Friday, September 19, 2014

Funny Books by Rich Leder Book Tour, Interview & Giveaway


Welcome! Ready to ride? 

You know it, brother!

GR: Tell us about your latest release...

This month, I self-pubbed three funny novels: McCall & Company: Workman’s Complication and McCall & Company: Swollen Identity and Juggler, Porn Star, Monkey Wrench on Laugh Riot Press, the social media marketing and self-publishing company I created to promote and market my books and the books of other funny indie authors.

McCall & Company is a PI series set in New York City. The first two books are funny, yes, but they’re also rocking mysteries—most everyone that’s read them has had no idea whodunit until the very end. Juggler, Porn Star, Monkey Wrench is a standalone novel about a LA screenwriter at the end of his personal and professional ropes who comes to terms with the three women in his life (the juggler, the porn star, and the monkey wrench) while he adapts the phone book into a movie. It’s a romantic Hollywood sex comedy and is more or less the story of my improbable life as a screenwriter in Los Angeles. Some of it is exactly true, some of it is inexactly true, but all of it is true enough.


GR: What inspired you to start your writing journey?

I’ve been a working professional writer for 25 years. But I’ve been writing for far longer than that. I wrote a variety comedy show—a Laugh-In clone—that my friends and I performed in my garage for the neighborhood kids and parents when I was nine years old. My army men had backstories, nicknames, families at home. I don’t know what inspired me to be this way. My mother says I haven’t changed a bit since birth. That last sentence makes my wife roll her eyes.


GR: Who have been some authors that have inspired you along the way?

Oh man, Richard Ford, John Irving, Phillip Roth, Donald Westlake, Carl Hiaasen, Sue Grafton, Janet Evanovich, Sophie Littlefield, John D. MacDonald, Stephen King, Elmore Leonard, Sinclair Lewis, Frank Herbert, Ray Bradbury. That’s a start...


GR: What is one piece of marketing advice you can give to new authors?

Get out there and stay out there. It doesn’t matter where, just somewhere in the digital sphere, somewhere in the global village of readers. It’s a matter of time before folks find you. Yes, I know, I’m a glass-half-full kind of guy.

I started Laugh Riot Press because I’m terrible at social media marketing and yet I know how important it is to have a consistent, wide-reaching, year-round online presence. LRP is everywhere readers are every week of the year. That’s the kind of exposure I wanted but knew I couldn’t do myself.


GR: If we went on the ride of our life, where is one place you'd like to be sure to stop along the way?

Mount Rushmore. I want to see the presidents carved into the cliff. I’ve never been there.


GR: Would you be afraid to ride on the back of my bike?

Come on, Burt. Are you kidding? Where are we going and when do we leave?


GR: What can we expect from you in the future? Any new projects?

I’m almost done with another standalone. It’s called Let There Be Linda. It’s a dark comedy that tells the story of two estranged brothers living in the San Fernando Valley who bring their dead mother back to life so she can clean up the mess they’ve made of things. As you might imagine, that can’t be a good idea. Quentin Tarantino meets Monty Python.



Thank you so much for chatting with me today. I wish you the best of success and to always leave your hair blowing in the wind! 

You’re welcome, Burt. Thanks for hosting me.


Author Bio:
Rich Leder
Screenwriter—Novelist—Publisher

Rich Leder has been a working writer for more than two decades. His screen credits include 18 produced television films for CBS, NBC, Lifetime, and Hallmark and feature films for Paramount Pictures, Tri-Star Pictures, and Left Bank Films.

He has written four funny novels to be released in 2014: McCall & Company: Workman’s Complication, McCall & Company: Swollen Identity, Juggler, Porn Star, Monkey Wrench, and Let There Be Linda.

He has been the lead singer in a Detroit rock band, a restaurateur, a Little League coach, a literacy tutor, a magazine editor, a screenwriting coach, a commercial real estate agent, an indie film director, and a visiting artist for the University of North Carolina Wilmington Film Studies Department, among other things, all of which, it turns out, were grist for the mill. He resides on the North Carolina coast with his awesome wife, Lulu, and is sustained by the visits home of their three college kids.

Rich loves to hear from readers and writers. Please don’t be shy.

