 I'm not a huge horror movie buff. I watch scary movies ONLY if forced to. Weird huh, especially for an author of zombie books. I know. I understand how odd that sounds. But let me explain.... It all started when I was a kid. maybe no more then seven or eight years old. My dad LOVED scary movies and since my mom did not, he would gather me and my younger brother and proceed to have us watch various B-type movies with him. The picture above <--- is from the movie THE KILLER BEES I remember watching this with my dad and nearly having a panic attack when it was all over, thinking that a horde of bees were going to kill me. I knew that this was the way I was going to die. I remember various scenes so clearly even though I have not watched hat movie for 30+ years. My dad, not wanting to lose his special scary movie buddies, told me and my brother that killer bees are from South America, but that by the time they flew to North America and met out nice bees, the killer bees would become nice too. They just needed some nice friends to show them the right way to be bees. Seriously. This is what he told me. I totally believed him and proceeded to watch more scary movies with him--the one about piranhas in a lake, one about giant rats, another about giant spiders, an then along came cable... If my dad tweaked the wires just right, we could watch Friday the 13th on a scrambled channel. Yep. Below is a Youtube video of all the window scenes from various Friday the 13th Movies. Scan to #1. THAT is the scene that almost caused me to pee my pants. The music was scary, there was scratching at the door, and the two teenagers held a pitchfork in the direction of the noise. Then we come to find out that it isn't Jason, but a dog. My heart settles down for a fraction of a second and then BAM!! Something flies through the window. I screamed. My kid brother screamed. I clamped my eyes shut. My dad lied, once again, and said it wasn't Jason, but a tree branch. I stupidly believed him. I WANTED to believe him. I NEEDED to believe him. But now that I'm an adult, there is nobody to tell me lies that I will buy. I know too much (I do. I really do. I know stuff). So I prefer comedies or dramas ;) Every once in awhile I'll watch a scary movie, but there better be someone by my side while I do it. Are you a horror movie buff? What's your favorite scary movie? Or are you a chicken like me? Leave a comment below for a chance to win some zombie suckers (winner randomly selected) and don't forget to enter my zombie giveaway while your at it.  
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 October has to be my favorite time of year. The colors of fall, the smell of pumpkins, and the crunch of dried leaves all make me a giddy girl. It's also that time of year to break out the scary movies, dress in crazy costumes, and enjoy the dark side of Halloween--all of which I love! To celebrate not only Halloween and this fabulous time of of year, but also the release of DEAD PLAINS The Final Installment of The Zombie West Series, I've joined COFFIN HOP. What is a Coffin Hop, you may well ask?The quick answer is that we are a loose association of hundreds of horror authors and artists who get together for the week before Halloween, when we throw a colossal online party with prizes, giveaways and all the crazy you could want leading up to All Hallow’s Eve. Join everyone between October 24 – 31 to get in on the biggest, baddest, Helloweeniest online event of the year! Free books! Contests! Prizes! NEW SURPRISES AT EVERY SITE! If you love Halloween as much as I do, you will NOT want to miss out on this. There are over 70+ authors and artists participating and they are giving away a SLEW of prizes. Just click on the picture above to take to a list of blogs and enter ALL the giveaways you can (that's what I'm going to do). I'm offering my own HUGE zombie giveaway, so check out the rafflecopter link below. There are lots of chances to win. Have fun and Happy Halloween everyone! Pop back here later in the week for a few flash giveaways as well.  Today's flash giveaway is a bag of ZOMBIE FOOD chocolate. Just leave a comment below, letting me know what you love most about this time of year, and I will randomly select from the comments. If you're international, please feel free to comment, but I will award you an Amazon Gift Card instead since shipping is INSANE. It looks gross, but they are delicious!  Also, check this out: COFFIN HOP: DEATH BY DRIVE-IN is a collection of some of the best and brightest of the Coffin Hop crew, with 21 amazing B-movie inspired stories from some of the best Indie authors around. All profits from the anthology (as well as our Coffin Hop store) will be donated to LitWorld.org, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization supporting child literacy and social improvement the world over. Help support this cause. 100% of the profits are going to this organization, so if you love some scary tales, think about purchasing a copy to make this a huge success.  It's HERE!! DEAD PLAINS Is Here! (Enter the ZOMBIE Giveaway--ZOMBIE Pj's, Brains, and MORE).10/21/2013   Today is the official release day for DEAD PLAINS, Book Three, The Final Installment of The Zombie West Series. I couldn't be more excited. This has been a long day coming--years of writing about Red, Trace, The Wild West, and of course, ZOMBIES! And October couldn't be a better month to celebrate!
For those of you who've been following Red and Trace's story, I hope you'll find the ending to their story enjoyable, fun, and full of zombie craziness. As a way of celebrating, I love to give stuff away--zombie stuff! So please enter for your chance to win signed paperbacks, eBooks, and a zombie prize package pictured below. Help me celebrate by spreading the word!  Years ago, while perusing the shelves of my local book store , I came upon this lovely book sitting on a table ---> I hardly ever read memoirs, sticking more to fiction, but that title grabbed me and wouldn't let go. I bought it. I read it. I LOVED it, and I've recommended it to other readers (Yeah, it's a good one--if you like funny true-life adventures, give it a try. Serious. It's that good).
Without that title, the cover would be blah at best--a big sun, a little island, an ocean. Big deal. For me, it was the title that struck me as interesting (maybe I'm a bit of a perv, I don't know). The title is great, it's catchy, and even though the book has very little to do with cannibals or sex (sorry), it was perfect. Had the book been titled differently like, "Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific (the subtitle)" I think I would've bypassed it without even checking out the blurb on the back. This book is an example of how the title was EVERYTHING. We all know that books need a cool professional looking cover. That's a given. The blurb has even a harder job--draw in that reader and be intriguing without telling them everything. We work hard on those blurbs. But we don't tend to give a lot of emphasis on titles. We should. Oh, we most definitely should, because the title is the reader's first introduction to your book. We want the title to be creative. We want it to be unique (yes, we do, though it seems far TOO many books are out there with the exact same title. Type SECRETS in Amazon and see how many books pop up). We should want something unique, but it should also have meaning to the book. Nothing vague and weird. Authors and writers are a creative bunch, we should create interesting titles to prove it. Sounds easy, huh? Don't be fooled...because it's not. So what do we do? How do we go about finding that perfect title for our books? Since I don't have the answers (I'm in the process of naming my current work in progress and it's alluding me), I decided to pass along some helpful links that may be of benefit to you. The first is a blog post by Rachel Gardner, How to Title Your Book, that you should check out. She gives some sound advice and a few tips that's I've found incredibly helpful. If you haven't heard of her, then you really should check her out. She is well known in the business and provides a lot of sound advice when it comes to publishing. Karen Woodward's blog, Four Things to Keep In Mind When Choosing a Title For Your Book, provides some excellent advice as well. She also gives tips for brainstorming the perfect title at the bottom of the post. If you need a break from all the advice on finding a title and could use a good laugh, check out Timothy McSweeney's blog and the guest post by Sarah Walker, How to Title Your Novel. Seriously, it'll give you a good laugh. There is also a great discussion on the Goodreads boards called The Importance of Titles that gives you insight into what readers think about titles. It's a great thread to check out. If all else fails, why not try the The Random Book Title Generator. All you have to do is hit the Give Me Some Book Title Options button and poof, six titles will appear. If you don't like any of those, just hit the button again. Who know, right? It's totally worth a shot especially if nothing else seems to be working. Good luck on your title hunt. Let me know how you go about giving your book a title and what works best for you. |
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