Jason Brant's Blog, page 35

OK, Hugh Jackass. We Need To Talk.

If this movie sucks, I'm going to find you.

This is one of my favorite Wolverine storylines from the comic books.  The origin story covered in X-Men Origins: Wolverine is another one of my favorites, and that was all kinds of shit.  To be fair, you absolutely crushed your portrayal of Wolverine.  Seriously, you were bad ass.  It hurts me to admit that, but it's true. The movie, however, didn't do it for me.

Wolverine should not take down helicopters with his claws.  He shouldn't be in a boxing match with the Blob.  Gambit can't manipulate gravity.  And what in the name of shit did you guys do to Deadpool?

Wolverine should be fucking people up.  He should be a little ball of muscle and rage.

So here is your warning, Hugh.  Don't make me unleash the full power of my marketing machine on you.

If this movie sucks, I'm going to blog about you, Hugh.  Dozens of people will read it and laugh. Maybe even fifty.I'm going to post about you on Facebook.  Sure, Facebook only shows 10% of my readers the posts I make - but I'm going to do it anyway.  Maybe I'll even pay to promote it.  (Screw you, Facebook. Stupid dicks.)I'm going to print your picture out on a coffee mug at Wal-Mart and then smash it.  Yeah, that's right. The video I make from that will go straight to you YouTube.  Boom.I'll go to sporting events and hold up posters talking about how much ass you suck.I'll up vote every negative review for your movies on IMDB.  Burn.
I don't want to give away my entire revenge plan, so I'll stop there.
But heed my warning, Mr. Jackass.  I'm going to see The Wolverine this weekend and I'll have my smartphone in my pocket.  I'll unleash my full wrath before the credits have even rolled, if necessary.  Don't ruin my childhood.
P.S. The Prestige is awesome.  Don't tell anyone I said that.
P.S.S. The poster for this movie is amazing.
P.S.S.S.  I still hate you.

Hire an Editor, Dumbass

Yeah, I'm talking to you, indie author.
Having your mom read over your manuscript isn't good enough.  Trust me, I speak from experience.  Moms are great at a lot of things, but picking apart their child's work isn't one of them.
My first two books were very, very poorly edited.  I did hire someone, but he was overworked and didn't do a particularly good job.  I found Cynthia through the mega douche Elle Casey's Facebook page.  She was an aspiring editor at the time, so I took a chance and gave her my novel THE GATE.  The rest, as they say, is history.
She has worked on all of my novels since.  Cynthia offers a plethora of options if money is an issue for you, but I would recommend getting the Detailed Copy Editing and Proofreading Package.  It will really cut down on the amount of typos that make it into your final manuscript.
I would also recommend getting a few sharp-eyed beta readers.  No single person can comb through a 100k word manuscript and find every error.  It's not going to happen.  Even if your editor has a 99.9% accuracy, that would still leave a hundred problems with your book.  Don't dick around with this.  Again, I speak from experience.
If it sounds like I'm shilling for Cynthia, it's because I am.  She rocks.
Actually, I don't even know if this counts as shilling... I'm outright telling you to use her service without pretending to be unbiased.
Whatever.  Go hire her.
Shut up.

Audiobook Samples

Here are samples from my two audiobooks.  The Gate is available now and The Dark will be up for sale in six weeks or so.  Check 'em out!  Robert Martinez is the narrator and does a fantastic job with voice work.

Mosquito - Why Aren't All Movies This Amazing?

Whoa.  Just... whoa.  It's rare that you stumble across something that exceeds every expectation.  My wife and I enjoy watching schlock every now and then.  This is one of the all-time greats.  It's one of those SciFi Channel (I hate that they changed the name to SyFy) movies that knows how ridiculous it is and plays it up to the max.

An alien ship crashes in a swamp.  A mosquito feeds on the alien.  Shit goes downhill.  I just summed up this masterpiece for you.