You can write him directly at rich@laughriotpress.com

Or you can visit him at www.laughriotpress.com/richleder

Author Links - 




Book Genre: FUNNY MYSTERY // FUNNY FICTION
Publisher: LAUGH RIOT PRESS
Release Date: AUGUST 2014
Buy Link(s): Amazon


Book Description:

MCCALL & COMPANY: WORKMAN’S COMPLICATION

WAY-OFF BROADWAY ACTRESS. MURDERED PI FATHER. NEW DAY JOB.

Off-off-off-off Broadway actress Kate McCall inherits her father’s New York private investigation business after he’s a whole lot of murdered in a life insurance company elevator.

A concrete-carrying, ballroom-dancing construction mule says he fell off the scaffolding and can never work—or dance—again, and then sues the contractor for a whole lot of money.

Kate assembles the eccentric tenants of her brownstone and her histrionic acting troupe to help her crack the cases, and they stir up a whole lot of trouble.

But not as much trouble as Kate, who sticks her nose in the middle of the multi-million-dollar life-insurance scam her father was investigating and gets a whole lot of arrested for murdering a medical examiner.

Will Kate bust the insurance scam, prove who really killed the examiner—and her father—and get out of jail in time to pull off the ballroom sting of the decade?  She might, but it's going to be a whole lot of hilarious.


MCCALL & COMPANY: SWOLLEN IDENTITY

BEAUTIFUL BILLIONAIRE SOCIALITE. COLD-BLOODED CORPORATE ASSASSIN. MCCALL & COMPANY BACK IN BUSINESS.

Way-off Broadway actress and NYC PI Kate McCall had promised the police and the Assistant DA—her son—that she was all done investigating any damn thing in New York...

Meaning beautiful billionaire socialite Brooke Barrington says someone has stolen her identity and the corporate assassin who murdered Kate’s father has shot the eyes out of the CEO of Superior Press...

Meaning McCall & Company is back in business...

Meaning Kate enlists the help of the eccentric tenants of her brownstone—the House of Emotional Tics—and her melodramatic acting troupe, the Schmidt and Parker Players...

Meaning things spiral hilariously and dangerously out of control...  


Meaning she is confronted by Brooke's demonic identical twin, Bailey, accosted by international counterfeiters, and arrested for impersonating a hooker.

Will Kate stop Bailey from murdering Brooke? Or will she stop Brooke from murdering Bailey? Or will she figure out how to tell one from the other in time to survive the wrath of the Bulgarian mob men hired to protect the counterfeit cash?

And will she finally find her father’s killer?  

She might, but it's going to be a fast, funny, furious ride.



JUGGLER, PORN STAR, MONKEY WRENCH

My name is Mark Manilow. I am a Hollywood screenwriter. Here’s my recipe for a cocktail called “Romantic Hollywood Sex Comedy.”

Start with my estranged wife, who left me two years ago to become a juggler.

Pour in the ensuing emotional tailspin conjoined with a brutal case of writer’s block.

Mix with my last-gasp writing job, a ridiculous porn flick called Broken Boner.

Add in the Broken Boner porn star, who seduces me into an ill-fated relationship.

Blend with the gun-toting producer and eccentric Montecito billionaire, who hire me to adapt the phonebook into a movie.

Toss in the return of my headaches and a trip to an ancient Chinese healer, where I meet the healer’s beguiling granddaughter—my monkey wrench.

Serve with wonderment as to whether or not I’ll find a way to settle things with the juggler, break it off with the porn star, and fall in love with the monkey wrench...or if anyone will stop laughing long enough to notice. 

Excerpt:

