Andy Zach's Blog: The Unlikely life of Andy Zach - Posts Tagged "free-book"

Weekend Zombie News from Comic Author Andy Zach

Get all your Weekend Zombie News! right here, from me, Andy Zach your favorite comic paranormal animal author.

First of all, my youngest pet phoenix Phoerensix, picked a book of the month winner. Here’s the first stage of packing;

And next is the second layer of packing:

Phoerensix also picked a winner of my monthly audiobook giveaway.

Do you want to get in on the free book drawings? Subscribe to my newsletter here.https://www.andyzach.net/weekend-zomb...

As I said in my previous blog post, I’ve been busy editing and writing my third novel, Paranormal Privateers. That hasn’t stopped me from surfing the net and Facebook and finding all kinds of stuff. Let’s start off with Andy Zach’s Tombstone and epitaph, kindly supplied by my author friend GD Deckard. Give him a follow if you like!


Read the rest here:
https://www.andyzach.net/andy-zachs-t...

Today’s the day I give away free books to my newsletter subscribers! (Don’t worry if you’re not a subscriber; you can fix that by clicking here.) But first, my Paranormal Privateers Progress Update.

I just made progress on Paranormal Privateers! So far I’m 100% complete on the Writing phase. I’m 90% complete on Editing with two Weeks remaining until the deadline. (April 15th).
Paranormal Privateers Novel Progress
Paranormal Privateers
Phase:Editing
Due:2 weeks ago
87%
Paranormal Privateers Progress Update
Cropped sketch of rear cover of Paranormal Privateers
Upcoming Author Appearances – You can talk with me about my Paranormal Privateers Progress Update

Read more here:
https://www.andyzach.net/paranormal-p...

Today’s the day I give away free books to my newsletter subscribers! (Don’t worry if you’re not a subscriber; you can fix that by clicking here.) But first, my Paranormal Privateers Progress Update.

I just made progress on Paranormal Privateers! So far I’m 100% complete on the Writing phase. I’m 90% complete on Editing with two Weeks remaining until the deadline. (April 15th).
Paranormal Privateers Novel Progress
Paranormal Privateers
Phase:Editing
Due:2 weeks ago
87%
Paranormal Privateers Progress Update
Cropped sketch of rear cover of Paranormal Privateers
Upcoming Author Appearances – You can talk with me about my Paranormal Privateers Progress Update

Read more here:
https://www.andyzach.net/paranormal-p...

Here's Andy Zach's Penned Con Report - Plus Free Books. Enjoy! Ask questions! Get your books.

 

My Undead Mother-in-law front cover. Click to get for free!

And other free books are on the linked page too.
Andy Zach's Penned Con Report - Day 1
Thursday, September 20, my assistant Tori Smith and I arrived at the Red Lion hotel in City Center block of St. Louis. The hotel is a repurposed block of downtown St. Louis, complete with three thirteen-story atriums. The Penned Con convention resided on the lucky thirteenth floor. Gander at these pictures from the outdoor lounge:



View from 13th floor of Red Lion hotel in St. Louis, looking toward Busch Stadium.

Here's my assistant, Tori Smith in the lounge:

Tori Smith on the 13th floor lounge of the Red Lion

And here's a picture of my fellow author Bess Sturgis:

Author Bess Sturgis enjoying lunch.

But wait! There's more!
Penned Con Report - Opening Mystery Party
The mystery party was a rather clever author and reader mixer. We were randomly put into groups to solve a murder mystery, while dressed in garb of the 1920s. How random? We selected our desired time, and the 10-15 people in the 5-minute time slots between 8 PM and 10 PM got put together.

Here's a picture of our 9:55 group:

Andy Zach, (far left, as in out to left field), with other authors and readers.

You may be happy to know we solved the mystery. We reviewed five scenes and interviewed five characters and it wasn't the butler.
Penned Con Report - Day 2 - Selling Books
After all, we authors LOVE to get our books into the hands of readers.  We even give them away. (See above).

Now, to the right from my table:

Looking to the right of Andy's table
Then, looking to the left of Andy's table:

The left side of Andy's table.

Next, from the front of the table:

The front of Andy's table.