The special effects in this movie are beyond awesome.  A dude's eyes explode from his head because a mosquito is draining his blood.  Why?  Who the hell knows.  Of course, we get some obligatory boobs in the middle of the movie.
Some great dialogue is sprinkled throughout, including gems such as:
"Hey doc, that's science fiction bullshit!""No, you... are living... in science fact!"
"If I wasn't having such a bad day, I'd kill you.""Better men than you have said that to me - many times."-The guy who said that people have threatened his life was just a normal dude.  I'm not sure who he's hanging out with, but if you're having people contemplating your murder, you might want to make some life changes.  I also don't understand why the first guy won't kill him because he's having a bad day.  That seems totally opposite to me.
One of the main characters disappears at the end of the movie.  He falls into the basement of a house.  One of his friends runs downstairs to find him, but he's never mentioned again.  Sweet.
Gunnar Hansen is in this movie too.  He's the dude who played Leatherface in the first Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  And yes, he picks up a chainsaw to fight Mosquitos.  It would have been a cool scene if he didn't wield the weapon like he was in the middle of a stroke.  Seriously, the fight sequence with the monsters and the chainsaw-wielding Gunnar is mind-numbingly ridiculous.
You NEED to watch this movie with a couple of beers.  It is so hilarious that I think Erin and I will have to check it out again, soon.  It's just that great.
Oh, and the black guy in this looks remarkably like Chef from South Park.

My Wife Eating Spicy Food AGAIN

I'm not sure what made her order the Jalapenos again, but her reaction is just too funny.  I recorded this with the front facing camera on my phone, in a dark bar, so the quality isn't the best.  The fellow bar patrons around us were really funny.

My Wife Eating Jalapenos

Sweet Paperbacks

Though I make most of my money in ebook sales, I have to admit that holding your own paperback is a really cool feeling.  Like most other authors, I'm still figuring this whole process out as I go.  However, I'm a year and a half into this thing, so let me give you a piece of advice.
Hire a cover artist.
I know, I know.  A few authors are flipping off their monitors right now.  If you have the ability to create truly great covers on your own, then good for you.  Most of us will spend hours upon hours trying to make something and the end result won't be as good as just paying someone to do it.  The time savings alone are worth it to me.
Anyway, the whole point of this post was to show you guys how beautiful my last four novels look in paperback.  I've just had The Gate and the West of Hell Omnibus redone.  If you have one of the originals hang onto it - it will never be printed again.  These new covers are stunning though.  Rene at www.phycel.com does my artwork now and my stuff is way better for it.

Devoured

The Gate

The Dark

West of Hell Omnibus

These are all branded with the font and style of my name and the black bar that goes across the bottom, so they look fantastic beside each other on my bookshelf.
Hire Rene.  Your books will thank you.

Release Day: DEVOURED

Finally, I'm releasing a new book!  If you've read my short story, LOTION, from the Apocalypse Anthology, then you'll know what craziness awaits you in DEVOURED.  Crazy action, snarky humor, and bad ass women abound.  Here's the blurb:

Life isn’t kind to Lance York. A full-time job has eluded him for years, his wife loathes the sight of him, his bank accounts are empty, and his wealthy father-in-law revels in his failures.

After he lunges in front of a car to save a sick and disoriented woman, Lance awakens in a quarantined hospital. A devastating plague is spreading worldwide, driving those infected with it insane. Their bodies begin to mutate into horrors that have haunted mankind’s nightmares for centuries.

The world descends into chaos as death holds sway in the streets.

With the help of an unlikely ally, Lance must navigate through the collapsing city of Pittsburgh, striving to escape the madness of the Apocalypse that unfolds around them.

My wife thinks it's my best book yet. Let me know if you agree with her. I'm so pleased with it that I've already started working on a sequel. Hell, this could become a full series. The craziness is deep and I have a lot of stuff to play with. If you buy books from places other than Amazon, check out my Devoured page for links to Kobo, B&N, Apple, Smashwords, the paperback, and anywhere else you want.

New Goals for 2013

Here are my tentative goals for the next half a year or so.  I say tentative because I usually blow my deadlines to finish one book, and then release the next early.  What can I say - I suck.

