The Darkness Has Awoken

FBI Special Agent Caleb Baldwin is on the hunt for a serial killer who has left a trail of burned bodies. One of those victims — his wife. As he gets closer to finding the killer, he falls deeper into an elaborate conspiracy.

A man wakes buried alive with no memory of who or what he is. In his pocket, a note: “Avoid the sunlight and don’t touch anybody.” Now he is being hunted by the FBI while trying to remember his monstrous past. He must control the darkness within before it consumes him and the child whose life he must protect.

11-year-old Abigail was dying slowly each day as the prisoner of a sick man. Until she is saved by the most unlikely of heroes — a vampire with a deadly touch. He is her only hope, and she may hold the key to unlocking the memories of his hidden past.

Past, present, fate, and future are on a collision course as the hours of AVAILABLE DARKNESS are ticking away and a force greater than anything the world has ever seen threatens humanity.

Available Darkness is an epic serialized journey that reinvents vampire mythology with a fast paced, character-driven thriller that blends action, mystery, fantasy, and horror in an addictive, tragically romantic story.

We want to talk to you about your fiction, but can we clear up the terminology first? Episodes, seasons – what have they got to do with books?
When we started writing serialized fiction for the Kindle, we weren’t really going for a novel type model. My writing partner, David Wright, and I completely ignored what was happening in the world of literature, and set our sights on what was happening with scripted television mostly on the cable networks; shows like Breaking Bad, Battlestar Galactica, Mad Men, Walking Dead, LOST, etcetera.

Seasons and and episodes gave our readers immediate shorthand to understand what we were doing by drawing parallels to what they were already used to see on TV.

And what exactly is the Collective Inkwell?
The collective inkwell is the name of the publishing imprint I co-own with David Wright. Our model is serialized fiction with new episodes each Tuesday. Currently we have seven “shows” and deliver 52 weeks per year. Our newest season started on February 12 with the launch of Available Darkness Season Two.

Tell us about Available Darkness. 
Available Darkness was the first project Dave and I ever wrote together. It was initially written as serialized fiction on the blog, which was a total failure, finished into a novel, then eventually deconstructed and pieced back together last year as part of our serial lineup. The second season was written as a serial from the beginning, after a year’s experience writing half a million serialized words, and is a massive improvement over the first season. Even though I love the first season, especially since it was the first thing we wrote, it was awesome to see what a grand improvement the story took from one season to the next. So far the reviews reflect this growth.

You have said that Available Darkness is a different take on the vampire genre – does that mean that fans of other vampire novels might be alienated by it? 
No, I don’t think that at all. Fans of any genre are always looking for something new and original. Or a cool spin on what they already know. Readers who are looking for the same old bloodsuckers they’ve been reading in one way or another since Stoker’s Dracula aren’t really our ideal readers, so I’m not bothered at all if they’re alienated by our take. Collective Inkwell’s ideal reader isn’t necessarily even looking for a vampire book, they’re looking for a new and different sort of experience, which is what we offer by serializing our fiction and building episodes around super fun cliffhangers. We’re not going after vampire lovers, we’re chasing lovers of superbly crafted fiction.

Complete this sentence for us: if you like ________________, then you’ll love Available Darkness.
If you like the best of serialized fiction from the golden age of television, then you’ll love Available Darkness.

Should we start from the first book or can we dive in anywhere?
You could start at season two, but I wouldn’t. Again, the direct parallel here isn’t literature, it’s TV. You could start watching Dexter in its second season, but you’ll have a much deeper grounding in its world, or any serialized world, if you start with season one.

Even though we aren’t authors we are huge fans of The Self-Publishing Podcast. For those who haven’t yet discovered it, tell us what it’s about.
The self-publishing podcast is like a live mastermind with my writing partners David Wright and Johnny B. Truant. It’s our way of giving back to the writing community. All of us have at one time or another written blogs to help fellow writers, but this is a far more efficient and productive way to help. Each week we discuss those things that are and are not working in our indie experience. This is awesome because most of what we’re doing hasn’t really been done yet, so we get to talk about it out loud with our audience and they get to learn along with us. This means, hopefully, we’re saving many writers for making some of our worst mistakes.

Tell us a bit more about yourself.
I love writing, creating, and making things that I feel have a chance to last forever. When I’m not writing I adore my family. I have a son, daughter, and an amazing wife who all make it possible for me to do everything I’m doing. For the first time in my life, there’s nothing I’m working on that I’m not absolutely in love with and giddy over. I wake up feeling lucky each day.

Have you got a website where readers can keep up with your work? How can we follow you on Twitter and/or Facebook?
You can reach me at seanmplatt.com, and get a free book by signing up there, or follow me on Twitter @seanplatt.

What’s next?
We are constantly writing, and again Dave and I are publishing fresh product each week. In addition, I’m working on the Unicorn Western series with Johnny, which is possibly the funniest project I’ve ever worked on. It’s absolutely ludicrous, and totally fun. In addition, later this year I will have a full, and rather substantial, children’s project out, hopefully by summer.