Interview with Benjamin Ethridge, author of "Bottled Abyss"


BKE author photo 3ABOUT BENJAMIN ETHRIDGE

Benjamin Kane Ethridge is the Bram Stoker Award winning author of the novel BLACK & ORANGE (Bad Moon Books 2010) and Bottled Abyss ( Redrum Horror 2012). For his master’s thesis he wrote, “CAUSES OF UNEASE: The Rhetoric of Horror Fiction and Film.” Available in an ivory tower near you. Benjamin lives in Southern California with his wife and two creatures who possess stunning resemblances to human children. When he isn’t writing, reading, videogaming, Benjamin’s defending California’s waterways and sewers from pollution.
To learn more about Benjamin, visit his website at:www.bkethridge.com
Visit Benjamin on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/benjamin.kane.ethridge
Visit Benjamin on Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/bkethridge

Q: Welcome to The Writer's Life, Benjamin.  Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how long you’ve been writing?

A: I’m the Bram Stoker Award winning author of BLACK & ORANGE, a dark fantasy Halloween novel and most recently the supernatural thriller BOTTLED ABYSS. Bodily, I live in peace with my family in Southern California where I’m an environmental compliance inspector. Mentally, I live tormented by my stories and have for several decades now.

Q: Can you please tell us about your book and why you wrote it?

A: BOTTLED ABYSS is about coping with death in a variety of unhealthy ways. It’s about what pain really means and why I believe it serves a great purpose in our lives. I specifically wanted to touch on this subject matter because of how all human beings suffer under the yoke of death’s effects. We are slaves to our fear of death for ourselves and for our loved ones. I wanted to find peace with it through, oddly, a thriller novel.

Q: What were some of the biggest challenges you faced writing it?

A: Writing with a new baby on the way. Writing with a child and wife already in the picture. I love my family, but my biggest challenge is balancing our time together with the weight of a deadline. That’s the biggest challenge.

Q: Do you have a press kit and what do you include in it?  Does this press kit appear online and, if so, can you provide a link to where we can see it?

A: You would have to ask the publicity gurus at PumpUpYourBooks. They handle that stuff for me. Here’s a link to my book’s page on their site, which includes many of the items you’d find in a press kit: http://www.pumpupyourbook.com/2012/06/19/pump-up-your-book-presents-bottled-abyss-virtual-book-tour-2012/


Q: Have you either spoken to groups of people about your book or appeared on radio or TV?  What are your upcoming plans for doing so?

A: I’ve done online interviews and an interview at the last World Horror Convention with an independent film company, though I’ve never seen that one. I don’t have any immediate plans to do live interviews, but I’m available.

Q: Do you have an agent and, if so, would you mind sharing who he/is is?  If not, have you ever had an agent or do you even feel it’s necessary to have one?

A: I don’t. I had a couple near-hits, but my work so far has been seen as a challenge to market. I’m working on that side of it too. If an agent can offer me a chance at something worthwhile and the timeline isn’t outrageous (let’s-submit-and-wait-three-years kind of outrageous) then I would certainly be open to it.

Q: Did you, your agent or publisher prepare a media blitz before the book came out and would you like to tell us about it?

A: Unfortunately no. Not a blitz. I’ll have to see about doing one of those in the future. Promotion for my book really began when it became available for purchase. Promotion for my last book began after I won the Bram Stoker Award.

Q: Do you plan subsequent books?

A: Not related to BOTTLED ABYSS, but I have another book coming out October 30th called DUNGEON BRAIN, the beginning of a trilogy called NIGHTMARE BALLAD coming in February 2013, and a Black & Orange sequel, NOMADS, next October 2013. So lots of stuff will be coming out, for sure.
  
Q: Thank you for your interview, Benjamin.  Would you like to tell my readers where they can find you on the web and how everyone can buy your book?

A: I’m at www.bkethridge.com and all my books can be found here at my Amazon author link: www.amazon.com/author/benjaminethridge

Bottled AbyssABOUT BOTTLED ABYSS

Herman and Janet Erikson are going through a crisis of grief and suffering after losing their daughter in a hit and run. They’ve given up on each other; they’ve given up on themselves. They are living day by day. One afternoon, to make a horrible situation worse, their dog goes missing in the coyote-infested badlands behind their property. Herman, resolved in preventing another tragedy, goes to find the dog, completely unaware he’s on a hike to the River Styx, the border between the Living world and the world of the dead.
Long ago the Gods died and the River dried up, but a bottle containing its waters still remains in the badlands. What Herman discovers about the dark power contained in those waters will change his and Janet’s lives forever…

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