​AUTHOR BIO
Dr. Randy Overbeck is a veteran educator who has served children as a teacher and school leader. For more than three decades, his educational experiences have included responsibilities ranging from coach and yearbook advisor to principal and superintendent and he’s lived the roles of many of the characters in his stories. An accomplished writer, he has been published in trade journals, professional texts and newspapers as well as in fiction, with his third published novel. As a member of the Mystery Writers of America, Dr. Overbeck is an active member of the literary community, contributing to a writers’ critique group, serving as a mentor to emerging writers and participating in writing conferences such as Sleuthfest, Killer Nashville and the Midwest Writers Workshop. When he’s not writing or researching his next exciting novel or sharing his presentation “Things That Go Bump in the Night,” he’s spending time with his incredible family of wife, three children (and their spouses) and seven wonderful grandchildren.

SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS
Twitter: @OverbeckRandy
Facebook: Author Randy Overbeck
Website: http://www.authorrandyoverbeck.com
​

​PURCHASE LINKS
https://www.amazon.com/Crimson-Cape-Haunted-Shores-Mysteries/dp/1509231633/ref=sr_1_2?crid=1BCBKCDPQRK3L&dchild=1&keywords=crimson+at+cape+may&qid=1599856137&sprefix=Crimson+at+Cape+May%2Caps%2C163&sr=8-2
 
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/crimson-at-cape-may-randy-overbeck/1137088608?ean=9781509231638
 
https://www.bookbub.com/books/crimson-at-cape-may-by-randy-overbeck
 
BOOK TRAILER LINK
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9nWiaGO-KM
 

​At a recent author event, an excited eighteen-year-old stepped up and asked me about my new novel, Blood on the Chesapeake. 

​After I’d given my elevator pitch, he pivoted and asked “How hard it to get a novel published?”
My response threw him. “The hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.”
“Really?” He looked unconvinced. “I mean it looks like fun. First you hole up in your room and write your story and then you get it published. I mean, you sign books and everything.”
I plowed on. “The book you see here took years to research, write and edit, and that doesn’t include all the time and effort it took to find the right publisher.”
The young man said he had a friend who wrote a fantasy novel and published it himself. “Jeremy said it took him only about three months. No big deal, he said.”
I nodded, not answering right away. “The self-publishing route wasn’t right for me, but some authors do it like that. And it’s true that there are more routes to getting your book ‘published’ than ever before” I used the air quotes for a little emphasis. “But getting it ‘published’ is only a start. Unless you just want to be able to tell your family and friends ‘You got your book published,’ there is a whole lot more to it than seeing your words in print. Maybe a few stats about the business will help make my point about the challenge ahead.”
He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and I could almost see the glaze roll over his eyes.

I went on, “Do you realize that there is a new book title released on Amazon every two minutes! ​

​Just to be clear, that means about 33 books every hour, 800 new titles every day and that’s more than a quarter million every year. At last count, Amazon listed over 6,000,000 books on Kindle—and that’s only one tenth of the total number of books on their site!”
He started shaking his head. “That’s unbelievable.”
“And on Amazon, guess how many copies of an individual title are sold, on average.” I paused.
He took the bait. “A hundred. Uh, no, maybe a thousand?” He looked up hopefully, his brown eyes narrowing.
“Six.”
“What?”
“The average number of copies of any title sold on Amazon is six.” I stopped, letting it sink in. “And that includes adding in the million seller titles too.”
He shook his head.
“So why do you do it?” The young man pointed to the copy of Blood on the Chesapeake in his hand. “If it’s really that hard and you don’t sell all that many books, why do you even bother?”
I smiled. “Because I love it. The only reason you should choose to do something this hard is because you love it.” He looked unconvinced. “When I’ve spent hours, days and sometimes weeks to get a paragraph, a page, a chapter just right, I’m thrilled with the result.”
He started nodding his head.
“After it’s published and readers write back or post 5 star reviews, saying how much they love the book, or how the book was hard to put down, or how reading the novel late into the night made them lose sleep…well there’s no feeling like it.”
He grabbed up my other novel, now holding both in his hands. “I’ll check them out. Thanks for the explanation.”
I gave a quick wave. “Just decide if writing is something you love.”
With the tsunami of books out there and the pandemic wreaking havoc everywhere, I’m grateful my novels made it this far. And I am truly thankful that readers continue to discover and enjoy my new series, the Haunted Shores Mysteries.
The first entry in the series, BLOOD ON THE CHESAPEAKE, was published 2019 by the Wild Rose Press and earned rave reviews and even picked up two national awards.  BLOOD ON THE CHESAPEAKE takes place on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay, where Darrell Henshaw—teacher, coach and paranormal sensitive—encounters the spirit of a student murdered years before still yearning for justice. When the ghost haunts Darrell, he finally agrees to help, only to discover a much uglier crime than he could have imagined. 

​The second installment in the series, CRIMSON AT CAPE MAY, was released last summer and it also garnered numerous ★★★★★ reviews and a national award, the Gold Award from Literary Titan. 

​CRIMSON follows our hero, Darrell Henshaw to the incredible resort town at the tip of New Jersey. There, he is stalked by the Haunted Bride, who is desperate for him to seek justice for her, and for many more victimized girls.

