Virtual Street Team and CONTEST!!!

Next month, the Generation Dead series will finally be available in electronic editions in the U.S., and I'm hoping that you (yes, you--the one with the cute hat, and also you there in the purple, and the one who had the Cobb salad for dinner, and you, who always sits on the left hand side of the bus near the window in the third seat--all y'all, actually) will help with the "launch".

I will be giving many wonderful prizes to randomly selected people who blog, tweet, Facebook, or post info about the upcoming editions. Any old post will do. "I read a moldy dead tree version of Kiss of Life and I liked it, and now it is coming out on the Kindle" or "I'm really excited to read the new ebook edition of Passing Strange" or "The GenDead series made me wish I was dead, and not in a zombie way, but you should think for yourself and give the new electronic editions a chance on March 22." Anything along those lines. I'll be googling "Generation Dead series ebooks", but you could post a comment here on my blog or on my Facebook page to make it easier to find you.

Also, one mention would be nice--two at the most; one prior to launch and one on launch day. I'm torn between my desire to "get the word" out to reach new readers vs. creating an obnoxious spamtastic (spamsmodic?) advertising campaign. If I see a book recommendation pop up from a writer or a Facebook friend or a blogger I read it makes me happy and I may act on the recommendation. If I see the same recommendation from the same person every day for two weeks, I assume that they have been replaced by a Pod Person and I never take their recs again. So if you are so moved--I'd appreciate a quick plug. But please, no spamination.

As far as the goodies go:


I'll be giving away a signed copy of Passing Strange every day during the week the ebooks launch to randomly selected members of the Virtual Street Team (which needs a cool zombie-themed name--a signed copy of PS to whoever gives me the best one!!!).

One Virtual Street Team member will receive the complete signed GenDead series in hardcover!. I haven't decided how I'll pick the winner of that one--most clever post? The post that gets the greatest number of responses and comments? Someone I like?

And to help you help me help you help me, here are some interesting facts about the new releases:

Each title will contain a special, brandy new GenDead short story written just for these editions! Wow!

All three books--Generation Dead, Kiss of Life, and Passing Strange--drop on March 22!

Each edition will contain all of the zombie-riffic words that were in the print editions (unless we find any mistakes that need correcting)! Plus as noted above, brandy new short stories!

These new editions will be completely impervious to your little brother leaving abig Cheeto thumbprint on them!

So again, if you want to help with the launch, blog, post, text, status update, vlog, IM, chat or otherwise Internet-thingy "Generation Dead series ebooks" and "March 22". Wonderful prizes await!

GenDead Around the World

And here I'll take a break from posting paperback covers from my library to posting one of my own covers. Here is the cover for the Turkish edition of Generation Dead, out this month from Artemis:

Great Paperbacks I Have Loved-- the Work of Shirley Jackson

I'm still loading up Expedit, reordering, re shelving, etc. And reading. Reading, reading, reading.

Today I'm posting images of the editions of Shirley Jackson paperbacks I love. My first introduction to Shirley Jackson was through the works of Stephen King; when I was a young reader I loved King, and I wanted to read what he read, and so his book Danse Macabre was like the Rosetta Stone of horror (and to a large extent, science fiction). He was the first author that I would hunt around for every scrap of writing, every review, and every interview, and Kind was always extremely generous in sharing his passions about what he read. The reading list from Danse Macabre was where I started, and one of the first books I read on the list was The Haunting of Hill House, which to this day remains one of my favorite novels, and created a life-long love of haunted house stories. I'll read just about any haunted house story that comes my way, but few even come close to the perfect gem that is The Haunting of Hill House (I just finished writing a haunted house novel, hopefully coming soon to a bookstore near you.

This is isn't the edition I first read, but it is my favorite of the three I own. The cover is a still from the movie The Haunting , which I thought was a pretty good adaptation of the novel. I read this edition again every couple years.



I posted the cover of We Have Always Lived in the Castle last blog, but The Sundial is a close third for me. Nothing like an end of the world dark comedy to cheer one up:



Here's the psychedelic cover of The Bird's Nest, a novel of split personalities:


I just this moment realized how much it reminds me of the cover of Ssssh by Ten Years After:



Groovy, Man.

Here's Hangsaman:



Which someone smarter than me could draw parallels with Catcher in the Rye, except in this Holden is a girl, and instead of doing madman stuff actually does insane stuff.

Hmm, I still haven't found my neat old copy of The Road through the Wall, and I can't find the cover online--I'll scan it when it turns up!

But then, there's this:



Great title, great cover. Think I'll read it again.