Wednesday, July 19, 2023

Prepper Book Teaser

 Hello friends,

I am excited to share with you the teaser for my newest series.  PREPPER is a different take on the popular EMP/grid down scenario and I know you'll love the large cast of characters.

It is a five book series. Book one will release August 8, 2023.  Each successive book will be available approximately 90 days later.  

Here's the elevator pitch:  


THE POWER IS GONE. IT WAS NO ACCIDENT. ONLY THE PREPARED WILL SURVIVE.

 

Before the lights went out, Jack Warrant never considered himself a prepper. That was someone on the edge, a conspiracy theorist or a doomsday cultist who had a fatalistic view of the world. He was neither a theorist nor a cultist. He was an optimist. At least that was what he told himself when the darker thoughts creeped into his psyche as he stared at the ceiling in the middle of the night. Whenever he started down the rabbit hole, he always clawed his way back into the sunlight. Then the world as he knew it ended, and he realized he was wrong. About himself. About the lengths to which desperate people will go. 




And here is the trailer.  Enjoy!




Tuesday, January 11, 2022

The Crusader Books 1-3 now available

 Launch day is always an exciting day and when it's for the third book of a series readers seem to love, it's all the more enjoyable.

Today is the day, I get to share with you ONE IN THE HAND, the third book in THE CRUSADER series and it's a great addition to the saga of protagonist John Beck.  

My collaborator, narrator and producer, Kevin Pierce said the ending made him cry (in a good way) and that embedded within the novel is a fantastic short story which gets into the psyche of one of the primary characters who travels with Beck on his adventures.

If you have already started the series, thank you.  Here is a link to the newest offering, available for free on Kindle (with a Kindle Unlimited subscription), in print, and on audio.

If you have not yet started, now is a good time to binge read the first three books back-to-back-to-back.  To give you a sense of the storyline, here is a very cool book trailer created by a Clio and PromMax award-winning editor (my daughter :-).  


Thanks again for tagging along my writing journey and I hope you have a fantastic 2022!  

Oh, and did you see I have a YouTube channel?  I'm interviewing those in the book world to give you an inside look at the people who help bring fantastic stories to readers in all genres. Please consider subscribing and let me know what you think.  




Friday, January 7, 2022

Tom talks books on YouTube

I love books and I'm guessing if you're reading this, you love them too.  I've started a new venture on YouTube where I'm having great conversations with people in the business of bringing books to the world.

These include authors and influencers who help shape the stories we love.  I've already posted the first few interviews and am anxious to share more with you.  

The plan is to post at least two a month.  They'll run between 20 and 30 minutes each.  As I do more of them, they'll get more sophisticated.  I promise :-).

If you get a chance please check out my channel and, if you're so inclined, please "like and subscribe" as they say.  And if there is someone in particular you're interested in hearing from, let me know.

Here are the first three interviews for you you view.  And here's a link to my channel.

Thanks again for your support and I hope you have a wonderful 2022.



Wonderful conversation with Amazon Kindle #1 bestseller Steven Konkoly



Fantastic talk with Apocalyptic survival author Franklin Horton


Great discussion with narrator/producer Kevin Pierce about our latest collaboration, THE CRUSADER








Monday, April 27, 2020

UNPREPARED Now Available


Now available.

In 2015, the world read about the aftermath of a deadly pandemic called The Scourge in the bestselling Traveler Series.

Now read about its origins with a new storyline and characters.

Learn more by clicking here.

(Trailer edited by Sam Abrahams)

Monday, March 16, 2020

I didn't expect it to be toilet paper #Coronavirus


I write post-apocalyptic and dystopian thrillers that stick pretty close to realism.  There's a touch of the fantastic in all of them, a superhero-esque quality to the survival of protagonists and villains.  But for the most part I tend to hit the mark.

My book LIT hit the market the same week wildfires raged in California.  The follow-up TORRENT, about a deadly storm-induced flood in New Orleans, dropped the same week a hurricane was bearing down on the central Gulf coast.  And my forthcoming series about a global pandemic (that attacks the lungs) is due out in April amidst this global crisis in which we find ourselves living (and self-quarantining).

The parallels in the new book are startling.  The slow government response.  The lack of airport closures in a timely manner.  The lack of mortality among the infected young.  All of this, I wrote last summer based on a disease I made up for another  tangential series of novels in 2015 and 2016.

So much of the book, despite it taking the outbreak to its darkest possible conclusions, is on point because of the research I do.  It's not prognostication as much as it's preparation.

The one thing I didn't see coming was the toilet paper.

Runs on water, food, masks, first aid, even gasoline?  Sure.  Not the toilet paper.

