Please help "The LookyLoo" reach a wider audience

Hello, my name is Darryl Hughes. I'm a writer/self publisher from New York City. The Big Apple. And yes, I am indeed one of those starving artists that are often talked about in and out of creative circles. But I am also one other thing: Determined. I am determined to finally, at long last, reach that promised potential of my writing talents that my meager (to say the least) financial circumstances have kept me from achieving. And it is with your kind assistance that I hope to finally be able to cross that financial rubicon and at long last grasp the potential success of my writing talents and finally achieve the success of that promise by acquiring the funds necessary to mount a promotional/marketing campaign for my newest book "The LookyLoo" so that it can reach a wider audience.

A little history about me? I began my writing/self publishing journey back in 2001 with my creative partner Monique MacNaughton. Over the years Monique and I have self published over a dozen well received books, comicbooks, and graphic novels for both kids and adults including the 2007 Glyph Award nominated ("Rising Star" category) graphic novel for kids "G.A.A.K: Groovy Ass Alien Kreatures" and the four book fantasy adventure series for kids "CHEVALIER the Queen's Mouseketeer". But in all honesty, due to the overwhelming cost of publishing, printing, and promoting in the wonderful world of self publishing it's been an absolute struggle to keep moving forward toward achieving my literary dreams. Having seen my struggles to achieve my dreams, before she passed away in August of 2017 my mother Alice Hughes made me promise two things: That I wouldn't give up and that I wouldn't fail. And I did. I promised her. But in all honesty, from the Covid pandemic and lockdown, inflation, skyrocketing food and gas prices, and even medical hardships of my own that left me on disability, it's made keeping my promise to my mother and achieving my dream seem more and more out of my reach.

So it's with the hope of fulfilling that promise I made to my mother and reaching a dream as you realized that I have come to GoFundMe with the humble and heartfelt request for your kind assistance in acquiring the money to fund a promotional ad campaign to bring to the attention of lovers of books and reading my latest and most personal writing endeavor "The LookyLoo".

As a work of fiction "The LookyLoo" has all of the old fashioned, small town nostalgic feel of classic novels/movies like "To Kill A Mockingbird", paired with the suspenseful, horror thrills of writer Stephen King. From the book description:

He is the neighborhood legend who lives in every whispered warning about the dark, the shadows, and the things that go bump in the night. He is the thing nightmares were made of. The thing that parents warned their naughty children about when they'd say to them, "You'd better behave--Or else he will get you".

He? Bodene Madison.

If you were a kid growing up in the neighborhood you've heard all of the warnings: Don't play on the same side of the street as the Madison house. Don't play in front of the Madison house. And whatever you do, for the love of god, don't ever go into the Madison yard. Ever. Especially at night.

Why?

Because somewhere inside the Madison house, beyond the huge chain linked fence that surrounded it like a wall, and the yard that their vicious hulking guard dog Rommel patrolled like a finely drilled soldier, there is a cellar. And in that cellar, according to the neighborhood legend, is where cantankerous old man Ebenezer Madison imprisoned his only son Bodene after a family "curse" took hold of him. Turning him into something animal. A beast. A monster.

A LookyLoo. Anyway, that's what they say.

Now there is nothing in life that can capture and hold the imagination of a kid like a mystery yet to be solved. Bodene Madison is one such mystery. And after seeing some "thing" strange prowling the shadows of their neighborhood one cold moonlit night, some "thing" huge and hairy that was clearly an animal to the eye except that it walked upright like a man and defied explanation, twelve year old Jefferson Beaumont, his little sister Tazzie, and their friend Woody Wilson decide to once and for all solve the mystery of Bodene Madison.

The LookyLoo.

And just to further wet you appetite for donating to this campaign I include this excerpt from the book:

“Did you really go to school with Bodene, momma?” I asked, trying to steer the conversation back to the subject at hand.

“He, your daddy, and I all went to school together”.

“What was he like, Mrs. Beaumont?” Woody asked as he sat down next to Tazzie at the patio table.

“Oh, I will remember that boy the sum and total days of my life”, Momma said with a slight whispery quality in her voice. Then she paused for a moment, as if reliving a memory, before starting again, “He was quiet. And unusual to look at. The type of of unusual to look at that caught your eye and made you stare despite yourself. And even though a boy of twelve or thirteen when I knew him, Bodene’s features had no boyish plump roundness to them. No softness to them. His features were all sharp and very angular, just like the ones a predatory animal might have. He was tall and reed thin. The type of thin that would make you think he’d be blown away to Oz by a strong breeze. Or that he would surely break if bent. But at the same time Bodene gave off a true sense of physical menace when you were in his presence that was off-puttin’. He seemed to have only one single eyebrow, because his unkempt eyebrows had more or less grown together from neglect. And his eyes. Bodene Madison had the oddest honey colored eyes in God’s creation”.

“Where’s the rest of Mr. Madison’s family?” I wondered out loud. “I mean, he had to have a wife, right?”

