Johnny B Truant

Adrian and Ray Porter have spent their lives battling demons that claw into our world through a thin spot: a hellish and dead place with a black lake at its center, nicknamed "The Gore Point." But as the rifts begin to change and grow for the first time in decades, can they keep the planet from becoming Hell itself?Adrian and his hotshot brother Ray work for Brigade One, in the walled-off city of Fortune on the outskirts of the Gore Point. Like their father before them, it's the Porters' job to protect citizens from the creatures that emerge from rifts opening inside the dead zone. Nobody knows what the Gore Point is or where it came from. It cannot be eradicated. It cannot be closed. The Brigades can only offer triage. Demons have always come through ... and the only solution is to slaughter them when they do. These days, few people die from the spawn that infiltrate Fortune from its rotted middle ... though as children, Ray and Adrian vividly remember watching their father do exactly that. But something has always struck intellectual Adrian as wrong about that day. The thing that killed their father (an enormous red beast called a hellbringer) wasn't supposed to be there. Adrian suspects there's something beneath the simplicity of modern riftfare, but bullheaded, showboating Ray thinks he's crazy. Until one day, when the rifts suddenly and inexplicably change. It starts to look like Hell has been sandbagging to lull us into complacence ... with help from a saboteur on the inside.

Less rush. More freedom. A way to love writing again. If modern indie publishing feels like a high-stress race to the bottom, the good news is there's another way. Most authors start writing for the love of it, but in recent years the reality of "writing for a living" has soured. Now, for a lot of us, it no longer looks fun - or creatively fulfilling - at all. You have to obey genres exactly or your books won't sell. If you step outside your lane and try something new, the kinds of readers most authors court will never buy it. And then there's the SPEED of it all: The rules of "Rapid Release" say you have to publish a book every month - at least - or you'll never survive. Forget about taking a vacation. Time off will let the algorithms forget you. Even successful authors often find themselves in "golden handcuffs" selling a lot of books, but only in a series they now have to write forever. And all that to earn around a dollar per book ... sold to readers who are far more loyal to Kindle Unlimited than to you. Where's the joy? Where's the delight that got you into storytelling in the first place? Remember when writing felt like a creative playground instead of a grind? What if, instead of succumbing to that grind, you could find a way to be creative and free ... without having to settle for poverty? In The Artisan Author, industry veteran Johnny B. Truant offers an alternative to Rapid Release: a new way to succeed as an author without sacrificing your freedom, worrying about competition or AI, or fearing you'll lose everything when the winds - or the algorithms - inevitably change. The way of the Artisan Author is the opposite of Rapid Release. Instead of rushing to churn out the same-old same-old, Artisans follow their muse and write whatever they want. Instead of stressing out, Artisans take their time, putting as much care and beauty into their work as they desire. It's a way to build a substantial, sustainable, bulletproof income based on Kevin Kelly's idea of "1000 True Fans" readers who are loyal to you, not any platform. True Fans are all you need to earn as much as you want as an author. They're people with whom you build genuine human connections ... and who therefore love you enough to spend far more than ordinary readers will ever spend. Johnny B. Truant has been a thought leader in the independent publishing community for over a decade, hosting the original Self Publishing Podcast, holding the Smarter Artist Summit conference, and co-authoring the industry bible Write. Publish. Repeat. In The Artisan Author, Johnny presents an art-first, quality-over-quantity alternative to Rapid Release for writers who thought sacrificing creative joy was the only way to succeed. It's not, though. It's wonderful over here on the artfully profitable side of writing. Join us, will you?

A brotherhood forged in fireWith Hell's king freed, the city of Fortune has been cut off from the world by an impenetrable energetic barrier. Inside, a mental plague has begun to spread outward from the Gore Point, confusing reality and creating a prison that almost nobody can feel or see.Adrian and Ray Porter - once heroes, now pariahs, and two of only a few unaffected - are the last line of defense against the king's plan. But time is running out. A six-day clock is ticking, and with each passing hour, more of Fortune succumbs to the invisible enemy.As the brothers fight to expose the truth and rally resistance, they uncover a shocking secret: the legacy of their father, Eldon Porter, is intertwined with the very fabric of the rift, holding the key to both salvation and destruction.Faced with an impossible choice, the Porters must confront their past and embrace their destiny. The fate of humanity hangs in the balance as they race against time to unleash the power of the anti-rift - a force of pure potential that could rewrite the rules of reality... or obliterate both worlds.Prepare for a heart-stopping conclusion to the Gore Point trilogy, where the lines between good and evil blur, and the fight for survival will determine the fate of two worlds.

