The Story Behind Dragged Down Deep by Michael Okon

 

 

 

 

 

The Story Behind Dragged Down Deep

By Michael Okon

From the bottom of my heart, thank you for taking the time and reading what was in my head just a few months ago.

I’ve been writing as far back as I could remember, specifically screenplays. After I learned about self-publishing, I began turning my scripts into novels under a pen name. Specifically, for my book Monsterland, in 2015, I was watching an 80s & 90s movie marathon with my kids – The Goonies, Gremlins, Back to the Future, Jurassic Park, etc… I wrote the ghost novels, I wrote the witches novels, but I wanted to write a monster novel. After watching all these films, it literally popped into my head – why isn’t there a theme park with zombies. I called my brother and told him about my idea and he flat out said no. It has to be a theme park with werewolves, vampires AND zombies. I started beating out the story that night. 

My mom is my publicity manager and she blitzed the bloggers with my book. That fall I was reading a book called Selling a Screenplay by Syd Field. In the book, there was an entertainment attorney named Susan Grode who seemed very knowledgeable about the publishing and film industry. I told myself, when I receive my first contract, I’m going to reach out to her to see if she could help me. About two months later, I received a post on Facebook from an agent in London who asked to represent me. I said sure and asked him to send me a contract. I emailed Susan and introduced myself and mentioned that I had someone who wanted to rep me and I was hoping she could read this contract. She told me before I sign with this London agent, why don’t I meet her friend in Brooklyn, an agent named Nick Mullendore with Vertical Ink Literary Agency. I met Nick for lunch and he signed me that day as his client. That evening, Susan brought me on as her client as well. Nick began trying to sell my book Monsterland to the big publishers and, as expected, it was rejected. Throughout his attempts of selling, he had a call with a film agent and he was pitching her a romance novel. She said she wasn’t really into romance and was looking for something with monsters. He sent her my book Monsterland, she read it over a weekend, and we had a call that Monday. She told Nick and me if we get the book published, she will get it into a producer’s hands to make into a film. Nick found a publisher called WordFire Press owned by Kevin J. Anderson, who has written all the Star Wars and Dune canon books. WordFire signed me to a two-book deal for Monsterland 1 & 2. After the deal was signed, my film agent did what she promised and got my book into the hands of a billion-dollar grossing producer who is now shopping my book to certain studios.  In two years, I went from a self-published author, to a published author with a literary agent, an entertainment attorney, a film agent, a two-book publishing deal, a publicist, and a producer who is interested in turning my book to a film. It’s been one wild ride, to say the least. 

 

 

 

Logan Osborne has spent his life chasing the shadows of the past.

As a child, he watched helplessly as his father was snatched from a fishing boat by what he swore was a mermaid. No one believed him then. No one believes him now.

Determined to prove that mythical creatures exist, Logan is drawn back to the small coastal town where his nightmares began after another mysterious disappearance stirs the waters.

Teaming up with his pragmatic colleague Elliot Sheppard and his fiercely loyal friend Penny Swanson, Logan dives headfirst into an adventure packed with danger and deception. As they dig deeper, the trio faces resistance at every turn—a secretive agency with its own agenda, a suspiciously unhelpful police force, and Logan’s old flame, who may know more than she’s letting on.

What they uncover is far darker and more terrifying than Logan ever imagined: the truth about his father, the secrets of Minatuck, and the horrifying reality of the Mermaid of the Hamptons.

Will Logan and his friends expose the lies that have haunted him for years, or will they be Dragged Down Deep into the swampy, secretive underbelly of a town that guards its mysteries with deadly intent?

Dragged Down Deep is available at Amazon.

 

 

Michael Okon is an award-winning and best-selling author of multiple genres, including paranormal, thriller, horror, action/adventure, and self-help. He graduated from Long Island University with a degree in English and then later received his MBA in business and finance. Coming from a family of writers, he has storytelling in his DNA. Michael has been writing from as far back as he can remember, his inspiration being his love for films and their impact on his life. From the time he saw The Goonies, he was hooked on the idea of entertaining people through unforgettable characters.

Michael is a lifelong movie buff, a music playlist aficionado, and a sucker for self-help books. He lives on the North Shore of Long Island with his wife and children.