Finally, my table itself, adorned with my lovely assistant, Tori Smith:

Andy Zach's table with his lovely assistant, Tori Smith
The Elevator Adventure
You may ask, "Is this like Willy Wonka's glass elevator?" Don't I wish! No, the hotel had a bank of three elevators and one hundred and thirty five authors and eight hundred and ninety readers all wanting to get to the thirteenth floor at once. Every day. At the same time.

The adventure begins with one elevator permanently dead.  Oopsie.

To the hotel's credit, everyone had wonderful positive attitudes and they all worked to solve the problem. They led herds of authors (is that the right collective noun?) to the freight elevator to circumvent the constriction.

They put one elevator on manual and had an employee run it. That's how Tori made a Pokemon game friend:

Tori and elevator operator Dennis unite for Pokemon.
Day 3 - The Big Dinner
Once more, Tori and I dressed in 20s mufti for the awards dinner.

Tori and Andy dressed to the 9s--1929.
We had a scrumptious meal and heard from the head of the Autism foundation. Penned Con gives to that worthy cause. Then the awards came out. I don't know who won, because we went to bed.

The next day, we drove home to Peoria.
One More Thing - Zombie Turkeys on Sale for .99!
Your favorite comic paranormal animal story is right here, right now for .99!

Zombie Turkeys front cover. Click to get a copy!

 

 

Oops! Free Short Stories for You from my short story collection, Oops! Tales of the Zombie Turkey Apocalypse.

Let's start with a bang.

Free Short Stories - In A Pickle

So what do readers say? Here's a review coming up for you.

Editorial Reviews

"You'd think after three oddball novels, Zombie Turkeys (How an Unknown Blogger Fought Unkillable Turkeys), My Undead Mother-In-Law (The Family Zombie with Anger Management Issues), and Paranormal Privateers, that Andy Zach would have exhausted all the comic possibilities in his world of killer zombie turkeys and superhero zombie humans.

You'd be wrong. How about flying zombie pickles? Zombie zucchini? Zombie caterpillars? (How can you tell a zombie caterpillar from a normal one? Andy Zach can tell you.)

How about being injected with zombie blood which can cure any ill, regrow any lost limb, and be quickly cured with a widely available antidote? Who needs insurance with that sort of help? How about organizing a zombie worker union at Amazon when zombies can outperform robots? And suggest the story is based on two real people, Anthony and Ravan Jones who contribute the foreword to the book? Or zombie residents of a nursing home taking over the place?

--Dr. Wesley Britton at BookPleasures.com on Sept. 15, 2020:

Review continued

But all this silliness is just part of what Andy Zach has collected in Oops. He has included other short stories by other authors like "The Story of Sound" by Olivia Smith and his own "A Phoenix Tale" before diving into his zombie world. Then he offers a batch of stories based on his other book series featuring disabled middle-schoolers who become superheroes, the Secret Supers. Oh yea, there are the aliens who first appeared in Paranormal Privateers who are defeated by zombies working for the U.S. Government. The aliens can provide you legal assistance in the form of a sexy avatar who looks exactly like Marilyn Monroe.

If you're getting the impression that one Mr. Andy Zach has a wide and wild imagination, you are on the right track. One obvious audience for his quirky tales is the YA readership, especially for all the contemporary references like video gaming and computer lingo. But even grumpy old sixty-somethings like me can have a lot of fun with Andy's characters, scenarios, and plots. I'm still laughing at the image of migrating flying zombie pickles. Hard to get more original, unique, or surprising than Zach's "Life After Life" series. Have some fun with Andy Zach in 2020!"

--Dr. Wesley Britton at BookPleasures.com on Sept. 15, 2020:

Free Short Stories - The Butterfly Effect

Do you want to write a review? Send it to me at andyzach@andyzach.net or click here. I'll send you a free Zombie Turkeys ebook!

Your Next Oops! Review

5.0 out of 5 stars 

What do zuccini, phoenix genetics, and superpowered kids have in commom?

Reviewed in the United States on March 18, 2020

As I expected, story time at Andy's house must include a recorder to grasp the many directions and characters he delevolopes in each book. This set of several stories are exciting in a novel manner of disbelief overlaid with a tinge of possibility.

