If you’re a writer and are interested in what this e-publishing is all about then sign up and let’s talk. It’s free.

With the assistance of my friend Cindie Geddes at Lucky Bat Books the SBP logos on the covers have been removed.

I recently signed a contract with Champagne Books for my paranormal romantic comedy Bachelorette Zombie Edition.

Watch this site for further important announcements in the coming weeks about this and others of my books.

I look forward to working with this publisher.

The link will take you to the recent interview with bestselling authors, Susan Wingate and Joshuha Graham.

A fun interview with great hosts. Watch for upcoming news about the books I talk about.

The Beginnings

We all have memories of Halloween when we were kids. Mine date back more years than I care to think about, and they are also fond ones.

My formative years began in the 1960′s (No, I wasn’t a hippy. I’m not that old!). I was ten in 1967 and by then I was an old hand at this Halloween thing.

Perhaps it was about the costumes, staying up late, fireworks, or going door-to-door like all your friends and neighbors? These are all fun things about Halloween, but sorry to disappoint, it was really all about the free candy!

My memories of Halloween also include those cold fall nights running around my neighborhood with my younger brother in tow wearing a sheet with two holes cut in it. We nearly tripped so many times I wonder how we survived being kids. What fun!

Boy, was it cold some years! Not as cold as other places I’m sure, but I grew up (and still live) in a temperate rainforest so the temperature would definitely drop. Some years it would show it’s rain forest roots (yes, pun intended) and pelt us with cold rain.

Do you think a little adverse weather would stop us? Much to mom and dad’s horror I’m sure, not on your life!

Another fond memory was the beef stew my mom made every year. It had a pastry crust on top and the gravy was rich and thick. Now this may sound good to us carnivores, but the stew was awful. Mom put in a ton of turnips so everything tasted like turnips. To this day I still loath the taste of turnips.

Mom always said she could barely boil water. This stew proved it. But I know mom loved us and wanted a hot meal in us before we went trick or treating in all that cold and wet.

This may sound like an odd memory, but it causes me to miss my mom and dad every year. After all they planted the seeds of story in me and they are why I’m a writer today.

The Birth of Story

Of course like many writers I also grew to love stories during these years.

Magazines such as Famous Monsters of Filmland, Eerie, and Creepy joined my reading line up in these years. Novels came later, including the classics such as Frankenstein and Dracula.

Anyone who knows me knows I love movies. I have a large collection of DVD’s in various genres. My tastes cross all genres much as my writing continues to do.

My basic philosophy is if the story is good and entertains me (and I don’t necessarily mean humor or happy endings) then I love it. A movie can have a tragic ending, but if the story is good, and the acting is solid, then I like it.

This means some movies others may think are stinkers I like, and vice versa. Since this blog is based on my taste I offer you some of my favorites. If you haven’t seen some of these films you may wish to. They are awesome.

My favorite Halloween movies:

The Universal Monster cycle
Frankenstein
The Bride of Frankenstein
The Mummy
The House of Dracula
The House of Frankenstein
Frankenstein vs. the Woifman

The Hammer Studios cycle
Horror of Dracula (the best Dracula film ever)
The Curse of Frankenstein
Dracula Prince of Darkness
The Brides of Dracula
Dracula Has Risen From the Grave

The modern era (To me 1973 was the re-birth of horror. A loose interpretation of the modern era to be sure but…) Jaws
Aliens
Carrie
The Exorcist
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1973) (The scariest film ever made)
Halloween (1978)
Friday the 13th (1980)
The Mummy and The Mummy Returns (the Brendan Fraser versions)
Army of Darkness
Poltergeist
The Silence of the Lambs
Blade
Dawn of the Dead
The Walking Dead (TV but movie quality. My blog. My rules. )

And of course books also had a huge influence on me. Here are a few of my Halloween favorites.

Books
The Stand
Frankenstein
Dracula
The Walking Dead graphic novels
I am Legend
Carrie
Lord of The Flies
Jaws
The Silence of the Lambs (Beyond scary book)
Life Expectancy
Frankenstein Series by Dean Kootnz

These are the stories that have inspired me to become a storyteller.

My Books

I have a few of my own books published you may find entertaining:

Children of the Monster involves the children of Arthur Conan Doyle and Bram Stoker on the hunt for (you guessed it) the children of Baron Frankenstein and his bride.

Hungry For Your Love is an anthology of zombie romance published by St. Martins Press. My story is entitled: My Partner The Zombie. The heroine of this story is Aloha Armstrong (aka The Woman from L.I.P.S.)

Aloha is a character I enjoy writing about.

She has also appeared in Big Hairy Deal, and Bachelorette Zombie Edition.

Aloha will soon have two new adventures, first in my upcoming short story Bloody Betty Queen of the Pirates in the Sapphire Blue Publishing anthology Buccaneer Women series (scheduled for release on Nov 21st), and in the new original novel, Zomopolis which will be out before the end of 2011.

You can win a prize!

To celebrate the impending release of Zomoplis, the new short story, and to introduce you to Aloha, I’m offering a prize of a copy of the St. Martins anthology, Hungry For Your Love An Anthology of Zombie Romance to whomever answers a skill testing question correctly.

To win you must pick a number between 1 and 100 million. The number closest to the number I picked before I wrote this blog is the winner. (Hint: it’s an amalgamation of my dad’s year, month, and day of birth. For example, if he was born on August 4, 1807 the answer would be 18,070,804. That’s not the answer by the way…I’m not that old!)

