new audience - one comprised of eager readers and early adopters who have a vested stake in this new frontier. They’re intelligent, savvy, and enterprising. And they love having conversations with authors about their books and the worlds they’ve created.

Public social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok are limiting interactions unless you pay to be seen. That’s the simple truth. Private social media platforms like Discord don’t throttle posts and they don’t have annoying algorithms that change every few weeks as they try to squeeze more pennies out of users.

Roughly 850 people minted THE FIXER. 850 people who are brand new to the world of Lawson and the adventures that have been written thus far. And they are all reachable using Web3 tech or on the Discord server. I can reach out to a wallet address and airdrop a special thank you NFT to them. I can post a question on Discord and not worry that it will get lost amid a swirling maelstrom of supposedly curated newsfeed items served up by an anonymous algorithm whose only true function is to improve the bottom line of a massive corporation.

So why would I waste time and money trying to find readers through advertising or TikTok posts or book funnels or ARC giveaways when I can instead focus on people who actually have minted my book and reward them for doing so? 

By concentrating on those people who minted THE FIXER, I can interact with them, I can prime the pump - so to speak - for the next mint of book 2 in my series, THE INVOKER on 12 December, and I can attract new readers who may not have minted THE FIXER but see my activity in the community and want to support new authors in the space. All of these things and more are so much more fruitful than simply tossing money at the wall and hoping something manages to stick until the next iteration of an algorithm renders it useless.

After all, if you ask any author - and I’m including myself here - the goal is to have enough time to write the books that we want to write. I never relished the thought of spending hours on social media posting tidbits and quips and videos and hoping something went viral enough to launch my book sales. It’s draining, quite frankly, and wholly unfulfilling.

These days, I can concentrate on getting my writing done and then genuinely enjoy interacting with minters and readers on the Book.io Discord server or my own. It’s immediate and immensely gratifying; the community that is emerging for NFT books is fun and rewarding.

So yes, some authors will no doubt shake their collective heads and say I’m taking too big of a risk by cutting out all of those usual methods that web2 authors are using to try to find new readers. 

But I don’t care. 

I’m not a web2 author any longer; I’m a web3 authorpreneur in the NFT book space…and I couldn’t be happier and more excited about the very near future. I’m building vertical integrations into a massive ecosystem around the universes I’ve created in my books - the ability to scale and expand in all directions is finally here. 

This is the dawning of the age of true creator-owned intellectual property maximum exploitation. (And I’m using “exploitation” in the best sense of the word.)

Anything is possible.

And thanks to the awesome team at Book.io, I’m here for it.

If you’ve read my previous two articles on The Rise of NFT Books (Part 1 is here and Part 2 is here), then you know the many reasons I feel that they represent a true revolution for creators and readers alike. Unconstrained by the shackles of gatekeepers, distributors, and the fact that ebooks are currently not even owned by those who “buy” them, NFT books offer a wide range of solutions to the problems plaguing both traditional and indie publishing. This is the 3rd stage of evolution for the publishing industry and the early adopters will benefit the most.

But only if authors also change their mindset.

I’ve talked at great length about how traditional publishers shot themselves in the proverbial foot at the onset of the ebook revolution by first resisting ebooks (thereby bequeathing Amazon the dominant market share publishers should have had) and then pricing them so ridiculously that it further pushed many authors and readers to embrace indie publishing. And I’ve talked about how while indie publishing represented a step forward, it also has not been the utopia that it might have once appeared. 

At stage 1, the publishers were largely to blame. At stage 2, both publishers and authors bore responsibility. But if stage 3 falters, it will be authors who bear the brunt of responsibility.

Why? Because authors who treat NFT books as if it’s “just another way to publish” are doomed to fail.

What NFT books are, is an opportunity for authors to finally have a real and lasting relationship with their readers. And in this case, it definitely takes two to tango. 

It’s not enough to simply mint an NFT book and expect that a huge audience will miraculously form around you and support your mints. (I mean, maybe Stephen King, right?) For the majority of authors, it’s going to take work to endear you to your potential audience. And it’s work you’d better be willing to put in…because the rewards are worth it. 

It would be especially egregious if any author approaching NFT books at the moment simply put their book out and expected the mint to sell out without any effort on their part. The people who are minting NFT books right now are the early adopters - the readers and NFT enthusiasts who are, in effect, taking a risk on both the platform and the author. They are not simply to be tossed a book and forgotten until the next mint.

Which brings me to a concept I’ve talked about previously, and one that is massively important: rewards.

For authors migrating from traditional publishing, this concept may be especially foreign. Because frankly, we never had much cause for it. The book went out to bookstores and we had no idea who might have bought it unless they - the reader - made the effort to reach out to us. If that happened, maybe we’d write them a response email. Perhaps we sent them a cover flat or a bookmark. 

Maybe.

Indie authors are slightly more comfortable with the notion of rewards because a lot of them put much more marketing effort into their publications. They have to, given the nature of indie publishing. Pens, bookmarks, posters, t-shirts…those physical rewards get distributed to readers or people they meet at conventions.

There’s a progression here and it boils down to this: relationships. 

There’s almost no relationship with the reader in traditional publishing unless they engage on social media somehow. Indie publishing is a bit better. But NFT books offer the most in-depth level of reader interaction and as such, the relationship demands more if it is to be successful.

Since I signed my contract with the awesome team at Book.io for THE FIXER, I’ve been studying the space, mints, reader reactions, minting philosophy, etc.. All of which have led me to develop a 3-tiered reward system and it works something like this.

Tier 3: Airdropped Stories & Novellas

I’m lucky in that my Lawson Vampire series spans 35 adventures (so far) comprised of novels, novellas, and short stories. I’ll be focusing on minting the novels, but some of the novellas and stories occur between the novels in the timelines of events. This enables me to airdrop reading material in between mints. The material is already written and it’s an easy enough matter of making a list of wallet addresses and sending the airdrops to them. If they’ve read the novels, then this is a nice reward and hopefully keeps them invested in the series.

Tier 2: Contests & Raffles

These are an escalator in terms of value and reward for minters. A couple of times each year, I’ll put together contests or raffles that reward those who mint. There may be certain conditions on contest entries to enhance value and investment. My first Tier 2 reward is for those who mint both THE FIXER today and THE INVOKER (book 2) in December. Minters who do so will have a chance to win a trip to the set of the pilot that I’m currently in pre-production on. It’s a big reward and frankly, it’s a pretty nice way to announce my presence in the space. Now, obviously all authors don’t have to do this, but for me, it was important to do so because I want early adopters to know I’m making as much of an investment into this space as they are. 

Tier 1: “Loyalist” Rewards

In my Lawson Vampire series, the humans who help vampire society are known as “Loyalists,” so I took that as the label for my most exclusive rewards tier. Tier 1 rewards are special. They are distributed 3-4 times each year to those who mint and HOLD. They’re in it for the long haul - they want to be invested in the series and the author. They realize that this isn’t a pump & dump but rather the start of a real author/reader relationship. They want to be there for me and my books and I want to be there for them. As such, these perks are reserved for the most ardent fans.

The benefits of instituting a rewards system for your readers is immense. Tier 3 rewards detailed above enhance the benefit of having a book in their wallet. Tier 2 rewards induce reluctance on the part of the minter to pump & dump instead of holding - especially if there is an incentive to hold for a certain period of time. And Tier 1 is designed to reward the minter who is invested for the long haul, as well as reduce secondary market supply and raise the floor (and therefore the value of the investment made by the minter).

Not only do rewards enhance the author/reader relationship but they also improve the value of the NFT book for both parties. For the minter/reader, the NFT’s value is increased if there is less reason to sell it on the secondary due to the ongoing reward structure and distribution. For the author, if an NFT is sold on the secondary, the value of it is greater therefore the amount of the secondary royalty is also greater. 

Now, I’m not naive; there will plenty of authors who come into NFT books and treat it exactly like they’re publishing on Amazon’s KDP platform. And maybe that will work for them. NFT book technology will certainly progress to the point where it’s easier to both publish and purchase than it is right now. But if authors wait until that time, they will miss out on the amazing opportunities that exist right now. Those opportunities, however, do not come without an investment on the author’s behalf. Be it time or actual real cost, authors hoping to capitalize on NFT books absolutely must be prepared to invest time and effort in doing so.

This is a relationship you absolutely cannot “set it and forget it.” You need to be present on social media, you need to interact and answer questions, and you need to reward the people who are willing to take a risk on you. Because there hasn’t yet been a mass migration of web2 readers to NFT books (but it’s coming), attracting web3 readers means that an author has to be willing to commit to the relationship. 

And that means changing the author mindset. 

Plenty of authors might be content sitting around a coffee shop smoking cheap Soviet-era cigarettes waxing philosophically about how no one understand their art. And that’s cool. You do you, boo.

I’m not one of them. And for authors like me who want to expand our audiences and move into an exciting new evolution of publishing, it takes more. More time, more effort, more willingness to connect and treat readers with respect and rewards.

My advice to authors looking to move into NFT books is to figure out how you’re going to reward these early adopters, how you’re going to interact with them, how you’re going to hold up your end of the relationship. It simply has never been this immediate or in-depth. And as an author, you need to be willing to embrace that or risk missing out entirely as it continues to move forward.

What’s Next for NFT Books?

NFT books represent a fantastic opportunity for authors to capitalize on sub rights. Traditionally, authors have relished sub rights sales such as film/TV options, translation rights sales to other countries, audiobook rights, and more for their ability to greatly improve an author’s bottom line. But with NFT books, these avenues may already be open to exploitation without necessitating an agent who can broker those deals.

There’s no reason an enterprising author couldn’t produce their own audio book and then mint that on a platform like Book.io. They could do the same thing with translations of their books. The only upfront cost would be paying someone to translate it into the language of choice. If that translated version is done as a collectible NFT, the cost can easily be recouped at mint. It would further create profit and more if a mass market NFT book is minted later. Audio books could also be translated and minted in much the same way.

It doesn’t end there. Authors could create book trailers & pilot presentations (like I’m doing), and even short or full length films to go with their NFT books, selling them directly to those wallets that minted their NFT book. Will that obviously cost more to produce? Of course. But what we are witnessing with NFT books is the empowerment of creators; being able to take an idea, write it down and then fully realize all of its earning potential without the need for traditional gatekeepers.

