My New E-Book: Road Lizard: The Thrill Is In The Kill.

This is the story of a divorced, disillusioned middle man( Jack Deakins) becomes involved with a teen age prostitute named Tracy. As their relationship deepens, Jack hopes that they'll eventually marry and he'll have the kind family that he's always wanted but never had. But unbeknownst to Jack, Tracy is a serial killer who calls herself The Road Lizard. She has killed men in three different states while leading a double life.

Detective Ron Spear is in charge of the case, but cannot seem to apprehend The Road Lizard. She leaves no tracible evidence behind and goes so far as to call him on the phone just to taunt him. Eventually, through a series of events, all three of them intersect with each other, culminating in a tragic outcome.

Road Lizard is a story of love, sex, human desire and violence. Of wanting and of needing. It's currently available on Apple, Amazon, Kobo, Scribed and Barnes and Noble. Until April 22, the e-book  will be free. If you liked Death On Highway 13,be sure to read my latest novel. I guarantee it'll mess your mind.    

The Story About The Cover Of Death On Highway 13

                                                             

                                 

Now, I'm the kind of person who usually doesn't dole out advice unless specifically asked. It's just my nature. However, these days with the proliferation of  E books being put out by aspiring writers I would like to offer one piece of hopefully sage council: it's about the cover of your book. The cover is the first thing prospective readers will see, so you should present the kind of artwork that immediately catches a persons eye and draws them in. If you have an anemic looking cover the reader may look elsewhere . In my opinion, the cover is the door, the book itself is the inside of the room. A writers job is to get the reader into that room and tell them your story.  

Some  E book  publishing companies offer to provide you with a cover, for a fee, and they use a company called Think Stock that has templates. These self publishing companies will simply choose the template that comes closest to matching the title of your book and Voila!, you've got a cover. Many times the poor author is stuck with a lackluster cover. The person looking at it will probably think, "Meh. Not worth it."

When I wrote Death On Highway 13, I envisioned the cover as described in the prolog as a truck driving away leaving a dead body in the street. The corpse resembles a child's doll after the kid had tired of it and has thrown the doll away; crumpled up with wide, staring eyes. You might be thinking, " That sounds like a good idea. Joe should draw it himself."

However there was one teensy-weensy problem: I can't draw to save my life. In fact, my high school art teacher once wrote on my report card: Joe has a lot of imagination, but little to no artistic ability. Ouch! So the hunt was on to find an artist to bring my vision to life. The ones I contacted were rather expensive and I simply did not have the funds to pay them for their work. 

I did make the acquaintance of a woman who claimed to be a talented artist and would draw my cover for $400.00. I made the huge, walrus sized mistake of giving her the money first. One day, the so-called artist dropped by my house to show me what she had done so far. It was awful. It was amateurish. She claimed it was just a rough painting and that she was getting ready to put the finishing touches which would look wonderful. Stupidly enough, I didn't know where this woman lived. All I had was a phone number. I blindly trusted her. When I called her to find out when my cover would be delivered, all I got was: This person's voice mail box is full and is unable to receive any calls. For about a month I called the number she gave me and always got the same answer. So I got zip, zilch, nada, zero for my money. Four hundred dollars down the drain. If I remembered the name of this woman, I'd tell everyone across the web to avoid this con artist at all costs.

So, back to square one. In the meantime, I discovered a website  called  Fiverr where you can find artists. Luckily for me I found an artist named Chiara Noemi Monaco from Italy. This time, I paid $180.00 and she asked me what I wanted. I described the cover I had in my mind. When she showed me the finished product, I damn near had a hundred heart attacks and at my age that's not a good thing. Of course, I exaggerate mightily, but that's how much I loved Chiara's illustration. She took my vision and added in her own creativity. 

Remember, the first thing that commands a potential readers attention is a killer cover. It draws and hopefully, rivets their attention to your novel. From that point on, your words and story telling ability do the rest.  When you get right down to it, it's really up to you, the self published author, to promote your novel to the world at large.

My Girlfriend The Welfare Cheat.

Recently, there have been several stories on my FaceBook wall concerning women who collect welfare, food stamps, medicaid and Section 8 housing while steadfastly refusing to work. The most recent was a woman,with a husband and three kids, who stays home all day and smokes weed while sucking on the Government teat. Now, here's the kicker: she feels no need to find any sort of gainful employment since the State of Texas is providing money, medical, an apartment and food stamps for her, her children and her equally lazy assed husband. As a guy who puts in forty hours  a week at a Casino in order to pay my bills, put food on my table and have medical benefits, this irks the shit out of me.  But then again, I myself am no stranger to this type of woman.

In 1991, I was unemployed, yet searching for a job. One day, I was in a book store and caught the eye of a blonde wearing a mini skirt and black leather boots. I found out her name was Trish and we immediately struck up a conversation. She said she thought I was cute and we went out on a date that same evening. We eventually ended up back at my place and had sex,thus was the beginning of a short lived relationship.

For some unknown reason, Trish's idea of a great date was going to a bar, downing several beers and then going back to my place for a few rounds of sex. And while the sex was good,mind you, we never went to a movie or did anything else other than hang out a bar where Trish would chug several bottles of suds. Her interests were few. As far as people go, Trish was as dumb as a box of rocks. Our conversations consisted of her favorite video or TV shows or favorite rock star. She knew nothing about current events or even cared about what was going on in the world for that matter. Now,you're probably thinking," But Joe,didn't you say you met Trish at  a book store?" Well, yes I did. But the book she was reading was the biography of rapper Vanilla Ice.  Enough said about that.

