Gaining Strength During Severe Pandemic

 

I've always been a weight lifter and a cross trainer. But it seems like over the past few months I've been really hitting the weights hard. With the gyms being shut down, I turned my living room into a full free weight gym, complete with a flat/incline bench, squat rack, dead lift station, dumbbell rack, and even a boxing/heavy bag station. 

And I've been making some gains to be sure, even at my ripe old age of 56. At the same time, I recorded a few YouTube videos displaying my efforts (my grunts and groans) to share with you also. Here's three of them: 

 

 

 

By the way: some of you might be wondering where my website, www.vincentzandri.com ran off to. Turns out the domain host went belly up and some Asian outfit snatched up my address and now want thousands from me to get it back. I don't negotiate with intellectual property thieves. 

Instead I'm using this as an opportunity to build a new website (long overdue), and changing my domain to the much easier to spell, www.vinzandri.com...It's still a WIP but it will be live, hopefully, by the end of the month or sooner. 

In the meantime, don't forget to check out my new Thriller (which debuted at No. 2 at Barnes & Noble and stayed in the top ten for weeks), The Girl Who Wasn't There. It's presently enjoying a 4.2 rating on Goodreads, which is pretty incredible. Look for the hardcover debut on October 13.

Get Zandri Thrillers HERE

Zandri is Wide (Not in the Ass) and a First Quarter Assessment: Notes from a Hybrid...No. Whatever

That's me arm-in-arm this past Sunday with the Noir at the Bar crew NYC

You all would have heard by now that Amazon KDP kicked me out of Select apparently for violating the exclusivity agreement once in 2012, once in 2013, and again in 2014. They couldn't prove that I had violated anything by producing the "warning" emails at my request, but they said it is so and if they say it is so I guess it has to be true.

Ever get the feeling the crucifix will one day be replaced with the Amazon logo? 

It's all for the good though, because like those pesky young adults who won't leave their parent's basement, I had been depending upon Select too much as of late for my indie books, and it was time to leave the nest and go wide. Which I have. I'm everywhere except Google at present, but I'll get there too. I'm only one person, people! Maybe I should hire an assistant. Preferably a hot little brunette. Don't get me started...

Onwards. It's the end f the quarter and I'd like to do an entirely non-scientific assessment of this year thus far in sales and productivity. In other words, I'm not going to bore you with specific numbers, but instead just a general accounting of how it's been going with my traditionally published books, my Amazon Imprint Published Books (namely Thomas & Mercer), and my indie books published under my imprint Bear Media (Bear Thrills, Bear Pulp, etc.)

Okay, so the traditional side of things. The hard-cover of The Corruptions arrived in late January while I await the paperback version of Orchard Grove which came out in hard-cover in January of 2017. Both books seem to be doing well, in paper, audio, and especially e-book. Although I don't have the exact sales figure for the first part of this year, I believe we're looking at around 4-5K in sales, mostly in eBook on the back of a Book Bub, which I was fortunate to acquire (and finance). What I must stress here however, is the importance of authors doing their own marketing since leaving it up to the publisher will usually result in crickets. They just don't have the time. One of the books I have going traditionally at present is stinking up the joint which sucks, because when I was publishing it under Bear Thrills it was doing relatively well. Live and learn.

Amazon Imprint Books (Thomas & Mercer): There's been a lot of changes at the firm as of late, and every single one of the editorial and/or marketing people I started out with in 2012 are gone baby gone. Some good people have taken their place, but while last year at this time I was hitting the overall number 1 spot on the Amazon bestsellers list with The Remains (and all the residual sales that went with it), this year thus far has been kind of a yawn. Sure books like The Remains and the Jack Marconi PI novels continue to carry the bulk of the load (I have a whopping 9 books with the firm), there hasn't been a promo yet that's propelled a single title to the top 10 much less the top 100. But that doesn't mean it won't happen next week. So if I had to guess without looking the numbers up, I'm around the 3-4K sales range there.

Indie Books: In terms of full-length novels, I believe I'm somewhere around 15 now. I'm not sure how I've done it, but I've sold around 7-8K books during the first quarter, not including KDP borrows. So that's something to be proud of. The Ashes, the sequel to The Remains, is doing very well, and considering AP passed on it, saying it's too late for a sequel and therefore a "non-starter," I'm more than pleasantly surprised. Now at the same time, I've also given away more than 10K books so far this quarter and if I had to guess, that's one of the reasons for my success (remember, there are hybrid authors out there who sell way more than me, and more who sell way less, so it's all relative).

So where does this leave me? I'm making a nice living, and slowly, incrementally doing better with each new book published one way or another. Some might say I should pick a method of publishing and stick with it, but truth is, if I were to go back to being traditional exclusively, I'd have to pick up more freelance work, or maybe grab a teaching gig. So that's out of the question because I love my freedom. And I'm not ready to go entirely indie either, because I enjoy my books being in stores and libraries, and I love the trade reviews, and you're just not going to get that with indie (sorry for the run-on).