“I can’t say, factually. I know that he and Bodene moved to HannibleMoe and into that house just shortly before your daddy and I first started goin’ together”, Momma said as she began to space the clothes out on the clothes line. “Your daddy being my beau, I spent a lot of time around here, and I’d see Bodene sittin’ all by himself in their front yard. I do remember once hearin’ your late grandma Theadora and a few of the neighbor ladies talkin’ about an incident that happened one evenin’.”

“What incident?” I asked, sitting opposite Woody at the patio table.

“Y’all are really interested in all this, huh?” Momma asked as she pulled more clothes pins from her apron. “Well, the tale of it is this. It was late one night when a strange woman drove up to the Madison house and began rantin’ and ravin’ in the front yard; drawin’ the entire neighborhoods attention with the commotion, and all because Ebenezer wouldn’t let her inside the house. Now what was overheard was that the woman, Bodene’s momma, had tracked them down all the way from Jonesboro. They say she was hollerin’ that she wanted to see Bodene. That she wanted him back. That she didn’t believe Ebenezer’s stories about Bodene’s birth order, and that she shouldn’t be made to suffer by havin’ her baby boy taken away from her because of some foolish folklore.”

“What was so strange about Bodene’s birth order?” Woody asked. His interest, as well as my own, peaked by momma’s tale.

“Now this particular part of the story was recounted by Mrs. Irene Cunningham, who lived next door to the Madison’s back then as a young bride, and we all know what a wayward imagination she has”, Momma cautioned before going on. “Mrs. Cunningham claimed that, after Ebenezer finally let his wife inside the house, she overheard him tryin’ to convince her that what he’d told her wasn’t folklore. That he in his lifetime, even in his very own family, had witnessed the truth of the affliction with his own eyes. He told her that Bodene was the seventh son born to a seventh son. And as such, he was cursed by God unnatural.”

“As an actual fact?!” Tazzie gasped, her voice quivering with excitement.

“According to Mrs. Cunningham anyway”, Momma cautioned again. “She said that Mrs. Madison swore up and down that she’d get Bodene back. Even if she had to go to the police to do it.”

“And did she?” I asked, and watched as my question seemed to stop momma right in the act of hanging a wet pair of pants on the clothes line.

“One month later”, Momma said, turning to face us, her gaze catching our own. “To the day, sheriff deputies took Bodene back to Jonesboro to be with his momma. And Ebenezer Madison just watched from his doorway as they put Bodene in the backseat of a police car. He just…”, Momma paused again, as if trying to make some sense of the memory before telling it. “He just waved to him once, and then smiled the coldest, cruelest imitation of a smile I’d ever seen in life.”

“You mean, after everything he’d said to his wife, he just up and let them take Bodene away?” Woody asked, in a small way speaking for both me and Tazzie as well, because we shared his boggle. “It doesn’t make much sense, Mrs. Beaumont.”

“The sense of it is this”, Momma began again. “And it again comes from Mrs. Irene Cunningham. She heard Ebenezer tell the deputies that he wanted Bodene to see his momma again. That he wanted her to see what he was becoming.” Momma used her fingers like quotation marks in the air when she said the word “becoming”, as if it had some special meaning. “And one week later, to the day, Mrs. Madison herself brought Bodene back to live with his daddy. And she never, not once, came back to see either of them again.”

“Why’d she bring Bodene back, momma?” I asked, the suspense of momma’s story taking a firm hold on my imagination.

“Can’t say, factually”, she replied, smiling brightly at the reaction the story was having on us. “But the whispers that went around the neighborhood all centered on the curse Ebenezer had mentioned. Of course sensible folks dismissed it as just a desperate man’s attempt to keep his child. But, still and all, there were the whispers. Bodene came to school less and less over time. Eventually Ebenezer took him out of school altogether”, Momma said, before abandoning the wash, walking over to us, and leaning against the patio table. “Shortly after that I stopped seein’ him in their yard when I was over here. And then your daddy told me that Bodene had taken to comin’ out only at night, prowlin’ the street and any unfenced yards he could find like a stray dog”.

“Great gosh almighty”, Woody gasped in wide eyed amazement.

“To be sure”, Momma said with a knowing nod. “After Ethan and I got married and moved into this house with his momma, Bodene had become this secret that the whole neighborhood shared. Anytime there was a rustlin’ in someone’s yard after dark, they’d tell their children that it was Bodene come to peek in their window and snatch them away. It wasn’t long after that that Rommel was to make his first appearance in their yard. You could see him in their backyard runnin’ back and forth, pullin’ on the chain that held him in place, as he barked at whoever would pass in front of their house”. Momma stopped again, and that puzzled look again took hold of her, “And then, the strangest things began to happen”...

