I can't believe I'm saying this but tomorrow bookstore ordering opens for 2027 Indie Bookstore Day exclusive and free items.

I can't do preorders for the items but I can at least gauge interest in certain items.

Please email me: info@deathbytbrbooks.com ASAP and I'll email you the catalog.

They always do this right before the holiday season when sales are low and only sent it to me a few days ago. <3

You win some you lose some. I found this hilarious. I've tried with baking powder and coffee creamer and neither have worked. Enjoy the fails. 😭

https://youtube.com/shorts/6rVx2nA9nWg?si=ub1pIC1Gicn4QUUu

Tomorrow is Mabon, the Fall Equinox, and I'm celebrating in a few different ways this year. I wanted this to be the subject of my special post this week and post it earlier so you can actually do some of these things if you wish.

I'm mentally and physically exhausted. When my depression and CPTSD symptoms get worse, cooking and baking are two things that really help me. Unfortunately, spending too much time doing either can also cause my physical symptoms to flare up, so it's a constant game of finding a balance between doing things that make me happy and not completely exhausting myself in the process.

Me being a Libra definitely fits. ♎

I'm getting a head start today by making the pie dough and filling for my apple galette and prepping the vegetables for tomorrow's stew. That way, I can still enjoy cooking and baking without spending the entire day in the kitchen.

I wanted to share a few of the ways I'm celebrating Mabon this year, especially since not all of them require much energy or even leaving the house.

🍎 Baking an apple galette. Apples are one of my favorite parts of fall, and I've been looking forward to making this. I make one every season. I made an incredible blueberry almond one this summer.

🥧 Cooking beef stew with a puff pastry topping. A big pot of stew, a flaky pastry crust. A great way to incorporate seasonal vegetables.

🍊 Making a simmer pot. Cinnamon, apple, orange, and star anise. I love filling the house with the smell of fall, and this is such an easy way to make everything feel a little more cozy.

🕯️ Changing my altar from summer to fall. Putting away my summer decorations and bringing out the things that remind me of autumn. It's one of my favorite little seasonal rituals. Not that my entire home isn't filled with fall and Halloween decor year round.

🍁 Collecting a few fallen leaves and pressing them in a book. Something simple that gets me outside for a little while without requiring too much energy. Plus, I'll have a few pieces of this autumn to keep.

🌰 Carrying an acorn in my pocket all day. A little token of gratitude and a reminder to appreciate what I have, even when things are difficult.

📱 Harvesting the photos and videos off my phone. This one might sound a little strange, but I'm treating it as a different kind of harvest. I'll be going through my camera roll, organizing photos and videos, and setting aside things I can use for future social media posts. I've been trying to find ways to make creating content less exhausting, and having everything organized should help me spend less time on my phone and more time actually enjoying my life.

Why Mabon?

I don't celebrate Thanksgiving. Mabon is my harvest celebration. We decorate our bar with candles, flowers, and then put on a relaxing YouTube fall background too with calming music.

For those unfamiliar with it, Mabon is a modern Pagan celebration associated with the Autumn Equinox, when day and night are approximately equal in length. It's a time to recognize the changing seasons, reflect on what we've harvested throughout the year, practice gratitude, and prepare for the darker, quieter months ahead.

I love that it falls at a time of balance. Light and dark, activity and rest, holding on to what matters and letting go of what doesn't.

And this year, that feels especially relevant.

I'm trying to appreciate the things that bring me happiness while also recognizing that my body and mind need rest. Sometimes that means spending an afternoon baking something delicious. Other times, it means putting a few leaves in a book, curling up with my cats, and calling that enough for the day.

I don't need to do everything on my list to have a meaningful Mabon.

I'm sharing these little rituals in case anyone else is looking for ways to welcome fall, whether you celebrate Mabon or just really love this time of year.

Do you have any fall traditions or little rituals you look forward to every year?

I somehow missed a weekly update, so we’re doing two weeks at once because September has been A LOT.

