Happy Goat Horror

Dark bleatings, my wonderful tribe! As we speak, Kit Power is in the United States promoting his newest book, Millionaires Day. While he’s gone, I thought I’d do one of those recaps they do on Supernatural at the start of a season finale.

*presses play for Carry on my Wayward Son*

The Road So Far…

So, for those who might not already by in the know, here’s what Millionaires Day (the book) is:

Now, if you were hanging out on the Internet at the end of last year, you may have heard whispered mention of this book, and what prompted it. Oh, what prompted it, I hear you ask? Well, let me fill you in on the lore, in the order I’ve been able to piece it together.

In December of 2019, as the synopsis states, those who happened to be asleep at a certain time one morning in the UK awoke to find themselves £1million richer. Cue an insane rise in crime, deaths, robberies/burglaries/muggings, and disappearances. How and why did this happen? Nobody knows.

Well, someone knows, but eff knows who. I have my suspicions but that’s for you to decide based on what I’ve managed to pull together for you. Anyway, this strange, bizarre event was followed by the total media blackout about it immediately after, continuing alllll the way up to the end of 2024. No news coverage whatsoever, no social media posts, and from there, the more time that passed, the more people who were in the UK started to claim this never happened and is, in fact, some sort of hoax.

If you’d like a more detailed discussion of this insanity, YouTuber Erik Smith: Horror Aficionado hosted a discussion with Kit Power, Stephen Kozeniewski (publisher), and myself (publishing assistant), and you can watch it:

HERE AT THIS ABSOLUTELY SPIFFIN’ LINK GUV’NAH

We’re all kind of in agreement that the event was almost immediately overshadowed by the 2020 pandemic, but that there was also something f***y going on.

On a personal note, the publication of this book should have been way more exciting for me. I, like Kit Power, am a UK based author, and Kit just so happens to be one of my Top 5 Favourite Authors of All Time, and in recent years has also become a friend. You’d think that the news that my boss had decided to work with him would be music to my ears, but it wasn’t, because my ears knew nothing about it until the book was almost ready to go.

Why? Well, I’ll tell you!

Kozeniewski runs French Press Publishing, an American indie press, which Kit approached because he simply could not get a UK publisher to agree to print this book. No one would even read it, he told me later. If you know Kit’s work, you might find this odd, since Kit is a beloved and respected member of the UK horror scene and you’d think any publisher would be chomping at the bit to work with him. A general air of “mmmm we don’t want to talk about the book, that day, or even acknowledge it” pushed Kit into Stephen’s loving and waiting arms. Stephen, being all the way in the USA, did not have the fear the UK market seemed to have, you see.

I’m usually involved in the process quite early on when French Press Publishing acquires a new author and/or book. A little proofreading, perhaps, marketing for sure, and most certainly a lot of email correspondence and conversing with all relevant contributors. Not this time, because Kit had so much trouble with his message threads vanishing, social media bans, and people simply claiming not to have received his messages about this book at all, that there was a sincere fear that the project might be jeopardised if Kit and I – because we’re both in the UK – were in contact about it. Oh, and there were the threats, which Stephen kindly shielded me from.

Check out this official notice from French Press Publishing, which Stephen released about a month before the book was due for release:

FRENCH PRESS ANNOUNCEMENT

For the TLDR crowd, he states that the press stands with Kit and the book, and no amount of harassment will force him to cancel the its release. Yeah.

In a similarly disturbing post from Black Shuck Books, editor Steve Shaw released the below statement around the same time. Black Shuck Books has published a couple of Kit’s previous titles, but were nothing to do with Millionaires Day.

It was around this time that Koz finally let me in on what he and Kit were doing, and he asked me outright about my experience of Millionaires Day. I’m a bit embarrassed to admit that my initial reflex was to act like I had no idea what he was talking about. But of course I did (I’d been calling it Case Day in my head but oh, I knew…). To be fair, Koz did tell me I could sit this project out if I was uncomfortable being involved, but I decided I didn’t want to be so cowardly and instead opted to just run onto the battlefield with them, screeching as I waved a blunt sword, in an armour two sizes too big. I wasn’t going to leverage my own site to help promote it, but then thought, ‘Ah f*** it, in for a penny, in for a million pounds, apparently…’

I was prompted by an excellent article about this whole thing from Steve Toase of Fortean Times magazine, who wrote a piece for Ginger Nuts of Horror.

