Category: Uncategorized

Author Inspiration, Author Spotlight, Uncategorized

Congratulations to Andrew Ceroni on his 5-Star book review from Readers’ Favorite!

Reviewed by: Alma Boucher

Review Rating:  5 STARS – Congratulations on your 5-star review! 

First Bullet by Andrew Ceroni is a brilliantly written espionage thriller.

Roy Phillips and his wife are eating dinner in Ocho Rios, Jamaica, when he notices a group of oriental-appearing men sitting near their table. His suspicions are aroused, and he questions the manager. And soon after, CIA Agent Dave McClure is sent to Ocho Rios to investigate the circumstances surrounding Roy’s death. Dave’s investigation leads him to a Chinese military base in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica. There also have been several confrontations in the Gulf of Mexico between American and Chinese missile submarines. It is not clear if there is a connection between these incidents and the Chinese military base. To add drama, the CIA is warned about a plot to overthrow the German government and invade of Poland and the Czech Republic. Dave and the CIA have their hands full to prevent an outbreak of World War III.

As noted, First Bullet is an outstanding tale of espionage. Andrew Ceroni planned an enthralling story with three plots woven together. I was hooked from the first page until the end. It was a brilliant read and fast-paced. With all the non-stop action, there was never a dull moment. The descriptions of the events were detailed and vivid. It was easy to lose myself in this world of espionage and become part of it. It was a real page-turner full of twists and turns. The suspense kept me on the edge of my seat. The characters were excellently developed and were both authentic and intriguing. It is a riveting work full of action with a fitting end.

Congratulations to Andrew Ceroni!

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From 10 to 110—there’s no age too young or too old for book publishing!

One of the things we at Outskirts Press love about our authors is how they come from all walks of life—including early and later in those walks. In fact, we’ve helped kids under age 10 and kids (at heart) over age 90 to self-publish their books.

The only thing that makes our under-18 authors unique is they need parental or guardian support. Publishing is a business for both the author and the publisher, so Outskirts Press has a contract we ask all our authors to review and sign. However, by law, people younger than 18 can’t sign a contract without an adult cosigning.

With that in mind, everyone is free to reach out to us about publishing their book! We approach all our projects similarly—with respect and care for the author and story. And we hope all authors have followed a similar path toward success: Write. Revise. Set the story aside. Read and revise again. Ask others you trust to read and provide feedback. And, as much as your budget and time allow, hire a team of professionals to edit your story, create a great cover, help you price and market it, and more. That’s where Outskirts Press comes in—we’re here to provide a team for everyone with a story . . . no matter your age!

start publishing today

So, are you ready to publish your masterpiece with the A+ rated and #1-rated self-publishing company according to the Better Business Bureau and Top Consumer Reviews, respectively? If so, connect with Outskirts Press right now in whatever manner is easiest for you:

Or click that button above to order the best publishing package for you today!

LitWorld, Uncategorized

Outskirts Press Is Proud to Sponsor LitWorld in 2023

Outskirts Press Is Proud to Sponsor LitWorld in 2023

Once again, Outskirts Press is proud to sponsor LitWorld, the organization behind World Read Aloud Day—this year, February 1—and reading programs for children throughout the year.

Stay up-to-date on our involvement, including which Outskirts Press authors are participating, by checking out our LitWorld page.

Like Outskirts Press, LitWorld believes in the power of reading and writing; just as we know all our authors have a unique story to tell, LitWorld values each child’s personal story as part of the fabric of our world.

LitWorld’s programs include LitClub, a weekly after-school literacy and empowerment program that brings together mentors and small groups of young students to share stories and develop as leaders. Along with Scholastic, LitWorld hosts LitCamp each summer, reaching over a million preschool through eighth-grade students yearly with engaging lessons that teach them how to embrace and use their voices to make a difference in their communities. We appreciate how nimble LitWorld has been during the pandemic, creating and offering virtual resources to supplement what children have lost by having limited access to libraries and schools.

Outskirts Press can’t wait to see what LitWorld does this year—and we’re excited that several of our authors are a part of the community making that happen!

You can read along with our authors by clicking below.

World Read Aloud Day

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Lots of Cyber Savings . . . Just One Click Away!

PROMO CODE: cybersale

This Cyber Monday, November 28th, buy yourself something new. Purchase the Ultimate Black & White or Ultimate Full-Color or Basic package and save 20%. Just add the promo code cybersale when checking out and instantly save hundreds of dollars. With our most popular packages, the Ultimate Black & White or Ultimate Full-Color, your package will include:

  • a free customizable cover
  • free interior formatting
  • a free Bowker-approved ISBN
  • worldwide distribution via Ingram and Baker & Taylor
  • availability at over 25,000 retailers, including Amazon and Barnes & Noble.com
  • plus so much more

Still not enough? Start publishing your masterpiece today with Ultimate Black & White or Ultimate Full Color. We will also publish and distribute an Amazon Kindle, Nook, iPad, and Google Play eBook Editions of your book.

