I'm Choosing a Cover Design

 Hi! I just created several book cover designs for The Surface, a vacation horror story that will be available soon in e-book form. Here's the synopsis:

Jenny spends every summer at her family's lakehouse in a vacation community that closed its ranks to outsiders generations ago. Here, old school ties and unwritten social codes present a united front as cool and tranquil as the lake, itself. But darkness moves beneath the surface and when Jenny is sexually assulted on the way home from a midnight party, rescue comes from an unlikely source far more dangerous than her attackers.

I designed with the type style and color contrast that would make the title easy to read at thumbnail size. I chose my images to instill a sense of forboding. I work in Photoshop. Which design do you like best?

Free Halloween Short Story for Kindle, Apple, Nook, Kobo, and All eReaders

As my Halloween gift to you, download a free eBook from Smashwords through November 1 (Mexico's Day of the Dead) -- my horror short story, He Dreams in Yellow.

Tortured by heightened senses and haunted by depression, Malcolm lives in seclusion on his English estate under the care of professionals paid to watch his every move. On his mind, under his skin, and just out of the corner of his eye, is the woman linked to the catastrophic event that sealed his fate. An original short story also featured in Night at the Demontorium.

In retrospect it looks like Malcom's character is a modern day homage to Edgar Allen Poe's doomed Roderick in Fall of the House of Usher. However, He Dreams in Yellow was inspired by a nightmare from which I woke screaming.

So, you know ...enjoy!

Download He Dreams in Yellow, a free short story for Kindle, Apple, Kobo, Nook or PDF from Smashwords.

Night at the Demontorium - Book Review

Calling it "a psychological ride of amazing proportions", Project iRadio gave Night at the Demontorium: The Complete Anthology a great review. Here's an excerpt:

Pulling in the reader with a cyclical journey of amazing precision, Naima Haviland’s Night At The Demontorium: The Complete Anthology weaves together eight very distinct, yet very connected tales of incredible depth and beauty.

Wow, thanks! That is not a bad send up for my short-story demons, all of 'em working their evil little tricks on the imaginations of readers. You can buy the book at Amazon, Smashwords, and other online vendors. As Project iRadio said,

For those who are fans of Rod Serling, EC and Creepshow Comics, this anthology is one you will love.

Bloodroom eBook 99 Cent Sale

You can have this sexy and dangerous bad boy for 0.99 cents Monday, November 25 through Saturday, November 30 in any digital format. Just visit Amazon or the online bookstore of your choice.

Online stores vary in the speed with which they adopt new prices. If you see Bloodroom still at its normal $2.99, buy straight from my distributor, Smashwords.

Bloodroom is the first book in the Bloodroom Series of modern and historical paranormal novels. The Bad Death is the second book in the series.

FREE Kindle download: The Bad Death

Monday through Friday, November 4-8, The Bad Death will be a FREE eBook on Amazon. You're welcome ;-)

Bradbury's Halloween Gift

This week I posted as a guest blogger on M.R. Gott's Cutis Anserina, a website devoted to new writers and great horror fiction. I reviewed Ray Bradbury's seasonal classic, The Halloween Tree.

The novel is a good start for anyone who hasn't yet read Bradbury or who wants to learn more about this misunderstood and unfairly maligned holiday. So hop onto Cutis Anserina to read more about the book that deserves a place of honor on any reader's bookshelf.

And thanks for the invite to post, M.R. Gott, author of the macabre action thriller, Where the Dead Fear to Tread.
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I'm Passionate About ...

In Juicy Writing, we considered why we write. Why are we motivated; what drives us toward that accomplishment. That way, if we're tired of writing, we can look at our list and remember why we cared enough to go the distance. So here's what I'm passionate about:

I'm passionate about making something that wasn't there before.

I'm passionate about giving people something to think about.

I'm passionate about giving people an escape from anything that worries them.

I'm passionate about the people in my books. They're real to me, and I want to give them expression.

I'm passionate about having something to do.

I'm passionate about doing something no one else has done before. Like snowflakes or fingerprints, no one else is going to write my stories, even if they were given the plot points and character profiles and assigned to do it.

I'm passionate about leaving something behind when I'm gone.

I'm passionate about taking chances.

I'm passionate about disappearing into a fantasy.

I'm passionate about finding out what happens next.

I'm passionate about the human race, and the fragility, beauty, nobility, and triumph of their existence.

I'm a Kindle Bestseller!

It's Official! The Entrepreneur is an Amazon Kindle Bestseller in the category of Horror Anthologies. It's a bloody sick little tale and I'm proud I thought of it.

A star pupil teams with the problem student on a business class project. But there’s more to this pairing than meets the eye, and soon the project is successful beyond their instructor’s wildest nightmares. There’s a market for anything, and demand can barely keep up with supply.

At 3,000 words and .99 cents, The Entrepreneur will creep you out for little money down and no time at all. (Available in non-kindle formats at Smashwords.)

