This tiny ball of ginger fluff was soon mewing all night and keeping me awake as I fed him every two hours on weaning milk. Both his little voice and bright blue eyes were piercing, and he followed me everywhere I went, without fail. I’d run to the loo during a commercial break and he’d just about making it halfway up the stairs before I was on my way down again. He slept on my pillow and lived under my jumper for the best part of a month.

My little ginger tom spent several weeks with rather politically-incorrect names. He had the shakes a bit – we later found out he had a condition known as cerebellar hypoplasia (CH) – and was called Parky and Ozzie -aka – Mr Osborne. He also looked like a tiny gremlin, and earned himself the name of Gizmo. Eventually, however, he became Tobias, Toby or Tobes.

Over the past 10 years, poor little Tobes has been rather manky. His CH meant that he fell over, dropped off and tumbled down a lot of things, breaking whiskers and many teeth in the process. He developed urinary tract disease, had a blocked bladder four times, had a heart murmur, went bald on the tip of his tail, got a flea allergy, development arthritis in his back legs, suffered from occasional fitting and decided that peeing and pooping outdoors was not for him. Nor did he have the capability of going in a litter tray because of his wobbles. So, for almost a decade, I’ve lived with towels covering my kitchen floor.

Despite that, Tobes always snuggled, came on holidays with me, journeyed on the train back home for Christmas, buried himself under my duvet, and purred in my ear when I was feeling ill. He even managed to pull a softer side out of Mimi, my tabby with the most horrible of temperaments, and got her to lick his ears on occasion. Meanwhile, despite my fantasy series never originally having cats in it, Toby wormed his way into the pages there too, and will forever be the lolling ginger and white tom in Roberta’s Ridgewood house.

Yesterday, another blocked bladder and a lot of pain finally meant that poor ‘ol Tobes had to pass on. It’s a sad day here, and the place feels empty without the sounds of him tumbling around the kitchen, banging into things and taking hours to eat just one kibble. Life is an experience, and so too, is death. And, no doubt, poor little well loved Toby will have etched his way into my writing in some form or another. But, for now, my little hermitage is slightly bereft at the loss of a brave little moggy who soldiered on despite extremely poor odds. RIP Tobes.

I’ve been having a few conversations on Twitter of late about casting. It seems that all the best books or best-selling series are getting spun into movies or television series, whether to make a quick buck or actually provide us with some real entertainment. Sometimes the casting is spot on, and you watch a show and are enthralled at how close to a character an actor is. At other times it’s way off and you’re left feeling a little disappointed. The most obvious bad casting for me was Imelda Staunton as Dolores Umbridge in Harry Potter. I love Imelda and think she’s a fine actress, but she was just too sweet for me. I’d always imagined Dolores as uglier, rotund and altogether unpleasant in looks and manner.

When asked about my own casting for novels, I’ve had a hard time. My characters tend to create themselves out of my mind and, as such, are not usually inspired by actors. The only contradiction to this is Valaria Carlody in CRYO: Rise of the Immortals who I always believed would be ideally played by Francis Conroy. Meanwhile, it has crossed my mind that Rebecca Mader, of Lost fame, could be a good possibility for the styled, intellectual and sometimes drug stimulated Evie Zianter.

In regards to Inside Evil, I often find it hard to cast Martha, Roberta, Sam etc because they’re visions in my head who don’t look like anyone else. I’ve had Felicity Montagu mentioned as a possible Martha, and today, another lovely fan said she’d always thought of Susan as Helena Bonham Carter. I know, odd right? But then I looked up a blonde HBC (see below) and guess what? She could easily play Susan Lingly and could create a very interesting take on this lady! This had never crossed my mind before but now I feel enlightened as a result!

It got me thinking; everyone who reads a book has an interesting take on both the story and characters. I avoid putting obvious characters on my book covers for this exact reason.

So, if you were casting Inside Evil, CRYO or Pacifier Six, which actresses and actors would make your lineup? Which books to movies have you seen where the characters were perfect or far from who you’d imagined?

If you want to buy or simply look at samples, then head to Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk or Smashwords to take a look. It’ll be coming to Apple, B&N and Kobo over the next few days, so I’ll provide the link on the sidebar as soon as they’re available.

So, what’s next?

There are lots of plans afoot, but the two major projects for 2013 are Inside Evil Book 4, and the second instalment of CRYO. I’m desperate to get back to John, Amity…even Agnes, and discover what’s happening in their new found world, but I can’t wait to explore more of Gathin with the Ridgewood gang either. Decisions, decisions. Both books will be completed this year though…so plenty of writing and reading to do!

