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EvolutionI've been meaning to put together a zine for a while and it went through some evolutionary steps to get to this point. The most crucial step was in realising how to restore a balance between the album reviews I've writing at Apocalypse Later Music, the book reviews I've been writing at the Nameless Zine and the film reviews I'd been letting slide for far too long at Apocalypse Later Film. What I figured out was to add some interviews to my existing music reviews, theme more of my book reviews and shift some of my film projects into a slightly different form, everything would just fall into place for a monthly publication likely to run between 120 and 200 pages an issue in book form. And so here's the first issue. Each quarter will begin with a Horns Ablaze issue, which will include three months worth of my album reviews, with five interviews from different bands from around the world. InterviewsHorns Ablaze Issue #1 features interviews with:
ReviewsHorns Ablaze Issue #1 features interviews with:
Cover ArtFor all my books on film, I've commissioned my covers from Arizona artists, each chosen to fit the theme of the book. I've been very happy with how that's worked out and intend to continue with that approach for future books. However, I simply can't afford to do that with a monthly zine, so I decided to see what A.I. could do. I had played with a couple of apps, just for fun, and liked the abstract impressionism of Dream by Wombo. It's a far less sophisticated engine than, say, Midjourney, but it also generates art far less recognisable as the work of others, which I appreciate.
Layout NotesI wrote this book in LibreOffice running on Linux (Ubuntu with MATE) because I like free software (free as in both beer and speech), so naturally I laid it out in LibreOffice too. It's typeset in Gentium Plus, which is a newer version of the Gentium font I used in my first four books. It's the same great font but the spacing is much better. This is an source font, released under the SIL Open Font License, which means that it can be used, modified and redistributed for free. The main Horns Ablaze font is Rocks, which I licensed from its creator, Billy Argel. All of that is routine by this point, but there was one difference here. In June 2023, Amazon, who own KDP, the online publishing arm through which I publish, changed their pricing. The price for regular books (i.e. a colour glossy cover but a black and white interior) went up slightly, albeit not enough for me to change my pricing. However, the price for standard colour books (i.e. the same cover but a colour interior on regular paper) went down quite substantially. That gave me the ability for the first time to offer a colour version of a full length book at a price under $20 and zines cheaper still. After all, 120-200 pages is a lot less than 300. Creative CommonsCurrent copyright law in the US tells me that I should be able to profit from my work until 75 years after I've been buried. I don't buy into that because copyright was always intended to benefit the public (not creators) by ensuring a constant flow of work into the public domain where the public could do whatever they liked with it. It's how Disney got famous! To ensure that creators kept creating, it also gave them a temporary monopoly on their work, which was originally 14 years. If I can't make money off a book in 14 years, then let the public have their turn. I toyed with the idea of copyrighting my books for 14 years and then releasing them into the public domain, but quickly realised I'd never remember to do that. Instead, I chose to license my books through Creative Commons, using the CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 copyleft license. That means that you are legally allowed to copy and distribute them, with my blessing, as long as you:
Free DownloadSo please download a PDF of Horns Ablaze #1 from the link below, read it and share it with others so that it can reach as wide an audience as possible. Please feel free to upload it to peer to peer networks, translate it into your own language or read it aloud and circulate it as an audiobook. Just obey the licensing terms above. Remember, piracy is not the enemy; obscurity is the enemy!
Buy a Print CopyOf course, I don't get paid anything from a free download so, if you enjoy the book, please consider buying a print copy to show your appreciation and help me pay my bills. If you don't have room for dead tree products, then please consider buying a print copy for a friend or donate one to a library instead. Either way, I get paid and someone gets to read a good book. New copies are available for $15.99 at Amazon.com. If you're in the UK, the book is £14.99 at Amazon.co.uk. It should also be available from the various other Amazon sites; it's €15.99 in Europe. Signed copies are available from the Dog Eared Pages used bookstore in Phoenix. Trust me, it would not be a hardship for me to travel to a great used bookstore to replenish my stock! Review the BookEven if you only read the free PDF, please consider writing a review of it on Amazon.com. Reviews are like gold at Amazon, who will promote books which have obtained enough of them. Getting fifty reviews at Amazon would be like a Christmas present to me. Of course, the same goes for other independent authors too. If you review their books at Amazon as well as mine, you can help to make it Christmas every month in indie world and we'll love you all the more! Other DetailsHorns Ablaze #1 is the first Apocalypse Later zine. Other technical details are:
Catalogue Number: ALZ001 |
Last update: 3rd August, 2023
