Staycation Update and DEAD HEAT Cover Reveal

My staycation is over, and it didn’t work out the way I’d hoped. That’s probably because instead of relaxing or getting out of town, I spent the entire time working on Dead Heat. The good news is, I got halfway through my edits. The bad news is, I ignored everything else I wanted to get caught up on, so when I went back to landscaping a little over a week ago, I was plunged into a stress-a-thon trying to get it all done. The lesson I’ve taken away from this is that it’s impossible to balance everything. My only hope is to eliminate and streamline as much as I can.

The big news today is that I have a cover for my stand-alone book, Dead Heat. Steven Novak, who’s done a lot of the Indelibles covers, put this together for me. Pretty awesome, huh?

I haven’t written my sales copy yet, so I can’t give you a knock-your-socks-off description. Basically, the story is about what happens when a dead man risks his chance at a peaceful afterlife to protect the boy who’s become like a son to him from his violent, meth-addict father. It’s really dark, edgy, and intense. In fact, my whole reason for writing it was to spite an agent who said he couldn’t sell Driven because teens wouldn’t buy books that weren’t edgy. In a weird, twisted way, I really owe that guy. Dead Heat is the best thing I’ve ever written. If I had another week off, I could probably have it ready for my copy editors. As it is, I expect I’ll be able to release it sometime in October.

So how does this fit into the Full Throttle series? It doesn’t. I still have hopes to get book 4, Redline, out this year, but Dead Heat was closer to being ready for publication, so I decided to work on it first. I hope all of you who are waiting for Redline will bear with me.

The other thing I’m working on, when I have time, is nailing down my brand a bit better. I’ve been wanting to put a website together, but I needed some ideas to get started. Indelible and branding expert Ali Cross helped me hammer out a tagline, and I’m working on getting a logo designed. I’m really excited about moving forward on this because I have all kinds of bonus material I want to present when I publish Dead Heat, and the free WordPress format is pretty limiting. One of my goals for this year is more interaction with readers so I can make my fictional worlds come alive. Now that I’ve figured out what doesn’t work as an indie author, it’s time to cast all that aside and start working on the fun stuff.