Ratpocalypse Is Available for Purchase

Ratpocalypse has been released. The Kindle version is available for $3.99. The Kindle Unlimited version is free. The print edition is $9.99.

Ratpocalypse Promo

 

Full Cover Reveal for The Chronicles of Paul II: Errand of Mercy

Here is the full cover reveal for The Chronicles of Paul II: Errand of Mercy. Many thanks to Christian Bentulan for his talented design.

 

Join myself, Bethany Stutsman Hagardt, and Sylvester Barzey this Wednesday, 27 July, at 9PM EST/6 PM PST on Horror Writers Ink as we discuss the first three episodes of Netflix's Resident Evil series. One of the topics we'll be talking about is how the series fits in with the timelines from both the movies and games. We would love to have you join us and get your views of the series.

NOTE: We'll be discussing episodes 4 through 6 on 3 August and the final two episodes on 10 August.

Cover Reveal for This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things During the Zombie Apocalypse

I owe the title and the concept to my daughter Maddy. Every time I made a dad joke, or me or the dogs did something stupid, my daughter would shake her head and say, "This is why we can't have nice things." The idea slowly came to me of how would a typical lower middle class family fare during the zombie apocalypse. Better than expected, but not as suave as in the movies.

I'll publish an excerpt from the novella next weekend. The scheduled release date is 1 August. I'll let you know when it's available for pre-order.

Cruise of the Living Dead: A Zombie Anthology To Be Released 3 March

As promised, here are the details for the upcoming Cruise of the Living Dead: A Zombie Anthology. It's my birthday present to my fans.

Over the years I've published several zombie-themed short stories that I've now pulled together into a single collection. Cruise of the Living Dead: A Zombie Anthology will be published as an e-book available only on Kindle and will be sold for $0.99. The book is scheduled for release for 3 March, but you can pre-order it here.

The stories included in the anthology are:

"Cruise of the Living Dead" - Carissa Banning, a cruise ship's medical officer, finds herself at ground zero of a zombie outbreak when an infected family aboard ship spreads the virus through the passengers and crew.

"Rednecks Shouldn't Play With Dead "Things" - Sam Grodin and his buddies think they stumbled across the ultimate hunting experience when zombies attack their campsite. However, when these zombies fail to behave the way they do in the movies, Sam and the others realize they have bitten off more than they can chew.

"The Hunger" - Janet Simmons has been roaming an apocalyptic wasteland for months avoiding the living dead and trying to find enough food to stay alive. When she stumbles across another survivor, she suddenly finds herself in a human eat human world.

"Last Flight of the Bismarck" - Victorian adventuress Scarlet and her male companion Chappy thought they were taking a trans-Atlantic flight in Germany's latest airship, the Bismarck. When they discover that the Bismarck is actually being used as a delivery device to infect the Northern United States with steampunk-enhanced zombies, they engage in an epic battle with the living dead in the skies above New York City.

"Is Anyone Out There?" - An isolated survivor of a zombie outbreak uses the Internet to contact family and friends before the world comes to an end.

"Recognition" - A never-before-published short story that follows the turning of a human into one of the living dead from the zombie's point of view.

So if you love spine-chilling, blood-curdling, gut-munching tales of the living dead, you will definitely want to pick up a copy. 

COMING SOON: Cruise of the Living Dead: A Zombie Anthology

Check back later this week for all the details.

It's Official!! Rotter Apocalypse Is Now Available for Kindle and as a Trade Paperback

Rotter Apocalypse, the sequel to Rotter World and Rotter Nation, is now available for Kindle or as a trade paperback!!

For those of you anxious to know whether Robson, Natalie, and the others survive the zombie apocalypse, the wait is over!!! 

The zombie apocalypse is about to reach its inevitable conclusion, but not before it unleashes a few more nightmares on Natalie Barzagan, Mike Robson, and Windows.

After breaking away from the rest of the group, Natalie and her Angels succeeded in getting the vaccine to the government-in-exile in San Francisco where Natalie joins the military effort to clear the West Coast of the living dead.

Robson destroyed the rape camp that had kidnapped Windows, but not until after she had escaped. Along with the remaining vampires and a band of camp stragglers, he sets off to build a new compound.

Windows and the ten-year-old girl she rescued from the camp are taken in by a kindly widower who gives them the opportunity to start over and heal their wounds, emotional and physical.