MCCALL & COMPANY: WORKMAN’S COMPLICATION

“Your father’s dead, Miss McCall. Got himself murdered.”
I thought I might hear that sentence one day, but I was even less ready for it than I imagined I would be. I blinked a few times, then walked to one of the toilets, sat down, and gestured at his cigarettes. “I’ll take one of those now.” Some bad news is simply too big to process right away.
He gave me a Camel, lit it, and moved back to the sink. “I work for Mel Shavelson, your father’s attorney. I’m the bearer of bad news. That’s my job.”
He talked about how my father got himself murdered—something about sticking his nose someplace it had no business being, something else about the police finding him late last night (actually, at three o’clock on Friday morning) tied to a chair in an elevator in an office building, two big fat bullet holes where his eyes used to be—but I wasn’t listening.
Instead, I was thinking about the final curtain of the last performance of Bye Bye Birdie. My father had given me flowers, handing them to me on the stage while the audience applauded. They were roses from a Korean market and smelled like ginger.
“Shavelson’s going to read the will, and you’re supposed to be there,” Barnes said. He put his cigarette out in the sink, tossed the butt in the trash, and crossed to the toilet, where I sat watching the Camel burn down to my fingers. (I don’t smoke). He handed me Mel Shavelson’s business card and said, “Date and time’s on the back. Monday morning, ten thirty.”
I took the card, still smelling the ginger roses, grief growing inside me, building, building, getting ready to bust through the wall of shock that had been constructed in the same second the fire hydrant had delivered the bad news, which, as he said, was his job.
“I knew your old man,” Barnes said. “He was a hell of a PI.” And then he left.
There had been a voicemail for me from a Detective Harriman earlier in the day, but it was just a general “Please call me as soon as possible” sort of message. I had been busy, and usually the police only contacted me to verify something or other about Jimmy getting into trouble on the job. Jimmy always worked that kind of thing out for himself and had told me, “Never cozy up to the cops unless you’re impersonating one.” I deleted Harriman’s message and didn’t call him back. Maybe that’s what he was going to tell me, that Jimmy had been murdered. Anyway, now Barnes had told me.
I dropped the Camel in the toilet, looked at the card, and wept like a seventh-grade girl.




Schedule

September 7 - Introduction at VBT Café Blog

September 8 - Spotlight at Debbie Jeans

September 10 - Spotlight at Words, Words, Words

September 12 - Guest Blogging at PubSlush

September 15 - Interviewed at A. Literary Mafia

September 17 - Guest Blogging at Lori's Reading Corner

September 19 - Interviewed at Bikers With Books

September 22 - Review & Guest Blog at Lilac Reviews

September 24 - Reviewed at KimberkyandCompany

September 26 - 5 Things I Know For Sure at CAT Magazine

September 29 - Interviewed at BK Walker Books Etc.

October 1 - Review & Interview at My Life, Love, & Passions

October 3 - Guest Blogging at The Avid Reader

October 6 - Interviewed at YAH Did Radio 6:30pm EST

October 8 - Spotlight at Black Coffee, Brown Cow

October 10 - Spotlight at A Cup Of Tea & A Big Book

October 13 - Author 2 Author Marketing at BookIt BK

October 15 - Interviewed at Ghost Rider Book Promotions

October 17 - Review & Interview at AG Lang Writes

October 20 - Spotlight at Dalene's Book Reviews

October 22 - 6 Besties at BK Walker Books

October 24 - Reviewed at BK Walker Books




Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Soul Searching by Jamie-Jo Brenner Guest Blog & Giveaway




What made me choose my genre?

I’ve always felt most comfortable writing for young adults or at least about young adults. Perhaps I’m still a child at heart. I have a lot of experience working with young people/teens so it’s always in the forefront of whatever I write. I love the idea of helping them through difficult times, so if I can’t do that physically through my volunteering then I hope that my writing can do it.

I feel that a coming of age story is something everyone can related to, because you’re either going through it or you’ve been there already. Either way, it’s something that you can understand and identify with. I know that this story sort of crosses between genres a little bit. It could be considered a drama and even slightly a supernatural piece, but at its heart I believe it to simply be a coming of age story about a group of friends who try to find themselves. Brent has to wrestle with his past which causes his sister to have uncertainty about her future. I think that their story is the most important within the book. Their relationship. Their experiences. Their thoughts and feelings with what they are forced to endure is the heart of the novel.


 I believe that these are things that anyone can relate to, but that it worked better having them young adults rather than in their 30’s like I am. I just feel that being a teenager is difficult without any added problems or pressures, so when you put them in certain situations it makes the whole thing a lot more fun to write about. I think as a whole, we’d feel more empathetic toward a young person dealing with an identity crisis than we would with someone more grown up. I guess that’s why I choose the genre, because the story I wanted to tell would be more easily understood and believed coming from someone so young.




I'm a 2nd Dan Black Belt in Tang Soo Do. I have been on mission trips, one to Haiti and the other to a Native American Reservation/Camp in Oklahoma. I loved both experiences.

I am in the Army Reserves. And I volunteer at Camp Sunshine each August. I also work in Security for Farmer's Insurance. And I was a victim's advocate for the YWCA.

My passion is writing and I love to read. I wrote a books, A Place for Me, and most recently, Soul Searching.

