Hello everyone. I’d like to thank Nerine for allowing me to take up some of her time in cyberspace with a little guest blog. I’ve had the pleasure of working with Nerine off and on for the about a year and half now, and she’s been kind enough to offer me a slot before. She’s a darned good editor, and better writer, and I fell in love with her book Inkarna, which we’ll be releasing through Dark Continents Publishing come June. I truly am looking forward to working on more projects with her in the coming year, as she’s got some great ideas we’re putting into place at the moment. But more on that when the time is right.
I suppose I should introduce myself before I get much further. In the publishing world, I go by DM Youngquist. For the simple reason that by the time you get David M Youngquist on a book cover, there’s not room for a title. And as most of you can tell, I’m a Yank as well, but don’t call me that here in the US. I’m a Midwestern River Rat by breeding, and proud of it. I’ve also been a teller of tales since I could pick up a crayon and make marks on paper. But since I am a Midwestern River Rat, and live in flyover country, I had about as much chance of being published by a big New York house as my horses did of growing wings.
So in 2010, myself and five other writers took our destines in hand, and put together Dark Continents Publishing. We had some crazy idea that we could fix what was wrong with the publishing world and make a living doing something we all loved. Something that made our hearts sing. I know there were people out there taking bets we wouldn’t make it a year.
Well, I’d like to know who put money on the long shot, ‘cause I’d sit them down and buy them a beer. We celebrate the one year birthday of DCP on May 1! It has been a year of insanity. A year of frustration, and a year of joy that cannot be described. We’re still here. We have great writers, amazing books, and awards nominations on three continents. Sometimes, it still takes my breath away.
When I talked to the rest of our board members at DCP as to what we should do for our birthday, we had to step back a minute or two and think about it. I mean, we’re all busy. We all have family, we all have day jobs, and we all write and do jobs within DCP. But we honestly do appreciate the support of our fans and the people in the industry, and we wanted to do something special for you all. So we came up with a plan.
Through the month of May, we’re going to have a combination of a book sale and cancer research fundraiser. There’s a lot of reason behind doing things this way, but the primary motivation is simply this: Most of our lives have been personally touched by cancer, and we want to help beat this monster back to the hell it was released from. My father has dealt with skin cancer. My uncle Harry DeVrieze died of lymph cancer last fall. Tracie McBride’s father was recently diagnosed with stomach cancer. William Meikle’s dad, Barclay is fighting the scourge as well. It is a deadly intimate part of many of our lives.
So, in May, when you log into the DCP website (www.darkcontinents.com) you’ll see that all of our books will be discounted ten percent. We will donate ten percent of sales to The American Cancer Society in the name of some of the people we love or have lost who have dealt with this disease.
Now in addition to this, we have some prizes set up for you to win when you purchase. If you buy just one book for our extensive catalog, you’ll go away with a warm feeling from saving money, and knowing we’ll donate some of this to cancer. You’ll also have our thanks in the purchase and belief in our company.
If you buy two books, any two books from our website, you’ll be entered to win our second place prize. That prize includes a hand turned mug made for us exclusively by Jeffery Goard, who is the artisan potter at The Prairie Arts Center in Bishop Hill, Illinois. (www.bishophill.com) One pound of custom roast coffee from Bishop Hill, a Dark Continents Publishing tee shirt, and a Zombie Fiend “Fiend it like you mean it” tee shirt and a book of choice from our catalog.
If you buy three books, you’ll be entered to win first prize. A mug, the coffee, the shirts, the book, a zombie killing kukri knife from M-Tech, a print of Out with the Boys by Mitch Foust, and a signed original cover by James Powell.
If you buy four books or more, you’ll be entered to win our Grand Prize. This consists of the coffee mug, the coffee, the shirts and the book. In addition, we’ll add a US Army Bug-out bag for when the Z-Poc hits, two signed covers by James Powell and one of our authors will make you famous by naming a character in their story for you. We can’t guarantee your character will be a hero or a mass murderer, but you’ll have the chance to be in one of our books.
We’ll also be adding to the prizes here and there as the month goes on, so keep checking our website, blog, and Face Book wall for updates and detail.
And one little thing I took on myself to set as a goal: If we reach the $1,000 mark to donate to cancer research, I’ll shave my mustache off for the first time in 27 years. Neither my wife, Fay, nor daughter Michaela has ever seen me without it. Even my mom said, “I don’t recall a time in your adult life that you haven’t had it.” I know most guys shave their head to show support for cancer research, but to me, this is more dramatic. Who knows, maybe some of our more hirsute DCP family members will volunteer as well.
Thank you again, Nerine, for letting me use a little of your space. I appreciate it. And thanks to you folks in advance for being so supportive through our first year. Good luck in the drawing, and we’ll see you around the web. I'm hoping we get that far as well.
PS. We'll also cover the shipping and postage.
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