I’m writing this to the deafening sound of no fireworks at all.

Sure, it’s the fourth of July, but I’m not in America. I’m in Canada. Worse, I’m in Quebec. That means we already burned through our fireworks budget last week for Canada Day and St. Jean Baptiste. We’re not allowed to blow anything else up this year unless there’s some major hockey-related victory – in which case, cop cars and storefronts are fair game.

Nevertheless, I’m celebrating my own personal Independence Day. The clock on my contract for Filmography has run out, which means I have the option to bail on my publisher. So I’m bailing. Communication has been sparse and the book was supposed to be out in May. That doesn’t make it too overdue, but there are two more books on the schedule before mine, dating back to February, neither of which is out yet either. I figure that pushes my spunky little novella back to sometime in 2017 or later. And I’m not willing to wait that long – not since my experimental publishing ventures have shown me that there’s not much in the process I can’t handle alone.

A novella the size of Filmography will provide me with a good entry point for book publishing. I’ve learned a lot of the ropes this year, but there are still some strands that need figuring out before I venture forward with full-sized novels and at least one epic.

So here’s the giveaway I mentioned in the last blog post. Drop a note to orders (at) eyestrainproductions.com and let me know if you’d like to receive a free eBook copy of Filmography in advance of publication. I’ll email you an edition in your choice of format (MOBI or EPUB) when it’s ready, with the understanding that you’re on the guilt-induced hook to leave some sort of honest review on sites like Amazon or Goodreads. A simple star-rating is good, a brief written review is better, an essay about the novella’s cultural impact on the literary scene of post-modern western civilization in the 21^st century is better still. Small-time publications like this live or die based on the number of reviews they receive – not necessarily the acclaim, but the quantity. It lends legitimacy, even if most of the people who read it think it’s a piece of shit. Validated shit sells better than ignored brilliance. It’s how our dysfunctional book market works. Probably most other markets, too.

If you’re still wondering if this is a book that might tickle your fancy, the blub reads:

A trio of obsessive film buffs are dismayed to learn their favourite movie star, Basil Hendrich, has died after a long, storied career in the business. Embarking on a road trip to visit the grave, a combination of grief and moral bankruptcy leads them to kidnap his corpse for the purpose of making one final movie with the late celebrity. Things spiral out of control when extortion, blackmail and multiple law enforcement agencies become involved in the morbid shoot.

So, yeah, it’s about what you’d expect when that Shane Simmons guy strings together 30k words in a row: sick, twisted, but funny. Free for the asking, for a limited time only.