Wednesday, February 13, 2013

1,000 Downloads!

My eight flash fiction horror stories have been downloaded a combined 1,000 times on Smashwords.com!

2013 ABNA: The results are in and...

...NOPE.  My pitch for THE MENGELE EFFECT didn't make the cut.  Bummer.  Guess I'll try again next year!

Monday, February 11, 2013

Dean Koontz's Odd Thomas takes a jab at Stephen King?

I finished Dean Koontz's Odd Thomas novel ODD INTERLUDE.  Quick read, and not bad...not his best, but still enjoyable.  In the back of the book, there's an excerpt for his next Odd Thomas book, titled DEEPLY ODD.  Now, I've heard Dean Koontz and Stephen King aren't exactly "BFFs"...and you can find people out there who love one and viscerally hate the other, crowning either Koontz or King as the BEST.  I personally enjoy reading both of them...King can scare the willies out of me, and Koontz can make me laugh out loud right before he scares me (and sometimes afterwards, too).  Different writing styles, different stories, different politics (one a liberal, the other more conservative), but both are wildly successful.

That said, I found this part of the DEEPLY ODD excerpt kinda humorous...read it for yourself, and decide whether or not Koontz is using his character Odd Thomas to take a jab at Stephen King's CHRISTINE:

Odd Thomas:  "I'm not one who believes that a vehicle can be possessed by a demonic spirit, and, driverless, speed around town to run down people for the thrill of tasting blood with its tires, any more than I believe that Herbie, that Volkswagen in that series of Disney movies, had a mind of its own with a desire to bring lovers together and to thwart villains.  If you believe the former, you have to believe the latter, and the next thing you know, you'll be taking your Ford, with its sexy GPS voice, to the car wash just to see her naked and soapy."

See what I mean?

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Reading ODD INTERLUDE by Deank Koontz

So far, I'm about halfway through Koontz's ODD INTERLUDE...pretty good!  If you're a fan of Dean Koontz's Odd Thomas, I think you'll like this one...


Sunday, February 3, 2013

Excerpt for "Reflections" Posted!

Click on over to my web page & open The Hopper tab; you'll find excerpts for two of my in-work novels and two short stories.

The next one to be published will be "Reflections" - I just posted an except for it today on the web site.  Give it a look & leave me a note to let me know what you think so far!


Saturday, February 2, 2013

"Beach House" and "Legend" @ Barnes & Noble

There's sometimes quite a lag between when a book/story makes its way to some eBook retailers and when sales/downloads are reported...so, looking at the ranking numbers is the only way to guess how sales are going (or in this case, free downloads).

Two of my flash fiction stories, "Beach House" and "Legend", seem to be doing pretty well at Barnes & Noble, as both have dipped below the #30K barrier.  As of this morning, "Beach House" is sitting at #23,868 and "Legend" at #29,712.  Every time I check, both numbers keep creeping down...which is cool!


These two stories are both getting quite a few downloads on Smashwords, too.  If you haven't read them yet (remember, they're FREE!), click over to Smashwords or Barnes & Noble & give them a read!  If you like them, please leave a review!  If you DON'T like, them...um...you can leave a review, too, but then I'll have to kill you off in one of my future stories.  Don't say I didn't warn you...  ;)

Oh yeah...only 11 more days until the Second Round'ers are announced for the 2013 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award.  I'll post the results here (good OR bad) once the announcement goes public...(fingers crossed)