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I figured I’d start putting out the preliminary stuff for the next book, A Witch To Live. The cover’s done, and looks great. I’m sure I’ll end up tinkering with the description a bit, but it does a good job now of letting everyone know what it’s about.

A Witch To Live is about, you guessed it, a witch. 🙂 This novel takes place in the same world as Demonspawn, and mentions some events from that novel. The vampire in Demonspawn, named Victoria, also shows up. So if anyone liked that book, they may like this one too. However, it’s not a direct sequel. I tried my best to write a novel that didn’t “require” reading Demonspawn.

As with everything, when I’m done, I’ll see if anyone wants to beta read it. I’m nearly done now, as I’m working on the finale.

I’d categorize this as an urban fantasy, with a very large dose of romance. In fact, I wanted to try to work the romance in the description, but haven’t figured out how yet. I’m certainly open to suggestions. You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to write a description.

You can check out the description here.

There is a short question and answer over on The Indie Spotlight about Dead Living. Nothing major, just about how the novel was created, information about me, things like that. Hopefully it’ll catch the eyes of a few readers interested in a pretty cool zombie tale. 🙂

I took a bit of a break from writing, but now I’m slowly getting back in the groove. Proofreading the 70K works I got now, wrapping my head around my latest novel again. I’m not too far from being finished. I have everything I want to happen laid out in my head. Now it’s just a matter of getting it on paper. 🙂

The break was good. It was nice to take a little time off from writing. Play some games, watch a few movies, enjoy the Lions 5-0 start. 🙂 So, if anyone out there is waiting for the next story that takes place in the Demonspawn universe, we’ll be getting done soon.

I’m starting the final few sections of my latest novel now, the spinoff to Demonspawn. I like how this one has turned out so far. I love writing and giving some clues about Victoria, the vampire mentor from Demonspawn. The novel itself is done in my head, just have to get it on paper. Then cover, edits, etc etc. Fun times ahead.

I realized something about how I like my vampires during this novel. A lot of movies and books try to project vampires as these mythical creatures. While writing about Victoria, in my mind, she was a human first who became a vampire. She doesn’t think of herself as very different than humans. In her own words, “I make bad decisions, I’m not perfect. I have a temper.”

I’ve enjoyed exploring her character in this novel. Now, at this stage of the story, I finally get to let my witch loose a little. 🙂

I’ve had a few requests for a paperback version of Dead Living, even from readers who have already read it on Kindle. Perhaps zombie book collectors? Anyway, I went ahead and took the plunge, did all the formatting, got a high resolution cover, etc. So, Dead Living is now available in a 6 x 9 paperback.

It does look great. Perhaps I’ll make a separate post detailing all the fun stuff that went into this.

Link to buy it directly from Createspace.

Link to Amazon if you’re more comfortable ordering from them.

I couldn’t think of a cooler title for this announcement. 🙂  Just submitted Mind Slide through KDP, so it will be available in a day or so through Amazon. The fun part will be updating the sidebar on the right to include it.

This being book number three, I thought I wouldn’t have as many “pre-release jitters”. That definitely wasn’t the case. I guess that feeling of “I hope people like my book” will never go away.

Mind Slide is a slight change for me. One thing I’ll never stray from is supernatural/paranormal. Mind Slide holds to this, but there are no demons or crazy creatures. 🙂

Mind Slide centers around Mason Thomas, who was struck by lightning as a young child. The accident took his memory, but lets him project his mind. In other words, he can mind slide (think remote viewing / astral projection type stuff). We’ve got a man who can be anywhere, shadowy government types, serial killers, a nice romance. What’s not to like? 🙂

Check it out when it hits Amazon on Saturday or Sunday.

Read it and love it.  🙂  A 4 star review.

It’s amazing how things change.

I’ve been writing since I was a little kid. I never had any real dreams of becoming a published author. I just liked to write. In the back of my head, I never really wrote anything that I thought was good enough to show anyone else, so I didn’t. 🙂 I just wrote, stored everything on the hard drive, and wrote some more. I always wanted to be published, but confidence issues kept me from taking it any further.

After proofreading Demonspawn to the point where my eyes started bleeding, I started thinking maybe it was good enough to send out to agents/publishers. There wasn’t any luck there, so late last year, with the wifey behind me pushing, I went the DTP route (called KDP now).

Feeling pretty good about the knowledge that I didn’t get any emails from readers saying “This is complete trash. I got physically ill reading it.”, I decided to take my next novel the KDP route as well. Dead Living was born with the simple idea of “What can I do that hasn’t been done in a zombie story?” I’m very proud of it, and judging from responses from readers, it seems like other people like it, too. As a writer, that’s really all you can ask.

I recently received an offer to put Dead Living in print from a small press. This is literally a dream come true. Someone discovered Dead Living, and wanted to publish it. It’s something I never dreamed possible. A year ago, I would have jumped all over it.

But I hesitated. There’s all kinds of factors that went into the decision. Believe it or not, I think I’m actually starting to develop a small fan base. A comment here, an email there. It’s a great feeling, and I feel I don’t want to risk that by taking Dead Living off the shelf for an extended length of time. If I had more books out (Mind Slide is just around the corner, and I’m working on a Demonspawn spin-off), I probably would have jumped on the offer.

I tossed and turned on it for a while, and just decided that the current route I’m on is the best for now. The real winner right now is zombie fans. 🙂  The eBook version of Dead Living is cheap, only $2.99, and I’ve received comments from readers about how they were surprised it was priced so low. I’m toying with the idea of a Createspace print version as well, so stay tuned. 🙂

Check it out here. It got 4 stars. Thank you very much Tishia for taking the time to review it 🙂

I’ve seen this advice scattered all over the Kindleboards, and it’s advice I’ve taken to heart. I tried different methods of marketing Demonspawn, my first novel, and started to stress over it. It took focus away from my zombie novel, Dead Living.

So I decided to almost drop marketing altogether, with the exception of some small effort here and there. I cranked out Dead Living, released it, submitted to a few review sites, then started on the next novel, Mind Slide.

Even with very little effort in marketing, Dead Living has started to take off a little (almost afraid to say it aloud, and jinx it 🙂 ). It’s funny, really. I think (it’s hard to verify) Dead Living is starting to help out Demonspawn with an audience. I’m hoping Mind Slide will jump into the pool and have some fun too 🙂

Because of my lax attitude toward marketing, I was able to dig into Mind Slide and finished it very fast. We’re talking something like 3-4 months, which for me is pretty quick. It’s going through beta reading now, and I’m 50K words into the next novel.

So if there’s anything to take away from this (and I know a lot of people already know this, just wanted to share my experience) is to not stress about marketing. I used to spend so much time trying to figure out where to submit Demonspawn to next.

It’s also hard to say what marketing really works. The Kindle Nation Daily is very solid, but everything else seems to be hit or miss (I’m thinking in terms of online ads). I’ve heard varying degrees of success with different sites.

So don’t stress, like I used to, and keep writing. 🙂 The more you write, the more work you put out for people to talk about.