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New Books Just in Time for Christmas

I’ve got a list for you and I’m checking it twice: New Books Just in Time for Christmas. Some are ebooks, some print, some will cost you, some are free. Your choice.

Let’s start with the BIG ONE: my latest release: Oops! Tales of the Zombie Turkey Apocalypse. The paperback came out November 27th. You can get the ebook NOW for preorder.

This is my first collection of short stories. It includes some of your favorites: A Phoenix Tale, In A Pickle, and A Hamster’s Tale. In it, you’ll find many others that’ll tickle your fancy.

Do you want to know more?

Accidents happen. Especially around zombie turkeys. Then you add zombie humans, and problems proliferate. Mix in some ill-planned genetic engineering, and things get crazy.

The insanity continues, from the story where zombies are merged with cucumbers to the one where two basement-dwelling nerds gain access to all video content from the past two hundred years—from aliens.

Andy Zach pulls out all the stops on his imagination as he serves up this smorgasbord of silliness. Try it. Laughter is good for your soul.

From the back cover of Oops!
New Books
The full cover spread of Oops!

New Books – Free For You Follow This

But wait! You’ve got more coming to you! This Middle-Grade e-Book offer includes my own, Secret Supers.

New Books
Click to get your free copy!

In case you can’t read this blurb, here it is:

Jeremy Gentle fell flat on his face at therapy. That was normal since he had cerebral palsy. But his new superpower wasn’t normal. Then things got weirder when his best friend, Dan Elanga, got a different superpower. But Dan was still blind.

Kayla Verdera and Aubrey Wilcosky, two girls in their middle-school special ed class, discovered they too had new superpowers. Kayla was mute and needed a walker. Aubrey lost two legs and used crutches. But they were as powerful as the boys.

What should the four friends do? Jeremy knew if the word got out, it’d be a media circus. Then they started fighting crime, as the Secret Supers. Who knew a disability could be a perfect disguise? No one would ever think of disabled kids as superheroes. Then they ran into problems they never expected.

From Secret Supers back cover

Is that all? Nope! Read on for more free stuff.

If you’re a newsletter subscriber, I give away two books every month. I’ll give you a free book in exchange for a review. Just contact me here.

And I’ll give anyone that asks a free audiobook until all my codes are gone. Check them out below.

Free Books
Your first Free audiobook sample
Your next Free audiobook sample
Paranormal Privateers audiobook
The last Free audiobook sample

Goodbye for now from Chambanacon in Bloomington Illinois!

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Oops! 3 Mistakes I’ve made in Self-publishing

Oops! 3 Mistakes I’ve made in self-publishing since I started with Zombie Turkeys in 2016. I’ve made unique mistakes with each novel, but I’ll cover the big ones in this blog.

Oops! 3 Mistakes
Zombie Turkeys, where my self-publishing started

Oops! 3 Mistakes – The First Mistake I Always Make

What could it be? I’ve got an MBA. I’ve written computer programs to schedule, I’m a certified project manager. I have both training and experience in managing projects, like self-publishing.

Time estimation. Things always take longer than you think.

Oop! 3 Mistakes
I break time deadlines

For example, my latest book, Oops! Tales of the Zombie Turkey Apocalypse, should be in my hands today. I planned to sell it at the Chambanacon convention. It’s not.

Oops! 3 Mistakes
Andy Zach and Brenda Sutton at Chambanacon 2016

The book isn’t printed. The covers are done, but not the binding. And I just fixed a problem with the ISBN yesterday.

What went wrong?

First, writing the book took longer than I planned. I traveled to California and Israel, which impeded me. I also waited until the last minute/month to finish up.

Second, my editor took longer than I thought. She got a lot of work all of a sudden. No problem, if I had been done a month earlier.

Third, we found a mistake in my binding. Oops! 3 Mistakes I’ve made, number 1.

Oops! 3 Mistakes
Andy’s soon to be published book

Oops! 3 Mistakes – My Second Mistake in Self-Publishing

Where else did I go wrong?

I thought nothing would go wrong. Never before did I have a typo in my binding. I never made a mistake with my ISBN before. But I have the capacity to make new, never before seen mistakes.

Maybe you do too.

Plan for mistakes in your plan.

Unplanned fly under
Do you think this was planned?

Finally, Mistake Number Three

I know better about this one. I haven’t always failed here, but this time I did.