1.  Release DEVOURED during the last week of June or the first of July.  I only have a few more pages to write, followed by a second and third draft.  This goal is a piece of cake.
2.  Write three more short stories through July and August so I can release a collection of them by the time the NFL season starts.  I already have the imagery for the cover, but I need more stories.  I'll submit one of these to a new anthology called STALKERS.
3.  Complete the sequel to DEVOURED which will be titled CONSUMED.  I have some really cool ideas for this book and I plan on starting it within a week or two of finishing the first.  The hope is to release it in August.
4.  Write a sequel to ACES HIGH with Elle Casey.  I have no idea when we're going to actually sit down and do this, but we've kicked around some interesting stuff for it.  It'll take a little longer for us to write because we're both working on other stuff, but it will get done at some point this year.
5.  After CONSUMED I will either write a third book in the series (if anyone survives the second one) or I'll start a completely different novel.  I already have the story for it in my head.  It's a real doozy.  This book has to be out by the end of October.
6.  And now... the book I've been promising forever... REVERB.  I really, really want to finish this by the end of the year.  The problem is that the ending of ECHOES was so crazy, that the world will have fundamentally changed.  If you haven't read the book, don't worry, I won't spoil it for you.  But I need to think this one through some more.  I want to nail it.  Asher Benson is seriously pissed off in it, I'll tell you that much.

In summation:

DEVOUREDCONSUMEDANTHOLOGY OF SHORT STORIESUNTITLED NOVELACES HIGH SEQUELREVERBThe question is whether or not I can do all of this by January or so.  Probably not, but I'm sure as hell going to try.  Beyond writing these, I'll also have several of them produced in audiobook format, which is just too cool.
Oh, I also want to finish this diet so I drink BEER again!
Anyone want to share their goals, writing or otherwise?

Did I Hit My Goals?

What does the poster for Man of Steel have to do with this post?  Nothing.  I'm going to see it this weekend and looks awesome.

Anyway, I wanted to do a little recap of a post I made last July.  I put some goals up of what I wanted to accomplish through March of this year.  Here we go.



1.  I'll be releasing my current work in progress, which is still untitled, in August.  It's a horror novel based around a haunted church in Appalachia being investigated by a paranormal television show.
This book ended up being THE GATE.  I not only released an ebook and paperback, but also an audiobook.  Mission accomplished.

2.  Next I'll be writing two sequels to Gehenna back-to-back.  The trilogy will hopefully be completed by Halloween, which is an insane pace for me, but that's the goal.  I've got a few killer ideas for some zombie madness that I think everyone will enjoy.  The trilogy will be called  West of Hell .Nailed it.  Well, almost.  I released Tartarus in September, on target, and Sheol in November.  A month later.  Whoops.  But still, I got the book out in my general time frame.
3.  At some point while I'm working on the Gehenna sequels, I'll also be writing a short story to be included in collection featuring several authors.  The proceeds from that collection will all go to charity.  The story I'm contributing will most likely be a short story based around Ash, and will be a prequel to Echoes.  That could change, but that's the direction I'm heading right now.Got this one finished too.  My first story was rejected because it was too scary.  So I wrote a YA type of story and it went into the Holiday Wishes anthology.
4.  After completing  West of Hell , I'm going to write the much awaited sequel to Echoes titled  Reverb .  If Echoes was The Terminator, then Reverb will be T2.FAIL.  I started writing this, didn't like it, and stopped.  I still plan on writing multiple sequels starring Asher Benson, but I don't have a firm plan on when.  HOWEVER, when I stopped writing Reverb, I started another novel named THE DARK.  It ended up becoming my bestseller, by far.  So the fail turned into a win.

5.  With a lot of work and a little luck, I'll finish the Echoes sequel by Christmas.  At the start of the new year, I'll be co-authoring a book with Smelle Casey.  There is no title yet, but we hope to release that in March.
Surpisingly, we released ACES HIGH in February, a month early.  BOOM.
 
On top of my posted goals, I also wrote two short stories that were included in the Apocalypse and Twist anthologies.  I'm really pleased with both stories, considering the ideas came to me because of the central theme of the books.

So that wraps up last years goals.  In the next few days, I'll make another post with the coming years schedule.  Lots and lots of stuff will be coming your way.