That is awesome in every aspect. An author exploiting the capabilities of NFT books has at their disposal the means to create a rabid fan base around the world they’ve created using every available means of media. Never before has this been possible.

But it soon will be.

NFT Books represent the most groundbreaking revolutionary aspects of creation that has ever existed. And the potential will only keep growing, pioneered by the team at Book.io as they work ever further to expand the opportunities for creators all across the Web3 landscape.

As for me, I’m going to be hanging around the Book Discord server today and also my own (discord.gg/CaDhAMzk) answering questions, interacting with minters, and hopefully watching the excitement build. Mint kicks off at 9PM UTC at Book.io - I hope you’ll grab a copy…and maybe I’ll see you on-set!

Since last week, Book.io, the preeminent Web3 publisher of NFT books, has minted three more with great success. (Again, in full disclosure, the first book in my bestselling Lawson Vampire series, THE FIXER, mints with Book.io on Friday November 4th) Book’s passion for groundbreaking mints has been on full display with each one thus far and shows no signs of abating - a good sign for authors everywhere.

With that in mind, let’s delve deeper into what exactly NFT books have the potential to transform for authors.

A New Audience

Writers and authors have long labored to find and keep readers. Without them, we don’t have a career. It’s that simple. But ever since the printing press was invented, we’ve never truly known exactly who our readers have been. Even when Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the church doors, he didn’t know if the cobbler down the street would read it or if the priest inside would. He, like authors everywhere, just hoped that someone might.

This has gone unchanged ever since.

Certainly these days, authors have newsletters. We have social media networks. And we have friends and family who tell us they will be sure to pick up our books, but we don’t have any way of confirming if they ever did buy a copy unless we happen to sign it.

Until now.

Because every transaction is registered on the blockchain, the wallet addresses of every purchaser are accessible to us. We can see immediately who bought our books. And we can follow those bread crumbs through mints, sales, and secondary sales.

Further, it’s my opinion (completely unfounded and unscientific, but hey - it’s my article) that Web3 audiences are more likely to read given the pace at which technology is innovating. Web3 proponents seem more inquisitive and likely to explore topics as they keep tabs on the ever-evolving landscape. That alone bodes well for authors, especially in light of recent studies that show many Web2 people barely read books after they leave school.

But NFT books could also enable authors to potentially bring Web2 readers over to a new ecosystem, albeit at a much slower pace. There’s a significant amount of social media fatigue out there, but alternatives like Discord provide a place where authors and readers can engage without big tech algorithms throttling posts. As technology evolves in the Web3 space, there are actually more opportunities for authors to connect on a much more meaningful level than there are on places like Facebook.

Between new Web3 readers and the migration of Web2 readers, NFT books offer authors a chance to exponentially expand their fan base.

Multi-Content Creation

NFT books also offer something that regular ebooks and printed books cannot: multimedia bonuses. In the first few years after ebooks stormed to proverbial beaches of entrenched publishing, proponents predicted that ebooks would eventually be interactive and have all sorts of extra bells and whistles attached to make them more than just a digital file. Some enterprising folks tried to bring them to market, but they were never truly adapted.

NFT books can do this…and more. One of Book’s latest mints was a novel called The Wizard Tim featuring an obese and lazy town wizard and his assistant who have a fondness for eating pies. In addition to the book itself, folks who minted a copy will have an audiobook airdropped to them at a later time. This audiobook - with a fully-produced cast of voice actors - is a wonderful and tangible benefit to having minted the book itself. And the authors of the book, Tim Canada and Joseph Eleam, can do even more if they choose to - rewarding their readers at any time now or in the future.

It doesn’t stop there. Any novel or book could have its own range of multimedia extras. Imagine a link being airdropped that leads the minter to a video chat with the author, or even an audio excerpt of the author reading a funny or sexy passage.

Ahead of the mint for my own novel, THE FIXER, I’ve been putting together video teasers to seed social media with. But those same teasers could be airdropped to minters of the book, especially as a TV series or feature film moves into full production.

Authors now have the opportunity to write books and directly reward fans for minting them. The days of bookmarks and pens might have been nice, but could now be spent offering up more than just trinkets. Authors can, for example, produce their own podcast for little money and airdrop that to their readers. They don’t have to worry about finding a distributor - the blockchain itself becomes the distributor with a direct line into each of the wallet addresses that minted the author’s NFT book.

The Changing Importance of Reviews

If you search the internet for five minutes or less, you’ll likely find an author’s horror story about some idiot giving them a bad review. And while most professional authors tend to ignore reviews, there’s no doubt that their importance - especially on retail sites like Amazon - has been huge. The algorithms that serve up suggested reading material are weighted strongly toward whether you have a lot of 5-star reviews or not. Even on non-retail sites reviews play a factor.

With NFT books, that may change. Pre-mint, it will obviously benefit the author to publicize any good reviews the book has gotten (blurbs too). Once minted, if the purchaser hates the book, they can simply resell it on the secondary market - something they cannot do now on Amazon or elsewhere.

It’s also entirely predictable that within the professional publishing trades forthcoming mints will be announced along with a review of the book. Whether the same gravitas is extended toward professional reviewers as once was remains to be seen.

Grabbing the Long Tail

Creators have always aspired to achieve what some folks call the Long Tail. “If I can just reach 1,000 committed fans who buy everything I create, I’ll make enough to sustain myself.” But as I’ve mentioned previously, identifying your most loyal fans has always been a challenge. People say one thing and often do another. So while an author might have fans who are vocally supportive, we don’t often know if that talk translates into sales. The inability of authors to access hard sales data means that we often play guessing games when it comes to identifying who the ardent fans are.

That changes with NFT books. Having access to the wallet address of those who mint our books means we can see if they stick around for another book; if they read through the entire series; if they sell quickly after minting or if they hold; and much more. All of these data points help an author formulate appropriate marketing, promotion, and rewards for those who are in it for the long haul. It therefore becomes far easier identifying the people who buy all of our books versus the ones who might just be idly curious.

It’s entirely possible that enterprising authors who move into NFT books will be able to develop reward tokens for those fans who do indeed mint everything and become part of that fabled “long tail.” And some authors may actually develop an entire ecosystem built around identifying the true fans we have always sought. This will be a sort-of inverse relationship to what many creators have right now on Patreon and other sites. There, patrons support the creator (“I give you X number of dollars every month and in exchange you give me content.”) But with blockchain data access, creators can instead reward patrons who consistently mint the author’s books (“I reward you for helping me sell out each and every one of my mints.”)

Collectible NFT Books and Mass Market NFT Books

In their current incarnation, Book is minting collectible NFT books. Similar in nature to printed limited edition books, they are priced higher and feature more extras than the mass market editions that are available to everyone else.

But mass market NFT books are also coming…and soon. With a lower entry price point, these editions will have fewer derivations, if at all. They will be almost identical to regular ebooks available at other retail outlets…save for the fact that those who mint will actually own what they buy.

This two-tier approach to marketing NFT books will most likely help migrate Web2 readers into the Web3 environment - especially as the technology becomes seamless. In other words, while currently you need cryptocurrency and a crypto wallet to mint, the platform will evolve such that anyone with a credit card will be able to bypass, so to speak, the crypto aspect and simply input their credit card number to mint. Or else your credit card will be enabled for crypto transactions and it will be just as simple.

The collector’s market for NFT books will continue to exist as authors will first mint those editions. A mass market NFT book will probably come out some time after the collectible almost like how movies used to have “windows” with a theatrical release prior to moving to home cable or streaming.

Immediate Payment

If you’ve ever wondered what payment looks like in the traditional publishing world, it goes something like this: a deal is offered, usually with an advance against future royalties. That advance is typically paid half on signing the contract and half on the acceptance of the manuscript. (Some contracts do it 1/3 on signing, 1/3 at midway point, and 1/3 on acceptance.) That advance is money the publisher pays you that it then recoups once your book goes on-sale. And if you have an agent, they get ten percent of everything you earn.

Here’s the problem: the time that it takes for traditional publishers to bring a book to market - to put it in stores - can be anywhere from one year to eighteen months on average. So that money you got upfront has to last you that length of time. And trust me when I tell you that the amount of most advances for anyone other than the highest bestselling authors can be boiled down to…well, let’s just leave it up to ol’ Matt Foley, shall we?

Jack. Squat.

Exactly.

Now, when you’re finally in bookstores you’re excited because hey, you’re finally published! But that excitement only lasts so long. Say, maybe six months, which is right around when your very first royalty statement comes in. Publishers pay royalties every six months - because there’s nothing that says, “we refuse to change and embrace technology for the benefit of our authors” like paying someone twice a year and expecting them to survive on it.

Your royalty statement pretty much looks like it was uncovered in an ancient tomb of some forgotten Sumerian priest. You try to find your advance and the first bits of sales that were counted against it. Lessee, units sold…uh huh…that means this much has gone back to publisher as they recoup their advance money they paid me, which should leave me with…wait, what in the holy F is that?

“Reserves Against Returns?”

Oh yes, indeed. The infamous Reserves Against Returns is a cute little amount that publishers use to cushion their bottom line against the returns that might come in from the very same bookstore who purchased copies of your book. The store can return the unsold copies for their money back. Unless you’re in mass market paperback, in which case they simply strip the cover off and send that back, and then junk the actual book.

So that money you thought was going toward your advance is instead being held onto by the publisher in their account, being pooled with tons of other Reserves Against Returns dollars earning all sorts of interest while you hope and pray that the bookstore doesn’t return that many copies. Don’t worry, after another couple of royalty statements, that money slowly gets released to count toward earning out your advance.

And then finally, you’ve earned out and can hopefully now expect some actual royalties to come into your account. Typically a year or two after you hit the shelves. Of course, by now, for the majority of authors, your book is dead: it lives in the stores for a mere six weeks on average.

(It’s at this point that I realize I could have simply written an entire series of articles on the absurdity of accounting practices employed by traditional publishing…)

ANYWAY…it’s not a good way to live - looking at the mailbox expectantly every six months. It’s stupid, antiquated, and frankly there’s no way it should be like this. Even grocery stores that sell old milk back to the wholesaler usually take a loss of $1.50 per gallon. But in traditional publishing that loss is passed directly to the author, not the publisher.