I'd like to think I'll do more books with AP, but I might be tipping the scales with 9 novels right now, plus When Shadows Come is still in the red in terms of its earning out its advance (Come on guys, let's market the hell out of this one. It was selected as a Suspense Magazine Best Book of 2016 for God's sakes...What's not to like?)

So now I'm wide and thus far I'm selling almost the equivalent of what I would have been making in page reads per day at Select. So that's a good thing. But more marketing will be needed in order to get the word out. That includes Facebook and Amazon Ads.

As for the production end of things, you'll recall in a past post that I have committed myself to writing only fiction this year (that can change), and thus far I'm putting out on average 10K new words per week, plus rewrites. So this is a full-time job to be sure. But what this means is, I not only have a new thriller for a traditional publisher to pick up, I am, at the same time, able to publish a series novel, novella, or short story at least once per month. And what's the best marketing tool for a writer? Proliferation. Or, simply writing more books. Write, publish, rinse, repeat. Word of mouth is a big help too, but you have no control over that. So if you're a writer, turn off the Twitter, and get busy. Get writing.

For links to all my "wide ass" books and all the stores that sell them go to:
WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM

 

Why Publishers Hate Writers...

Okay, I'm exaggerating here. Perhaps even grossly.
But maybe it's more accurate to say, publishers need writing, not writers. And to a degree, editors enjoy terrific relationships with their authors, the big sellers and the dogs included. I have several editors with at least three separate publishers at present and I consider them friends. Same goes for my agent (we laugh at our stupid ass jokes more than we talk actual business. Life is short after all).

But the point here is that publishing houses, especially the big ones, need content and lots of it, that will drive sales (only about 10% of the titles make 100% of the profits). They don't need writers per se. In fact, when the day comes where writers, like waiters at McDonald's who are slowly being phased out for the cheaper robotic equivalent, aren't required to produce high quality literature and thrillers, there will be quite a few of us trying to land a new occupation.

Or will we?

I've been preaching for a quite a while now that writers, like stockholders, need to diversify. They need to tap into many different forms of publishing, including traditional and indie. Therefore, when one opportunity dies because of any number of reasons, the writer can then rely on his income from another source. This is what the hybrid model is all about.

I learned the hard way. Back in the late 90's and early 2000s I went all in with one publisher while cutting ties with the rest of my writing and publishing venues, and when the publisher went through a consolidation and kicked a bunch of editors and writers out into the street, I suddenly found myself starting over. The publisher really didn't care very much about me as a writer, or a human being with a family and little kids. The publisher already got its writing...its content...and while I, the writer, was kicked to the curb, the publisher hung onto the writing, until many years later when, through careful and expensive negotiations, I was able to yank the rights back. Thank God, because the books I'm talking about would go on to sell a few hundred thousand copies under new management.

Publishers may not actually hate writers, but no one is going to put the tender loving care into a manuscript like you the writer can. No one is going to push your book in the marketplace like you will. It's probably more the case that an overburdened publisher will choose to ignore it, or toss it up against the wall to see if it sticks. Only you can take control of your own work and promote it to the best of your ability. Which is why every writer should publish a significant amount of titles under an indie label.

Going indie was something I resisted for a long time. But when I started realizing the financial results that can come from publishing just a few indie titles, I began to change my mind. Today I have maybe eight novels and some short stories published under my label, Bear Media/Bear Pulp, but I hope to double that over the course of the next twelve months, doubling or even tripling my monthly take in the process. Sure, I'm still working with publishers (I'm currently in contract negotiations for two books). But I always keep in mind the fact that the publishers are interested in the content, not the man.

Like they say in the Godfather, it's nothing personal, it's just business. 

Tessio got fitted for a pair of concrete shoes. But it was purely business.

But that's all the more reason to go hybrid, to build up a personal list of books alongside your traditional titles. A couple of days ago, a writing colleague asked me what I foresee for the next five years of publishing. I told him, I see many more books being published by many more writers, and that discoverability will be the key. I also envision traditional publishing giving way to more and more indies who build up a significant subscriber list and who eventually will sell their books primarily out of their own website, which will act as their own personal bookstore. Many authors are doing this now, and even selling works from other authors as well.

Hockey great Wayne Gretzky once said, the secret to greatness isn't in knowing where the puck is on the ice at any given moment, but where the puck is going to be. The same can be said of the writing and publishing game.

WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM

By the way, I'll be speaking about this very topic at this years Writer's Digest Conference in NYC on August 11-14. Stop by and introduce yourself. 




  

Turning a Bad Thing into Gold

I'm by no means a Midas type of guy. Meaning, not everything I touch or write, for that matter, turns into gold. But I have become a survivor. Case and point: Eight years ago this week, my second wife and I split up. I packed up my stuff along with my then thirteen and nine year old son's stuff, and moved from a huge four bedroom, three bath house to a two bedroom, one bath apartment. My youngest son was forced to leave his school and his friends while my oldest son became quite angry and at the same time, withdrawn over what to him, seemed like yet another life rejection. Both boys also had to leave behind their little sister. 