One of the great things about being an indie author is that you have absolute control over every stage of the publishing process. One of the downsides is that you have to do everything yourself. Marketing a new book release is a difficult job, especially without the budget being with a publisher brings.

Don’t worry; this isn’t an article about how unfair the world is for Indies. For starters I don’t think that is true. E-books have brought about a democratisation for publishing; this is a huge opportunity for writers such as myself. But we have a duty to take the opportunity seriously. This means not only writing a good story, but making sure the book we sell is of the same quality as the books published by the publishers.

As an indie author I have a limited budget. That budget was better spent making sure that the book was of a quality worth publishing. So I invested in having the book edited, leaving me with a small fund for promotion. I looked into various options for promotion; one popular method is to take the book on a blog tour. My investigations discovered that this can also be an expensive option.

But it doesn’t need to be.

One of the other great aspects to being an indie author is the other authors. They are a friendly bunch and after releasing my first novel I quickly discovered how helpful they are as well. It occurred to me that I wouldn’t need to pay to put together a blog tour, I could organise it myself.

I participate in various online communities, two in particular helped me with the task. The Kindle Users Forum and Goodreads are both excellent places to connect with readers and other writers. So these are where I started. I asked if anyone wanted to take part in the blog tour.

I’ve also been conducting guest author interviews on my blog for some time, so this provided another avenue I pursued.

The response on all fronts was incredible. The book was due to come out in February. I estimated it would take a month to arrange the tour so I planned the dates for March. As it turned out I filled all the dates well before then.

The tricky part wasn’t finding blogs to take part, but making sure I had enough content to provide something different. For most of the blogs this was determined by their regular content. So reviewers received review copies. Some asked for interviews and others wanted a guest post like this one.

It’s taken quite a bit of time, and as yet I won’t know what effect it will have on sales, but I’ve met some wonderful and discovered some excellent blogs. So I’d like to thank everyone who has helped to make the tour happen. And I hope everyone enjoys the new book as well.

*****

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Michael Brookes is an Executive Producer with a leading UK games developer. Working in games and writing are two of his life passions and considers himself fortunate to be able to indulge them both. He lives in the east of England, enjoying starry skies in the flattest part of the country. When not working or writing he can sometimes be found sleeping. Which is good as that is where many good ideas come from.

 ‘Conversations in the Abyss’ is the sequel to the 5 star rated supernatural thriller ‘The Cult of Me’

Stealing Lazarus’s miracle gifted him immortality. Combined with his natural ability of invading and controlling people’s minds this made him one of the most dangerous people on Earth.

But the miracle came with a price. His punishment was to be imprisoned within the walls of an ancient monastery and tormented by an invisible fire that burned his body perpetually. To escape the pain he retreated deep into his own mind.

There he discovers the truth of the universe and that only he can stop the coming Apocalypse.

Buy now from Amazon:

UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00BCP08JU/

US: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BCP08JU/

Having now finished Spirits of the Middlelands, I’ll need a week or so to re-read the first draft, make improvements, fix some continuity issues and take out a couple of paragraphs that began story threads which didn’t actually transpire into anything. Then, it’s off to my editor. So, with us already heading towards mid-March, I would think this release will due at the end of the month at best, but more likely early April. If you don’t want to miss it, then make sure to sign up to the newsletter.

WHAT’S NEXT?

As much as I want to write the next CRYO book and have ideas formulating for another Pacifier 6 novella, Inside Evil fans will be pleased to know that I’m going to crack straight on with book number four. My mind is filled with Ridgewood right now, with each character’s fate, and I’m keen to capitalise on this. With the middle book now complete, there’s just two more to write – I can’t believe it! If you haven’t had a chance to read Inside Evil yet, grab it – it’s FREE ;P

Now, I must be off to correct typo’s and ensure continuity!

You might think this magazine is just another chance for us indie authors to be seen, and, in many ways, it is. But the real emphasis here has been put on readers, and giving our fans something back. There are articles on writers and the craft of telling a story, but there are also six free short stories in the debut edition. In addition, there’s an article on the many ways to read Kindle ebooks even if you don’t have a Kindle yourself, a selection of new releases and all manner of other goodies for people to enjoy.

