Here’s some food for thought for my fellow writers, artists, and creators:
Everyone wants to be an Avenger. To be Iron Man or Captain America, or heck, even just Hawkeye for one day would be the dream for many of us. To us, our Avengers are authors like Stephen King, J. K. Rowling, or filmmakers like Spielberg, Lucas, or Christopher Nolan. Or maybe artists like Warhol, Rembrandt, or even Jack Kirby and Stan Lee. The ones who people think of when the words “author, director, artist” come to mind. We all want to be big shots in our creative fields, not because we crave fame, (although some of us do, I’m looking at you Tony Stark) but because we want to make a difference with our art.
Here’s the thing: you can make a difference.
But be a Defender, not an Avenger.
Yeah, the Avengers get all the limelight, the tent-pole movie blockbusters, and all the sweet Hasbro action figures to go with it. But the Defenders, the Defenders are fighting crime on the street-level. They’re in the trenches, getting the work done that the Avengers don’t have time to deal with, which isn’t a knock on the Avengers. They obviously have bigger issues on hand, such as fighting off alien invasions led by an Asgardian god of mischief or stopping the destruction of the world at the hands of an unruly artificial intelligence program.
Some of us may never see the big time. But what we can do is make a difference in our cities. In our own creative circles. We may never have a big blockbuster or New York Times best seller on our hands, but we’re there in the trenches, getting the work done. We’re hitting those word counts and working a full-time job. We’re uploading quality content to YouTube and interacting with our audience, all while we’re raising two year olds and wiping noses. We’re on the Twitters, doing the tweets, and tweeting the things.
It may not seem like much, but it’s what we got.
And what we got, is sometimes all the world needs.
So get out there and make a difference in your circles, in your city, or even in your neighborhood. Because you never know, sometimes even a friendly, neighborhood Spider-Man can become an Avenger.
Josh Vasquez
That’s me in our local paper’s DoSavannah section, which features local music and happenings each week.
No big deal.
Haha, jk. It’s weird though, because this is the first time I’ve really put my work out there locally. My books have been in several local bookstores, but unless someone just walked in there, they would have no idea my books exist.
Sad, I know.
But now, “real” people know about my books, not just “internet” people. (No offense.)
Anyways, this was a really cool start to the new year and as I get back on track with A New Daybreak, this really gives me motivation to press forward. I just shared the Prologue with my email list (which you should join by the way and get a free ebook) and will continue to share sneak peeks with them until release day.
You can read the article here and you should probably share it on social media, because it’s 2016 people and that means it’s the future.
The future people.
Alright, now back to writing.
Josh
So, how’s it going?
(pauses for effect)
That good, huh? Well, I’m doing FANTASTIC!
Last year, I attended the Savannah Zombie Walk, but the event was moved to April, so I will be doing a book signing on Halloween instead. It will be at E. Shaver, Bookseller, which is a cool local bookstore in downtown Savannah. (I say cool, because there are other local bookstores, who are, um… not so cool.)
Anyways, from 3-5 PM on October 31st, I will be hanging out at the bookstore which is located at 326 Bull St. Come stop by, pick up an autographed copy of A New Death, and just hang out with some cool book people!
Ok, so I didn’t just submit my book to the Tybee Island Book Festival.
But I did do so in the last week.
Pretty excited about a local book festival that includes both traditionally published and self-published authors. We have the Savannah Book Festival here every year, but as of right now, they only except traditionally published authors.
Which is kinda funny to me, because two years ago, they had Hugh Howey, who is one of the more well-known self-publishers. In fact, his self-publishing career is what led to him getting a traditional type publisher, but I digress.
I don’t have too many details on how I’ll be envolved with the festival, but I will keep everyone posted.
Hey everybody, just wanted to give a quick update and let you know what I’m up to.
First, A New Darkness releases on Kindle this Saturday! You can still pre-order it and save 33% on this weekend’s price and 66% on list price. If you haven’t yet, go and get it here.
