ICYMI: Horror Addicts Guide to Life Book 2 Press Tour

 

Still riding on the press train for the Horror Addicts Guide to Life Book 2? Here's a round up of my appearances supporting several of my Frightening Flix editorials and Kbatz Krafts featured in the Horror Addicts Guide! 

Interview at Tomes and Tales

Horror Addicts Featured Instagram Author

What Inspires Horror: Kristin Battestella

Horror Addicts Interview: Kristin Battestella

Kbatz Krafts Excerpt

Get YOUR copy of Horror Addicts Guide to Life Book 2 on Amazon! 

Horror Addicts Guide to Life Book 2 Press Tour!

 

It's Friday the 13th and time to talk about the Horror Addicts Guide to Life Book 2! 

Your Friendly Neighborhood Kbatz is featured with several Kbatz Krafts articles as well as Frightening Flix horror film editorials. 😱

Here's the Official Blurb:

Do you love the horror genre? Do you look at horror as a lifestyle? Do the "norms" not understand your love of the macabre? Despair no longer, my friend, for within your grasp is a book written by those who look at horror as a way of life, just like you. This is your guide to living a horror addict’s life. Our month-by-month almanac with important dates, movie lists, puzzles, crafts, articles, and recipes will guarantee your whole year is occupied with delightful horror activities. Don’t miss our monster guide with articles about vampires, zombies, ghosts, and some creatures that just can’t be categorized. Enjoy interviews with creators of horror content and hear perspectives from different cultures and backgrounds. Read stories of real hauntings, nightmares, and vile vacations. Allow us to curate your horror lifestyle.

With articles by: A. Craig Newman, A.D. Vick, Alyson Faye, Angela Yuriko Smith, Brian McKinley, CM Lucas, Camellia Rains, Carrie Sessarego, Chantal Boudreau, Courtney Mroch, Crystal Connor, D.J. Pitsiladis, Dan Shaurette, Daphne Strasert, Dee Blake, Emerian Rich, Geneve Flynn, H.E. Roulo, H.R. Boldwood, J. Malcolm Stewart, James Goodridge, Jaq D Hawkins, Jeff Carroll, Jonathan Fortin, Kate Nox, Kay Tracy, Kerry Alan Denney, Kieran Judge, Kristin Battestella, Ksenia Murray, Lee Murray, Lionel Ray Green, Loren Rhoads, M.D. Neu, Mark Orr, Martha J. Allard, Michael Fassbender, Mimielle, Naching T. Kassa, Pamela K. Kinney, Priscilla Bettis, R.J. Joseph, R.L. Merrill, Rena Mason, Renata Pavrey, Rhonda R. Carpenter, Russell Holbrook, Selah Janel, Steven P. Unger, Sumiko Saulson, Tabitha Thompson, Theresa Braun, Trinity Adler, Valjeanne Jeffers.

I'll be having some tour appearances with my fellow Horror Addicts Renata Pavrey at Tomes and Tales and Selah Janel later this May so stay tuned and get your copy of the Horror Addicts Guide to Life 2 on Amazon!

(Clicky it's big!)

Conferences, 'Grams, and Craziness

We're 1 WEEK away from the HorrorAddicts.net Online Writers Conference coming February 25-27! Are you ready to chat with authors near and far and get your writing brain on in your pajamas from any and all time zones? 🙋

On one hand, it's much easier to plan an online conference than a real world one. Last year I didn't participate in or host and cover any writing events. Was I too busy, were there not that many events anyway, and did real life just get in the way for a lot of my local literary friends? Time, surgeries, families, travel, work, and more can all impact the energy and inclination to just sit down and write.

We've all been there. In fact, one of my workshops for HOW addresses real world setbacks and finding inspirations. There is of course, a different apprehension that comes with an online event. You begin soft promotion in December inviting participants, but people can have a change of plans in the coming months, forgot about it, sign up and not come back, or just plain forget. With an online event, sometimes people don't realize it is a real thing until you tweet about it fifteen minutes beforehand while I panicking and pray there are no technological issues as people continually ask where is it, what is it, and how does it work? 😕

HOW is just a forum message board, presenters post workshops, articles, and writing tips and you can comment and they will get back to you. There are real time Shout Box live chats with publishers and authors, so the platform runs on ye olden time boards and chats, you know, like what us oldsters used before social media - leave a message and I'll get back to you after the beep and party lines with everyone talking at the same time.  ☎

(on top of the crazy, exercise for Lent!)