But here's the hard truth of the matter: I had no one to blame other than myself. I'd become a frustrated and unhappy young man. Having achieved some major success just a few years before in the form of quarter million dollar two book deal with Delacorte Press, I felt that I was entitled to more success. When that deal eventually went sour due to the publisher's corporate problems and I was left high and dry, I fell into a tailspin of despair that made life with Vince pretty unlivable.

Still recovering from the ill effects of a very expensive first divorce, my finances were in a shambles, my debt was enormous, and I had no real cash coming in. To make matters worse, I had no publisher and even my then agent was no longer returning my calls. That Christmas morning I was so depressed, I woke up, went straight for the refrigerator and cracked open a beer. I had reached rock bottom. As I stood there with the beer in hand and a tear running down my cheek, I knew I had two choices. I could either keep sliding south, which of course means six feet under. Or I could pull up my bootstraps and start climbing out of the hole I'd dug for myself. Luckily I tossed out the beer and got digging.

It was around this time I started writing THE REMAINS, a story about twin girls who were abducted back in the 1970s when they were only twelve by a madman who lived in a house in the woods behind their home. In part, the story was based upon my breakup with my second wife and I was able to utilize some of our relationship as the basis for the main characters. In this case, my protagonist, the artist and art teacher Rebecca, still maintains a friendly if not loving relationship with her ex, Michael. Michael is a writer who, having once before hit it very big, fell into a trap of partying like a rock star until one day he woke up in a hospital only to realize that everything he worked so hard for had turned to shit. And like me, he had only himself to blame.

Michael still loves Rebecca and since she is his muse, he insists on writing inside her apartment. When Rebecca begins to receive strange paintings with messages hidden inside them from an autistic savant who is her student, she comes to realize the paintings are warnings. The man who abducted her all those years ago has been released from prison and he's out to finish the job he started with she and her twin sister all those years ago. Only this time, he plans on doing it right. That said, Michael and Rebecca team up not only to solve the mystery, but also to rekindle their love.

Just the other day it dawned on me that if I hadn't broken up with my second wife whom I loved very much, I might never have written THE REMAINS. In fact, I'm quite sure I would not have written the story at all. if I hadn't reached rock bottom and survived it all, I never would have written the character of Michael. Nor would I have nailed the desperate-need-to-survive-at-all-costs that Rebecca experiences when she's being hunted down in the woods by the same man who abducted her many year ago. In a word, I had taken a very bad thing like a breakup, and turned it into gold.

Last month, THE REMAINS sold over 30,000 copies in paper, ebook, and audio. It reached the Top 10 in the UK and the US. It was also, or so my agent tells me, Thomas & Mercer's No. 1 seller for the month of September. Not bad considering the hundreds of books they publish. But the point here is not how well something sells. The point is that I was able to turn a bad situation entirely onto its back, and write something that I am entirely proud of. Something that can stand up in both the literary and suspense genres (since September 1, the book has earned more than forty new 4 and 5 star reviews). 

Today, I'm sitting at my writing desk in my studio and reflecting on all that has changed in the eight years since my wife and I split up. I've published hundreds of articles and photographs for some major news outlets like RT and magazines like Living Ready. I've traveled to from Moscow to the Amazon Basin, and from Shanghai to West Africa. I enjoy extended one and two month writing retreats in Italy. I've written more than half a dozen new short stories and two novellas. More importantly, I've written thirteen new books and have recently completed the first draft of my seventeenth. My debt is gone, and I even have enough money to invest. I don't enjoy the benefits of one publisher. But several.

A number of years ago a prominent local bookseller looked me in the eye and said, "You will never score another major book deal again." Since then I've published (and re-published) seven novels with perhaps the hottest major publisher in the business today. I will be publishing more with them to be sure.

I love proving naysayers wrong. But more than that, I love proving myself wrong. Eight years ago I felt like there was nothing to live for anymore if I couldn't be a working writer, and do so on my own terms. What I had to grow up and realize is that this is a business full of ups and downs and the work ethic must be adhered to like a priest and his daily Our Fathers. But if there is one thing I've learned more than anything else, it's this: Happiness is a choice. It's not something that arrives and departs like the cavalry. Happy people seem to attract other happy people. They also attract success. They are healthy and hopeful. Their dreams are vivid and real. Conversely, the miserable attract misery. They are physically and mentally incapacitated and they are the perpetually plagued. Avoid them at all costs.

Just like Rebecca and Michael from THE REMAINS, my ex and I are giving our relationship another try. Why shouldn't we? We've both changed and managed to ride out our separate storms. We've grown up in the process and learned a whole lot about life. We're survivors.

Want to read THE REMAINS?

Get it at http://www.amazon.com/The-Remains-ebook/dp/B0073I2QHM%3FSubscriptionId%3D1QZMGW0RRJC2PX87HDR2%26tag%3Dsalranexp-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3DB0073I2QHMERE!

