Why PDMI Publishing, LLC (Still) Matters To Me

As “Vampire Conspiracy” (book two of the Vampire Syndrome Saga) hits the editing room of PDMI Publishing, LLC, I think this is the perfect time to reflect on how I got here, and why I’m still here.

Back in the last days of 2012, a tiny upstart publisher by the name of PDMI Freelance Publishing was beginning to put some big plans into motion. PDMI sought to change its business model from “freelance” publishing (publishing books by commission of their authors) to a full-line traditional publisher. A small company, with a big dream.

My experiences with submitting my work to the Big Five in 2012 showed me that New York Publishing’s ever-narrowing marketing criteria was leaving a void in the literary marketplace, enough to support dozens of independent traditional publishers of the size PDMI has since become. So what I was searching for was a company with a vision for literary quality and originality, where my work would truly be at home. The size of the company didn’t matter, their mission was what mattered to me.

By the end of 2012, PDMI had signed two authors under traditional publishing contracts. Emily Guido, and myself. By September 2013, PDMI’s transition to PDMI Publishing, LLC, an independent traditional publisher, was complete.

Not that there haven’t been a few rocky paths along PDMI’s hike up the “mid-size” publisher mountain. The transition to traditional publishing was carrying some baggage from PDMI’s old freelance days. Some “squeaky wheels” needed new bearings, or even outright replacement. A few of the “freelance” authors were not happy with PDMI’s transition to traditional publishing, as can be expected.

Once PDMI fully transitioned to traditional publishing, they have grown by leaps and bounds. The dozens of people now with PDMI realize the company’s mission is to grow into a publisher big enough to be reckoned with. Something that will not happen overnight, or without a few growing pains at crucial stages.

I bring this to your attention, because of late there have been a few scattered voices of dissent, of the opinion that PDMI is “growing too fast.” The Big Five’s ever-contracting business models make me extremely happy that I’m with a publisher that’s willing and able to grow, one with a true mission to put authors’ personal visions into print, a company not afraid to take a few risks that must be taken, to achieve the “big dream” and a brighter future. The Big Five’s contractions leave more and more room for those “proud few” who have the vision to grow.

PDMI has charted their growth course very well, but not without having to pass through some rocky waters. The Editorial Department has had to be beefed up to cover the additional workload, by hiring new editors, and also hiring a software developer to design custom programs to facilitate much faster author/editor communications, with both parties working on the same Office 365 manuscript to make sure authors and editors are (literally) on the same page.

I signed with PDMI in December 2012, because even then, the company’s mission showed me they were on track to become what they are now, and are still on the right path to the right future. A few may have taken an Editorial backlog as a sign of “too-rapid expansion”, but I know such problems are akin to raising children. Even a child who grows to surpass your wildest dreams will not have a perfect childhood. We all have rocky paths along our roads to achievement. You can see the rocks as insurmountable boulders, or see them for what they really are: A life experience we must learn from and overcome, to get to the peak of the mountain.

Update Aug. 2017:
I’m sad to report that PDMI will be closing down on Aug. 15th.
I’d like to thank everyone involved with PDMI in any way for all their great work and commitment to making our literary dreams come alive in print.
Three authors under the PDMI umbrella (Clay Gilbert, LaWayne Orlando Childrey and myself) are now signed for TV development deals with Joel Eisenberg’s Council Tree Productions.
A great testimony for the originality and quality of PDMI’s published works.

Interview with #PD14 presenter Daven Anderson

Interview with #PD14 presenter Daven Anderson

A Day That Will Live In Infamy

December 7th is a day that will live in infamy…

…so it’s the perfect day for me to go live as @DavenAnderson on Twitter. 😉

Vampire Syndrome Sells Out?

Well, folks, I’ve made the big commitment.
The entire Vampire Syndrome saga (the three main books, short stories, etc.) is now contracted to PDMI Publishing LLC.

Next year is the time for PDMI and “Vampire Syndrome” to Rock And Roll.
The risks are big, but so are the rewards.

I couldn’t be happier to be signed with a publisher on the right path of expansion, ready to reap the rewards of the Big Five’s ever-increasing weaknesses regarding new/midlist authors, as the Big Five tighten the reins on any acquisitions that do not fit into their ever-more-rigid, bottom-dollar-driven marketing formulas.

This gap is becoming so wide, the Big Five are letting potential number-one best-sellers slip through their fingers, leaving these authors to the wilds of e-book self-publishing.
Or right into the arms of an ‘indie’ publisher who is preparing to make the big leap to a larger scale of operations.
The time is right for a company to be what the Big Five used to be decades ago.
A company devoted to quality, with a belief that quality work can succeed.

