A PERSIAN CAT & ITS HUMAN IN A ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE

http://www.amazon.com/The-Beginning-End-Apocalypse-Z-ebook/dp/B0089LQJ3E

 

 An international bestselling author, Manel Loureiro was born in Pontevedra, Spain

and studied law at Universidad de Santiago de Compostela.

After graduation, he worked in television, both on-screen (appearing on Television de Galicia) and behind-the-scenes as a writer.

Apocalypse Z, his first novel, began as a popular blog before its publication,

eventually becoming a bestseller in several countries, including Spain, Italy, and Brazil.

Manel has written three novels in the Apocalypse Z series.

He currently resides in Pontevedra, Spain, where, in addition to writing, he is still a practicing lawyer.

The best part of this whole thing is that the Lawyer is NOT one of those macho types

who thinks he can defeat the hordes and take back the world.

He is a regular guy.

A regular guy who learns through desperation how to survive in this post apocolyptic world.

 A man who has never fired a gun in his life,

a man who loves his cat and risks his life for it,

(the cat was given to him by his sister after the death of his wife)

a man who cares about other human beings and makes every effort to keep those he finds alive.

It is interesting to see a horror story told happening in modern Spain.

The audiobook is a real treat.

My computer is still dead.  Wish me luck as I borrow a friend's computer to write this.  :-)



 

\

NIGHT OF THE LIVING UNREAD

http://www.amazon.com/dp/151419399X/

{My computer has died so I will not be able to visit all of you as I would wish}

Business is business.

A market starts, and barriers to entry are low.

There’s things like quality and consistency of product,

so that the early products are often of poor quality and have limited distribution.

Usually but not always. But the early entrants aren’t the companies who win through.

Then, there's Amazon. eBooks have been the making of Amazon.

A few years ago, Amazon was making a loss on the book side and accounting for 4% of the market.

With their aggressive promotion and bold introduction of the Kindle, they’ve claimed a big portion of the distribution market.

Which means exactly what for us? To me?

You say I can do little to change how things go.

Some believe I can just wave and feebly mention that I’m still here. As the market grows, my voice becomes feebler. All I can do, many sigh, is keep writing the stories I love and hope that someone else loves them, too.

But are they right?

THERE IS THE SECRET that says NO.

Read on to discover it.

{Oh, interesting side-note:
Did you know that Amazon can remotely delete purchased e-books through a back door, much the way it did in 2009 on "thousands of copies of George Orwell's 1984? Big Brother indeed!}

THE SECRET!
Do you know how Robert Bindinotto managed to write and publish a debut novel that,

backing by a traditional publisher and with zero paid advertising,




went on to become a Kindle bestseller?

Get out your highlighter to copy this secret.

Prepare yourself. Wait for it.

The short, unsatisfying answer:

HUNTER caught the eyes of the Amazon Kindle editors, who (bless their little hearts if they do this for me) singled out his book for one week-long focused attention and promotion on the Amazon website.

You go: "Duh! Well, sure! My book would soar if they did that for me!!!!"

Better question:

Why did they single out HUNTER from over a million items in the Kindle Store? Did Mr. Bidinotto do anything that made a difference?

Nobody from Amazon ever confided in him. But Robert (I can call you, Robert, can't I?) has a few guesses:


1. CARVE OUT A DISTINCTIVE NICHE.To succeed in being noticed in an overcrowded marketplace, you must distinguish yourself and especially your product.

If all authors are blogging, tweeting, Facebooking, interviewing, pricing at 99 cents, etc., then there is nothing in that which makes the individual author or his book stand out.

Likewise, if you are writing the umpteenth rendition of the same kind of protagonist in the same kind of story, aping other successful writers who pioneered that same sort of character or plotline, etc., you are not standing out from the pack.

John Locke stood out by being the first with 99-cent ebooks, and he did sensationally well. But now, a zillion indies have mindlessly copied him, and as a result, 99-cent pricing no longer stands out or moves ebooks.

In fact, it screams “SELF-PUBLISHED!” to readers who have grown leery of quickie, low-quality, self-published titles.

