Vampires Hunting for an Audience

Greetings and Salutations, Fire Enthusiasts. So glad you could take a moment of your time to drop by. Life has been hectic, as I know it probably has for you as well. Work at the day job has continued to be crazy busy, but who wants to discuss that? Certainly not me. *frowns* I don't even want to think about that when I'm there. ;)

Thanks to my being on vacation for those two weeks at the holidays - and the little part about me eating and drinking everything in sight *laughs* - I have been hard at work dropping the extra ten pounds I gained in December. I have faithfully been climbing upon my trusty treadmill and am pleased to report that I am down to 182. Of course it takes 60-90 minutes (4.5 to 6 miles and 800 to 1000 calories reduced) nearly every day to get me where I want to be. How about you? Any of you fighting the month of December?

I have been getting more reading done. I just finished the second installment of author Stant Litore's wonderful Zombie Bible series. This one was What Are Eyes Have Seen and it was very, very good. You may recall that I don't care for zombie tales, but what my friend Litore is doing is not to be missed. One wouldn't think there could be anything beautiful in and around zombie action, but you'd be terribly wrong. Then on Friday, author Greg Sisco released the second chapter of his Blood Brother's saga: The Wages of Sin. The book was so good that I had it done on day two. I drank from it like a fledgling vampire takes his first drain. What's a "drain" you may ask? It's what Sisco's vamps refer to their victims. If you've never heard anything like this, I can assure you that what Sisco is doing is altogether new and there's nothing like it in the marketplace; and if he shortly reports that some big six publisher has made him an offer he couldn't refuse, it will come as no surprise to me at all.

I labeled this post the way I did because it has been very slow going it terms of sales. The past couple of years I spend much time on promotion, doing the blogs and sending out Tweets and Facebook updates, etc. on promotion with little to show for it. This year, I plan on letting the work do the promoting. The reviews are trickling in, but when they do form a pool, they are glorious. I just received one yesterday by the awesome Lindsey Clarke. Click on her name there if you wish to see it. Among other things, she said: "With edge of your seat action and nail-biting events, (Garcia) leads you on a chase around town, where you're desperate to find out where the evil will strike next, and as it turns out, the danger is always closer than you might think... These days when you can't turn the page without bumping into a hot sparkly vampire or a bit of paranormal erotica, it's refreshing to find a novel without either. What I liked about (it) is that it leans toward the original vampire legend where vampires are more likely to drain you dry and rip your head off than sleep with you."

Not too shabby, huh? The series is available on Amazon Kindle and can be had for $4.00.

Lastly, I have been hard at work on draft two of my paranormal romance ghost story. Now, before you start picturing scantily clad cover models, you can sit back down. I'm aiming for that audience, but at it's heart it is a ghost story that deals with love and loss. I wrote this a year ago and am making it priority one. If you haven't seen me around the blogs, this is why. I'm hoping to have it ready for beta readers next month sometime, and this is where you come in. I will leave you with the working blurb that I have for it. Last year I had a couple of people tell me they'd be interested, but I'm asking one more time as I build a list of potential readers. Please let me know if you might be available to read something in the 70k word range that I can have ready for my editor in the spring. I could really use the help.

Blurb for Ghosts:

Paul Herrera hasn’t worked, left town or done much of anything since the untimely death of his wife three years before. He suddenly finds himself bequeathed a mysterious old house near the California central coast by a deceased aunt that he never knew. The woman who showed it to him and handed him the keys is the spitting image of his dead wife, taken from him in a senseless car accident which also took from him his unborn son. While he deals with the ghosts of a past that he cannot let go, there are new ghosts as dead Aunt Flora is not content with eternal sleep, but continues her unholy quest to be rejoined with her dead husband on this side of the grave.

Flora isn’t the only ghost that Paul must deal with, alone for the week in the expansive two-storey house that he will soon discover holds many secrets. Eventually, he will see that he is surrounded by ghosts, both the ethereal and those that haunt his memories, as he struggles to hold onto the only thing that he has left in this world: his sanity.

Ghosts is the 72,000 word novel that mixes Paranormal, Horror and Romance to come up with a story that should appeal to everyone who likes their dark genres paired with reality that we can all relate to such as the feelings of terrible heart-wrenching loss and our search for a love that might outlive us.

We'll talk soon.