Website & Social Media:

Website ➜ www.michaelokon.com

Twitter ➜ https://www.x.com/IAmMichaelOkon

Instagram ➜ https://www.instagram.com/IAmMichaelOkon

 

The Story Behind Godzilla: The Monster Fight Record Series I & II by Patrick Kelley

 

 

 

The Story Behind Godzilla: The Monster Fight Record Series I & II

At the start of 2020, I was in a good place. My Cybersecurity team started a new job, I was comfortably moved into my new home, and I had fun spending the holidays with my family. Everything pointed to 2020 being a good year.

Then COVID happened. 

I was one of the fortunate ones as my job allowed me to telework, so I wasn’t impacted financially. However, emotional and mental impacts were a different story. I am an introverted and reserved person in general, so spending time away from people didn’t worry me at first. If anything, it probably felt good for the first couple of weeks. However, as those weeks and eventually months carried on, the isolation started to wear on me. I felt like I was living in my own version of the film Groundhog Day, only instead of going outside and interacting with the same people and situations every day, I was stuck in the same repetitive daily cycle in complete isolation. It is true that I was able to interact with my family and friends via phone or video calls, but it wasn’t the same.

My routine was wake up, eat, log in to work, eat, work some more, log off, and then bury my evenings into whatever streaming service I felt like watching that night. That whole routine became very stale, very fast. I did anything I could to keep busy. I have to get training credits to maintain my cybersecurity certifications. I became so desperate for mental stimulation that I jumped right into a pile of trainings and wound up going significantly over what was required. I also got an additional certification in the process.

Those training courses could only keep me busy for so long. I couldn’t go to the gym, I couldn’t date, I couldn’t even go to the bar and drown my sorrows in a nice Old Fashioned. It was especially hard spending time away from my family. For three months, the only times I left the house were trips to the grocery store once every two weeks. I hate going to the grocery store, and relying on that as my only source of real “get up and go” activity for three months only served to make me more anxious.

I felt like I had all this pent-up energy and I had to use it towards something.

Well, I found my outlet when I started rewatching a lot of the old Godzilla movies. I’ve been a fan of the big guy since I was a kid, and those movies were always a source of comfort and enjoyment. However, this time around, I was looking for any excuse to keep myself busy and I thought about finding a way use Godzilla constructively. One idea that came to mind was documenting a win-loss record for Godzilla. A “true” and accurate Godzilla win-loss fight record is something I’ve thought about for years, but now with all this extra time on my hands, I thought I’d take those thoughts in my head and turn it into something tangible. That eventually led to me deciding to document Godzilla’s fight history, create a methodology for the analysis, and then publish it for fans to enjoy.

Thus, Godzilla: The Monster Fight Record was born. My intent was to develop a way record the monsters’ win-loss statistics, rewatch all of the Godzilla films, analyze each fight scene, and plug the results into my methodology.

Little did I know just how much work it would take to get the book published. What started out as a project to keep myself from going insane from cabin fever became a three year project that coincided with major life events. I didn’t stay in isolation for very long after starting the writing process. I met the love of my life, got married, became a father, and spent time with my family once again. Despite that, I knew I had to finish the fight record. I don’t like to leave things unfinished.

Little by little, I would rewatch the old movies, analyze the fights, document the results, and format everything into a manuscript. What made it even more difficult was how naive I was to the publishing process. Everything down to the simple use of “mirror margins” for the formatting were completely unknown to me. The book’s formatting and content changed a lot over the three years, but I got it finalized in 2023.

It was a wild ride, but a worthwhile experience all the same. 

 

 

Title: Godzilla: The Monster Fight Record Book I & II
Author: Patrick Kelley
Publisher: Independent
Publication Date: August 27, 2023
Pages: 309 (Book 1), 430 (Book 2)
Genre: Nonfiction/Reference

Godzilla: The Monster Fight Record is a two-volume series that provides a history of all the monster battles throughout the Godzilla film series. After seven decades and almost forty films, Godzilla has earned the title of King of the Monsters. The Godzilla films have showcased the King’s legendary battles with larger-than-life opponents like the three-headed King Ghidorah, the winged guardian Mothra, his robotic doppelganger Mechagodzilla, and the original giant monster star King Kong. The Monster Fight Record analyzes these titanic battles to determine an informed and accurate win-loss record for Godzilla and all of his monster co-stars. Fans of kaiju and classic science fiction films will enjoy a trip down memory lane while also getting a sports-style analysis of the monster battles, complete with statistics and win percentages for each beast.

