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Go Round the World with Paranormal Privateers

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You Can Go ‘Round the World for .99!

“What???” you ask.

The Paranormal Privateers are zombies hired by the Federal government as privateers. The book opens with them fighting Somali pirates–by letting themselves get captured.

“Is that all?”

Nope! They go through the Suez canal and then on to Sevastopol, where they break up a human trafficking ring.

How do you feel about saving 80% on the book? Paranormal Privateers will be on sale from July 19th to 26th. Click here to grab your copy.

Sale price starts at .99 and goes up.

UK site has a different schedule.

IncrementDurationPrice% Discount
1July 19, 2026 at 8:00 AM (PDT)33h$0.9984%
2July 20, 2026 at 5:00 PM (PDT)33h$1.9967%
3July 22, 2026 at 2:00 AM (PDT)33h$2.9951%
4July 23, 2026 at 11:00 AM (PDT)33h$3.9934%
5July 24, 2026 at 8:00 PM (PDT)36h$4.9917%
EndJuly 26, 2026 at 8:00 AM (PDT)Original list price $5.99

Somalia Excerpt

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Inhaling the salted breeze, he grinned back at Muhammed. He cheered and laughed in his seat behind the M2 machine gun in the bow of the boat they used to patrol the coasts and fishing waters of Somalia. The sun gleamed off his white teeth.

“Look, Dirac!” he said. “They’re stopping!”

True enough. The bow wave ceased as he watched. A pod of dolphins ended their sporting on the wave and submerged. The gleaming white yacht loomed above them. What were they doing in the fishing waters of Somalia? He couldn’t imagine the wealth on board. Enough for their whole village to eat well for a year!

Their supreme leader, Omar Ogala, organized Somali fishermen and former coast guard sailors to patrol their fishing waters. He ordered them to capture any fishing or cargo vessels they spotted. He told them the Americans and Europeans no longer cared about Somalia with the other crises around the world and they could defend their coasts from foreign competition—and dumpers. Many foreign nations, knowing Somalia’s military weakness, sent cargo ships full of pollutants and dumped them into their waters.

Dirac never expected to see a luxury ship here. It was as big as a cruise liner, but apparently a private yacht. He’d seen one once before when an Arab sheik visited Mogadishu. This one was three times the size! The owner would pay big to get it back. Maybe even a billion dollars? He couldn’t imagine that much money, and he was good with numbers. Let’s see: fourteen million people lived in Somalia. Divide a billion dollars among them would give each about seventy dollars. Unbelievable. A family of five could live comfortably for a year on that!

You Can Go ‘Round the World – Part 2

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He came along as a navigator, fighter, and boarder, guiding their boat along the shore of Somalia and into the Arabian Gulf for several days, before leading them back. Besides Muhammed and him, there was Zahi, another fighter and boarder, and Ali, their captain.

“Dirac,” Ali said, “you and Zahi board this ship and take the helm. You will follow us back to Hobyo. Muhammed and I will stay on the boat and keep the machine gun on them.”

“Yes, sir,” he said.

Ali took the megaphone they carried for ship-to-ship communication. “Let us board! Let us board! Or we will gun your ship!”

Dirac didn’t understand English, of course, but he knew what Ali was saying. Ali was the only one who knew any English.

“Don’t shoot! Give us time! We have to get our ladder!” Surprisingly, the person spoke in Arabic. Good Arabic too, but with a strange Saudi and European accent. More surprisingly, it was a woman, a blonde, from what he could see of the figure leaning over the railing far above us. He kept a close watch on her. Strictly for security purposes, of course.

They kept their boat about fifty meters away from the ship and watched the crew scurry about the many decks. Dirac counted five including the main deck, and there were at least three more decks below the main one.

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Finally a rope ladder unrolled from the main deck, perhaps ten meters above them. They came close to the ship. A pod of dolphins flashed under their boat. Then they leapt out of the water and into it.

Only, they weren’t the dolphins he had seen earlier. Four people in green wet suits landed with heavy thumps in Dirac’s boat. They had no breathing equipment, not even snorkels. They took off their goggles, and their eyes shone bright red in the sun.

“Zombies!” Ali cried. “Shoot them!”

Automatically, Dirac sprayed the nearest with his AK-47. He heard the others fire too. Muhammed shot the largest one with the big .50-caliber machine gun. That could cut a man in two.

Dozens of red craters appeared in the black wet suit of the one Dirac shot. But she—a white, brown-haired woman—didn’t go down. Her brows furrowed in anger, and shouting in English, she ripped the gun from his hand and threw it into the ocean. He was like a baby with a rattle taken by his parent. The other zombies did the same, except the big one. He grabbed the barrel of the machine gun in both hands and wrenched it from Muhammed. Dirac could hear the zombie’s flesh sizzle on the hot barrel. Then the big zombie bent the barrel into a right angle. Rubbing his hands together afterward, the burned skin fell on the deck of their boat. Pink skin showed on his palms.

He was enormous, bigger than two Somalis put together. His red eyes looked out of his calm, square face. The bullets from the machine gun had sliced the wet suit open across his chest, and more pink skin showed in the gap. As he watched, brown hair grew.

You Can Go ‘Round the World Excerpt – From London

From Chapter 4 London, the first draft of  Paranormal Privateers, we find the paranormal privateers, George, Diane, Lulu, and Sharon, going incognito as undeclared zombies, quite against British law at the time. They’re using bloodhounds and zombie corgis to track down terrorists threatening London. Oh, and they have a truckload of zombie bulls.

