by Mark Tufo
First off thank you for allowing me to guest post on your blog it is much appreciated. Alright so I have been asked a few times ‘Why zombies?‘ Honestly it has been a genre I have loved before it became fashionable to do so. It all started many moons ago when at the ripe old age of 7 my parents decided to go out with their friends to dinner and then play some cards. It wasn’t so much that they went out as to who they decided should babysit me. My cousin got the nod and he thought watching Dawn of the Dead with his young nephew was a perfectly acceptable way to while away the evening. I had never been so scared slash enthralled with any movie like I had been that night. When those zombie arms started busting through the boarded up windows, I may have wet myself, but with the passage of so much time it’s difficult to remember clearly! So since that time I have had a love affair with all things horror, in films and books with a heavy slant towards zombies. I have a whole section of my bookshelf dedicated to various zombie stories and now I have begun to build one on my nook, yes I have finally joined the digital revolution even if it was kicking and screaming.
As for how I got started with the Zombie Fallout series. I get this question a lot from folks that want to write their own stories and I’m not sure everyone believes me but here it goes. I had been laid off from corporate America AGAIN. I figured a month tops without a job and I’d be back in employment no sweat, hell I kind of thought of it as vacation for the first two weeks. Then three months later without so much as an interview the reality of what was happening was setting in, I was stressed to the max. I was reading tons if only to help me not think about what was actually happening, one morning after a particularly long marathon session of reading the night before I came downstairs and told the missus I had read a pretty good zombie book, but more jokingly than anything I had told her I thought I could do better. She turned to me and said ‘Then why don’t you?’ I kind of looked at her and said ‘Why not?’ I think she was thrilled if it was only because I would get out of her hair neither of us really thought the series would take off like it has. For three months I wrote Zombie Fallout 1 at the tail end of completing the book I was beginning to get interviews and was actually set to start a new job within a week. It was almost as if I was given a window with which to write the book, thankfully I was gently prodded by my wife, without her encouragement I don’t believe I would have ever allowed that file off of my computer and into stores. So in a nutshell, I was ‘dared’ to write a book. And now I find myself just releasing the 7th volume, Zombie Fallout 6: ‘Til Death Do Us Part on October 1st. Writing and this series in particular has helped me to walk away from corporate America on my own terms and after being laid off twice that is of a particularly big relief. Now don’t get me wrong, writing a book is not a get rich quick scheme, I sold three copies of my first book in the seven months it was out there, pretty much sure I couldn’t have bought a cup of coffee with the royalties.
And even at this point I drive a twelve year old car and the shirt I am wearing at this very moment has holes in it, so I’m not living the high life but I am my own boss (don’t tell my wife that) and I really love living in the worlds I am creating.
Thank you for allowing me this opportunity to spend some time on your blog!
Want to know more about Mark Tufo?
Books
Zombie Fallout 4 — The End has Come and Gone
All five of us – Tonia Brown, James N Cook, John O’ Brien, Armand Rosamilia and Mark Tufo – hope you have been following along on the Haunted Halloween Blog Tour 2012. We love to see comments after the posts, and we also love to pick a random commenter and give away a free eBook or even a signed print book, so maybe you’ll get lucky!
We have centralized all the upcoming dates and blog posts on a Facebook event page. Feel free to join us there and see what is coming up next!
https://www.facebook.com/events/211796112284317/