I'm so dang happy :)

Helping Your eBooks Sell Your Other eBooks

My subscription to Steve Lewis' Taleist tutorials paid off again today when I learned how to make the last pages of an e-story direct readers to review, share, or tweat about the story (as well as buy another story).

I had just finished an e-book and gotten to the last page, a Before You Go page where I could rate the book on Twitter. I thought, how can I have that on my e-books?

The tutorial said 'Before You Go' is a feature for the latest Kindle that Amazon sets up for e-books automatically. Thanks, Amazon! Then the tutorial had example text I could incorporate into my story's html that might influence a reader to review my story on Amazon and possibly buy another. Directed thus, I created an About the Author feature with my photo, asked them to review, included a link to the story's Amazon page, and told them how very much I'd appreciate it. I also gave them a heads-up to the Before You Go page they were about to encounter.

I did all this in my short story, Sparky's First Day, before publishing to Kindle. As soon as Sparky goes live, I'll add the end matter to my already live e-stories and I'll add an 'If you liked, you'll also like ...' feature with links to the other stories. I'm trying to keep it all short n' sweet but still getting the most info to them I can.

What are some other techniques I can try? Suggestions?

Romance and Twitter Contests

In Juicy Writing last night, Sharon read from a list of phrases in a romance writing phrase book and challenged us to take one or more of these phrases and write a short story on the spot. I wrote a 3-page story using two of the phrases. I love my story! It's not a horror story in any way. It's a romance, untinged by anything dark. I like the rare occasions when I write something completely un-dark because it reminds me that I can write "normal" stuff. I want to put it up on StoryFans at the same time I publish Bloodroom, which is a vampire romance. The StoryFans release will hopefully drive readers to the book.

Yesterday, Steven Lewis' Kindle Self-Publishing blog featured Tony Eldridge, a writer and e-book marketing consultant. Tony's new book teaches techniques for creating successful Twitter contests. The blog story includes a link to a free sampling of Twitter contest ideas. I would love to create Twitter contests as a way of widening my readership. There are so many options for book promotion and I feel somewhat like Columbus upon "discovering" the New World. It's all very exciting. Do you have a successful marketing strategy you'd like to share with me?

Quick Blog Before Dashing to Work

My favorite part in the movie Constantin is when Keanu Reeves' character, John Constantin, asks the Devil something like, "so how are things going?" And Satan shrugs, rolls his eyes, and says, "Oh ...busy, busy, busy!" Ha ha. Yeah, Satan. I know just what you mean.

So among the million things I'm doing, I attended Shelley Hitz's weekly webinar on Facebook marketing. I've learned so many useful things. She offers a free self-publishing checklist at www.selfpub.me/pub-checklist. And you can see her video on the subject here: http://youtu.be/tIkbBNutGzk.

Now, I gotta motor. You know ... "busy, busy, busy!"

Short Stories Pending

My short story, The Entrepreneur, is pending approval by Amazon and Smashwords. Thanks to my friend Jimmy for excellent advice in the editing phase (check out Jimmy's site Horror Web, where you'll find reviews and news of movies, books, and people influential to the genre). Tamara Fincher, creator of The Skaggs, designed the cover art. 

Also pending approval is He Dreams in Yellow -- thanks, Dan and Kim for your feedback! Aunt Téa's Addiction is for sale on Amazon, but is hung up in Smashwords with the rest. The issue is a lack of free ISBNs. Without them, my stories can't be in the premium catalog for distribution to Apple, Borders, and Sony. (I think that also means no access to Nook.) Smashwords says they expect to have ISBNs available in a few days.

No Such Thing as Small Writing

I finished writing the Greeley girls scene Tuesday night and like it very much.

Last night, I attended Shelley Hitz's webinar on creating and using Facebook fan pages. She showed us how to use the Notes and Discussions features to engage readers. She talked about the importance of having a tagline for yourself on your fan page and told us the tagline should be comprised of keywords so you come up in Internet searches. Our homework is to write our taglines. I intend to come up with several; I'll ask you guys which one you like best.

I also got Aunt Téa's Addiction accepted for publication at Smashwords, by which I mean that it was vetted and found not to be in violation of their style guide. BUT -- they're out of free ISBNs and without an ISBN, the story won't be available on Nooks, iPads, and Sony devices. A new batch of free ISBNs are expected to be available today. I'm afraid there will be a run on those suckers and I'll miss out. I'm going to be checking Smashwords' Update page obsessively today.

Last night I wrote the description blurb for my next published story, He Dreams in Yellow. But I'm concerned it contains a spoiler. The story is more stylish than shocking (as my other stories tend to be). Malcom walks around a lot and is visited by friends. Not very shocking, eh? How do you make a blurb out of that? But the shocking horror part comes later and I have to be careful or my blurb will give it away. I'm awful at small writing like bios, blurbs, taglines, and story titles. It's like by the time I get to that, my head is too worn out to think. John Urbancik gave me the title to He Dreams in Yellow. I couldn't think of a title. When he did, I was like, "Love it. Done."