Indie Scene is completely free to download as a PDF (or read in your browser if you choose), so feel free to take a look. If you love the magazine, then let us know, give us your feedback. We’d love to keep creating a publication that has a reader focus and offers something new to the community, so download, have a read and if you like it, tell us!

Of course, you won’t get everything right – even traditionally published writers with a team of experts on hand get things wrong. But, if you want to write without vast amounts of research, then you need to write what you know.

What do I mean?

It’s easy to get things wrong without realising it. You might describe a location, or talk about a character’s hobby in great depth, ad-libbing as  you go without having the true facts. You might have seen someone bake a cake on a television show, but if you haven’t baked it yourself, how do you know if what you saw was correct?

For example, in Spirits of the Middlelands, I was going to have Roberta take a quick trip to Iceland. Have I been there? No. Was I worried that I wouldn’t be able to capture the ambiance of the location? Yes. Could I afford a trip to Iceland on the grounds of ‘research?’ No.

Instead, Roberta ended up traipsing around London, a place that I know extremely well. It allowed me to put in a lot of extra little details to bring the story to life without having to do time consuming research about a location.

Researching for fantasy

Unless you’re writing a book which has every single tiny detail created from your own mind and it bears no resemblance to any life we know, there will be research involved. If you’re creating a magic system, then it’s a good idea to look at other authors ideas. If you’re creating a brand new world with rainforests and creatures, you’ll need to understand how such ecosystems work, how it feels to be immersed in such an environment. You can watch shows, read books, look at pictures, but nothing will quite conjure actually having stood in that  rainforest yourself.

How can  you write on experience rather than research?

I would never condone writing without any form of researching, but you can limit the hours of toil by using your own experiences throughout your work. Writing my recent zombie novella, Pacifier 6, was a joy because it’s set amongst the streets that I live in. I didn’t need to do any research on location as I see it every day. My protagonist’s mother keeps a budgie, so do I. One of the enslaved zombies is baking bread. Hey, I bake bread too, I know how that works!

It’s a zombie novel, so it’s completely fantasy – I’ve never met a zombie, I’ve never lived in an apocalypse, I’ve never run from a rabid horde of flesh craving monsters. But I can draw on my own life experiences to make characters, settings and minor story details come to life.

If you’re writing a character outline, for example, don’t make your lead an expert rock climber if you’ve never done it yourself. It’s the perfect excuse to get down to the local climbing wall and try it out yourself, of course. But if you’re scared of heights, or just don’t fancy pulling yourself up a rock face, don’t make your lead do it. Instead, think of other possibilities. Have you ever been running? Fishing? Camping? Make your lead into an adventurer or semi-professional runner instead. You know these things, you can remember how you felt whilst pelting along the racetrack or hunkering down as the evening breeze caught on your tent. It’ll make your story more believable, more alive, and more importantly, it’ll draw your reader in.

Whatever you may be writing about, there are ways to incorporate parts of yourself and your own experiences that will may words lift off the page. Readers will be able to relate to your protagonists if they have shared experiences, characters traits or hobbies. Locations that you’ve visited will come so much more alive in your work than places that you’ve not taken the time to research properly, ultimately creating a better story. So, if you want to write, write, write without hours in the library, delve into your own memories and experiences and watch your words come alive.

So, a few weeks ago I ran a tester, reducing my Kobo price to zero. Any sales? Fat chance. Kobo really is a non-starter for me, but the fact that I had a free book there and got not downloads demoralised me – A LOT. I decided that if I was going to give this a proper crack, then I’d have to take a stab at price-matching on Amazon. There’s no clear deadline for this to occur…it’s down to the Amazon gods.

Yesterday morning I logged into Amazon and found, to my absolute shock, there were 89 price-matched downloads. 89 people saw my book and wanted to try it out. WOW. Then figures started to climb, and climb, and climb. As of this minute, I’m #1 in free horror/occult and #330 in the overall Amazon free store. I’ve had 900 downloads (I’ve just checked – exactly 900) and I’ve sold 4 of my other books. Wow. WOW. This is on NO promotion as I didn’t have a clue when Amazon would price-match…it’s just spiralled.

I’m keeping track of my statistics and will write a more in-depth piece after a few days have run their course and things have settled down a bit. Unfortunately, at this juncture, only Amazon.com has the free listing as I didn’t know that I had to price-match across channels. I’m also not sure whether this will be a perma-free or a month’s promotion before the release of book three. But, for someone who has been selling only tens of books per month, and was seriously wondering whether people were even interested in trying out my work, this has been a huge motivator. I KNOW that there are a lot of freebie grabbers out there, and that lots of people won’t even read it, but the fact that over 900 people (I just checked again) have downloaded it, AND book two, The Tower of Souls, has started selling is a GOOD boost.