And here are several review quotes of "The LooyLoo":

"...THREE KIDS INVESTIGATING A LOCAL NEIGHBORHOOD "LEGEND" DISCOVER THAT THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT COME COMPLETE WITH FUR, AND CLAWS, AND FANGS IN THIS ENGAGING, ATMOSPHERIC, COMING-OF-AGE, "THE WONDER YEARS" MEETS "THE WOLFMAN" STYLE HORROR THRILLER" -- THE CREATURE FEATURE FEST BLOGSPOT

"IMAGINE JEM AND SCOUT FROM "TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD" HAVE A BRUSH WITH A POSSIBLE WEREWOLF AND YOU ALMOST EXACTLY HAVE THIS BOOK...IT'S A CHARMING READ SUITABLE FOR ALL AGES" -- 4 STAR REVIEW, AMAZON UK.

⭐⭐⭐ FUN FUN FUN!!!

"LOOKING FOR A FUN READ? THIS IS ONE. YOUNG READERS OR OLD WILL FIND THIS BOOK AMUSING. WHAT CHILD DOESN'T LIKE A MYSTERY? AND WHAT NEIGHBOR DOESN'T HOLD ONE. LOOKING FOR SOMETHING QUICK TO READ? SOMETHING TO MAKE YOU REMINISCENT OF CHILDHOOD? THIS IS THE BOOK. SPYING ON NEIGHBORS, LISTENING TO ADULT CONVERSATION, AND PLANNING SCOUTING MISSIONS TO FIND WHO IS AN ACTUAL FACT WEREWOLF" -- TUTTI F., 3 STAR REVIEW, AMAZON U.S.

⭐ ⭐⭐⭐⭐ VERY GOOD

"READS VERY MUCH LIKE "TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD". CHARACTERS ARE SIMILAR AS IS LANGUAGE. READS EASILY AND QUICKLY. AS SOMEONE FROM THE SOUTH I HEARTILY ENJOYED IT." - JUANITA HARRIS, 5 STAR REVIEW, AMAZON/GOODREADS.

⭐ ⭐⭐⭐⭐ ONE OF MY FAVORITES EVER!!!

"SPOILER ALERT: I AM 76 YEARS OLD, A RETIRED HISTORY TEACHER AND PROBABLY READING WAY BELOW MY LEVEL. BUT...I ABSOLUTELY LOVED THIS BOOK AND I'LL SAY THAT AGAIN, I ABSOLUTELY LOVED THIS BOOK. IMAGINE IF "TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD", "TOM SAWYER", AND "THE BODY" WERE TOSSED INTO A BLENDER...FROM THE RELAXED NARRATIVE STYLE TO THE TOTALLY LIKEABLE CHARACTERS (ESP. "TAZZIE") AND A CREEPY RL STINE KIND OF PLOT AND YOU HAVE A WONDERFUL EXPERIENCE. 5.1 STARS." -- SKY SOX WHIZ, 5 STAR REVIEW, AMAZON.

"WHAT AN ABSOLUTE GEM OF A BOOK. AS AN ADULT, I WAS TOTALLY ENTHRALLED BY THREE CHILDREN WHO, DESPITE THEIR FEARS, WERE SO DETERMINED TO PROVE THE EXISTENCE OF A WEREWOLF LIVING IN THEIR NEIGHBORHOOD. WELL WORTH READING FOR ANY AGE". -- GRAHAM TALLENTS, 4 STAR GOODREADS REVIEW.

MOST ENTERTAINING:

"THE LOOKYLOO IS A THROWBACK TO THE BYGONE DAYS WHEN LIFE WAS SIMPLER AND MYSTERIOUS EVENTS ARE COVERED UP RATHER THAN TALKED ABOUT ON THE EVENING NEWS. THE CHARACTERS ARE WELL WRITTEN AND THE AUTHOR IS ADEPT AT MAKING THEM COME ALIVE. IT'S A CROSSOVER OF '"TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD" AND STEPHEN KING'S "SILVER BULLET". IT'S FAST PACED AND VERY ENTERTAINING". -- K. JOHNSON, 4 STAR AMAZON REVIEW.

My goal is a simple one: to raise $2,500. Enough money to be able to fund several different promotional ad campaigns across a diverse array of small tier promotional avenues such as Booklife/Publishers Weekly magazine ($167), Ingram Book Group bookstore/bookseller newsletter ($149), Fangoria Magazine full page ad ($500), among others. This in a broad spectrum effort to reach as wide a cross section of the book readers in society with as small a sum of money possible to achieve that goal without the donation becoming a burden in anyway to those who choose to donate to this campaign out of the kindness of their hearts. Which is all that I ask.

Still on the fence about donating? Think about it this way. If everyone reading this campaign donates just one single dollar, ONE SINGLE DOLLAR, you can help me achieve my $2,500 goal literally over night. And as an added incentive, I will send an ebook (pdf) copy of "The LookyLoo" to everyone that donates $25 or more for you to enjoy.

If you would like to buy a physical copy of "The LookyLoo" for yourself you can do that here:

Buy The LookyLoo at Amazon

I'm hoping that you will extend to my your kind assistance in this campaigns endeavor to finance a promotional ad campaign that will help me help my book achieve it's literary potential. And help me keep the promise that I made to my mother.

Thank you all in advance for your time and your kind donations.