NFT Books are a game changer. You get paid at the moment of the transaction. In perpetuity. You can plan your finances instead of having to peer into a crystal ball and wonder how much of your Reserves Against Returns are going to be released this half of the year. “Eight bucks? Well, maybe May 2372 will be better.”

No thanks.

Traditional publishing is utterly brutal when it comes to an author’s finances and stories abound of forensic accounting uncovering all sorts of…well, let’s just call them “anomalies.” NFT books solve this problem in a huge and empowering way.

These are just a few of the aspects of NFT books that will revolutionize the entire creator economy. Yes, authors will likely reap the benefits first thanks to Book.io, but this same method will extend to musicians, filmmakers, and anyone else soon, too. Web3 has the potential to truly empower creators. Freed from the limits imposed by big tech and its algorithms as well as their obligation to shareholders, advances in Web3 and blockchain technology mean that creators will be able to know their fans, reach those fans, and get paid by those fans - faster and more accurately than ever before.

Not a bad time to be creating…

If you enjoyed this or the previous article, feel free to mint it as an NFT and send a little coin my way. Because I’m never against pimping myself, lol…

Over the last few months, a rising star of the Web3 world, Book.io has been making some very interesting moves within the publishing space. Launching earlier this year, Book’s first foray into minting NFT books was to release works in the public domain with AI artwork created by artist Billy R. to produce variations and rarities for the books themselves. While the text was the same, the covers offered a more recognizable facet that NFT enthusiasts could get behind: artwork.

The results of these mints, which have happened weekly on average, have been to sell out - sometimes in as little as 2 minutes. Granted, these are not huge numbers (at least not in terms of either traditional publishing figures or even PFP art NFT projects themselves, which can number 10,000 or more). But as a proof-of-concept, the mints have worked to establish Book as a powerful player in the Web3 publishing space. So much so that the company has secured investments from both Ingram and the Bertelsmann Group. They have also been immediately profitable as a company, something that is certainly worthy of respect.

But the biggest mint for Book so far was last night’s mint of The Heretic, the first book in Joseph Nassise’s bestselling Templar Chronicles.

It sold out of its entire run of 2764 NFT books in 45 seconds.

45 seconds.

What would have once taken weeks - if not months to accomplish (something unlikely given the 6-week life expectancy of most books on a shelf in a store) - happened in under one single minute. This happened for several reasons: first, Joe is a damned good storyteller and the book is great. Also, the team at Book are all industry professionals who know how to run a company and have a very smooth minting process in place. And third, the technology of the Web3 space itself is creating a whole new audience for books. (In full disclosure, I am also partnering with Book and The Fixer, the first book in my bestselling Lawson Vampire series, will mint as an NFT book on November 4th.)

So what is it about NFT books that should make other authors sit up and take notice? After all, the news is rife with accounts of crypto fraud and NFT projects that are “rug pulls” or worse. How can an author trust this environment and why should they?

To be honest, it wasn’t all that long ago that ebooks were the topic du jour. Traditional publishing, which can reasonably be argued to move at the pace of a catatonic snail who overdosed on fentanyl, rejected the emergence of ebooks as viable and in doing so, gifted Amazon with a dominant market share.

Further, there were some publishers who branded ebooks as a threat and had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the future. Once there, they further proceeded to shoot themselves in the foot by pricing ebooks at outrageous levels.

By that point, it was largely too late. No one could reasonably offer up any sort of resistance to Amazon - even Barnes & Noble’s Nook went down in flames and Kobo has only ever had a very small market share - and the behemoth continued scooping up both new indie authors and former traditional authors who were exhausted by bi-annual royalty checks and meager advances that no one could ever be expected to survive on without an additional job or three.

But Amazon knew what they were doing. They gave authors 70% royalty rates and paid net-60 which was far, far superior to anything that the dinosaurs in NYC publishing tossed out. And as Amazon continued its conquest, the midlist authors of old - those who ground out books with decent sell-through but never quite hit it big for one reason or another - started to see the giant meteor hurtling toward them at an alarming rate.

Adapt or die.

Amazon was ready to welcome these midlisters with open arms. I should know: I was one of them. By the time that ebooks started making waves, I’d been published by most of the largest houses in NYC. I had a decent fan base but never got anything near what could be called “support” from the houses that published my books - awful cover art for the most part, no marketing, scant reviews, and no push from the boardroom since they were busy pimping the manifesto of another reality TV star who had successfully managed to pick their nose without making their brain bleed and had been paid six-figures to tell the rest of us all about it.

So instead of accepting the fate of being a starving author (because it’s really not sexy), I got my rights back and went indie. When the first book in my middle-grade adventure series The Ninja Apprentice (which my awesome agent and I labored over for nearly eighteen months until it was fairly perfect) was rejected by every house because (and I shit you not), “boys don’t read,” I took it over to Amazon and proceeded to sell 100,000 copies of it…as an ebook.

Since then Amazon has offered up a platform for indie and hybrid authors to make a decent living. I say decent because it’s not a bed of roses by any means. Yes, you can go exclusive with Amazon and get enrolled into Kindle Unlimited, which pays you fractions of pennies per page when people read your books, you can offer up freebies, and special promotions, and you can advertise. But it’s a lot harder than most people think it is.

There are some author holdouts even to doing this. They’re stuck in the traditional mentality that has reigned supreme for hundreds of years. There is a certain romance about being a traditional author. My first novel came out right before my first son was born and I was in awe of the mystique of editorial lunches, book launches, and more. It’s very nice being able to tell someone they can find your book “in any store.” And the pleasure of holding an author copy delivered by the UPS driver is really cool.

But those days are mostly gone unless you happen to command rarefied status among authors. And most working writers do not. Some do, for sure. But most? No way.

NFT books are a game-changer. And traditional publishing is not going to be happy unless they adapt - again.

First off, NFT books offer readers actual ownership of the ebook. All of those ebooks that people read, movies they stream, and music they download aren’t actually owned by them: they’re licensed. Those files can be wiped out on a whim or removed from your library if Amazon or another retailer finds an arbitrary reason to disable your account.

But an NFT book is yours forever. The transaction is stored on the blockchain and the file itself is accessed through an anonymous e-reader app. It’s safe, secure, and accessible anywhere at anytime.

Then there’s the sales data that you have access to. The blockchain stores all transactions based on which “wallet” purchased which NFT book. That wallet address is a sales information goldmine. Having a list of people (via their wallet address) who purchased your NFT book means you can reach out and airdrop them a special freebie for doing so. Or maybe it’s the latest issue of your newsletter. Or maybe it’s a birthday bonus or news of an upcoming mint. Never before have authors had this level of data. Traditional publishers literally have no clue who buys their books; Amazon does have that data but never shares it with authors.

And the result of authors not having data like this is that we throw money into advertising hoping to seduce Facebook’s algorithm into more than a one-night stand; we pay for monthly newsletter services and weep over poor open rates because issues end up in spam or junk folders; and we try to imitate viral dances on TikTok hoping people might pick up our book (er…well, one of us did). It’s a ridiculous amount of spend to try to find and keep readers.

NFT books give every author what we’ve always wanted: access to the people who bought our book. This alone should spur every author to check out Web3 publishing.

Let’s talk money.

Traditional publishing offers an advance against royalties upon signing a deal - and those advances have largely shrunken over the years to the point they’re laughably pitiful - and further royalties if you earn that advance out. But that’s it. As long as your book is in retail stores or your ebook is available (and if you’re a traditional author who signed away your ebook rights, good luck getting them back) you’ll continue to earn money. Indie authors who sell their own books on Amazon and elsewhere don’t necessarily get advances but do command better royalties as long as they keep their books in circulation.

But NFT books offer something neither of those avenues do: continued royalties on the secondary market. Because the NFT book is sold on the blockchain, minters can set a secondary market royalty rate. This means if the person who minted your NFT book decides to sell it at some point to someone else on the secondary, you get that royalty delivered right into your wallet the second the transaction goes through. And if that second person sells it again, you get that same royalty again. And again. In perpetuity.

This is the passive income generator that most authors dream of (all right, maybe I’m the only one who’s been dreaming of this, I dunno). Your books at long last have the ability to earn for the rest of time. Never before have authors had this secondary sales royalty and it’s finally here. It might be small - say .30 cents per sale - but that .30 cents isn’t that far off the royalty I was making when my first mass market paperback came out twenty years ago. And multiplied exponentially across different books and buyers, it’s truly revolutionary stuff.

“But Jonnnnnnnnnn, people still want to read an actual book in their handsssssss…”

Can you tell I’ve heard that before? They whined the same thing when ebooks hit the scene. And yes, I get it. I love the feel of a book in my hands. The smell of the ink. The allure of a bookstore (and I love me some bookstores, lemme tell ya.)

NFT books are coming for that also. Book has partnered with Ingram and are pioneering a “mint and print” process for NFT books. So in the near future it will be possible to have that printed book you crave. Certainly that’s not a week away, but the tech is heading in that direction. Just as print-on-demand rapidly improved as more indie authors craved a means of producing print books, so too will NFT books have their day in the printing press, so to speak.

Look, I get it: being an indie author is hard. We wear a lot of hats. And some of the authors I’ve spoken to are already fatigued at the prospect of another tech advancement when all they want to do is write. And that’s fine. But the changes that NFT books represent will have a truly beneficial impact on the lives of those authors who choose to get involved with them.

Ownership of the asset for readers, sales data, secondary market royalties, initial massive payout at mint, and much more…NFT books are the sort of things authors dream of.

Well, at least this author anyway. I’ve been dreaming of this ever since I started writing.

Oh, and I’m pretty sure my buddy Joe had a great night sleep last night, too.

Click here for The Rise of NFT Books - Part 2!

He showed up when I was delivering newspapers one early sunny morning and found a customer of mine laying face up in a flower bed with a knife jutting out of his chest. It was close to halloween and for a moment, I thought it was someone’s idea of a prop or a prank. But it wasn’t. It was Death.

Cold, unforgiving, brutal, and stark.