The biggest thing is that I Wish I Was a Vampire is officially out in the world! I’ve spent the last couple of weeks doing all the release stuff, taking photos, making posts, getting ready for the book event, signing books, and having the very surreal experience of seeing my spooky little vampire book actually exist. Younger me would think this is extremely cool.

I also finished the first draft of Werewolf Summer, the second Woods Bay book! It takes place about six months after Small Town Slasher, and I’m really excited about where this one is going. There are werewolves, a very 90s prom, small-town weirdness, and plenty more happening in Woods Bay that Jenna probably would have preferred not to deal with.

We also hit the one-year anniversary of the first Twisted Tales anthology, which is kind of wild considering we’re already getting ready for book three. I’ve been working behind the scenes on Twisted Tales to Tell in the Night: A Slasher Horror Anthology, including contributor announcements and getting ready for the cover reveal.

And Death by TBR officially hit 20K followers on Instagram, which still feels a little unreal. Sales have unfortunately been pretty slow lately, so I’ve also started looking more seriously at sponsorships and paid partnerships as another way to keep the shop and press growing. I finally put together a proper media kit, started reaching out to brands, and applied to Penguin Random House’s Creator House program.

Then there’s all the stuff that doesn’t make especially exciting content: emails, graphics, book listings, marketing, upcoming releases, author stuff, publishing stuff, distribution headaches, and the approximately 900 tiny jobs involved in running a bookstore and small press while also trying to write my own books.

At this point, I am also VERY aware that my break is getting closer.

I’ve been pushing hard for months to get as much done as possible before then, and I am more than ready for some time where I’m not constantly thinking about the next deadline, release, post, edit, or email. I love what I do, but I am tired.

So that’s roughly where the last two weeks went.

A book released. A draft got finished. We hit 20K. More books are coming.

And I am officially counting down to my break.

Sometimes when I write these updates, I feel like I’m just rambling and wonder if anyone actually wants to hear all of this. But I also know so much of this work happens behind the scenes, so I’m trying to get better about sharing more of it instead of only showing up when there’s something shiny to announce.

Hopefully you don’t mind the rambling.

I’m working through line edits for the Yuletide Horror anthology right now, which is one of those behind-the-scenes publishing jobs that takes a lot longer than you’d probably think.

I go through every story line by line looking for the tiny things that are easy to miss: punctuation, capitalization, spacing, missing or repeated words, italics, dialogue formatting, paragraph breaks, and anything else that looks off.

With an anthology, there’s another layer to it because every story comes from a different author. I want to preserve each author’s voice while also making sure the book feels consistent as a whole. That means checking things like formatting, how scene breaks are handled, quotation marks, em dashes, headers, and all the little style choices that need to match from one story to the next.

It’s definitely not the most exciting part of publishing to show off, but it’s a huge part of what happens between receiving a finished story and having an anthology that’s actually ready to become a book.

It’s the kind of work nobody really notices when it’s done right, which is exactly the point.

It’s been almost two weeks since my last update, and I actually have a pretty big one.

The first draft of Werewolf Summer is DONE! I rewarded myself with my first iced PSL with a pumpkin snowcap from Woods Coffee. No more Starbucks for me for over a year now because they're just horrible.

It is absolutely a word-vomit draft right now, but I don’t even care. There is no better high than the feeling I get after finishing a book, even when it’s only the first draft.

It has bones now.

Next I get to go back in and fill in the blood and guts.

I’m really proud of myself for getting this one finished, especially because writing is never a neat, consistent process for me. I can go days without touching a draft and then suddenly write thousands of words when something clicks. This one clicked, and now I have an entire book to work with. All I'll say for now the story went in a different direction and has more witchy, nostalgia, cozy horror vibes than I thought it would with some gruesome kills! I'm not following the rules. Cozy vibes of cozy fantasy and mysteries blended with the gruesomeness of horror.

Outside of writing, I’ve continued filling my little lair with pieces of the late ’90s and early ’00s.

