Canister X – A.P. Fuchs: Zombie, Paranormal Romance and Superhero Novelist, Blogger, Artist, Publisher

What: Merry Undead Christmas Booksigning
Where: Coles Bookstore – Kildonan Place, 1555 Regent Ave. West, Winnipeg, MB
When: 6:00pm – 8:00pm

Details:

This Friday I’ll be at Coles Bookstore in Kildonan Place Mall to sign copies of BLOOD OF THE DEAD, POSSESSION OF THE DEAD, ZOMBIE FIGHT NIGHT and MAGIC MAN PLUS 15 TALES OF TERROR, plus any other book from your A.P. Fuchs collection you’d like to get signed.

This is a great opportunity to get a zombie book signed for a loved one for Christmas. I’ve done Christmas signings many years in a row and a good portion of the books picked… up are for others. Nice way to get a personalized note to the intended reader.

Here’s a couple of quick synopsis’s for you for two of the titles:

POSSESSION OF THE DEAD

Angels.

Demons.

Giant Zombies.

Things have changed.

Ever since returning through the Storm of Skulls to the present day, Joe, Billie and August have discovered the world they now inhabit, is not the world they left behind. The zombie threat has evolved to gargantuan proportions. Now aided by giant undead—massive monsters with phenomenal strength and power, with deadly appetites just as vast—the zombie population moves to devour any and all life.

Separated from his friends, Joe learns that not all hope is lost for humanity when he meets, Tracy, a woman who exudes a strength to rival his own. Tracy brings him to the Hub, an underground sanctuary where life continues in a dead world, but his thoughts linger on his missing friends.

August and Billie have problems of their own, and soon learn the same plight that affected a past friend of theirs now affects many: zombies with shapeshifting capability. Now, anyone is suspect. Yet even with this newfound knowledge, more is heaped upon them when the agenda of the undead is revealed and humanity is the one caught in the crossfire.

A war is raging, one between angels and demons, monsters and man.

And it’s only escalating.

–

ZOMBIE FIGHT NIGHT

In 2027 A.D., the Zombie Apocalypse took the world by storm and no one was prepared. Countless lives were lost as humanity battled to regain control of their planet. Eventually, they did, and out of the ashes of fallen civilization rose a new world, one bent on revenge against the hordes of the undead that took everything from them.

Enter Tony Sterpanko, entrepreneur extraordinaire who found a way to capitalize on humanity’s thirst for vengeance against the zombie. He created Zombie Fight Night, a worldwide craze where the undead men and women who remained from the apocalypse faced off against people and beings that once existed on Earth or were existing for the first time.

It is ten years later and at Blood Bay Arena, fortunes are won and lost. Men are made millionaires over night. Others are not so lucky and find themselves broken and destitute.

Mick Chelsey is one such man: gambling addict, lousy husband and Zombie Fight Night fanatic.

Except now, in order to still watch the fights and try to win back all he’s lost, he needs to bet fast and big otherwise death will come for him.

Let the battles begin.

Zombies fight Bigfoot, werewolves, vampires, Axiom-man, Bruce Lee, samurai, kickboxers, robots and more in this ode to blood-and-guts action from Blood of the Dead author, A.P. Fuchs.

You ready to get it on?
–
Hope to see you there. Would love to talk books, zombies, writing, comics and anything else you’d like.

Peace.

Read Part Three…

September 16, 2010
Blog: BookHounds
Web: http://maryinhb.blogspot.com/2010/09/kindle-giveaway-from-author-scott.html

Comment:

Amazing you can read “bookmarkless.” Unless I finish a chapter, I’m lost when I do it that way. Actually, here’s my dirty little secret: sometimes I use a square of toilet paper for a bookmark. Just fold it in half and, tada! Bookmark.

Okay, said too much.

September 17, 2010
Blog: Paranormal Haven
Web: http://www.paranormalhaven.com/2010/09/guest-post-with-author-scott-nicholson.html

Comment:

We have a church like that just outside the city. The myth is you go there at midnight and run around the church three times.

On the third time, you disappear.

Remember hearing this growing up. Gave me the chills. Now, no, but back then . . .

September 18, 2010
Blog: What Book is That?
Web: http://www.whatbookisthat.com/2010/09/dont-quit-your-day-job-post-by-mr-scott.html

Comment:

When I started off as an artist, I used to think that whatever your art, you’d only focus on that one craft. Writers write. Artists draw. Actors act. No mixing them. None.

Then you get older and you realize that–as pretentious as it sounds–artists tend to drift from one medium to another, even if just to learn they’re not as good at it as they’d like to be.

