Hi, folks! Dane here, and I have some exciting news for you today. It’s publishing day for The Lexicologist’s Handbook, my brand new book!

The Lexicologist’s Handbook is essentially a dictionary of strange and unusual words, and it’s the latest in a series of books that I’ve worked on with my core publishing team of editor Pam Elise Harris and cover designer Larch Gallagher. It’s out now in paperback and electronic formats and you can learn more about it below.

That’s because The Lexicologist’s Handbook is a dictionary with a difference, a reference book that’s packed to the seams with strange and unusual words. Check out the cover and the blurb below.

Lexicologist

Pronunciation: Lec-sic-ol-oh-jist                               Type: Noun

Definition: A student of language, particularly the components of language such as the nature or meaning of words. Also, a compiler or writer of a dictionary.

Example: The lexicologist was overjoyed to discover that lugubrious^† is a word.

Whether you’re an author, a poet, a songwriter or a student, The Lexicologist’s Handbook will introduce you to words that you’ve never heard before and change the way that you look at language.

Like a traditional dictionary but with the boring words left out, The Lexicologist’s Handbook will help you to broaden your vocabulary and impress your friends while entertaining you along the way. It’s the perfect book for all lexophiles.

The fun thing about The Lexicologist’s Handbook is that it’s a project that I’ve been working on for over ten years, with work beginning back when I was at university. It’s exciting to finally have it out in print and available to the public!

As always, thanks so much for all of your support and be sure to give me a follow on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram for more. You can also find out more about my books on Amazon and Goodreads. Happy reading!

Hi, folks! Dane here, and the fact that I’m once again writing a news article on my website can mean only one thing: book news!

Today, it’s the cover reveal for my next book, The Lexicologist’s Handbook. This one’s an interesting one because it’s a project that’s been in progress for over ten years. I first started it when I was at university, and as part of my research for it I read the Oxford English Dictionary in its entirety.

That’s because The Lexicologist’s Handbook is a dictionary with a difference, a reference book that’s packed to the seams with strange and unusual words. Check out the cover and the blurb below.

Lexicologist

Pronunciation: Lec-sic-ol-oh-jist                               Type: Noun

Definition: A student of language, particularly the components of language such as the nature or meaning of words. Also, a compiler or writer of a dictionary.

Example: The lexicologist was overjoyed to discover that lugubrious^† is a word.

Whether you’re an author, a poet, a songwriter or a student, The Lexicologist’s Handbook will introduce you to words that you’ve never heard before and change the way that you look at language.

Like a traditional dictionary but with the boring words left out, The Lexicologist’s Handbook will help you to broaden your vocabulary and impress your friends while entertaining you along the way. It’s the perfect book for all lexophiles.

The cover was designed by my super talented cover designer Larch Gallagher and the book was edited by my long-time partner-in-crime Pam Elise Harris.

The Lexicologist’s Handbook is scheduled for release on Friday 27th August and will be available in both paperback and electronic formats through all of the usual retailers.

In the meantime, you can follow me on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram for further updates, and you can also check out my Amazon and Goodreads pages for more books and stuff. Thanks as always for your support and I’ll see you soon!

Hi, folks! Dane here, and it’s an exciting day for me today because it’s the launch day for my new book, Scarlet Sins. Read on to find out all about it!

Here’s the super exciting new cover, designed by Larch Gallagher:

“I hope when I die that it may be said: His sins were scarlet but his books were read.”
 – Hillaire Belloc

Scarlet Sins is a collection of short stories and songs spanning two decades and taking the reader from the English countryside during the outbreak of World War I to the flower markets of Amsterdam and the depths of the infinite cosmos.

Discover what likes the darkness, why the clouds were mad when the sun came out and why the ghost of little Suki haunts the George and Dragon. Meet magician Durian Pink and his corpse plant, celebrate a black solstice with the Reid twins and see Kate lose her mind from fatal familial insomnia.

Scarlet Sins: Selected Stories and Songs is Cobain’s first collection of songs and stories and his tenth published work.

Scarlet Sins: Stories and Songs by Dane Cobain is out now in both paperback and electronic formats. Click here to pick up a copy.

Alternatively, you can find out more by checking out my Amazon and Goodreads pages, and you can also follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube for further information. I’ll see you soon!

Hello everyone! Dane here, and today I’m excited to be revealing the cover for my new book, Scarlet Sins. A collection of stories and songs, it brings together fifteen years of lyrics and short fiction, along with a couple of extra goodies that I’m excited to share with you.

Here’s the super exciting new cover, designed by Larch Gallagher:

“I hope when I die that it may be said: His sins were scarlet but his books were read.”
 – Hillaire Belloc

Scarlet Sins is a collection of short stories and songs spanning two decades and taking the reader from the English countryside during the outbreak of World War I to the flower markets of Amsterdam and the depths of the infinite cosmos.