Maybe you’re like, “I still haven’t read A New Death yet.” Well, good for you, A New Death is on sale until Saturday! Get it for $1.99 here!
Or maybe you like paper. (Who doesn’t? Books smell amazing.) Well, good news for you, I’ve made some updates to the paperback version of A New Death and started work on the A New Darkness paperback this week. So both of those will be live in the next couple of weeks.
And lastly, I don’t normally do too much promotion leading up to book launch (one of my weak points) but this time around, I’m trying something new.
It’s called Thunderclap. Thunderclap works like this: You go and hook up your social media (Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr) to my Thunderclap promotion. Then on Saturday at noon, Thunderclap will blast out a message featuring my book and link through all of our social media accounts. Pretty cool, right? The only catch is I have to get full support or else the message won’t go out.
As of right now, I’m at 14 out of 100 supporters. With only 14 people signed on, it already has a reach of 4313 people. Can you imagine if we get all 100?
I’ve done this before and have never received any junk mail from it, or any emails afterwards. It’s an extremely easy way to help support me. All you have to do is give up one tweet or status update on Saturday.
100 people is an easily reached number. We can do this. Sign up here.
Thank you so much for the support and I look forward to hearing what you have to say about A New Darkness!
Josh
Well, it’s official.
I’ll be at this year’s annual Savannah Zombie Walk!
Come hang out November 1st, get done up as a zombie, and shamble on through Savannah!
I’ll be there as a vendor, so come say hey, buy a paperback version of my books, get some autographs, or just stare at me like a piece of delicious meat.
It’s for a great cause too. To get your FREE zombie make up, all you have to do is make a canned food donation to the America’s Second Harvest of Coastal Georgia. Check out the website below:
So, for those of you that follow me, you may have noticed that I kind of suck at this whole blogging thing.
Yeah, I’m not gonna lie; it’s not my bag of tea.
It’s not that I don’t like writing. (I love writing. That’s why I write books.) I just have a super busy schedule. You see, I have what we, “in the biz,” like to call “a day job.” You know, the job that actually pays the bills? (Well, sorta, but I’ll save that for another blog post.)
Anyways, what I do for a living is this: I make deliveries for a Plumbing and Mechanical Company here in Savannah, Ga. A lot of times what I ship is air duct, different types of pipe and fittings, and massive commercial air units. Very glamorous stuff here. (Not complaining. It’s a great job.)
But my company has jobs all over the Southeast. From Columbus, Georgia to Charleston, South Carolina, I drive all over the place. That being said, I work some crazy hours. For example, this past week had me going to Gray, Georgia twice (3 hours from Savannah). I think I went to Charleston once. (or was that last week? It all begins to run together.) Either way, that’s a four and a half hour drive, there and back again. A lot of times I leave early in the morning (5 AM) and get back in the afternoon. And those longs drives can wear you out. (Remember going on family vacations and your dad was all grumpy after the ride there? Yeah, like that.)
I’m not trying to whine about it. I’m just letting you (hopefully my readers) into my world for a minute. When it comes down to it, my time for blogging isn’t just there. And here’s why:
I’d rather be writing more books for you to read.
There I said it. It’s out in the open. Now we all know. (That takes a load off.)
So, to wrap all this up (if that’s even possible), if you don’t see updates on anewdeath.com, it’s most likely cause I’m working on something else great for you. For example, here’s the link to my new short story set in the world of A New Death.
That will take you to the Amazon page. (As of this writing, the price is set to $0.99, but once Amazon sees I have it free on Barnes and Noble, they’ll drop the price. Cause that’s how they roll.) I also have it up on Smashwords. (If you’re into that kind of thing.) You can get it free here.
Also, I started working on Book II in the New Death Saga this past week.
I’m really excited about some of the stuff I’m working on (so excited that even on the days I get up early, I’m up late working on “book stuff”). Can’t wait to share it all with you. I wish there was some kind of avenue for posting all the things I want to share with you… Oh, wait…
Josh