There’s a freedom in that, one that’s more fulfilling than just sticking to one craft only and rolling with it even if that one craft is successful for them.

September 16, 2010
Blog: Swamp Dweller Book Reviews
Web: http://swampdweller.wordpress.com/2010/09/19/burial-to-follow-a-word-from-scott-nicholson/

Comment:

That’s an amazing family history, Scott, despite how morbid it is. Doesn’t events like those send a kind of gloomy shockwave throughout the family that stays there?

However, I do have to hand it to your relatives for forgiving your uncle. The crime was horrific, but they’re acceptance of him afterward proves love covers a multitude of sins.

Wow. If anything, you should be honored to have a family that does that.

September 21, 2010
Blog: Luxury Reading | Book reviews, Author Interviews, Giveaways
Web: http://luxuryreading.com/scottnicholson/
Comment:

“Don’t want to mess with that stuff.”

I had a friend who used the Necronomicon and did one of the rituals in there. The result? Glowing, haunting faces on his bedroom walls. This was before he became a Christian.

Yeah, don’t want to mess with that stuff indeed.

Copyright 2010 by A.P. Fuchs. All rights reserved.
30: Broken

Things are getting worse, and this might be my last entry. I . . . it’s like someone took my brain and threw it in a pot, only to boil it a thousand times over then stick it back in my head.
I’m losing it.
This city . . . the undead . . . it’s finally taken me down.
You look in a mirror and see yourself staring back. You might like what you see, you might not. But it doesn’t matter how you feel about yourself because at the end of it all, it’s still you looking at you. You know you’re real, you know your thoughts, your feelings, even the taste in your mouth. You know it’s you looking at yourself.
I don’t know me anymore. My head is so full and all I get are static images of soggy cardboard instead of my brain. All I get is a honeycomb with a thousand entry points, each hole leaking out what’s left of my sanity.
You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?
Just need to tell you how I feel, what’s going through my head.
I was just at my door.
I checked the peephole.
I saw Selena.
Even now, as I’m typing this, she’s banging on the door, screaming for me to let her in.
Inside myself, all I hear is me screaming that she’s dead, that there’s no way that’s her outside. Intellectually, I know better. I know that it’s either a ghost beyond my door out to slit my throat for letting the real Selena die the way she did, or I’ve completely lost it.
This is where obsession with a girl leads to the slippery slope of a psychotic break. This is the part where I become the monster and she is forever cemented as the victim.
This is the part where I become worse than the walking dead outside because I know better than to allow my fixation on a relationship gone wrong become some sort of imaginary reality, whereas the dead outside act the way they do because they function on pure instinct.
Selena . . . banging on my door.
If I answer—if I let her in—what does that say about me?
If I could step outside myself and watch me open that door and somehow see what’s really going on, would I only see myself opening a door to nothing at all, react to nothing at all, even talk to nothing at all?
My apartment door is more than just a door right now. It’s a portal into a state of mind that could end up killing me in the end.
Selena, the zombies, the isolation, the heartbreak—it’s finally ripped me apart . . . silently, but eventually.
In one way or another, the next few moments will decide my fate.
If I open that door, I will no longer be the man typing this.
I will have become something else.
But—there’s always a “but”—if that is indeed Selena out there, if somehow she’s alive and her body has been put back together, then I can’t just leave her there banging on my door. If she needs help and has come to me like she did before . . .
That banging.
My girl.
I have to let her in.

< Last Chapter — Table of Contents — Next Chapter >

Read Part Two…

September 12, 2010
Blog: Darkeva’s Blog
Web: http://thedarkeva.com/?p=685

Comment:

The writing life is insane nowadays. I remember when I started there were two distinct worlds: offline and online. Thanks to new technologies, the “real” world and the virtual world are quickly merging. Most folks in the West spend most of their time online, whether directly on a computer or via iPad or cell phone. A few weeks back some friends and I went to a movie. When it was done, we couldn’t remember an actor’s age, so what did we do? Pulled out the ol’ cell phone and looked it up right there in the car. For some reading this, that’s “everday life and always has been.” For guys like me, this kind of technology is new.

I’m with Scott in that I don’t think paper books will ever go away, but I do think that a lot of reading will be done on e-devices as we continue forward in the 21st Century. I’m excited to see what indie authors and the small press in general will do to the industry as a whole. Who knows? Maybe we will get back to the day when it’s about the art and not just about the numbers? When I first started in this business, I genuinely thought publishing was about art. I was quickly proven wrong. Art’s only a part of it. So, to make that art a reality, I went indie, started my own company (Coscom Entertainment) and am now responsible for bringing not must my stuff to the world, but other folks’ stuff as well, unique books with unique voices all centered around genres I love (monsters and superheroes).