 

Scotland Yard met us the next morning when we docked in the port of London. We divided up into three groups to cover the area. Diane and I took everything between Grosvenor Place and Belgrave Place. Lulu and Sharon took the area from Belgrave to Basil. The Scotland Yard dog handlers Jerry Naismith and Benjamin Buxley took the wedge from Basil to Knightsbridge.

We jogged along, Diane and I. She had picked up the special two-wheel wheelchair, iBot, from Kamen industries office in London and loved tooling along at six miles per hour. Since we were in England maybe I should use the metric equivalent: ten kilometers per hour. I had no trouble keeping up with her, even as a deaf-mute. If people talked to me, I just handed them my deaf-mute card. The dogs, our two corgis, and two bloodhounds, also in service dog vests, loved it.

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Then came a yell over our headsets. It was the Scotland yard crew, Jerry and Ben, both yelling.

“We’ve found them! The terrorists! They’re on the second floor of Harrods, in the tableware section!” said Jerry.

“We can’t get any closer! They’ve got tasers!” said Ben.

You Can Go ‘Round the World

Advent Day 19
You Can Go 'Round the World
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After more adventures, the zombie privateers (lead by My Undead Mother-in-law Diane Newby) go to Washington DC.

Why Washington DC? Because aliens landed there.

I had fun researching Washington DC’s geography, the layout and distances around the National Mall, and shaped explosive charges! 

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Go ‘Round the World – An Author Reading

Here’s another excerpt, read by Yours Truly, Andy Zach. Get Your Free Excerpt is from the beginning of the book, chapter 1.

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My Undead Mother-in-law Video Book Excerpt!

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My Undead Mother-in-law Video Book Excerpt! Click here and enjoy Andy Zach reading part of his humorous zombie parody My Undead Mother-in-law.

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You can get My Undead Mother-in-law print book here. Click to download.

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 My Undead Mother-in-law Video Book Excerpt

This excerpt is where you first meet the Undead Mother-in-law, Diane Newby. She’s invited her daughter and son-in-law over for Valentine’s Day dinner. Find out what happens right here:

With no further ado, here’s the new video! 

Continue reading My Undead Mother-in-law Video Book Excerpt!
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The Road to Magic Arrives

The Road to Magic Arrives – It was a long struggle. Let me lay out step-by-step how I wrote and published my first fantasy.

The Road to Magic Arrives – Writing

The Road to Magic Arrives
Magic Arrives Back Cover

I track all my writing of all my books in a spreadsheet. Thus, I know the date I started and the date I ended my first draft.

Start date: April 3, 2023

That’s three years ago! No wonder it felt like forever.

However, this is the beginning of the planning document. I wrote down all my ideas as ‘vignettes’ and then I organized them as an outline.

The REAL first draft was: April 19, 2023

I had to organize six plot threads, one per chapter, for 54 chapters. Whew!

When did I finish? April 2, 2025 with 111,345 words!

The Road to Magic Arrives – Editing

My First Fantasy Book 
The Road to Magic Arrives

I rediscovered the Book Progress app in Word Press and I decided to use it to report on the progress of my first fantasy book, with the working title, Magic Arrives. The app asked me about my writing method and I decided the Snowflake method is the closest to my process. I work on multiple parts at a time. Here’s the overall structure:

  • Story StructureDone! April 19, 2023
  • CharactersDone! April 2, 2025
  • Scene ListDone! April 2, 2025
  • First DraftDone! April 2, 2025
  • EditingContent editing done January 26, 2026 (Line edit) – Dori Harrell
  • Proofing – Done! March 31, 2026 (copy edit) – Dori Harrell
  • Format edit – Done! ebook, paperback, hardback April 8, 2026 – Rik Hall
  • Cover and content assembled on Amazon – done April 26, 2026 – Illustrator Sean Flanagan

Publishing on Amazon

Pinky the Dragon
The Road to Magic Arrives
ARC Copy

The process looks like:

  1. Upload your book contents in pdf format.
  2. Upload your paperback or hardback cover spread (they’re different)
  3. Review uploaded book for errors.
  4. Schedule publication date. May 17th for Magic Arrives. The book is on pre-sale before that. Buy it here on Amazon:

For the ebook, the process is:

  1. Upload your ebook contents in eps format.
  2. Upload your front cover for the ebook icon
  3. Review uploaded ebook for errors.
  4. Schedule publication date. May 17th for Magic Arrives. The book is on pre-sale before that. Buy it here on Amazon:

The Road to Magic Arrives – Story Structure, the Series

My First Fantasy Book

So far I’m 100% complete on the Story Structure phase. I’ve captured my plot for this book, and the next two books in the triology.

Have a preview of the spines of the trilogy here.

  1. Magic Arrives
  2. Magic Wars
  3. Magic Rules

Your Part

First, join my newsletter. I’ll give away free copies and discounts to my subscribers. Click here to join.

Next, beg, borrow, or buy a copy of Magic Arrives and read it.

Finally, leave a review! Here, on Amazon or here on Goodreads.

Leave a comment for me here.

Here are the covers:

2026 Future Predictions
My First Fantasy Book
Front and back Cover of Magic Arrives