Coming Wednesday to Amazon: Opening Night of the Dead!

Well my friends, after a lot of hard work, a lot of valuable help, and a little blind faith, my next novel, Opening Night of the Dead, is finally finished. I’ve declared this Wednesday, June 20, to be the official “launch day” for this new book, a zombie novel that combines my usual style of humor with the terror of wandering through an amusement park full of zombies… some of which are real, some of which may not be. Tell you what, let me let the back of the book explain it to you:

“The Climax Studios Festival of Fear is a Halloween tradition, but with monsters roaming the theme park and a monster movie filming on the adjacent film lot, what hell will break loose when a real zombie surfaces and starts biting? When you can’t tell who’s alive and who’s undead, can a stuntman, a makeup artist, a sleaze-slinging blogger and a pair of former cops stop the end of the world from sneaking off the studio lot and infecting all of California?

Blake M. Petit’s first zombie novel brings the sharp wit and genre-aware humor of his superhero favorite OTHER PEOPLE’S HEROES to the realm of horror. Fast, tense, and fun, OPENING NIGHT OF THE DEAD is a zombie tale unlike any other.”

Now, the book is going to eventually be available in all eBook formats, through the Nook and iPad and Kobo stores and even in print, but for the moment it’s only available at two sites: the Amazon Kindle store and in all other formats at Smashwords.com. In both places, the book is a mere $2.99 for a full-length novel PLUS the bonus short story, “It’s Time to Play the Music.” You can’t beat that, friends.

Now here’s the tricky part. The book is, technically, available for purchase right now. But I’m asking you, please, DON’T BUY IT YET. Wait until Wednesday?

Why?

Numbers.

Amazon ranking is influenced not only by how many books you sell, but also how fast they sell in a specific period of time. So if everybody reading this buys a book when they read this announcement, it won’t raise the book as high on the list as if everybody waits and buys it on the same day. And the higher it goes on that list, the better chances it’ll be found by people outside of my little community of friends and supporters, and that wil help this community grow, which is really my goal. So if you’re planning to buy the eBook for your Kindle or Kindle app on any device, great! I love you. But PLEASE, wait until Wednesday. In the meantime, though, help spread the word. Pass this link along to anyone you know who’s into zombies, horror, horror/comedy, or who you know enjoyed any of my previous books.

Speaking of which…

I don’t write any story in a vacuum, my friends. Like most of my work, Opening Night of the Dead has ties to another, specifically, it takes place in the same “universe” as my novel The Beginner. Now it’s not a sequel — it doesn’t share any of the same characters or pick up the story. To use a currently-popular movie metaphor, you could watch Captain America without having seen Iron Man and still get a complete story. However, just like those movies, if you HAVE read both of the books, you’ll see links and ties and begin to see a bigger picture.

And yes… just like those movies, those links and ties may ultimately be pointing towards a larger story in the future.

So, as a bonus to help people who discover my world through Opening Night, from now until August 1, I’m slashing the price of the eBook The Beginner from my usual $2.99 novel price all the way down to a mere 99 cents! Now it’s easier than ever to be introduced to this new universe of mine.

And one last thing, friends… every little bit of exposure helps. Once you read these — or any of my books, please go to Amazon (or Smashwords or Barnes & Noble or wherever) and leave a review. Reviews really are a huge help in spreading the word about a little book like mine, and it helps raise the profile on the site as well.

Thanks, everyone, who’s been asking about this book and when it was going to come out, particularly my beta readers and my sister Heather, who designed that spiffy cover. It couldn’t have happened without you.