Good times.

September 13, 2010
Blog: The Unread Reader
Web: http://www.theunreadreader.com/2010/09/flowers-to-stay-forever-spring.html

Comment:

. . . and threw in a bonus story from my teen years, back when I wrote about writers who smoked cigarettes. That in itself is a valid reason to never write what you know.

Writing about smoking cigarettes as a teenager? Did your parents bust you on this one? I know I got it pretty good bad before I was “of age” when I was caught smoking.

What is it with writers and cigarettes, anyway? Though I’ve pretty much quit the habit now, I smoked steadily for about 11 years, a big reason being my writing. Not for the stereotype, mind you. I started smoking for different reasons altogether, but I did find that I needed to smoke before writing otherwise the words wouldn’t come. Thankfully, that’s not the case nowadays. I will concede, though, that there’s nothing like sipping coffee, smoking a cigarette and pondering your story. I always zoned out during those times, which set me up nicely for a session at the keyboard.

Really, almost all of my novels feature children as viewpoint characters in one place or another. I think it’s because I am permanently stuck in childhood!

Such is our plight, my friend. I look around and see the majority of those I knew growing up having done just that: grown up, yet here I am playing pretend for a living, putting my imagination down on paper and bringing those stories to the masses. What a life.

September 14, 2010
Blog: The Cajun Book Lady
Web: http://www.thecajunbooklady.com/

Comment:

I’d be interested in hearing some stories about what went down when ghost hunting. As a Christian, I know the spiritual side of our world is very real and does manifest itself from time to time (seen and heard too many things to discount anything but the spiritual reality we live in, more specifically a Christian one).

And this type of data does make for good story basis in general, especially when dealing in darker fiction. Adds a level of realism that wouldn’t be there otherwise.

September 14, 2010
Blog: Readaholic
Web: http://bridget3420.blogspot.com/2010/09/author-guest-post-call-me-anything-just.html

Comment:

The label market is a tricky one. One false move and readers complain about being misled. The problem is, it seems, some of the labeling is so specific. It can be very frustrating. Paranormal thriller. I like that. I remember a time when if someone asked me what kind of books I wrote and I’d say horror, they’d make a face and take a step back. So now I’ve stuck with “supernatural thriller” for some of my stuff, and downright “monster fiction” for others. And, of course, “superhero fiction” for my Axiom-man series. At least with those, I don’t have people trying to get away from me.

September 15, 2010
Blog: Candace’s Book Blog
Web: http://www.candacesbookblog.com/2010/09/they-hunger-reality-bites-guest-post-by.html

Comment:

Such is the life of the midlist author. Sometimes you swim, other times you sink. But it seems to me that even if this book sinks with Kensington, you got a good handle on self-publishing now and this book will get another voyage once you get the rights back, maybe even a “maiden” one, depending what you do to it while it’s at the docks. At least it’ll be home in its own harbor.

I’m with you on the vampires thing, though. Wish I was Blade because I’d totally dominate in a versus match with shiny, sparkling vampires. Actually, even as an overweight, hairy fanboy, I’m pretty sure I’d still dominate.

Unless they bit me.

Read Part One…

September 6, 2010
Blog: Hellnotes
Web: http://hellnotes.com/whatever-happened-to-you

Comment:

So the new era means I can publish everything, and I can do whatever I want without worrying about branding or platform or market or genre label or store category or all the other publishing considerations of Act I. All I have to worry about now is you.

It most definitely means you can publishing everything. This is fantastic news for the writers who can actually write; bad news for those who still need to learn. I’m all for self-publishing and have been touting it for years, but it also scares me that anyone can do it, especially these days. The reason is not fear of competition, but rather fear of readers being let down by works not yet ready for publication. You can only get burned so many times by trying out authors you don’t recognize before you default back onto those you do.

True, the cream rises to the top. This is always the fallback position. But as the waters get more and more swimmers wading into them, the athletes will have to perform even better to get ahead of the pack and stand out so readers will notice them.

You’re right in what you say: “All I have to worry about now is you.” It’s the “you,” the reader, that determines if your writing is a hobby or a living. It’s the reader that determines how much time we can invest in our craft without having to dilute that time with other things like a day job. Even more than one job, for some folks.

Let’s hope we succeed and stay ahead of the pack so we can pay it back to the reader by having more time to develop new stories for them. It’s the circle of the writing life. *cue Elton John*

September 8, 2010
Blog: KindleObsessed
Web: http://www.kindleobsessed.com/writers-block/guest-post-scott-nicholson

Comment:

The more I write, the more I realize I don’t know anything. I know what makes good reading, but I guess the best advice I have is “Write a lot, make a lifetime commitment to craft, and be honest.” In my own case, two out of three ain’t bad.