All's quiet where Hell remains. Months after the sundering that nearly collapsed our world into the demon plane, the city of Fortune has become unnervingly normal. Rifts no longer open. Fiends no longer cross over. The few that remain are captives, including their king: a mammoth horned beast known as "the dreadnought." The city is far too calm, as if waiting for a terrible shoe to drop. The only Hell left lives inside Adrian Porter's dreams, stirred by the nearby dreadnought. Each night, Adrian sees his captured girlfriend Laurel tortured in flame. For once, his brother Ray is the sensible one. As Adrian battles guilt and regret, life must go on. But Adrian's dreams aren't just dreams. They're messages: Laurel calling from her infernal prison. The planes have begun to shift again, and the military fears an attack as the next gambit in humanity's longest con takes shape. Desperate to uncover the truth, Earthside forces recruit Adrian and Ray to lead a covert expedition into Hell itself. But what awaits them on the other side is a twisted reflection of their own world: plots and schemes, a resistance, a tyrannical leader in a war for control. With each revelation, the true scope of the fiends' plan comes into focus ... and Adrian realizes the only way to ensure humanity's survival may be to make an unthinkable sacrifice. In this epic tale of honor, obsession, and the blurred lines between good and evil, the Porter brothers must decide how far they're willing to go to save both worlds from annihilation. Brace yourself for a mind-bending journey where nothing is as it seems - and the only certainty is that when the final battle begins, existence itself will tremble.

In deep enough snow, nobody can hear you scream.After a semester of college, Miranda is free of her parents: mom's obnoxious helicoptering and dad's sometimes-violent alcohol problem. They've got a solution for the separation, though: This winter break, they've rented an isolated cottage for the family to reconnect. For Miranda, it's the opposite of a vacation. The timing is terrible. her boyfriend has been ghosting her, and her best friend thinks he's cheating. A coming blizzard means that once she arrives, she can't leave. Some creep's been texting her disturbing photos she doesn't understand. and worst of all, her folks are acting strange. They're hiding something, and Miranda has no idea what it is. What Miranda discovers at the cabin will leave her gasping for breath, giving "surviving winter break" a whole new meaning.Winter Break is the a new young adult suspense novel by Johnny B. Truant, the bestselling author of Fat Vampire, adapted by SyFy as the TV show Reginald the Vampire. His other books include Pretty Killer, Pattern Black, Invasion, The Beam, Dead City, and over 100 other titles across many genres.

Hell waits for one man. There have always been rumors about the dead place in the city of Fortune: a vast circle where nothing grows known as Suicide Flats. It's a place where people go to die. Where dark shadows emerge at night, denied by the government that pretends it has no presence in Fortune. Where you can feel the pull of something not-quite-right, drawing lost souls to once-beautiful Cecret Lake at its center - a lake that one day eight years ago turned black as ink.Officially, Fortune is an anomaly. Yet scientist Eldon Porter knows what the secretive agency GEN knows but hasn't divulged to the public: Suicide Flats is a thin spot between our plane of existence and another. That other plane is a realm of heat and sulfur - a place without an official name, though even the scientists call it by its unofficial one: Hell.Minister Callum MacReady has run out of faith. His son is dying, and every week he stands in front of his congregation and tells them lies so that they - not he - can feel better. He tells the people of Fortune that God has a plan. That life is joyous. But as young Nathan worsens, Callum knows the truth: There is no plan. There is only grief and pain.But one day, when Callum finds himself in Suicide Flats at the shore of the ochre lake, he suddenly finds that he feels no pain at all. His worst thoughts and feelings have inexplicably left him ... siphoned away, it seems, by a hungry and malevolent being waiting on the other side of a rift between worlds - a rift that's been lurking beneath Cecret's black water for centuries, just waiting for a reason to open.As Hell opens wide and demons rise, Eldon and Callum find themselves in a race against time. Fortune is the world's canary ... but soon enough, under the onslaught of unholy creatures, Fortune is destined to fall.Suicide Flats is a stand-alone novel in the world of Gore Point by artisan author Johnny B. Truant: a terrifying and unsettlingly beautiful ride into the mouth of chaos.