Discover what likes the darkness, why the clouds were mad when the sun came out and why the ghost of little Suki haunts the George and Dragon. Meet magician Durian Pink and his corpse plant, celebrate a black solstice with the Reid twins and see Kate lose her mind from fatal familial insomnia.

Scarlet Sins: Selected Stories and Songs is Cobain’s first collection of songs and stories and his tenth published work.

Scarlet Sins is due out for release on Friday 9th April in paperback and electronic formats. It was edited by my long-term editor and partner in crime Pam Elise Harris and will be released independently.

You can find out more about my books on my Amazon and Goodreads pages, and be sure to follow me there while you’re at it. You can also follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube for more. I’ll see you soon!

Hello, everyone! Sorry to have been a bit silent of late, I’ve been spending most of lockdown working on various freelance and personal writing projects. Now that lockdown is slowly but surely coming to an end, I figure I need to start thinking about marketing, promotion and all of that other good stuff.

See, despite the fact that I used to work in marketing and spend half of my working life creating marketing materials, I’ve never been particularly good at promoting myself. It’s a surprisingly common situation.

Anyway, the upshot is that I’m trialling out a revitalised approach to my social media profiles, including starting to use Twitter again and using Instagram stories to keep people up-to-date with what I’ve been reading. I’m hoping to get a new website built at some point, too.

But that’s all boring marketing stuff, and you probably don’t want to hear about that. Instead, let’s take a look at some of the projects that I’ve been working on.

Scarlet Sins: Stories and Songs: This is set for release sometime over the next six weeks or so and will be my tenth published work, collecting together short stories and song lyrics as well as a few other goodies. It’s all complete and ready for release, so watch this space.

The Lexicologist’s Handbook: This one is a dictionary of strange and obscure words that’s designed to be a reference book for fellow language nerds. It’s been through editing with my editor, Pam Elise Harris, and is just going through its final proofing before we gear up for publication.

Boys in Blue: This is Leipfold book #3 or book #4, depending upon how you look at it. I have a collection of Leipfold short stories called Jailed and Other Stories that’s been edited and is ready to go, while Boys in Blue is set to be the third novel in the series. I’ve completed the first draft of that and need to give it a read through before it goes over to Pam.

Monsters of Rock: This is a comic fantasy novel about a band that’s made up of real monsters and which follows the highs and lows of the band’s career. I’ve finished my first draft and need to give it another read through before it’s ready for Pam.

My Life in Books: Another book that I’ve finished the first draft of. This one is a bibliomemoir, or a memoir about books, in which I talk about some of the books and authors who’ve shaped my life. I’m still adding to this here and there, but the first draft is pretty much complete. It needs another read-through before I send it to Pam.

Dutch Courage: This is the working title for the fifth Leipfold book and fourth novel. I’ve plotted out the book and at the moment, I’m just sitting on it and letting it ferment. The plan is to revisit it in a couple of months and to give the plan a second pass to enhance it all.

Minis: This isn’t one book but rather a mini series of them, in which I’ll be tackling subjects including writing, veganism and anxiety. The plan is to have them run to around 15-20,000 words each and to print them with a small font and page size so that you can carry them around in your pocket.

Greebos: This is essentially my primary current work in progress and the first draft that I’m putting most of my time into. It’s set in the Summer of 2005 in my hometown of Tamworth and is essentially an attempt to recapture my youth and to tell untold stories through an ensemble cast of fictional characters.

So there we have it: that’s about it for now. I’m hoping to average at least three books per year over the next couple of years, and I’m excited to see some of these projects coming to fruition.

As always, thanks a lot for checking in with me on my writing journey and be sure to check out my Amazon and Goodreads pages if you want to learn more about my books. You can give me a follow there while you’re at it!

And of course, you can also follow me on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter for further information. I’ll see you soon!

Hi, folks! Dane here, and today I wanted to share a quick update to let you know that it’s launch day for the Local Haunts Anthology, which was compiled and edited by fellow YouTuber Regina Saint Claire

It’s a super cool project with a simple premise: it brings together BookTubers and AuthorTubers (i.e. people who make videos about books and writing). The submission period took place earlier this year and the prompt was to tell a horror story based in your part of the world.

For me, I retold the local ghost story of a barmaid called Suki who worked at the George and Dragon here in High Wycombe. She was tricked into going to the Hellfire Caves by some local boys. When she found out that they’d tricked her, she threw stones at them, so they threw stones back and accidentally killed her. They say her ghost still haunts the area to this day.

Nineteen twisted tales from a vibrant, online community of horror enthusiasts!

What’s HorrorTube? A creepy, new carnival ride combining a water slide park with a haunted funhouse? Not quite, although that sounds like a blast.

