Erebus Horror Invests!
Well it’s been a rough couple of weeks/months.
As I’m sure you guessed by our lack of posts, we’ve been busy working endlessly behind the scenes here at Erebus Horror. We (the team) have finally met each other face to face for the first time, and we actually have a location secured where all of the Erebus Horror activities will take place from now on. The building itself is a bit run down (dilapidated for lack of a better word…) but it has electricity and a working boiler (essential for all those emergency cups of tea we’ve needed these past few weeks) and despite its crumbling physique, it’s a pretty awesome place. Almost like a haunted house – A perfect base for our operations.
That doesn’t sound like much of a big deal I hear you say. Well there’s been a lot more going on… Read on my friend…
So after the purchase (yes I said purchase! … It was relatively cheap I’m told) of our new HQ, we apparently have a bit more cash set aside. Who is it for? I’m glad you asked… It’s for YOU
You see we’ve been setting out a plan over the past few months for what Erebus Horror is going to become in the next few years. We’ve been bouncing ideas, listening to feedback and weighing up the pros and cons of each idea. Now finally we have something in place which I think many of you will be pretty excited about.
We’ve decided to go down the investment route!
Now let me just explain what this entails…
From today we’re going to be open to submissions. Whether you’re a filmmaker, author, musician, artist or anything else working within the horror field, we want to hear from you, regardless of where you are in the world. Tell us what your project is about, what stage it is at and how we can help. Once a project catches our eye we will offer to assist in every way possible in order to get the movie/book/album etc off the ground and given the maximum publicity possible. We’ll do this by helping out financially, marketing, or any other way that can be helpful.
But I will stress that it doesn’t JUST have to be financial help. If you are okay for money, but would like a bit of help marketing your book internationally or would like a bit of publicity to help you get going, we’ll be more than happy to do that.
At the minute this opportunity will only be offered to one or two successful applicants. If we get good results following this then we may repeat the procedure and offer the service to more of you horror fiends out there. But for now, we can only accept one or two max. Think of this as a test run. We may end up out-of-pocket by the end, but even then it’s worth it knowing that we’ve helped get a horror project off the ground.
So if you fancy a bit of help with your work, get in touch and make your pitch!
It doesn’t matter at what stage your project is at – If you’re a filmmaker with a script, an artist trying to sell your work, or a writer wanting your book published. We will look at EVERY submission and will reply personally to EVERY one.
Now as you read this I bet alarms are starting to ring, or maybe a siren that sounds like “Scam, Scam, Scam, Scam, Scam” I’d probably be the same to be honest. As soon as the issue of money arises, everybody’s ears prick up and we all tend to adopt that defensive stance.
Free money does sound too good to be true, and in many cases it is. In our case though, we don’t want a single penny in return… I’m telling the truth! You will not have to part with any money WHATSOEVER!
Why? Because helping you also helps us as we would have association with that product. That’s it! We don’t want a percentage of royalties or a deposit or any of that stuff (although if you become a multi-millionaire as a result I hope you’d slip us a little monetary thankyou along the way…)
By helping you out we are taking a gamble, because we believe you and your project can go far. So if you DO end up being well-known, Erebus Horror will get an increase in popularity as well. Why is this good for us? Because it helps spread our message even further. If more people know about us, more people will learn about new horror projects which would go one step further to bringing horror back.
One thing I will say though is don’t waste your time with ridiculous suggestions. We’re not going to give you $100,000 in order to remake the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street – We don’t have that amount of cash, nor the will to see Freddy’s image destroyed further…
So that’s it really:
- Email us here and tell us a bit about your project.
- Let us know how we can assist – whether you need help financially, with marketing/ publicity, feedback or anything else
- If we like the idea we’ll tell you!
But please note; we don’t want any formalities. No ‘To whom it concerns’ or ‘Yours sincerely’ or any of that crap. Keep it loose! Nice and informal… We aren’t big shot businessmen looking to employ you. We’re just the same as you. Speak to us like your friend not your teacher/boss/magistrate…
So there you have it – Let’s see those submissions
This next bit is just a bit of rambling – ye be warned!
The reason we chose to pursue the investment route was basically because the other two options had too many disadvantages. The UK festival would have required an enormous amount of time, money and manpower. In the immortal words of Meat Loaf – “Two out of three ain’t bad” but in this case it meant we were unable to pursue that option right now because we don’t have enough people willing to volunteer… Maybe next year?
The publishing route was also flawed in the same way. We would need quite a few more people (albeit not as many as for the festival) in order to make an independent publishing business successful and, alas, we don’t have enough… But it could happen! Watch this space.
So basically that just left us with a wad of cash, a lot of time but with nothing to do… So the investment option seemed the most appropriate really. It will be interesting to see what the response is to this… Feel free to comment below, good or bad! (Although don’t just write ‘scam’ or ‘rubbish’ or ‘codswallop’ give us reasons why you think so and we’ll try to put it right)
Thanks for your continued support guys and please spread the word about this. There is no deadline as such, but we will temporarily put it on hold once we have chosen a project to invest our time, money and sanity into….