If you only budgeted for our Basic package, we didn’t forget you! You can also take 20% off today!

To get the best publishing package, enter the promotion code: cybersale. Don’t delay. This offer ends today!

Connect with a Publishing Consultant today to learn how Outskirts Press can help YOU publish YOUR masterpiece:  

START PUBLISHING
Uncategorized

Craft the perfect life story!

Genealogy family history theme with old family photos and documents.

Autobiographies, biographies, and memoirs are hot.

Sure, sometimes they’re extra hot—every few years, they become the trendy genres—but they’re never not popular. Our most favorite subject is ourselves. Humans love reading about other humans. It’s also incredibly impressive and admirable to translate a life into a written story with authenticity and vulnerability.

So, wouldn’t YOU like to write a good biography, autobiography, or memoir? This month, we provide some tips and tricks for crafting a work of nonfiction drawn from life and history that will leave your readers moved—to tears or to joy or to action—and definitely hungry for more. Oh, and don’t forget that Outskirts Press offers a spectacular One-Click Publishing Package for Memoirs!

Five time-honored ways to write from life are:

  1. Taste test. That is, take the time first to immerse yourself in the genre. Like many others, the autobiography, biography, and memoir genres are so diverse as to include everything from “chatty” celebrity tell-alls to serious historical excavations to symbolic and “atmospheric” texts that read like prose poems. Find a couple of examples of the field that do what you want to do, or that somehow make clear the imaginative possibilities of the form, or that do the exact opposite, and use these books as your guiding stars as you begin to craft your own masterpiece.
  2. Draw up a list of scenes. List the scenes the stick in your head, regardless of their importance to your larger life story or the life story of the historical figure you’re attempting to put together. These scenes are the memories or historical moments you know you want to write about, now or eventually, and can be organized or restructured later. Don’t put too much of a premium on what comes first or what you want your book’s first paragraph, page, or chapter to look or feel like. It’s more important that you get some words on the page without being intimidated by the process.
  3. Start fleshing out. Pick a couple of the scenes on your list and start drawing them out into sentences and paragraphs. As you go, you’ll begin to get a feel for what’s most central about that memory or historical moment. Is it the way it made you feel and how that affected who you became later? Is it key in understanding a relationship in your life or in the life of a historical figure, which shapes everything else? Is it that it provides humor to lighten the darker moments of your book? Highlight the lines that seem most important and telling. Move on to the next scene once you feel like you’ve reached a moment of completion. You’ll fit the pieces together later. Do you find that more scenes crop up in your mind as you’re writing? Perfect! Add them to the list. You’ll get to them eventually if they really are important.
  4. Embrace the drama. Employ each and every storytelling technique that you find helpful, including colorful language, dramatic tension, and situational irony. Just because you’re describing events that really happened doesn’t mean that you can’t use the tools of fiction to keep things fun and interesting. Think about the central conflicts of your scenes and if they might start adding together to something even larger and more central to the story of the life you’re telling. Does each memory circle around your or your historical figure’s relationship with your/their mother? What is the larger ecology that your collected scenes all fit within? Pump up the setting and the mood with all the vivid details you or the documents you’re drawing from can offer.
  5. Do your research. The fact remains that the true story isn’t limited to your own personal memories and lived-in experiences. Many of the most striking books to emerge in recent years—Cheryl Strayed’s Wild, Helen Macdonald’s H Is for Hawk, and Anne Lamott’s Some Assembly Required, for example—are personal stories built upon a foundation of deep research. Whether your book involves a backpacking trip across the Himalayas or a battle with cancer or experiences as an educator or anecdotes of career-related experiences, there are endless possibilities for research. Decades-old weather records for most corners of the globe are archived online. Your library likely stocks back issues of your local newspapers. State historical societies keep census data from the turn of the century. In an age when you can access fire insurance maps from the 1870s and also have your DNA sequenced for a small fee, there’s no limit to what information sources are available to strengthen your work.

Still feeling a little overwhelmed—but even more passionate about telling your story? Then it may be time to lean on an expert. If you’re looking to write and publish your memoirs or a biography about a historical figure, there’s never a better time than now to inquire

Connect with a Publishing Consultant today to learn how Outskirts Press can help YOU publish YOUR masterpiece:  

START PUBLISHING
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You CAN See a Return on Investment on Your Book

Return on Investment for Authors on Outskirts Press

When you have a story—or history or cookbook or memoir—to share, you know that a big mental and emotional relief comes from just getting it out and onto paper. But the life cycle of some stories stops there.