Similarly, Amanda Hocking triumphed by being one of the first indies to develop a big social-media following for her books via Facebooking and Tweeting. Now, everyone is doing it—and again, nobody stands out as she did.

To stand out in marketing, you must be first to do something new and different. You must pioneer something.

It can be a new twist on an old formula, but it must be sufficient to create a kind of “niche monopoly.” Clancy invented the “technothriller,” a thriller subgenre. Rowling pioneered a parallel race/universe featuring young wizards.

Everyone knows the Western is dead:

So I have created an undead Paladin (HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL) in the haunted New Orleans of the present.

{Speaking of unique, Originally, each show of HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL opened with exactly the same 45-second visual.

The first season's Christmas episode, "The Hanging Cross," is unique.

Instead of drawing the revolver, Paladin unbuckles the belt and removes the entire rig, holding it out to the camera as he talks.

The camera then tilts upward, revealing Richard Boone himself speaking to camera, then hanging the belt, holster, and gun on a wall peg and walking away as the theme picks up and the title graphics appear.}
Vampires have been so overdone that they are crisp and black! So I have a flesh-eating Victorian ghoul as the love interest of my young street Gypsy, Victor Standish.

And see how my name is a household word? Ah, not so much, huh? Hey, it was just a guess on Robert's part!




2. THINK LIKE A READER.
Kerry Wilkinson, a self-publishing phenom who is currently #1 on Kindle in the UK, wrote that he put himself in the reader’s shoes.

So, if you were a reader in your genre, what would engage you?

Apply that consideration to everything you do–from writing, to cover, to formatting, to pricing, to marketing, to websites, to blogging, etc.

Also ask yourself:

Who are the readers for my kind of story? Where do they hang out? How can I reach them? What would catch their interest? If you answer those questions before you hit the “publish” button, you’re many times more likely to be successful.3. CRAFTSMANSHIP COUNTS: NOTHING TRUMPS A GOOD STORY.
Authors should spend well over 90 percent of their time and effort not on marketing, but on crafting the best stories they can possibly write.

A great story can sometimes succeed without marketing fanfare; but no marketing fanfare can long sustain a poor story.

Catchy covers and pricing gimmicks may win attention for a book, but if that initial attention isn’t eventually affirmed by a positive and enduring reader response, long-term sales will be mediocre at best.


4. PROFESSIONAL PRESENTATION COUNTS

When publishing, an indie author must pay attention to all the “little things” that lend an air of competence and professionalism to his book(s).

Covers, design, formatting, logos, your author blog or website–all of these things must exude a quality equal to anything issued or overseen by Random House or Simon & Schuster.

And no, you do not have to break the bank to obtain that kind of quality. Robert was able to do it all for about $1000.{For more of his excellent guesses read:http://www.bidinotto.com/2012/02/how-to-succeed-as-a-self-published-author/ }

{If you are interested in Victor or Samuel, read and see the new, improved product page: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005NCUTAG }

 

ALICE WENTWORTH'S song as she met VICTOR STANDISH at midnight by the crypt of Marie Laveau done by THEA GILMORE:

8 WAYS TO BE MORE CREATIVE

“The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. 

You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. 

What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself.”
 — Alan Alda

Sadly,  while IQ, the measure of our analytical thinking skills, appears to be on the rise, 


our more expansive, creative thinking skills may be on the wane as our hyper-busy world promotes more narrow, analytical thought.


 The thinking at one time was that all thought gradually flowed, 

and that what people thought of as insight was just an emotional flourish, 

an added “oomph” at the end of the thinking process that made it feel sudden.

But how do you study insight to see if that is so?

Studying insight poses challenges.  You just stick a person in a MRI and say, "Be insightful, be creative."


 People were given what are called “remote associates problems.” 

Each consists of three words, like pine/crab/sauce, 

and you have to think of a fourth word that would make a compound word or familiar phrase with each one. 

By the way how creative were you?  I know You thought about what the answer was.

Stumped?

The 4th word was APPLE.


Right at the point where the problem is solved with a flash of insight, 

there’s a burst of gamma wave activity in the right temporal lobe just above the ear ...