Buy Links:

Amazon Book 1 | Amazon Book 2 | Barnes & Noble

 

Patrick Kelley was born and raised in Silver Spring, Maryland, and is a lifelong monster movie fan. He spent his childhood becoming familiar with the classics like Dracula, The Wolf Man, Frankenstein, King Kong, the works of Ray Harryhausen, and of course his favorite, Godzilla. His many other hobbies include sports (particularly Football), movies, and television, but when he’s not indulging in those activities, he enjoys spending time with his lovely wife and newborn daughter.

Visit Patrick on Twitter at http://twitter.com/patrickgbook.

 

 

The Story Behind Home Rule: Book III of The Tribal Wars by Stella Atrium

 

 

 

The Story Behind Home Rule: Book III of The Tribal Wars by Stella Atrium

HOME RULE is book 3 in the first trilogy of a (mostly completed) series. As the writer, I’m so far ahead with characters and plots that I have to think about what the reader knows so far. LOL

Hershel Henry carries our narrative while he reports about tribal conflicts. We learn about death-by-fire that individual tribal women undertake.  The offworld press claims the women are losing hope rather than engaging in a righteous means of protest. 

Henry hates the narrative on the Company news outlets.  He opens a Cylay Gazette to honestly report about the march toward home rule. 

My stories are really about the women. Originally, I wanted to see lead characters concerned with more than finding a husband or getting a divorce. Science fiction seemed like a natural place for more integrated roles for women. 

As I began to explore migration flows and culture shock, I realized that women carry old influences into the future, language and cooking habits. They tell the children about past heroes, about cautionary tales, and about how to stand up to tyranny. Without a sense of the past, how will the next generation have fresh ideas for leading the community? 

So the female characters are placed in the foreground of each sequence. My principle (that I sort of stuck to) was that the plot cannot go forward except for what the women do. Some interesting scenes were needed to show the world from the point of view of female fighters who set aside pregnancies to join the battle. 

 

 

 

Title: Home Rule: Book 3 of The Tribal Wars
Author: Stella Atrium
Publisher: Stella Atrium Writes LLC
Pages: 458
Genre: Science Fiction

Sarafina di Ramonicc In book 3 of the award-winning series, photojournalist Hershel Henry witnesses the loss by self-torching of tribal women. The Madquii and Gora tribes have laid siege to the city of Urbyd, and Brianna Miller must seek a peace treaty.   

Kelly Osborn travels to Stargate Junction to set the wedding of ambassador Otieno. Hershel Henry opens a gazette to report on pending elections for home rule, but then shocking events upset their plans.  

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C44QT91N

 

Stella Atrium is writing The Tribal Wars series. The first trilogy is available as ebooks and in print. BookLife has awarded the Editor’s Pick designation for each book upon its release.    

Home Rule rounds out the first trilogy and received first place in the 2023 Artisan Book Review Awards for Science Fiction and Fantasy.     

Book 4 titled Tribal Logic is scheduled for release in early 2024. Also be certain to pick up Atrium’s standalone novel Seven Beyond that won a 2014 Reader’s Favorites award in science fiction.   

Website: https://stellaatrium.com   

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/SAtriumWrites 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SAtriumWrites

 

 

The Story Behind Moon Deeds by Palmer Pickering

 

The Story Behind MOON DEEDS

There are several plot lines in “Moon Deeds” and its series the “Star Children Saga.” The plot lines had different inspirations that I wove together into this epic science-fantasy tale. Let’s look at three of them.