But if you go on to publish that story, you understandably wonder what financial relief there can be. Outskirts Press coaches you on the many steps you need to take to create a quality published book that has a chance of selling—and you want to know that after all that time, effort, and cost, there will be a return on your investment.

There can be an ROI. The steps you made the effort to take during the publishing process are precisely what will set you up to eventually realize that ROI. For example, did you craft strong content through good storytelling, smart editing, and beautiful design? Did you do everything you could to bring your book to as many readers as possible through savvy marketing and wide distribution?

Outskirts Press helps you answer YES to those questions so that you can see an ROI.

For more information and help choosing the best self-publishing service, contact an Outskirts Press Publishing Consultant today. There are three easy ways to connect:

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Rock & Roll: It’s National Guitar Pick Day . . . with Outskirts Press Author Brian Bouchard

Next to grabbing your own guitar and jamming, picking up a copy of Brian Bouchard’s Guitar Picks of Rock & Roll 2 is the best way to celebrate National Guitar Pick Day this July 5!

Bouchard, who earned a Bronze Star Medal and Combat Action Medal during his twenty-year career in the US Army, has been collecting guitar picks for over thirty years. Over the decades, “Pick-Hunter,” as he’s known on eBay and Facebook, has learned the field of studying, appreciating, and collecting guitar picks inside and out. In Guitar Picks of Rock & Roll 2, he’s distilled his knowledge for the beginner and the most seasoned collector of celebrity guitar picks from the classic rock era. He provides:

  • Nearly 5,000 photos of more than 3,000 guitar picks from the 1960s to 1990, some of the rarest of these picks appearing in print for the very first time
  • Guidance on determining guitar pick values and how to spot counterfeit picks
  • Information on insuring your collection, as well as displaying, storing, and caring for it

When verifying information about the tours each pick was used on, Bouchard sought the most reliable sources, including the guitarists and their guitar techs themselves.

Guitar picks are beautiful little treasures of our shared musical history. So whether you’re a fan or a musician, a new collector or one as established as Bouchard, you’ll love spending National Guitar Pick Day with Guitar Picks of Rock & Roll 2—your favorite riffs playing as you flip through the photos, of course.

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Outskirts Press featuring author Jo-Ann Vega

Outskirts Press author Jo-Ann Vega’s memoir, Moments in Flight, has earned a coveted review on Readers’ Favorite, one of the largest and most respected book review sites.

It has also received Best Websites for Authors and Honoring Excellence awards from the Association of Independent Authors. The review, by Edith Wairimu, applauded the book’s careful historical details and the “raw and thought-provoking” journal entries and poems Vega included. Wairimu wrote:

I was inspired by [Vega’s] grandparents’ courage and Vega’s willingness to learn, go to college, and make a life for herself despite the gender barriers that existed at the time. . . . [The memoir] also beautifully captures the tenacity of many immigrants who left their countries in the hope of a better future for their families.

Moments in Flight: A Memoir examines Vega’s family’s history from her grandparents in Italy (first section) to Vega’s memories of her own childhood in the South Bronx in the 1950s, college, and early career (second section), then through to her more recent personal experiences and reflections (third section).

Moments in Flight is Vega’s first book with Outskirts Press. Wolf Woman & Other Poems is a collection of fifty poems written over fifty years. The collection’s distinctive organization groups poems by life stage and includes a brief preview of each section. Influenced by Sylvia Plath, Vega writes about being a woman of substance in a world still largely hostile to women’s talents and ambitions.

All of us at Outskirts Press congratulate her!

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Save 10% on local and global book marketing

Media Marketing Blitz Save 10%

June is the month to save on local and global book marketing with the popular Media Marketing Blitz. Just use promo code: blitzten

Yes, it’s time to launch your book. Or relaunch it—it’s never too late to do more for your book!

After your initial one-on-one personal consultation with your Marketing Strategist, we will contact local media in your area and pitch your book (and your locality) to them. Don’t worry! Book Blitzing means we do all the heavy lifting for you!

Who do we reach out to for you?

  • Local news stations? Check.
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  • Local and regional radio stations? Check.

What do you get with this Blitz?

  • 5 hours of Personal Marketing Service.
  • Researching, vetting, and contacting up to 10 local media and/or event opportunities in your area.
  • Follow-up with each local media outlet.
  • Researching, vetting, and contacting influential, worldwide blogs related to your book’s subject matter for a book review, author interview, or other online events (we guarantee at least one blog “appearance”).
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Just use promo code: blitzten during checkout and let the book blitzing begin!

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