Not much to say about it at the moment, but I just signed a deal with Diver­sion Books for The Devil’s Metal. I’m not sure when the takeover will hap­pen, but when it does, The Devil’s Metal will be pub­lished by a rep­utable pub­lish­ing house — and I can offi­cially call myself a pub­lished author! (with­out hav­ing to put the whole “indie” and “self” in front of it).

Seri­ously, I love being an indie and I will ALWAYS be pub­lish­ing some of my work in this for­mat. I like the con­trol and the steady pay­check. I like being my own boss.

But some­times I hate being my own boss (see recent post on edit­ing my books: http://experimentinterror.com/so-you-found-a-typo/). And I hate it when peo­ple say “Oh you’re an author?” “Yes, I’ve writ­ten a few books.” “Self-published?” “Uh, yes.” “Oh…that kind of author. Not a real one.” (YES I’ve had that con­ver­sa­tion a few times).

Now I can say “NO, I’VE GOT A PUBLISHING DEAL WITH DIVERSION BOOKS FROM NYC, BITCH.”

I can’t wait for the next per­son to ask… heh heh

What does this mean for you? I’m not sure. The book will still be avail­able at all the online out­lets, maybe at a higher price of $2.99. The cover will stay the same (yay). The awe­some inside will still stay the same. And there should be a sequel out (The Devil’s Reprise) some­time this year (no idea about the details of that, however).

HOWEVER because Diver­sion Books is an e-book only pub­lisher, paper­backs of the book will soon be pulled. SO if you always wanted a paper­back ver­sion — par­tic­u­larly if you wanted me to sign one at Boston, RT, SFINE — get one NOW! I’ve ordered a bunch in so I’ll have a few to have as spe­cial give­aways but otherwise…do it now! It will be a collector’s item soon.

You can pur­chase paper­backs HERE while sup­plies last!

Mean­while, I’m also look­ing to ink a deal with Diver­sion Books for my upcom­ing book Lost in Wan­der­lust. THIS IS VERY EXCITING. I hope to have more info on that soon

And in other news, I’ve been post­ing Sins & Nee­dles teasers at my other web­site: http://khalle.wordpress.com/2013/01/09/sins-needles-teaser-1/

And yeah. That’s it. Back to my writ­ing cave. I’m get­ting good feed­back on this book, so I’m VERY happy about that. And I’m enjoy­ing writ­ing it. Always a good sign!

It’s not ter­ri­ble news…I mean, it’s not the worst news. Because, as you will find out very soon, this could be a LOT worse. But it’s bound to anger a lot of my read­ers out there.

I apol­o­gize but the release of Into the Hol­low is being delayed, hope­fully less than a month. I am now shoot­ing for a Novem­ber 13th release date — or some time that week.

There’s been some major life changes going on in my life over the last few months, tak­ing me out of my writ­ing mind-frame. Find­ing the time and the mind­set to write has been chal­leng­ing. I’ve also been unable to find the right edi­tor for this (the ones I love are booked up or I didn’t give them enough time…and NOW hope­fully I can!). AND, this is a big AND, I do NOT want to rush this book. I enjoy spend­ing time with Perry and Dex as much as the next per­son and I cer­tainly don’t wish to turn out an infe­rior book.

I know this comes as an annoy­ance and a let­down to, say, 100% of EIT read­ers (espe­cially being two weeks away) and again, I apol­o­gize. As sadis­tic as you may think I am, I really don’t like to keep peo­ple waiting…hence why I released Old Blood and The Dex-Files.…I wanted to give you SOMETHING.

BUT life some­times gets in the way and I’m deal­ing with a few health issues, as well as sell­ing my apart­ment, mov­ing to an island, buy­ing a busi­ness, pro­mot­ing my books, trav­el­ing for work…and other stuff that isn’t bad by any means, but it’s major and it has warped my brain more than a bit. Being an indie author is really, really hard work. It’s a one-woman busi­ness that can very quickly wear you down.

I thank you for your begrudg­ing under­stand­ing and hope I can make it up to you with an awe­some book in Novem­ber and maybe some fun stuff before then.

Tat­tooed rock stars, out­ra­geous groupies, hot sex and.…the 1970’s? Wait, there’s demons in this too?