Avoiding My Bliss

Wrote last night. I didn't want to. I was kind of afraid of the task. It's a recurring fear. I spend half my time running from writing and the other half fulfilled and made happy by it. It's an odd endeavor, making something out of nothing, that must then feel true and real to people (most of whom I will never know). So I told myself, "It's 8 now. I'll write badly for an hour and call John back at 9." I wound up finishing my scene between Gilbert and Julian, and I really like it. So many scenes ahead of me. Many of them are written and need revisions. Some aren't written yet. I thought of a great scene between Eugenie and Gilbert that will explain his actions in later scenes.

The John I refer to is my friend, John Urbancik, a very prolific writer whose novel Once Upon a Time in Midnight was recently available as part of a 3-novel set in Thunderstorm Books' Maelstorm series (http://www.thunderstormbooks.com/index.html). Thunderstorm sells limited edition, hardback copies that are signed by the author, for about $45 to $60. The Maelstorm series is a set of three novels for $125 in a limited run of 300 sets. It strikes me as an odd business model to have in a wrecked economy where good e-books go for 99 cents to $2.99.  Thunderstorm authors are not household names but have a cult following of readers who are insatiable for the latest horror written specifically by these authors. The set that includes John's novel just sold out. I mean, think about that. Three hundred people thought it was desirable or at least reasonable to pay $125 for three books. I've been trying to figure this out and the conclusion I've drawn is that it's a matter of projected legend. If you could go back to Lovecraft's day and buy a fresh print of his stories, signed by him, because you knew he would one day be a legend ...You'd do it, right? If you are not one of these three hundred people and you are bummed at missing out, you can read excerpts on John's site: www.darkfluidity.com. He's so talented. And nice. And we are still playing phone tag.

New Paths and Unfamiliar Alleys

The blog Taleist had features yesterday that I found very useful. One was a podcast interview with Brian Lawrenson, a travel writer who self-publishes to e-readers. He talked about some of the perils he'd learned to avoid in Amazon's pricing structure, talked about the benefits in publishing to other e-readers through Smashwords, and told his figures for the last month from non-Kindle sales. It's nice to get a real sales figure because the Internet-wide cry, "There's gold in them thar hills!" can sometimes seem urban-legendish, rather than real. I want to say, "Yeah, but how much gold? How many nuggets?" Also, Taleist offered a 20+ page white paper called "Author Platform Health Check" for free (well, for the price of a tweet). You click to tweat about the paper and are then given the download link for it. I thumbed through the printout this morning and saw good advice. Taleist is at http://blog.taleist.com or scroll down and look left because the link to this particular post is currently available there.

I wrote last night for about two hours, getting more into the plan between Gilbert and Julian. Anika had an idea for the plan. What bothers me is that having characters hatch a plan for you is like committing to someone else's plan. Now readers expect them to do these things and I hadn't planned on writing any of that. It's like snapping a leash on a dog and finding yourself walked instead, pulled down unfamiliar alleys.

Success!

I have my first short story packaged and uploaded to http://kdp.amazon.com, ready to publish! Daniele Serra (www.multigrade.com) designed the cover art. The whole time I was complaining about the difficulty of packaging a story for Kindle, I just needed to follow the tutorial I'd bought to the very end. The tutorial is available at http://content.taleist.com and was created by Steven Lewis, a prolific and successful author/publisher of Kindle books. It is a peculiar habit of mine to think, "This task is instinctive. I can wing it." This usually leads to frustration; you would think I'd learn. The tutorial is very detailed and thorough, with downloadable exercises and demo videos. I used the html editing tool Steve uses for PC; a 30-day trial is available at http://www.e-texteditor.com/. It's better than the one I was using, because it opens the web preview in a pane next to your html pane and any changes you make to the html immediately show up in the web preview pane. The tutorial takes you from preparing your Word document for formatting, through packaging your e-book using Amazon's free mobi-creator software, to viewing it in your Kindle. Let me tell you, the moment I saw my story in my Kindle I did a happy dance in my computer chair! I even have the cover art in my Kindle! The one thing I want to do before publishing is find out how to put my short story in the Kindle Singles marketplace, so that shoppers looking for Singles can find it when browsing. I have two more short stories ready to format and publish after this. So I'm on my way!

Where I've Been

My dog and cat died within the last three weeks. It knocked me down hard. And I'm having a hard time. Magsie, my dog, was with me for 13 years. Boo was with me for 8. Boots is still with me, which is a comfort. I'll show you a picture of my sweet gal. She's very literary, you know. Calls my writing desk her second home.

I have been writing the scene I last described for House of the Apparently Dead. I've brought Julian from being completely undone by the supernatural stuff he saw to being his old Man with a Plan clueless Alpha male self. I'd like Anika and Prince, his valet, to have more influence into his plan. Hopefully, I'll get some inspiration on that. But this is working out nicely because Julian's plan will drive the action for the citizens of Charleston in the next few chapters.

Boots