Pressing Matters: Week of May 13-17, 2013

Acquisitions

1. Looks like we’re going to get that great urban fantasy novel; we’re putting the author through a quick revision request to tighten up the ending, and then it’s time for for a formal announcement. So exciting!

Editing

1. Infinity Key is with Commanatrix Sarah for editing, then goes back to Chrysoula to update any issues.
2. Matt Adams is girding his loins to deal with the next round of notes on II Crimsonstreak. The rewrite is AWESOME, though, so all that really remains is the eternal question: do birdmen have beaks?

Production

1. You can now pre-order the print version of The Daughter Star by Susan Jane Bigelow! It’s the usual deal, with great bonuses available!
2. New round of cover comps for The Dominion, and we’re getting closer! All poor Chris has to do is create an entire city from scratch, after all…
3. The brand-new production computer is dead. Ooooh dear.

Reviews, Promotions, and Buzz

1. Haven’t picked up a copy of Constellation Games by Leonard Richardson yet? Now’s your chance to get something even more exciting! The novel is part of the current video game-themed StoryBundle! And they just added a new book as additional incentive!
2. Are you in or near Philadelphia? Save the date for this Sunday, May 19, at 5pm: Anne E. Johnson will be doing a reading from Green Light Delivery at Head House Books!
3. The Other Half of the Sky got an incredibly positive, thoughtful review from Andrew Liptak at Geek Magazine.  Well worth the read.

Sundries

1. Still in limbo on the relocation to Philadelphia. Many questions remain – such as, where the HECK are we going to store all these books, now that the Lair is no longer?
2. Are you heading to BEA this year? There’s a HILARIOUS guide on things the official program doesn’t tell you. Biggest takeaway? Book folk require comfy shoes and booze. So much booze.

Pressing Matters: Week of May 6-10, 2013

Acquisitions

1. In talks to acquire a very fun urban fantasy novel. Fingers crossed!

Editing

1. Infinity Key is with Commanatrix Sarah for editing, then goes back to Chrysoula to update any issues.
2. Almost done with edits to II Crimsonstreak; then it’s back to Matt for checks.

Production

1. You can now pre-order the print version of The Daughter Star by Susan Jane Bigelow! It’s the usual deal, with great bonuses available!
2. Almost done with the print and digital versions of The Daughter Star, getting ready for the big launch day!
3. Waiting on cover sketches for Infinity Key and we’re on tenterhooks.
4. Chris is still doing his best with the cover for The Dominion, which has proved a tricky bugger.

Reviews, Promotions, and Buzz

1. Haven’t picked up a copy of Constellation Games by Leonard Richardson yet? Now’s your chance to get something even more exciting! The novel is part of the current video game-themed StoryBundle!
2. You kept tomorrow free for just this reason, right? Justin Robinson will  be in Artist Alley at Long Beach Comic Con! Stop by Table #7002 and keep him company, lest he do something drastic like tap-dancing in the aisles…
3. Are you in or near Philadelphia? Save the date for May 19 at 5pm: Anne E. Johnson will be doing a reading from Green Light Delivery at Head House Books!
4. The Other Half of the Sky is still doing great, consistently ranked quite highly in its categories on Amazon, and just plain catching on with people interested in women in sci-fi. Hooray!

Sundries

1. Big news – the press is moving! That’s right, Candlemark & Gleam is relocating to just outside Philadelphia. What does that mean for you, the reader? Not a whole lot, other than that your books will no longer come equipped with one standard Vermont moose. Still, we’re excited and nervous about the move, and we hope you’ll bear with us as we get set up in the new digs!
2. Following up on last week’s Book House St. Louis news, fellow small-press person and bookstore owner Robin Tidwell is organizing a campaign to help the Book House soldier on. Want to help? There’s plenty of ways to get involved! We’re going to be doing our part to help this awesome indie – which stocks lots of C&G books – stay around for a long, long time.
3. How should authors shop at a bookstore? A hilarious 20-step guide.

Pressing Matters: Week of April 29-May 3, 2013

Acquisitions

1. Made a conditional offer on an interesting manuscript – it needs some more resolution at the end, but if the author’s willing and able to make the changes, we’re gonna have a FUN story on our hands. More to come!

Editing

1. EDITING ALL THE THINGS. You have NO idea.

Production

1. You can now pre-order the print version of The Daughter Star by Susan Jane Bigelow! It’s the usual deal, with great bonuses available!
2. eBook galley of City of Devils is coming together, and we’re about to make that available…along with the cover reveal!
3. Waiting on cover sketches for Infinity Key and we’re on tenterhooks!