Trish readily admitted that she was on welfare, food stamps, medicaid and was living at her Mom and Dad's house while waiting for her Section 8 apartment where she and her eight year old son were going to live. She didn't want to get a job because her benefits would have been reduced . As long as she had her son living with her, Trish would receive all kinds of Government goodies while people who worked for a living would be paying the freight for the two of them to live a life of comfort and ease.

And while Trish wasn't the most intellectual person I've ever met, I feel  she was smart enough to know that in ten years her son would be eighteen years old and her ride on the Government gravy train would be coming to an end. In other words, lazy girl didn't want to have to go and get a job(horrors of horrors!). I say this because during one of our nights of passion, Trish took the condom I was about to use and began to play hide and seek with it. She then held it up in the air and made a proposition: If I got her pregnant, she wouldn't hold me responsible in any way. As far as she was concerned, I could simply walk away and never have any further contact with either her or our child if I so desired. This way she would have another seventeen to eighteen years to leech off of the Government.

My reply was an emphatic," No."  I told her if we did have a kid together, I would want to be a part of his or her life. I also didn't want to have a child at that point in my life. Especially with a woman I liked,but didn't love. Also, in the back of my mind I was thinking, " What if Trish changed her mind and decided to go after me for child support ?  Eighteen years of having to fork over money for a child conceived on a whim held no charm for me. The matter was dropped and we went back to having our usual fun of sweating between the sheets.

Eventually, we broke up. Trish and I had nothing in common and good sex does not make for a lasting relationship. However, I did bump into her in 1997. I was going to a Spa to get a foot massage and as I got into the elevator, there stood Trish wearing a sun dress, who was at the Spa for a tanning session. Trish said  that she was still getting welfare, food stamps, Medicaid and was happily ensconced in her Section 8 apartment which she shared with her boyfriend who had a job. She bragged ," I do nothing all day but hang around." I didn't say anything, but boy was I pissed. Besides, I thought you couldn't live in a Section 8 apartment with a boyfriend, especially if he was employed. But hell, what do I know? What I do know is that while I busted my ass for eight hours a day in order to enjoy an occasional foot massage, Trish ,still happily unemployed, was at a tanning salon greedily and gladly sucking on the Government teat. You know, sometimes life can be unfair.

Bill George: Red Hot Planet And Beyond.

There comes a time when you have to cut a so called friend loose. Especially one who lies to your face constantly and yet,when you later confront him with the the truth, thinks this particular trait makes him cute and endearing; part of his charm. The kind of person who'll stick a knife in your back and then justify his actions without conscience.


I'm talking about Bill George, a world class liar who presents himself to the world at large as a successful writer and agent. In reality, he is dreamer and a loser whose grandiose ideas have a way of ending up as permanent residents on the Boulevard of Broken Dreams. And George has been dancing this fandango of failure for over thirty years while I've occupied a front row seat, witnessing his various schemes and endeavors eventually crash down around him . Ignoring the previous train wreck, and not learning a damn thing from it, he simply picks himself up, dusts himself off and it's on to the next big idea.

But no matter how many failed ventures George has involved himself in, he keeps pushing on hoping that one of his starry eyed dreams comes to fruition and makes him both rich and successful. Unfortunately, he is neither. He lives in a modest home left to him by his parents and,seeing as how he doesn't hold down a full time job, probably lives off of money that he inherited. His mother once told me," He has stars in his eyes." While I'm sure there have been those in his life who have attempted to bring Little Billy back down to earth, he sees things as he wants to see them; not as they are. George is like the eponymous character in The Beatles song Nowhere Man,only he's despicable rather than pitiable.

When I first met George over thirty years ago, at first glance I was impressed as I overheard him on the telephone discussing various film and book deals with supposed movers and shakers in the entertainment industry. Eventually, I came to discover George made these Pie In The Sky deals with people of his similar ilk; fellow dreamers who talked big, but couldn't deliver;much like George himself. Hell,they couldn't deliver a quart of milk if they owned a dairy truck.

Now to be fair, George actually is an agent. However, he's not as well connected in the film industry or as high powered as he presents himself to his clients who just happen to be young, pretty women with little or no acting experience what so ever. George is in reality a bottom feeder;a tiny,microscopic,insignificant amoeba who'll get his trusting clients parts in micro budget,straight to video turd fests that will do zip,zilch nada,squat for their careers. After these poor schmoes figure out this little fact of life, they kick George to the curb. Unfazed, he simply goes out and finds some other starry eyed dreamer who'll buy his line of bullshit hook, line and sinker.

When I punt kicked this sleazy, smarmy little dick out of my life in 1993 after hanging me out to dry(I had written an article for a French magazine and never received payment for it)I had no intention of ever seeing him again. However, my mother died in 1999 and when I found out that George's mother had died a few years later, I empathised with the emotions he was going through and feeling that my friend needed me, I reconnected with him. I found out, much to my eventual disappointment, that George remained a backstabbing,lying,scheming creep who hadn't changed one iota. He was still smarming and sleazing his way through life,using people in order to achieve his grand and lofty dreams of fame and fortune.

The ironic thing is, George once complained to me that he was losing his friends and couldn't fathom the reason for their departure. Surely it can't be anything he's done. He's so honest, dependable and truthful. Yeah, and I just won the Powerball! If integrity was money, George wouldn't have enough to buy a gumball.

In 2004, I began working on Bill George's web site Red Hot Planet. And so began two years of being rewritten without my permission, having to fight George tooth and nail to leave my articles alone,being promised payment for my work and yet not seeing one damn penny, in addition to other equally shitty deals that went down during that period. All engineered by that ego maniacal piece of shit Bill George.


To be continued.....