Yup. That’s The Devil’s Metal. My first non-Experiment in Ter­ror novel is finally out there for you all to enjoy. And I think you will enjoy it — it’s a fun, wild ride that will have you turn­ing the pages. I can say this because I read it last night and I was on the edge of my seat…somehow I for­got I wrote it and that’s always a good sign in my books

Any­hoo, here is the Ama­zon Kin­dle link: http://www.amazon.com/Devils-Metal-ebook/dp/B009EEOM4S/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1348229977&sr=1–3&keywords=the+devil%27s+metal

And here’s the Smash­words link (and YES it will come to Nook in a few weeks or so but for now, down­load the epub from Smashwords…its easy peasy): https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/236660#longdescr

Paper­backs should be avail­able from Ama­zon next week too

Thanks so much for your sup­port every­one xx00

Woo hoo! Paper­backs of The Devil’s Metal should be com­ing out next week and of course the e-versions will be out this Fri­day! I can’t wait to hold a copy of this in my hands…

IT’S FUCKING BAD-ASS AND IN FLAMES AND SHIT! ME LOVES!!

I’m also send­ing this to a few real rock stars on my Xmas list. Sweeeeeeet m/

Any­way, I hope you;re as excited for the release as I am…*bounces*

See you all Friday!

So the book is cur­rently in my editor’s hands, and to my sur­prise, she’s lov­ing it! (hey, she can be a very picky, hard-assed reader lol — I love you Kara! But I bite my nails when I wait for your opin­ion! LOL)

Been hear­ing back from my beta read­ers too and so far, they love it! Some quotes below that I’ve taken from some emails:

Kass says: Sage. SIGH. New fic­tion love inter­est haha.

I can’t get over how much I loved this book. The char­ac­ters we so.well.done.

The sex scenes were AMAZING. Pretty hot, every­thing I want in a sex scene. Def­i­nitely made me squirm. You sure do know how to write those!

I hope other EIT fans give it a chance. It’s bril­liant

A def­i­nite 5-star book. LOVED it

Emmy says: Damn. I love your crazy, bril­liant mind. I LOVE THE END! Those last 2 chap­ters.. FANTASTIC. *shouty caps necessary*

The sex scene was some­thing else. Not very sweet at all but they were horny and I can only image some­one like Sage tak­ing the reigns for the first show down. The cock tease part was hella hot!

I LOVE LOVE LOVE how strong Dawn was.

This was 5 stars for sure.  Loved it.

And they are both HUGE EIT fans, so their praise means a lot to me. I gotta say, it’s really, really hard to write your first non-EIT book (I can only imag­ine the pres­sure on JK Rowl­ing for the Casual Vacancy). There’s a lot of pres­sure to write some­thing great, dis­tinc­tive and addic­tive. Some­thing that EIT fans will enjoy but will also attract new fans. I hope I’ve done this here, but regard­less, I had a load of fun.

NOW — The Devi’s Metal teaser #4 (unedited — may change prior to publication)

It hap­pened in the blink of an eye. He lunged across the gap and pushed me down onto the bed by my shoul­ders, his incred­i­ble weight on my body, hips crush­ing into my hips. He pinned my arms above my head. His face was inches from mine, lips curled angrily, wired eyes search­ing my widened ones.

“You say that so eas­ily,” he growled near my lips. “A rough few days. Is that what you think this is? Just a rough few days?”

“N-no,” I said squirm­ing beneath him. I didn’t fear Sage. But I feared men when they had too much to drink.

“I thought you were dif­fer­ent, Dawn. The only one on this tour left with a heart and soul.” His eyes flared with indignation.

“I am dif­fer­ent,” I protested, so con­scious of the prox­im­ity of his mouth to mine. I stopped squirm­ing and let his hands hold my arms to the bed. If he wanted to feel pow­er­ful, I was going to let him. But I was going to get what I wanted too.

“You have no idea what I’ve been through,” he told me. His demeanor soft­ened and his grip on my wrists loos­ened. He still kept his face as close as pos­si­ble, whether to intim­i­date or tease, I wasn’t sure. I did know I wasn’t about to back down.