The first inspiration is regarding the moon deeds themselves. One Christmas, my brother gave everyone in my family their own title to land on the moon. We each got different large plots, complete with parchments listing the rights granted to us as lunar property holders, the coordinates, and a corresponding lunar map. The deeds claim to be legitimate because no country has claimed extraterrestrial planets or moons, therefore everything supposedly is up for grabs. In any case, whether or not I own legitimate title to the land, the possibility got my imagination going. What if these deeds are in fact legit? What is a scenario in the future when they might become incredibly valuable and important? That was the genesis of Moon Deeds.

The second inspiration is crystals. I have a large collection of crystals, including several Lemurian crystals. There is a legend around Lemurian crystals that goes something like this: These crystals are from the lost land of Lemuria (similar to Atlantis). Embedded in the striated ridges of these crystal shafts are the akashic records, a vast array of wisdom and memories from various intelligent beings across space and time. The crystals can impart their data and wisdom to their bearers. They are also known to be healing crystals. Crystals play a large part of the magic systems in the Star Children Saga, and the planet Muria in the books was named after these particular ones. The crystals featured in the Star Children Saga are modeled after crystals in my own collection.

The third is the origin of human life. I am fascinated by how mythologies across many diverse ancient civilizations have some eerie similarities. Many cultures and religions speak about advanced or angelic beings visiting us from the stars and interacting or interbreeding with humans on Earth. There are stories of angels descending on shafts of light, giants coming down from the mountains, and mystical subterranean or lost realms on Earth. The long arc of the “Star Children Saga” is based on the premise that we are descended from an alien race who reside on a planet across the galaxy. To connect with them, we must travel on pathways of light every thousand years. However, the pathways of light have been broken and it’s up to the Star Children to find a way to reconnect with our ancestors.

 

It’s 2090: the last outpost of freedom is the moon, the best defense against technology is magic, and the only hope for humankind rests in the hands of the Star Children.

Twins Cassidy and Torr must save Earth from a ruthless enemy at a time when the only force more powerful than alien technology is magic. Moon Deeds launches the siblings’ journey across the galaxy, where they must learn their power as the Star Children, claim their shamanic heritage, and battle dark forces that threaten humankind.

The Star Children Saga follows Cassidy and Torr as they slowly awaken to their destiny as the twin Star Children, born every millennium to reconnect with the source of all life. They come to discover the sheer enormity of their task: to find our ancestors on a lost planet across the galaxy and save humanity from a spiraling descent into darkness. The powers they must wield to accomplish this task are truly frightening and put at risk everything they love.

Come along with twenty-year-old twins Cassidy and Torr, who inherited deeds to land parcels on the moon. They want to use their moon deeds to get off Earth and escape a brutal dictatorship. But first they must unlock their shaman powers.

A rollicking yet poignant adventure in the not too distant future, when we have colonized the moon and nearly lost Earth to a dictatorship. Only the shamans remain free, plus the lucky ones who escaped to the moon.

Join the adventure! An addictive space opera, science-fantasy series.

“This is a marvelous book. The characters are compelling, complex, and emotional. The future described is neither all evil nor all good, and it’s described so realistically that I can still feel the moon dust in my nose and expect to see large packing containers around every corner. The text is delightfully written with none of the bad grammar that makes picky people like me wince even in an otherwise great story. Alas, this is just the first book of the series, and it appears I’ll have to wait a whole year for the next one. I really need to know *now* what happens next!” – Garden Reader

“I was totally captivated by this story. It is set just far enough into our future that I could see it all unfold. This tale has it all, mystery, magic, aliens, war, family, friendship and love. The authors ability to paint landscapes with words is amazing! I can not wait for book two to come out. I must know the fate of the Star Children!” – VR

“Anything dealing with the moon is almost immediately mystical and magical. Throw in a heart racing adventure and characters that will leave a mark on your heart and you have a masterpiece!” – Taylor Johnson (Educator, Netgalley)

“I found this novel to be as much a psychological thriller as it is a science fiction adventure, and the draw-in happens almost instantly. This is unquestionably one of the best books I’ve read this year and Pickering has roped in an entire family as new fans. I’d give Moon Deeds a whole bucket of stars if I could.” – Asher Syed (Readers’ Favorite)

“There is so much to love about this book, from its complex and intricately woven plot filled with tension, strife, and discovery, to the personal attachment you begin to build with the characters due to finely executed character building, engaging personalities, and difficulties in both moral dilemmas and situations. The pace is perfect to build tension, and I loved the length of this book.” – K.J. Simmill (Readers’ Favorite)

Book Information

Release Date: May 25, 2019

Publisher: Mythology Press

Soft Cover: ISBN: ‎ 978-1732568808; 598 pages; $21.99; E-Book, $.99; Audiobook, FREE.

