Authors Electric

  THE SET-UP: It was 2017 when my husband and I decided to become publishers with Devil's Party Press. It was right now days ago when we got good at it. Wait, we're still getting good at it. Um, yeah, I just admitted that. I don't claim to be anything I'm not, which is maybe one of the best and most trustworthy things about me. Whether you write and someone else publishes you (and go you! if that's your situation), you write and you publish yourself, or you write and you pay to publish, it's a process, the writing and the publishing. THE SMALL PUBLISHERS GAMBLE THEIR MONEY Small publishers, like me, don't typically last long, especially if we're small (we are) and indie (we are) and traditional (meaning we don't charge fees, and we don't). Imagine that you have four books you are publishing this year, Small Publisher, and you are editing, and proofreading, and formatting, and buying copyright, and an ISBN, and getting a cover designed, and doing...

Img-Eleanor Spiess-Ferris/ Ds-Roger Carpenter Perhaps this will sound gushy to the prolific masters of mystery novels among my distinguished colleagues here at Authors Electric . But I can't help being over the moon at the moment -- and deserving of a pause to enjoy! I reached another book publishing milepost the other day --  creating a cover for my latest book, putting production on it's final leg towards release, promotion, and, I hope, sales. It's a kick no matter how many books I've published, no matter how many candles on my author's cake. You can't judge a book by its cover. but the cover can get us to buy one, often as not. It sets the tone, particularly when it comes to fiction. It gives us a taste.  The best ones intrigue, tease, whisper compelling secrets and become an icon for the novel, its sequels and adaptations. Sometimes it's clever, morphing typography that tells the story, for example, Joey Hi's design for Lauren Beukes' Zoo City ....