Friday 6 July 2012

Drum roll.... drrrr.... drrr... drrr - And The Winner Is:

Thank you to everyone who entered our competition to win an entire Kindle library - One HUNDRED books!

All the names were printed out, torn into tiny little pieces and then we scattered them on the floor and gave the job of choosing a winner to our office cat - Patrick. He looked for a while like he might just lie down, but then suddenly, he had a rare moment of activity and quite clearly put his big fat tabby paw on the following folded piece of paper..... once we had wrestled it off  him, we were able to unfold it and announce that... the winner is:

https://plus.google.com/109021859772779929454/posts


Congratulatons Elisha - you have 100 Kindle books coming to you soon.

Let us know your email address please, and we'll sort everything out.

In the meantime, thanks to everyone who got involved - we have another sexy little competition coming to you soon - and yes, it's sexy. The Fifty Shades Trilogy, plus assorted extras.

Ready yourselves, gentlemen.

Thursday 5 July 2012

A Zombie With More Brains Than He Can Eat...

This week we're just going bonkers for 'I've Been Deader' by Adam Sifre, a comedy zombie novel that was launched earlier this week by Taylor Street Publishing.

Not only is his book very funny, but we've discovered Adam is handsome AND a lawyer. We envisage a plethora of Zombielevers swooning outside bookshops near you somtime soon.


Lillian Kendrick, the lucky, lucky lady, got to interview him...


What made you start writing in the first place? I don’t even know what made me start eating raisin bread for breakfast. It’s just something I started doing. People liked what they read, my ego grew and demanded that more people like me, so I kept on writing. Then, just when I thought my ego could not possibly get any bigger, I wrote “I’ve Been Deader.”
Where and when do you usually write?
I usually write in the early morning and late evening. Sometimes I’ll write in the afternoons or early evenings; sometimes a little after dusk or if it’s raining. I write when I’m stressed and want to do something I’m good at.

Which writers have inspired you?
Ray Bradbury, Stephen King, and Adam Sifre (his early stuff).
How do you handle Writer’s Block?

I find that bitching about it for several days often helps. Then I sit down and write something that I think is terrible. Then I wait another few weeks and try again.

Are any of your characters based on real people?

Fred is loosely based on me. People think that zombies are fictional, but believe me, there are plenty of us shambling from place to place with vacant stares and not a functional thought in our heads. You can find us at shopping malls, the motor vehicle department, office parties, blind dates – we are legion.

There are a few gloriously ‘yucky’ scenes in “I’ve Been Deader” – where do you get your ideas from? (The drag queens, "Dead Divas", spring to mind!)
Usually when I’m driving. I’m always thinking about weird and funny situations. I do very little outlining before I write. I just wait for an interesting thought to make itself known, write it down, and start tweaking it. The idea for the “Dead Divas” for example, occurred to me when I passed some prostitutes outside the Lincoln tunnel in New York City. The thought of paying a stranger for sex terrified me. I mean, who knows what someone will do to you if they get close enough?
What has been the most encouraging comment you have received in the process of bringing “I’ve Been Deader” to the attention of horror and comedy fans around the world?
I know that I have a tendency to come off as a bit egotistical, but in all honesty, I’ve received comments from hundreds of readers telling me how much they loved the book (and not just from writers looking for return compliments – the jackals). My memory is worse than Charlie Sheen’s, and I’m sure I’ve forgotten many great ones. So I’ll just post one comment that I picked at random, sent to me last year from a reader on Scribophile.com: “I’m not a fan of the horror genre. You can watch your undead movie while I watch Angeline Jolie. But you’ve got something. Perhaps it’s the perfect comedy timing. Perhaps it’s because you somehow manage to make us identify with rotten old Fred.”

Comments like that make it all worthwhile. Well, impressive sales figures will really make it all worthwhile, but until that happens I’m stuck with comments and good wishes.


Well - you've got our backing, Adam. You can find I've Been Deader here and also on our fancy carrousel over to the right.

Win books and join the Zombie Apocalypse!

Our fabulous competition to win a whole library of books for your e-reader comes to a close at midnight tomorrow. Get those entries in here and be entered into the draw for this brilliant prize. 100 books! It's a reader's dream!

In more news, we'll be taking a look later today at a new Kindle book on the block, Adam Sifre's 'I've Been Deader' - a comedy zombie novel with a difference. Zombies have never been hotter (in a cold, dead way) and we're leaping on the bandwagon - arms outstretched and moaning 'braaaaains'.

Get those entries in, winner will be announced on Saturday. In the meantime, here's a little preview of our latest favourite read:

Being a zombie is no picnic and it's one hell of a handicap in the romance department when you fall in love with a 'breather':

Aleta is a breather with short blonde hair and brown eyes - two of them! - and the whitest smile Fred has ever seen. Every day at a certain time she sits at her window, and every day he stands in the rubble across the street among a crowd of zombies waiting to break through the fence and eat her.

'You are beautiful, like an angel', he thinks, but all he can moan is, “Braaaiiinss."

Still, as zombies go, Fred's quite a catch. Underneath all the gangrene and rot, Fred is different. This girl will probably turn out to be yet another dead end, an infatuation, someone whose image he cannot get out of his mind and whose taste he cannot get out of his mouth, but the heart wants what the heart wants.

For breathers, it is always only a matter of time, however beautiful they are and whatever the government is assuring people.

Which makes Fred sad because he has a beautiful 11 year old son called Timmy, and Timmy may still be alive.