This is an extremely profound and true statement, if there ever was one. Speaking from my own experience, yes, it’s true, the more you write, the better you get. It’s also true that you will never master the craft. You may be deemed a “master” by your peers and fans, but in all truth, they just mean you’re very good at it. There will always be a better way to describe something, turn a phrase, use a metaphor, succinct a sentence, etc.

What I enjoy about keeping up with writing is some stuff that gets typed really rocks, and other stuff is just dry and stupid. That said, I love it when the dry and stupid stuff becomes more and more apparent the better you get at putting a story together. Back in the old days, it took an editor to point it out. Now, you can see it for yourself and, since you’ve already fixed it, your editor didn’t even know it happened. (They’ll just come along and point something else out.)

“Be honest.” Yup. Find your voice. Run with it. Be honest in your stories and tell it like it is. Use your style, not anyone else’s. (For those wondering, this means you can still do things your way while still adhering to the rules of good writing.)

Thanks for the reminder, Scott.

September 9, 2010
Blog: Debbie Mack: My Life on the Mid-list
Web: http://midlistlife.wordpress.com/2010/09/08/16-predictions-for-the-future-of-publishing/

Comment:

4. Small publishers with identifiable markets will adapt better than large publishers who have no identifiable markets, because publisher brands are meaningless to the average reader. In fiction, authors are the brands instead of the publishers. In non-fiction, the subject matter is the brand. Authors who already know their audience will adapt better than both levels of publishers.

This is a lesson I learned the hard way, and in the interest of providing quality info for would-be self-publishers and/or small publishers, here I am being transparent: you hit the nail on the head with the “small publishers with identifiable markets will adapt better than large publishers who have no identifiable markets…” comment.

Speaking from experience, when I first started my company, I published in the broad genre of speculative fiction. That’s horror, sci-fi and fantasy to you. Getting writers in the door was easy. Getting readers . . . not so much. I made money, then I lost money, then I made money, then I lost money.

Upon further research I discovered that the secret to small press success is total niche marketing. Speculative fiction isn’t a niche. It’s three genres or more (depending who you talk to), the exact opposite of a niche. So what did I do? When I was contractually able to do so, I scaled down my company’s backlist and focused on two genres: superhero and monsters, which, of course, I’m a fanboy of both. Weird combo, sure, but like I usually mention in interviews, the superhero-monster thing is like bacon and eggs (Incredible Hulk, anyone? No? How about Madman?).

Readers now know that if they want quality superhero or monster fiction (zombies, werewolves, vampires), they come to Coscom Entertainment (http://www.coscomentertainment.com). Now, books are selling really well. We have reprint deals with New York, and just signed on for LA management for film and TV projects.

But to be clear, the successes we gained I attribute to Divine Blessing and to the readers. Without both, we’d be nowhere.

13. By 2013, 85 percent of the writers who published their rejected manuscripts in 2010 will give up for good, retiring with $200 in net profit and a good story for the grandchildren. Ten percent will still be doing it because they are artists first, sensible people second. Four percent will be able to quit the day job for a few years. And, just like in every recession or collapse, the top one percent will get even richer and more powerful.

I love that: artists first, sensible people second. So true for my life. We should get on the horn and swap “how we got here” stories, Scott. As an overview of my own, it meant living close to the breadline for several years, countless problems back when I lived with my folks, even being homeless for a time. (Try sleeping under a bridge with cars driving overheard; impossible.)

Yet throughout it all, I kept fighting. Throughout the insults and call-outs from my peers in this business for being a self-publisher, I kept fighting. Despite those in my personal life whom I would have counted on for support but didn’t get it, I kept fighting. Despite going without sleep, working three jobs while raising a family, I kept fighting. And here we are: fulltime writer/publisher, supporting his family with his craft.

Hmmm…me thinks there might be something to this “sensible people second” business.

September 10, 2010
Blog: Tina’s Book Reviews
Web: http://www.tinasbookreviews.com/2010/09/welcome-guest-author-scott-nicholson.html

Comment:

Certainly an interesting question/premise: what is a book? Or, these days, ask: when does a book stop being a book?

Notice that we usually define the format before saying it’s a book, except for paper. I’ve yet had someone ask me, “Can you pass me my paper book, please?”

EBook.
Audiobook.

But say “book” and paper-bound comes to mind. This is because it was the first way a book was presented.