Reviews, Promotions, and Buzz

1. The Other Half of the Sky is now available! It’s doing great, ranking in the Top 100 on Kindle in Sci-Fi Short Stories and in the Top 100 books for Sci-Fi Anthologies. Oh, and editor Athena Andreadis is offering a bonus screenplay to anyone who buys the anthology!
2. Meanwhile, Athena has discussed the difficulties in putting together the anthology with Bull Spec magazine in an essay called “Like Water Through Stone.”
3. Book View Café has a great, thoughtful post by Other Half contributor Sue Lange about the roles of women in sci-fi. Well worth a read!
4. And on the topic of really wonderfully thoughtful reviews, check out this one by Foz Meadows on Susan Jane Bigelow’s Broken!
5. Haven’t picked up a copy of Constellation Games by Leonard Richardson yet? Now’s your chance to get something even more exciting! The novel is part of the current video game-themed StoryBundle!
6. Mark your calendars for May 11 – Justin Robinson just confirmed that he’ll be in Artist Alley at Long Beach Comic Con! Stop by and keep him company, lest he do something drastic like tap-dancing on his table…
7. Are you in or near Philadelphia? Save the date for May 19 at 5pm: Anne E. Johnson will be doing a reading from Green Light Delivery at Head House Books!

Sundries

1. The Book House in St. Louis may be facing eviction. This is terrible on multiple levels – first, it’s a GREAT independent bookstore that may be getting booted from a great location in order to build storage. We don’t need more corporate storage; we need more bookstores! Beyond that, the Book House takes a chance on a lot of small press publishers – they stock many C&G titles and really believe in us, just as much as we believe in them – and without bookstores like the Book House, everyone is that much the poorer. Time to join in that letter-writing campaign, and see what else we can do to help keep them in their location and in business.
2. We all judge books by their covers. But what happens when you ask a two-year-old to judge a book based only on its cover art? Answer: lions.

What’s better than getting one amazing book for under $10? Getting TEN of them, of course!

Constellation Games by Leonard Richardson has joined StoryBundle, the nifty indie curation idea that groups a series of books on a certain topic, then makes them available on a pay-what-you-will basis. If you pay more than the average, you get extra books!

As StoryBundle describes it:

Continuing its popular ‘pay what you want’ ebook bundles, StoryBundle  - http://storybundle.com – is proud to present the Video Game Bundle. The specially curated set of 10 full-length game culture & history books/magazines spans such notables as Prince Of Persia’s Jordan Mechner,  Kill Screen Magazine, ‘father of games’ Ralph Baer, Generation Xbox and acclaimed game-related fiction from Leonard Richardson. In total the bundle features almost $100 worth of books for a fraction of that price.

The Video Game Bundle, curated by Independent Games Festival chairman emeritus and game industry veteran Simon Carless, includes multiple titles that are making their ebook debut, plus a host of other rare and sought-after titles. It’s the first video game-themed bundle for a site that has already sold more than a hundred thousand books through its popular horror, sci-fi and fantasy book bundles.

Highlights from the initial set of five books and two magazines include Jordan Mechner’s extensive diaries on the making of seminal ’80s platform game Karateka (“Jordan’s journals are remarkable… a great inspiration” – Will Wright, SimCity/The Sims creator), as well as Jamie Russell’s painstakingly researched ‘Hollywood and games’ non-fiction book Generation Xbox, which spans the Super Mario Bros movie through Spielberg’s LMNO and beyond.

Other notables include two full electronic issues (‘Back To School’ and ‘Change’) of literate, acclaimed game magazine Kill Screen – spanning almost 200 pages of writing from a who’s who of video game critics, and Leonard Richardson’s fictional novel about “space aliens and video games and love and computer programming”, Constellation Games (“AN AMAZING BOOK… one of the smartest, most passionate, most principled science fiction novels I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading.” – Cory Doctorow, New York Times best-selling author & BoingBoing co-editor.)

Also packed into the base set of books are Killing Is Harmless, a surprising book-length journey by critic Brendan Keogh through the surprising narrative twists and turns of 2K and Yager’s thought-provoking game Spec Ops: The Line, and Confessions Of the Game Doctor by the late Bill Kunkel, a borderline gonzo memoir of the ’80s Electronic Games Magazine editor. Game Informer magazine notes of Kunkel’s ‘Game Doctor’ that it “details the slings, arrows, sex and drugs of outrageous fortune… as a warts-and-all autobiography, it’s unmatched.”