Book Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xt13Js_M-P4

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3uKWq2o

Barnes & Noble:  https://bit.ly/3rQteFx

Palmer Pickering has been writing fiction since she was eight. She received her BA in American Studies from Wesleyan University, with concentrations in Religion and Race Relations.

She currently works in Silicon Valley in the gaming industry and high tech. In addition, Palmer holds a certificate in Chinese Acupressure, is a certified solar panel installer, and studied Tibetan Buddhism with the 14th Dalai Lama.

She lives and writes in the magical redwood forest of the Santa Cruz Mountains, California.

Her latest book is the scifi fantasy for adults, Moon Deeds: Star Children Saga Book One.

You can visit her website at www.MythologyPress.com or connect with her on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest.

The Story Behind The Sound of Creation by Gabriella Zielke

 

The Story Behind The Sound of Creation

Finding a publisher is no easy feat. Add a little global pandemic to the mix and you get fewer opportunities to meet agents and publishers face to face. You also find more people at home returning to their dreams of being published, dusting off those manuscripts and keyboards to fill inboxes with pitches.

This is where I found myself in 2020 when I began the submission process for my debut scifi thriller The Sound of Creation. Without the ability to hone my pitch in person, I went straight into the cold agent emails. And I completely sucked at it. Failure was not an option so I coached myself to persist and to iterate.

But…I still sucked at the email pitch. I’ve raised a lot of capital and I know I’m better in person where I can get feedback in the moment and “feel out” what works. So, I looked far and wide for an in person conference.

I found Writercon in Oklahoma City. It was a hybrid event in a large hotel with windows that opened and strict protocols in place. (spoiler: no one got Covid)

I signed up for five agent pitches, and got some great feedback. One of the speakers, an editor for an established publisher with thousands of titles, did a first page critique for everyone who submitted beforehand. The session was so helpful that I approached her after. She said I should sign up to pitch her, but I told her I was unagented. Luckily, her publisher didn’t care!

I sent off four fulls in total from my pitches. The three agents sent personalized rejections.

Ally Robertson, editor for The Wild Rose Press sent a different kind of note. She loved it! *swoon* She was sending it to committee for approval and they would send a contract if it passed.

The great thing about TWRP is that they guarantee publication within one year from galley approval. I signed the contract in December 2020, worked my tail off with Ally, and The Sound of Creation was born 2-2-22!

There are many ways to go about publication, so explore until you find the right one for you and don’t be discouraged if the “experts” way doesn’t work.

-- Gabriella Zielke

 

Brilliant and relentless tech CEO Ava Lawson built a system to play the currency market and make her billions. Instead, it begins to play strange music and makes normally level headed people behave irrationally, violently, dangerously.

While on the run from a coup to steal her code, Ava meets an ethereal stranger who seems to know more about her than she does.

The stranger calls himself an apprentice. He pleads for her help to stop what they have started.

“The Sound of Creation is a mind-bending book filled with big questions about our existence. It takes you on a journey disrupted by action scenes and strange characters. You will find yourself floating on dimensions you did not know even existed. This book is a mind game. You have been warned.” ~ George Papa, author of The Manual and The Architect’s typist for The Code

Book Information

Release Date: February 2, 2022

Publisher:  The Wild Rose Press

Soft Cover: ISBN:  978-1509239139; 342 pages; $17.99; E-Book, $5.99

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3B8ILUz

Gabriella Zielke founded one of the world’s first tech accelerators where she was fortunate to mentor and fund hundreds of founders whose ideas previously only existed as science fiction. Fast Company named Zielke one of its Most Creative People, among other accolades from her business career. She is currently pursuing a Master’s in Creative Writing at Harvard University Extension while living on St. Croix with her husband and their zealous Great Dane. When she’s not writing, you can find her dancing with fire.

