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The Good Kind Of Payback

May 16, 2012 JasonHalstead Blog, 0

Today we’ve got a guest post from author Jason Halstead to give you some perspectives on his writing endeavors. Enjoy!

I’ve been a writer for more years than I want to recall. My first book, Voidhawk, was published in 2009. I had a few more published following that, but I never saw much in the way of success. I blamed my publisher because I didn’t know any better. I still blame them a little bit, but now I know that a large part of my lack of success was because I didn’t know what the heck I’d gotten myself into!

Enter 2011. I was thoroughly fed up with both of the publishing companies I went through and determined to try it on my own. I retained full rights to my books so I launched my own self-publishing career. I started off slow, but that was because I still remained quite ignorant. I was motivated and ambitious though, and that allowed me to stumble across a tweet from a guy by the name of kreelanwarrior – aka Mike Hicks.

He was finishing up his day job at the time and on the verge of going full time as a writer. This was thanks to loads of success throughout the first half of 2011 and a forecast for continued success with his books. He and I talked a bit via Twitter and then some rather lengthy emails. I even picked up his book on self-publishing success, which really helped me get a foundation for what I needed to do.

Sure, I tried a few other books in that venue as well (similar stories from John Locke and Michael Mattias). To be honest, Mr. Locke’s was the least useful – but there were still a few pearls of treasure to be gathered from it. Of them all Mike and I continue to communicate on an almost daily basis via Twitter, but even still I was surprised to receive a tweet from him asking if I’d like to do a guest post on his blog. Surprised, but also very pleased. I considered it another notch in my writing headboard – or perhaps another run climbed on the long ladder to making writing my day job.

So of course I was only too happy to oblige. He suggested using it as a promo op. I’d be a fool to pass up on that, but I wanted to start it off by sharing this limited exposure I’ve had to Mr. Hicks and that it marks him as a man of good character. I’ve tried to pass the goodness on to other writers that ask me questions.

As for me, I’m a long ways from my goal but I’m making steady progress. I’ve published 18 books so far, with number 19 due out in a few weeks, and in 2012 I’m finally breaking the 100 books sold per day mark with regularity. I won’t say I owe it all to Mike, but I will say he definitely helped me get there a lot quicker than I would have done otherwise!

Now for the shameless self-promotion part: Mike and I both write science fiction and fantasy. I occasionally dabble in other areas and hope to continue to expand, but my best selling series right now might appeal to fans of the In Her Name books. It’ s a futuristic space based series called Vitalis. Book one is titled New Beginnings and follows the lives of a crew running a transport ship that are set upon by salvage reclamation experts (aka pirates). Things go horribly wrong and the ship is damaged beyond repair. Their only recourse is to enter cold sleep to survive the long passage to the next star system light years away outside of human colonized space. In the new solar system things really get interesting…

Rather than go into spoilers, let me just say that each book in the series (there are five published, as of April 2nd) expands on the original storyline. New characters, concepts, and life forms are introduced. Every time I write a book for it I get more excited about what’s going to come next. In fact I have no idea when I’ll stop writing this series, it’s so much fun and there is so much potential with it! My Vitalis books are novella length books, designed to allow for a quick thrill that can be handled in a couple of hours, but they’re also priced accordingly.

But don’t stop there, if you prefer a more modern sci-fi story I’ve got plenty of those, as well as some pure fantasy full length novels. Want some paranormal? I’ve got your fix there too! Feel free to check out my website for samples, my blog to see what’s coming up next, or follow me on Twitter BooksByJason to say hi.

And as always, a heartfelt thanks to all the readers out there and to Mr. Hicks for giving me the chance to share this with you.

Scenes of the Apocalypse #7 – Venturing Into Dark, Decaying Cities for Food and Family

May 9, 2012 Michael Hicks Blog, 4

Today we’ve got a guest post by author Angela White to tell you about her latest book, Adrian’s Eagles. Check it out:

During and after an Apocalypse, people will be trying to find family and food, mostly in that order. They will wipe out local stores and markets, farms and storage bins, and even warehouses and factories. Then they will move onto the homes of the dead around their town or city, until they’re forced to look further outside their comfort zone. Eventually, the only places left that still hold food will be those crumbled and devastated cities that were direct targets of the war. Perishables like meat and milk will be long gone, but there will still be all the above sources the survivors have been using – they’ll just have to find it amid the rubble and danger.