Now we have “enhanced eBooks” surfacing. Though I’ve never seen one, they seem to me not really enhanced but just a kind of hodge-podge of media.

Look at comics. There are print comics and eComics. There are motion comics, which I’ve seen. Look more like stilted cartoons using the original comic art as the visuals. They’re narrated, so you’re not reading them despite the speech bubbles and captions being present.

In general, right now my stance is a book is something very long that you read. It’s what a book was when books started. So print books and eBooks I consider “real” books. Audio books–you don’t read those no more than you read the fairy tales your mommy told you when tucking you in at night. Someone’s reading you a story, long or short.

If there’s no act of reading, it’s not a book. Instead, it’d be a different delivery system to give you the same story.

Do you consider faithful movie adaptations of a book a book? No. It’s the same story, sometimes abridged, just like audio books can be. We don’t call it a motion-book or movie-book. It’s a movie.

Make sense?

I think the ol’ “duck checklist” has to apply here: if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, talks like a duck, then it’s a duck. Otherwise you got something else, a platypus, maybe.

September 11, 2010
Blog: Rex Robot Reviews
Web: http://www.rexrobotreviews.com/2010/09/scott-nicholson-guest-post-giveaway.html

Comment:

Satanism is one area I don’t go as a horror author. I’ve done the devil as the bad guy (Devil’s Playground with Keith Gouveia), but not in the way you’re describing here. Being a Christian prohibits me from doing so (yeah, a fundy Christian horror author, go figure), but I know too many horror stories from real-life from people who messed around in the occult and Satanic rituals and the stuff that happened. It’s a place you don’t want to go–in this life or the life to come–and is extremely dangerous.

Which brings me to telling those reading this that when you write, stay in your comfort zone. I’m not saying don’t stretch yourself as an author and experiment, but rather if there is an area of writing (fiction or non-) that you’re not comfortable with, don’t jump into it because of a) peer pressure, b) it’s a successful genre. Those a shallow reasons, especially when dealing with a craft that’s supposed to be from the inmost parts.

I’ve been down that road and it just really sucks the fun out of writing, creates guilt and makes the work suffer because a reader can tell if a writer is really into what he/she is doing, or if they’re just banging the words out.

Read Part Three…

For the past few months I’ve been following horror author Scott Nicholson around the Internet while he conducts his Kindle-giveaway blog tour to promote his work. For every entry he’s done, I’ve commented. Sometimes it’s just chit-chat, but usually I have a thing or two to say about writing, publishing or both.

For the next while on this blog, I’m going to be posting my comments that I made to Scott’s posts. My hope is you’ll get not just an insight into the writing life, but also get bits of info on writing, publishing and horror.

Each entry is listed by date (whether the date Scott posted or the date I commented), and on what website the comments appeared.

Here we go, the first five:

September 1, 2010
Blog: Paperback Dolls
Web: http://paperbackdolls.blogspot.com/2010/09/scott-nicholson-says-burn-your-books.html

Comment:

I am working on five different translated editions of my book. I want to meet readers all over the world at any time.

The answer is probably obvious, but it doesn’t hurt to ask: are you working-working on the translations, or arranging them? I mean, who knows? You might be fluid in five languages. In this age of information, anything is possible.

Oh, I still have to read my hardcover of The Red Church. Should I read it or burn it? lol

September 2, 2010
Blog: Zoe Winters
Web: http://zoewinters.wordpress.com/2010/09/02/giveaways-and-stops-for-sept-2nd-plus-scott-nicholson/

Comment:

. . . the author may never get rich or famous, but those stories and ideas have a platform and you get to discover and share them.

This statement truly encapsulates self-publishing perfectly. Not that there aren’t successes, of course, but for years the above as been the norm. Will it change? Only time will tell. Though the old saying is the cream rises to the top, but, man, there are a lot of levels to rise through because eBooks have kicked open the doors for anyone to publish. Already I’m seeing market saturation on some levels and it’s the “market” aspect that a lot of self-publishers don’t understand.

But it’s likely the trend will be dead about a year before traditional publishing knows it, and there are still all those books in the pipeline that have to get out there.

Very true statement. Either NY needs to get moving more quickly, or totally revise their model, especially when competing against indies because we move at a lightning pace in comparison.

September 3, 2010
Blog: Scott Nicholson
Web: http://hauntedcomputer.blogspot.com/2010/09/safe-play.html

Comment:

Thanks for the shout out on your blog, Scott. Glad you found the info useful.

Ps. It’s “Fuchs’” not “Fuch’s.” That plural messes everyone up and makes for some interesting takes on the last name, so no worries. It’s almost as bad as “Focker.” Like I tell folks when I explain my last name to them, I say, “Yeah, it can be a tough one, but at least it gets folks to look at the book cover twice.”