Just as Natalie, Robson, and Windows are settling into their new lives, each will be confronted with a final life or death decision that will decide their fates.

You can read an excerpt from Rotter Apocalypse here.

As part of the official launch of the novel, from 30 October to 3 November the Kindle version of Rotter Nation will be available for FREE on Amazon!!! So for anyone who missed the second book in the saga, here is your chance to get caught up.

In the next few weeks I'll be running a Goodreads giveaway of ten autographed copies of Rotter Apocalypse.

Good luck for those of you who enter the giveaway. For those who read Rotter Apocalypse, please do a struggling writer a favor and post a review on Amazon. Thanks and enjoy.

Cover Reveal, Release Information for Rotter Apocalypse

Rotter Apocalypse, the final book in the Rotter World and Rotter Nation trilogy, is scheduled for release on 30 October 2015!!!

The zombie apocalypse is about to reach its inevitable conclusion, but not before it unleashes a few more nightmares on Natalie Barzagan, Mike Robson, and Windows.

After breaking away from the rest of the group, Natalie and her Angels succeeded in getting the vaccine to the government-in-exile in San Francisco where Natalie joins the military effort to clear the West Coast of the living dead.

Robson destroyed the rape camp that had kidnapped Windows, but not until after she had escaped. Along with the remaining vampires and a band of camp stragglers, he sets off to build a new compound.

Windows and the ten-year-old girl she rescued from the camp are taken in by a kindly widower who gives them the opportunity to start over and heal their wounds, emotional and physical.

Just as Natalie, Robson, and Windows are settling into their new lives, each will be confronted with a final life or death decision that will decide their fates.

 
The Kindle version of Rotter Apocalypse is available for pre-order from Amazon. The trade paperback version will be available soon.

Continue following my blog for contests and giveaways associated with the book's release.

Click here to read an excerpt from Rotter Apocalypse.

COMING SOON!!! Cover Reveal, Release Information for Rotter Apocalypse

Rotter Apocalypse, the final book in the Rotter World trilogy, is finished and a release date is being set for late October.

This weekend I plan on announcing all the details about the novel, including the cover reveal, pre-order information, and an excerpt from the book.

So please check back in on Saturday and Sunday. Thanks.

Announcing the Book Launch for Rotter Nation for 15 June

Please join me on 15 June to participate in the book launch of Rotter Nation, the second novel in the Rotter World trilogy. The event will include a Goodreads giveaway of ten autographed copies of the book, an interview and giveaway being run by Zombiefiend, and a sneak peek at the cover for the final chapter in the trilogy--Rotter Apocalypse, which is scheduled to be released in October 2015.

The Kindle version of Rotter Nation is available for pre-order on Amazon.

Rotter Nation promises to be much darker and more disturbing than Rotter World. The survivors from the first book arrive back at Fort McHenry to find that it has been destroyed by a rape gang, and that Windows has been kidnapped. As Mike Robson leads one group in  a desperate attempt to rescue Windows and get revenge on those who murdered their friends, Natalie Bazargan takes her Angels on a cross-country journey to bring the Zombie Virus vaccine to the government-in-exile in Omaha; however, the Angels soon find out that the trip down to Site R ill prepared them for the horrors they will face in the American heartland. You can read an excerpt from Rotter Nation here.

See you all on 15 June.

Cover Reveal, Release Information for Rotter Nation

Rotter Nation, the much-awaited sequel to Rotter World, is scheduled for release on 15 June 2015!!!

Despite being nine months into a zombie apocalypse, life had taken a fortunate turn for Mike Robson and Natalie Barzagan. Not only had their group retrieved the vaccine for the Zombie Virus from the underground military facility at Site R, they had found love with each other. That optimism is short-lived. When the group returns to its camp, a rape gang has destroyed the compound, murdered their friends, and kidnapped one of the young women. 

With everything they have achieved now destroyed, Robson makes the fateful decision to split his group. As he organizes a desperate attempt to rescue their friend from the rape gang, Natalie leads her Angels through a rotter-infested nation to bring the vaccine to the government-in-exile on Omaha.

Both groups soon discover that everything that has happened to them up to now cannot compare with the horrors they are about to encounter.

The Kindle version of Rotter Nation is available for pre-order from Amazon. The trade paperback version will be available soon.

Continue following my blog for contests and giveaways associated with the book's release.

Click here to read an excerpt from Rotter Nation.

