This author knows how to promote his new novel. Look at this whizbang website . I am truly impressed. And here’s the starred PW review:
Starred Review. Barlow’s gut-wrenching, sexy debut, a horror thriller in verse, follows three packs of feral dogs in East L.A. These creatures are in fact werewolves, men and women who can change into canine form at will (Dog or wolf? More like one than the other/ but neither exactly). Lark, the top dog in one of the packs who’s a lawyer in human form, has a master plan that may involve taking over the city from the regular humans. Anthony Silvo, a dogcatcher and normally a loner, finds himself falling in love with a beautiful and mysterious woman (Standing on four legs in her fur,/ she is her own brand of beast). A strange small man and his giant partner play tournament bridge and are deep into the drug trade. A detective, Peabody, investigates several puzzling dog-related murders. The irregular verse form with its narrative economies proves an excellent vehicle to support all these disparate threads and then tie them together in the bittersweet conclusion.
That is one engaging website. I don’t know though, not a lot of info in the bits I saw, about the book. Sure know it’s about werewolves, though. Maybe I”m reacting to thinking how much work it must be to set up such a site, but then, maybe these days, that’s truly “nothing” to set up. Do you think it will be taken down when his next book is written, or if there will be updates? I sort of prefer your Lambert Square approach, where there is something new to see on a periodic basis.
Really interesting how people promote their books, regardless.
That is quite website, I love when you first enter the site, the newspaper clipping is great, but that’s it after that, the rest looks too aggressive to me. I’m always looking into what others do to promote their work and yes his book would definitely stand out but in my opinion it would put me off, the dog looks too mean and aggressive for my taste, I doubt I would pick it up to look at what the story is about, it would probably be my loss.
I’ve read books in the past with no dust jacket, old hardcovers from my grandmother or aunts and loved the stories and had no preconceived idea of what the characters or the storyline were going to be about because there was no dust jacket nor a synopsis of the story. Sort of a Mystery Book and I always enjoyed them, go figure.
That sharp teeth cover made me think of this one: link.