Shadows and Fire

by Jennifer Fales

 (6 Customer Reviews)

Price: $6.95

An adventure of epic proportions…

Please note that product prices and availability are subject to change. Prices and availability were accurate at the time of this posting; however, they may differ from those you see when you visit Amazon.com.© Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.All rights reserved. Amazon, Amazon.com, the Amazon.com logo, and 1-Click are registered trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. Amazon.com, 410 Terry Avenue N., Seattle, WA 98109-5210.

Considerations:

Attending international book fairs personally is often cost-prohibitive for self-publishing writers when you factor in expenses such as airfare, hotel, food, and transportation. And those are just the costs of going international. Then there are the costs of the exhibit itself, like the exhibition fees, the exhibition stand, and the “giveaways” (often called “freebies” or “schwag.”)

Advantages:

But book fairs are also the place where self-published authors can “be discovered.” Outskirts Press helps its authors place their books at 5 international book fairs for a reasonable cost.

The Bologna Children’s Book Fair is the world’s leading book fair focusing solely on children’s publishing with a focus on the sale of rights and international co-productions.  To increase your chances for success, your book must have full color illustrations inside the book to participate. Therefore, only our Pearl Full Color books are eligible.

The Bologna Children’s Book Fair occurs in March in Italy and hosts over 1400 international exhibitors and may be instrumental in forging industry connections or negotiating agreements or licenses for your work.

When you order the Bologna Children’s Book Fair from the Marketing Options Screen of your Author’s Center your book will receive valuable, face-out exposure on an exclusive shelf with 4 other Outskirts Press titles and a representative will be on-hand to personally answer questions about your book. Outskirts Press will provide the necessary copies of the book and all the necessary contact information for both the author and publisher, so interested parties can make further contact, during or after the fair. All inquiries Outskirts Press receives about your book will be forwarded directly to you for personal follow-up.

If you are a published Children’s book author with Outskirts Press and interested in exhibiting your book with the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, you can register for this event conveniently from your author’s center Marketing Options screen. Space is limited and filled on a first-come, first served basis. Due to the specific requirements of Bologna, this event is not a part of our Global Book Tour package and must be registered for separately if you are interested.

The deadline for submitting your book to the book fair is Friday, January, 27, 2012.

Are you ready for Bologna?

Graham Parke, the author of No Hope for Gomez!, has created a number of technical publications in his career, recently patenting a self-folding map. No Hope for Gomez! is Graham’s fiction debut, and has been widely received, winning numerous awards throughout 2011.

Kirkus review recently announced their Best Indie of 2011 list, and Graham’s fictional debut has made the prestigious list. The novel has received rave reviews from California Chronicles and Readers Favorite:

Extremely witty and clever writing that contains keen insights into human nature. –California Chronicle

The antics in this book will leave the reader laughing. Graham Parke is a genius. –Readers Favorite  

The story revolves around the experiences of one Gomez Porter. This is what Kirkus Review had to say about the book:

A drug trial participant blogs about his experiences on an experimental medication and questions whether the strangeness in his life is a side-effect or just weirdness as usual.

As a test subject in an experimental drug trial, Gomez Porter is asked to a keep a blog to chronicle any strange experiences, an exercise that quickly alerts him to just how many odd things seem to be happening around him. He soon finds himself wrapped up in a possible murder mystery, stalking a stalker for a woman he thinks he loves (though it might just be the drugs), while his life and the characters in it get ever more absurd—and increasingly dangerous.

Parke’s debut novel melds screwball comedy, hipster-style irony and an old-fashioned unreliable narrator into a quirky whodunit that challenges our perceptions about how we think and interact with the world around us. The blog-style entries are unique, providing a firsthand view of events from Gomez’s perspective, a perspective that even the character himself actively joins the reader in doubting. When Gomez goes so far as to admit he edits his posts, we’re left to wonder what got cut, what he isn’t telling us and why, if he is cutting things, he still records his more embarrassing, frightening or unflattering moments. These layers of ambiguity, combined with the novel’s wit and some of its more subtle humor (often overshadowed by its bigger laughs), give the book the distinction of being a work most will want to revisit.

The most notable shortcoming is the ending; it isn’t hugely satisfying, and the tone doesn’t fit with the rest of the book. But this is largely forgivable as the real charm of the novel is in the humor of its journey rather than its surprisingly solemn destination.

At times laugh-out-loud funny, occasionally just weird for the sake of weird, but consistently entertaining.

This work of fiction has been reviewed on Amazon as interesting, delightful and filled with intriguing suspense!

