I have LAUNCHED a new collection of Short Fiction - 10 stories designed to snatch the mind of the reader for the duration of the story - each story in rapid succession. These are tales I imagined as an O'Henry strolling through The Twilight Zone. I priced them at 1.99 and placed them on Kindle shelf in a matter of hours once they were vetted and edited and reviewed.  My son did the cover as I rely on him for all my Indie titles. He does stunning work at www.Srwalkerdesigns.com  his company.

Here is where the book can be found for purchase -- http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00V2I1QUW/ref=cm_sw_r_fa_dp_0N1dvb0MDGGYS

As with all my work, I labor greatly to make it REAL even if it is a truly off the wall plot with characters riddled with flaws and oft driven by phobias and addictions, and sometimes physical and emotional problems if not downright psychological issues.

Here is the lovely cover art:

OFF KILTER Interview!

An Off Kilter Interview of Robert W. Walker:

 

Geoffrey Cain, author of the Bloodscreams Series of horror novels interviews his

 

illegitimate father, Robert W. Walker, author of a few books, too, and some of them

 

are good books. 

 

Cain:  Could you tell the readers a little bit about yourself?

Walker: How little? You mean my height, weight, length of index finger, toes?  Oh,

 

you mean like biography. We have no time here for that. Move on.

 

Cain:  What do you like to do when you're not writing?

Walker:  Write more. Seriously, I go watch Gotham, Sons of Anarchy, reruns of the    

 

Sopranos. Call it research. Been fascinated with good storytelling wherever I find it all

 

my life.

 

Cain:  What’s your favourite food?

Walker:  Dog when prepared right.  Just kidding! Stop throwing dog bones at me. 

 

Seriously, I truly enjoy lobster, shrimp, fish…but huge fan of Italian as well…and then

 

there’ BBQ ribs and Alice Springs Chicken.

 

Cain:  Who would be on the soundtrack to your life story?

Walker: Hmmm…not Blake Shelton or Garth Brooks; more likely Bob Marley or Bon

 

Jovi. Sorry…that’s just me. The WHO might fit.

 

Cain:  Tell us a dirty little secret?

Walker:  That Geoffrey Cain is one of Robert Walker’s alter egos. HA, REVEALED

 

and unmasked!

 

Cain:  What advice would you give to your younger self?

Walker:   I have no younger self; I am a vampire. Age has no meaning for me.

 

However, I do have one regret turning into an aged remorse—Wish I’d taken off for

 

Hollywood as a kid.

 

 Cain:  Characters often find themselves in situations they aren't sure they can get

 

themselves out of. When was the last time you found yourself in a situation that was

 

hard to get out of and what did you do?

Walker:  I stewed, and then I stewed, and when it was almost over, I stewed some

 

more. Let us say it had to do with a horribly toxic relationship. I extricated myself in

 

the end by moving 1000 miles away and getting a Chicago lawyer.

 

Cain:  Who are some of your favourite authors?

Walker:  Too many to enumerate but here goes – Mark Twain, Shakespeare, Dumas,

 

Dickens, Doyle, Emily Dickenson, Victor Hugo, Mark Twain again…Kipling, Robert

 

Bloch, Richard Matheson, Rod Serling, Dean Koontz, Stephen King, Martin Cruz

 

Smith, JA Konrath, David Ellis, David Morrell, John Hershey, Edgar Allan Poe,

 

Lovecraft, Einstein, and I know I am missing some like Aldous Huxley and the genius

 

who wrote Lord of the Flies, and author of All Creatures Great and Small, James

 

Harriot (closest thing to Mark Twain since Mark Twain). These are writers who can

 

move me to laughter and to tears.

 

Cain:  What was the last great book you read, and what was the last book that

 

disappointed you?

Walker:  Amazingly enough, just reread the remarkable, unbelievably wonderfully

 

written boy’s life—The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Terrific what Twain could

 

accomplish and how inspiring to learn from my spiritual mentor still after all these

 

years. Worst – I tried my desperate best to see what all the fuss was with James

 

Patterson and I was appalled  instead. Will say no more.

 

 Cain: What is your all-time favourite horror novel, and film?

Walker:  Novel scariest – The Exorcist which goes way beyond the film. Film scariest

 

has to be the original ALIEN.

 

Cain:  Mr. Walker, you’re working on your 60^th book. What’s it going to be about?

Walker:  It will be #5 in YOUR and MY Bloodscreams Series, Geoffrey. Me writing

 

as Geoffrey Caine again. Last time was Bayou Wulf, almost maybe perhaps two years

 

ago. There were the original three published via St. Martins Press and now on Kindle –

 

Vampire Dreams, Werewolf’s Grief, and Zombie Eyes, followed by a Kindle Original,

 

Bayou Wulf. The new instalment is in the works, featuring Dr. Abraham Stroud,

 

archaeologist who digs too deep and comes up with objects that are supernatural every

 

time. He combats the giant White Wurm this go round. NYC is having serious break-

 

ins from subterranean house guests who’re just not wanted except wanted dead.

