Frequently Asked Questions
- Join my Reader's Group--by clicking here. Joining the group gives me your email address, but I will never sell your information or abuse your trust. You are free to leave the list at any time. You're getting sleepy...very sleepy...your eyes are getting heavy...click the link... You're mine! MUHUHAHAHA! Er. excuse me.
- Follow me on Bookbub--here's the direct link. This method has the added benefit that you can sign up for Bookbub's daily or weekly email service, which provides you with featured deals for your favorite authors. Plus, it helps me out, in that I need to have 1000 followers to unlock all the author features on the site.
- Follow me on Goodreads--my author profile page can be found here. I've got my RSS feed piped through my Goodreads profile, so you'll get a notification whenever I post here.
- Follow me on Amazon--this is my US Author page, and this is my UK Author page. My RSS feed is also piped through these pages, but I don't believe Amazon will notify you of new posts. Amazon will notify you of new releases and reprints...sporadically.
- You can also follow me on Facebook and Twitter.
A: Drop me an email at berserkerik@erikhenryvick.com, you can also grab me on my Facebook Reader's Group, send me a tweet, or yell, really, really loud.
A: Please check out this handy page: https://erikhenryvick.com/whitelist.
A: I've been diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis (just like Hank in Errant Gods), but as I'm seronegative, it may be a number of other things, I guess. My rheumatologist is testing me for Ankylosing Spondylosis because that's even more obscure and harder to say. I don't think I've been cursed (yes, I do). I've never met Liz Tutor in real life, and have never had words in the Gamla Toonkumowl hurled at me, but either way, autoimmune diseases are a curse.
A: Supergirl is what Hank Jensen calls his wife, Jane. My wife, Melissa, is the real Supergirl, and for all the same reasons Jane is Hank's Supergirl (which makes sense since Jane's character is based on Melissa).
A: I've been writing since I was seven, when my second-grade teacher, Mrs. Butterworth (no lie) ran a contest. It was book report contest, and she said we could write a few stories to supplement that. I wrote seventy-seven. Hey, look, the prize was going home from school with Mrs. Butterworth and eating McDonald's for supper. Yeah, it was a different time. Anyway, after that, I was hooked. I won a contest for poetry in seventh grade, and took a creative writing class in high school, and again in my undergraduate studies, and then a year of a creative writing Master's program, and...well, you get the picture. I wrote my first novel in my early twenties and published it sometime later (Death Is, At First Glance, Eternal). I wrote another novel (several times, actually--hard drive failure sucks) over the course of the next fifteen years (unpublished). During that fifteen years, I did a Ph.D. and my writing turned to academic pursuits. I wrote a textbook for video game AI, as well. It wasn't until I got sick that I got back to writing fiction.
A: The simple answer is because these genres are what I'm best at. The harder answer involves calculus, finite state machines, and assembly language. Oh, and cat food. Yeah.
I've written other genres, but they are harder for me to write. Writing horror and dark fantasy is like opening a faucet for me on most days. I"m constantly thinking of ideas that are perfect fits for dark, scary stories. Plus, I live with my very own Personal Monster(tm).
A: Almost completely in my head. My head is located near Rochester, NY, but I was born in Texas and grew up in Florida.
A: Horror, dark fantasy, epic fantasy, science fiction, and the occasional literary work.
A: Stephen King, Joe Abercrombie, David Gemmell, Joe Hill, Orson Scott Card, Isaac Asimov, Peter Straub, Kevin Hearne, Patrick Rothfuss, Tony Ballantyne, Ken Scholes. Ask again tomorrow for different answers. Or just go to a bookstore and walk down the speculative fiction aisles.
A: Yes and (stubbornly) proud of it. I'm fine. (and if you get that joke, you're probably Norwegian, too).
A: I discovered that ignoring what happens in Washington D.C. and <insert state capitol here> has absolutely no impact on my real, day-to-day life, except that my health is better when I don't follow it. I actively avoid politics because it literally causes me pain. My personal belief is that both sides of the aisle have lost their way and are no longer true representatives of the American people (they are representatives of their own best interests).
A: See above.
A: See above.
A: It's still a free country. They are welcome to do as they like (though I won't read it). I can still enjoy an author's work no matter what his political views are.
A: Yellow. No, blue! AHHHHHHHHHHHH! (shameless Monty Python swipe). Really, it's red. Maybe.
A: Check out my books page links to the available stores are linked from there.
A: Sure! At this time, I have trade paperbacks available on Amazon.
A: No, probably not. Getting physical books into bookstores is really hard for indie authors, and frankly, it's not worth the effort at this time. Stores are pretty much the venue of traditional publishers.
A: Audiobooks for all of my existing novels are Coming Soon(tm).
A: Absolutely. Yes. Right about...now 🙂
