Romance house Samhain Publishing is closing on February 28th, so now’s a great time to ensure that you’ve downloaded copies of all the purchases you’ve made directly from their site. Here’s their announcement: Greetings, Samhain Readers. It’s with a heavy heart that we announce Samhain Publishing will be closing at the end of February. Due […]
Book Covers and Stock Photos
I’ve heard a few things lately about book covers and stock photos that have been bothering me. First, let’s go into a primer of how stock photos work with regard to book covers. How Stock Photography Works from the Photographer’s Perspective When a photographer takes photo sessions of a model (or a landscape), they add […]
Samhain’s Announcement + Leap Day Sale
For those of you who haven’t heard, Samhain Publishing, one of the leading small presses in romance (and horror), announced that they will be winding down operations. This follows a couple of months after their announcement that they’d become a virtual company in May. December, January, and February are typically strong sales months for romance, […]
Book Mockups
Recently, I’ve become impressed with some of the stuff available on Creative Market, and some of the categories of things I didn’t feel I needed until I saw them. Now, this is a pretty good business card if I do say so myself. But this? Looks compelling on an entirely different level. The above is […]
A Few Book Covers
Things coming out Real Soon Now, in probable release order. Coffee & Canopy Coffee & Canopy is a forthcoming book about our experiences in Costa Rica and Nicaragua. Monkeys! Crocodiles! Bats! Venomous sea snakes! Volcanoes! Cover photo is one I took of Nicaragua’s Masaya volcano. The “travel diary” series will be novella length, have selected […]
First Mondays Are Indie Book Mondays
We all hate Mondays a little bit, right? It’s always like spring back Daylight Savings Time. Week after week after week. Until now. Once a month, on the first Monday of the month, I’ll post some of my comments on your indie published book. Well, someone’s book. Maybe yours. But only if I like it. […]
So You Want to Travel the World
Indiegogo campaign page. Hi, I’m Deirdre. As a kid, I was given a globe, and I was fascinated by it. I kept imagining that I would go to all these wonderful places, especially the islands where all the lettering squished together on the globe. Or weird places like Ifni, which was on my globe and […]
Author Marketing
Chuck Wendig writes about his dislike of some author self-marketing strategies. This. So much this. I’ve been in this community for a long time and I’ve seen a lot of people promoting books in various ways. Some authors build berms of their books in front of them at panels, as though they need defenses from […]
What Books Can Do
Not long after I started reading a lot of science fiction, I thought I should read “the classics.” Catch is, many of them didn’t really interest me as much as they supposedly should have. I remember struggling through Dune and I was about 2/3 of the way through. For me, the book never “caught” — […]
Admiration vs. Objectification
I’ve been fascinated with the unfolding narrative about casting 50 Shades of Grey and the fallout from Charlie Huunam (pictured) deciding against the role. I find it far more interesting to read the discussions because neither the book holds any interest (especially after reading Jenny Trout’s recaps/teardowns here and especially this link about abusive relationships) […]