The same goes for family. Would you let an earthquake keep you out of a city that you knew your loved ones to be in? Of course not. You would gather a team and go looking, or perhaps foolishly rush in with only your bare hands. In many places, only foot-travel will be able to get through, unlike the organized team in the excerpt below. This would be the smartest way, an armed clearing crew that would also gather much-needed supplies while they moved through the devastation.

“Seven very gifted survivors are destined to rebuild their country after a nuclear apocalypse…If they can stay alive long enough to find each other. Impossible to put down.” – The Review Blog

As they neared the crumbled city, the mission team was reminded of how these scenes always appeared fake in the movies. Except with the windows down, they could smell the decay and see the bodies still rotting out in the open, eyes foggy, skin mostly gone to predators, and they could hear the hordes of flies that circled and stopped, circled and stopped.

The grass was dead too, replaced with thick mud from the water rising through and over the land. It should have drained, but a fleet of Coast Guard ships had been washed up river by Hurricane Amanda, forming a thick blockade with the wreckage and not enough water was seeping through to let it. As a result, the river had been backing up into nearly every city and town along its banks. It probably would only have taken 2 hours and a little dynamite to clear but no one knew and very few would have been able to do it now. The war had changed everything.

The convoy stopped about a 1/4 mile from the first big piles of buildings, cars, lives and Adrian sat still for a long moment, deciding where to start the assault.

Angela kept quiet, almost able to feel his mind working the problem.

After a moment, he picked up the mic. “There’s a clear street behind that church. We’ll start on the right side of the lot. Once we clear a way in, we’ll be able to travel for a bit.”

No one doubted him, though how he could see it, she had no clue.

Full of realistic and fantasy situations, the Life After War series is a combination of more than 7 genres, so there’s a good chance of everyone liking it and learning a few things about survival at the same time. You can get a free copy at the link below, of the first book in the series. It’s free for all of this year to celebrate the possible end of the world on 12/21/2012.

Adrian’s Eagles Three months after the War of 2012, Safe Haven refugee camp has made it to South Dakota and now holds six of the seven special survivors meant to lead the rebuilding of their country – but it can’t be done until they find a safe place to settle… and who can think of peace when there’s a huge camp of foreign invaders less than a day behind their group and they only want one thing? Safe Haven and everyone inside the light.

• Watch the trailer for this series
• Free: The Survivors, the bestselling novel that started it all.
• See it on iTunes
• More Scenes of the Apocalypse

Looking For Some Victims…Er, Readers

May 2, 2012 Michael Hicks Blog, 14

I’m looking for some readers for a short-term “marketing study,” for lack of a better term. I’m specifically looking for folks who have read and enjoyed In Her Name: Empire, Confederation, and Final Battle (or, alternatively, Redemption), but have not purchased any of the other books of the In Her Name series.

That last bit is very important. I appreciate fans who may want to dive into this just for fun, but I specifically need people who’ve read the first trilogy, but not any of the other books.

What I have in mind isn’t terribly painful and won’t take too long: it basically will be answering a couple of questions.

If you’re interested, please email me and I’ll send you the oh-so-brief questionnaire!

You Never Know Where Life Will Lead You

April 20, 2012 Michael Hicks Blog, 14

As Frodo told Sam in The Lord Of The Rings, “It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

That’s rather how my wife and I felt this week while on the trip we took to Florida this month. You see, what started out as a two week combined business/pleasure trip has turned into a completely life-changing experience that has had far too many coincidences to believe.

Let me tell you what I mean. First off, we had originally planned to take this trip in our new RV. Unfortunately, we suffered a major financial setback called the IRS that forced us into the position of having to sell the RV so we could pay off our tax debt. So we decided to leave it home and not put any more mileage on it and just take our trusty Honda CR-V.