So take to Facebook, Twitter, Forums and anything else to get the word out. The next big project could be right around the corner…
September 8, 2012 at 7:54 pm
Wow! This sounds incredible, but also a big risk on your part too. Just be careful of accepting unfinished projects though (like books or scripts)…some people may never actually finish them. I know you guys are trying to do the right thing, but I’ve seen it before where someone advertises a book and it’s not out yet. People get excited and buy early copies of it before it comes out.
I mean, who would buy a book before it comes out? I don’t, but apparently a lot of people do. Well, what happens then is…they never got their books or their money back.
So, you guys be careful out there, okay? I don’t want you getting any bad press because of scams like that.
I just gave my film blog a new look and I’m preparing for the day I start making some shorts and trailers. It’s a slow start to tell you the truth, I knew it wasn’t going to be easy for me. Working on animation is challenging, but it’s getting there at the pace of a snail. I finally got the software to do it, and yet I’ve got so much studying to do. I’ll be reading tons of books and watching tutorials for the whole year. Still procrastinating on the studying part…
In addition, I’ve been trying to advertise my first book, but it hasn’t been too successful. I still have a couple more rounds (places) to go. I’ve done some advertising online, but doing it offline is a another story. I couldn’t even freely advertise my book at my old college without their permission. Promotion-free zones do exist! I’ll figure something out. What else can I really do? It’s hard enough to get the word out when I’ve got so much on my mind at the moment.
I’ll be working on a script soon. I’ve got my tripod now and a brand new camera I’m just waiting to try out.
Still thinking about which editing software to get. That might take awhile. Once I finish my sequel and get it published, if I still have problems advertising, maybe I can drop you guys a line sometime… or if you guys aren’t too busy just check up on me in a few more months.
If you’re ever interested in one of my projects, let me know. I may be a struggling artist now, but maybe down the line I may go somewhere…I dunno, maybe New York?! However, I’m never too busy to hear from an old friend though. Either way, it’s fine by me. I do wish you guys the best of luck on your new adventure. I do hope to see you again in the future real soon, even bigger and better than before.
September 8, 2012 at 8:42 pm
Hi WD, thanks for the support!
When it comes to unfinished scripts/books etc. We won’t really be handing over a wad of cash and say “There you go, make us proud…” If a project like that does catch our eye, we’d initially provide feedback/suggestions, preliminary publicity and approach certain contacts in whatever market to try and establish whether or not we could make it a success. For movies, we would set out some kind of guarantee where the purchase of props, actors, equipment etc. would not be wasted if the crew decide to give up. We’d also ensure there are other sources of finance backing the project, rather than just our input.
For books, it would mainly be upon completion that we start funding advertising campaigns or printing or whatever else to try and give the book the best possible chance of selling.
Whichever type of project we decide to invest in, we’d always set out a strategic plan that would allow both parties to monitor progress etc.
I’m glad to see you’re embarking on the film-making path. I’ve never stopped following your blog and I know it’s something you’ve been waiting to do for a long time (I bet it’s easier now those pesky builders have given your room back right?)
I applaud you for the way you’re going about it though. Too many people would just get the software and jump straight in resulting in a poor project which they ultimately scrap due to frustration. I think the way you’re doing it, learning the ins and outs of it all, is definitely the best way forward. Even if you decide to go down a different route, you would still have gained that knowledge that you could potentially use on future projects.
I’m sorry to hear your book is not doing as well as you would’ve liked. I was surprised when I read your post about your old college not allowing you to promote your book! I would’ve thought they would encourage their students, both past and present, to do whatever they need to in order to fulfil their dreams. You can’t even throw a bunch of leaflets off the top of a building anymore without being punished for it… (Although I suppose I can see why, but since it is now illegal, they should give you other ways of promoting things…)
Give us a week or two and we’ll re-launch our feature on you and hopefully that might help with a few sales. I read every post on your blog so hopefully I’ll see a bit of good news soon
We still write a feature on new projects (although this will probably be on a weekly basis now…) so feel free to send us any of your projects/ short films or anything else. If they’re horror-related we’ll have them!
Wishing you the best of luck with all your future endeavours (Although I suppose I’ll be reading about them soon)
September 8, 2012 at 11:52 pm
Yeah, I was surprised too when that man stopped me. I’ll ask around at the college and see what other people say about it, whether I can get approval or not. It’s worth a shot…or I can go to another campus and ask around. Maybe they’re not so strict about promoting a book as other places are? I’ll see how it goes.
I kind of figured my book sales would be a little slow at the start, that’s the life of an indie author. If only I had a PR agent. LOL xD! At least I was able to sell some of them. I read in an article that the only way to get more people to read them is to publish more books. I’ve noticed popular indie authors who publish a book every three to six months get more sales, because they have a book (or series) in a specific niche market. That’s how many of them start their fanbase.
I’m not the type of person to rush publishing a novel…as you can probably tell. I’ll take things one day at a time, but I’ll be focusing more on my film blog and see where that takes me. Thank you once again for all your help, hon. You really made my day! I can’t thank you enough.