To follow along with the rest of the tour, please visit the authors' tour page on the 4WillsPublishing site.  If you'd like to book your own blog tour and have your book promoted in similar grand fashion, please click HERE. Thanks for supporting this author and his work!
 ​

Blurb:
Tinsel is the newest apprentice in Santa’s Workshop, but this young elf lands himself in strife on his first day!
He’s sent to care for the reindeer and instead ends up on a magical adventure.
Will the Toy-Inspector allow him back into the Workshop?
A fun Christmas story for younger readers and those young at heart.
 
Amazon Universal Link http://mybook.to/Sleighed
​

​In March 2019, my sister (who lives in Canada), visited me in New Zealand, and we embarked on a memory tour. We revisited places from our childhood, including Queenstown, where our grandmother used to live. 



​

​Our great-grandfather had been an engineer on the iconic century-old coal fired steamship, the TSS Earnslaw, back in the day when it transported stock and supplies across Lake Wakatipu. We enjoyed a delightful sunny cruise to Walter Peak High Country Farm

​

​During our travels, we set a challenge, to each write a 1500 word story. I chose to write a Children’s Christmas story, based on a writing prompt from my Aspiring Author Series, and that’s how, ‘Sleighed’, came to be created.  




​

Aspiring Author Series Link Aspiring Author Series (6 book series) Kindle Edition (amazon.com)
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​Wendy Scott has a New Zealand Certificate in Science (Chemistry), which allows her to dabble with fuming potions and strange substances, satisfying her inner witch.
Wendy writes short stories, fantasy, and children’s novels. Her books have won multiple awards.
One of the creeds she lives by is to always – Live a life less ordinary!
Full book list http://www.wendyjscott.com/
Amazon Universal Link http://mybook.to/Sleighed
 

​Connect with Wendy:
Children’s Websites
http://www.authorchildrens.com
http://www.hieroglyph.ws
http://www.tails-wjscott.com
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/ChildrenAuthorWJScott
Twitter:
@WendyJayneScott
https://twitter.com/WendyJayneScott/
Pinterest:
https://nz.pinterest.com/wendyscottbooks/
 

​4 Wills Tour Day 6

Breakfield and Burkey work full-time yet have a passion for writing. We wanted to share what we have done to make writing a priority for us. We also wanted to explain how we keep stories fresh.  
Full-time jobs are necessary for each of our households. When we reach Best Selling and Million Books Sold status, that could change. We each set aside time every day to contribute to a story, research, and/or think up new angles for the current novel. We are successful with set times for writing. We would devote more time, but those endearing customers and our leaders do require we do our jobs. For Breakfield, he is often called upon to pull a technical rabbit out of the hat, on-demand.
Our habit is to write for two hours each morning, usually to try and capture the dreams we had the previous night. We find we are both at our freshest and mentally alert at that time. To be fair, we don't always write on the current work item because we may have woken up after dreaming about something completely different. In fact, these off-target writing events often come with one of us telling the other what has to be the most terrifying 4 words in our vocabulary. "I have an idea…"
Breakfield has threatened Burkey's suffocation with a pillow, and Burkey has threatened Breakfield with the stake used against the vampire Nosferatu. Usually, we end up in a lengthy discussion where we accept the idea as crazy, then try to do something with it. One of our writing rules is we do not discard anything we write, as it will likely come in handy in some other endeavor if it does not fit in the current project.
Keeping the scenarios and threats fresh is part of our secret sauce.  We reuse our core hero teams of the R-Group and their counterparts, The CATS (Cyber Assassin Technology Services) Team, throughout the series. From story to story, we use the characters with the history in a given cyber threat or location of the cyber threat to expand a hero.
As in The Enigma Threat, we started with the overall theme of artificial intelligence and supercomputers running amuck, then outlined the story structure. In other books in the series, we approach genetic reengineering of humans, commodity market fraud, or identity theft and then exercise the characters in these situations to allow them to grow and expand. So, it is not a formula but a methodology for creating new story conflicts with every book.
We have another edict we use for our novels.  We write each book as a standalone novel. To achieve that, we need to bring some history and frame the story for readers who pick up a particular book for the first time. We walk the line of providing background for new readers but not totally bore a continuing reader. The feedback to date confirms this as the preferred approach.
We began this process because if we get a reader engaged for one book, regardless of the number it has within the series, we insist that it be a great reading experience. Readers do not need to read the whole series to understand the current book, which has been repeatedly confirmed by reviews and subsequent buys of the other books. Admittedly the story is richer if a person reads the whole series, but definitely not a requirement.
The Enigma Threat is focused on the newer generation of the R-Group Characters; thus, the approaches are more contemporary and fresher from their points of view. We initiated a Kickstarter campaign because we believe this one is ripe for a screenplay. We would love you to check it out
 

​Breakfield is a 25+ year technology expert in security, networking, voice, and anything digital. He enjoys writing, studying World War II history, travel, and cultural exchanges. He’s also a fan of wine tastings, winemaking, Harley riding, cooking extravaganzas, and woodworking.
Burkey is a 25+ year applied technology professional who excels at optimizing technology and business investments. She works with customers all over the world focusing on optimized customer experiences. She writes white papers and documentation, but found she has a marked preference for writing fiction.
Together they create award-winning stories that resonate with males and females, as well as young and experienced adults. They bring a fresh new view to technology possibilities today.
 

You may connect with the authors via social media…
Twitter:  @enigmaseries & @1rburkey
Facebook:  The Enigma Series
Please CLICK for their many other social media contacts!