I’ve been finding old magazines I actually read back then, which has been such a weird little time capsule. Not reproductions or things made to look nostalgic. The actual issues I remember seeing on shelves when I was younger.

And I found a CRT TV at Goodwill.

It was a STEAL.

So now I have this whole setup where I can watch old DVDs and VHS tapes the way I remember watching them, flip through old magazines, and generally escape into a time before everything lived on the same little screen in our hands.

I’ve been sharing more of it online too because I know I’m not the only person craving that feeling lately. If I can give someone else a few minutes of the same nostalgic joy I’ve been getting from all of this, I want to.

That’s also part of why I made my September and October watchlist.

I put it together one night this week when I was having a rough time, and working on it genuinely helped. I wanted something fun to look forward to and something that might give other people the same thing.

It has movies and TV episodes for fall in September and Halloween in October, with some things placed on specific dates for a reason.

It’s up on my Instagram if you want to watch along with me.

And finally, my I Wish I Was a Vampire book release event is in 13 days!

I’m getting really excited about this one. They also ordered a few copies of Twisted Tales to Tell in the Night, so now it’s starting to feel like I’m getting my own tiny spooky book fair, which is basically perfect.

So that’s where I’m at right now.

One first draft finished. One spooky book event getting very close. A house slowly filling with old magazines, VHS tapes, DVDs, and CRT televisions.

September is off to a pretty good start.

Okay, I know I was going to do a post about line edits, BUT I just opened up ARCs for Twisted Tales to Tell in the Night: A Yuletide Horror Anthology… and you know what that means if you’re reading this level.

You get early access! 🎄🔪

If you’d like an ARC, email us at info@deathbytbrbooks.com and we’ll send you both the ePub and PDF.

I am so excited to finally share this anthology with you, and I hope you enjoy reading it now and then again during Creepmas.

Thank you so much for supporting Death by TBR Books and supporting me as both an author and editor. It means so much to be able to share these books with you first. 🖤

I'll definitely do a line edits post next time!

tw: suicide, depression, trauma, loss

Below is the Instagram post I shared last night. I was working on making it a blog post too so I figured I'd share it. It's been a rough week but I'm hanging in there. The death of Hayden Panettiere has hit me hard. I'm mourning by continuing to push myself to create and by having a movie marathon on and off this whole week of her work.

As of right now the only thing confirmed is cardiac arrest and a "possible overdose." As someone who struggles with depression and suicidal thoughts when something like this happens it can be a trigger. The Clancy case is another thing I am trying to keep up with but only in small doses. Living with depression and disabilities can be crushing some days. Today is one of them. Hope you all find some joy in something or someone today. <3

***

I had such an incredible day celebrating with my love. It made me realize the more time I spend being whimsical and nostalgic the happier I am.

I slipped into a few days of severe feelings of agoraphobia, anxiety, and depression but this trip really helped me feel hopeful instead of helpless. I took an inventory of how I spend my time, and this won't happen overnight, but I'll definitely be making some changes. I've already started by muting a lot of people so they're not in my feed.

More nostalgic and low energy posts and less posting overall.

Easy videos with voiceovers or captions or music.
Treating Instagram like MySpace (until it comes back!)

Less time online. More time reading and writing.
Less computer time. More movie marathons.
Turning my smartphone into a flip phone (deleting almost all apps).

That means not returning emails the same or even next day.

It means the BER months through the end of Yule EVERY YEAR moving forward I'll be on a semi sabbatical to enjoy the time of year I live for.

I appreciate all of you so much. I'll still be sharing book announcements and other necessary marketing. I'm just being intentional about it.

Less trying to figure out algorithms and more time just saying what's on my mind without trying to insert a keyword or hashtag.

I feel a lot like Peter in Office Space and damn it feels good to be a gangsta!

