I”m a Cleveland, Ohio based writer with hundreds of magazine articles, columns and essays to my credit. My byline has been carried by People Weekly, The Cleveland Plain Dealer Sunday Magazine, USAToday.com, Cleveland Magazine, The Writer, Super Lawyer and many other local, regional and national publications. In addition I’ve written and published two books, including the horror novel Yellow Moon, which was released by Warner Books. In 2012, two of my horror novels, Bloodthirst in Babylon and Malevolent, will be published by Samhain Horror.
Like my blog title? The name, a darker moon, came from my teenage son, Evan Searls. The kid knows cool.
Enjoy,
David Searls
a darker moon. 
David, hello, my name is Jess Peacock and I run the blog The Crawlspace (http://thecrawlspaceonline.blogspot.com/), a genre book review site. I just finished Bloodthirsty in Babylon and enjoyed it. I was wondering if you might be open to an interview for an article for the site. Would love to hear from you! Thanks!
Hey, Jess, we exchanged emails on your interview request, but I don’t remember how it turned out. I am available for a phone or email interview if you’re still interested. BTW…my next novel, Malevolent, is coming out July 3. We could discuss either or both books if you’d like. Take care. D.
Do you know Jess and I went to high school together and he lived around the corner from me growing up? He’s the reason I am so disturbed. Kidding. And yes, I was checking out your blog. 🙂
Congrats on your sale to DarkFuse!
Can’t wait to read Cold as Hell.
Hello new friend! It was lovely to talking to you at the HorrorHound Convention in Indianapolis.
Thank you again for taking the time to visit with me! The information you shared will be integrated into my film and media classes that begin in the spring of 2015.
However, as soon as I returned to the classroom after our meeting at HorrorHound, the students wanted to hear all about the convention. That means the information you shared at HorrorHound is already making a difference in how college students view various topics including, but not limited to, work ethics, communication, film, and media.
I hope to hear back from you and be able to keep in touch.
It was so nice meeting you, Michelle. I’m glad our interviews are already finding an audience. Continued best of luck in your teaching.
D.
Seeing death as the end of life is like seeing the horizon as the end of the ocean.
Hi, I was wondering if I could use your quote at the end of a booklet I have put together and will be selling online on my soon to be built website. I am happy to place your name/contact details etc on the publishers page or any info you want written. Thanks Julia
Julia…I would love to be able to grant you permission to run that quote…but it’s not mine. In fact I’ve expended a lot of time and energy trying to get it off my Goodreads page (I didn’t put it there), but I haven’t been able to do anything about it. It’s a great quote, and I’d love to be able to take credit for it, but I never wrote it. It’s a different David Searls, and I hope if he’s still alive he doesn’t think I’m trying to take credit for what’s mine. In fact, I’ve addressed this in other writing, and I might very possibly make it a blog post so that if people in the future are trying to track the author down they won’t think it’s me. Julie, if you do find the author I hope that you send him my way. I’d love to figure out how to assign credit where credit is due. Best of luck to you.
David (not that David) Searls
David,
I read your book ‘Yellow Moon’ years ago and it has been the book that I think of when I contemplate writing. As such, I have started writing my own novel. It is a Christian Horror (sounds like an oxymoron). I’m 2/3 done and I’m curious what pointers you might be able to give your fans regarding whether it’s better to pay someone to help you self-publish or to pound the pavement and send out your manuscript hoping that it gets noticed? I live in Calgary, Alberta, Canada and we have no literary agents here (so it seems like self-publishing is the only way to go).
Thanks for sharing your imagination! Looking forward to hearing from you.
Hi, Steven. Glad to hear you liked Yellow Moon and it was so influential. Authors love to hear that sort of thing! As for traditional vs. self-publishing, I’d try the traditional route first. If you totally exhaust all options in that area, then you can think harder about self-publishing. But finding an audience is difficult until you’ve established your brand. Horror novelists like Scott Nicholson and a few others have met with success publishing their own work, but only after selling through traditional publishers and attracting the attention of fans who were willing to follow them.
If you do decide to self publish, I’d recommend first reading all of the how-to books you can get your hands on from successful self-published authors. If you Google Nicholson’s name, you’ll see a lot of free and paid advice from him. Good place to start reading.
As for literary agents, it doesn’t matter where you live. Almost all contact is made online, so no one really cares where you live. That said, I recommend first trying publishers within your genre who don’t require agent submissions, especially if you’re writing horror. That’s because there aren’t too many agents handling the genre and they can be pretty reluctant to take on untried talent.
But most of all…write. Set your work aside and then come back to it. And edit. And edit. And edit. Until you feel it’s perfect. And expect to be rejected many times. That’s just a part of the life of a writer. Only Stephen King could turn his to-do list into a sold manuscript. Everyone else gets rejected. You need a thick skin an persistence.
Hope that helps, Steven. Best of luck to you and your writing. And thanks again for picking up one of my books. Take care!
David
Hi David,
Is there any chance of your COLD AS HELL novella being available again anytime soon, either in physical form or e-book? I missed the boat on that one. I’m in the middle of YELLOW MOON right now and am thoroughly blown away, so I’m in the process of snatching up the rest of your oeuvre.
Cheers,
Jason
Hi, Jason. So glad that you’re enjoying YELLOW MOON. Thanks for the positive feedback. I didn’t realize, until two of my publishers disappeared (Samhain and DarkFuse) that my online book presence pretty much dies with them! I went online and tried to find a copy of COLD AS HELL, and couldn’t. There were only a very limited number of copies available in the first place, so it might be fairly expensive even if you did find one. I notice that there are some “free” Kindle downloads available on a few questionable sites, but I don’t know if I’d recommend you going there. Viruses? Don’t know.
My other books, BLOODTHIRST IN BABYLON (my favorite) and MALEVOLENT seem to be available and fairly affordable in new and used format. And if you have a Kindle you can download, very inexpensively, my Kindle World novella MOTHERLESS BASTARDS. It’s my sole entry into a licensed world of another author.
Hope that helps, Jason. And, once again, thank you so much for your kind words for YM.
D.
Thanks for the info. BLOODTHIRST and MALEVOLENT are already on their way. I wanted to snatch them both up now before the prices start going up. It is a bit depressing that two of the premier modern horror publishers are suddenly gone now.
YELLOW MOON was excellent, btw. One of the freakiest “supernatural evil invades small town” stories I’ve read. Loved the fast pace and non-stop buildup of terror, with no bloat to speak of (somewhat of a rarity in 80s/90s horror fiction, in my experience). Don’t know how I missed it back in the day.
Thanks again,
Jason