From the multiple best-selling author team that brought you Pattern Black and Burnout comes a brand new transcendent mindfuck of a fantasy novel.Two powerful and fierce immortal gods are trapped on an island, endlessly pursuing a Sisyphean task that must be completed each day and is renewed each night. Enemies forced to work together, they sabotage each other, play tricks on each other, and murder each other, only to be resurrected the following day. Yet, despite the daily friction and violence, ultimately, they live in an uneasy balance. Until the day the stranger arrives. Then the balance tips, the pit collapses, and all hell breaks loose.

PLUGGED is a "future history" written by fictional author Sterling Gibson: a Malcolm-Gladwell-esque work of fiction written as if it were nonfiction, exploring the sci-fi world of The Beam.Are We Who We Were?Throughout the 21st Century, our world (at least for those of us inside the NAU) has become increasingly connected. So much so that we really are now thinking as a single fluid organism, changing not just how we live our daily lives, but who we are as a species. In Sterling Gibson's newest thoughtful exploration, one of the NAU's most renowned thinkers explores and illuminates how hyperconnectivity and The Beam have changed us forever.

The end of everything is not what anyone imagined. The unthinkable has happened. The Beam is down. Chaos reigns.A data anomaly has shown up in the East: something strange in place where nothing should xist. It seems to be an entity of unknown origin, actively seeking out a specific cadre of separated people spread across the globe. Can isolated scientist Gillian Rhea - marooned by forces heretofore unknown - find answers in the most unlikely of places: the abandoned research station on the moon, at Nickel Basin?Noah West is desperate to regain power and get The Beam back online, but no one dreamed he'd dare to go as far as he has. Will he unleash hismost dangerous creation upon the remains of the NAU to bring it back under his control ... no matter the damage?But the most pressing question looms above all others: Is there anyone left that can stop him?

Power is in the mind. The mind is in the network.As the NAU's "Shift" approaches, the Directorate and Enterprise parties are doing whatever they can both on-Beam and off- to win the citizen's minds. The Beam itself, however, seems to be evolving.As more and more people become addicted to connectivity, a question arises: Does the Beam serve our minds ... or do our minds serve the Beam?Meanwhile, using politics as cover, an organization is pushing human enhancements further than they were ever meant to go - and maybe more than the struggling NAU with its hyperconnected minds can hope to survive.★★★★★ "Another homerun for Platt and Truant. Usually second books in a series are the weak link -- that didn't happen in The Beam. Just like the first season I got sucked in to this book and told the kids to just feed themselves poptarts and leave mommy alone already so she could read. An amazing series " -- Patricia Eimer★★★★★ "I loved the first season, but this did such a great job of fleshing out the story line that I'm already champing at the bit for the next season." -- BruceIn Baghdad★★★★★ "A real high-tech futuristic political thriller with a great storyline and a cliff-hanger ending that leaves you wanting for more. Can't wait to read season 3." -- beachbaby

Taking Grandpa to the mall wasn't supposed to be a life or death (and after death) situation.Thom Sheldon avoids visiting his aging father as much as he possibly can. Even now that Rick started taking a new experimental drug that seems to be helping his Alzheimer's, it's still an unpredictable and rarely pleasant errand.If Thom could avoid visiting his old man without getting guilt-tripped by his wife or hounded by his own conscience, he would.But today Thoms' wife Carly and son Brendan are along for the ride, and there is no getting out of taking Rick to the mall.No one could have guessed that the zombie apocalypse would start near the food court.Except for Rick.This is how the apocalypse starts ... Dead Zero is a stand alone novel built inside of Platt & Truant's Dead World Trilogy, an intelligent, hard science fiction exploration of the zombie subgenre.

The United States and the United Kingdom are lost to the necrotic plague.Europe, desperate to keep the disease from its shores considers the most drastic of measures: nuking the US and UK to eradicate the disease entirely and start over.Meanwhile, pieces move around the puzzle inside the States until we learn that Necrosis has a natural course that, if we leave it alone, will reach a new evolutionary equilibrium instead of devolving into mindless biting and chaos.But if we let necrotic nature take its course, will there be any uninfected left to survive it?Dead Planet is the final book in Truant & Platt's Dead World trilogy: a biological thriller about the zombie plague.

