As you walk through the dark woods surrounding Tapperville, you may get the feeling you're being watched. 

It could be the escaped serial killer that's being very creative with how he manipulates his victims.  It could also be the ghosts who haunt a nearby forgotten cemetery.  It might even be one of the local rednecks, drunk and armed as they seek vengeance for their horribly mutilated loved ones.

It could be any of those things, and you'd be lucky if it was, but as you pass by each tree, be cautious. 

The branch that just brushed your shoulders might grab you. It could wrap around you and pull you to pieces.  A root could shoot up from the ground and impale you. 

Worse yet, one of the vampires whose spirits dwell within the trees could bust out of its shell of bark and chase you in its grotesque human form. 

Once a member of the Oak Clan has a thirst for you, it will stalk you each night until it has you in its wooden grasp. 

What's up with this book?

I started tinkering with this book when I was fifteen and finally finished it ten years later.  So it's my baby - my passion.  Nothing I write will ever be as important, the closest thing being the essay that put my wife into a comic book. 

In 2002, I thought I'd edited it pretty well and whenever I googled "publish," I would get self-publishing websites.  They were pretty convincing that it was the way to go, so I went for it.  Unfortunately at the time, I didn't know any other writers or the like to tell me what a mistake I was making. 

After a year and a half, The Internet Book Company went under.  So I looked around fell for the lie once again.  I published it through Authorhouse in 2004 with the pictured cover.  I pushed it hard for a year and in the process, made some good friends in the business.  One of them recommended I joined him at the World Horror Convention. That's where I received a fantastic education on the publishing world. 

I also learned why self-publishing is such a bad deal.  When you go this route with your work, you eliminate the opportunity to go through the proper channels.  You need those rejections from submitting over and over.  You need the constructive criticism to help grow as a writer.  You need to learn through many rewrites until your work is accepted.  

Furthermore, once a book has been self-published, no legitimate publisher (as in one that pays you), will ever take your work seriously.  It raises too many red flags. The work is automatically lumped together with all the countless unedited pieces of crap that are out there.  It will be assumed that you, like others, just stuck your first draft out there in book form.  

Also, most publishers want to release previously unpublished work.  If you self-publish, you kill your chances of getting that book the attention it deserves.  

So take your time.  It's worth the trouble.  The Oak Clan did well, despite all that.  Most self-published books are lucky to sell 100 in a year.  During the year that the last release was available, it sold nearly 1,000.  Of course, that was due to all the pushing I did.  

Now, this book has two things keeping it from being published again.  

One:  It's previously published material.  

Two:  It's nearly 500 pages long!  

Is it doomed?  No.  If everything goes right, it will be re-edited and revised for a serial via Skullvines Press for a 2009 release.  Once the first book is out there again, the series will continue with the sequels.  

Your patience and support with this is appreciated, and will hopefully be awarded to your satisfaction. 

Until then, The Oak Clan characters will be trapped in limbo.

More About the Book

A man named Jeezy has inherited a Book of Shadows from his missing parents.  He loves to play around with it, although he can't seem to get anything right.  On the night of his best friend's murder, however, he conjures up a spell in a fit of rage that unleashes a powerful, vengeful force into the woods beyond anything he could have imagined. 

Now, when night falls, something evil leaves the forest and heads into town, taking victims and leaving a dead oak tree in place of a corpse, whether it be in a house or in the middle of the street.  Each night, a new member is added to the clan of this new breed of vampire.  Jeezy enlists Mike Pervitz, one the murdered man's other friends, to help but the situation is growing out of control. 

The media blames the strange occurances on a recently escaped serial killer named Rick Jenderson.  Curious, Rick makes his way towards town and takes refuge in an old haunted house.  Once there, he becomes acquainted with a dysfunctional family of ghosts.  With the help of the "spirits" that talk to him telepathically, he gets involved and makes the situation that much worse. 

Add to this a cast of wild teenagers and drunken, armed rednecks and Jeezy, Mike, and what's left of the police force after running into the Oak Clan really have their hands full. 

Here are some early sketches from the book: