Category Archives: Fun Stuff

Apr24

Interviews and Book Trailer Fun!

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Interviews and Book Trailer Fun!

I was supposed to have the book trailer for Are We Still On For Tonight? Dating During the Zombie Apocalypse done before the book was published but…shit gets in the way, y’all.

Anyway, we finished the trailer today, and we actually did two versions of it, they are both below.

Free Book and Interviews

Tomorrow I’ll be on the No Math Allowed podcast interviewed by two very funny ladies (and I’m not just saying that because I know their Google alert will pick up this post) Jessica Barton, who is one of the book reviewers for Nerdist, and the lady with the best name ever–Lisa Love. We talk about books and stuff. It’s cool and fun and all the kids are listening to it.

I should also have a video interview going up this week on Anthony Cardno’s blog, Rambling On. Anthony is an author, reviewer and juggler. Okay, he’s only two of those things…but I’m not going to tell you which two.

In honor of all this talking about myself I’ve been doing, I made Are We Still On For Tonight FREE as a bird for today and tomorrow. Go spread your webbed fingers and click to it, my friends.

Trailers for Are We Still On For Tonight? Dating During the Zombie Apocalypse

We also did a second version of the trailer using some tools that distressed the video:

About the book:

Not everyone who survives the zombie apocalypse should.

Rachel Finnikin was prepared for a lot of things. She was prepared to marry a rich doctor. She was prepared drive a luxury vehicle. She was prepared to be a rich lady of leisure.

She was not prepared for the zombie apocalypse to effectively cancel her first date with Dr. Dream-Come-True.

Rachel isn’t one to let something as ridiculous as a horde of savage undead ruin her chance of a dream future. Instead, she allows her underlying ruthlessness to seep out as she works to survive the zombie apocalypse with every hair in place AND make it to the restaurant by 8 p.m.

But will the doctor?
—
This novella is approximately 16,700 words. That translates to a 50-60 page book.

Apr2

Growing Pains

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Growing Pains

**Special note: Are We Still On For Tonight? Dating During the Zombie Apocalypse is free on Amazon today (4/2/12)**

On any given day, I have at least two careers. My main career (if there can be such a thing) is as a freelance writer. This is the career that has supported my family for over three years—and for a family with only one income, that’s pretty important.

My second career is as a fiction writer, something that I’ve only been doing for about a year and that doesn’t exactly bring in the dough necessary to feed a growing Wolverine, a zombie-race-gonna-be-running Hussy and two cat prodigies.

The interesting thing about these dual careers is that in each one, I have a set of “clients.” In fiction writing, my readers are my clients whereas in freelancing, those who secure my services to write for them are my clients (the end readers are THEIR clients).

Each of my two client groups has made an investment in me—the freelance clients invest their money, reputation and faith. The fiction clients (you guys) invest their money and their emotions by getting drawn into my worlds and my characters.

I can’t tell you how hard this makes it to prioritize everything these two careers require. Because while freelancing clients may pay my mortgage and health insurance, you guys have invested something even more valuable, even if it’s something that doesn’t exactly put food on the table.

When I launched my fiction career, I never anticipated that I would have growing pains as my freelancing business became more popular than ever and my fiction ideas grew. As it stands, I’m really happy with the progress of the fiction side—but that doesn’t mean there aren’t unexpected complications that I’m trying to overcome.

Some of the difficulties I’m having will change how I do business in the future, and it will be interesting to see how that affects the success (or…unsuccess) of my fiction. For example, I was pretty careful to commit to release dates for projects over the past year (failing to meet just one of them so far). I did this because—if you’re like me—you like to put an exciting book release date on your personal calendar and make a whole day of it. But I did this thinking as a reader instead of as an author. Next year, I think I’m just going to release books when I feel like releasing them, with no calendar, no commitment and no obligation. I have a feeling this may adversely affect my sales, but my happiness will be positively affected, and that should probably be my priority anyway.And if you’re a follower of this site, my Facebook, my Twitter or on the Hussy List, you’ll hear about the release, so it won’t be exactly like that tree that fell out in the forest.

Another change I’ll be making is that I’ll be putting all my books in print–either as stand-alone work or collections. I have yet to see any profit in print, but I don’t think one year can really give a person a true handle on what is, and isn’t, possible.

What I’m Working On Now

It’s hectic in the Hussy house right now. I’m ghostwriting a couple of books for clients and trying to finish some of my own. I started the next book in the Dating During the Zombie Apocalypse series, this one following a substitute teacher named Hannah. I’m hoping to release it this year. I’m also working diligently to finish Vampire Relationship Guide, Volume 3. There is SO much going on in this book, it’s ridiculous. Finally, I’m doing final edits on Pack Mistress 4. Again, a lot going on in this book–holy hell.

I’m playing around with another serial, but I’m on the fence about whether to do it as a serial or just release it as a stand-alone novel. How have you been enjoying the Pack Mistress serial format? Does it annoy you more than excite you? Would you rather have read nothing and waited a year for me to write it, and then read it all in one week?

Feb29

Story Length: The New Dick Size

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Story Length: The New Dick Size

For some weird reason, authors often debate over how big their story should be (Heh–yeah, prepare yourself for lots of dick jokes in this one. Sorry guys, can’t help myself.). Recently, the price of books as it relates to size (Do you pay more for a male prostitute with a grand schlong? I bet you do.) has launched some arguments too.

Book length is a sensitive subject for me (That’s what she said.). I get emails from readers who want my books to be longer. I have also noticed that a few reviewers wanted my books to be longer (That’s what he said.) (And no, I don’t read reviews, as I’ve said before, but occasionally, my eye accidentally snags one and then I have to run to the nearest First Aid kit while yelling, “IT BURNS! IT BURNS!!”.)

I’d like for readers to understand that when I sit down to write a book, I don’t decide ahead of time what length it will be. I might have an idea in mind, based on my outline, but I don’t make sure I wrap everything up at xx,xxx words. I write until the story is done.

I also write books that I want to read. You see, when I read most full length novels, I find myself doing a lot of skipping. One series that I lurved was hella filled with battles and shit—and I didn’t read hardly a lick of them. I just looked around for dialog and love scenes between these two, beautifully written characters. The author told her story how she wanted to, but you can bet I would have been thrilled if she did less war-battle stuff and just focused on the interpersonal. Of course, I wouldn’t tell her that because she doesn’t need to do what I tell her to—she just needs to write her books because they are awesome (at least, the love parts are…I wouldn’t actually know about the rest.).

When I write, I like to put a microscope to a certain situation and write about that. I like to focus on a particular theme (For VRG–what would a relationship REALLY be like with a vampire? For PM, it’s about this moment of transition in Lorena’s life. For AWSOFT it’s about how Rachel initially deals with the zombie apocalypse.).

In doing so, my goal is to entertain the shit out of you for an hour or two, never bore you, show you a different way of looking at a common theme, and keep you at peak excitement the entire time I have you. Also, because I sometimes write about really annoying heroines (Rachel, I’m looking at you dear) I don’t want to extend my welcome. Leaving you wanting more means that I’ve done my job.

I also try to make sure that I charge a reasonable price for the length of my work. I use other traditional publishers in the romance and paranormal genre as a guide and price accordingly.

I guess my point here is that size doesn’t matter, what matters is that you enjoy the time you spend with my books. If you find the length frustrating (heh) then you might want to step away until I decide to do a full length novel because all the ideas I’ve got right now seem like short ones, and I’m not going to shove words in just for the sake of length, because then my books will suck donkey balls and holy mother of all the baby kitties, do we really want that?