Highlighting the best independent publications in fiction and non-fiction. Your new favorite author is right here.

Jerry Bader

Jerry Bader is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia.com a small media production company that specializes in Web video, audio, music, and sound design. He is an expert in delivering stories using multimedia approaches and technologies. Over the years he’s written over a hundred articles on marketing, and he’s self-published three marketing e-books, three hybrid graphic novels, several biographies, and five children’s books. The Neo Noir Hybrid Graphic Novels are story concepts with the goal of having them turned into television series or feature films. There are currently ten screenplays three of which have been self-published as graphic novels: The Method, The Comeuppance, and The Coffin Corner. Grist For The Mill is currently being illustrated. Mr. Bader’s innovative hybrid graphic novel style has been sited by Blurb at Comic-Con as an exciting reinvention of the genre.

He also wrote, The Fixer that was published by Rebel Seed Entertainment and has consistently been in the top ten for its category. The Fixer is based on the true-life story of a colorful horse racing character. In addition to The Fixer, Mr. Bader has written Organized Crime Queens, The Secret World of Female Gangsters, and the soon to be released What’s Your Poison? How Cocktails Got Their Names.

Mr. Bader has also written a series of children’s books, ZaZa Books For Kids, that currently includes, Two Dragons Named Shoe, The Town That Didn’t Speak, The Criminal McBride, The Bad Puppeteer, Mr. Bumbershoot, The Umbrella Man, and the upcoming The Ninth Inning.

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The Coffin Corner (Comics & Graphic Novels, Crime, Mystery, Suspense)

Virginia Collins is not what she appears to be. By all outward appearances the successful uptown psychiatrist is just another beautiful dame who hires a private investigator to find her missing husband: a weird little man who makes fancy umbrella drinks and dresses like something out of an old gangster movie. Collins hides her real motives, along with her tragic past in order to win the affections of Raffy Rheinhardt, a cynical PI with an equally tragic history; a long forgotten shared incident resulting in damaged psyches and dead bodies.

Caught in the middle is the stunning Charlene (Charlie) Coffin, heiress to a distillery fortune, the remainder of which is The Coffin Building that houses the bizarre Dystopia Bar and the office of R.R. Rheinhardt. Despite being Raffy’s landlord, Charlie works with Raffy as his assistant, not just because she finds the work exciting; but also because she loves him, an issue that doesn’t go down well with the disturbed blonde psychiatrist client.

Amazon

Organized Crime Queens, The Secret World of Female Gangsters (Biographies, Crime)

From the bizarre world of female Japanese motorcycle gangs to the historic rise and fall of London’s Forty Elephants, the history of female organized crime is both fascinating and strange. These are the stories, both true and legendary of the female crime bosses that broke the mould of feminine gentility. This is The Secret World of Female Gangsters. Most of society thinks of women as the gentler sex, the sex with more compassion and empathy, not prone to violence. The truth is history, and current events, are littered with stories of violent women who do whatever it takes to get what they want; women who either revel in, or accept as needed, whatever acts of torture, murder and depravity that are required to achieve their goals. We’re not talking about mundane psychopaths that kill their children and their husbands; or homicidal maniacs that kill randomly without purpose, other than for some sexual or psychological gratification. We’re talking about female organized crime bosses, leaders of highly structured, often successful criminal organizations. Most everyone knows about the high profile male mobsters; people like Lucky Luciano, Myer Lansky, Bugsy Segal, Arnold Rothstein, and Al Capone: men who became legends, rightly or wrongly, due to the public’s insatiable appetite for literature, movies, and television stories based on their lives. But what about their female counterparts, they definitely existed and still exist. Their stories are both fascinating and cautionary. Their histories provide an alternative perspective on the equality of the sexes; everything has a price. We are talking about smart, capable, talented, ruthless women who under other circumstances might have become leaders in either business or politics; women who demanded respect, loyalty and a big payday; or else.

