How many times have you watched a B-movie one night late night on cable or on Netflix and thought to yourself, “Wow, who could think of that?” Odds are it was someone like me. A writer with a little off kilter sense of humor and a passion for the macabre.

There are countless websites and magazines that print short stories from writers like me. They don't pay much, but people in Hollywood search them for ideas when it comes to inexpensive movies. Most of us have a varied writing background, and it's not hard to learn the formatting and nuances of screenplay writing.

We receive a call from a producer or director who read the story and liked the idea. They option the rights and ask us to write the screenplay. Are we going to get rich off of this? Probably not. Most of them are small time independent film companies who don't have a lot of money and instead of an upfront payment, offer a part of the profits.

The movies can be made for as little as $100,000 and end up on Netflix or some discount DVD shelf. We all hope that the movie turns out great or some film festival highlights it and it gets picked up for major distribution. Read more about Some Of The Best Horror Movies Started Out As Short Stories

When you've read horror as long as I, you collect a fair number of books over the years. Most of them sit on a bookshelf or are sent to the attic for storage after reading. Space is always limited, so occasionally I have to go through and pick out the ones I want to keep and the ones that go to the Goodwill.

You'd be surprised how many lost treasures you find by doing this. Many years ago, I picked up a book “The Nightrunners” and totally forgot about it. When I came across it again while cleaning, I realized that it was by someone who I have come to regard as quite the mentor: Joe R. Lansdale.

My horror writing experience is relatively new, but Lansdale has been writing for decades in a variety of genres from horror to mysteries. He's one of the lucky few to have success over many genres. Lansdale is a Texas native and martial arts aficionado who writing has a direct straight to the point air about it. Read more about Author Spotlight: Joe Lansdale

I am a big fan of the zombie genre and independent publishing, so I jumped at the chance to read “Penny.” It's a self published zombie novel set in a small town where an freak electrical storm raises the dead from their graves and they go on an eating spree.

The savior and possible vaccine to the zombie bite that inevitably turns you into a zombie is the blood of a young girl named Penny. She breastfed from her mother as she was turning, so her body developed an immunity to the zombie virus.

“Penny” is a self published novel, so as you can expect it lacks the quality of a professional writer. It has a decent plot, but the writing mechanics, grammatical and spelling errors and formatting problems make it hard to get from page to page. Just as your getting into a scene, words are missing or misspelled and you find yourself reading the same passages over and over again. This makes it hard to get into the story.

This shows a glaring problem with self publishing. The books are put together haphazardly and with no editor to look it over. Most companies have editors, but it costs extra to have them look over the work. Depending on the size of the book and the extent of the editing that could be a considerable amount. Read more about Penny

 When I was in high school, I found myself walking through the aisles of Barnes and Noble and came across a book called “Anno Dracula” by Kim Newman. As a fan of vampire novels, zombies weren't popular back them, I picked it up and was mesmerized.

Dracula actually has a very small part in the story. The story involves a what if situation, where Dracula defeated Abraham Van Helsing and Jonathan Harker. It shows how England and some of its most famous characters would have changed. They're all there Sherlock Holmes, Jack the Ripper and even Lord Arthur Holmwood in all his vampiric glory. There's nothing sacred or left untouched in Newman's books. Read more about Author Spotlight: Kim Newman