Today’s hot ticket interview is with Mike Evens, author of the high-action thriller Zombies and Chainsaws.
Book Description
Jude, a hard-working widower and father has always done his best to try and scrape by and make ends meet. When 
opportunity knocks he and his best friends thought easy money was coming their way. Tornadoes had struck Missouri hard and there were not enough people to help with the cleanup. The four-man crew was contracted to go down and clean up the trees that littered the town. When a chemical dump takes place, the dead will rise from their graves! Jude and his friends now must do everything they can to make it home safely as the apocalypse begins using the only weapons they have available to them. If you love Romero and The Return of the Living Dead zombies this book cannot be passed up. Ride with the men as they take a journey to hell!
Interview:
What gave you the idea for your book Zombies and Chainsaws?
I had only wrote one zombie story which is The Orphans series. I really wanted to write something gritty and old school. I tire of guns being the simple answer and really wanted something where you needed to cut their heads open, decapitate, etc. Zombies and Chainsaws was my answer.
What got you into writing horror, particularly zombie fiction?
I had written my first book Buried and the minute I was done I had been brainstorming on The Orphans for a few months prior and knew I wanted to work on it. I basically finished the last word of Buried and had watched The Walking Dead, Night of the living dead, zombieland, Dawn Of the Dead remake my personal favorite and the 28days franchise and thought how cool would it be to write a zombie book. I had done no research into the genre just knew 
that it was something that I thought would be a hell of a good time to write.
What else have you written?
I have quite a few other books
Orphans Vol I,II, & III(be released on October 24th) I don’t know how many will be in the series but am pretty confident it will be at least 7 or more! (zombie series with teenagers as the main focus trying to survive against the meanest, hungriest, and violent zombies you’ve probably every read about.
Gabriel series which has 2 in it currently hoping to get four or five out of that. He is a assassin with a very bad attitude and especially doesn’t mess around when it comes to getting paid. It’s just a few steps from probably being classified as horror.
Book 1 is Gabriel: Only one gets out alive
Book 2 is Gabriel: Pitch Black
Buried: Broken Oaths (The Frank McPatrick Series Vol I)
Zombies and Chainsaws Vol I of course which I’ll be writing the sequel up after I finish Orphans IV that I’m working on now.
The Rising which will be out in February is at the editors as well and is a origins story of vampires and werewolves set in Romania in 1890 and it is pretty freaking awesome!
What is the writing process like for you? What is your writing day like?
I am still working full time. Typically I get up and start writing with a cup of coffee for a hour and try to knock out 1 to 2 thousand words. It takes me a few months to write between a 70 and 100k book. I send it off to an editor and while I’m almost done with it start talking to one of my cover people. As soon as the eBook comes out I always try to have the paperbacks shortly thereafter
I work with a outline. It is a very unstructured one, its basic ideas and most people seeing it would never thing a book would come out of it. I rewrite it constantly because anytime anything looks like it is going to easy for the characters I’ll
blow their car up, twist a ankle, put them in a grocery store in a snow storm with a bunch of zombies etc. It is half the fun torturing the characters and trying to think of a way to get out of the issue they are in while keeping the normal everyday person role going for them and not creating superheroes out of them, if that makes sense.
What is your favorite book (other than your own book, of course) and why?
I couldn’t answer a single book but I’d say the Atticus Kodiak series is a big one it inspired Gabriel even though no one would ever see any similarities. It’s emotional and action packed.
I also read 11/22/63 by Stephen king this year and it was just really amazing. I liked it quite a lot and thought it was very interesting concept, about anything by him is my favorite as well It, Misery, and Duma Keyes(personal fav) would highly recommend to anyone.
What are you doing next?
I’m working on Orphans 4, then moving back to Zombies and Chainsaw 2, and probably either work on The Rising 2 or Gabriel 3(leaning to this just because I love torturing the poor guy and all the people around him)
What advice would you give aspiring writers?
Write every single day. If you are stuck on something in a book move on to a different part. There is no such thing as writers block. Don’t wait till you pick up a pen to think of what is next or when you are ready to write to debate what’s next. If you know what is next you’ll waste less time thinking and get more words. I like the theory also of always stopping when you know what is next. Also set goals, and don’t waste time watching rankings on amazon and don’t spam facebook with ads it isn’t what moves a book. Get a street team, treat them well and network with other authors they are very outgoing usually and can give you great advice.
Amazon Author Page http://www.amazon.com/Mike-Evans/e/B00IQ9Z75A/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1
Facebook author page https://www.facebook.com/pages/M-Evans-Author/1438259789750360
My author page http://tinyurl.com/mikesauthorpage
Twitter @mikee1123
His short Bio.
Mike Evans lives in Iowa with his wife and children. He writes for character depth because he wishes for you to love the character, regardless if they are the villain or the hero. He likes to write from a unique perspective, doing things with books that no one has done before. He keeps his characters realistic, there are no superhero like events that will happen. There are no perfect characters in his books, everyone has their flaws much like that of life.
Trick or Treat Thrillers 