Must-have bonus books include the world eBook premiere of Ralph Baer’s ‘In The Beginning’ – a vital autobiography on the Odyssey creator’s role in the creation of video games – plus Jordan Mechner’s acclaimed Prince Of Persia diaries (“A fantastic read.” – D.B. Weiss, co-creator; HBO’s Game of Thrones), and IndieGames.com editor Mike Rose’s essential book-length rundown of ’250 Indie Games You Must Play’.

* * *

Seriously. This is a GREAT deal, with some amazing titles for anyone interested in video games and game culture. Grab your bundle now – it’s only around for 20 days!

The Daughter Star by Susan Jane Bigelow is now available for pre-order!

Get in on the ground floor and get great rewards, including a tie-in short story that explores the history of Nea and the Abrax!

Pressing Matters: Week of April 22-26, 2013

Acquisitions

1. Slush reading is, as usual, ongoing. We have a couple requests for full mss out, though, and one possible revise-resub going out…plus a number of snoozers and a few “I like this but…I just…there’s something not there” responses, which are always the hardest.

Editing

1. Continuing edits on Infinity Key by Chrysoula Tzavelas and II Crimsonstreak by Matt Adams. Adding in edits for Grave by Joan Frances Turner. ALL THE EDITS.

Production

1. eBook galley of City of Devils is coming together, and we’re about to make that available…along with the cover reveal!
2. Chris is making a new attempt at a cover for The Dominion, this time referencing a ton of old travel ephemera I found. Should be interesting…
3. The mega-talented Brooke Stephenson is back on board for the cover of II Crimsonstreak – and her ideas are phenomenal. It’ll be another smashing cover!

Reviews, Promotions, and Buzz

1. The Other Half of the Sky is now available! And editor Athena Andreadis is offering a bonus screenplay to anyone who buys the anthology!
2. Mark your calendars for May 11 – Justin Robinson just confirmed that he’ll be in Artist Alley at Long Beach Comic Con! Stop by and keep him company, lest he do something drastic like tap-dancing on his table…
3. Are you in or near Philadelphia? Save the date for May 19 at 5pm: Anne E. Johnson will be doing a reading from Green Light Delivery at Head House Books!

Sundries

1. Oh dear. Another small press is closing due to financial problems – once again caused by growing too fast and not paying attention to the business side. All the more reason for careful, slow, managed growth at C&G…
2. James Patterson took out full-page ads calling for government to support publishing. I’m…not entirely sure what I think about this, but at least it’s opening up discussion about what the industry means to whom.
3. A neat exit interview with the outgoing chief editor of the OED.
4. Royalties and accounting are nearly taken care of; some changes by Amazon mean delays in payment, but we should be able to get it taken care of…
5. Mastermind Kate spoke at the 2013 IPNE conference last weekend, and has a roundup of the happenings…
6. And your bit of fun: some very creative literacy campaign posters.

This past weekend, April 19-20, I was at the Independent Publishers of New England annual conference; I’d been invited to present on the two main panels in the morning. I presented last year, too, and had a grand time meeting other New England publishing professionals and talking digital books with many of the people there.

As the IPNE mission states, they “provide opportunities for education and networking for those engaged in independent book publishing and related activities in the six New England States. IPNE offers educational programs, networking, marketing opportunities, advocacy, and information about publishing.” And man, do they ever – the annual conference is an unbeatable opportunity to learn, network, and get vendor contacts. Best of all, IPNE is open to anyone with an interest in publishing – authors and illustrators, self-publishers, bloggers and reviewers, small press people, printers and services companies, and more. It makes for a great cross-section of people and some interesting perspectives.

You can check out the full conference program here (PDF), and I’ll give you a brief rundown of the conference and my thoughts on it to boot.

On Friday night, we were missing a lot of folks because of the Boston lockdown. The show must go on, though, so we dove right in. There were some good talks on the state of publishing today, and the health of the industry. General consensus among both presenters and audience was that there are a LOT of challenges facing us – the changing digital marketplace, Amazon’s increasing footprint in the industry, a lack of discoverability – but that there’s also a lot of opportunity for a determined publisher to create and dominate a niche.