Anyway, if you want to try Inside Evil out for FREE, head to Amazon. I’ll report back soon with more results.

What makes your own zombie book stand out from others in the genre? In a crowded field, why should a reader give your book a chance?

Pacifier 6, The Shadows Within is a completely new take on the zombie genre. Rather than seeing an outbreak of monsters, we join humankind after the apocalypse has past. People are trying to get on with their lives, and a new drug – Pacifier 6 – has enabled zombies to be pacified and used as a workforce. However, not all of the undead have entirely lost their former consciousness, and some are seeking a way to break out and create a new race.

Why would anybody write a zombie book in the first place?

Any readers of this blog know that I had never intended on writing a zombie novel. I LOVE ‘The Walking Dead’ but I’d never imagined writing in this genre myself. But a story came to me, and I wanted to try something new. So, why did I write this book? Because I wanted to create a fresh take on the zombie genre and explore some formerly passed over aspects.

Add the first paragraph or two from your story as a teaser. If you really don’t want to use the first paragraph, use another one.

It’s not the first paragraph, but one from Chapter 2;

What really plagued Carl was the look on Sheila’s face just before she’d died. He’d never seen the slightest flicker of emotion on her face before, not the hint that she was a shadow. But, in that instant, when she lay on the rubble filled road, covered in seeping bodily fluid, her face sliced with glass, her outstretched arm upon his knee, he hadn’t imagined the plea for help in her eyes, had he? She’d formed the word on her lips, attempted language, a skill that frothers were not capable of. He was so sure. But then she was gone, any consciousness that she may have had splattered in fleshy lumps across his face and chest. He daren’t tell his mother, for those who showed the slightest regard for the undead were ridiculed by society. His mother, standing forthrightly in the street, swathed in her dressing gown with a gun in her hand, would have probably put a bullet through his head too. She still would, Carl thought, if infection took hold. There had been no time to close his eyes or shut his mouth as Sheila’s brains had flown towards his face. But he tried to comfort himself with the fact that Pacifier 6 halted transmission. And, if his mother bore down on him with a hammer to bludgeon his skull in three or four days, then he would know.

If you love zombies, then check out these other blogs in the hop:

Waking the Zed

Z Plan: Blood on the Sand

And, if you have a zombie novel, get involved! Write the post, link back to me and I’ll add you to the list!

Love between a mortal and a zombie

Whilst I’m no fan, Twilight has certainly pushed away the boundaries over loving monsters. Tales have been spun throughout the decades of mere mortals falling for deadly and vicious monsters, but Stephanie Meyer really managed to bring monster love back into the spotlight….though Edward Cullen wasn’t quite the vicious vampire that we’re all used to. Perhaps, for that, it’s best to look towards the realm of True Blod and Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse novels. More recently, Warm Bodies has found a spotlight, with the film adaptation of Isaac Marion’s book showing that love can really cure all. But can it? And, more importantly, should it?

I’ve been grappling with this idea in my latest novella, Pacifier 6, The Shadows Within. Set after a zombie apocalypse, the human race is trying to rebuild society. Zombies decimated our population, but there were those that survived, and with the emergence of a new drug – Pacifier 6 – the remaining zombies have been drugged and farmed into a new workforce. But whilst decomposing, mute and all together nasty looking, is there still a place for love?

I’m not sure that love is the correct word, and it’s more like bloody lust. A zombie is a zombie, even when pacified, and despite that there’s a new creature lurking within, I was torn between all out love and showing just the flickering of an emotional connection. If you read the tale, you’ll discover that it isn’t really a love story, but more of a discovery of feelings. Is Carl attracted to his zombie worker because he likes a bad boy? Because there’s a consciousness deep within? Or is it simply that there aren’t many people left to choose from?

At any length, I’m not sure that love between monsters and mortals should be an easy ride. After all, love between two humans is normally less than smooth. And, if I’m honest, monsters are still monsters whatever the show they put on…they’re supposed to be scary, to creep us out, to put the fear of god into our souls. Love tends to be enduring. Lust, however, it an instant overtaking emotion that gets us into all manner of problems, especially when we’re ogling a monster.

*THIS IS PART OF A VALENTINE’S BLOG HOP - Click here for the other members of this Blog Hop.*