Throughout the years, I’ve seen Death an awful lot. There are several distinct occasions in my life when I should have died. And when you come that close to the edge as I have, you tend to develop an odd sort of respect and curiosity for it. I don’t dwell on it, but I certainly am aware of it. In many ways, my own mortal clock hovers about due to the fact that my father passed when he was 48 years old and his father before him at 47. I turn 46 in October and I’d be a lying sack of shit if I claimed that their deaths don’t affect me at all, because they certainly do. Granted, their lifestyles including heavy smoking, which I never took up aside from trying it every now and again with cigars and clove cigarettes (hey, it was the 90s – everything was fucked up then…).

I’ve lost a lot of friends. Brothers. Comrades. People you bleed with, sweat with, cry with, laugh with, and ride with. The kind of close friends that you think you’re gonna rule the world with – or at least kick ass with – and then Death shows up and they’re gone in the blink of an eye.

No doubt my own chronological timeline has factored into why I post as often as I do on Facebook about motivation and living and daring to fully embrace your existence. When you see Death as much as I have, it makes you appreciate everything that much more. Every detail. Every little bit of happiness wrung from a day doing nothing but spending time with your family being goofballs and eating ice cream.

It also makes you keenly aware of how very many people fail to appreciate what they have in front of them. How much people take for granted. How thoughtless they are with their behavior. How little time they take to appreciate a kind turn or a smile or a genuine display of affection. They can’t be bothered. Or they can’t be responsible. Or some other excuse. You’ll hear the phrases like, “I’ll get to it later.” Or “Well, he knows I’m grateful so I don’t have to say thanks,” or any one of a million other terms people use to deflect personal responsibility and keep themselves insulated or protected from showing some sign of emotional vulnerability.

Yeah, you’re out there. Some of you may even be reading this. Who knows? All locked up behind those walls you’ve built thinking you’re being smart when all you’re really doing is depriving yourself of a rich life of experience and wonder. Doesn’t that get old? Don’t you get tired of pretending you’re invincible or immune from pain and hurt? Don’t you wonder what it’s like to really let your spirit soar as high as it can? Or are you truly happy living within the confines of the prison you’ve created for yourself?

You’ll laugh. You’ll blow this off. You’ll insist that you never did anything wrong or ever played a part in some risky gambit. It’s easier, after all, to simply hide in your shell and wait for the storm to pass only to poke your head out afterward and see if the coast is clear.

It’s a cowardly way to live life, though.

So I post things that ask people to examine who they are and then dare to try something different. Maybe I’m hoping that folks will learn from my mistakes.

I spent a lot of my life locked away behind those same walls that I see so many others living behind. I spent a lot of my life convinced that showing vulnerability was akin to being a weakling or a fool or someone that could be taken advantage of. I spent a lot of my life living in fear that I wasn’t man enough according to someone else’s standards of what a man was. I covered that insecurity up by training in martial arts; I covered that insecurity up by entering the military and doing other work that forced me to confront fear on a very primal level. I spent a lot of my youth mostly trying to talk myself into believing that I was a badass. And in many ways, I may have been. I could fight. I could shoot. I could harm people in a whole lot of horrible ways. I knew things that most people don’t even dream about. And that gave me a lot of shell to surround myself with.

But I wasn’t a true badass.

Because it’s only when you have the courage to open yourself up to the world – to show your weaknesses and your vices and your insecurities and the things that make you tick – that you understand what true strength and true character actually is.

Believe me, doing this type of stuff is about as opposite extreme as you can get based on my earlier life. You kept your secrets, you kept everything hidden lest someone be able to use those against you. It’s how I was taught. It’s how I was trained.

But Death…well, Death changes things. Death doesn’t give a shit about your secrets or how macho you look or how many women you’ve slept with or how much money you have. Death is the greatest equal opportunity of all.

Everyone dies.

Not everyone truly lives, however.

This morning, I was eating breakfast and was approached by someone I haven’t seen in a long time. A really nice guy. When I knew him, he weighed about 350 pounds. Today, he stood before me at about half that weight. I wish I could say that he’d taken up working out or dieting or some other good reason for weight loss. The truth is he has cancer. And when he stood before me, I was literally gobsmacked. I barely even recognized him. Only his eyes told me his identity. The rest of him is a shell of the man he once was – loud, boisterous, full of energy, and maybe a bit on the talkative side. But a good man at that.

He’s younger than I am. I won’t elaborate on his prognosis because I don’t believe in broadcasting that type of negative energy out there. I am deeply hopeful he recovers, however, since he has a young daughter of 13 and because he is a good man who deserves a longer life with his loved ones.

The realization that this man has cancer has saddened me more than I expected it too, quite frankly. Perhaps because he’s close to my age. Perhaps because his spirit is one that always brought a smile to my face, even if it came with an annoying amount of talking from time-to-time.

Or maybe it’s because I saw the regret in his eyes this morning. Regrets of what he hasn’t yet done or people he hasn’t yet loved. Regret that he knows his time may be short and there may not be enough left to do everything he suddenly wants to do.

It’s only when you face Death that you realize how little so many bullshit things in life matter. And it’s only then that you see how much strength you have – strength you had all along – but hidden beneath a crushing weight of conforming to societal pressures or rampant insecurities. You realize – often far too late – that your supposed life has been one of near suffocation as you’ve grappled with over-scheduled madness, keeping up with the Joneses, or annoyances that are only just that and not the world-ending drama you’ve made them out to be.

And you regret it.

Death makes you a time traveler. In an instant or over the span of weeks or months, you look back and see where you went wrong. You see the foolish moves you’ve made and you wonder why you chose one path over another. You see the hearts you’ve broken – often without even realizing it – and you see the sadness you’ve wrought as is inevitable in the course of living.

You see the good, too. You see the victories. You see the love realized in the smiles and tears and laughter of those you hold most precious.

You find a measure of yourself. Sometimes, it holds up. Sometimes, it doesn’t.

And when it doesn’t, you regret it.

So I post a lot about life because regret is one of those things that can easily be avoided. And yet so many people run right toward it and it saddens me. I’m not off on some mission to rid the planet of regret (although that would be pretty sweet if we could all make it go away) but more to maybe make people think about how regret is largely self-imposed and how they can avoid it if they choose to.

Seeing my friend today (and probably calling him a friend isn’t appropriate per se, but I’ll do so anyway because it’s my post dammit) made me sad for his family and for him. It made me sad for the people I know who imprison themselves in the rush of everyday life and forget to live. It made me sad that those people will also know the pain of regret if they continue on the path they’re on.

But the future is never set.

And while Death is great at sending you back in time, Life is great at propelling you forward…to all possibilities and potentials.

Stop saying things like, “I shouldn’t.” Or, “I can’t do that.” Or, “What will everyone think?” Stop putting limits on yourself and your life. Embrace risk. Relish in the silliness of getting drunk with friends. Treasure a text or a phone call from a friend. Surprise someone with a hug from behind. Jump on an elevator and say hi to a complete stranger. Compliment someone just because you can. Go into your child’s bedroom and snuggle with them – even if they’re a teenager. Kiss your lover. Never forget to say thank you. And never stop smiling.

Our greatest strength is from not overcoming insurmountable odds. Our greatest strength comes from realizing that we are all – everyone one of us – free to live our lives to the greatest extent we possibly can…once we stop caring what others think. Our paths are our own to walk as individual souls.

We come into this world alone, naked, and afraid. We didn’t have any say in the matter.

How we leave is entirely up to us.

***

This is a long, meandering post. Frankly, I don’t know if it makes all that much sense. But I wrote it and it’s helped me work through some shit, so there’s that at the very least. If you get nothing else from it, remember to be thankful for what you have, the people who are in your life, and the adventures before you. Take a deep breath, say a silent “thank you,” and keep on livin’…

We’ve all seen this one before, right? It’s a popular meme that makes the rounds on the Internet from time to time, usually in the company of another popular term “community.” Community is a constantly touted ideal that promises to help you reach success or feel a sense of companionship or simply feel some level of support for whatever it is you’re going through. Whether it’s fitness: “I do Maxfit and I just love the community of other people who do the workouts with me,” or hobbies, “Did you know that the People Who Write Sumerian Love Sonnets Community now boasts a global membership of 7?” or even our health, “I’m a member of the Ruptured Toe Nail Survivors,” saying we’re a part of a community not only makes us feel better, but also validates us in some powerful ways. When we do things that others do, it reinforces this notion that we’re on the right track. If others are doing it, then there’s approval built in – we find strength in numbers, camaraderie in shared experience, and positive feedback from those within the community we’re a part of.  Community – if the hype is to be believed – is the surest path to all the success and happiness we could ever hope to achieve.

Except it’s not.

I’ve been part of a number of communities over the years. And I’ve seen the difference between “real” communities and the ones that claim to be, but in fact are not. Let’s look at the reason why and then examine why community is often just another marketing ploy.

The biggest difference has to do with how you become a member of a particular community.

In the military, for example, elite special operations units are not open to everyone. There is an intense selection process that candidates must go through where they endure harsh training, serious adversity, and more as they attempt to prove their competency and ability to be part of the special operations community. Selection is a lengthy process where lesser candidates, for one reason or another, are weeded out until only the most suitable are left and selected to join whichever unit they aspire to be part of. Along the way, they have shed gallons of sweat, tears, and often blood to prove their worth. And when they join their particular unit, they are in the company of others who have gone through an almost identical baptismal process. In other words, the company they keep has undergone exactly what they went through. There’s an inherent understanding and bond created in Selection that all members of that particular community share.

I saw this same process when I was aspiring to earn my place in the advanced class at the Ninjutsu dojo I attend. The Friday night advanced training was only open to practitioners of a certain rank and in order to gain entrance, you had to undergo a severe test of endurance, mental fortitude, and physical techniques. In many ways, it was a virtual gauntlet. When you earned your place in the advanced class, you were in the company of others who had been tested in the same crucible. And there is nothing like shared misery to create a true bond.

Contrast this with how most people gain acceptance into a community these days. Let’s take the fitness world as a model. A current popular high intensity interval training (HIIT) fitness craze touts its “community” as one of the most appealing features. The marketing behind it espouses working out with likeminded individuals who help cheer you on to reach your goals and success. Well, I was part of that craze and saw firsthand why their notion of community is mostly a fallacy. The primary reason is that anyone can join it if you have the money to do so.