“I have some idea,” I whis­pered, my eyes vol­ley­ing with his. “But I’d like it if you could tell me the rest.”

“Are you here to make me feel? Is that part of the plan?” he sneered delicately.

I blinked at him. Feel? Feel what?

 

WOO HOO! I am pleased, so fuck­ing pleased, to announce that The Devil’s Metal has been com­pleted (1st draft any­way). It was a fun, hell­ish ride and I’m grate­ful to my friends, fans and beta-readers for encour­ag­ing me to keep going with it. I feel like I’ve been on a hot, smelly tour bus with a bunch of fucked up rock stars for two weeks. yeesh. LET ME OFF!

Now that it’s all done, I can safely say that I don’t think the book can be com­pared to anything…except Almost Famous. And In the Mouth of Mad­ness. And Jennifer’s Body. And The Devil’s Advo­cate. And Final Des­ti­na­tion. And so on. OK, well you’ll have to see for yourselves.

Here’s Teaser #4 — as my beta reader Emmy pointed out, EIT “the­o­rists” might be intrigued (do note, as usual, this is unedited).

Even­tu­ally Jacob noticed some­thing was going on. Or he’d always noticed and had waited for the right time to bring it up. With nor­mal Jacob fla­vor, it hap­pened to be a few min­utes before the show.

“Tell me what’s on your mind, Rusty,” he said dryly as we stood at the side of the stage. He was run­ning a nail file under­neath his nails and flick­ing out the dirt.

“I got a call from Barry today.”

“Oh?”

“He said he’d been receiv­ing some let­ters about me.”

“Oh?” he repeated, a bit more interested.

“If I didn’t know bet­ter I’d say that Terri or one of the other Get The Fuck Outs is behind it. It kind of gels with what you said back…well what­ever city that was in. That it was groupie high school.”

His golden eyes remained on his nails. “Oh yes, ain’t that the truth, love.”

“So, that’s going on. I’m mildly freaked out.” I crossed my arms feel­ing a chill.

“I can see that. I don’t blame you. Do you think these girls are…dangerous?” he said the last word like it was laden in silk.

I gave him a weird look. “You tell me! I’ve just learned who they are. You’ve dealt with them longer.”

He exhaled sharply through his nose and finally looked me in the eye. His red hair flamed under the stage lights, giv­ing him a hell­ish aura. “Every­one has the chance to become dan­ger­ous. If the right weather pat­terns are cre­ated, if the right feel­ings are invoked…feelings of injus­tice. Jeal­ousy. Feel­ings of being owed some­thing they believe they have a right to have. To…collect. We all have it in us to become a dan­ger, either to oth­ers or to our­selves. It’s a mat­ter if the right clouds are brew­ing. Cer­tain clouds will cre­ate a storm.”

“And?” I egged him on impa­tiently. “What clouds are brew­ing? Are these groupies dan­ger­ous or not? Do I need to start sleep­ing with a switch­blade under­neath my pillow?”

A slow smile spread across his rough lips. Then he shrugged and turned his atten­tion back to clean­ing his nails. “Couldn’t hurt, could it?”

Oooh, that Jacob! Any­way, I’m doing a give­away on my FB page here: https://www.facebook.com/ExperimentinTerror

Giv­ing a way a pair of Hybrid undies (Medium) and an e-format ARC of The Devil’s Metal! To enter, leave a thought­ful com­ment (just one) on the FB post. I’ll do a draw in a week for one lucky win­ner. Open worldwide.

 

 

Another snip­pet.

I’m fin­ish­ing up the first draft of the book today. This is excit­ing. Home stretch. I will prob­a­bly do an awe­some give­away on Face­book tomor­row to cel­e­brate this huge achieve­ment when it’s all said and done, so stay tuned.

Here’s the third teaser from The Devil’s Metal. Sage and Dawn’s rela­tion­ship doesn’t exactly get off to the smoothest start. (keep in mind this is unedited).

When I hung up the phone, I spied Sage leav­ing the Astro van with one of his gui­tars in hand. It was black, sleek and sexy, just like the man him­self and his intricately-tattooed fore­arms bulged as he han­dled the musi­cal beast. I shook my head lightly, snap­ping out of my strangely lust­ful daze, and decided to take my chances with him.