September 4, 2010
Blog: JoJo’s Book Corner
Web: http://jojosbookcorner.blogspot.com/2010/09/blog-tour-kindle-giveaway-with-scott.html

Comment:

Happy Birthday to this blog.

Book bloggers–as Scott said–are important. These online places almost feel like a corner table or couch in a bookstore where you can just sit, talk genre, have a cup of coffee and just chill.

September 4, 2010
Blog: A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing
Web: http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2010/09/scott-nicholson-on-never-ending-book.html

Comment:

I’d spent a few months exploring how to get my first novel The Red Church back out there. Trying to get it into bookstores on my own just seemed so troublesome and expensive…

Thus is the kicker with those wishing to self-publish in print. I can’t help but wonder what you mean by “so troublesome and expensive”? Everybody’s version of work varies wildly, likewise their own personal budgets to invest in themselves. This is one of the reasons I always warn against the “upload and go” mentality so prevalent in this eBook movement. There is more to self-publishing than that.

Not pointing a finger at Scott by any means, but it seems artists are just plain cheap and don’t want to spend any money. Is it not the first rule of business you got to spend money to make money? It’s been true for me. I spend money on printing my books and taking them to stores. They stock them. They sell. What doesn’t I take home and sell those copies to libraries or direct to readers at conventions and, yes, they’re all in perfect condition. In the end, I make my money back and profit very nicely.

I understand if Scott meant getting his book into stores everywhere. That’s a tough one for fiction. Non-fiction, not so much. But what about locally? Surely you can get a half dozen or more stores to stock you so you can doing signings, etc.

Don’t have the capital? How about reinvesting some of your eBook earnings into manufacturing print versions of your books? That’s how companies–and true self-publishing–works. Some money is kept for living on, some is put back into the company to grow it.

It strikes me that artists/writers really live in that “starving artist” mentality even before they get their stuff out there. Why is beyond me other than some bizarre brainwashing from their contemporaries who are also brainwashed. I’m all for looking for the cheapest way to do things and saving cash. That’s smart business. Why spend money if you don’t have to? But to deliberately cut important corners to grow one’s self-publishing career seems very short sighted. Part of self-publishing is laying the foundation for future success. Big picture thinking is critical if you want to have the groundwork in place for a well-functioning company.

This is also why I say self-publishing isn’t for everybody. There’s a business side to it that demands work and money. That’s just how it is. Until paperbacks are gone–which I doubt will ever happen completely–print and eBook formats should be at the fore of every self-publisher’s business plan.

Hope the business side of this didn’t scare anyone away, he says with a wink.

Read Part Two…

Last year I put out zombie poetry anthology called Vicious Verses and Reanimated Rhymes: Zany Zombie Poetry for the Undead Head. It was the only zombie poetry anthology out there, and still is. You could almost consider it a benchmark in zombie achievement, if there is such a thing, and the reviews have all been positive thus far.

Horrornews.net is the latest place to review the book, and I’m really thrilled they enjoyed it.

Please read the review here, and grab a copy of the book for your collection by going here or clicking on the thumbnail above.

The anthology covers undead mayhem, survival, love, loss, guns, video games, and all kinds of graveyard delights. (Plus it would make a cool Christmas present to the zombie afficiando in your family.)

Thanks.