  

WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM

From the Jungle to the Frying Pan

You know this particular fish from some James Bond movies.

The plane ride home is a time to reflect. You've spent the better part of 48 hours, hiking, canooing, driving, over some of the most difficult jungle terrain you ever imagined on your way to an airport that's nothing more than a shack with some ceiling fans, and you look forward to going home. You stare out the porthole window of the 757 and watch the snow-capped peaks of the Andes pass you by as the plane rocks and rolls from up-drafts. The turbulence sends chills up and down your spine, but it also makes you feel somehow alive. You feel good because you've accomplished something unusual.

In the Amazon Jungle you were taunted by spider monkeys who swiftly moved in packs of 200 or more, swinging from branches only inches above your head. A family of howling monkeys growled at you while protecting their new baby. A tarantula blocked your path on a narrow trail as you and your guide tried to get back to the lodge in the dark of night. A piranha bit your finger as you pulled it in with fishing line and hook. The bite stung and drew blood. It also caused the guides to laugh out loud while shaking their heads. "Who's the silly gringo in the Indiana Jones hat?"

Now you're home to the daily grind (yes, writers live the grind too!). You went straight to the ortho surgeon from the airport only to learn that you snapped a tendon in your right foot during the many hikes through Peru's mountainous jungle and that now you need an operation that will lay you up for two months. "You didn't hear something go POP?" asked the inquisitive doctor. Not an easy thing to accept for someone who jogs and trains with weights on a daily basis. Not to mention hiking, flyfishing, drumming for my new band, etc. I can't bear the through of sitting for more than a five minutes. But like a Russian travel friend of mine likes to say, "Hey, what can you do?"

Here's what I do: I have an email into my fixer. I'm already setting up the next adventure. Until that time, I have the galley proof of The Guilty (the third book in the Jack Marconi series) to get through, plus the first draft of a new Dick Moonlight novel, Moonlight Weeps. There's an article or two I will be writing, and one being published next week about my adventures in Africa from Living Ready Magazine. I'll suppose also be taking time to heal from my surgery. I'll be healing all summer long. Which also means I can't drive. Oh no, how am I going to get around?

Oh well, welcome to Vincent Zandri's real world...From the jungle to the frying pan.

WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM

  

One step backwards and I become a permanent piece of Machu Picchu history.

  

Your Eggs in a Basket

The dynamic literary duo, Hemingway and Gellhorn, each maintained a steady mix of both fiction and journalism. Why shouldn't you?




Writing is a business.
Think of yourself as (Name Here) Inc.
Which means, change the title of this blog to, Your Eggs in BasketS...Plural.

It's a tired cliche..."Don't put all your eggs into one basket." But you know what gets even more tired? Being broke all the time.

If you want to be a successful writer...a writer who actually makes a good living, eats, travels, enjoys life...then learn to write not only in many different styles and even genres, but don't give up the journalism either. When one thing isn't doing it for you or your wallet, something else will. By splitting up your time between several forms of fiction, be it novels, novellas, film scripts, novel adaptations, etc., along with several forms of journalism, photo-journalism, pro blogging, etc., can you ensure yourself steady and meaningful work.

Take it from one who knoweth. Back in the late 1990s, when I landed my first big book contract, I chucked journalism like a bad habit. When the book deal went south a couple of years later due to a corporate merger, I was left with zero means for earning an income. I had to pretty much beg news media outlets to give me another chance. Which they eventually did. Now, I have several new book contracts, but I still maintain my journalism chops. Never again will I be caught with my pants down around my ankles or my baskets empty of eggs.
 

WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM

 

The Brazill Connection: Noir Author Paul Brazill Speaks Out

 "Hey barkeep, give me another and make it a double. I just read another Zandri novel."

It's amazing how small the world is becoming, and how with the advent of social media and digital publishing, like-minded people (oh shit, I mean "Peeps" in the vernacular of the historical present) are now able to gravitate together to form a kind of family. Noir author and hard-boiled writer Paul Brazil is a member of my family or tribe, even though I have never met him in the flesh and he is an Englishman who lives in Poland. He is a brother/sibling, along with the likes of Heath Lowrance from Detroit (actually, I think it's possible that Heath and Paul are the same man, but I have no way of verifying this), Les Edgerton from Indiana, Ben Sobieck from Wisconsin, Enzo Body Cold and Alessandra Bucheri from Rome (Ok, I've had the pleasure of meeting the latter two this past Spring), and so many more. 

Paul has been responsible for putting together some great collections of short hard-boiled fiction, not the least of which is the popular Drunk on the Moon series and Brit Grit. He is an award winning novelist and short story writer and just an all around great noir afficianado and dude knows way more about the dark world I try to inhabit everyday through my little books and stories than I ever will know. Today he speaks to us about TV. Gritty crime dramas coming at you from both sides of the big drink (Atlantic Ocean, that is). Admittely, I haven't seen any of them since I rarely do TV, but now that I've read the blog that follows I am going to make a point of taking a peak. Who knows, I might actually find something here that's as good as the old Rockford Files series. It's got to be good of Paul Brazill recommends it.