COMING SOON!!! Cover Reveal, Release Information for Rotter Nation

Rotter Nation, the long-awaited sequel to Rotter World, is finished and a release date is being set for June.

This weekend I plan on announcing all the details about the novel, including the cover reveal, pre-order information, and an excerpt from the book.

So please check back in on Saturday and Sunday. Thanks.

Interesting Posts From Other Websites

I've been trying to include more writing-related articles in these weekly postings. Whether you're an aspiring writer or have numerous published works under your belt, the one thing we all have in common is that the industry changes rapidly, and the more we know the better prepared we all are to survive it. Plus some of these are helpful hints that every writer should revisit every once in a while.

First, let's touch on the DO's and DON'Ts of writing: Marketing and Sales for Novelists, by Greig Beck offers nine very sound pieces of advice writers should consider to be popular and sell books. On the opposite end of the spectrum, How NOT To Sell Books: Top Ten Social Media Marketing No-Nos for Authors warns writers what activities to avoid so you don't wind up on the readers' shit list. What's really sad is that most of these should be self explanatory, yet they still need to be addressed in a web posting.

4 Zombie Apocalypse Problems No One Is Talking About was intended as a tongue-in-cheek posting, but it does raise issues that writers of zombie fiction need to take into consideration in order to create a more realistic novel. Foremost is the fact that anyone with a chronic illness that required medication (heart patients, people with high blood pressure, diabetics, those on behavioral modification medicines) will be screwed within a few months of the outbreak.The other is the heartbreak of abandoning your pets. Sure, if you have a dog(s) you an take them with you, especially if they're large breeds. But what about smaller animals, like cats or rabbits? You can't lug them around in their carriers, unless you don't mind being weighed down and eaten by a zombie horde. So your choices are let them go free or kill them. It's an emotional issue that, as far as I know, has rarely been dealt within zombie fiction or movies.

Interesting Posts From Other Websites

In Six Perspectives on Why the Zombie Apocalypse Is So Popular, TJ Dawe pulls together from various websites their intake on why zombies now dominate movies, television, books, and video games. Some of these are quite insightful.

While on the topic of apocalyptic fiction, Here's How Apocalyptic Fiction Has Changed Over the Century shows how writers have ended the world over the past one hundred years. I find it interesting that the two most popular ways were technology in the 1900s and 1920s and, beginning in the 1930s, war. Note the wave of eco-apocalyptic events in the 1960s.

One of my favorite movies is John Carpenter's The Thing (1981), so I guess it's only natural that I'd post Ten reasons why The Thing is the best movie ever made.

Interesting Posts From Other Websites

There are a of postings out there assessing why the public has such an infatuation with zombies, but Shaun Huhn's Zombie Zeitgeist: The Influences and Culture of Zombie Movies is one of the most thought-provoking ones I've read in a long time. I especially like Shaun's concept that the appeal of the genre is because a zombie apocalypse presents us with a RESET button that can eradicate all the economic and social hardships of today and give us a chance to start over.

Lately I've been researching Hell for my Young Adult saga Hell Gate, and stumbled across this fascinating story about where the concept of Hell originated -- Hell Is a Myth - Actually a Bunch of Myths.It's defintiely worth checking out.

What I've Been Up To, and What Lies Ahead

May has been a busy month for me because I've been working on three writing projects. 

-- I've reached 13,000+ words in the third book in the Rotter World series, tentatively titled Rotter Apocalypse. The second book, Rotter Nation, is with Permuted Press and should be released later this year.

-- The final edits are being incorporated into Yeitso, and the cover art should be finished soon; I'm anticipating a release date from Blood Bound Books sometime in July or August.

--  The dinner conversation my family had earlier this week about Nazi space zombies is rapidly turning into a novella. For the hell of it, I conducted some research last night while watching Warehouse 13 and the novella started to write itself. 

As for upcoming events, Alison Beightol and I will be attending Spooky Mayhem in Orlando from 30 May - 1 June where we'll be meeting fans and signing copies of our books. I'll be attending other conventions in 2014, but nothing has been finalized yet. Also, I'm talking with Emby Press about re-releasing The Vampire Hunters: Vampyrnomicon later this year.

Looking for Some Fan Input Into the Third Rotter World Novel

I'm getting ready to start the final novel in the Rotter World trilogy, and am looking for reader input in how the series should conclude. So please swing by my author's page on Facebook and provide your opinion. Don't miss your opportunity to influence an author and see a trilogy end the way you want it to.