Posted on

Your 12 Best 2019 Links Part 2 – Laugh Again!

In Your 12 Best 2019 Links Part 2 – Laugh Again! I continue what I started in part one. Read Part 1 here.

So where did I finish off? Six months, six links, makes it through June. 

Your 12 Best 2019 Links Part 2 – July 2019

I could hardly decide this month. I had a lot of great videos in July. Check them out here. But I think this one takes the cake.

In light of the 50th anniversary of the Moon landing, this video won the race.

Next, on to August’s best link/video/image. Which will it be? I haven’t decided yet.

This also showed up in July:

5 Best SciFi Best Story Ideas
Get your free short story–and free audiobooks!

Oh, with the newsletter subscription you also get:

Free Books!

Just email me and ask for codes to my free audiobooks. Also, I have a drawing for two free books, one paperback, one ebook each month. That’s coming up next week!

Click to get a free audiobook sample

The Best of August 2019

First, you can gander at all my posts from August.

Then, cast your eyes upon this wonderful item:

Not only did we celebrate the Moon landing, but also the development of a real hoverboard–rather like in my book, Paranormal Privateers.

What’s the Best Thing From September 2019?

Good question! Your can read all my posts from September 2019 right here. I chose this one. Why?

I love when science catches up with science fiction. Here I just wrote Paranormal Privateers in 2018 including mind control through skull implants. Then I read an article heading in the same direction with current technology!

Can anything top this in October 2019? Find out in the next section.

Your 12 Best 2019 Links – Next, October

In one blog post, I discussed where I got my ideas for Paranormal Privateers, my third novel. I had to surpass my previous books. I added a surprise twist and I gave two hints. Here’s your first hint:

Your first hint about Paranormal Privateers

Then you got this second hint:

Excerpt from Forbidden Planet

I love these two movies, so, naturally, I included elements of them in my book.

If you haven’t read Paranormal Privateers, let me know your guesses about the plot twist. The best response gets a free ebook of your choice!

Next, 2019 November’s Best

My best in November was my worst mistakes in publishing. These were fresh in my mind, since I just published Oops! Tales of the Zombie Turkey Apocalypse.

However, my first short story book released in November and THAT’s the best thing about November.

And here you have the back cover and blurb:

Your 12 Best 2019
Oops! Back cover and blurb

Oops! I almost forgot! I got a review for Oops! Here it is:

The First Review of Oops!

Oops! Tales of the Zombie Turkey Apocalypse by Andy Zach is a collection of short stories and as the clue is in the title, the theme is zombies. And boy do they come in a variety of different shapes and sizes.

The book starts with three stories that are a starter and not in the zombie genre. Firstly, you are introduced to a world where nothing is heard. Then we move on to finding an elusive phoenix and trying to use its DNA for breeding. Lastly, we have a story about a time-travelling wheelchair.

Then we jump straight into zombies. From zombie pickles, to zombie service dog corgis, to zombie models and even zombies in a nursing home. There is a timeline thread running through the stories where characters that create something or meet someone bring them into a later story. And all of this in a world where becoming a zombie is as easy as ordering blood online!

After each story, the author explains where he got his ideas from, and since in his bio he claims both his parents were zombies, he must be an expert on all things undead. The author has a very quick mind and some of the quips and plays on words were very clever. In some of the stories, however, I would have preferred a definite ending—one where the story doesn’t just finish and you think there is more coming. It was almost as though they were ideas taken from diary extracts with sporadic glimpses into a world of zombies.

From Reedsy

Oops! Review Part 2

After the zombie stories came tales from some of his other books about teenage superheroes. I think the one I enjoyed the most was of the hamster that one of the kids had experimented on and had developed some superpowers. He taught himself to read and was eventually able to communicate with others by typing on a computer. The author very cleverly integrated himself into that story by being the author in the story and the one that the hamster contacted. And of course, we had to have a story about aliens to end it off.

The editing of the book was very good, and I only caught a couple of minor errors. I enjoyed the writing style of the main author and very often you had to reread something because the clever nuances were so subtle you only got them a few lines later. The different styles of writing by the different authors was a bit offputting as you get into a tempo with one and then get thrown off your rhythm by another.

While I enjoyed the book overall, I would still put it in my average category as I wouldn’t go back and reread it. I would, however, recommend it to anyone looking for a quick read where you can turn your brain off from reality and just jump into a world of crazy.

From Reedsy

Finally, of Your 12 Best 2019 Links, the Best of December 2019

What could be the best thing about December? Maybe, Christmas?

The Official Video of ‘Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer’

What a great way to close a year by a parody author! I hope your year was wonderfully fulfilling and joyful and 2020 is even better.

Posted on

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!

Posted on

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!