Guest Blog: U S Grit – In Praise Of Southland

by Paul D. Brazill

There’s been a lot of talk about Brit Grit recently- usually from me - and, more specifically, Brit Grit television - edgy, realistic crime drama such as  Cracker, Gangsters and Luther.

The US has also been deservedly praised for producing great crime shows like The Wire and Breaking Bad, of course.

But one show that I think is due more praise and attention is surely TNT’s Southland – a cinema verite look at the rough and tumble lives of a group of LAPD police officers that was created by Emmy Award winning Anne Biderman.

I’ll admit that I only discovered Southland quite recently. I’m a fan of the film director Allison Anders, so I sought out a couple of the shows that she directed.

And it was great, raw, fast paced – and yes, gritty -stuff. Despite a slightly cheesy voice over at the start, as in other sharp American crime shows – like Justified - there was more of human life packed in one breathless 40 minute episode than most series.

But like most great television, you need to see more than the occasional episode. You need to get into it. To let it ferment.

And of late I was lucky enough to see all of Southland Season Four. And beaut stuff it was too.

Heart in the mouth tension. Realistic characters and situations. Sharp dialogue. Great performances – particularly from Michael Cudlitz, Regina King and C. Thomas Howell. Lucy Liu even guested and showed herself to be a cracking character actor.

So, if you want a short, sharp shock of US Grit, check out Southland. You won’t be disappointed.

Bio: I was born in England and now live in Poland. I started writing flash fiction and short stories at the end of 2008.  

I've since had bits and bobs published in various magazines and anthologies, including CrimeFactory, Burning Bridges, Action, Beat To A Pulp, Needle, A Twist Of Noir, Radgepacket and The Mammoth Book Of Best British Crime 8. 

I've also had two short but perfectly formed collections published -13 Shots Of Noir (Untreed Reads) and Snapshots (Pulp Metal Fiction).  

Oh, and I've edited two anthologies - True Brit Grit – with Luca Veste -(Guilty Conscience) and Drunk On The Moon (Dark Valentine Press). Times.

WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM

Got What It Takes To Be A Writer?

Last evening I watched a new movie presented by HBO called Hemingway and Gellhorn. It offered a fascinating but sadly cliched view into the life of two of the 20th century's greatest writers. Both were portrayed as hard drinking, whiskey bottle by the side of their typewriter, bombs blasting in their bedroom, always traveling to exotic locales, wild sex with every sentence individuals. Like their novels, much of this is made up. But then, in some ways Hemingway and Gellhorn lived up to this over romanticized image.

Giving credit where credit is due, the literary couple were more than what was presented on the silver screen (or LCD TV in this case).

In reality they both struggled over their writing, and painstakingly wrote their articles, stories and novels, often wrestling with every word. Hemingway would produce on average no more than 250 new words a day and in the prime of his life, took three straight years off from writing altogether. That's how hard it was for him.

Martha would write alone, sometimes for three or four solid hours a day. Then she would toss it all out and start over the next morning. Like her lover, she possessed a very fine built-in shit detector and in this, she was her own worst critic.

Truth is, they never drank booze while they wrote. They didn't get hammered the night before and wake up fresh and write like the words were simply bleeding out them. This is the stuff of Hollywood. This is romance. This is pure bullshit.

The truth about Hemingway and Gellhorn:

Their writing came first.
It came before love.
It came before war.
It came before partnership.
It came before car payments and mortgages.
It came before children.
It came before health and sickness.
It came before leaky roofs and broken refrigerators.
It came before school PTA meetings and dinner with the neighbors.
It came before birthdays, anniversaries, funerals and graduations.
It came before Christmas.
It came before fun.
It came before happiness and sadness.
It came before God.

This is why fifty years after Hemingway's death and fourteen years after Gellhorn's (both of them by suicide), Hollywood is making movies about the couple. Because they were the best at what they did. And to be the best, you must make tremendous sacrifices.

Being a writer is not about being available to the world. It's about locking yourself away, at a great distance if need be, in order to work. Work alone, with yourself, without interruption. It's selfish and it is painstakingly hard work. In Hemingway's words, it is like "biting the nail."

Do you have what it takes to be a great writer?

WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM

Back in the "W" Column

"Big Blue in action, taking all the right winning chances."

I'm watching the New York Giants play in their first playoff game since 2008 (Don't quote me on that). I haven't gotten the chance to watch much pro football the past few years because usually I spend much of the Fall in Italy. But this year I spent most of the summer in Europe which freed up the football season. Still, work got in the way and I didn't see many games, and then when my team, The New York Football Giants began to lose consecutive games, I figured they'd never make the playoffs anyway. So why worry about watching? Hell, I don't even have a TV.