Hey wow congrats you got this far. 🤓 I'm Stephanie Rose. Horror author. House goblin, cat lady, Halloween queen and horror maven. I love watching movies especially horror. I'm currently living mostly like it's late 90s early 00s. 🖤🔪👻

Life is too short especially to someone that battles disabilities. 🖤🖤🖤

I am changing things up. I have a lot of random ideas, short stories, and of course work in progress. That's going to be what I start sharing for my exclusive post. I don't want to make new content just for the sake of it when I could be giving you a behind the scenes look at my writing process. Hope you enjoy! After finishing the outline weeks ago I took a break to get another idea out of my head (I Wish I Was a Vampire) now back to Werewolf Summer I have finished the first five chapters of the first draft so obviously anything I share will most likely change somewhat or who knows A LOT. Okay enough stalling. Here is part of Chapter 1!

CHAPTER 1

Jenna sits across from Winona in the radio station booth while Winona adjusts the levels and pushes a stack of papers out of the way. The desk is covered in CDs in and out of their cases, old flyers, coffee rings, and black pens.
Her mic is still muted, so she takes another breath and tries to calm down. It does not help much. Her hands are damp, her stomach is tight, and the first page of her notes is too neat. When she gets nervous, she overprepares, as if bullet points can somehow keep her from falling apart.
At the top of the page, she has written: First episode back. Below that: Charlie. Woods Bay. Why now? She hates seeing those three things together.
“You okay?” Winona asks, popping her head up like a meerkat from behind her computer screen.
“Yes?” Jenna says, but it sounds like a question even to her.
She looks out the window at the sheets of rain coming down on the historic downtown of Woods Bay. It’s been humid all afternoon, the kind of sticky summer weather that makes the air feel thick, and now the rain is hitting the pavement hard enough to turn everything outside soft and gray.
Winona waits.
“Fuck,” Jenna says, dragging the word out like a moan. “No, I’m not, but I will be.”
“That sounds more like it,” Winona says with a fake-it-till-you-make-it level of enthusiasm before giving Jenna a cheesy thumbs-up.
Jenna almost laughs, but it comes out more like a breath. “I want to do this. I do. It’s just a lot.”
“Then we don’t have to do it today. That’s what’s great about owning your own station,” Winona says.
She puts her feet up on her desk and leans back in her chair. As she goes to put her hands behind her head to really commit to the relaxed appearance, her face shifts from a smile to panic. A second later, she tumbles backward onto the floor.
“Yes we do you goofball. Are you okay?” Jenna asks between giggles.
Winona’s voice comes from the other side of the desk. “I’m fine. At least I got you to laugh. And no, we really don’t.”
Jenna looks down at her notes again. Charlie’s name is still there, like it is just another topic she can get through if she stays professional enough.
“We do,” Jenna says. “That’s how sponsors work. You produce content and then you get paid. It’s just the first time recording without her.”
Winona climbs back into her chair. Her face softens, but not in the careful way people use when they are afraid of saying the wrong thing. Jenna appreciates that. She hates being handled like she might break if someone speaks normally.
“I know,” Winona says with a sadness in her eyes that breaks Jenna’s heart a little.
Jenna knows she does. That is one of the reasons she agreed to record with her. Winona doesn’t know everything, but she knows enough. She knows Woods Bay. She is a member of one of the town’s founding families, which means she understands what it is like when something terrible happens and strangers decide they have a right to talk about it. Back home, people had been kind. Jenna cannot complain about that, but kindness was not enough.
In Woods Bay, people are strange and nosy, but they do not need Jenna to explain why she flinches at certain sounds or why the smell of chlorine still makes her throat close. They understand enough.
Winona slides a pair of headphones toward her. “Last chance to run dramatically into the rain.”
“Tempting,” Jenna says looking out the window as if really debating running out the door and getting soaked.
“I’d give you thirty seconds before I mocked you on air,” Winona says, smirking at her.
“How kind of you,” Jenna says.
“As Jacob would say, kind is my middle name,” Winona says.
Jenna who is middrink almost spits water all over.
“You did not just quote one of the Twilight movies,” Jenna says in between coughs. She slides her cat ear headphones on.
Across from her, Winona glances at the levels, then smiles back at Jenna.
“Damn straight I did and it got you distracted and laughing. Well after choking. Seriously though. You say the word and we stop,” Winona says. “Anytime.”
Jenna nods. Winona unmuted her mic first. The red light comes on.