Saturday was Sessions Day, with two panels for everyone in the morning and breakout sessions in the afternoon. There were many more people present – some came and went throughout the day, but I want to say we had about 40-50 people there at lunch, maybe more. This was also the big day for exhibitors; there were several print companies (and my GOD, I was ogling the hell out of the Cambric Weave Laminate at McNaughton & Gunn) as well as a cataloguing company (represented by someone who knows Editrix Sarah’s mom, a librarian…small world!), some digital conversion folks, and a few distributors. Good mix for a small-press-focused organization.

Oh, and there was a Conference Bookshop for showing off all our titles!

Panel 1 on Saturday was the marketing session. Between the talks by Steve Fischer of the New England Independent Booksellers Association (on working with your local independent bookstore) and Brian Jud of the Connecticut Authors and Publishers Association (on selling into non-bookstore channels), plus my talk on using social media to reach readers directly, I think we covered a lot of bases. I know I got a lot out of my copresenters’ talks, and hopefully mine went over well, too!

Panel 2 was on the “digital landscape.”  John Rodzvilla, the digital publisher in residence at Emerson College, gave a breakdown of the Three A’s (Apple, Amazon, Adobe) and an overview of what, exactly, eBooks are and how we can distribute them. My talk was on creating and implementing a digital strategy, with a few sample workflows and a concentration on useful tools for the beginner. Jenny Hudson of Merrimack Media spoke on “how to be a click magnet,” giving suggestions for how to leverage social media for sales. Again, this was a really informative session, and I hope we gave people a lot to think about when creating digital strategies for their publishing ventures! A lot of IPNE folks are just getting their feet wet with digital – but many are eBook professionals or otherwise tech-savvy. It’s an interesting mix, and one that can be hard to address appropriately. After all, you don’t want to bore the folks who have been there and done that, but you also don’t want to go completely over the heads of the beginners in the audience. Fortunately, I think we all hit the blend well.

The keynote speaker on Saturday was Archer Mayor, the highly talented, highly persnickety writer of the Joe Gunther series of Vermont-based mysteries. Mayor took back the rights to a number of his novels a few years ago, and began self-publishing them in print and digital. Today, he maintains a hybrid publishing program of his work – self-publishing and Big Six releases – and advocates for authors to be smart and to value their own work above everything. His big takeaway? Examine every angle of a deal and determine what’s in your best interests. If you can do it better yourself, you should. But if it makes more sense to have someone else help you so you have more time to write? Do that. There’s no right answer – there’s just what’s right for you and your current project. Wise words indeed!

One of the best quotes – of MANY – from Mayor was this, on vanity/subsidy presses:

Vanity press to author: “So, what are you putting on the table here? What do you have to offer us?”
Author: “I put the goddamn manuscript on the table!”

Tail end of the breakout panel on video on Saturday afternoon

For the first afternoon session, I attended the Advanced Digital Workshop with Bruce Kulik of Media Entities, a firm specializing in XML development. They’ve just released the Rock Me Reader, which seems to have some really interesting rich content and multimedia capabilities for iPad. Bruce seems to think that the future of digital publishing is in apps and enhanced eBooks, and in multipurpose tablets as opposed to dedicated eReaders. I can see this being true for textbooks and nonfiction of many stripes, but I don’t think it’s as much the case for fiction. Some fiction will move to being more of a multimedia/enhanced experience, yes, but that’s going to become its own thing – not so much as novel as an experience, and a medium of its own, something between a game and a novel. Novels, I think, are largely going to stay as they have for centuries now, as a narrative form, and the best way to enjoy that will be in print or dedicated eReader where you don’t have email and notifications and the internet popping up to distract you. I’m guessing that a lot of dedicated readers will continue to use, you guessed it, dedicated readers, not tablets. Time will tell.

My next breakout session was Money Matters with Robin Haywood of Sellers Publishing. Sellers does a lot of crafting and lifestyle publications (I own some of their 500 Blah recipe books), as well as calendars and the like. Robin spoke on P&Ls when acquiring a title, working with copackagers, and a lot of things that were perhaps more suited to nonfiction, but that make basic business sense for publishers in general. I was a little bewildered by how many people in the room seemed not to know what a P&L was (FYI, it’s a “profit and loss” statement, a projection of how much a book costs to produce and when it might recoup those costs based on different factors). There seems to be a lot of focus on the passion that goes into publishing, and much less on the business matters behind it all – which, yeah, the nitty-gritty of accounting and management sucks, but it’s how you build and maintain a strong business, which is how you support putting out great books.