HERE IS THE EXCELLENT ARTICLE IN QUESTION

In the spirit of taking up arms with him, I wrote this piece of my own for the very site you’re currently on, about my own experience and fear of that morning.

HERE IS MY NOT QUITE AS EXCELLENT AS STEVE TOASE’S ARTICLE BUT TO BE FAIR HE’S A BETTER WRITER THAN I AM SO ANYWAY JUST CLICK HERE IF YOU WANT TO READ ABOUT THE WEIRDEST MORNING OF MY LIFE

It took me quite a while to actually get any eyes on that piece however, because whenever I shared it on any social media platforms, the links in the posts either disappeared or the whole post disappeared, and also I was put in social media jail. However, Ginger Nuts of Horror followed up Toase’s piece with this:

GINGER NUTS THROWING CAUTION TO THE WIND AND DOING A COVER REAL AND CALL TO ACTION

And THAT is the post that I think finally broke open the floodgates, because I started getting views on my own piece, and also messages from people who wanted to *tentatively* ask about Kit’s book. I managed to sway a couple of them to send in their own testimonials, which you can find below:

TESTIMONIAL 1

TESTIMONIAL 2

I think it was within the same week that a blogger called James Everington also posted his own testimonial of that day on his website, which is below:

JAMES EVERINGTON’S EQUALLY ODD EXPERIENCE

So, at this point, the book has been announced (though we were really having problems getting our blog posts to go live, etc), and news and discussion was trickling out. I’m old so I saw most of this on FB, where I still regularly hang out. People were engaging in comment threads about the event and the book, some with relief that finally some light was being shone on it all, others with understandable scepticism, and others with quite enraged scepticism.

Kit himself was faced with this during a FB live where he and author, podcast co-host, and friend, Jasper Bark, were discussing viral marketing strategies. Jasper first suggested that all of the recent buzz about Millionaires Day was some sort of hoax to market the book. He then went on to get quite annoyed when Kit, quite frustrated, insisted it was not, and then the two got into a fairly upsetting argument and hung up on each other.

YOU CAN STILL SEE THIS HERE – IN THE LAST 20 MINS OR SO OF THE VIDEO

Was pretty awkward for those of us who know and like both of them, to be honest, but it was understandable. Kit was rightly offended by the insinuation that he’d somehow managed to convince peers, strangers, a journalist, and publishers to participate in this “hoax”, and Jasper, who I assume doesn’t believe this ever happened, presumably because he himself didn’t get any money and knew no one who admitted to getting any, thought Kit had turned delusional.

Finally, after all this drama, Kit and Steve were actually able to get this book out in October 2024 (not without interference, but it did happen). And then, after several infuriating months of reviewers apparently not receiving my requests, reviews FINALLY started to come in. Honestly, I have never had so many review request emails bounce in my life, particularly when the email addresses I was trying to send them to were valid.

Anyway, if you’re curious about the book itself (a fictionalised telling of the day from the POV of a few different main characters), here’s what reviewers are saying so far:

MY OWN FULL BOOK REVIEW HERE ON HAPPY GOAT HORROR

ERIK SMITH: HORROR AFICIONADO BRAVELY STICKING HIS NECK OUT

GINGER NUTS OF HORROR

WHAT’S GOOD TO READ

GOODREADS

In case you’re interested in further discussion about all of this from the author, he had a fascinating conversation with George Daniel Lea, who hosts one of my favourite podcasts, Exagerrated Elegy:

AND HERE IT IS, TWO OF MY FAVOURITE DUDES TALKING ABOUT EXISTENTIALLY TERRIFYING CONCEPTS

So, where does this leave Kit and his book right now? Well, it’s finally getting into people’s hands, but not a number equivocal to the number I know he’s sent out. Posts and online reviews are now breaking through more often and sticking, but it still feels like we’re in a tug-of-war with (put your tinfoil hat on) whoever is responsible for making the them disappear.

So, in one last bid to get the word out, Kit Power is currently all the way across the world in the USA, where the influence we’ve suffered in the UK doesn’t appear to be.

If you want to go along and see him, he’ll be at Vortex Books & Comics on Sunday 23rd March, and then the following weekend you’ll be able to find him trading at Scares That Care: AuthorCon V. Give him a warm welcome, would ya, my lovely tribe? He could use it after all he’s been through!

If you’d like to check out his book, I’ve popped the link for you below:

MILLIONAIRES DAY

Only time will tell the rest of this absolutely insane, some-would-say-this-is-all-one-big-marketing-campaign saga. Only time will tell.

Bleeeeeat!