This week was basically release day chaos: posts, interviews, reviews, rankings, emails, orders, and trying to remember the million tiny things that come with putting a book out.

It is still surreal that people are actually reading Jenna’s story and talking about Woods Bay like it is a real place. After spending so long with this book as a document on my computer, having it in the world is surreal.

I have also been doing a lot behind the scenes for Death by TBR Books. I am working on Twisted Tales to Tell in the Night: A Yuletide Horror Anthology, and trying to keep all of the production, formatting, PR, retailer listings, reviews, and future releases moving.

Also, I normally do an exclusive post for paid members, but I did not have the energy to finish one during Small Town Slasher release week. I would rather give you something actually worth reading than rush one just to get it up, so the exclusive post will be coming next week.

If you have read Small Town Slasher, please remember that reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, StoryGraph, and anywhere else you review books really do help.

So basically: Small Town Slasher is out, I survived release week, the press is still moving, and now I would like go hibernate now. Instead I went over the outline for Werewolf Summer and wrote the first chapter.

If you'd like to follow what I'm reading you can find me on Storygraph and for films on Letterboxd.

xoxo
Spooky Girl

This week was basically the final sprint (metaphorical I can't run haha) toward the Small Town Slasher release, which is now only a few days away! If you've read it please copy and paste your review on Amazon, Goodreads, Storygraph, and/or any other websites you use for reviews.

I signed, packed, and shipped every preorder that has come in so far. Seeing the full stack of books in my house was a little surreal, especially after spending so long working on this story when it only existed as a doc on my computer. I also filmed an unboxing where I showed the book, talked about the writing process, and explained why preorders matter so much to indie authors and small presses.

And somehow, Small Town Slasher made it into the top 100 in Amazon’s Slasher Horror category before it is even officially out (today it jumped to the top 50). That was absolutely not something I expected.

I also had the honor of being on a final girls panel as part of the TBRCon with Stephen Graham Jones. Yes, that Stephen Graham Jones. It was an honor to be part of a conversation about slashers and final girls with an author whose work has meant so much to me. I am still processing the fact that it actually happened.

Outside of book release chaos, I have been virtually attending Lollapalooza. Lorde and especially Charli xcx has been a huge part of my life.

Behind the scenes, I am still working on release posts, events, orders, emails, future books, and all the tiny last-minute tasks that apparently appear whenever I cross something else off the list. Small Town Slasher releases Tuesday, and I am excited, exhausted, proud, nervous, and probably forgetting something.

So this week was preorders, podcasts, final girls, Stephen Graham Jones, Amazon rankings, Lollapalooza, and the final countdown to Small Town Slasher.

Very calm. Completely normal. No screaming whatsoever.

BOOKS

The Reimagining of Thornwood House by Jaleigh Johnson
Did I Ever Tell You This by Sam Neill

Currently reading: Heart of Glass by Jennifer Hillier, and reading Kiss Slay Replay by Rachel Harrison (for the second time).

SHOWS AND FILMS

I have mostly been relying on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The X-Files, Owl House, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and my usual late 1990s and early 2000s comfort rewatches while I work. Also I've been watching Marriage at First Sight. I always have to have some kind of reality show going too.

For movies I've watched: The Devil's Mouth, Leviticus, and Monkey's Magic Merry Go Round and rewatched: Scream 7 and Twister. Also, I watched The Idaho Murders: College Nightmare, and some of the Lindsay Clancy trial and Lollapalooza!

That is all for this week. What is something that brought you joy this past week?

xoxo

Spooky Girl