But then something strange happened. Well, not strange, but important all the same.
The Giants started to peak late in the season.
They regrouped, took a good look at their mistakes, made attempts to correct them, healed their injuries, placed the past in the past and started looking towards the future. And in doing so, they started to win.

Life is like that.
Sometimes when things look like they will never be repaired or healed, you suddenly find yourself back in the winner's circle. I played football for eight years so I guess I feel comfortable with the football metaphor, and after getting my head banged up for all those seasons, I feel like I've earned the right to use it.

But to get back to my point...
Five or more years ago when I was writing the first drafts of my suspense/thriller, SCREAM CATCHER, I had just separated from my wife. I didn't have a new publisher and was barely making a living as a freelance journalist. It was during this time I took a step back and tried to reassess my life. Where had I gone wrong after having scored a major deal with a Random House imprint for two novels (THE INNOCENT and GODCHILD) and at the same time, married the love of my life, only to lose them both?

Curiously, I couldn't point at any one thing I'd done wrong, only that they had gone wrong. So how would I repair my life and get back to my winning ways and perhaps even win my love back? I didn't have the answers. But I did know this: If I made a renewed commitment to hard work and to writing the best books I could in the shortest amount of time, my publishing losses would take care of themselves and begin turning into wins. In other words, instead of brooding and reaching for a quick fix, I started behaving like a winner. This past Spring, when I sold over 100,000 e-Books of The Innocent in 60 days and it resulted in a 7 book "very nice" deal with Thomas & Mercer, I knew that I had indeed taken the necessary steps in order to get back to my winning ways.

All professional success aside, I still had my personal life to think about. My love life. I'd enjoyed some very nice and fulfilling relationships with some very good, if not exceptional women. But for some reason, none of these relationships were working out in the long term. What was going wrong? Like I did with my professional life years earlier, only very recently did I take a step back, reviewed some game tapes as it were, and decided to start becoming a new man. A man who could not only be trusted, but who could trust himself to do the right things. No one wants to be a Facebook or Twitter flirt forever, and frankly, by the time you hit your mid forties, if you still gotta rely on FB "pokes" and "winks" for your jollies, you deserve to be alone.

In the wake of my dad's sudden death, I've started spending some time with someone who used to be very close to me. Very close. We've had some very good times amidst some seriously stressful and sad situations. We're both finding one another as single, free adults with open hearts. That we are becoming friends again and more is plainly obvious. That we are taking it slow and careful is also obvious and smart of us. We're older now. More mature. But we're still very much attracted to the same things that attracted us in the first place all those years ago. You can see it and feel it whenever our eyes connect.

I guess we have every reason not to take a chance on this. We have a history together. A history that went bad. But then, love isn't sometimes risky. It's always risky. So is the writing game. The New York Giants have only inches to go in order to nail a first down. Problem is, it's fourth down. They can take a shot and "go for it" or they can play it safe and kick it away.

They're going for it.

The big bull running back barrels his way through a very mammoth and angry Falcons defensive line.  

They've gone for it and they got the first down.

They took a shot, that now is resulting in a touchdown and the game lead.

Sometimes all that's necessary to becoming a winning player again in life and love is to not only learn from your mistakes, but to simply start living your life like a winner.

GET ZANDRI NOVELS: WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM

Video Games

"Lana Del Rey is a Gamer."

My sons play video games.
Ok, that's an understatement. Not only do my sons (Jack 21 and Bear 17) play video games, they own literally thousands of them. They also own every gaming system available, both TV adaptable and hand-held, and they collect retro systems from the '00s, 90's 80's and even an Atari "Pong" system from the 1970s. The games they purchase and play often arrive to our home in strange packages wrapped in brown butcher paper, postmarked Japan or South Korea and even China. These games will be designed and presented entirely in an Asian language that somehow my sons understand.

The games they play range from G-rated to Mature to Violent with names that have become entirely familiar in and around video gaming circles: Final Fantasy, Mario, Tekken, Street Fighter, and lots more, 

The gaming doesn't stop there.

As many gamers do, my sons are also into the tangental aspects of gaming like graphic novels, video anime, feature length straight-to-video movies, and more. They also maintain a special allure for Bruce Lee, who's early Kung Foo movies curiously follow a video-game-like plot-line of "level's" of battle or fighting, despite their predating practical video game development by a decade or more.

Lately my boys have been designing their own video games starting with humble miniature games in order to educate themselves to the complications and nuances of the art. One day they hope to make their mark on the industry with big games that will be distributed throughout the world.

I grew up with video games which back then in my early teens, were mostly located in video game parlors. Back when you could find records in record stores and books in bookstores. Nowadays it's getting harder and harder to find a video game parlor since just about every household owns some kind of video game system like a Uii or a PlayStation. Certainly just about everyone has access to the Internet. But I never really got into them since I more or less knew that once I was hooked, I would forever be dedicating half my life to sitting in front of a whole bunch of computer generated pixels.