All in all, it was a great weekend, with a lot of really intelligent, passionate people. I was able to get a basic sense of what people are interested in and concerned about in New England publishing today:

• They’re confused by social media, and kind of skeptical of it – but after my talk, I got the sense that some felt more encouraged to try it
• They’re worried about eBooks, and confused about DRM, distribution, and formats…but they’re also willing to try to implement a digital strategy, since that’s where a lot of sales are headed, especially in fiction
• They’re passionate about all of this – everyone is nervous and wary right now, but they’re also energized by all the possibilities
• There’s a lot of change coming, and not everyone is sure how to navigate it, but we’ve got a lot of resources to hand in this region, and a lot of small publishers are carving out niches in local fiction, local history, and local interest that make them more likely to succeed than the Big Six in those areas. Niche is where it’s at.

If you want to check out more of the conference, you can watch videos of many of the keynotes and main panels courtesy of Charlotte Pierce, the Daytripper Diva and founder of Pierce Press. Forgive my baggy eyes and crazy hair; it was early!

If you’d like to get copies of my presentations, they’re available at Kallitechnes Media Design in PDF form.

So what do you think? What excites you about the future of independent publishing? What scares you? Where are we going from here?

Did I miss anything? Grill me in the comments!

A very happy Book Birthday to The Other Half of the Sky, the brilliant anthology of woman-focused space opera conceived, created, and edited by Athena Andreadis, and co-edited by Kay Holt.

In a lovely bit of confluence, the anthology is coming out on International Book Day, which also happens to be the name-day of Athena’s father, which also happens to be Shakespeare’s birthday, which also happens to be a mere two days after Candlemark & Gleam’s launch anniversary.

This is truly an astonishing collection, with something for absolutely everyone contained within its pages. But don’t just take our word for it – check out some of the rave reviews that have been coming in!

And then mosey over to the shop and pick up your copy. As always, C&G direct purchases are DRM-free, and all paperbacks come  with the digital edition free!

Pressing Matters: Week of April 15-19, 2013

Acquisitions

1. Still in the process of wading through the slush pile. There’s a couple of promising mss, and Editrix Sarah demanded a full on one, while I’m looking at another. We’ll swap when we have notes, and figure out what to offer on in this batch!

Editing

1. Continuing edits on Infinity Key by Chrysoula Tzavelas and II Crimsonstreak by Matt Adams. Adding in edits for Grave by Joan Frances Turner. ALL THE EDITS.

Production

1. Author copies of The Other Half of the Sky have been sent out, as have editor Athena’s copies!
2. eBook issues with displaying The Other Half of the Sky in the Kobo app for iPad have been mostly ironed out. Oh, /> tags and spaces, why do you hate me so?
3. Check it out: the cover of Blue Diamond Delivery by Anne E. Johnson has been revealed!
4. Chris is making a new attempt at a cover for The Dominion, this time referencing a ton of old travel ephemera I found. Should be interesting…
5. The mega-talented Brooke Stephenson is back on board for the cover of II Crimsonstreak – and her ideas are phenomenal. It’ll be another smashing cover!

Reviews, Promotions, and Buzz

1. Library Journal has read and reviewed The Other Half of the Sky and loved it! They call it “fearless writing” and we couldn’t agree more.
2. A Series of Ordinary Adventures author Stevie Carroll has been doing some research, and shares it in an amazing post on a woman who may have been the first female science-fiction author.
3. Mark your calendars for May 11 – Justin Robinson just confirmed that he’ll be in Artist Alley at Long Beach Comic Con! Stop by and keep him company, lest he do something drastic like tap-dancing on his table…
4. Are you in or near Philadelphia? Save the date for May 19 at 5pm: Anne E. Johnson will be doing a reading from Green Light Delivery at Head House Books!

Sundries

1. Royalties and accounting for this quarter finish up tomorrow, now that Amazon’s finally released March sales numbers. Now for the fun part – sending money to people!
2. Mastermind Kate is speaking at the annual Independent Publishers of New England conference this weekend, with back-to-back panels on marketing strategy and “the digital landscape.” Here’s hoping the AV equipment works this year!

Yet again, artist Chris Sobolowski has worked his magic and brought Webrid to life, in all his skeptical-eyebrowed glory.

Save the date: Webrid’s adventures continue on June 25, 2013!