Giveaway & Guest Post ~ Let me frighten you! ~ By Rhiannon Frater

Today, in our blog, we have Rhiannon Frater (yeah, the same author, who writes bad-ass stories and who I am a total fan of) celebrating her paperback release of "Siege". 

Don't miss out the impressive guest post and giveaway, that follows!

Series: As the World Dies, #3

Author: Rhiannon Frater

Publisher: Tor Books

Release Date: April 30th 2013

Genre: Adult Horror

Buy Links: Amazon | B&N

Siege is the conclusion to Rhiannon Frater’s As the World Dies trilogy, which should appeal to fans of The Walking Dead. Both The First Days and Fighting to Survive won the Dead Letter Award from Mail Order Zombie. The First Days was named one of the Best Zombie Books of the Decade by the Harrisburg Book Examiner.

The zombie illness has shattered civilization. The survivors who have found tenuous safety in Texas defend their fort against the walking dead and living bandits.

Katie has made peace with the death of her wife and is pregnant and married to Travis, who has been elected Mayor. Jenni, her stepson, Jason; and Juan—Travis’s righthand man—are a happy family, though Jenni suffers from PTSD. Both women are deadly zombie killers. In Siege, the people of Ashley Oaks are stunned to discover that the vice president of the United States is alive and commanding the remnants of the US military. What’s left of the US government has plans for this group of determined survivors

LET ME FRIGHTEN YOU!

- Guest Post by Rhiannon Frater

I am inspired and intrigued by what frightens me. Writing about what I fear compels me to step outside my comfort zone and forces me to confront issues and themes that are not always easy to discuss.  Creating an imaginary world where terrible things happen to fictional characters is an easier (and safer) way to deal with issues we must all face at some time in our lives such as loss of loved ones, overcoming adversity, and evolving in the face of hardship. But it also allows me as a writer to also delve into much more frightening and rare occurrences such as war, natural disasters, and apocalyptic scenarios.

When I sat down to write the AS THE WORLD DIES zombie trilogy, I wanted to address the zombie apocalypse in a realistic manner. Though the scenario of the dead wandering the earth and eating the living is highly unrealistic, I wanted the characters of the story to be everyday people who somehow manage to live past the first terrifying days of the plague.  I didn’t want any Rambos or Ripleys in the mix. I wanted people who would resemble me and the reader.

Within each character in AS THE WORLD DIES there is familiarity. The characters are people we know or maybe even aspect of ourselves. They all have different strengths and weaknesses, personality flaws, and issues to overcome.  Because I wanted my characters to be everyday folks, their reactions to their terrible circumstances are grounded in reality.

For example, Jenni is a battered housewife/trophy wife at the beginning of the first book in the trilogy, THE FIRST DAYS.After the devastating death of her children, Jenni is rescued by Katie. At first she is in shock, but slowly evolves throughout the series into a much stronger (yet not always stable) person. To make Jenni realistic, I drew on the coping mechanisms victims in abusive situations develop. The mind is amazing in its capacity to adapt to dire circumstances in order to ensure survival.  Jenni’s ability to basically cut off her emotions and compartmentalize allows her to survive better than people who have yet to develop these coping skills. Also, Jenni is extremely used to living in a life-threatening situation on a daily basis, so the zombocalypse is not much different in some respects.  Though sometimes readers get mad at Jenni for her immaturity (she was married at 17 and isolated from the world by her husband) and her bizarre actions, she remains one of the most popular, if not the most popular, character in the series.

Oftentimes readers of the series tell me how the characters in the book feel like friends. They worry about them, fear for them, and sometimes mourn them.  I have also been told how readers feel so attached to the world and the characters they feel like they are in the action.  I contribute this to the fact that they characters feel like people we know in our everyday lives, it is easy to slip into the dangerous world of AS THE WORLD DIES with them. 

Though I love superheroes and magical/supernatural characters, in the end they are far removed from me with their abilities.  I know I can’t do the things they can do.  But I can easily imagine myself on a rescue run with Jenni and Katie, clutching a gun, sweating with anxiety, and feeling sick to my stomach with fear.  Somehow this translates to the reader as well.  I’ve heard so many stories of people having to put the book aside so their wildly beating heart could calm down. Honestly, I’ve stopped typing for the same reason.

There is a certain magic that sometimes happens in books that is hard for the author to explain to the reader, but after a lot of thought I do believe the reason why my books can be so terrifying is because the characters are not so far removed from you and me.