At Outskirts Press, our authors are what make us special, and Graham Parke is a perfect example of that.  Graham, we’re amazed with everything you do. Keep it up!

Are you ready to kick-off your professional career with a growing collection of high-quality books?

In alphabetical order, the top ten best-selling books in self publishing during the month of December 2011 were:

Congratulations to our best-selling authors for the month of December 2011!

How can you get your book on the bestseller list? While we can’t make any guarantees on sales success, many of our most successful authors invest time and money in marketing themselves and their book. Some of our most popular services are the Personal Marketing Assistant, Virtual Book Tour, and Custom Press Release/PR Publicist.

All of these books (and other Outskirts Press titles) are available from all major online retailers like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Powells, Books A Million, and others, plus conveniently from the Outskirts Press Direct bookstore at http://outskirtspress.com/bookstore for discounts ranging from 10% – 55%.

Are you ready to put a book promotion strategy in place for your self-published book?

Most libraries would allow me to borrow a book for 2 weeks, and I would read the book in my own time and return it when I was done. Based on library fee for the year, my total cost to borrow one book was less than 10 cents. But that was in 1990s.

Now, since late 2011, Amazon has kick-started a new venture for digital readers – kdp select.

What is kdp select?

Kindle Direct Publishing project allows self-publishers (and publishers) to distribute books through the Kindle Owner’s Lending Library and reach the growing number of US Amazon Prime members. KDP Select has provided over $6 million throughout $12 million, allowing participating authors to earn royalty through the lending library. The program offers other benefits including:

• Promote your book for free to readers worldwide - The newly launched Promotions Manager tool will allow you to directly control the promotion of free books.
• Instant feedback - Check real-time performance of your books in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library.

Enrolling in kdp select is very simple. If you have already published a book to Kindle, you can enroll existing book by visiting the bookshelf. New books can be enrolled during the publishing process. You can simply select the “Enroll this book in KDP Select” option and proceed to publish the book as you normally would.

The catch? Your book has to be available exclusively on Kindle for a period of 90 days. During the period of exclusivity, you cannot distribute your book digitally anywhere else, including on your website, blogs, etc. However, you can continue to distribute your book in physical format, or in any format other than digital.

Recently, I wrote a post about Neal Bogosian, on how his book The Adventures of Chip Doolin reached #8 in Amazon’s paid Kindle store in the baseball category. He tried a unique and innovative approach to add to his fame, and bottom line.

Its time that you should too.

What are you waiting for? Order your Kindle Edition Today and become a bestseller!

Take note from self-publishing Outskirts Press author, Robert De Filippis, who is taking his latest book, Faith, Stirred not Shaken, on tour – a virtual book tour, that is. He will be featured on several blogs over the weeks and months ahead so keep your eyes peeled to learn more about him and his book.

Luckily for us, Robert was kind enough to answer a few questions as the tour was getting started so that we can give you a sneak peek into the mind of the creator of Faith, Stirred not Shaken.

OP: Tell us a little bit about Faith, Stirred not Shaken. What is it about?

RDF: Exploring the dark space between science and religion. This is the dark space of inquiry that we’ve left since science split from philosophy about 400 years ago.

OP: Why did you decide to write this story?

RDF: To propose a new dialog that allows science and religion to work together to find new explanations of our universe.

OP: What types of readers would be interested in this story?

RDF: Those who know that humankind is on an unsustainable trajectory. Those who know that contemporary religion is part of the problem. Those we can still think for themselves in this age of amplifying resonance from echo chambers disguised as the news media..

OP: What is special about your book?  What differentiates it from other books in the same category?

RDF: This is not the usual theist / atheist argument. That argument is irrelevant because it consists of two proposed explanations of the unknown. What they’re missing is the significant difference between the unknown and the unknowable. Theists and atheists are arguing about the unknowable and proposing that one explanation is right and the other is wrong. We can’t explain the universe from our position in it.

OP: Have you published any other books? Do you plan to publish more?

RDF: I’ve published You, Your SELF and the 21^st Century and The Flowers were Talking to Me. Yes, I will continue to write and publish.

OP: Thanks for your time, Robert! We look forward to learning more about you as you visit other bloggers!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Robert De Filippis is a retired Organizational Development Consultant and Executive Coach. During his 45 year career, he worked in the U.S., Canada, Central America and Eastern and Western Europe. His interest in writing about and understanding the deeper questions of “what it means to be human” has evolved into his final career as an author. He has written for various professional journals and authored two previous books. He currently writes a weekly Op/Ed column for a regional newspaper based in his hometown of Herrin, Illinois where he retired 47 years after leaving.