A subset of BookTube, HorrorTube is an online community of horror enthusiasts who regularly post YouTube videos about horror-related topics, including books, films, and fiction writing.

Some of the writers included in this anthology cover horror exclusively. You’ll find them posting creepy photos on Instagram or waxing poetic about the seventies drive-in flick that kept them up all night. Some read widely, only delving into the horror genre occasionally. All are passionate about books and writing.

Joined together by this vibrant, online community of readers and writers, these nineteen authors bring you scary stories from all parts of the globe, proving that fear is universal.

Local Haunts has taken the horror BookTube community’s global influence and shrunk it down into one village of horror and mayhem you’ll not soon forget. Inside these pages are frightening stories from around the globe, telling tales of haunts, monsters, and other terrible things local to each author’s place of residence. Within these pages you’ll find terrifying tales from North America, my own included, joined by terrible happenings in the Australian bushlands, ghosts haunting an old Greek mansion, an abandoned Vietnamese hospital, and a creepy museum, among many other eldritch encounters. From the foreword by Jason White

A Stone’s Throw by Dane Cobain
The Gentleman by Ryan Stroud
The Salt Hag by CJ Wright
Crowthorne by Andrew Lyall
Mount Gilead by R. Saint Claire
Screen Eight by Michael Taylor
Drive Like Hell by Ken Poirier
The Mount of Death by Kevin David Anderson
The Drifter by James Flynn
The Blocked Cellar by Mihalis Georgostathis
The Night Watchman by Marie McWilliams
Alone Among the Gum Trees by Cam Wolfe
Highway to Hell by Nicholas Gray
The Room Within by D.L. Tillery
Fading Applause in Quintland by Lydia Peever
A Full Moon Over Black Star Canyon by Matt Wall
Long Buried by E.D. Lewis
Darkness Descends by Jason White
At the End of the Rope by Cameron Chaney

Cover art by Cameron Roubique

You can find out more about Local Haunts and order your copy by clicking here to check it out on Amazon.

As always, thanks so much for your support, and be sure to follow me on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter for more. You can also find out more about my books by clicking here. I’ll see you soon!

Hi, folks! Dane here, and today I have some super exciting news for you, which you can probably guess from the title. It’s cover reveal day!

Meat is a novel that I’ve been actively working on since 2015, and the idea stretches a little further back than that. It’s also the reason why I’m vegan. After all of the research that I did to write the book, being vegetarian just didn’t seem like enough to me.

I guess I’ll just let the cover and blurb speak for themselves:

Veterinarian Tom Copeland takes a job at a factory farm called Sunnyvale after a scandal at his suburban practice. His job is to keep the animals alive for long enough to get them to slaughter.

But there are rumours of a strange creature living beneath the complex, accidents waiting to happen on brutal production lines and the threat of zoonotic disease from the pigs, sheep, cows, chickens and fish that the complex houses.

Suddenly, disaster rocks Sunnyvale and cleaners, butchers, security guards and clerical staff alike must come together under the ruthless leadership of CEO John MacDonald. Together, they’ll learn what happens when there’s a sudden change to the food chain.

Bon appétit.

More info

Meat will be self-published to begin with, although I may submit it to some small publishers further down the line. I don’t think it quite fits with Dragon Moon or Encircle, the publishers of No Rest for the Wicked and the Leipfold series respectively, but that’s just fine by me.

I’m currently shooting for a mid-October release date, just in time for Hallowe’en. It’ll also mean it’s out in time for Christmas, although you might not want to give it to your granny unless she’s got a strong stomach.

In the meantime, you can of course find out more about my existing books by checking out my author pages on Amazon and Goodreads, and you can also follow me on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram for more. I’ll see you soon!

Hi, folks! Dane here, and today I want to talk to you about music. I don’t promote my music stuff too much because my focus has always been and will always be on my writing, but every now and then there’s something worth shouting about.

In this case, it’s that my fourth album, Echoes, is out now on Spotify, with other platforms including iTunes coming soon. If that’s not enough and you want it in a different format, you can also check out the album and some accompanying lyric videos over on my YouTube channel.

Here’s the track list:

1 – Jar of Hearts

2 – You and Me

3 – It’s Not Easy Being Free

4 – Nobody Cares

5 – Cole Porter

6 – Waiting

7 – Chasing Dust

8 – Watch the Planet Die

9 – Inside Her Head

10 – Lean Down On Me

11 – Since I Fell For You

12- Hello Lover

13 – Hibernating

14 – Up in the Country

15 – Cigarettes and Dollar Signs

16 – Gone, Gone, Gone

17 – Be Yourself

That’s about all I’ve got for you at the moment and so I’ll keep things short and sweet, but if you want to keep up-to-date with my adventures then you can always give me a follow on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, SoundCloud, YouTube and wherever else takes your fancy. I’ll see you soon!