But video games still fascinate me. Especially the ones gamers refer to as "Kill Games."
These first person kill games put you the player in the position of the chaser while you hunt down a series of victims which more often than not assume the form of Zombies (that way they can't ever really be killed). But there are other kill games in which you hunt enemy soldiers or bandits or rednecks driving fast cars. I was curious about what goes into the design of these games and designers who might become so obsessed with making them so realistic and life-like they might go to extraordinary lengths to create them. Like murder for instance. So fascinated in fact, that I decided to wrap a stand-alone thriller around the idea.

The plot I had in mind was not just a simple murder. But an elaborate hunt and chase which would culminate in a murder upon which the chaser would record the victim's screams prior to perishing. The screams would then be used in the design of a Violent First Person video game that would closely resemble the actual hunt and chase that inspired it. That in mind I created a video game designer who is a master of disguise and a serial killer. A man who never stays in the same city for very long and who operates under as many different aliases as he's had facial reconstruction and voice enhancement surgeries. He is a man who will stop at nothing to observe how another human being reacts to a hunt and chase, and he's determined to translate the experience for the video game as accurately as possible.

Even though my sons were able to provide me with almost all the research material I needed for the novel (minus the murder part!) it still took me almost three full years to write the psychological/suspense/horror thriller, SCREAM CATCHER. It's now coming at you in e-Book, trade paper and in a matter of a few weeks, audio, screams and all. It's my contribution to an entertainment genre that has not only fascinated me for a long time, but become an art form unto itself and a way of life for my sons. And even, a living.

WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM

THE BIG THRILL: SCREAM CATCHER

THE BIG THRILL:

Scream Catcher by Vincent Zandri

This is how your life ends: Not with a whimper, but a scream!

Jude Parish is afraid. The former violent crimes cop turned bestselling true crime author has a fear-filled demon lodged inside of him. A demon so real he can only imagine a slimy reptilian beast with scaly skin, black eyes, and razor-sharp fangs having taken up residence inside the place where his once confident and fearless soul resided.

Now, in the wake of his literary success, the ever anxious Jude is hoping to lead a quiet, peaceful life in the idyllic Adirondack vacation town of Lake George, New York with his new pregnant wife, Rosie, and Jack, his young son from a previous marriage. But when Jude becomes the accidental witness to a bizarre “kill game” in which the killer, video game designer and master of disguise, Hector “the Black Dragon” Lennox, insists on recording the screams of his victims prior to shooting them dead, the ex-cop’s life is turned upside down.

When Lennox is arrested by the L.G.P.D. and Jude is asked to act as the state’s “star witness,” he has no choice but to fight his demon-fear and take on the role. But what he doesn’t realize at the time, is that the killer’s arrest is actually the first level in what is a carefully designed and scripted first-person video kill game that will involve his entire family as “players” and “victims.”

How will the kill game end?

Like all violent video games, it will end in death. But it won’t be “Game Over” until Hector Lennox catches the screams of his tortured victims.

*****

“Scream Catcher has the classic Zandri flair, short chapters, cliff hanging chapters, twists and turns, non stop action and page turning suspense. However, this had more drama, less quirky, quip dialogue and more of a psychological thriller plot. Masterful!!!!” –CMash Loves to Read Book Blog

“Readers will be held captive by prose that pounds as steadily as an elevated pulse… Vincent Zandri nails readers’ attention.—Boston Herald

*****

Vincent Zandri is an award-winning, bestselling novelist, essayist and freelance photojournalist. He holds an M.F.A. in Writing from Vermont College and is a 2010 International Thriller Writer’s Awards panel judge. His novel As Catch Can (Delacorte) was touted in two pre-publication articles by Publishers Weekly and was called “Brilliant” upon its publication by The New York Post. Zandri currently divides his time between New York and Europe. He is the drummer for the Albany-based punk band to Blisterz.

To learn more about Vincent, please visit his website: WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM

Reviews from the Heart: Concrete Pearl

Concrete Pearl: Reviewed by "Reviews From the Heart"

Reviews from the Heart: Concrete Pearl




I received this eBook of Concrete Pearl by Vincent Zandri compliments of Pump Up Your Book Tours for my honest review and this one had me hooked from the first page. Being sensitive to my readers this book does contain some profanity and sexual references that one may find common to construction crews dialogue but it does not take away from the value of a well written story.

The character of A.J. Harrison, the daughter of the Harrison's Construction company was a believable one considering she's been doing this kind of work since she begged her father to give her a shot since she was sixteen. Now struggling to maintain a hold on the company on the verge of bankruptcy and multiple fines already from OSHA, if she can't locate her missing subcontractor, James Farrel, she will more than likely lose the business from the amount of pending lawsuits that are building over the cancer cases of the children affected by the asbestos since inhaling the fibers for the nine months she's been working on the school.

When a lawyer, Damien Spain, shows up suddenly and begins offering her help, hired by James' wife, that things begin to take a twisted turn. This novel will hold the reader from the very first paragraph and is so well written, you finish before you realize it which to me is a definite sign of great writing. I award this book a 4 out of 5 stars. For more information about this book, the author and where to pick up a copy of this book, please click on the links below:

Concrete Pearl

How To Keep Going the Next Day

Richard Moonlight doesn't always know precisely where he's going, but he somehow always gets there.