“Sage?” I ven­tured care­fully, walk­ing toward him. He had seen me com­ing and seemed to be form­ing excuses in his head already.

“What is it?” he said, barely glanc­ing at me, and walk­ing off toward the back­stage doors lead­ing into the building.

I trailed after him. “How are you feeling?”

The ques­tion sur­prised him and he slowed down a bit. “How am I feeling?”

“You seemed a bit snap­pish at break­fast,” I said. “Last night too. Thought maybe you have an object lodged up your ass or some­thing. Some­thing a doc­tor should remove.”

I couldn’t believe I just said that. Nei­ther could Sage. He didn’t just slow down, he stopped and gave me an incred­u­lous look. “Excuse me?”

Way to go Dawn, I thought. As if he couldn’t hate you more.

I licked my lips and tried to smile. “Well, do you?”

He seemed speech­less. This prob­a­bly wasn’t good.

But then, he did some­thing I hadn’t expected.

He smiled.

And then he laughed. It was short and brief, but gen­uine and made the dim­ples stand out in his scruffy cheeks. It was the best sound I’d heard all year.

Then he shook his head and con­tin­ued walk­ing off toward the audi­to­rium, strum­ming his gui­tar as he went, leav­ing me with a view of a tight ass in tight black pants.

What I had meant to do was ask if him when a good time to inter­view him would be. I totally messed that one up.

I watched him go for a few beats, then I decided to give up on him for the day and try again tomor­row. Tonight I was going to con­cen­trate on the music and just the music. If the band wanted to play hard to get with inter­views, fine (and if I was going to bun­gle up some inter­views with my big, fat mouth, fine). That didn’t mean I wasn’t going to observe and then com­pose the best damn live show review. Ever.

I shuf­fled back to the bus, gath­ered my purse, my notepad, my tape recorder and the venue’s All Access pass, and went to go catch Hybrid’s soundcheck.

 

Here’s another teaser from the upcom­ing The Devil’s Metal — to be released end of September.

And yeah, Black Sab­bath rules.

 

But first some infor­ma­tion for the newcomers:

The Devils’s Metal is a new adult hor­ror romance. What’s new adult? It’s a new genre that deals with 20-somethings. In col­lege, post college…those years. Same per­sonal fla­vor as YA, but with much more mature themes. The Devil’s Metal is part one of a two book series, the sequel com­ing out next year — The Devil’s Reprise. Also a chance for a Sage POV in the mid­dle because boy does this man have a wicked story to tell.

Blurb: It’s the sum­mer of 1974 and 21-year old Dawn Emer­son has only three things she wants to do: com­pete one last time in the Ellens­burg Rodeo, win back her ex-boyfriend Ryan, and become the best damn music jour­nal­ist at Cen­tral Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­sity. But all her plans are left in the dust when she’s con­tacted by Creem mag­a­zine to go on the road with one of her favorite groups, the up-and-coming metal band, Hybrid.

At first the assign­ment reads like a dream come true. Not only will Dawn land some much-needed cred­i­bil­ity as a female music jour­nal­ist, but she’ll finally get to expe­ri­ence life from the other side of the stage, and maybe crack the drunken, enig­matic code that is gui­tarist Sage Knightly. Instead, Dawn finds her­self on an aging tour bus filled with ego-maniacs, band pol­i­tics and a whole lot of sex, drugs and rock n’ roll. When mon­sters start show­ing up in dress­ing rooms and some of Sage’s groupies become increas­ingly strange and dan­ger­ous, Dawn dis­cov­ers the band is not only going places – they’re going straight to Hell.

And Dawn has a back­stage pass.

Teaser (UNEDITED — may change prior to publication):

But try as I did, I could not keep my eyes off of Sage Knightly. I just couldn’t help myself. See­ing this man on stage was like watch­ing a lion prowl along the crest of his king­dom. He com­manded respect even when he was seated on his chair with only an acoustic gui­tar at his fin­gers and when he got up, the Mex­i­can tex­tile strap strain­ing against his neck, every eye in the crowd fol­lowed his every stride. Nor­mally Sage was a back­ground fig­ure, qui­etly com­man­deer­ing the direc­tion of the show, but tonight, with Rob­bie sub­dued, Sage became the star. With­out a doubt you knew this was the man who made Hybrid what they were.