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For more information or to contact the author, visit www.outskirtspress.com/faithstirrednotshaken

This author purchased the Virtual Book Tour marketing option, which allows self-publishing authors to connect with bloggers and harness the power of the blogosphere by taking their book on the “virtual road”.  Learn more about this service by visiting your Publishing Center and reviewing the available marketing options.

Are you an author looking for help to market your self-published book?

Generations

by Larry W. Wessels

Price: $23.95

Discover one family’s incredible American journey…

Please note that product prices and availability are subject to change. Prices and availability were accurate at the time of this posting; however, they may differ from those you see when you visit Amazon.com.© Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.All rights reserved. Amazon, Amazon.com, the Amazon.com logo, and 1-Click are registered trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. Amazon.com, 410 Terry Avenue N., Seattle, WA 98109-5210.

1) She doesn’t want to worry about interior design, cover design, and all that stuff required by those DIY places.

2) She already has a full-time job. She just wants her book published.

3) She doesn’t have the spare cash to pay for full-service book publishing and marketing expenses.

Maybe you are facing the same situation?

Chances are that many of you could use the option of publishing your book now and paying for it later.

Outskirts Press has now included Paypal’s Bill Me Later service on their checkout page as a payment option. Bill Me Later services allow you to make a purchase now and pay later, and can be used at various outlets, including eBay.

In this recessionary economy, many retail companies are providing a simple solution to a typical problem faced by consumers – lack of liquid cash. Most customers that are interested in purchasing necessary long-term products and services do not have the required cash for it.  For authors falling into this category, Outskirts Press provides the solution.

What does this mean for you as a writer?

You can now purchase high-quality, full-service book publishing and book marketing options without paying anything upfront. Outskirts Press has incorporated this facility into their secure online shopping cart, along with the already available options of paying securely by credit card or by check or money order. With Paypal’s “Bill Me Later” funding option, you can order now and pay later, via installments orchestrated via PayPal.

So you can get full-service, high-quality self-publishing and book marketing services today without any upfront costs. Does that sound like a good deal?

So, are you ready to self-publish the easy, full-service, high-quality way?

One of the biggest dilemmas that self-publishers face is deciding on the appropriate printing process. The ‘How to Print’ decision can be a bit easier once you know your target market and budget. Still, there are many options available to you, such as digital printing with print-on-demand distribution or offset printing and physical fulfillment.

Publishers use three major methods of book printing, which are:

Digital printing is perhaps the simplest and the fastest growing printing process. Normally, the files for printing are held at computer servers and can be printed, glued and bound together to produce a high quality book in under 10 minutes. This method works excellently for producing one-demand single copy of the book, as the whole book is produced in one cycle.

Offset printing on the other hand is more suitable for bulk-printing. This traditional type of print-press is fed one sheet at a time, or a complete web of paper, which can be printed in real-time. The web of sheets is then cut up and organized by special bindery equipment. The folding, trimming and assembling of the printing press is carried out right at the end, making sure that more than one book can be prepared at a time.

Letterpress technology is unquestionably the oldest form of printing, and largely unavailable due to its inefficient and time-consuming approach. In this kind of printing, pictorial engravings or etched metal plates are inked, and a single sheet of paper is rolled over them. The process only works for one sheet at a time, and is typically used for very fine, limited edition books.

As you can see, there are a variety of different printing options available to a self-publisher. While offset printing can yield deeper discounts (on a per copy basis), print-on-demand offers the flexibility of a smaller upfront investment. We offer both offset printing/bulk ordering as as well print-on-demand as options for all of our authors. That means – we’re here to save you money regardless of the printing process you choose.

So, are you ready to have 100% control over your self-publishing experience? 

1. Instant Recognition – When readers visit your author webpage, you will instantly be recognized for your achievement. This builds credibility and establishes expertise.
2. A Perfect Complement – If you have already added a seal or graphic to your book cover (and you should once you’ve won an award) adding the same graphic to your webpage complements the Award Recognition Cover Enhancement on your cover. In addition to having the award graphic on all your printed books, you will have a matching graphic on your author webpage.
3. Stand Out – Readers are often bombarded with potential books to read. You need to stand out in order for readers to choose your book. Award recognition is a great way to set yourself a part from the competition.

With the new Award Recognition Webpage Enhancement option, Outskirts Press will format an Award Graphic directly into your Outskirts Press author webpage so you can proudly display your status as an author of an award-winning book.  This is exclusively available for all Outskirts Press published authors.