So when a zombie is moving relentlessly toward a character in SIEGE, the fast beating of your heart and the tremor of fear flitting through your mind is probablybecause  you could be character facing uncertain outcome.

Now the question is…do you survive?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rhiannon Frater is the award-winning author of the As the World Dies trilogy (The First Days, Fighting to Survive, Siege,) and the author of three other books: the vampire novels Pretty When She Dies and The Tale of the Vampire Bride and the young-adult zombie novel The Living Dead Boy and the Zombie Hunters. Inspired to independently produce her work from the urging of her fans, she published The First Days in late 2008 and quickly gathered a cult following. She won the Dead Letter Award back-to-back for both The First Days and Fighting to Survive, the former of which the Harrisburg Book Examiner called ‘one of the best zombie books of the decade.’ Rhiannon is currently represented by Hannah Gordon of the Foundry + Literary Media agency. You may contact her by sending an email to rhiannonfrater@gmail.com.

AUTHOR ONLINE: Website | Goodreads | Facebook | Twitter

GIVEAWAY

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Why Book Covers are So Important

- Guest Post by Henry Mosquera

A lot of self-published writers confuse aesthetics with effectiveness. A good book cover is not meant to please our eyes but to garner attention. Your cover should stand out from those around it, it should stay in people’s minds, and it should generate interest. Let’s say you see a bunch of novels and one stands out because you hate the cover. You may comment about it to a friend, make fun of it and bring it up whenever an example is appropriate. Well, guess what? That hateful image is living happily inside your head, when better-executed covers have failed to make an impression. An extreme case, perhaps, but it illustrates the difference between “pretty” versus “attractive.”

A book cover has more in common with a billboard than a painting. You want to grab a potential reader’s attention; they don’t have to fall in love with the artwork. The publishing industry knows that awards, blurbs from famous authors, and reputable reviews sell novels not covers.

Of course, a cover is the first impression a reader gets of your book. So you want it to be professional, which is one of the problems most indie novels face. Just as Microsoft Word doesn’t necessarily breed good writers, Adobe’s Photoshop doesn’t make you a professional artist. These are just tools take make the work easier for the initiated. You can cut and paste all you want and play with fonts and filters, but a computer program will not transfer you the skills of a trained designer. No matter how simple it may look to you.

If you don’t have the skills, hire someone who does. The last thing you want is for a reader to look at your novel and go, “Meh, it looks amateurish and cheap,” and walk away (click away?) from your novel. You may have spent all of this money on editors, manuscript annalists and proofreaders to shape up your novel to a professional quality, but if no one picks it up, who cares? If you are self-published the odds are already against you. The stigma of unprofessionalism already mires your work, whether it’s true or not. So why position yourself on a lesser light? Invest on a professional cover. That’s right, it’s not an expense, but an investment towards your books success. As independent authors, we have to strive to do everything in our power to present our work in the highest quality possible. Otherwise we will never shake off the image of the raggedy horde of untalented creators.

If you truly posses the skill set to design your covers, here are a few tips you may find useful: artwork doesn’t have to be overtly elaborate to fulfill its purpose. Most covers out there are busy, cliché and forgettable. Spend some time thinking about your book’s cover, go to a bookstore and see what pops out from the shelves and analyze why. Search the Internet for lists of the best covers and study how the designers approached their task. Keep in mind that the artwork of your book will most likely be used in other ways like banners, social media sites, tie-in merchandising i.e. T-shirts, etc. You want your design to be able to transfer easily to whatever suits your marketing and advertising needs. Think branding. Remember, your book is not only what lies between the covers, but what is on them as well. It deserves the same kind of care and attention.

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre – Political Thriller

Rating – R

More details about the author & the book

Connect with Henry Mosquera on Facebook & Twitter

Website http://redroom.com/member/henry-mosquera

Practical Advice for Beginning Fiction Writers

- Guest Post by Sarah Martinez

I am all about energy. Finding it, sustaining it and communicating it.

Read, absorb what you read, read more, question what you read. Read for fun, decide what pulls you in and try to make your reader’s experience with your work the same.

Read poetry and study the images, word choices, and any other aspects of the work that grab you. Poets are masters of making huge statements or painting vivid images with just a few words. This is an important skill.

