Slightly Off the Mark

 As you've almost certainly already heard, we have a "new" book out, plus a really new book up for preorder. Considering what a crappy year it's been so far, I'd say that's reason to celebrate.

At least a little "yahoo!" and a chocolate cake.

After getting the rights back from the original publisher, we've been trying to independently publish The Notorious Ian Grant for ... well, the first thing that stopped it was COVID. No, that was late 2023 for Emily and me, wasn't it? I don't remember what the first thing was, but the theme continued: illness, injury, death--generally, the 2020s.

So when I got this preview copy in the mail, it felt like reaching the peak of Mount Everest:

https://www.amazon.com/Notorious-Grant-Storm-Chaser-Book-ebook/dp/B0F3KWHWK8

Meanwhile its "parent" book, Storm Chaser, is getting a price reduction in both ebook and print, as part of my cunning plan to get people hooked on the first book so they have to get the rest. You can find Storm Chaser here:

https://www.amazon.com/Storm-Chaser-Mark-R-Hunter-ebook/dp/B0C7MB95NH

And from there you can click on the author's name (me, I'm the author) for the related books in the Storm Chaser series, Storm Squalls and The No-Campfire Girls, and our other books.

Another meanwhile, a few weeks ago I was surfing the internet and stumbled across ...

Okay, fine, I was Googling myself. And no, I don't have a Wikipedia page. Anyway, I discovered Haunted Noble County, Indiana, which I talked about a lot last year, is up for preorder on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Other places, too. This being traditional publishing, the official cover isn't up yet, although last week I finally got a look at it.

A week after that I got an email from my publisher, letting us know Haunted Noble County, Indiana, would be officially published on August 12th of this year. They still haven't told us it's up for preorder. I mentioned it's traditionally published, right?

You can preorder it on our Amazon page, or here:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/haunted-noble-county-indiana-mark-r-hunter/1146986091

Haunted Noble County, Indiana - (Haunted America) by Mark R Hunter & Emily Jane Hunter (Paperback) : Target

Haunted Noble County, Indiana by Mark R. Hunter; Emily Jane Hunter

(Where the heck is Books a Million?)

https://bookshop.org/p/books/haunted-noble-county-indiana/cd5ef7fd35523035

I think it all boils down to Arcadia Publishing, which History Press is part of, having a very good distribution system.

More information--naturally--as the year goes on, assuming there are no illnesses, injuries, or accidents.

 

 

 You can track down us or, more importantly, our books, here:

·        Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO

·        Barnes & Noble:  https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

·        Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter

·        Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/

·        Website: http://www.markrhunter.com/

·        Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ozma914/

·        Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter914

·        Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrhunter/

·        Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter

·        Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkRHunter

·        Substack:  https://substack.com/@markrhunter

·        Tumblr:  https://www.tumblr.com/ozma914

·        Smashwords:  https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ozma914

·        Audible: https://www.audible.com/search?searchAuthor=Mark+R.+Hunter&ref_pageloadid=4C1TS2KZGoOjloaJ&pf

 

 

 

 Remember: You can't judge a book by its cover until it gets a cover.

 I won't have time to do my regular blog again this weekend, but fear not! Instead I'm linking you to a fun, photo filled monthly newsletter.

Well, there are photos, anyway.

But the thing that may interest you the most is that, in the newsletter, I included the book blurb for Haunted Noble County, Indiana. The publisher has officially given the book that name, by the way. They haven't approved the blurb yet, but it isn't likely to be much different from what you'll see here:

https://mailchi.mp/11840c2e73a9/vacation-time-to-not-get-away

I also talk a little about our vacation, which was generally uneventful, and one of the larger fires in the history of Noble County (Indiana), which was generally very eventful. Sign up for the newsletter! It only goes out once a month unless there's Big News, and it's free. Also, no cost.

If the smoke rises high enough to form a mushroom cloud visible 40 miles away, it's a big fire.

• Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
• Barnes & Noble:  https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"
• Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter
• Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/
• Website: http://www.markrhunter.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ozma914/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter914
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrhunter/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkRHunter
• Substack:  https://substack.com/@markrhunter
• Tumblr:  https://www.tumblr.com/ozma914
• Smashwords:  https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ozma914

Remember: Not reading books is--spooky.

 Well, I finally finished the first draft of Haunted Noble County, Indiana, which is all well and good, but would be better if the whole thing was done.

Especially after a year. A whole year.

I love researching, and I love history. I'm not a big fan of doing interviews, being what they used to call shy, and then antisocial, and now call introverted. (I'm sure there are differences between the three, but I don't like asking people.) Still, the interviewing hasn't taken as long as I thought, and the researching has taken way longer, so I can't complain.

What I can complain about are the numerous delays in the project that had nothing to do with the project. Don't get me started on Covid.

This is the face of Covid. It's pretty much the same as my tired face, except with a fever.

Anyway, my goal was to be finished by April, and it's now June. I still haven't added photos, or even captioned the photos. I don't have the project finished enough for Emily to go through and show me all the mistakes I've made. I haven't heard back from some of the people I reached out to, which is understandable because they probably haven't heard back from me since August of last year.

As a result, sadly, once again, I have no one to blame but myself. And Covid. Hey, the Chinese planned this whole pandemic to delay my writing career!

No? No, I guess not.

History! Photographed by John A. Harkless, who was responsible for many now-historical Albion photos.

This is the part where I apologize to everyone--and yes, I mean you--who I may have forgotten to get back in touch with in the past year. If anyone reads this who had a story, photograph or other information for me and may have gotten lost along the way, please contact me here, or on the book of faces, or wherever discerning patrons of history may haunt. Yes, I am trying to wrap it up, but there's still time to throw in more information.

On a related note, for anyone I have talked to, please let me know if it's okay to use your name in the book (if you haven't already said). If I made contact with someone but didn't get consent to use their name, they'll go down in Noble County history as "anonymous". After that, if you sign anything you have to remember how to spell anonymous, and no one wants that.

Finally, yes, the project has been pushed back, almost certainly until next year. The traditional publishing industry is a lot of things, some good and some bad, but above all else the wheels grind slowly.

The original Ligonier City Jail. Very cool, especially if you got stuck there during winter.

• Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
• Barnes & Noble:  https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"
• Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter
• Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/
• Website: http://www.markrhunter.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ozma914/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter914
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrhunter/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkRHunter
• Substack:  https://substack.com/@markrhunter
• Tumblr:  https://www.tumblr.com/ozma914

Remember: Ghost are always looking for new books to read over your shoulder.

  I'm not even sure how to start when it comes to Covid. As a writer I'm a professional smart-ass, but with this I got my ass kicked, and didn't feel too smart about it.

Illness or injury traditionally accompany our vacations: Last December Emily and I came down with the flu when we were supposed to visit her family and friends in Missouri. This year we decided to head down on a Thursday.

On Wednesday we started to feel a little ... off. By Thursday morning we had to call it--we couldn't risk giving her father whatever bug was now traveling with us. It wasn't until Friday night that we began to suspect the modern medical boogieman, Covid. We missed the trip, we missed Saturday's Holiday Pops concert, and I felt so bad I couldn't even write. By the time it was done I had to contact my editor at History Press to push back our deadline for the Haunted Noble County book, because I'd planned to use half of my vacation to work on it.

The only question left: Could I turn it into a funny blog?

It doesn't LOOK like 102 degrees.

The only thing we did was marathon the TV show The Expanse, and unsuccessfully try to listen to Good Omens on audiobook. (We kept having to go back when one or another of us fell asleep.)

You know, watching TV and reading books wouldn't be such a bad vacation. The problem is that for the first couple of days we were unable to enjoy anything, and in fact we were too sick to sleep. You heard that right. Over that first weekend I, who can't function on less than eight hours of sleep, stayed awake for twenty-fours straight. Even Nyquil wouldn't put me out.