So the Predator would've seen that part of your brain go Neon when you came up with the insight.  :-)


Many of Life's problems are unbounded, unconstrained:

How do I become happy? 

How do I become a good person? 

There are no particular ground rules, no formula to follow for that. 

People often solve those problems through a flash of insight, which is a form of creativity, and why it’s desirable.


So how do you summon creativity?

 Insight is like a cat. 

You can’t order it to appear. You can coax it. But you can’t command it. 

Creativity and insight flows from a particular brain state. 

And if you can put yourself in this brain state, you will be more likely to have these creative insights.

THE ROAD MAP TO THE CREATIVE BRAIN STATE 

(no passport needed) 

1.) TAKE THE HIGH ROAD

Research of decades indicates being in a positive mood improves creativity. 

When you’re in a somewhat negative mood, a little anxious, that actually improves analytical thought.

 Creativity flows from a state of feeling safe or secure. When you feel safe or secure, you can take risks. And creativity is intellectually risky. 

 But when you feel subtle, unconscious threat, you feel you can’t make mistakes. 

 Tension brings tunnel-vision.  A good mood literally expands the scope of your thinking.


2.) HOME ON THE RANGE

 If you’re in a CRAMPED SPACE, say your office is a little cubicle, your visual attention can’t spread out. 

It’s focused in this narrow space. 

Just as your visual attention is constricted, your conceptual attention becomes narrow and focused, and your thinking is more likely to be analytical.


 If you’re in a LARGE SPACE 

– a big office, with high ceilings, or outside —

 your visual attention expands to fill the space, and your conceptual attention expands.

That’s why a lot of creative figures like to be outdoors, to take long walks in nature, 

and they get their inspiration from being in the wide, open spaces. 

If you can see far and wide, then you can think far and wide.

 3.) AVOID THE JAGGED CLIFFS

Striking objects, ones with sharp edges, pointy features, like a sofa with angular sides, 

or a letter opener that looks like a dagger,

 it can cause this subtle, unconscious feeling of threat. When that happens, attention narrows.

 The ideal environment for being insightful would be large, airy spaces with soft, rounded features.

4.)  MIND THE COLORS OF THE LANDSCAPE

The color red 

— we think of it as an emergency color, associated with blood, fire engines and stop signs — 

grabs the attention and narrows it. 

But the outdoor colors, like the blue of the sky or the green of the trees, 

has been associated with relaxation, expansion, which creates a feeling of safety, 

which helps the attention expand and increases creativity.


5.) RIGHT TURN ON DEAD

 When you take a break from a problem that you’re stuck on and do something completely different, 

you forget the bad idea that you were fixated on. 

It allows other ideas, better ideas, to bubble up to the surface. 


6.) DON'T FORGET YOUR BEDROLL

One of the most powerful tools for promoting insight is sleep. 

If you’re stuck, take a nap, go to bed, you’ll more thoroughly purge the bad idea you’re stuck on, 

and you’ll be more attuned to clues that might solve the problems.


 When you acquire memories, they’re stored in temporary, fragile form. 


Like cement ...

when you pour it, initially it’s soft, but when it dries and hardens, it becomes strong and durable. 

Memories are like that. 

They become hardened through a process of consolidation, which happens largely during sleep.


 That’s why there are so many stories of people waking up in the middle of the night with a new idea or solution to a problem.

As how Paul McCartney awoke with the melody, "Yesterday," fully formed in his head.

 Sleep supercharges creativity.

7.)  WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH, THE SMART DO NOTHING


As Beetle Baily keeps trying to tell Sarge: Doing nothing is creative work.

 Because when you’re consciously doing nothing, the conscious part is only a tiny part of what your brain is. 

The rest of it, the unconscious, is chugging away all the time. 

There’s this process cognitive psychologists call “incubation”

 – the brain churning over associations. 

And these associations can pop into awareness as insight. 

The incubation process is supercharged during sleep,

 and also when doing nothing, letting your mind wander and having no particular task to perform.

*But a fine balance is necessary:

Once insight is acquired, we must run with it (do something with it!)

