This month marks the tenth anniversary of my releasing A Demon in the Desert. And I still don’t know what to do with that.

I kind of had a whole realization about this on Bluesky. I still struggle with validating my own accomplishments. I finished By Demons Be Driven and basically took a month off before the nagging feeling of “okay, onto the next project, hurry the fuck up” got a hold of me. “You’re not gonna make any money without getting more books out” plays in my head on a loop. Despite writing four books, A Demon in the Desert remains the one most folks find first. I have attempted to make sure they can be read as stand alone books but people like to read chronologically (and hey, I’m no different).

What does it mean to feel proud of your accomplishments? And for this book in particular, pride and shame walk hand-in-hand, and are even enforced to a degree by my readers. There are a few people who like this book, my objectively least well-crafted book, better than the sequels. Most enjoy it but prefer books 2 or 3 for the greater emotional weight and storytelling ability. Some people have bounced right off it, citing the sharp edges. It’s a first book. It reads like a first book. It’s existence is worthy of pride because it’s one more book than most people who say they’re gonna write a book have. It’s existence is, well, maybe not worthy of shame, but causes a certain amount of shame because of my limitations and how I’m fairly certain they’ve hurt my career.

I am, however, deeply aware that publishing, and the entertainment industry as a whole, is deeply fickle and requires a similarly deep amount of luck for a creator to achieve any sort of livable wage. Popularity does not necessarily equate Making a Living™ but it sure helps.

There are several ironies to my career because of these facets. The first is that I kind of hamstrung myself from the start. In the big picture, Grimluk is a Fantasy series. From there, I consider it a Dark Fantasy series, in the vein that I’ve always known: covered in shadows and touched by horror, maybe even grim and dark without being Grimdark. In marketing, I tend to use Weird West, however, as it has the quickest visuals. It still doesn’t entirely fit though as it seems like most people hear Weird West and think “Steampunk Cowboys”, which is fair. The genre is either Steampunk or Cowboys vs Zombies for the most part. I’ve always like Sixguns & Sorcery for Grimluk but I’ve never managed to get it to take off.

And this brings us to the first major irony: Weird Westerns are an incredibly niche genre. Especially the horror ones. Getting people passed that hump is the biggest problem and I’ve had a ton of reviews that start or include, “I never liked Westerns but I liked this!” Even with an orc on the cover, people hesitate.

Now we get to irony number two: I’m kind of floating alone in my own little bubble. Things get a bit odd in the bubble. People bump up against me sometimes. I have friends and peers and a few folks who have been absolutely instrumental in my growth. I think self-publishing probably peaked with losing the stigma in 2017-2019, which is when I did the Fools of Fantasy sale (April 2017) with several other (at the time) self-published writers, including Will Wight of Cradle fame. The Demons Within dropped in 2018. Hell, I’ve influenced a couple of folks to write their own Weird Westerns and they’ve done better than me. More reviews, more sales, more popular.

Again, luck. But also effort. Being in a bubble and being a little too self-aware also meant that I’ve not taken chances when I’ve probably needed to. Also ten years ago, Mark Lawrence started the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-off. Six years ago, it still would have been possible to find a spot with A Demon in the Desert. But I never tried because I knew it wasn’t strong enough. The Blog-off is what helped so many of us up our game. That 2017-2019 era being the strongest was because a lot of my peers at the time were stepping in and were determined to put out books of the same quality as the big 5 publishers. Not to say I haven’t been determined to put out quality but A Demon in the Desert never got proper editing. Probably needed another year of work before being published, if I’m honest.

But that fear held me back. I was so sure I’d be ripped apart, told I’m part of why the stigma remains in self-pub. Oh greatest irony of ironies that now, in 2025, I could reasonably be called a champion because I fucking refuse to use generative slop.

I’d also considered rewriting the goddamned book. Fought with myself about it even. Part of me has refused to give in to that desire because I’ve always (stubbornly) felt like it should remain as a testament to where I was as an artist. I was once taught that Art is never finished, it’s just released, and that’s how I’ve approached things. And now here I am, the ten year mark, when I said I would want to re-release it if I ever rewrote it and that time is now past.

The worst part about all this? That I’ve written four books that are relatively well-liked, still read (and infrequently reviewed) and all of this is what weighs on me after a decade. This is the real shame about the book. That I can’t celebrate it because I’m in my little bubble. I’m not letting ten years come and go like this though. I refuse. I turn 40 later this month too and I’m not letting things just pass, sad and unacknowledged.

So here’s what I’m going to do. I want to ask anyone who’s ever read A Demon in the Desert to tell me something they liked about it. Whether it means a lot to your or whether you just really like Grimluk or a particular scene, or description, whatever the hell it is, share it. I know the book isn’t garbage. It can be a struggle to say that sometimes but it’s not and even if I haven’t put out a book since 2021, I’ve still been busting my ass for ten years and people have been reading this book for ten years.

That’s not nothing.

So, please, celebrate with me. Share whatever love you have for my good green son and his first adventure.