Buying your way into a community immediately discounts its efficacy at generating success. Primarily because if anyone can join the community, then you are not going to be surrounded by people who operate at the same level you do – they may not “want it” as badly as you do. Worse, your aspirations may cause some other members to resent you.

When I joined the new gym in town, it was wonderful…for a certain period of time. Then, when the novelty wore off and a certain caliber of people started attending, the standards fell into the realm of mediocrity. Workouts became less grueling because people complained that they were too hard (despite the fact that anyone could scale the workouts to suit their individual fitness levels). Exercise standards were revised to accommodate whiny members who couldn’t do basic movements. And a whole new group of toxic personalities started infecting the place. Gradually, anyone who aspired to be better was generally seen as a threat by the growing majority of people who were content with “good enough,” and cheating their way through a workout.

If you are intent on being successful (as opposed to just seeking support, fun, and/or some companionship), joining a community where anyone can be a member is not where you want to be. In fact, being part of such a place can work directly against your stated goals. There will undoubtedly be people there who are intimidated by your drive, or who subtly try to sabotage your success with side-eye comments like, “why would you do that? You’re crazy.” These are usually the people who complain about silly stuff and say dumb things like, “well this is as good as it’s going to get.”

Success is hard enough to achieve without being hated for your aspirations and individuality, envied for your successes to-date, or sabotaged by those who revel in watching your downfall. The notion of community is a dangerous one if you aren’t on your guard for the mediocre masses who inhabit communities that do not have gate keepers built into their model. While it’s a wonderful thing to be all-inclusive, that same model runs counter to being able to achieve all the success you aspire to.

The term “community” has also become a marketing tool (at least in certain fields) used to drive new recruits into the fold. And communities reinforce this notion of people needing a support system because it’s in their own best interests to do so; it furthers that community’s very existence. In effect, they need you more than you need them. As an established member or someone advanced within their ranks, the community can point to you as proof of its own efficacy at producing success.

Another inherent danger of community is rampant group-think. Any community will have a set of standards – vocalized, implied, written down, or not – that members are expected to follow. You may not have given it much thought, you may not even have noticed it much, but they are there. You’ll start to notice if you do anything that runs counter to the majority group-think. In this way, communities have the potential to become excessively cult-like, complete with idol worship, gossip, and a whole series of toxic aspects that can seriously damage your quest for greatness. Of course, members of the community will deny such things until they’re red in the face, but that’s only because they’re too close to see the truth.

And the truth is that a community without gate keepers can produce some measure of success. But it will eventually hinder your progress – especially if it’s populated by people who actually do not want the best for you but are instead wishing for your failure because that is a reinforcement of their own self-imposed limitations. “See? I told you it was crazy to do that.”  In that case, a community that seemed so wonderful, ends up being a virtual prison. Worse, the toxicity will harm your body, mind, and spirit resulting in a failure to achieve your goals and a tendency to question yourself and your motivation – exactly the antithesis of success.

Unless your community has exacting standards and all members are of a similar mindset, your quest for success and excellence will falter. You’ll be better off on your own than you would be in the company of lesser individuals not as focused as yourself. Beware of “communities” that boast they’re the backbone of a movement or location. Outside of the military (and some others with exacting standards imposed prior to admission), the chances of you finding a true success-oriented community of like-minded alphas all on the same trajectory toward greatness are slim. More likely, you may find a few members of that caliber, but they will be greatly outnumbered by those members who have adopted mediocrity, rather than excellence, as the acceptable outcome of their endeavors.

And you are, most definitely, better off without them in your life.

But the simple truth is, motivation can come from anywhere. Good, bad, dark, light, a well-spring of happiness or a font of misery. Motivation can be all unicorns and rainbows or it can be the deepest, darkest part of your soul filled with rage and bitterness.

And problems arise when people hear only about it coming from the positive and thereby think that if they aren’t always happy or upbeat, there must be something wrong with them. That is not necessarily true. Although extended periods of darkness and depression can definitely be a sign that you may want to look into talking to someone, darkness – like light – can also be useful.

Imagine bumping into an old high school friend and they happen to look fit, trim, and happy. Maybe you’ve been slacking on the workout front so seeing them fills you with jealousy or resentment. Instead of tamping that down and chastising yourself for being “bad,” use it to motivate you to get back to your fitness regimen. Take the so-called “bad” and use it to create something “good.”

Frankly, as we’ve discussed before, negative energy is always easier to generate than positive. All biological systems left to their own devices without some form of discipline will naturally devolve into chaos. It’s always easier to go negative than positive, so if generating positive energy is too hard, i.e., “Brenda looks great! Good for her. I want to look like that, too, so I’ll get back to working out.” then simply use negative energy to drive you forward, i.e., “Ugh, That bitch looks good. I hate her for looking so good so I’m gonna show her. I’ll look even better once I start getting back to the gym.”

Using the negative to generate something positive is an intriguing idea that you can use in any area of your life.

The key to motivation is knowing how to handle it and direct it once you have it in-hand. Being truthful about where your motivation is coming from is also key. If you lie to yourself about its source, then that simply sets you up for failure. There will be plenty of times throughout the course of your life when anger motivates you to do something; resentment, jealousy, bitterness – all of these are inherent and natural aspects of our mood and spirit. True power comes from being honest with yourself and recognizing these aspects just as readily as you recognize all the positive: happiness, pride, joy, ecstasy, satisfaction, etc.

Too many self-help gurus like to only focus on the positive and for good reason: a lot of them have never been honest about admitting that humans are made up of every emotion on the entire spectrum, just not the happy go-lucky side. Denying one side in favor of the other is a recipe for disaster, because when those darker emotions hit, the person who has spent too much time denying them will be ill-prepared to deal with their presence and influence. Whereas someone who acknowledges the complexities of their entire psyche in an honest, forthright fashion will always have a better idea of how to deal with any and all aspects of their being.

Even when it seems like there is nothing within you to help motivate, there is always something. The key is simply acknowledging that some of the parts of yourself that society tells you not to employ, are, in fact, things you can use to help.

It sucked.

Of course, I didn’t know how badly it sucked. But I was fortunate enough to find a literary agent who was opening her own shop and agreed to take a look at my manuscript. I sent it off, convinced that it was utterly amazing, and anxiously awaited her response.

When it came, I was surprised to find that she had sent the manuscript back instead of just sending me a letter proclaiming my thriller was the best thing she’d read in ages and was anxious to sell it for millions.

I took my manuscript out of its box and looked at it. Each and every single page bled red ink. She had gone through the entire manuscript – the entire fucking thing – and torn it apart. Comments were scrawled over every page. And they were harsh. “Who says something this stupid?” in reference to a line of dialogue. “I don’t believe his motivations.” “This is laughably absurd.” “Are you kidding me with this comment?” “The pacing sucks here.” And on it went. Each and every page of my thriller was ripped apart, torn asunder, and scorched with critique. I was momentarily devastated. I’d worked hard on that thriller. For the last several years I’d carefully pecked away at it, crafting what I thought was a contemporary storyline with compelling characters, taut pacing, and devilish dialogue.

But it wasn’t. It was an amateurish outing by a new wanna-be author and it was full of shortcomings and faults and every sort of cliche that springs forth when someone talks about wanting to be a writer. Tons of passive voice, tons of speech tags, tons of adverbs, tons of…well, garbage.

I could have sat and cried about it; I could have wallowed in the assault to my ego; I could have very easily given up and decided that being a writer wasn’t for me. I could have done all of those things because that’s exactly what many people do when they’re faced with criticism. They take it personally.

But there was nothing about the agent’s critique of my manuscript that was personal. She’d simply read it with the eye of a seasoned professional who had seen all of the problems many times before and because she was actually a pretty awesome person, she’d done me the great service of pointing out exactly how bad my work was.

I was fortunate that I’d been subjecting myself to harsh criticism for years at that point. My mentor back in the late 80s, a grizzled old Korean War veteran of special operations, had taught me any number of things and his usual response whenever I tried to do them was along the lines of “That was shit. Do it again.” And I would. Over and over again until I showed proficiency that was up to his standard. In the military, it was never enough to do the bare minimum; they expected more. Always more. What was good enough yesterday wasn’t good enough today. “Do better.” And in martial arts, I was repeatedly critiqued because my teacher was testing my ego and seeing where I had openings in my armor – not just physically, but mentally and spiritually – that an opponent could use against me. One of my key faults back then was not keeping my guard up enough, so after every class I attended (usually 4-5 times each week) I was put into a corner, given a motorcycle helmet to wear and then forced to stay there in a defensive posture while my seniors took turns wailing punches at my head until I learned how to keep my guard up and stay cool under pressure. It was not a quick process and I went through it for the better part of a year (may have been a little less than that, I can’t actually remember lol).

Because harsh criticism was nothing new to me, I was able to process what the literary agent had done for me. And instead of viewing it as an attack, I saw it for what it was: an opportunity to grow and get better at this thing I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Exactly the same as the other things I’d been learning: whether it was shaving seconds off a forced march time, or learning how to surveil someone, or execute ganseki nage (A technique: “throwing a big rock” – Ninjutsu), there was always room for improvement, always room to learn new things, and as a result: grow and get better at whatever activity it was.

And so, I set about rewriting that novel that had been so blown apart with detailed critiques. And in the process of doing so, I came across a very faint line that that same agent had written on the very back page in a weird place. I wouldn’t have ever seen it if I’d given up and stopped writing, or dismissed her advice as garbage because I was too full of myself. The note was simple: “If you made it this far, send it back to me.”

I remember chuckling to myself when I found that note. She’d seen enough wanna-be writers in her time to know that the chances that I would toss the manuscript and her advice in the trash were higher than the chances that I’d take her advice to heart, rewrite and improve the manuscript and finally see her note. But I was stubborn enough to take her advice and apply it because I really wanted to be a writer; just like I really wanted every other activity that was tough to achieve.

I won’t sit here and tell you that critique doesn’t hurt. Of course it does. Your ego is in place to protect you in a lot of ways; but it’s also a double-edged sword. That same ego that seeks to protect, can inhibit your growth and cause you to miss out on opportunities because you’re so busy being defensive and insisting there’s nothing wrong or that mistakes weren’t made or that you know better than everyone else. You’ve decided to take it personally when it’s not.