If you would like to share some fond memories of your own about Halloween please feel free to add them to your comments. I know I’d enjoy reading them.

Send me your answer using the contact page on the website with your guess. I will contact the winner after Halloween. Good luck.

Books you will also enjoy

Below are covers for books written by authors whose work I respect. I encourage you to buy these books and read these writers. Many of these books are going to be the classics for future generations so you better get on board now.

Try clicking on each cover. This will take you to a link where you may buy the book, or where the author is having additional contests for free books and other prizes. As a pirate might say, there be hidden treasure, matey.

Try them all, happy reading and have a fun and safe Halloween.

href=”http://smartboysclub.wordpress.com/smartboys-club-books/i-lost-my-head/”>

The story can be purchased for .99 cents at Smashwords and Amazon

Blurb:
Duty, love and passion take flight on the wings of destiny. Compelled by honor and duty, Night Ravenwood leaves his life on the sea to return home after his brothers death. As the new heir to Ravenwood Manor, he finds himself in an arranged marriage he doesn’t want. When tragedy strikes the newlywed couple, Nights realizes he’s in love with the beautiful and serene Satine. She vows to make Night understand his destiny is with her, meanwhile someone is willing to commit murder to keep them apart. Will love or murder shape the destiny of this union?

My response to your question why I switched from Sapphire Blue Publishing is relatively simple and complicated at the same time.

It is true Sapphire Blue Publishing does accept all genres but truthfully they specialize in romance. Lushites is clearly not romance.

The fact is I still publish romances with Sapphire Blue Publishing (in fact I just sold one to them last week) as well as have my own imprint, 53rd Street Publishing. Lucky Bat Books is somewhere in the middle of these two forms of publishing, providing a menu of services for writers.

The traditional publishing model (which Sapphire Blue Publishing is basically built on, though they are more author friendly than New York) forces a writer to share the lions share of the royalties with the publisher and I wanted to keep a greater share for my efforts. Lucky Bat Books doesn’t keep any share of my royalties, they ask for a flat fee for service. This makes far more sense to me than the traditional publishing model.

I want to be clear about Sapphire Blue Publishing. I love those people and will always be grateful to them for giving me my first big break.

The other advantage of indie publishing over traditional publishing is the work isn’t “produce”, by this I mean the shelf life of any traditionally published work is limited. In indie publishing the work stays up until I remove it. I’m in control 100%.

The other thing that is happening in New York publishing is they are buying the rights to the e-books forever, and paying very low royalties to the writers, even though e-book sales are on the rise world wide. This is a worrisome trend and will affect the long term income of the writers. I’d rather indie publish and ride the trend alone than go to NY and lose my work for a small return forever.

Would I ever go to New York? Yes, absolutely, but not to be “famous”. Instead I see them as a marketing tool to jump start my indie sales and make me more money. Print books are still 86% of the market.

Now how to go about being an indie publisher is a very long and involved answer. I’m sending you to a link which lays out how to be an indie publisher. I’m a student of Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Katherine Rusch who have also embraced indie publishing in a big way. I know many, many writers who are doing this, both long time and beginning writers.

Here’s the link: deanwesleysmith.com

I hired Lucky Bat Books because I want my novels to be indistinguishable to the readers from New York produced novels, which I feel Lucky Bat Books has helped me to do. I recommend to everyone hire someone to edit your work before you publish it. My view is a badly constructed manuscript with a bad cover can hurt you in the long run. Hire what you’re not expert at, just as you would an accountant or a lawyer.

The new opportunities opening up for writers makes having a career you can control far easier than ever in the history of publishing and I for one am going to explore every option available to me. Why wouldn’t I?

Fun story. Check it out.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Shadows-ebook/dp/B0052O4CZ8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1306610637&sr=1-1

Amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/Shadows-ebook/dp/B0052O4CZ8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=A7B2F8DUJ88VZ&s=books&qid=1307489199&sr=1-1

Shadows by Jen Black
Released 24th May 2011 by Sapphire Blue:

Genre: Contemporary romance with ghosts
Blurb:
Melissa thinks she’s taking a huge risk in going on holiday with Rory Hepburn. He may be gorgeous, but she only met him three days ago. But when she sees the old watermill in rural France, she is delighted. Within ten minutes of her arrival, she sees the man in black, but thinks nothing of it. Concentrating more on keeping her secrets and sleeping alone, she is shocked when ghosts disturb her first night at the mill. Not just one ghost, but two. When Christophe arrives at the mill, the chic Frenchman regards Melissa as his soul mate, and Melissa knows she’s in real trouble.
A chilling tale, written with humour and drenched in the sights and perfumes of the rural Dordogne, this is a must-read tale for those who like a romance with a ghostly twist.

This Jen’s fifth published book, and her first contemporary tale. In many ways writing about character in this century is easier than writing about people in the sixteenth or eleventh centuries. There isn’t as much research required, though it’s important to get things like brand names, distances, food and fashion right – hairstyle or hemlines can speak volumes about a character’s personality today.
Jen lives in Northumberland, a corner of England rich in castles and history, and visits France regularly for summer holidays. You can find her at http://jenblackauthor.blogspot.com where she writes about anything that catches her interest – usually something to do with writing fiction! and shares one of her other hobbies – her photographs.

We will only be publishing our books under our various names (sorry, but no submissions) in e-book and Print-on- Demand.

Look for our titles and future releases on Smashwords, Amazon, and other e-retailers.