Emergency Working Artist Project Grant FY21

This funding will help me release a book that is polished, professional and worthy of publication. The funding will enable me to turn down freelance work so that I have time to professionally edit the book. It will likewise enable me to purchase the rights to a book cover made by a professional artist and customize that cover. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, this funding will give me the ability to market my work. If nobody knows that I have written and released this book, I'll be unable to sustain myself as a working artist. I've learned during my first two professional projects that a successful marketing campaign is integral to any artistic endeavor. My ability to execute this project is best highlighted by the successful completion of my feature film, Gravedigger Dave's Halfway House, and my nonfiction book, The Horror Anthology Handbook. Both of these projects were grant-funded, delivered successfully to their target audience, well reviewed and well covered in the press, profitable, and helped advance my career as an independent artist. Red Betty and the Murder Farm, as my next endeavor, will represent an expansion of my skills, and expansion of my core audience, and hopefully another financial success.I will know if I've been successful if my book makes it into the world in a form that is polished, professional, and well-written. Good reviews and widespread press coverage will be an added bonus, and going off the successes of my prior projects, I am confident that I'll be able to make this happen for Red Betty and the Murder Farm. Of course, external validation is no match for an artists internal feeling that they have done a good job, but it certainly helps an artist know that they are headed down the right path.