Copyright 2010 by A.P. Fuchs. All rights reserved.
29: Recap

In case you’re only tuning in now, or something has happened to the webfeed and this broadcast of my journal is only now reaching you thanks to undead interference, I just simply want to start by saying my name is Marty. I’m the sole survivor of the planet Earth. I don’t have great power, nor do my abilities exceed that of mortal men. I didn’t get here in a rocket ship, nor am I fighting for truth, justice and decency.
These days, I’m just fighting to stay alive and this journal is helping me do that.
I’ve recorded everything I could for you as things happened. Sometimes I had to wait before I could sit down in front of my screen and type out my thoughts. To be honest, my thoughts are all a jumble and I’m hankering for the soothing arms of alcohol to keep insanity at bay. At the same time, I’m too scared to booze up because there’s the chance I could lose myself once inhibitions are shed and, possibly, might never recover. You might even noticed my abstaining for alcohol by how–what’s the way to say this? “Better-worded”?–these entries have become.
I need to keep my head together, need to stay grounded, especially after what happened.
In case you’re just joining me, Comtropolis–and the world over–has been invaded by the undead. We’re talking zombies, reanimated and deceased human beings. They kill, and they eat us, and if they don’t devour you completely, their bites infect you and transform you into one of them. You still die, but you do come back, moving, hungry, having a thirst for human blood and flesh.
This whole journal started as a way to not only try and document my survival–maybe even a call for help across what’s left of the Net–but also as a way to cope with a relationship gone bad, and the loss of true love.
You see, I live in a world of death: physical and emotional. Aside from my pulse, some days it feels like I’m no different than the zombies that stalk the city streets.
Selena, my ex-girlfriend and love of my life, surfaced at my apartment recently. She came to me because everyone else she knew was gone and she knew that, if I was still alive, my door would always be open to her. We even spent some time together, but on a food run we came under attack by a horde of zombies. She got sick while we were out and eventually collapsed. I tried to carry her here–home–so I could care for her. Instead, the undead overtook us and I had no choice but to leave her body to be devoured.
I hate myself for it. I’ll never forgive myself for what I did. Not only did I lose her all over again, but I lost what might have been a chance at happiness.
Death came for me, but instead of taking me out directly, it once again had its way by destroying what was left of my heart.
I apologize to those out there reading this and recapping things like I am, but I ask for your indulgence because there might be those out there who don’t know what’s going on and might be wondering what this partial journal they’ve stumbled upon is all about. We’re all in this together, remember? Strength in numbers and all that.
Are there any numbers, though? The haunting feeling that I’m all alone has been with me since I got home. I was already giving into the notion when I first started writing this, but when Selena showed up, I admit a part of me considered there were others out there, too. And if not, then maybe who- or whatever finds these bytes of information can catch a glimpse of what it was like to live during these dark times.
I just hope the darkness doesn’t last forever. To have a break . . . even a hope . . . the words escape me.
Are you there? Is anyone reading this? Or is this just once giant exercise in catharsis and that’s all?

. . .

. . .

My heart’s racing. Something knocked on my door. It could be them, the undead.

. . .

There it goes again. Something’s not right. If it was a zombie or more, they’d just slap at the door with decaying palms, hoping that eventually it’d give and fall down.
I don’t have any weapons. I dropped my bat coated with razorblades when trying to fight off the dead earlier.

. . .

I can’t take this. The bangs are becoming more urgent now. Hold on. I’m going to check to see what’s going on.

. . .

. . .

. . .
< Last Chapter — Table of Contents — Next Chapter >

As I follow Scott Nicholson around the web for his blog tour, I try to leave comments of interest and, hopefully, containing a bit of info for writers.

This is another one I thought worth posting here before I run the entire stack of comments here once Scott’s tour is done.

Hope you glean something from the following:

Speaking of the writing life, I remember when I started in this business to realize the dream of not going to a day job and then spend a part of my day crafting stories, the rest watching TV, sleeping, reading, hanging out with friends.

*ahem*

Though I write and publish fulltime, my life is far from that. Sure, I still watch TV, read, see friends (rarely), sleep, but I work pretty much around the clock writing books or publishing them, or arranging deals to move the most copies possible.

Writers don’t talk, at least not in my circle. We communicate now and then, but we don’t sit around talking about books in general, or how we’re approaching our latest tale while sipping tea and wearing turtlenecks.

The writing life, if it is to be defined, is an incredibly lonely one, where it’s just you, your keyboard, a few coffee breaks and a head full of make-believe people who strangely resemble different facets of yourself.

There are days when I long for companionship, and there are days when I just want to be with my imaginary friends.

The trick is balance, but I’m still searching for it.

A.P. Fuchs Free Zombie Book Offer (Buy One, Get One)

Get an eBook PDF of Zombie Fight Night: Battles of the Dead or Axiom-man (or both) for free!

All right, folks, here’s the deal:

Snag a copy of either Undead World Trilogy books, Blood of the Dead and Possession of the Dead by A.P. Fuchs in paperback, then email your receipt to coscomentertainment at gmail dot com and weI’ll email you back a free PDF of Fuchs’s Zombie Fight Night. If you grab BOTH books in the trilogy, then we’ll sweeten the deal by not only sending you a copy of Zombie Fight Night, but also a free PDF of Fuchs’s first Axiom-man novel as well.

Offer valid until December 4, 2010, so this is a good chance to get an early jump on Christmas shopping.

Just click on the thumbnails below or the links above to go to the books’ Amazon pages.

Thanks.

What are these books about?

Blood of the Dead (Undead World Trilogy, Book One)

One year ago, the world came to an end.

First came the rain.

Then came the screams.

Then came the undead.

The Haven became the only place in the city free of the walking dead. A place of community. A place to be safe.

Now, things have changed.

