Timing is important. I hope I have a sense of it, but it doesn’t always work out the way you hope. My last book, The Wicker Man, was released on the fiftieth anniversary of that cult film. A bigger publisher with better reach published their own Wicker Man book that year, and mine garnered no attention. I decided to turn to Sleepy Hollow instead. This is a story that has been quite well known since 1820. Although the Fox television series ran out of steam in 2017, I wrote the book when I did because Lindsey Beer has been tapped to direct a reboot of the Tim Burton film of 1999. Looking for books on the “Legend of Sleepy Hollow” I found very little. This is what is known of in the biz as “a gap.” I decided to try to fill it. Fandom helps in situations like this.
I’ve been trying to find the Sleepy Hollow fandom and engage with it before Sleepy Hollow as American Myth comes out. I am confident that there are fans out there. The tragic collapse of the Fox series didn’t lead to lack of love for the tale. Indeed, further renditions have continued to appear. Some have gained considerable attention. The online fan base, however, seems to be, ah, sleeping. I’m not sure when the Beer movie is slated for release. It was announced in several media outlets but now we’ve come to the lull where updates have ceased to surface. I’m certainly no Hollywood insider and I generally don’t even find out about movies until after they’ve left theaters (unless they’re very big). I hope the timing is right this time.
It takes a couple years, at least, for me to write a book. I’ve been working on this Sleepy Hollow project, in some way or other, since before Holy Horror came out in 2018. I sure hope I got the timing right on this one. The many trade publishers and agents I approached didn’t think so. Maybe it’s just that people aren’t curious enough to read a book about Washington Irving’s story. I try to make the case in my book that it has risen to the level of an American myth. The story’s known world-wide, but its largest fan base is here in the States. Had the Fox series been handled a bit better, keeping both people of color and the apocalypse in the foreground, it might’ve run a couple more seasons. The underlying story’s not quite dead in the grave yet, I hope. But then, timing hasn’t always been my strong suit.