I would now rather be on PDMI Publishing LLC than any of the Big Five.
Yes, I mean it!
PDMI will support my artistic vision far more than the Big Five ever would, and PDMI is now poised to reap the rewards of success in a way they never were before.

And I can honestly say this for one reason: I know enough now to where I could re-write Vampire Syndrome to be a sure-fire Big Five contract-getter.
But I don’t want to.
With PDMI behind me, you get Vampire Syndrome the way it was meant to be.
Not a version crippled to fit the Big Five’s narrow templates. And what scares even me is that 90+% of Vampire Syndrome’s basic plot is retained in the “Alt” storyline… 😈
And, without further ado, here is that version:

***

Seventeen year old JACQUELINE KENNEDY (“Jackie”) WENDELL, high school state champion track star, prom queen and class valedictorian (and NOT differently abled); dances at the prom with a Prom King who has Down Syndrome. (the “token nod” to the original project, as often seen in bad Hollywood movie butcherings of novels)

Later that night, Jackie succumbs to the charms of outlaw Vampire gang member JAMES PERRINO. Jackie’s one-night stand with James transforms her into a Vampire (note that the sexual transmission method of vampirism stays!).

Chief Venator DAMIEN TEPESH sights Jackie with James and targets the pair for death. Damien kills James and the rest of his outlaw comrades, but Jackie escapes, because she is now the world’s fastest-running Vampire.

Vampire President LILITH MORRIGAN secretly sympathizes with Jackie’s plight, due to her own marital troubles. Lilith sequesters Jackie in the Secret Room, and begins to realize Jackie’s incredible potential as the world’s fastest-running Vampire.

Damien contacts Romanian Venator ZETANIA VINESCU to hunt down Jackie. Lilith assigns Zetania to protect Jackie. Once they meet, lesbian Zetania immediately falls in love with Jackie. Bisexual Jackie consummates this mutual attraction with Zetania.

(Note here that Jackie’s bisexuality serves as the “controversial, daring and ground-breaking issue” to ‘replace’ Jack’s special-needs status. The YA target audience is very accepting of bisexuality, and the inevitable pockets of parental controversy add a ‘cool’ cachet. Zetania is also reduced in age to physical-equivalent eighteen years old, since this worked for Edward Cullen in Twilight.)

Zetania and Jackie, now a couple, encounter Jackie’s former track coach RON PEPPER and his wife DIANE during a cattle mutilation investigation. Jackie discloses her Vampire status to the Peppers. Damien and Lilith visit the Peppers shortly thereafter, and transform the pair into Vampires via a “vampire wife swap”.

Jackie receives a telepathic message from Pure Vampire MEL’AG, who is hiding in the distance. Mel’Ag runs to her boyfriend TIVOR’S truck and escapes the human Vampires’ pursuit. (Note that the reason for Jackie’s telepathic ability is never explained in this version!)

Jackie and Zetania go to the Vampires’ headquarters, and are presented with bravery medals by Damien and Lilith.

Jackie’s plans to move to Romania with Zetania are rudely interrupted when Mel’Ag and Tivor break into the compound and kidnap Jackie. Damien, Lilith, Zetania and others leap into their cars to pursue Mel’Ag and Tivor in a wild car chase through US 285. Jackie escapes her captors and runs to the Peppers’ car.

Jackie and Zetania fly in Lilith’s jet to Romania to live happily ever after, which of course they won’t. As they walk hand-in-hand inside the gates of the Romanian compound, Jackie gets another telepathic message. This time. it’s from the Pures’ leader GL’AG.

(the end of “Alt-Version” Volume One)

***

Thanks to PDMI, you won’t have to suffer through reading this kind of butcher job. 🙂

PDMI presents Paranormal Christmas

Print ad for December issue of Affaire de Coeur magazine.

Thank you to everyone at PDMI!

Third Anniversary, with my special guest Clay Gilbert

Hello everyone!

Today, October 16th, 2013 marks the third anniversary of Vampire Syndrome blog. So, to commemorate this wondrous occasion, I will celebrate in the most logical fashion.

By featuring another author. 😈

Clay Gilbert, and his new book, Annah (Children of Evohe (Book 1).

The reason why this makes perfect sense: Two months after this blog celebrated its second anniversary, “Vampire Syndrome” was signed by PDMI Publishing. A milestone from which the repercussions are still unfolding. “Changed my life” is almost an understatement, and far more will happen by the time this blog marks its fourth anniversary on October 16, 2014.