Her latest book is the scifi novel, The Sound of Creation.

Visit her website at www.gabriellazielke.com or connect with her at Twitter and Facebook.

The Story Behind Zanzibar's Rings by Jemima Pett

 

The Story Behind Zanzibar's Rings by Jemima Pett

Zanzibar’s Rings is the third and last book in the Viridian System series.

When I started the series, I mapped out the whole system, numbers and size and characteristics of the planets and other bodies. I think I included it at the end of the first book, but it’s definitely on the series website, viridianseries.uk.

After book 2, I knew I definitely wanted to stop at a third book. I’d written another trilogy that turned into a ten book series, and I didn’t want to do that again! But what would it be? Where would my characters go?

I work better when I’ve coined a title—even a working title. And, as I love reading challenges, and particularly A to Z reading challenges, I decided to go with a starting letter that would attract new readers! And so I got the title Zanzibar, and decided to apply it to the ringed planet in the fifth orbit of the Viridian system. Hence Zanzibar’s Rings.

It took me another year (while I finished the other series) to work out the general plot for this final book.

I’m not sure how it all came together. I wrote a draft blurb in which the two main aggressors in the galaxy came to fight over the riches of this remote system. They were already fighting each other elsewhere. That made me think of people escaping from the conflict—including one of the nastiest characters from the first two books. He happens to be the hero’s father. No love lost there!

Then I got the idea of the galactic disaster, and once I’d worked that out, I had, effectively, a locked room mystery. How do they get out? How did the people trapped in this system react? How did the ones at home react to these strangers in their midst? And what I really enjoyed was discovering (once again, as it happened in the ten book series too) all sorts of throwaway lines in the previous books to inspire plot twists and side stories, that I could wrangle until they came together in the end.

But it needed a second end, as there is a codicil, to tie up the final thread. That happened to be the perfect outing for a new idea I’d been working on in the form of a short story. So I have the setting for a new novel already… but not in the Viridian System series. That line is ended, but there is plenty more of the universe to explore!

 

A Galactic crisis: the entire comms system destroyed. No waypoints, no navigation aids, no database access… and how will spaceships in flight get home—or to any destination?

Dolores is stuck in warp with a very dangerous passenger, Pete gets his shuttle back home on manual. But how come anything in close contact with pure orichalcum fixes itself? Just flying through Zanzibar’s Rings solves the problem—as the Federation’s fighters find, as they descend on the Viridian System to take possession of the planets.

Zanzibar’s Rings brings the Viridian System series to a conclusion with a bang—and a lot of whimpering. And possibly a view of things to come.

Book Information

Release Date: February 22, 2022

Publisher: Princelings Publications

Kindle: ISIN: B093QFX6DV; 380 pages; E-Book, $2.99

Apple Books: https://apple.co/3mSjrvZ

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B093QFX6DV

Jemima Pett has been writing stories since she was eight, but went down the science path at school, and into a business career before retraining into environmental policy research. She wrote many manuals, papers and research documents before returning to fiction, publishing the Princelings of the East in 2011. That led to ten books in the series of the same name, written for older children. She started the Viridian System series in 2014.

Jemima reckons she read all of the science fiction in her local library, and most enjoys alternative universes, time travel, consequences of social change and unusual ideas surrounding alien species.  Her favourite authors included Anne McCaffrey, Fritz Lieber, Poul Anderson, John Brunner, Robert Heinlein and Arthur C Clarke. These days she likes Becky Chambers, Matt Haig, Lindsay Buroker, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Clare O’Beara, M T McGuire, Jennifer Ellis…  She also loves series – once involved with characters she loves to read their continuing adventures.

She has degrees or diplomas in maths, earth sciences and environmental technology and studied with the Unthank School of Writing while she lived in Norfolk. She now lives in Hampshire, where she enjoys rewilding her garden, raising organically grown vegetables, and birdwatching.

She would most like everyone to use their natural resources sustainably, since we only have the one planet to support us.

Her latest book is Zanzibar’s Rings: Viridian System Series (Book 3).

Visit Jemima’s website at www.jemimapett.com or connect with her at Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, Instagram and Pinterest.