One drug saved the world. Now, the same drug threatens to destroy it.Rising star Ian Keys has climbed to the top rungs of pharma giant Hemisphere - creator of Necrophage, the drug that paused the necrotic outbreak and allowed the infected to live among us.Ian's new position gives him access to dangerous secrets that could ruin the company. When ominous hints from an anonymous insider set him on the hunt for the biggest secret of all, he discovers that the "cure" the company gave the world might not have been a cure at all.Now men are watching Ian's house. They're following his wife wherever she goes. When he's called to CEO Archibald Burgess's office, he's taken by armed guards - then plied with vague threats.What would happen if Necrophage failed? Burgess asks. What would become of our society if the disease were allowed to progress again ... and all of our well-behaved patients slowly turned feral?There's only one person Ian can take his case to: reporter Alice Frank, who's been trying to blow the whistle on Hemisphere for years.But is there time to save what's left of the world ... or has the inevitable slide back into chaos already begun?

This 250,000-word "full saga" collection includes ALL NINE BOOKS in the Unicorn Western Series Cast out from the magical kingdom of The Realm and into the dying desert of the Sands beyond, Marshal Clint Gulliver and his unicorn Edward have finally found peace in the small and dusty town of Solace. But when both the fracturing worlds and Clint's bride-to-be are thrust into peril by an old foe, the gunslinger must come out of retirement and aim his seven-shooters at the dark magic and those who bring it. An epic quest hurls marshal and unicorn across the endless desert in pursuit of the dark rider Dharma Kold and his unicorn of a different color, where they must battle their way back toward The Realm to uncover the truth...and mayhap save the worlds that hang in the balance.From the creators of Yesterday's Gone (Platt) and Fat Vampire (Truant) comes this reinvention of both the western genre and unicorn lore. Written for children and teens - but complex and awesome enough for adult readers - Unicorn Western is "Harry Potter without wizards but with gunslings, talking unicorns, epic fights, and more turkey pie."

The virus has evolved and is spreading again with a new wave of infections, far worse than before.Yosemite's fully-contained zombie population breaks out and now it appears that animals are carrying the infection as well.The walled-off, zombie-overrun city of Bakersfield is attacked and eventually obliterated, but still there's no going back as the virus slowly overtakes a nation hell-bent on containing it.Jordache Dale has heeded Golem's call and is traveling west, like a Typhoid Mary, leaving a path of viral destruction in her wake.Bobby Baltimore has gone to Yosemite to repent and live the rest of his life as a zombie.Park Rangers Brie and Ramon have discovered something they really didn't want to know, while Parvati Bahl, mayor of the neighboring town works to keep their community from falling apart.And BDS agents, Krystopher Bryce and Alexander Zakrey are forced to make a new deal with an old devil.But this time the virus is spreading too fast for anyone to stop. And with Archibald Burgess still up to his old tricks, his evil clarifier henchman wreaking havoc across the nation, and anti-necrotic hate groups popping up across the country, the dead have never been more alive.

Twelve people bound by a secret arrive for an exclusive dinner only to find that the other guests are familiar in the most troubling of ways.Ella Boyer isn't looking forward to attending the Bayshore alumni dinner with her husband, Noah. There aren't enough pills in the world to numb her fears of seeing her classmates again ... especially after what she did all those years ago.Her sorority sister Heidi Blanchard, equally guilty, will be at the same exclusive restaurant that night. In the aftermath of their secret shame, Heidi's turned lying into a sport and has lost her compass for truth. She's there for a job ... or so she thinks.Bindi Bridges, former guidance counselor at Bayshore, has no idea about the alumni dinner or Heidi's job offer. She's at Crave to learn who her husband's been sleeping with, tipped by an unknown source.Mason Pace is there to meet a headhunter. His life is about to turn around - a relief, after the horror that happened eleven years ago.Seven others -- each seeking their own redemption and hiding their own sordid sins -- are just as ignorant of the sinister purpose behind this elegant event.Their host? A Hollywood star with glamour to spare and all the money in the world to spend on that most useful of hobbies: revenge and the extraction of secrets.The only guest not in attendance is the one who deserves to be there most: Casey Davis.What happened to Casey? And who's to blame?Pretty Killer is Agatha Christie for the modern age. It's Truant & King at their duplicitous best, weaving a tale with more layers than stratified ground in which a murderer digs a stone cold grave ... proving that revenge isn't always best when it's cold - and sizzles when it's piping hot.