I watched as his long fin­gers expertly picked along to com­plex and haunt­ing solos. I watched the inten­sity in his eyes as they stared off into the crowd, call­ing on his tal­ent from some­where. I watched his tall frame, his large, rounded shoul­ders muscling into the heav­ier chords. I watched his flip-flopped feet tap­ping to some inter­nal metronome.

And I watched a faint shiver roll through his body. His eyes snapped away from watch­ing Rob­bie belt out “She Could Have Loved Me” and his vision made a bee­line to the front of the stage. There, squished up along the bar­ri­cade, was a strangely famil­iar look­ing woman: Long white hair, pale face, fever­ishly gleam­ing eyes. As beau­ti­ful as she was, she gave off an immense feel­ing of dread that gripped my bones. Sage watched her as if hyp­no­tized. The woman smiled up at him.

And in that smile I saw fangs. Her face trans­formed dis­turbingly with black holes for eyes, an elon­gated, wrin­kled face of yellow-white, a wide gap­ing hole for a mouth, teeth pro­trud­ing. A long tongue slide out, crawl­ing with quiv­er­ing insects. It licked its absence of lips, curled del­i­cately along peel­ing skin. I heard noises deep inside my head, the buzzing of bees, painful wails, hor­rific chants that built up to immea­sur­able vol­umes. I felt hor­ror, a ter­ror so com­plete that I had one thought: I was going to die there on the stage. I was going to lose my soul.

I was going to Hell.

 

Since The Devil’s Metal will be released at the end of Sep­tem­ber (some­time between the 21st and the end of Octo­ber, see­ing how things go) and it’s now Sep­tem­ber 1st (seriously.…SERIOUSLY…how is it? Sum­mer? What? I can’t even…) I’ve decided to put lit­tle teasers and snip­pets up on the blog.

I also wanted to show you this cool Hybrid tank top — I love band merch! (espe­cially fake band merch).

So there’s that…writing about a fic­tional 70’s metal band gives me so many mer­chan­dise and give­away oppor­tu­ni­ties, it’s sick. I can tell you tons of awe­some stuff will be given out this month — right on!

If you need a refresh over what The Devil’s Metal is about, read the blurb on Good Reads here.

Teaser #1 (UNEDITED — MAY CHANGE PRIOR TO PUBLICATION):

 

Sage walked over to the table in two long strides and snatched up the bot­tle. He gave Chip a dis­ap­prov­ing squint before com­ing back to me.

He stepped up close, very close, so that his wide chest was inches away from mine and his tow­er­ing frame enveloped my whole view. I stood my ground, as tempted as I was to take a step backward.

Sage placed the bot­tle in my hand, our fin­gers touch­ing. It was just for a sec­ond, a brush as light as a feather, but it rat­tled my nerves. I strug­gled to keep my eyes glued to his.

He low­ered his voice. His breath smelled like beer and some­thing fresh, like the ocean.

“Is my band just what you expected? Is this what you’re going to write about?”

He was egging me on, dar­ing me.

“I’m not writ­ing any­thing tonight,” I told him. I put on a mask of false con­fi­dence and took a swig of whisky straight out of the bot­tle, match­ing the inten­sity of his gaze. “Tonight I’m just a fan.”

“Just a fan…” he mused, scratch­ing at his long side­burn, black hair against lightly bronzed skin. “Right. And then the next day? And the next day? Do you really want to doc­u­ment a band com­ing to its knees in its dying days? Is that what a fan wants to see?”

His voice was so low that he couldn’t have been heard over Jeff Beck on the eight-track and the drunken cries of debauch­ery in the back­ground. What exactly was he telling me?

I flapped my mouth help­lessly for a few sec­onds, try­ing to fig­ure out how to respond.

He leaned in even fur­ther, star­ing at my lips. I could see two strands of light grey at his tem­ple, the absolute way his eye color matched the sil­very under­side of a leaf.

“You’re all the same you know,” he con­tin­ued, almost whis­per­ing now. His eyes met mine, mes­mer­iz­ing orbs through his long curl­ing lashes. “You’re just like those girls over there. Just like those pricks out­side. You take and take and take and say you want to be a part of it all but why you’re really here is to wit­ness the fall. Be a part of his­tory. Say you saw it hap­pen. I know what it’s like, Dawn. In a few more years, no one would care.”