Now, this trip mixed business with pleasure, as I wanted to visit the Kennedy Space Center to get some ideas for a book series I have in mind, as well as hit Khaotic Kon in Tampa. So we figured we’d just hit KSC on the trip down, and then get a timeshare condo somewhere in Tampa for a week to stay while we visited Khaotic Kon and enjoyed some sun & surf.

So, I searched for a condo in our timeshare exchange system and found what looked like a nice one near Indian Rocks Beach. I showed it to my wife, Jan, who said “Looks great!”

But when I went back to the reservation page – now, keep in mind, I had just checked to see that there was a vacancy – they were booked!

After muttering some curses, I started looking again, and finally found the Calini Beach Club in Sarasota. It looked good, had a nice beach a block away, and had some vacancies. Not wanting to have a repeat of the vacancy vanishing act, I reserved one of the units and that was done.

When the time came, we hopped in the CR-V and started heading south, and after lots of driving we hit the Kennedy Space Center, and then Khaotic Kon after we got to Sarasota.

Then we met with one of my wife’s school friends and her husband, who started talking about the area…and the home prices here. Our mouths dropped open, not so much because homes here are MUCH less expensive than where we live in Maryland, but because – along with selling the RV and our second car – we’d been planning to sell our house and find something less expensive.

But “less expensive” in the area we felt tied to (for various reasons) in Maryland is a relative term. Real estate is very expensive in our area, and there were few houses available – and not really very nice ones, considering how much money we’d still have to pay – in the school district where we wanted to keep the boys.

Here in the “greater Sarasota” area, however, we found out that there were some excellent schools, and a boatload of amazing homes that were well within our price range. Plus, we absolutely love being near the beach, having lots of sun, and no state income tax wasn’t a bad thing, either!

So, our business trip/vacation turned into an impromptu house hunting expedition in the Sarasota-Rotunda area!

Then, while we were driving around, we happened to drive by the RV World dealership in Nokomis, which is just south of Sarasota. I turned to Jan. “Hey, wouldn’t it be a hoot if they’d take our RV? We should stop in there and ask.”

After we got back to the condo, I looked them up on the web. And lo and behold, they had a page saying “Turn Your RV Into $$$!”

Well, I thought, that looks promising. So, we stopped in and talked to Bob, one of the sales reps. I’ve got to tell you, my head just about spun off. Not only would they happily take our Winnebago Tour and give us a big fat check, but they had just received – the day before – a lightly used 2006 Fleetwood Expedition that was just perfect for what we need. Then they put a guy in a car and sent him north to go fetch the Tour in Maryland, and we’ll be driving the Fleetwood home next week!

Side note: If you’re considering buying an RV, I can’t recommend the folks at RV World enough. We’ve had an absolutely outstanding buying experience with them. Even if you’re not in Florida, give them a call!

When all is said and done, this weekend we’ll have a big fat check so we can pay off the IRS, which will take a HUGE burden off my shoulders, extra money on top of that, an RV that’s great for what we need (and we didn’t have to pay sales tax, because it was a negative value trade!), and we eliminated the headache I was anticipating in having to sell the Tour on my own. Yes, I probably could’ve gotten more money in the end had I sold it myself, but if I didn’t sell it quickly a lot of that profit was going to be eaten up by IRS interest and penalties. This way…it’s done.

Then we come to another coincidence: as we’re talking to Bob (who’s an incredibly friendly and very knowledgeable guy), we find out that we should check for homes in the Englewood/Rotunda/Port Charlotte area. We started looking on Realtor.com, and fell over at all the nice homes there in our price range, plus they have an excellent high school for the boys. And one of Jan’s friends who’s lived here a long time raved about it. So, guess where we’re going to be spending a couple days in our “new” RV, scoping out homes?

Anyway, the moral of the story here, to me, is to have your eyes and mind open to opportunities that are put in front of you when you set foot out your door. Things like this don’t happen all the time, but when they do, when you think, “Boy, wouldn’t it be cool if…” – you owe it to yourself to ask the question. Peer through the door of opportunity, rather than slamming it shut or walking on by.