Over the past year, I have come to know Clay Gilbert as not just an author, but a friend. He and I share the bonds of rapier-wit rhetoric, rock/metal appreciation and giving voice to characters of extraterrestrial origin. Annah, Clay’s child of planet Evohe, gets to revel in her center-stage role of main character and protagonist while my Pures from planet Sek’Met hide in the shadows as supporting characters.

SYNOPSIS:

Annah, a young female of a world on the Edge of the Sea of Stars named Evohe, feels there is no place for her among her people.  She is seen as strange both for her appearance, which is different than that thought to be normal for an eighteen-cycle old seed-maiden, and for her dreams, not of finding a mate and making a homeplace and a family with him, but of exploring the Sea of Stars that she looks up at every night and longs to see.  Her parents lie at rest in the Elder Grove deep in the woods near her homeground, and, since the passing of Lilliane, the elder who had been her guardian since she was fourteen cycles old, Annah has lived alone; the ‘girl who walks with no one.’
She remains alone until the night she sees a great fire streak from the starry sky above her parents’ homeground and, following its path, finds the wreckage of what she knows from the shared Memories of her people is a star-vessel of the sort her own people had once traveled in.  Inside the ruined craft, she finds a human male, badly injured and close to death.  Torn between the Memories that tell her the people of Earth were responsible for the near-extinction of her own world and the voice of Spirit that insists all life is the same, she nurses him back to health, finding in the human Gary Holder a mirror of her own search for belonging and desire for a larger purpose. Their growing connection, and the Evoetians’ sense of humans as enemies, sets in motion a chain of events that may either destroy Annah’s world a second time, or lead to a new future of understanding:  a new age of the Shapers.

“Annah” is the first novel in Clay Gilbert’s science-fiction series “Children of Evohe”, published by Rara Avis, an imprint of PDMI Publishing. “Annah” was released on October 15, 2013, to be followed by “Annah’s Exile” in 2014 and Children of Evohe in 2015.

Annah’s World is the official site for the “Children of Evohe” series, and has a character blog featuring Annah’s own commentary about her world and her people, designed to fill in narrative gaps before and between the volumes of the series.

Meet Clay Gilbert:

Clay Gilbert lives and works in Knoxville, Tennessee, where he divides his time between writing, teaching English for Strayer University, and working across the electronic sea of the Internet as the Chief Editor for PDMI Publishing. He believes, as Annah does, that it takes many notes to make up the Song of the World, and that the understanding of differences between people, nations and cultures holds perhaps the most important key to the future. This book, he hopes, will help make a difference in that. He shares his living and writing space with his cat, Bella, and his ball python, Andy. He is currently at work on “Annah’s Exile”, Book Two of the “Children of Evohe” trilogy, coming soon from PDMI.

Introducing Hope Ohlarik

Happy October, everyone!

As my blog approaches its third anniversary this month, I celebrate how lucky I am to be on PDMI Publishing, a publisher perfectly poised to fill a giant void left in the marketplace by the Big Five. A void that can only be filled by a company with a vision to see this need, and the resources to act on it. You’ll be seeing a lot of great things from PDMI in the months and years to come.

One of them is Hope Ohlarik.

She’s PDMI’s hidden gem, a poet who can take you to the darkest corners of your soul, then lift you up to joy.

Her poetry book Through Eyes Of Jaded Hope, cuts right into the darkest corners of the human soul. Not a light-hearted beach read, to be sure; but as she expresses it, Keep reading, keep going deeper, and deeper, maybe the answer you’ll find if you linger. The pains of our existence are never a casual read, but they are an essential one if we are to find the answers to our lives. Only our nadir can make us truly appreciate the simple joys of life. Hope guides you along the river Styx, then delivers you joy when you complete your crossing.

This insight into our real characters bodes very well indeed for Hope as she enters the world of fiction with her forthcoming PDMI novel “Broken.”

Her fearless hero Maria Daron will come to life in the pages. For those like Hope, with the gift of insight into what makes people real, are uniquely qualified to bring a real soul to fictional characters. And through the adventures of heroes like Maria Daron, we find the hero in ourselves.

Hope Ohlarik home page

Follow “Broken” on Facebook

Nothing says “author” quite like…

…this badge!

And now, the back covers.

Young Adult Back Cover

Erotica Back Cover

Your choice: YA or Adult

Amazon Kindle: Vampire Syndrome (YA version)

Amazon Kindle: Vampire Syndrome (adult version)