Half way through Sage’s speech I was struck by a few slurred words and when I stopped try­ing to make sense of what­ever the hell he was talk­ing about and saw his body sway slightly and how his green feline eyes were lightly glazed, I real­ized that the rumors of Sage being a drunk were at least partly true. Not that I was judg­ing; I was the one drink­ing Jame­son straight out of the bottle.

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean,” I told him, finally tak­ing a step back. I had always dreamed about my first con­ver­sa­tion with Sage but I never imag­ined it would go like this; fully of hos­til­ity and drunken ram­blings, sur­rounded by half-naked, fucked-up people.

 

Ah, the day is upon us my friends. Today, instead of get­ting up at 7 AM to get ready for work, I had the choice of sleep­ing in…after all, this is the first day of being self-employed. The first day of being a full-time writer.

Ahh, lucky you, you say. And yes, I know I’m lucky. Lucky that I have such a loyal and slightly rabid fan­base, lucky that I’ve not given up when the going got tough, lucky that I had sup­port from my fam­ily and friends. I’m lucky that I can do what I love for a living.

Does this mean it’s an easy life from now on? HELL NO. As any free­lancer will tell you, once you take away the “secu­rity” of a “nor­mal” job, every dol­lar com­ing in and dol­lar going out has more mean­ing. As in, OH MY GOD WHAT IF I NEVER SELL ANOTHER BOOK I’LL DIE AND BE HOMELESS.

Of course, if we lis­tened to these valid fears, no one would ever take the leap. So here I am, leap­ing off the cliff and build­ing my wings on the way down. It’s going to be a chal­leng­ing and ter­ri­fy­ing jour­ney at times but you know me — I love being scared.

This is a time to develop solid writ­ing habits, to put my nose to the key­board and grind words out. I have more free­dom now but that free­dom is teth­ered to my writ­ing, some­thing that will always have to come first. This will prob­a­bly result in many people’s fallen and con­fused faces when I tell them I can’t go to their party because I need to write or I can’t go on a trip because I need to go through edits, or I can’t go for din­ner because I’m upload­ing to Kin­dle. Most peo­ple will prob­a­bly think I can do what­ever I want, and while I can, it doesn’t mean I should.

This morn­ing I had the free­dom and choice to sleep in. My first day of self-employment, I’m my own boss, right?

Right. But I’m a bitch of a boss.

So instead of wak­ing up at 7AM for work like I would have done on a week­day, I woke up at 5AM to write.

That’s right. First day as a full-time writer and I’m up at 5AM. Hope­fully this kind of behav­iour will get me a raise in the long run

In other news, well actu­ally the same news, I AM writ­ing. This month has been crunch month for The Devil’s Metal. It’s a whole new ball­game and it’s not easy. Writ­ing EIT is sec­ond nature to me. Five books and three novel­las and I can spew about Perry and Dex in my sleep.

But start­ing a whole new book with whole new char­ac­ters, plot and world (not to men­tion time period) is some­thing entirely dif­fer­ent. This is keep-you-on-your –toes, chal­leng­ing stuff. You’re wor­ried about pac­ing, you’re wor­ried about keep­ing the time period authen­tic, you’re wor­ried that peo­ple won’t love your char­ac­ters as much as they love your tried-and-tested char­ac­ters. You worry you will suck. Balls. BIG BALLS.

All I can do, how­ever, is keep going. I will try to keep those voices at bay and I will try my best. This isn’t Exper­i­ment in Ter­ror and it’s not try­ing to be (THOUGH EIT fans will notice one sim­i­lar thread/item in The Devil’s Metal hee hee). This is strictly adult. It’s the 1970’s. It’s rock and roll. It’s about per­sonal demons and real demons. It’s about two peo­ple com­ing together in a very unlikely way. And know­ing me, this isn’t main­stream, insta-luv fare. Oh, there are plenty of sexy times and romance, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not stan­dard. That’s all I can really say.

Although I’ll also say, man, get­ting up at 5AM is a bitch.