Not everyone responds to harsh criticism well; but over the years I’ve found that I enjoy working with people who have been through some variation of harsh criticism and know how to deal with it without getting their ego bent out of shape. They take pride in their work and see critiques and criticism as a way to improve and get better so they can enjoy that sense of pride that comes from putting forth your very best. And more often than not these days, I find myself gravitating to people who understand the notion that good enough never is. It’s not good enough; and if you say that then it’s probably not good at all: it’s shit.

This runs counter to a lot of what society tells us; that no one cares, that you don’t have to bleed for your craft, that no one else is working this hard so you should just say “fine” and be done with it.

That’s exactly why we have so many unchecked egos running around these days; that’s why there’s so much garbage out there; that’s why our personal relationships with people suffer as much as they do – because the majority of people will veer toward mediocrity instead of excellence. Mediocrity is easier. Excellence is hard. Effort is hard after a long day at work when all you want to do is crash on the couch and drink yourself silly.

Excellence and the sense of pride that comes with it is its own best reward; when you know that you’ve given every full measure of yourself and spent every last bit in pursuit of achievement there is a true sense of contentment.

Critiques are a challenge to be sure. But without challenge, there is no growth.

And without growth, there is no life.

Who Dares Lives.

PS: This story doesn’t necessarily have a happy ending, depending which way you choose to look at it. I did indeed send that manuscript back to that agent; but at that point she’d made the decision to only focus on nonfiction projects. She wrote me a very nice letter back telling me how happy she was that I’d taken her advice to heart and that the manuscript was much better. “It still needs work,” she concluded. “But the fact that you were willing to put in this much effort tells me that you will eventually succeed – even without me representing you.” And fifty novels later, she was right.

I’d rather go down the river with seven studs than a hundred shitheads.” – Colonel Charles “Chargin’ Charlie” Beckwith, Founder of 1 SOFD-Delta (Delta Force)

Staying motivated is a challenge. Not always, but definitely sometimes. I don’t care how Alpha you are, there will be times when your motivation is lagging or lacking entirely. It’s not an easy thing to always maintain. And I’ve written previously on The Myth of Motivation as always being something that comes from positivity; it definitely does not. And there will be times when you have to use the negative to drive you further than you thought possible. There’s nothing wrong with that provided it doesn’t become your sole motivator.

But keeping yourself motivated becomes exponentially harder when you see what I like to call the “celebration of shitheads” happening around you. You’ll see this all the time: people who are, objectively speaking operating at a C- level, getting praised because they momentarily put forth the effort of a C instead of their usual C-. You’ll see family, friends, work colleagues, peers, and the like all going out of their way to praise them. Meanwhile you might be cruising along putting out the effort that is typical for you – somewhere in the A range – and no one shows up to say “good job,” or offer a pat on the back of encouragement.

The problem with being a “stud” rather than a “shithead” is that people take it for granted. They see your general level of badassery as a constant and it tends to fade into the background like white noise. As such, it doesn’t seem special any longer; it just seems normal. After all, when you operate near the top, there’s only so much further you can go and even then, it doesn’t look all that different.

Conversely, people see the C- level from the “shitheads” so often that when they put forth a little more effort, it’s a complete and total shock that somehow becomes worthy of praise because it’s so out of the ordinary. That’s why you see people falling all over themselves to heap praise upon mediocre people who did a little something extra. Whereas they tend to ignore the strong people who are continuing to crush life at the same level of badassery they always exert because it’s not new, it’s not different.

“Of course they’re achieving more stuff. That’s what they always do.”

Which, when you think about it, is an utterly ridiculous way to approach life. We shouldn’t be celebrating shitheads; we should be celebrating studs. We shouldn’t be aspiring to mediocrity; we ought to be aspiring to excellence.

But it doesn’t work that way.

And trust me: I’ve seen this happen in pretty much every environment and place you can imagine. I’ve had teachers who would spend all their time trying to boost up mediocre students who floated into class once in a blue moon while they would completely ignore the students who were there all the time putting out maximum effort. While there’s nothing wrong with trying to better a student you feel you can help, there comes a point when ignoring those who gave it their all becomes detrimental. And often, it meant that student would simply shrug and go elsewhere because they weren’t getting any attention from their teacher.

The same thing happens with family and friends. If people believe you are strong, they won’t bother to check on you. “Oh he’s fine, nothing ever shakes him or her.” Which again, is a stupid and dumb way to think. It is often the strongest that need checking in the most; and it is often the simple word of praise that makes the day of even the toughest sonuvabitch you might know.

The fact is, the majority of praise being heaped on the C- is coming from people who are, at best, mediocre themselves. Their praise serves two purposes: to validate their own belief that mediocrity is good enough, and to reward the fellow C- that they’re doing just enough and no more.

It becomes even worse when you see people being praised that you know are evil and manipulative and yet their victims continue to fall for their bullshit. People are woefully easy to manipulate – as any cruise through your Facebook newsfeed will show with its over-abundance of false memes and outrageous lies than can be fact-checked within 20 seconds on Google – and watching them fall prey once more to the same old tactics can make you question your own standards and beliefs. Maybe you’re being too much, too awesome, too exacting, too whatever; maybe you should throttle back and operate at a level that makes others comfortable.

The hell with that.

Your standards are exactly what keep you from becoming a C- in the first place. You’re not here to live your life to make others comfortable; you’re here to learn and grow and excel and evolve and succeed and help others along the way. You can’t fulfill your potential worrying about whether a mediocre person praises you or not; you can’t meet your destiny if you’re worried about others being uncomfortable because you don’t fit their definition or have some type of convenient label they can classify you as.

So hold onto your standards. Keep them high and exacting because far too many do not. Beckwith’s quote from above is worth remembering during those trying times when you question yourself and your motivation. Hold yourself to the standard of excellence and you will never falter in the face of adversity and challenge. And if you know someone who operates at the level you do, don’t forget to check in on them from time-to-time.

Remember: it is always better to be a stud than a shithead.

Regardless of whether it gets celebrated or not.

Lenny Denunzio glanced around the sprawling grounds of the Medfield State Hospital, a euphemistic title for the place, he thought with a grin. The joint was an asylum for nut jobs and nothing more. But he was here because the story had the potential to blow up if he could pin it down. And maybe he’d actually get a shot at a staff position on the Times. But first, he had to make the damned thing work.

He glanced back at Doctor Simmons, who had agreed to take a meeting with him, but to not go on record. “C’mon Doc, you’re asking for my sources. You know anything about being a journalist?”

“Is that what you call yourself?”

Lenny drew himself up to the full five-feet-six-inches of height he could muster and stuck out his chest. “That is precisely what I call myself. And to put it plainly, we don’t reveal the identities of our sources. We gotta keep them confidential so they’ll talk to us.”

“And how do you know if they’re telling the truth or not? After all, couldn’t someone simply make something up out of the thin air?”

Lenny rolled the cigarette around his mouth and exhaled a stream of smoke. He watched it slink toward the darkness of the evening sky. “We find corroborating witnesses or facts to back the story up. And then we print it.”

Simmons glanced at his watch. “I expected you hours ago.”

“Yeah, traffic getting out of Boston was chaotic. Plus, I wasn’t even sure where this town was. Can you believe that? Born and raised in Boston and never even heard of Medfield.”

Simmons gave him a bland smile. “How intriguing. And yet, here we are.”

Lenny eyed the doctor. He looked about fifty-five with his hair slicked straight back off of his forehead. He wore an expensive watch on his left wrist and his shoes were newly-shined. Underneath the white coat, Lenny had no doubt there would be a bespoke suit, most likely in a dark charcoal. The teal-colored striped tie he wore was perhaps the only indication that there might be someone warmer than his cool exterior lurking in the depths of his persona.

But Lenny doubted he’d ever be the type to have a beer with.

Simmons had already appraised him, Lenny knew, when he’d walked up to the front steps of the hospital after getting out of his Ford. Lenny’s suit, by comparison, was something he’d grabbed from a thrift store a while back. He still needed to get the pants hemmed and they slid out over his scuffed shoes perhaps too much. But he also didn’t make anywhere near what the doctor probably pulled in for a salary. 

Lenny was a stringer, after all. He floated from one article to the next, adrift without the promise of a salary or security. But he didn’t hate the life. He was free to pitch stories he thought would be good ones and sometimes they actually were. And sometimes they weren’t much more than fluff pieces that he’d throw at the rags. Whatever it took to keep from starving. He wanted the staff job, of course. What reporter wouldn’t want the comfort of being on the masthead of a major paper and all the perks that came with it?

Maybe someday, he thought finally as he pushed his appraisal of Simmons out of his head and concentrated on the matter at hand.

“So, is there any truth to it at all? Or is this guy just another looney talking out of his ass?”

Simmons took a breath and exhaled it like he had all the time in the world. Which he did. He could make Lenny wait as long as he wanted. And they both knew it.

“I’d very much appreciate you refraining from calling any of our patients here ‘looney.’”

Lenny held up his hand. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to insult them.” He glanced around. Simmons was a touchy one.

“Most of our guests come to us after having been castigated for the majority of their lives. We offer them a chance to find some solace and perhaps even treatment for whatever afflictions they suffer from. It’s our hope that they will eventually leave us.”

Lenny made a few notes on the notebook he carried. “Uh huh…and how many of them typically leave after they come here?”

He glanced up and saw that Simmons’ jaw had tightened. 

“A handful,” said the doctor finally. “But still, it is our stated goal to get them back to a normal life. If they can handle it.”

“And this guy - the one I’m asking about - does he have any chance of getting back out? Of being ‘normal’ ever again?”

“I very much doubt it,” said Simmons. “Come with me.” He turned and strode into the main building. Lenny had to walk extra fast just to keep up with Simmons’ huge stride. 

The interior of the hospital was sterile and mostly white. A variety of staff and attendants hustled this way and that. Some of them pushed wheelchairs, others helped patients still able to walk, while others carried trays of meals to the rooms. And they all parted like the Red Sea when Simmons strode down the hall. The doctor clearly commanded a massive amount of respect. Or fear. Lenny caught the inclined heads of several staff as he passed them by.