The zombies are coming to the Haven, seeking out the remaining survivors of the human race.

Joe Bailey prowls the Haven’s streets, taking them back from the undead, each kill one step closer to reclaiming a life once stolen from him. Billie Friday and Des Nottingham soon have Joe to thank for their lives.

As the dead push into the Haven, the trio is forced into the one place where folks fear to tread: the heart of the city, a place overrun with flesh-eating zombies.

They soon discover they are not the only humans there. After meeting an old man with a peculiar past, Joe and the others must make one last stand against the undead or unwillingly meet the same fate.

A desperate escape leads them to a place thought impossible to exist and to a discovery that will shake the future.

Welcome to the end of all things.

Possession of the Dead (Undead World Trilogy, Book Two)

Angels.

Demons.

Giant Zombies.

Things have changed.

Ever since returning through the Storm of Skulls to the present day, Joe, Billie and August have discovered the world they now inhabit, is not the world they left behind. The zombie threat has evolved to gargantuan proportions. Now aided by giant undead—massive monsters with phenomenal strength and power, with deadly appetites just as vast—the zombie population moves to devour any and all life.

Separated from his friends, Joe learns that not all hope is lost for humanity when he meets, Tracy, a woman who exudes a strength to rival his own. Tracy brings him to the Hub, an underground sanctuary where life continues in a dead world, but his thoughts linger on his missing friends.

August and Billie have problems of their own, and soon learn the same plight that affected a past friend of theirs now affects many: zombies with shapeshifting capability. Now, anyone is suspect. Yet even with this newfound knowledge, more is heaped upon them when the agenda of the undead is revealed and humanity is the one caught in the crossfire.

A war is raging, one between angels and demons, monsters and man.

And it’s only escalating.

Zombie Fight Night

In 2027 A.D., the Zombie Apocalypse took the world by storm and no one was prepared. Countless lives were lost as humanity battled to regain control of their planet. Eventually, they did, and out of the ashes of fallen civilization rose a new world, one bent on revenge against the hordes of the undead that took everything from them.

Enter Tony Sterpanko, entrepreneur extraordinaire who found a way to capitalize on humanity’s thirst for vengeance against the zombie. He created Zombie Fight Night, a worldwide craze where the undead men and women who remained from the apocalypse faced off against people and beings that once existed on Earth or were existing for the first time.

It is ten years later and at Blood Bay Arena, fortunes are won and lost. Men are made millionaires over night. Others are not so lucky and find themselves broken and destitute.

Mick Chelsey is one such man: gambling addict, lousy husband and Zombie Fight Night fanatic.

Except now, in order to still watch the fights and try to win back all he’s lost, he needs to bet fast and big otherwise death will come for him.

Let the battles begin.

Zombies fight Bigfoot, werewolves, vampires, Axiom-man, Bruce Lee, samurai, kickboxers, robots and more in this ode to blood-and-guts action from Blood of the Dead author, A.P. Fuchs.

You ready to get it on

Axiom-man

One night Gabriel Garrison was visited by a nameless messenger who bestowed upon him great power, a power intended for good. Once discovering what this power was and what it enabled him to do, Gabriel became Axiom-man, a symbol of hope in a city that had none.

One night after a routine patrol, a mysterious black cloud appears over the city. Flying over to investigate it, Axiom-man is stopped short when the cloud’s presence shakes him to the core. An electrifying fear emanates from the cloud and he can barely get near it. Quickly, the cloud takes flight and leads him on a wild goose chase throughout the city, only to flee from him in the end. Almost immediately after the cloud’s appearance, a new hero arises, Redsaw, clad in a black cape and cowl. The people, now enamored with this new super-powered marvel, seem to have forgotten about Axiom-man and all he’s done for them.

Except something’s wrong. That same fear that emanated from the cloud drips off Redsaw like a foul smell and Axiom-man can barely get close to him without feeling ill.

What is Redsaw’s agenda and who is he? And why is it every time Axiom-man gets close to him it feels as if his powers are being sucked away?

As if that wasn’t enough, Gabriel’s day job hasn’t gotten any easier. His co-worker and the woman he adores, Valerie Vaughan, has little interest in him, and his boss has made it clear that one more day late to work will be the day he cleans out his desk. Then there’s the new trainee, Gene Nemek. What is his fascination with Redsaw and why is he never around when Redsaw appears?

From flying over city streets and soaring at dizzying heights, to balancing a secret identity with destiny, Axiom-man must discover what Redsaw’s presence means and how it ties into the messenger’s life-altering visit before the city—and the world—are enamored with an evil that has haunted the cosmos since the dawn of Time.

Thanks again.