Andy Zach Fans? Where are you? Like the ancient 1960s sitcom Car 54 it’s a question I asked of my newsletter subscribers. (Join here!)
Car 54 Where Are You? Intro
Next you’ll see the initial results of where my newsletter subscribers live.
The first 100 results of my survey
Why only the first one hundred survey responses? That’s all I get for free from Survey Monkey. But 150 people responded. I’m smarter than Survey Monkey! I got another source of information: from my newsletter supplier Mail Chimp. (What is it with simian themed programs?)
Silverback gorilla and blonde from Paaranormal Privateers
What does my newsletter show for click stats?
North America 113
South America 3
Europe and UK 15
Middle East and Africa 2
Central Asia
Southern Asia
Eastern Asia
Australia and Micronesia 11
Somewhere else! Fill in below
Zed-Zed-9-Triple-Zed-Alpha, of course.
Aotearoa
Cranking up my Excel spreadsheet and projecting over my whole newsletter list, the data looks like the following:
Free Stuff for Andy Zach Fans
Let’s begin with 94 free books. Click below.
54 free speculative fiction books. Click to claim one or all!
Maybe you want a free book from me? Try my first book, the comic zombie parody, Zombie Turkeys. Click the next image.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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 writingZombie Turkeys. That way I got to write ridiculous chapters with weddings and zombie turkeys.
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.
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.
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.
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?