Then, for a week after that, we were too sick to stay awake. That was the period during which we kept having to go back and decide what we remembered last from the audiobook.

"It was Agnes Nutter and the book, wasn't it?"

"No, it was Adam and the Them meeting the dog."

(We were both wrong: It was Crowley terrifying his house plants.)

I took this photo of Emily at the same time the one above of me was taken. She's in there, I swear.

 Part of it--let's face it--is that I'm no spring chicken pox. When I was in my early 20's I once rode the back step of a fire engine to a mobile home fire on the edge of town--while running a fever.

This truck, specifically. What an awesome truck.

 No more.

 It's not just that Covid is bad. My normal temperature runs around 97.6, and by the time it hit 100 not only could I not go to a fire, I couldn't pick up the TV remote. (Thus the marathon of one show.) It reached 102 at one point. My skin kept trying to crawl away to somewhere cooler, or so it felt.

Emily was running about a day behind me, so I had the pain of knowing what she was about to go through. She's still got a terrible cough weeks later, while mine is just awful. We were like the grandparents in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, just laying there in a lump. Christmas preparations? Hah! We'd bought a new, pre-lit tree, but we never even got a chance to fluff out the branches, let alone decorate it.
 

I kinda like it like this, though. Yes, it's black.

I was so sick--brace yourself for this--I lost my appetite.

I can count on one hand the number of times I've completely lost my appetite, and I was in the hospital for most of those. I dropped six pounds. This is not a recommended diet.

The moral of this story is, of course, don't get Covid. We didn't mind at all being quarantined, at least not until the chocolate ran out. (Everything tasted salty or metallic, except chocolate.) Other people in this area passed away from it, so we count ourselves lucky now that we're feeling 50% better.

Yeah, I'm exhausted all the time, but I work nights--I was already halfway there, anyway.

• Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
• Barnes & Noble:  https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"
• Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter
• Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/
• Website: http://www.markrhunter.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ozma914/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter914
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrhunter/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkRHunter
• Substack:  https://substack.com/@markrhunter
• Tumblr:  https://www.tumblr.com/ozma914

Remember, books aren't effective as masks, but they're great for quarantine.

I was interviewed Friday by Eric Olson of Fort Wayne's 21Alive News (He's the 21Country Reporter), and he says it will come out this Wednesday, October 25th. Now, I don't know if that means morning, noon, evening news, 2 a.m news break ... or if some horrific thing will cause it to be rescheduled. Eric doesn't think so, but the last time he interviewed me it didn't air on the scheduled date. Fingers crossed! Here's some info about him:

https://www.21alivenews.com/authors/EricOlson/
 

This is the third interview he's done with me, and the fourth TV interview I've ever done. This time it was not about our books, but our book to be: Haunted Noble County, Indiana. I'll put up a link to the interview when it goes up online. As for how it went, I have confidence in Eric's ability to edit out my throat clearings and verbal face plants.

He interviewed me at home, and also took some video footage at Albion's Rose Hill Cemetery, which I told him has some history of hauntings, and the Old Noble County Jail Museum, which I told him looks like it should, but doesn't.

The above photo shows him in action at the cemetery, while the below photo gives us a glimpse of the Old Jail as taken from the cemetery. 

We cleaned up the office for this. Seriously, check this out:

This is where Emily's editing/cover design/formatting/correcting my screw-ups happens.

And this is where I do a lot of my research work, although the actual writing often happens on the living room couch. The wallpaper pre-dates my ownership of the house. (So does the carpet.)

• Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
• Barnes & Noble:  https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"
• Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter
• Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/
• Website: http://www.markrhunter.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ozma914/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter914
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrhunter/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkRHunter
• Substack:  https://substack.com/@markrhunter
• Tumblr:  https://www.tumblr.com/ozma914

Remember, whenever you don't buy a book, a stack of manuscripts start to build up on writing desks. Save our sanity.