Amazon

Beating The System (Non-Fiction, Biography, Sport)

Beating The System. The true story of a horse racing legend

This is my life. My name and the names of the people and places have been changed for obvious reasons, but the incidents and experiences described all happened. This is real life, not a phony Hollywood version that demands things be packaged in a neat familiar framework with no loose ends. My life is full of loose ends, and many of them are still walking around.​

To understand my story you have to understand the underlying principles that formed my personality, and guided me through a dangerous underground existence that reeked of corruption, greed, and danger. As a Jew whose parents survived the Nazi concentration camps I learned life is fragile, and survival arbitrary. As a jockey I developed an approach to life of living in the moment, of pushing the envelope, of reacting first, because not reacting can cost you the race, or maybe your life.

Jockeys are modern day serfs that travel the country picking up rides where possible, for the most part earning scraps, guaranteed to be seriously injured. Did I bend the rules? Yes. Did I break many of them; most certainly, because that’s the way the game is played. Horse racing is a microcosm of society where the rich get richer, and the rest of us do what needs to be done to survive. Don’t fall for that nonsense that everybody can be President or Prime Minister, that anybody can be the next Steve Jobs or Warren Buffet. To be blunt, that’s horseshit.

I did what I had to do to survive, and I make no apologies for it. I knew wise guys, even my best friend was one, but I was wise enough to know, that’s a dead end, especially for an outsider. And I knew I would always be an outsider, a Jew, a jockey, and a fixer. So this is my story, it’s not a journey wrapped in a nice neat package, it’s life as it really is, raw, crude, and dangerous. This is my life; it’s how I lived it; I hope you enjoy it, and maybe even get a few laughs out of it.

Enjoy,
Alias Ronny Kleinberg

Amazon

The Fixer (Non-Fiction, Crime, Sport)

The true life story of a son of a concentration camp survivor left to fend for himself using his wit, charm, and guts to survive and prosper as a jockey, trainer, and fixer of horse races all while navigating through an environment populated by gamblers, gangsters, and billionaires.

The Fixer was created from real incidents as described in a series of interviews with Ronny Kleinberg. This story is not fiction, but the names and places have been changed to protect the guilty. The Fixer is a story about the dark side of gambling and horse racing from the tracks of Southern Ontario, Quebec, Detroit, Kentucky, and Florida.

The world of horse racing has the façade of wealthy owners; international high stakes sporting events; and the beauty, elegance, and speed of well-breed beautiful animals. In fact, horse racing is a seedy business, populated by degenerate gamblers, mobsters, and their pawns. The story of The Fixer is about a good guy in a bad situation; it’s a story of survival in a world both corrupt and dangerous.

Find out how horse racing really works; how races are fixed and by whom; what jockeys have to do to meet the weight limits; how to plug-in a horse with a machine; and how dangerous a jockey’s life really is, both on and off the track.

The Fixer is revealing, exciting, humorous, and sad. Discover the truth about horse racing; discover horse racing’s dirty secrets from an insider who literally wrote the book on how to fix a horse race.

Amazon

The Method (Comics & Graphic Novels, Crime, Mystery, Suspense)

A down-and-out LA actor with a knack for impersonations finds his circumstances completely reversed by a chance meeting with a look-alike stranger. After a night of drinking with his new friend discussing the possibilities made possible by their similar appearance, the stranger offers the actor a ride home. On the way there is an accident and one of them is killed. The survivor finds himself in the hospital with amnesia and everyone assuming he’s the stranger, the right-hand man for a mob boss. The survivor plays the role that’s expected of him, despite the fact that doubt about who he is, weighs heavy on his mind. Life becomes a balancing act between the role he finds himself playing and the search for who he really is: the down-and-out actor or the mob consigliere?

