Dan is considering rebranding his own publishing company, and the reason is a banned tarot reading. At a literary festival last year, a scheduled occult-themed event was pulled because the venue had ties to a nearby church. It got Dan thinking: with the word “devil” in the name Devil’s Rock Publishing, will it become a barrier as he starts selling at more events and eyes talks at schools and colleges?

This is a short solo episode with an announcement at the end. Dan walks through the logic of the possible rebrand (and why he’d keep the artwork he loves), shares updates on his 2027 events, the Hatching Season charity anthology for Mind, and his current projects. He also explains why he’s leaning towards making The Nowhere Line a direct-and-events-only book, and why, after eleven years, he’s finally planning a series that is purely for himself.

The episode closes with the news that The Writer’s Chair is taking a short break from its weekly schedule. The feed isn’t going anywhere, and Dan is clear he’ll be back, but books come first for the rest of the year.

🎙️ What we get into:

• Why Dan is considering rebranding Devil’s Rock Publishing, and the origin of the name and logo
• The Innsmouth Literary Festival incident that made him question whether “devil” is a barrier to events, schools and colleges
• Why you can become numb to your own brand name, and how to sanity-check it before spending on banners, tablecloths and business cards
• How to find Dan at his 2027 events, with an events page coming to his website
• The state of the Hatching Season charity anthology (proceeds to Mind): around 60,000 words selected and the final stories under review
• The challenge of balancing an anthology’s reader journey when many strong stories overlap
• Why The Nowhere Line is likely to become a direct-only, event-exclusive book, and why indie freedom makes that kind of experiment possible
• Why Dan realised he doesn’t actually read series, and how he plans to change that while planning his own
• Why he’s considering a purely “selfish” series, and how he’s narrowing down cosmic horror versus dark fantasy
• The announcement: a short hiatus from the weekly schedule, with the podcast feed staying live

Links & Resources:

• Daniel Willcocks: https://danielwillcocks.com
• Devil’s Rock Publishing: https://devilsrockbooks.com
• Free seven-day course, Finish Your Damn Draft: https://danielwillcocks.com/finish

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🖥️ Find out more: https://danielwillcocks.com/thewriterschair

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