As you read my new series, a trilogy called The Scourge, you'll find a lot of frightening parallels to what we now face with Covid-19, the novel coronavirus.  There are characters who work in government labs, those who hunker down, who prey on the weak, and who are mostly unprepared.  You'll even read about the way the media reports on the growing concern about an epidemic as it spreads across Europe and into the United States.

You won't read about toilet paper.

And what that tells me is that human nature is unpredictable and that people panic.  The Chicago Tribune wrote an article about it and reported it's what happens when people "catastrophize".  The New York Times also wrote about it.  People are hoarding far more than they need because of the fear of extended quarantine.

Of all things.  Toilet paper.

Not non-perishable food.  Not hand-sanitizer or household cleaners (at first).  Toilet paper.

It reveals two things, I think.  And I say these things with the seriousness of someone who is prepared to quarantine if need be.  We stocked up weeks ago (without hoarding) in anticipation of what's happening now.

One.  People pay attention to the media.  They see what others are doing and they copy it.  They panic.  This is bad in the case of toilet paper.  It might be good in that they see the repeated warning to social distance and stop the spread of the disease.  We can hope so.  Too many have died and fallen critically ill already.

Two.  Truth is stranger than fiction.

Stay safe out there.  Pay attention to what your local and health authorities are telling you to do.  And most of all, be kind to one another.  If you can...spare a square...


Monday, July 16, 2018

Join Me Live on Amazon 7/19/18!!

It's a brand new way for us to connect with one another...a live stream...on Amazon.



Seriously, it's an incredibly cool opportunity for me to interact with you.  You can ask me questions, learn about the concepts behind my stories, and have a chance to win some free stuff.

I'll be live, for the first time, on Thursday, July 19, 2018 at 8PM CDT. 

To join me, you can follow my author page.  You'll get a push alert reminding you to join the conversation send right to your device. 

Click here to go to my page, then click the FOLLOW tab right under my way-too-serious-looking photograph. 

You can also follow me on Facebook.  I'll post a link right before the stream is live.

The stream should last about twenty minutes or so.  I'll do a Q&A and talk about my two new releases along with some big discounts and those giveaways I mentioned.

I'll only be offering the giveaways to people watching the live stream.

TWO new releases you say?  Yes...

Book two of The Alt Apocalypse is out on July 17.  LIT is a fast-paced story about surviving urban and wildfires.  

Also a new stand-alone story called PILGRIMAGE is out on the same day.  It's just .99

And book on the The Alt Apocalypse is also .99.  ASH takes place after a nuclear attack.

Hope you join me for what should a fun and entertaining experience...LIVE ON AMAZON.



Wednesday, October 5, 2016

Go Home Already. It's Free (For Some) and #PoweredByIndie (For All)

When I wrote HOME about a year ago, I never imagined the response.  I've gotten emails and messages from all over the world.  It's been incredibly gratifying, especially because it marked my return to self-publishing.

Some of you may already know I signed two book deals (five books) with a great group of people at an independent traditional publisher.  They did what they could to get my books into the hands of readers and onto the shelves of book stores.

I felt, in the long run, though I'd be better off taking the reins myself.  It was a risk.  I had no upfront costs with a traditional publisher and they shared the marketing load.   When I self-publish, I am the author, the publisher, the marketer, and everything in between.

Add to that, I had no idea if anyone would read my newest book, which was my first full length offering in the Post Apocalyptic genre.

Frightening.

Incredibly, over the course of three weeks, the book began selling.  It's rank began climbing.  It reached number one in the Post-Apocalyptic and Dystopian genres and held steady in the spot for more than a month.  HOME, without promotion or discount, reached #100 on all of Amazon.

Crazy.

Enough people read the book in January that the book was A Kindle Unlimited All-Star selection.  The websites Bookbub and Boing Boing wrote about the novel and told readers to go buy it.

Incredible.

It's really jump-started my writing career and given birth to all kinds of opportunities.

First, HOME and its two sequels are included in Amazon's #PoweredByIndie promotion this month, which features popular works by independent authors.

Second, HOME is part of the launch for the brand new Amazon Prime Reading library.  Those who belong to Amazon Prime can now read a rotating selection of popular ebooks for free.  It's a wonderful new program for Prime members, which enhances the already valuable (and cheap) membership.  To think that a whole new batch of readers will have the opportunity to find HOME and dive into its story is fantastic.  HOME will be part of the program for about ninety days.

If you haven't read it, I hope you give it a shot.  If you have, I hope you'll recommend it to a friend.

Thanks, as always, for your support.