C. Zablockis's Blog, page 9

Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf, now a days?

Werewolves have always been considered an evil creature in fiction and movies, such as my all-time favorite American Werewolf in London.

They are humans who were unfortunately bitten by another werewolf and inflicted with a curse to transform into a werewolf during a fool moon. The transformation process is long and painful. Once they become the werewolf their human side cease to exist. They act and reason like a wolf with no conscious or remorse and determined to feed on human flesh.

However,...

YA Authors: Capturing a sale from the ever elusive teen

If you’re an indie author, you discover fairly quickly the difficulty to effectively promote a book that ends in a sale. If you’re a YA author, you realize it can be downright impossible yielding a sale from a teen reader.

However, I don’t believe it isn’t impossible. There are several YA authors who’ve successfully promoted to teen readers that ended in thousands of sales. I like to share their secrets to all the other YA authors who are having difficulty selling their books to teens.

I’m curr...

In recognition of shark week, my own personal shark encounter

I was born and raised in southern California. I spent most of my life at the beach. One summer, when I was eighteen years old, I went to Huntington Beach. It was the hottest I ever remember it being along the coast over one hundred degrees with zero wind. Generally, the coast doesn’t get above eighty in the summer, but that day it was different.

The beach was pack with dark brown oiled up bodies lying on large beach towels a foot apart, listening to their radios and drinking soda. I was one of...

Killing animals in movies, necessary to the storyline or not?

I’ve noticed the past decade more movies are including scenes where animals are being slaughtered by crazed killers. Movies like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo where the adopted cat was left disemboweled on their door step as a warning. But are these scenes necessary to the plot line?

It depends.

Movies like Cujo by Stephan King, I vote killing the dog necessary since it was the only way to keep it from tearing the woman and child apart.

Halloween, I vote it’s a toss-up. If the director used so...

Kindle Conversion Check List

Converting to Kindle format from Micorosoft Word

Converting your manuscript to Kindle mobi format can be difficult, especially if you’re converting from Microsoft Word DOC format. Word documents are cluttered with extraneous html tags and proprietary scripting that must be stripped out of the document before converting to mobi format or it’ll have several formatting issues.

If you are a more advance computer user and have InDesign CS 4 or higher, I recommend converting your manuscript to this f...

A tribute to one of the greatest horror actors

When I was a little, I had the special privilege to listen to a reading by Vincent Price. He read “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe. The way he read the story made it 100 x’s scarier than I ever could imagine. Here’s to you Mr. Price.

The Raven

Edgar Allan Poe

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,

As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

“‘Ti...

How to replicate the True Blood poster using Photoshop in 10 steps

Level of difficulty: Easy, but recommend prior knowledge of work environment
Required software: Adobe Photoshop
Required files:


StockVault Passion 101519
Fangs
Blood

Step 1: Make the skin grey

Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation or (Ctrl + U)

Step 2: Select the background

Click onto the Marque Selection Tool. Enter 1 in feather box. Select the white background , tracing along the woman’s outline.

Step 3: Remove the background

Press the delete key.

Step 4: Set the foreground color

Click onto the Set Foreg...

What ever happen to horror movies that actually scared you?

I recently watched the latest version of Final Destination, not sure what number, I lost count. Within fifteen minutes I was bored. Nothing in the movie actually scared me or even had me on the edge of my seat. I haven’t felt that heart racing, eyes open wide as I wonder what will happen next for a long time while watching amovie.

So I end up pulling out an old classic horror movie DVDwith a great actor like Vincent Price where they didn’t need to slice and dice everyone on the screen to scare...

Paranormal romance cover models, do they really look that damn hot?

I happen to check out a few paranormal romance book covers posted on Bitten By Paranormal Romance blog, since, well, let’s face it some of the models are downright hot. However, a Photoshop expert and ex-model, I know that every commercial photo printed or posted is touched up in some way shape or form. Even Cindy Crawford thighs were touched up to hide her cellulite. Which makes me wondered how much of the cover model(s) where actually touched up or digitally enhanced? So I put one cover to...

How to replicate the True Blood poster using Photoshop in 10 steps

Level of difficulty: Easy

Required software: Adobe Photoshop

Required files:

StockVault Passion 101519
Fangs
Blood

Prior knowledge of Photoshop environment

Step 1: Make the skin grey

Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation or (Ctrl + U)

(Double click image to enlarge)

Step 2: Select the background

Click onto the Marque Selection Tool. Enter 1 in feather box. Select the white background , tracing along the woman’s outline.

(Double click image to enlarge)

Step 3: Remove the background

Press the delete key.

(Doub...