That’s me when I first started Midnight Radio. Coffee in hand, feet on the table. Working hard, obviously.
I had a story I wanted to tell. What I didn’t have yet were all the skills I needed to finish it the way I wanted. That took time. So did finding Linda, my editor and production collaborator.
Now we have a book.
The Kindle preorder is live, and Midnight Radio comes out October 20. Just in time to give you something unsettling to read before Halloween.
Getting here has been an experience.
This morning, Linda and I spent two hours chasing corrections before I finally told her she was over-polishing. A sentence can be correct and still sound like me. Sometimes you have to leave the damn thing alone.
She catches things I miss. I catch her trying to straighten something I meant to leave crooked. We discuss it.
Sometimes I require supporting evidence and arguments.
And sometimes she warns me about something, I try it anyway, and we spend the next hour establishing why she warned me.
There is a lot more to putting out a book than finishing the story. Covers, margins, proofs, website buttons. Making sure the file we’re checking is actually the file we’re supposed to be checking. That last one can eat a morning. Ask me how I know.
But I’ve enjoyed making things with her.
Our countdown clock started with Douglas Wynne’s website. He has a book coming out soon, too, and I saw his countdown and thought, we need one of those.
Naturally, I wanted ours to look like a radio with fake wood paneling.
So Linda and I made it. Then we looked at it in the dark and realized you couldn’t see the wood.
Well, hell.
We kept changing it. When we put it beneath the book, it became ominous. There was our clock, counting down beneath Midnight Radio, and suddenly it felt right. We had to follow the idea a little farther than I expected, but we got there.
Thank you again, Douglas.
We’ve also finished the preproduction work for the Amazon hardcover. We’re waiting on the printed proof before we give it our final approval. A new paperback proof is on the way, too.
I want to hold them, open them, and see what you’re going to see.
You’re spending your money on this book. More than that, you’re giving it some of your life. A few evenings, perhaps. Time you could spend doing something else.
That matters to me.
I want the book to look good. I want it to be comfortable to read. And I want you to care enough about the people inside it to keep turning the pages.
Something else good has come out of all this. I’ve been hearing from people who listened to Midnight Radio. Old friends, familiar names. People I hadn’t talked with in a long time.
We’ve caught up. We’ve wished each other well. Some of us have made peace with things that had been sitting between us.
I’m glad we did.
I started out trying to finish a book, and along the way I got to reconnect with people I’d missed. That has meant a lot.
So, yes, I’m here to tell you the Kindle preorder is live. But I also want to thank everyone who has encouraged me, everyone who remembers the show, and everyone who is just finding us.
The fellow with his feet on the table finally finished his book.
I hope you’ll read it. More than that, I hope you’ll enjoy the time you spend with it. That’s what I’ve been working toward all along: telling you a good story.
Preorder Midnight Radio for Kindle
Available October 20, 2026.
Jerry Adams