Amazon

The Comeuppance (Comics & Graphic Novels, Crime, Mystery, Suspense)

When mob boss, Carmine DeSalvo, finds out his accident-prone, amnesiac right-hand man, Arnie Bernardo, isn’t who he thinks he is; when he decides Arnie’s girl, Lonnie, is too tempting to resist; and when hit men, Vito and Sid, figure Carmine is past his best before date; somebody ends up dead. Meanwhile Seymour Kratz, the guy running the mob’s movie operation, is skimming, and something has to be done about it. In the end, somebody always dies. The question is, who is it going to be? (Follow-up to The Method)

Amazon

ZaZa Books for Kids

Technology has changed the way people live; the way parents raise their kids; and the way children are educated; but no matter how much technology has forced us to adapt and change, the written word remains vital and necessary as a means of communicating, educating, and entertaining.

The visceral nature of the physical contact made while sitting with a child either turning paper pages or flipping through an iPad, laughing at the silly colorful pictures, and repeating aloud the rhythmic rhymes of a funny little story creates an unbreakable psychological parent-child bond.

The world has changed and parents, teachers, and publishers have to change with it. For that reason MRPwebmedia’s ZaZa Books for Kids are available in both a printed physical version and a digital version enhanced with an audio storyteller in Apple and Blurb editions.

The Criminal McBride (Children’s)

The Criminal McBride tells the tale of a ne’er-do-well villain who tries hard to find a place he can hide but ends up loosing his ill-gotten gains, and ends up alone on a desert island with only two chimps to keep him company. The rhyming text and humorous colorful images are designed to teach an entertaining lesson, fostering good behavior.

Amazon Blurb.com

Two Dragons Named Shoe (Children’s)

Two Dragons Named Shoe is the first in the series of children’s books produced by MRPwebmedia. The book uses colorful images and rhythmic poetic text to deliver an enjoyable, enlightening, and memorable experience. The book teaches children how the townsfolk used cooperation and discussion to solve the problem of two dragons with the same name. Each ZaZa Book for Kids is available in both print and ebook versions.

Amazon Blurb.com

The Town That Didn’t Speak (Children’s)

Don’t Underestimate Your Kid Our latest ZaZa Book for Kids, “The Town That Didn’t Speak” is about the importance of communication. In the town nobody speaks to one another, and so things get confused, people don’t get what they want, and misunderstandings and disagreements result. Finally an outsider shows them the beauty and importance of communication. Teaching children to communicate is an important life skill that will serve them well throughout their lives. Children’s books, if used properly, can deliver practical as well as theoretical lessons like increasing a child’s vocabulary, a skill that produces more intelligent, articulate, and meaningful communication. In order to effect proper communication a child must learn both language and analytical skills. Parents shouldn’t underestimate their child’s ability to absorb these lessons, even if the full meaning of what they are learning take years to fully blossom and reach maturity. Discussing the meanings of the words, pictures, and language in a book helps to hone a child’s analytical skills, something that as they grow becomes more and more important. The language skills parents teach their children when they’re young will help them in later years to understand the news they hear on television and read in the newspapers, and thereby understand the world around them in order to make better decisions both for their own personal welfare and for the good of the community around them. MRPwebmedia.com/books The Town That Didn’t Speak Also Available: The Criminal McBride is available in both formats on Blurb.com.

Amazon

Mr Bumbershoot, The Umbrella Man (Children’s)

Mr Bumbershoot, The Umbrella Man is an amusing tale of an English shopkeeper who sells fancy umbrellas. As it happens the statue of Queen Victoria that sits outside the Victoria Train Station is very unhappy about sitting out in the cold and rain. All of London is mortified that the Queen is so unhappy, and so everyone tries to find a solution to the problem with Mr. Bumbershoot literally holding the answer in his hand. Like all ZaZa Books For Kids, the ebook contains an audio version as well as the poem and colorful images. The book is available in paperback and hardcopy as well.

Amazon

The Bad Puppeteer (Children’s)

The Bad Puppeteer is a funny little story about the perils of excess and on a deeper level it cautions against falling for the slick patter of a glib salesman. Go back to the old West when snake oil salesmen roamed the West selling the patent medicine potions while spinning fantastic tales in order to con people out of their hard-earned cash. It’s a story that can be absorbed on the most fundamental level but can also resonate as a child matures.

Amazon