The book is out!

You can use the links on the right to get yourself a copy! The printed book was up for a second on Amazon, but they're combining it with the Kindle in their database, so they say it will take 3-5 days to show up again.

Get it on Createspace now because I make a couple more bucks there! USE THIS DISCOUNT CODE TO MAKE IT CHEAPER THAN AMAZON! 4NVJLQWN

And hey, here's some transparency about the cost and whatnot. Amazon probably wouldn't want me to tell you this, but there's no non-disclosure in there so what the hey!

Amazon tells you the minimum that you can sell your printed book for. They say it's the amount of money it will cost them to print it for you. In my case, it's expensive because it's full color,  180 pages and 8.5 by 11.

Wanna know how much I make for every printed book I sell on Amazon for $27.95? I make $3.42 per book. CRAZY, right? I make around $6 if you buy it off of Createspace. It's because Amazon charges some ridiculous rates per page on color books.

As far as the Kindle, which I set the price for, I get 35% of the $19.95 cover price. Amazon keeps 65%. Seems a little high, but they sorta rule the market. You can go with their 70% author royalty rate, but that's only for books that are $9.99 and under, AND you must be enrolled in their Kindle Select program which lets people who are enrolled in the program read your book for free. Worse yet, you pay an electronic delivery rate per MB on your book, and it would be steep on my book since there are so many pictures.

But I never really started the book to make a ton of money. It was a labor of love, since I've loved Halloween all my life. A long time ago I made a web site with a few little tidbits, and when I stumbled across it again about two years ago the thought occurred...why don't I expand it, put in the things I want to see in a book, a lot of the interesting facts and pictures.

Around 14-16 months ago I started the book. Most of the actual work involved clearing the pictures used(making sure I could legally print them) and organizing, as well as learning InDesign, the program I used to create it.

Anyway, I hope you get the book and enjoy it, and I'd appreciate any reviews you could post on Amazon. They really help sell the book, so it's a big deal to authors.

Keep an eye out here, because I'll keep posting any interesting Halloween-related tidbits I find.

Like this! It's currently up on eBay, and I remember a friend who wore this one Halloween. The "hairy scary" Kiss mask!

Also thanks to Emma for showing me this. What it is, I'm not sure. But it's amusing...

Starting to Feel Like Halloween...

Here's a cool animated crystal ball my wife picked up to add to our over-decorated house. Hey, we love Halloween, what're you gonna do?

Here's some other crystal balls at Amazon that you can check out. There's a bunch of cool ones in there.

And speaking of Amazon, here's their new Halloween store! Tons of goodies!
http://amzn.to/1KOWdue

Something else I stumbled on a while ago was this press book from Universal in 1982. Why's that Halloween related? Just take a look--and then weep at what an awesome year for movies that was!

And those aren't even all the pages!

My proof of the book had some issues I wasn't happy with, so we're ironing those out. The print version may end up coming out a little later in the 1st week of October. The Kindle is still available as of October 1st!

It's beginning to look a lot like...HALLOWEEN

The decorations are all over the place, the temperature's getting cool, and I've seen a few pumpkins on porches.

Speaking of which, here's some cool pumpkins and you can see a bunch more on the site!
http://coolpumpkindesigns.blogspot.com/2015/06/13-of-most-awesome-pumpkin-carvings-ever.html

One of them is by Ray Villafane, who we spotlight in the book. He's gotta be one of the best if not THE best pumpkin carver out there.

Another cool link is this crazy clown prank--these guys have done them before, but this is a newer video. One of these days I think someone's getting shot, but until then they're pretty entertaining!

https://www.facebook.com/BeTrollCom/videos/815844831865761/

And lastly, here's the pre-order link for the Kindle version of my book!
http://www.amazon.com/Halloween-Greatest-Holiday-Kevin-Kangas-ebook/dp/B015GEUFLS/

October 1st Appears to Be Publishing Date

I'm waiting for the proofs now so I can give the final thumbs up. I'll have a bunch of links once it goes live.

I'm excited to finally have it done! Eighteen months of work!

Here's a couple of little goodies I found in the research. A very cool ad for some movies from 1960. Peter Cushing and look at Donald Pleasence guest starring!

And then this pic I came across online but could never find out where it came from to get a higher-res scan and permission to use it. So, here it is. It's pretty cool, probably from the 80's.

And finally here's this pretty awesome prank that an electric company did in New Zealand--pretty great commercial. Stick around for the surprise ending.


More to come! Keep checking back.

Halloween The Greatest Holiday of All Book Cover

Here's the first look at the cover to the book. It was created by graphic designer Erik Ashley who's done all of my movie posters except for "Hunting Humans"(I didn't know him then). Super-talented guy and if you've got graphic design needs you should hit him up at his web site.


I'm going through the process of getting the book through Amazon's rigorous ebook process. It's not normally a big deal but their service isn't really built for books with photo-heavy interiors. Since there are so many types of readers out there, each one reacts differently to a book so if you let the reader interpret your book the way it wants then it results in crazy formatting that looks terrible.

So there's been a lot of work going on behind the scenes to ensure it still looks good. But the end is in sight!

Anyway, speaking of Halloween I'm not even sure what this is but I wish I had one to hang on my wall--very cool!

Halloween Donut Ad and Weird Puzzle

Here's a cute little ad for something I've never heard of: Morton Frozen Donuts. Sounds delicious, right?

But hey, if you get free makeup then it's all worth it...

Then there's this weird puzzle. I'm not sure if it's Halloween or what, but it's definitely a little creepy. I'd guess 1950's but am not sure.

Creepy Haunted Cemeteries and Cool Halloween Decorations

If you find yourself in Oklahoma here's some cool haunted cemeteries to check out:
http://www.onlyinyourstate.com/oklahoma/creepy-cemeteries-ok/


And if you have $161 lying around you could do worse than to get this...
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Corn-Stalker-Life-Sized-Animated-Prop-Creepy-HALLOWEEN-Decor-WICKED-Scarecrow-/261966340678?hash=item3cfe692246