My Latest Book, Now on Sale!

My second fiction book was just released today on Amazon.  It's another supernatural/horror/ghost thing called "Small Town Evil."  Unlike my last story, "Interstate 10", which my wife Christy called "like a table with three legs instead of four," she really liked this one.  She assures me that this story "has all four legs."  Okay...odd analogy, but I get it.

This story was based on a screenplay that I wrote back in 2003.  Unless your name happens to be Quentin Tarantino or George Lucas, screenplays just don't sell for the Amazon Kindle.  People don't want to read them.  So, rather than publish that screenplay as is, I decided to completely re-write it as a novella, taking out the parts I thought didn't work, and adding some new stuff.  It wasn't as easy as I thought it would be.  It's almost like taking something and translating it into another language.  In a screenplay, you can just write "they fight" and that's good enough.  In a book, you can't be that lazy.  You have to be a bit more descriptive.  However, since it was a screenplay, the story still remains somewhat dialogue-heavy, and that might turn off some of the gore hounds looking for a cheap thrill (it does have a little bit of gore, but not a lot.)

I like the cover for this one more than the last one.  Usually I just tell him one or two sentences about the story, and he comes up with the covers.  This time he really nailed it.  He captured the image of the girl I was looking for, and the car driving on the foggy road is straight from chapter 1 of the book, and this guy didn't even know that.

So, here it is, the latest book, Number 5 in my catalog.  You can buy it by clicking here.

"GO FIGURE" Now Available for Kindle on Amazon!

"Go Figure" is the first in a series of children's books by author/artist Dennis Young.

Dennis is known as the musician who played in the legendary 80's band "Liquid Liquid."  Recently, he has focused his creative skills on painting & drawing.  Along with his paintings in exhibits on record covers, he now has completed his first in a series of children's books called "Go Figure."

The book revolves around unique characters where kids can use their imagination to create a storyline each time they look thru the pages of the book.  Grown-ups are encouraged to join in the fun.  So, grab your kids and "GO FIGURE"

Here is the link that will take you directly to the book.

Legitimate Work at Home Jobs and Opportunities

Don't worry, my blog hasn't been hacked.  I'm going to be promoting a few websites and products to help some people out, so here's the first one!

This is a website called I'm Here For You.  It's got a lot of great advice on how to make money from home (and who doesn't want to make money from home?)

You can link directly to the website here

Now Available, the Short Story "Interstate 10"

My first short fiction story is now available at Amazon on the Kindle for only 99 cents.  It's called "Interstate 10" and it's a supernatural/suspense/horror thing around 40-50 pages (depending on the size of your Kindle.)

If you happen to pick it up, keep in mind that this is a short story, and that's the reason why events transpire rather quickly.  So please don't complain about it being too short.  It's supposed to be.

The same guy (idrewdesign) designed the cover for this.  It wasn't the image I was expecting, but I still like it.  It's still better than anything I could have done on my own.

I haven't gotten my nerve up to write a novel yet, nor am I even sure I can do it.  The time and dedication it takes to write a novel are daunting.  With continual interruptions from the wife and kids, it's difficult to even write a short story these days.  I'd have to be able to lock myself into a room for 8 hours a day to put the kind of effort into a novel that I'd like to.

My regular readers of my other blog "From Taiwan to Texas" (assuming they are still around) are probably saying "Is that what this blog has become now?  Just a promotional tool for your freakin' books on Amazon?!"

The answer is YES AND NO.

I have no more books pending on the horizon.  My blog/books are finished, and that was the only short story I had been working on.  That's it for now.  So...eventually I'll return to the blog you once remembered, but of course I'll still my promote my stuff.  Who wouldn't?  :)

You can buy the short story here.

Finally, The Third Book! "The Reluctant Austinite"

So...I have another book out, called "The Reluctant Austinite."  I've decided, with this book, I'm not going to go all out and try to promote it (other than this blog, of course).  This is just a simple, under the radar release for me.

When I was editing the 2nd book, "From Taiwan to Texas," I had realized that I left out a lot of the Texas and Austin stories, and I wanted to make a special book with just those stories (and several of my other stories as well.)  It's not like the other books at all.  It doesn't really touch any of the deep and dark sections of the other books.  This is more of a light-hearted thing, which means I'll be lucky to sell one or two copies (okay, maybe three.)

Speaking of sales, I was a bit surprised to see that my previous two books are actually selling.  I'm averaging about maybe one per day.  Okay, these aren't life changing numbers, but something is better than nothing, right?  Reading the "Author Forums" on Amazon, I've seen many writers complaining about not selling a single copy of their book, after months and months.  So I guess selling a dozen or so is something to celebrate.  I also had a few promotional days where I gave the book away for free, and several hundred people downloaded them.  The promotional days are supposed to encourage people to buy your other work.  Sometimes it works, sometimes not.

Anyway, this is my final book (I promise) that will be based around my blogs.  There won't be any more.  The next book I plan to publish on Amazon will be a fiction story that I'm working on right now.  It's a short story, probably under 50 pages, that I'll sell for around 99 cents when it's finished.  I'm hoping that some of my loyal readers (however few or many there may be) will follow me to the next genre.  We'll see.

You can buy the third book here

Second Book Now Available! "From Taiwan to Texas"

More great news to announce.  My second book is now on sale at Amazon (for the Kindle.)  "From Taiwan to Texas: Life in Mid-America"

It's kind of amusing, I think, that I have published both of my books on Kindle, when I don't even own a Kindle myself.  Christy and I have been having a few arguments about whether or not we really need one.  I want one.  She doesn't.  She seems to think that our iPhone's are just as good as a Kindle.  Seriously though...it's not that easy to read large amounts of text on an iPhone.  I can feel my eyesight getting worse every time I use the iPhone.

Anyway, here is the link the book if you'd like to buy it!

From Blog...To Book!

Some pretty exciting news to report today:

"An American Teacher in Taiwan" is now a book, exclusive to Amazon Kindle.  If you happen to notice that this blog is now a mere shell of its former self...well...that's because the rights of this blog are now exclusive to Amazon, and they don't really want me to compete with myself.  Can't blame them.

The blog is still up, but from this point it will be mostly to publish any letters I might get from readers, videos, and (of course) promotion for the book.

I have to give Christy most of the credit for this happening.  She was watching a news program on Sunday morning that ran a story on "Self Publishing" and she suggested that I try it.  I began writing that story as a book anyway, but changed it to a blog since I didn't think I had enough material (turned out I had more than enough...since I'm still working on the second part.)

I also want to give a plug to the guy who created the cover.  I tried for hours and hours to create my own cover, but it looked like total, unprofessional shit.  So I found this guy on a website called "Fiverr" who designs Kindle covers for $5.00 (everything is five dollars on Fiverr, thus the name).  His screen name is "idrewdesign" and he did an awesome job for me.  Hopefully I can make that $5.00 back in sales of the book.  :)

So here it is...my first book....for the low, low price of $2.99.  You can click the link to go straight to the Amazon page here.