At the end of the hallway, Simmons turned abruptly and descended a staircase the led them down two floors. Lenny frowned.

“Are we in the basement now?”

Simmons nodded his head. “The hospital is built with an extensive array of tunnels beneath us. This enables us to quickly transport patients during inclement weather. We also keep several…high-risk patients down here as well. And yes, that does include the man you have inquired about.”

Simmons exited the stairway and turned left. Lenny found himself in another hallway, this one much noisier than the one on the first level. He could hear shouting and every now and again, a scream would erupt from somewhere ahead of them.

“Pardon me for asking, Doc, but is it always this loud?”

“You think this is loud?” Simmons chuckled to himself. “This is actually rather subdued.”

Lenny made a few more notes as he continued to struggle to keep pace with Simmons. Finally, the doctor eased to a stop and nodded ahead at a barred door that Lenny assumed was a cell.

“Mister Blevin is in that cell.” Simmons regarded Lenny. “You may ask your questions from the door only. Blevin attacked the last attendant that entered his cell. So no one may be in there with him. Will that suffice?”

Lenny nodded. “Yeah. Absolutely. So he can talk and stuff? You guys don’t have some sort of mouth guard on him, do you?”

Simmons again tilted his head at Lenny. “I’m not sure what you have been led to believe about the work we do here, but mouth guards have not been used in a long time. We try to have a civilized course of care at this facility. Please make sure your article emphasizes that fact. I would hate for the general public to conclude that we are monsters here.”

“Noted,” said Lenny. He moved closer to the cell but stopped when he heard the sound of Simmons’ footsteps moving away from him. “You’re not staying?”

Simmons paused. “I’ve already heard the fantastical tales that Mr. Blevin will spin for you.” He checked his watch. “And besides, I’m a bit hungry. Waiting for you has delayed my dinner. I trust you can find your way out after you’re finished?”

Lenny nodded.

Simmons smiled. “In that case, good-bye.”

Lenny frowned. So much for, it’s been a pleasure meeting you, or even, have a safe trip home. What a jerk, thought Lenny.

He turned back to the cell. As Simmons footsteps faded away, the corridor suddenly seemed a lot quieter. Even the shouts and screams that had accompanied them on their journey down seemed to have died.

One of the fluorescent bulbs nearby flickered then, the lights flashing on and off again repeatedly. Lenny swallowed, aware that he was surrounded by a lot of crazy people who might like nothing more than to tear him apart.

C’mon man, get a grip, he thought. He had a job to do here. Get on with it and then have a nice stiff drink back at home when this was all over.

He took another step closer to the cell. The bars set into the metal door were thick. Too thick to ever be sawed through in some fashion. Perhaps chemicals might dissolve them after a period of time, but even then no human could hope to pass through the opening. It was far too small.

Lenny approached the door from an angle and then poked his face toward the bars. The interior of the cell was about what he expected: no furnishings of any type, the walls and floor were padded, and there was a small toilet in one corner. And a pillow on a bare mattress. That was it. The palatial accommodations were typical, Lenny supposed, of a patient that was considered insane. There was nothing inside the cell that could be used as a weapon or even to harm the patient himself. Even the toilet was a heavy steel number instead of porcelain. A vague scent of urine tickled Lenny’s nostrils and he wrinkled his nose in response.

“You came.”

The voice floated up to his ears from somewhere. Lenny craned his neck and stood on his tiptoes to try to see further into the cell, but the single light overhead did little to illuminate the entire cell. Indeed, down by the floor, it was mostly dim, which Lenny imagined helped the patients sleep.

“Mr. Blevin? I’m sorry, I can’t see where you are.”

Blevin must have found that comical because he started laughing softly. “I’m terribly sorry about that. It’s just that they keep me in here for so long that I find it more comfortable if I stay close to the floor and out of the light itself. Do you understand?”

Lenny shook his head. “Not really.”

“Then let me make you understand. Do you have your notebook with you?”

“Yeah, right here. Wish I had me a fancy recorder to take this all down, but-“

“But you’re poor. You cannot afford such things. Luxuries as they are.” Blevin paused. “That is fine. We’ll make do the old way with a pen and paper. Perhaps it’s even better that way.”

“How so?”

“I find comfort in the traditional,” said Blevin. “Much is made of technology and how it will one day liberate us all, but I don’t believe it.”

“No?”

“I fear it will have the opposite effect upon the masses by enslaving all of us.”

“How so?”

“Do you read the comics pages in the newspapers, Mr. Denunzio? Do you find time to have a laugh at them?”

“Sure. Usually over coffee.”

“Dick Tracy. He has access to all these sorts of gadgets.”

“The wrist walkie-talkie, sure,” said Lenny.

“Can you imagine what it would be like to have some sort of communication device strapped on you such that anyone could contact you at any moment of the day?”

Lenny shrugged as he jotted some notes. “Seems like a major convenience, frankly. No need for pay phones.”

“Enslavement always comes disguised as promising freedom,” said Blevin. “Only to reveal its true nature when it is already far too late.”

Lenny cocked an eyebrow. “You wrote to me. How did you manage that feat?”

“Who said I wrote to you?”

“I got a note at the paper. It was forwarded to me.”

“Perhaps I enlisted the services of a confederate who could be entrusted to deliver that message.” Blevin chuckled again. “I’m rather certain they would never allow me the lethal weapon of a pen to use to compose a message to you.”

Lenny frowned. “Why don’t you tell me what you wrote in the message?”

“Why don’t I elaborate on what was in the message you received? That would perhaps be a more accurate statement.”

“Which ever way you want to call it,” said Lenny. His stomach grumbled and he found himself thinking about what he might like to eat for dinner after this was all over. Plus, some whiskey would help flush the memories of this place. As he glanced around the hallway now, there seemed an element of dread about the place. Or maybe it was just the depressing realization that if you came in here, the odds were good you were never leaving. At least not until you were dead.

“My message spoke about vampires.”

Lenny jerked his head back around toward the cell. And the thoughts he’d just had of dinner vanished. If there was any truth to this story, then he’d be able to write his own ticket to the big leagues with it.

But in spite of his zeal, Lenny cracked a grin. “Yeah, so what are we talking here - Bela Lugosi types? Nosferatu? Or just the Bram Stoker one?”

For a moment, a heavy curtain of silence fell upon the area. Then Blevin’s voice drifted up toward the bars again. “I had hoped that you might be something of a believer.”

“C’mon Blevin, it’s 1955, for crying out loud. Vampires don’t exist.” Lenny shook his head and thought that a whiskey was probably going to be the best part of his day after this lark.

“Are you absolutely certain of that, Mr. Denunzio? Or are you merely repeating the lies they tell you so as not to confront the very real possibility that perhaps there are such things as creatures of the night?”

“Look,” said Lenny. “I’ve seen a whole lot of crazy crap in my time as a stringer. Murder scenes too gruesome to recount. Suicides. People who thought they could fly off of bridges. Bodies after they’ve been pulled out of the drink two weeks later. Nasty stuff. But in all that time, I’ve never once heard of anything even remotely like a vampire.”

“You believe that your profession gives you some sort of all-seeing view of the world then?”

“We see a lot more than most,” said Lenny. “And I’m almost forty now. Trust me when I tell you that there aren’t many surprises left in life by the time you get to my age.”

Blevin stayed quiet for a moment. “Then perhaps you have not lived nearly the life that you think you have.”

Lenny frowned. “It’s not for a lack of trying-“

“But isn’t it? Isn’t it that you’ve become one of those poor souls who settles for everything they have? One of those fools who thinks that this is as good as it’s going to get. And so that thought infects your mind and you start living according to that belief, never realizing that you are cutting yourself off from experiencing what life truly has to offer.”

“Which is?”

“Immortal life.”

Lenny chuckled. “So, let me get this straight: you’re telling me there’s a vampire here on the hospital grounds?”

“Perhaps.”

“No perhaps about it, man. Either it’s here or it isn’t. I don’t have time to write stories about maybes. No editor is going to give me space for saying something might be happening. Either give me details or stop wasting my time.”

Again Blevin paused. “Perhaps it’s with us right at this very moment. Even as we speak.”

In spite of himself, Lenny looked around. The empty corridor with its flickering fluorescent light bulbs that made the shadows dance did indeed produce an uncomfortable atmosphere. He grinned. He’d give it to the crazy nut that he could draw out a story and make it seem possible. 

“I don’t see any vampires out here,” he said then.

“Of course not. He has not yet revealed himself to you.”

“And when does that happen? Sometime before the sun comes up tomorrow? Or is that just another superstition that doesn’t really exist?”

“It exists,” said Blevin. “Sunlight will kill a vampire. They must hide from it or else be incinerated when its rays hit them. That is the curse they bear of never being able to look upon the mighty glowing orb in the sky. Such a tragic existence. But perhaps not.”

“Not?”

“Perhaps the moon and the darkness and the creatures of the night are enough company for one who lives upon the blood of the living. Perhaps they might even find the darkness better than the light. They who are born out of the womb of Satan himself. They who wait for the unwary to feast upon, drawing forth their warm, pulsing nectar.”

Lenny shook his head. “I guess if you were a vampire, you’d have to get used to it somehow, huh?”

“Or else suffer without end.”

“How do you know there’s a vampire stalking these grounds? You’re locked in that cell.”

“Physically,” said Blevin. “But there is no prison for one who can use his mind…and other senses, to free himself. I know more about what happens in this place than perhaps anyone would give me credit for.”

“So tell me about it.”

“The first victim fell prey to him about two months ago. She was an old thing. Horribly twisted and bent as she walked about this place stooped over her walker. There was little life left in her, but she…suited his purpose.”

“Won’t that death have been reported to the authorities?”

Blevin laughed and it was a mocking laugh, as if Lenny had just said the stupidest thing anyone had ever uttered before. Maybe he had.

“The police do not bother to search for a murderer when all appearances point toward natural causes. Anemia is a condition common to the frail, elderly, and insane. When they found her, she was quickly bundled up and buried in the cemetery up the road a pace. She was his first victim. He could not have chosen better to lay suspicion elsewhere. Although I do wonder if she sated him so barely that it drove him to hunt others with a startling rapidity. For they fell by twos within weeks of the first.”