When I was 19, I made an independent film (wrote, directed and starred in it) called, Weight of the World. I wrote A Place for Me when I was 20. Published it at 21. When I was 22, my cousins and I made a indie movie out of it.

Now at 32, I wrote another book. Soul Searching.

Author Links - 





I also have a facebook page for me, Jamie-Jo Brenner as well as Soul Searching novel page.




Book Genre: Young Adult
Publisher: Self-Published through CreateSpace on Amazon
Release Date: July 16, 2014
Buy Link(s):




Book Description:


Brent Harper is the perfect guy. He's Max's hero--the boy she's had a crush on since the school year began. But when Brent goes missing, Max must face the truth that she really doesn't know him at all. In order to find him, she will first need to learn everything she can about him.

After Brent wakes up without any memories, his only choice is to trust the first person he sees. Alison, the girl who finds him, promises to help him remember. But what if he doesn't want to remember? When his memories start to return, Brent is confronted with the hardest decision of his life.

How do you choose between who you thought you were and who you want to be?








Excerpt:


Prologue
Brent

There is no easy way from the earth to the stars.
-Seneca

Images of the fight flooded my mind. I’d considered Lucas and Mark my friends, but I wasn’t so sure anymore. I stopped them from picking on my best friend, Max, and the next thing I knew I was shoved against a locker. The cold metal rattled loudly when my body slammed into it. My head throbbed in pain at the contact.
“Stay out of it for once,” Lucas growled.
“Maybe it’s time you learned your place,” Mark spat at me as his fist knocked the wind out of my lungs.
Lucas’s knee connected with my ribs, and I winced in pain. They alternated between knees to stomach, and punches to my face. I fell to a clump on the ground. I knew I should‘ve defended myself, but I made a promise to someone--a promise that I swore I’d keep. I took the beating without complaint, because I knew I deserved it. I always deserved it.
Between kicks, I heard Mark say, “Dude, fight back.”
It sounded like a plea. But I lost consciousness before I figured out the significance of it. It’d been hours since that fight, but even now my ribs hurt and my face ached. Even with all the blood washed away, I bore evidence of the fight, and had feared going home.
I wandered the streets and watched the sky darken around me as I prayed for answers that never came. If they had come, I wouldn’t have done something that I already regretted. I made my choice. And even if I didn’t remember this in the morning, the truth of it weighed heavily on my mind tonight. My demons always found a way to haunt me. Somehow, I knew they’d follow me this time as well. I just wished I hadn’t chosen to start this journey alone.
I reached my destination, and had I taken one last look at the sky. I found my favorite constellations, and recalled all the times I’d admired this same sky. I always felt at home among the stars--they were the only good thing about the darkness. Their presence harkened the depths of imagination. They were ageless as they gazed back at us. We were mere fragments in the lifetime of a star. I longed for that kind of immortality. Even now, I yearned to exist.
I collapsed onto the grass, and fought off sleep for as long as I could. I was terrified of tomorrow. Exhausted, I dispelled one last breath of hot air, and I resigned myself to my fate. Things were finally going to change, I’d seen to that. I couldn’t run forever. And with that thought in mind, I had closed my eyes, and allowed the spell to take me.





Schedule

August 24 - October 13


August 24 - Introduction at VBT Café Blog

August 26 - Guest Blogging at Coffee, Books & Art

August 28 - Spotlight at Cherry Mischievous


September 2 - Reviewed at Give Me The Books


September 4 - 6 Besties at BK Walker Books


September 8 - Guest Blogging at Bikers With Books


September 10 - Spotlight at Mom With A Kindle


September 12 - 5 Things I Know For Sure & Favorite Recipe at CAT Magazine


September 15 - Reviewed at AG LANG Writes


September 17 - Interviewed at Ghost Rider Book Promotions


September 19 - Interviewed at BK Walker Books Etc.


September 22 - Guest Blogging at Black Coffee, Brown Cow


September 24 - Reviewed at Debbie Jeans


September 26 - Review & Interview at Deal Sharing Aunt

September 29 - Review & Guest Blog at


October 1 - Interviewed at The Avid Reader


October 3 - Guest Blogging at Lori's Reading Corner


October 6 - Author 2 Author Marketing at BookIt BK


October 8 - Interviewed at Yah Did Marketing Radio at 6:30pm EST


October 10 - Interviewed at Immortality & Beyond


October 13 - Reviewed at BK Walker Books