What else did I do?

Andy Zach at Archon, instead of writing in October 2019

I didn’t plan for slack time.

When I realized how little slack time I had to publish by November 29th, I should have blocked off all October as slack time to catch up with any problems. I should have targeted September 30th as my writing deadline.

Woulda, shoulda, coulda. Maybe you can learn from my mistakes.

The final back cover of Oops!

I’m Thankful for You This Thanksgiving

I’m thankful for you, my blog readers and newsletter subscribers. I’m giving you 15 free middle-school books. Click below.

Oops! 3 Mistakes
Click to get 15 free middle-school books, including Secret Supers

That’s right. You’ll get my latest novel Secret Supers for free here. Enjoy the first promotion I’ve run for this book.

But that’s not all! Click here next to subscribe to my newsletter and get my free short stories in my upcoming Oops! anthology.

Finally, newsletter subscribers will be able to get my audiobooks for free! Find out how in my next newsletter this month.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Gobble! Gobble!
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How Do You Keep Writing and Where Do You Get Ideas?

How Do You Keep Writing and Where Do You Get Ideas? I’m glad you asked because that’s what I’ll tell you.

The first rule is to desire to write. I love writing crazy ideas into books, surprising and entertaining people. I truly would do it for nothing. In fact, my net profits so far are nothing.

I loved writing Zombie Turkeys. That way I got to write ridiculous chapters with weddings and zombie turkeys.

How Do You Keep Writing
Zombie Turkey dressed for a wedding. Chapter icon

Then, I sought to top myself with My Undead Mother-in-law. I had to make a new villain, one so evil you would feel sorry for the zombies. I made a sociopath who used cyborg animals to commit crime, like capuchin monkeys, rats, and black mambas.

How Do You Keep Writing
Rat, capuchin monkey, and black mamba cyborgs chapter icon from My Undead Mother-in-law

Now, how would I top myself again for my third book? I hated repeating myself. I needed something related, but totally beyond a mere undead mother-in-law. How about if I put the zombie family on a luxury yacht, give them a letter of marque from the President, and send them around the world fighting American enemies, public and private? That’s a start!

My undead family would be zombie pirates. But that phrase is too common. Paranormal Privateers became the title of my third book.

How Do You Keep Writing
Paranormal Privateers Andy’s third book

Next, a disaster happened.

Ruh Roh! Writer’s Block

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEffUAATOY8

I got stuck writing this book. How could I keep topping myself? My paranormal privateers fought pirates, slavers, terrorists, and prevented a nuclear holocaust. What could come next?

I needed a change, a total surprise. But how do I get there? What did I want to write? I loved 1950s science fiction movies. So I wrote what I loved. That is how you break writer’s block. Return to your passion.

I can’t tell you what I did without spoiling the book, but I’ll give you some hints.

Your first hint:

Your first hint

Now, your second hint.

Your second hint.

That is your second rule to keep writing year after year: write what you love.

I finished Paranormal Privateers two months after NaNoWriMo, in January 2018. It appeared in ebook and print on Amazon and later Audible.

(By the way, you can get all my books at Audible. They’re free if you’re a member. Zombie Turkeys, My Undead Mother-in-law, and Paranormal Privateers. Or, if you want a free copy, just write me and I’ll send you one in exchange for an honest review.)

But what would I write next? I burned myself out on zombies. This leads to your third rule.

How Do You Keep Writing: Write Something New

Where could I go next? What else did I love writing? What did I love reading? Young adult science fiction. Everyone wants a superhero origin story. I wanted to do one of those for my fourth book.

But this had to be different, unusual. Superman got his power from birth on another planet. Batman got his power through intelligence and training. How about an ordinary hero? How about an unlikely hero? What was the least likely hero?

Now I get personal. My daughter’s been disabled with cerebral palsy since her birth. What if my hero had cerebral palsy–and his superpower didn’t take it away?

Then superheroes often come in teams. What if they were all disabled, each with a different disability and a different superpower?

I had my next book: Secret Supers.

Finally: Your Free Books

These offers are just good until October 31st.

First, you get Zombie Turkeys for free. Click here.

Free Zombie Turkeys
Free Zombie Turkeys ebook

Now you get your BIG GIFT: 31 Free books follow and end this blog post.

31 free books for you
Click for 31 free books. Only until October 31, 2019