“Wait,” said Lenny looking up. “I’m no expert on vampires, but don’t you turn into one if you get bitten?”

Blevin paused and then Lenny heard something that sounded like the smack of lips. “Not necessarily. The vampire can choose who to turn and which…morsels…to drain utterly of their blood.”

“And they die.”

“Yes.”

Lenny wrote fast. “This is crazy. Simmons said nothing about multiple deaths up here. Why wouldn’t he mention that to me?”

“Perhaps he fears exposure. Perhaps he dreads the thought of an investigation. His reasons are his own.”

Lenny looked up from the pad he wrote upon again. “When did Simmons start working here?”

Blevin paused. “I believe he started a couple of months back.”

Lenny paused. Was the idea too crazy to even think? He shook his head. What was crazy and what was rational? He was sitting outside of the cell of an inmate in an asylum listening to him talk about the possibility of a vampire stalking the hospital and its patients. Hell, anything was fair game at this point, he thought.

“What if it’s Simmons?”

“Is that what you think?”

Lenny got to his feet. “You said it yourself, he started a few months back. I’ll bet I can check his records out and see where he worked before this place. See what the other employees at those places have to say about him. Might prove really interesting for my readers.”

“When did you meet Simmons? Was it still daytime?”

“No, I got here late. It was dark.”

“Very interesting,” said Blevin. “Perhaps we can uncover his truth…together.”

“I don’t usually work with co-authors,” said Blevin. “But I’ll tell you what: if any of this pans out, I’ll give you credit for the tip.”

“That’s almost divinely generous of you,” said Blevin. “One finds their standards of excitement tend to dwindle a bit when confined to such spaces as what I now call my home.”

Lenny nodded more to himself. “I’ll bet. All right, I’m gonna run this down and I’ll let you know what I find out.”

“Please do.”

Lenny nodded. “Nice meeting you.”

“We’ll see each other…again,” said Blevin then. 

Lenny shivered at the tone of his voice and walked away from the cell back down the eerie corridor he’d traveled down earlier. Behind him, he could hear a soft and hypnotic humming coming from Blevin’s cell. Strange cat, thought Lenny as he climbed the steps back to the upper level.

He poked his head in at the main office. “Is Simmons still around?”

The nurse on duty shook her head. “He said something about stepping out for dinner. I’m sure he’ll be back later.”

“Okay thanks,” said Lenny. Stepping out all right, he thought. If it was true that Simmons was a vampire then Lenny was going to need some real hard evidence to back up any accusations. Otherwise, the First Amendment wouldn’t stop a lawsuit and no paper would touch him with that sort of paper trail haunting him. If he was going to nail Simmons - or stake him, thought Lenny with a grin - then he was going to need incontrovertible proof that the guy was a blood sucker.

As he walked out of the main building, the night had fallen and the air felt cool. A breeze blew across the asphalt roadways that crisscrossed the grounds of the State Hospital. The sliver of a moon overhead cast an appalling paucity of light. Lenny hurried down the steps and toward his car.

He’d need to figure out where Simmons had worked before. Then he’d have to backtrack and see if any of the other places had ever reported strange deaths. It would be up to Lenny to uncover whether they were normal or not. He wondered if he’d be able to get exhumation orders if he needed them.

There was no way any editor was going to touch this story. Not yet at least. It was going to mean an awful lot of running around, but Lenny knew the payoff would be worth it.

He grinned as he walked to his car. Imagine Blevin asking to partner with him on this. Reporter and inmate colleagues…no dice, thought Lenny. The last thing he needed was anyone thinking he had some sort of affinity for the whack jobs that he sometimes came across in his job. This would be a Lenny Denunzio special, the sort of story no one else was ever going to dig up.

Still, he’d send a thank you along to Blevin. Especially if he landed a big job on-staff of a better paper as a result. It was the least he could do. What was a good thank you gift? A chocolate bar? Hard candy? It was probably better than anything Blevin ate on a daily basis anyway.

“Mr. Denunzio.”

The voice almost made him jump out of his skin. Lenny turned and there under the street light to his left he saw Simmons with a cigarette held between his index finger and thumb. Who smoked cigarettes like that anyway, thought Lenny. It looked weird. And then he remembered that Europeans tended to hold their smokes the same way.

Europeans, he thought with a grin. Maybe Romanians?

“Hey. Doc. How ya doing?”

“I’m well. Thank you for asking.”

The way he spoke unnerved Lenny. It was too cultured, too affected for his liking. Simmons didn’t sound like other people. He sounded…weird.

“Did you get dinner?” Lenny was steps away from his car. He wished he was inside of it and driving away now.

“I have…dined,” said Simmons. “Did you get what you needed from Mr. Blevin?”

“I got something,” said Lenny. “I’m not exactly sure if it’s going to pan out or not.”

“Well,” said Simmons, “isn’t that the thrill of the chase that you reporters are always looking for? It wouldn’t be much of a job if there wasn’t the need for hard work, would it?”

“Where’d you work before you ended up here, Doc?”

Simmons flicked the cigarette away into the darkness where the red tip glowed briefly before dying. Then he stepped out of the circle of light that he’d been standing in. “Why are you so curious about me, Mr. Denunzio? Did Blevin mention anything about me?”

“Just wondering how it happens that a guy like you starts working here only a few months ago and there have been some unexplained deaths since then.”

Simmons laughed, his voice carried on the breeze that blew across the grounds. “I see Mr. Blevin has indeed been doing his best to implicate me in those unfortunate passings.”

“I never said that,” said Lenny.

“And yet you couldn’t have implied it any more if you’d rented a billboard,” said Simmons. He continued moving around in the darkness and Lenny found it difficult keeping track of him. Almost as if he was blinking in and out of being where he was.

“Yeah, well, I’m just running things down for the moment.”

“Did Mr. Blevin tell you that he’s only been here a few months also?”

Lenny frowned. “No. But why would that matter?”

“Perhaps he’s the one responsible for the deaths.”

Lenny laughed. “I’m not engineer, but that room looked pretty inescapable. The bars, the locks…c’mon Doc, he ain’t getting out of there.”

Simmons’ voice was now behind Lenny. He wheeled to face him.

“That is true. The room is indeed escape-proof. It’s quiet in that part of the basement. There are no windows, either, if you noticed.”

“Pretty depressing, actually,” said Lenny.

“I suppose it all depends on the occupant. Mr. Blevin seems to like it a great deal.” Simmons was only six feet way from Lenny now. The air around them had changed, Lenny thought. 

“Well, I should be getting home.”

Simmons put a hand on his shoulder. “But our conversation is so intriguing. Don’t leave just yet.”

Lenny looked at his car. It was so close. “I’ve got to go.” He started to walk away.

“I’ll tell you the truth, Mr. Denunzio,” said Simmons then. 

Lenny turned.

Simmons smiled in the darkness, but his teeth seemed ever so white. “Isn’t that what you wish to find out? The truth?”

At that moment, Lenny wasn’t so sure. He really just wanted to be in his car.

Simmons took a step closer to him. “I will tell you what you want to know.”

Lenny backed up a pace.

Simmons stepped closer, his eyes boring into Lenny’s. “Mr. Blevin told you there is a vampire here. Did he not?”

“Y-y-yes,” said Lenny. He tried to laugh. “But that’s ridiculous.”

“Is it?” Simmons was almost close enough to touch now. And his eyes. Those…eyes.

“Yeah,” said Lenny. “No…such thing.”

“Oh, but I assure you there are,” said Simmons. He put a hand on Lenny’s shoulder. “Perhaps not in the way that you think. But they do exist. Oh, they do indeed.”

Lenny felt Simmons’ hand move then and something pierced the side of his neck.

“Hey-!”

But even as his mind raced to register it, a sudden blackness overcame him, swallowing up every fragment of his senses. He had a sudden rush of vertigo and then toppled to the ground, not even feeling the impact.

***

The taste in his mouth woke him later. But how long was later? He had no idea.

The floor underneath him felt cushioned and he turned over, stretching as if coming awake after a long sleep. As memories came back to him, Lenny’s hands raced to the sides of his neck checking himself over for puncture marks.

He exhaled in a rush. “Oh, thank god.”

“There’s no god here with you now.” The voice. He knew that voice. Lenny blinked his eyes but in the darkness it was almost impossible to see anything.

“You made the mistake of assuming, didn’t you?” There was a playful tone to the voice. Lenny still couldn’t place it. 

“Assuming what?”

A rush of movement in the blackness and then Lenny felt someone climbing on top of him. The breath, he could smell it. It stunk and Lenny reeled back, trying to get away, but he couldn’t because he was already on the floor.

“That Simmons was the vampire.”

Blevin. It was Blevin’s voice. But how? 

“Where am I?”

“In my home,” said Blevin now. “Thanks to my friend Doctor Simmons.”

“But you said-“

“I said nothing but that there was a vampire prowling these grounds. And there is. But you assumed it was Simmons because you saw me locked up. Unable to escape. But I can assure you that the locks mortal men have fashioned thus far are child’s play for me.”

The weight on his chest made it harder to breathe. “You can get out?”

“At any time I wish. But there’s no need to escape when a…friend…brings me everything I need.”

Lenny felt the heat of his breath as Blevin sniffed at him. He tried to cry out but he felt a claw wrap around his neck. 

“Don’t.”

“W-why me?” croaked Lenny then.

“A simple change in the menu does wonders for my morale,” said Blevin. “And even the dullest suburban law officer will eventually start asking questions if too many patients here die.” Blevin paused. “So perhaps you could say that we ordered take-out for this meal, hmmm?”

Lenny clawed at the ground, desperate to wrap his hands around something - anything - that he could use as a weapon. But the only thing he felt was the soft cushioning. “They’ll come looking-“

“For you? I don’t think so. Simmons and I picked you out especially because you’re just a stringer. No family, no attachments, no real sense of, well…anything. You’re as likely to disappear as any street urchin they might find floating in the harbor. But don’t worry, we’ll be sure to bury you just up the road in the hospital cemetery. At least you’ll have that. Just no headstone.”

“Please don’t-“

“Shhhhhh,” said Blevin. “It’s dinner time now.” 

He licked the side of Lenny’s neck. “And I’m so very, very hungry.”

END