I'm often asked how is that I'm so prolific?
The answer is simpler than you might imagine. And it came to me not in college or MFA writing school, but instead by reading Hemingway's A Moveable Feast. It was inside a cold water flat five or six flights above a square in the Montparnasse district of Paris that the would-be Papa wrote some of his first short stories. Stories that would come to change the literary world as we knew it.

He was able to write his stories with confidence day in and day out by following one simple rule. He would write a certain amount of words everyday and then complete the session by ending in a place where he was sure to go on the next day.

While this took severe discipline it was also liberating to know that come the next morning, you wouldn't find yourself staring at a blank piece of paper knowing that the day before you shot your wadd, as it were.

So then, I'm not Ernest Hemingway. But I do write a lot of novels, and the way to do that is not only to sit your butt in the chair and write whether you feel like it or not (this is your job after all), but also to always make sure that you end in a place that will allow you to continue the next day. The best way to do this is to simply make some small notes right on the page below your last sentence. If your character is about to enter an apartment with his ex-girlfriend in order to steal a zip-drive containing secret nuclear information her new boyfriend is about to sell to the Iranians, you might make a note about what route they take in order to get to the apartment, and the steps they take in order to get there without being spotted. That should be enough to get you moving come the next morning. The rest of the chapter should reveal itself organically for you.

Thanks Papa for making my writing life just a little bit easier. I wish I could say the same for writing school.

GET ZANDRI BOOKS: WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM

MOONLIGHT RISES Reviewed in Denver Examiner

Writer Zack Kopp reviews Moonlight Rises...



The second full-length novel in the continuing Richard "Dick" Moonlight series by Vincent Zandri has been released by StoneGate Ink in Kindle, Nook, and all e-Book forums, available via your Tattered Cover and other retailers. Private eye Dick Moonlight is really dead this time, see. Three thugs in black wearing Obama-masks and communicating with hand-held voice synthesizers pressed against their voice boxes appeared from nowhere and beat him to death in a dark alley in downtown Albany, NY. But why? And forwhat reason! They demanded a mysterious box, see, of unknown proportions the likes of which he’s never heard about. WHAT box?!! They insist he cut all ties with his latest client: a disabled nuclear engineer of Russian heritage by the same of Peter Czech. Is he really from Ruissia? Moonlight can’t be sure, see. It hardly matters, now that he’s dead. Private Eye Dick Moonlight has a blissful out of body experience, his soul floating above his ruined mess of a body inside the Albany Medical Center I.C.U. whereon his one true love, Lola, is standing by his bedside, see.

But then something happens, see. Something bad. This young punk rambles into the I.C.U, see, he takes Lola’s hand, and draws her into a loving embrace over the limp Dick Moonlight. What seemed at first like a sweet peaceful death now causes Moonlight to struggle to reenter his body so he can stare down Some Young Guy and avenge himself, see. The pain of his battery is worsened by the pain of his breaking heart. Even so, as a hardened private dick, Moonlight wants to find out the true identity of those thugs who killed him, see, and decides his bruised and broken body is the perfect place to lay low for a while and pick up information. Yeah, see. Surely he’s not really dead, given the title. Does he come back to life? Will he spring into action, clubbing down attackers with balled fists? And what about those crazy masks? Is this is a political book? Hah. Life sucks, then you die. But Moonlight Rises

To read original review: http://www.examiner.com/books-in-denver/book-review-moonlight-rises-by-vincent-zandri-review

To grab Moonlight Rises: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B005HB16Y6/ref=nosim/theplanningsh-20

ITW: Day 2.67

"Now on the conference schedule..."





Stole away this morning to grab coffee and fresh bread in Grand Central station. In typical Vin manner, the more things get organized and feel like lemmings being led to the slaughter, the more I break away from the heard and do my own thing (ok, the slaughter thing is a bit dramatic and fictional, but this is ITW after all...).

Today however will feature an exciting opp for yours truly while I join a panel of fellow international thriller writers about researching foreign locales. Should be cool. I've not only worked as a foreign correspondent but I spend a couple of months in Florence, Italy every year working on my novels. I've also traveled all over Europe and Asia as a Ghost Writer, a part-time gig I no longer engage in. One person's aesthetic never ever matches up precisely with another's. My ghosting experiences always ended up in a fist-fight or the very least shit storm of slanderous accusations, screams, threat of lawsuit and eventually, only two-thirds of my promised payments.

Some writers have trouble taking orders...

Anyway, I'm off for a run, and a quick subway ride downtown, and then back up to the conference for the panel. Later on, the formal cocktail reception and awards banquet. I've never won an award. But perhaps if I were more of a team player I might win something (the author, thinking about it for a second...Nahhhhh, I'll keep doing my own thing)...

Ciao Ciao

V