Write often. Write daily. Write up your experiences in the most detailed way possible. Include all the senses, even what it feels like to have an intuition or worry.

Be honest.

Be specific.

Be detailed.

Believe in yourself, because nobody else will, at least not in the beginning. Not at the level necessary to keep you going through rejections, bad advice, job loss, illness, grief and everything else life lobs at us. There is something about you as an individual that nobody else has. It takes work to articulate this, to show it off and to make it interesting to others. The world needs new voices, so believe in that if this is all you can do in the beginning. Keep music, quotes, movies, pictures, anything you can around you to remind you what you are working towards.

The best teacher I have ever had is Priscilla Long. She wrote a book called The Writer’s Portable Mentor which covers just about everything from productivity and writing groups to where to submit and how to analyze and choose structures. She spends a lot of time on sentences, especially the compound sentence and explains why having many tools at our disposal is important. Get this book and study it.

I make mentors out of my favorite authors. I listen to their interviews when I am driving in the car. I learn a lot just taking my kids to preschool and feel more like a part of the larger community that way. I also go see them when they come to town. I get pictures with them and post them on my website. This reminds me that they are just people, and it also makes me feel like what they have might possibly be something I can attain, and I am not talking about the prizes either. They talk about commitment and putting in the time. These messages I don’t think I can ever hear enough.

Also, get involved in your own writing community. This has been very important to me. I’ve met everyone from future critique partners, conference roommates, sources of research material, and marketing opportunities just by being involved. Further to this, be the best part of this community you can be, always offer a person something before you ask them to do something for you. You’ll be amazed at what you are able to contribute, even early on.

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre – Literary Erotica

Rating – X

More details about the author & the book

Connect with Sarah Martinez on Facebook & Twitter

Website http://www.mywildskies.com/

Author Interview – Edward Mrkvicka

Tell us a bit about your family.

I live in a small rural town in NW Illinois with my son, Eddie, my daughter, Kelly, our dog, Gus, and our cat, Puddin’.

What is your favorite quality about yourself?

I am a practicing Christian.

What is your favorite quote, by whom, and why?

“Evil only triumphs when good men say and do nothing”(Sir Edmund Burke), which has as its genesis Ephesians 5:11 in the Bible – “And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose [them].” Burke was so right, as is witnessed by today’s events.

What are you most proud of accomplishing so far in your life?

Raising my two children who have become humble followers of Christ. They are loved and respected by everyone who knows them.

What is your favorite color?

Royal purple.

What’s your favorite place in the entire world?

Our house.

How has your upbringing influenced your writing?

I was raised in a Christian household by Christian parents and as such I became a Christian writer. “Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it.” (Proverbs 22:6)

Do you recall how your interest in writing originated?

When I was about 8 years old I was given a small toy printing press for Christmas. I put together a weekly “newspaper” for the neighborhood. The whole experience was right out of “Leave It To Beaver.” From that point on I loved to write, and the feeling has never left me.

When and why did you begin writing?

Professionally since 1982. I had retired from banking, which finally gave me time to write as I had always wanted to.

How long have you been writing?

All my life, but, as I said, I started writing professionally in 1982.

When did you first know you could be a writer?

When I was about 8 years old.

What inspires you to write and why?

My first 8 books were about personal finance, banking, and the stock market (I am a retired bank president). My last 4 have been Christian books, as I have been a lay minister and counselor since my days in the service (Air Force 1965-69).

What genre are you most comfortable writing?

Christian books.

What inspired you to write your first book?

As I noted, I had retired from banking in 1982 at a fairly young age, and I knew I had obtained a wealth of information that could help people financially, so I sat down and committed said knowledge to paper in the hope I could reach a large audience. I will admit being a Christian bank president is a perhaps strange combination, but such can also be extremely helpful – when I was in banking I refused to ever see one of my customers taken advantage of because of my religious beliefs – my first books were dedicated to that goal, notwithstanding that I was no longer in the industry.

Who or what influenced your writing once you began?

The motivating factor in my writing is trying to help people – period.

Who or what influenced your writing over the years?

The Word of God influences everything I say and do, so it naturally influences what I write.

What made you want to be a writer?

It’s something I’ve always enjoyed – mostly because I like helping people, and writing is a means to that end.

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre – Christian Life

Rating – G

More details about the author & the book

Connect with Edward F. Mrkvicka Jr. on GoodReads

Website http://www.edwardfmrkvickajr.com/