8.) CLEANLINESS IS NEXT TO INSIGHTFULLNESS


Take a shower.  I write my dialogue in the shower, speaking it aloud.

The shower is a great place to let your mind wander, to incubate thoughts and set the stage for insight. 

In the shower, the water is warm, 

you don’t feel a boundary between your skin and the outside of your body. 

You feel sort of expansive. 

There’s white noise in the background.

 What you see is kind of blurry, so you turn your thoughts inward, like sensory deprivation. 

It allows your mind to wander and your attention to broaden. 

That’s why people tend to have great ideas in the shower.

Unless you're in Norman Bates' Motel.

TODAY OUR FRIEND DIED

Sadly, many people are saying that today...

The friends of the 22-year-old man celebrating the Fourth of July 

who was killed instantly over the weekend when authorities said he tried to launch fireworks from atop his head.  

Devon Staples was drinking and put a reloadable fireworks mortar tube on his head, lighting it.  

Mortar tubes are usually made from cardboard and used to hold pre-packaged charges.


Then, there is George Clooney:

"Today our friend, Jerry Weintraub died. To his family and friends, Amal and I send our love. 

And to those who didn’t know him we send our deepest sympathy. You would have loved him.” 

The title to Jerry Weintraub's autobiography is ironic:

Jerry Weintraub was a self-made millionaire who at the age of 26, took Elvis Presley on the road. 

He went on to produce famous films such as the Karate Kid movies and Oceans Eleven, Twelve, and Thirteeen.

The book is  filled with great stories depicting how Weintraub went from working the streets of Brooklyn 

to mixing with the elite at The White House 

and movie stars such as George Clooney, Tom Cruise and Julia Roberts ... 

and singers like Frank Sinatra, Elvis, Led Zepplin, Neil Diamond, The Carpenters, and Jane Morgan, 

whom he later married.

In one word, the book is about persistence:

 “If there’s one piece of advice I can give to young people, to kids trying to break out of Brooklyn and Kankakee, it’s this:

persist, push, hang on, keep going, never give up. 

When the man says no, pretend you can’t hear him. Look confused, stammer, say, “Huh?”. Persistence—it’s a cliché, but it happens to work.”

I listened to the audiobook version narrated by Jerry himself.  

He was a lovable rogue,  The first 2/3 of the book was great.  

Then, Jerry fell victim to the Hollywood syndrome: dump the faithful wife for a newer model.

But the first 2/3 of the book is fascinating ... and which of us is perfect?

IS IT WRONG TO SEE GOOD IN AMERICA ON JULY 4TH?

 If I were to see you on your mother's birthday, and you told me: 

"I have the greatest mother in the world", 

I wouldn't grumble, "My mother was pretty good there too, fella."

I would be happy for you.

If I met you on your country's holiday, and you said, "I have the greatest country in the world."

Being a student of world history, 

I would point out a few things that I admired about your country and join in your happiness.

I never said America was the greatest country in the world ... 

just that it could be (just like any nation could) 

if the citizens and leaders put aside their differences and worked together.

On her birthday, I wanted to point out some good things about America ...

No other country has an equivalent to the Peace Corps which helps poor nations the world over.  

There is the European Voluntary Service but it only helps European countries.  

There is United Nations Volunteers, but it will not take just anyone who wishes to contribute to the world's needs.

I have been told I should focus on being a citizen of the world and not be devisive.  

Yet, if you are American, you already are a citizen of the world ...

for America contains peoples from most of the world's nations.

That America still survives is a wonder.

The American effort to achieve independence from Britain was not expected to succeed, but it did, 

with some timely help from friends abroad. 

The new country’s grand experiment in representative self-government was not given much of a chance, either, 

but it has survived. 

The idea of a nation

 — not an empire, but a nation —

 melded from many nationalities, ethnic groups and religious faiths was inconceivable

 to most of the world, but it has been realized over the 239 years since independence was boldly declared in Philadelphia. 

The essential element in all of this was, as Abraham Lincoln said, 

the ability of the people and their leaders to “think anew and act anew” when the times demanded it.