 

Cain:  Hold on—you and me…we’re one and the same?

Walker:  Sorry, I am Walker, and you are pseudo-Walker.

 

Cain:  This ends our interview; I am feeling a bit thin.

Walker:  Sorry…there’s no delicate way to get out of these circumstances except to say

 

goodnight old friend.

 

Other pen names Walker has used – Stephen Robertson, Glenn Hale, Evan Kingsbury.

 

 

Occurrance at Owl Creek Bridge

The Dirty Deeds continues. There is much to cover in terms of Marketing With Attitude.  Have a gander and I hope this helps with your endeavors:

Marketing With Attitude

or

Practical Tips for Indie Authors

by Robert W. Walker, author of 56 Kindle titles, 33 audible.com titles

Trust me, Marketing Responsibly can be a barrel of fun, if one comes at it with the right attitude. It helps if you are, or have ever been, a closet Advertising Executive. It helps if you have a steady stream of creative and inventive ideas streaming through your skull or if ideas are being channeled through your fevered brain by the deceased creator of The Pillsbury Dough Boy or the Ajax Dutch girl.

You definitely want to approach selling of your book with a proper good emotional high that involves convincing yourself that it can be done, and then going about doing the job.

Indie authors are lucky today as never before. With the ease of a keystroke nowadays we can access our book on a site like Amazon.com/Kindle and place our book cover and description onto our Facebook wall or pin it to Pinterest or add it to our Twitter feed. This is tempting in and of itself, and historic in and of itself, but don’t do it without flare.

How can one add flare to a post about one’s own book? First get into character—the one you conjured up to pitch your book; the one who wrote the book’s dynamic description. Own that character as the way to book sales. You wrote copy for your book when you did the book description. You put copy-writer hat on for that. Now it’s sales marketer hat.

It all begins with humor and insider information that only you have ready access to. Information about your book and a self-deprecating attitude toward your book. First off, do not be afraid to poke fun at your own title or your genre. People love an author who can make himself the butt of the joke.

In addition, everyone loves a clever SEGWAY and a good joke. Use humor. Especially self-deprecating humor. For example, I might call my Instinct serial killer series “palatable—raw yet crunchy and binding” followed by a hehehe or an LOL. Else post a line in the story that might get a laugh, or a bit of dialogue that might be humorous. I will also make jokes surrounding the genre. A specific example here:  Speaking of my title Werewolf’s Grief, I might easily joke thusly:  “And you thought only Charlie Brown experienced GRIEF. It’s not easy being hairy all over.” The fine line between humor and horror is as thin or as thick as blood. 50 Shades of Blood Read Orange. You get the picture. Utilize what is current, what is in the hopper. Read Orange not Red Orange. “Blood Red is the New Black.”

Another approach to getting a look-see at your opening pages via the peek inside the book on Amazon.com for Indie authors is to work with your platform or one of the issues raised in your book. If autism, for example, is a part of the storyline or child homelessness or the supernatural, or if said issue has a part in the list of characters, highlight and emphasize the issues close to your heart in your ads. These issues would not be in your book if not important to you, and if important to you, then they will be important to others.

Finally, the tried, the true, the clichéd are all wonderful boons to crafting clever commentary surrounding your gem of a book. A quick run through of a book of clichés could really help here, but I simply use print magazines. Pick up lines, I call them. “A book is a terrible thing to waste…”  or “Here is your book, here is your book on speed!”  Open any magazine and scan the advertisements for any and all products, be it cereal or soap or electronics. Clever advertisers utilize that which is familiar. Familiar comes from the collective unconsciousness ala family. Familiar is warm and cozy.

A familiar line such as “The Sky is Falling” actually fits in my Pure Instinct where the sky indeed is predicted to fall and it does. So I’ve utilized the phrase for that title. You see an ad for Campbell’s Soup that reads: “It warms you to the bone” but for my suspense novel it reads: “It WARNS you to the bone.” I often cite the “Surgeon General’s Warning” against reading my books while anywhere but below covers, and certainly to not listen to one of my audiobooks while driving.

A familiar turn of phrase or new twist on one is an immediate attention getter, and that is what all advertising is meant to do – get attention for your book.  So you find an ad in a magazine for a muscle car that reads – “Finally, a car with real muscle and torch.”  You rewrite it for your sales ad to:

“Finally, a book with muscle, torch, and verve enough for the most jaded reader.” Almost any print ad can be helpful in posting thusly. I suspect you can find between 5 to 10 ads in a single magazine that you can apply to your book. With magic marker, mark out the word CAR and replace it with Book or your title or Novel.

Without a dime out of pocket, these three steps have helped sell many of my books. Set your timer. Go on social media for a set time, visit your book on Amazon, keystroke the link for other venues and ADD your AD. Remember keep a positive and humorous attitude. People respond to confident and positive and humorous and clever approaches to selling any product. Why not the same with a book?