On that note, somehow I made the decision to join Instagram as Kbatz Krafts. Of course, after the fact I realized making it two Zs would have been cute, but meh. In no doing Craft DIY articles and Halloween How-To videos year round, I need another place to put photos and step by step documentation. The trouble is, when you are doing a project, I find it very difficult to...stop and take photos and document everything step by step. I don't use a smartphone - gasp get over it - so I video and photograph with my tablet. I'm not in the habit of taking it everywhere, and for me, projects aren't about stopping to show everyone everything at all times. Accomplishing a goal is reward in itself, and as a writer first and foremost, my second joy comes in then writing down everything that I've done.

To me, one reading how I did it is what's the best part, not waiting for the little heart thing on Instagram to light up. It's a little extra craziness to keep refreshing to see who liked a picture or how many views a Youtube video has. Look at that SPAIF segue there! I've never been one to seek attention and validation, so all these like me, please like me social media promotions to highlight my work still feels weird to me, oldster that I am. 👵

This month almost feels like it is more craziness than I can handle. The heck with timeliness and deadlines! Kick rocks 2020! Yeah right. So join HOW if you can, morning, noon, or night, and follow me on instagram, subscribe to my youtube channel, and follow me on twitter but above all, read what I write, mkay? 🙏

GASP - Sometimes I Forget to Blog!

Hello All!

It's going to be a busy Spring between book fairs, podcasts, and getting good and dirty in the garden - “I'll be planting soon....” a la Sophia Petrillo.

Between our upcoming Mount Holly Book Fair April 29, HorrorAddicts.net delectables, ten year anniversary hi jinks at I Think, Therefore I Review, and you know, life, sometimes a writer just forgets to blog. 

 (Because every fricking thing you do has to come with visual media or its trash right? Word.) 

Shameless plugs aside, there are those the increasingly turbulent and wish I didn't have to use it Facebook dramas and the murky navigation of the crowded tidewaters on Twitter. You're either a noise maker, consumer commentor, or a constant content maker. It's all self promotion at its finest aka marketing. Authors must do it. You can't not do it when every publisher wants to see your brand, every magazine expects retweets, and ever link needs a #hashtag. It's become standard, normal, spitting in the internet wind insanity. Who has time for any long form click bait when we do all the little unnecessary necessaries 24/7?

In trying to meet my latest April deadlines, I realized it was time to check on my own blog, as a stagnant post from a few months ago ( We fudge and front for everyone too when it has actually been six months!) would be viewed quite negatively by literary peers, publishers, agents, or anyone you want to find you. Even if that post proves you are on the book tour circuit, active in freelance, and involved with your writerly peers.

For writers trying to make it in this book business, it isn't enough that you are here with blogs and social media, easily found with contact information for when you want them to notice your actual writing. You have to be instant, the latest, rising with your #amwriting – which I still don't know if it is meant to be 'I am writing' or 'A.M. Writing' but whatevs – before posting a picture of your go to coffee and literary lunch on Facebook, which has to be shared on each of your book pages, your profile, all the book groups, and tagged with all your writerly friends who will totally **get** the struggle. It was all probably conveniently shared from Instagram, too.

Maybe the trending topics, food photos, challenges, or contests lead to a great inspirational nuggets and your next blog post – guilty as charged I suppose – but all the social media chasing, promotion, and forgetting to blog, pinterest, Google +, and who the heck knows what else only leads me back to one thing every single time:

When in the heck are writers supposed to actually write? Amirite?!

Oops, I can't end there, every post has to have all the big links, right?! So Be sure to

SEE me at the Mount Holly Book Fair April 29!

HEAR me during the latest HorrorAddicts.net podcast season!

READ me at I Think, Therefore I Review, or someday whenever I publish some fiction again, whenever the heck that me be.

Toodle Loo until my next two times a day post – which translates to eight months in writer time. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

 

She's Alive!

Hello Virtual Family, Friends, and Fiends! 


Yes, believe it or not I am alive! As many of you may know, the past several years I've had a difficult battle with Lyme Disease, and truth be told, there were times I wasn't so sure I was living thanks to the increasing suffering Lyme causes and the difficulty in finding an understanding doctor to steer a proper course of treatment. 

While others may find it therapeutic to discuss such things online or on social media, I'm not one to talk very much about these kind of personal set backs online. I did however, have to stop doing book shows, writing workshops, and all my other appearances in addition to stepping back almost all of my social media presence. My fiction work has been put on hold, but I have continued to do my newspaper columns and website work in small doses mainly at Horror Addicts.net and I Think, Therefore I Review.

But alas just in time for Lyme Disease Awareness month, my article on Lyme Disease Misnomers and how to be Vigilant Against Them is out now in the Summer 2017 Issue of SEARCH Magazine!

Thankfully, I did find a lyme literate doctor, and with proper medicine and compassionate treatment, I am beginning to be myself again! I don't expect to update this blog any time soon with upcoming book tours just yet, but I am writing the good fight slowly but surely!