 “The nature of injustice,” Justice Anthony Kennedy  recently wrote, “is that we may not always see it in our own times. 

The generations that wrote and ratified the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment

 did not presume to know the extent of freedom in all of its dimensions, 

and so they entrusted to future generations a charter protecting the right of all persons to enjoy liberty as we learn its meaning.”

Let us celebrate the wonder and marvel of our constitution this weekend.

HAPPY CODEPENDENCE DAY!

Not really. 

This country seems to have 364 days of that where everyone and their cousin points out all that is wrong with America.

But July 4th is different. 

That day we celebrate what is good about America.

Let there be earthquake, epidemic, famine, flood -- 

you will see an American flag waving over relief centers in whatever country in which they occur.

Sadly, people will be shooting at our doctors, nurses, and other helpers there, too, at the same time.

America is great because we are a nation of dreamers, inventors, artists, builders and doers. 

We exalt in achievement, rebound from failure and encourage one another every step of the way,

from the little league, to the majors, in every walk of life.

The Declaration of Independence, whose signing we celebrate on Saturday,

states that all people are endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

This pursuit sometimes seems insurmountable

if that road is governed by the rich and powerful or when government represents only narrow interests.

Unlike other countries such as India, China or Thailand,

where one’s station in life is determined by a caste system, government monolith

or an outdated monarchy,

in America you are free to carve out your own destiny.

Wealth carries huge influence,

 but unlike most countries, where one’s fate is determined by others,

in the U.S.,

if you use your mind with bravery and creativity, you are free to chart your own course.

Other countries possess freedom ...

America's greatness lies in the fact that it embodies a dream.

The dream is of freedom, of safety, and of opportunity.

The dream is built upon the rule of law,

the generosity of our people and the promise of advancement for those willing to work hard. 





Of course America has not achieved that dream. 

Have you noticed that nothing turns out like you thought it would? 

But the dream persists.

Still, a struggling deli owner can send his daughter to medical school,

or a Jewish immigrant’s son can become one of the world’s most successful fashion designers,

or the mixed-race son of a Kenyan socialist can become president.

You may think America is not the greatest country in the world ...

And perhaps that is so, but it can be.

If we do not give up on it and each other.

THE SYMBOL FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

WHAT IS IT?

THE CELL PHONE?

THE SELFIE?

CAITLYN JENNER's VANITY FAIR COVER?

 THE CONFEDERATE FLAG?

 {Isn't it stretching political correctness

to silly proportions for WB no longer licensing  

toys of the General Lee with the flag on top

and 

TV Land cancelling re-runs of

Dukes Of Hazard?}

No.

None of these.

Yes, that's right.

THE LEAF BLOWER is the symbol 

for the 21st Century.

It reflects the current mind set of LET ME MAKE MY PROBLEM SOMEBODY ELSE'S.

Blowing your leaves into your neighbor's yard has the double pleasure 

of making a lot of racket and dumping your problem into somebody else's lap.

Blowing your leaves into the street just makes a mess for the sanitation people.  But who cares?  

It's not your worry anymore, right?

It "replaces" the rake, doing the job poorly 

and with an atrocious amount of noise for added dysfunctional fun.

If folks think that leaf blowers are a good idea, I weep for our modern society.

Rakes are quiet, provide a good physical work-out, and use no fossil fuel.

Leaf Blowers in the end are accomplishing nothing. 

You still need to eventually pick up the leaves and debris, which will require what? 

A rake!

Unless that is, you are simply blowing your leaves onto the street, onto your neighbor’s lawn  

in which case they will eventually end up right back where they started 

and you will need to blow them away again!

But the "Leaf Blower" mind-set has spread.  

One of the biggest examples of this, is debt. 

The United States has anywhere from $17 to $30 TRILLION in debt 

(depending on who you ask and how honest they are). 

Our government spends more every year than it collects in tax revenue, 

and puts the difference on a big credit card that they get to determine the credit limit on. 

Doing this is just like firing up a big leaf blower 

and blowing it to where our kids and grandkids will be living when they grow up and start working 

(if there are any jobs left). 

We need to stop this.

What do you think is the symbol for the 21st Century?