Propaganda

If you’re reading this, you either navigated here through my website and know what’s going on, or else you’ve been reading something I wrote in-character. I’m going to stop being cute and give you the info straight up.

Much of my social media project here is promotional material for the world of Civil Blood, a novel about a near-future America with a healthy dose of urban fantasy. An outbreak of a supernatural virus turns its hosts into “vipes,” vampire-like addicts of human blood.

When the virus infects a Washington, D.C. trial lawyer named Morgan Lorenz, he finds the medical conglomerate responsible for keeping the virus contained, and takes them to court with a class-action lawsuit.

(I did mention this is America, right?)

There’s a bit more to it than that — here is a page with the fancy back cover summary, sample chapters, and the ubiquitous links to buy it — but as I was hatching ideas for marketing, I decided to decorate this web page and some social media accounts as if they were taking place in Civil Blood‘s world. The technical term for this is an “alternate reality game,” but I just think it’s fun.

Civil Blood captures a moment at the genesis of a political movement, when the actions of a few people can change the course of history. Like our world, it is steeped in mass media. The power to change public opinion is as real as the power to pull a trigger, and when the news of VIHPS hits the airwaves, it is weaponized by all sides of the spectrum.