How many people have tasted a hummingbird zombie zuccini, a superpowered set of disabled kids with a intelligent hamster as co-partner, a phoenix genetic research specialist, all these under one cover? Well, step right up and open page one!

Each story includes an ideas from his zombie turkey series and as always a hint of something new to come!This was a free book and I am not connected to anyone involved. I laughed and soaked up the words wanting more.

Kindle Customer

Free Short Stories - A Dying Business

5.0 out of 5 stars 

ZOMBIES ARE out there you will laugh your nutt off at how Funny they can be

Reviewed in the United States on July 25, 2020

This book was a true page Turner from start to finish, 1 of those books you wish had more to read ,I must say look forward to a possible follow on !!

Glenn Marshall, Jr. U.S. NAVY Retired

Another Free Short Stories Review for You

3.0 out of 5 stars 

Take some crazy and add a whole lot of zombies...

Reviewed in the United States on January 2, 2020

Oops! Tales of the Zombie Turkey Apocalypse by Andy Zach is a collection of short stories and as the clue is in the title, the theme is zombies. And boy do they come in a variety of different shapes and sizes.

The book starts with three stories that are a starter and not in the zombie genre. Firstly, you are introduced to a world where nothing is heard. Then we move on to finding an elusive phoenix and trying to use its DNA for breeding. Lastly, we have a story about a time-travelling wheelchair.

Then we jump straight into zombies. From zombie pickles, to zombie service dog corgis, to zombie models and even zombies in a nursing home. There is a timeline thread running through the stories where characters that create something or meet someone bring them into a later story. And all of this in a world where becoming a zombie is as easy as ordering blood online!

Jacqui Corn-Uys

Review Continues Below

After each story, the author explains where he got his ideas from, and since in his bio he claims both his parents were zombies, he must be an expert on all things undead. The author has a very quick mind and some of the quips and plays on words were very clever.

In some of the stories, however, I would have preferred a definite ending—one where the story doesn’t just finish and you think there is more coming. It was almost as though they were ideas taken from diary extracts with sporadic glimpses into a world of zombies.

After the zombie stories came tales from some of his other books about teenage superheroes. I think the one I enjoyed the most was of the hamster that one of the kids had experimented on and had developed some superpowers. He taught himself to read and was eventually able to communicate with others by typing on a computer. The author very cleverly integrated himself into that story by being the author in the story and the one that the hamster contacted. And of course, we had to have a story about aliens to end it off.

Jacqui Corn-Uys

Your Final Story of Free Short Stories

This short story still comes from Oops!, like all the preceding ones.

We've Got It - Click to read!

And you get a review to go with it.

5.0 out of 5 stars 

Great intro to the author's works

Reviewed in the United States on July 31, 2020

This is a great book to start with if you haven’t tried any Andy Zach book before. It contains stories from both his Life After Life zombie comedy series and his superhero story Super Secrets. It also shows you Zach’s sense of humor (plus there’s one little horror story that isn’t overly gruesome). This book is great for both kids and adults and works just fine on it’s own.

I loved the silly story of the flying zombie cucumbers. Ha! Very fanciful. And they have migratory routes, like butterflies! Very silly and had me chuckling. I also loved the story with the hamster (who does play a role in Secret Supers). Perhaps rodents will truly save the world some day.

The stories also help fill in some of the blanks of the zombie comedy series, including one about Diane (the beloved zombie mother-in-law). But what I really liked was the stuff about genetic engineering and the aliens. Book 3 of the Life After Life Chronicles had a lot of stuff tossed into the story and some of these short stories really help fill those parts out.

All around, it’s a fun collection of tales. 5/5 stars.

DabOfDarkness

Audiobook Narration

The Narration: Michael Stafford was a good pick for narrating this anthology. While the Life After Life series and the Secret Supers use different narrators, Stafford was a good inbetween voice. He had unique voices for all the characters and his female voices sounded feminine. I also liked his kid voices for the Secret Supers kids. The pacing was good and there were no tech issues with the recording. 5/5 stars.

I received this audiobook as part of my participation in a blog tour with Audiobookworm Promotions. The tour is being sponsored by Andy Zach. The gifting of this audiobook did not affect my opinion of it.

DabOfDarkness

Do you like audiobooks? I have six of them and I give them away to you here. Click now.