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Author: Queen of Swords
Book sale at Smashwords!
All our titles are on sale at Smashwords through 1/1/18! Click individual titles to see sales prices.
Starting a Small Press – Catherine Lundoff on starting Queen of Swords Press
This is a video by author Conrad Zero of a talk that our publisher, Catherine Lundoff, gave in November at DreamHaven Books in Minneapolis on the nuts and bolts of starting a small press.
Resource List
The Loft Literary Center (Minneapolis/St. Paul) – Offers classes on writing ad copy, evaluating cover art, marketing, etc.
Vellum – Software for formatting ebooks. New print option now also available. I use this to format my ebooks, but haven’t used the print option yet. Mac only, simple interface, short ramp-up time. Can be purchased for individual titles as well as lifetime option.
Jutoh – Software for ebook formatting. I haven’t used it but have seen it recommended by other publishers and indie authors.
Scrivener – Software primarily used for helping authors organize and write their work but can also be used to create formatted ebooks (but not by me so I recommend looking at reviews to see if it will work for you).
Bowker – The site for generating ISBNs for your books. Essential for print books if you want to sell them in stores and a good idea for ebooks as well. Use different ISBNs for the ebook vs. print editions of the same title.
Smashwords – Platform for selling and distributing ebooks. I use it for Kobo,iBooks, B&N, everything except Amazon, which I load to directly.
IngramSpark – I use IngramSpark to print and distribute the print editions of my books. They produce good quality books at a reasonable price and have good distribution. I use them instead of CreateSpace or Lulu due to reports of quality issues with these two platforms, as well as for their finer points.
Canva – Software for creating advertising and other promotional documentation. There is a free version and a tier of paid versions.
Overdrive – Platform for ebook distribution to libraries. Smashwords includes Overdrive with its standard distribution.
Indie Author/Publisher links
Here are several sites that had a nice selection of reputable options. All of them include advice on various aspects of the indie publishing business, marketing tips, software recommendations and other useful things.
We have a winner!
Catherine Lundoff’s Silver Moon won second prize in the Lesbian Fantasy category of the Rainbow Book Awards and was one of the top book in the Best Lesbian Books category! Needless to say, we’re all pretty thrilled around here.
Also, if you’re in Minneapolis or nearby on Wednesday, December 13th, Catherine will be reading from Silver Moon at Quatrefoil Library from 7-8PM.
New events and updates and books!
Emily L. Byrne’s Desire comes out tomorrow (11/26) but you can preorder today!
We’re running a Goodreads Giveaway for 2 copies of Catherine Lundoff’s Lambda-Award-nominated collection, Out of This World, until 11/30.
Amazon has Catherine Lundoff’s Silver Moon on sale this week for Prime users.
We’ve signed a two book deal with the amazing Alex Acks! Look for Book 1 of their steampunk adventures in 2018 and Book 2 in 2019. More info coming soon. Or you can, you know, sign up for our monthly newsletter on any page of our website so as not to miss cool announcements like this.
Lots of lovely people came to publisher Catherine Lundoff’s talk on starting a small press at DreamHaven Books on 11/16. And awesome local writer Conrad Zero recorded it and sent it to Catherine for an editing check. And then our Holiday Norovirus Adventure (TM Pending) began last week and we are are still not caught up. Should have something available soon, including a resource list. Sorry about the delay!
Upcoming events – 10/13 and 10/14/17
Action-packed week around here! We’ll be at two different events this week with books, QoSP mugs and mousepads, a special guest and, of course, chocolate.
- WomenVenture Women Mean Business Marketplace and Luncheon, Minneapolis, MN – October 13th. Queen of Swords Press will have a book table at this day long event celebrating women small business owners in Minnesota.
- 2017 Twin Cities Book Festival, St. Paul, MN – October 14th. Queen of Swords Press will have a book table and author Michael Merriam will be helping out and signing his new weird Western novella, Not Enough Midnights. We’ll have our books, Michael’s books, some books from small press pals, QoSP swag, and have we mentioned chocolate? Stop by and say hi. The Book Fest is a great event!
SILVER MOON makes a Book Riot list of “Must-Read Books!”
Catherine Lundoff’s Silver Moon is one of the books featured on Book Riot’s “100 Must-Read Bisexual Books” for Bisexual Awarenesss Week. We are pleased!
Honorable Mention!
Catherine Lundoff’s Silver Moon has earned a Rainbow Awards Honorable Mention! Winners will be announced in December (fingers crossed!).
Updates from Worldcon 75 panels
Had a great time at Worldcon 75 in Helsinki! Rosebud Books was able to sell all the copies of our titles that we brought with us and Catherine Lundoff had a great time on her panels!
There were a couple of followup items from Catherine’s panels – here are some of the resource lists that she mentioned (or wanted to mention):
Older Women in Speculative Fiction: Catherine’s book and story list of older women as protagonists in science fiction, fantasy and horror. Sidsel Pedersen had turned it into a Goodreads list that you can add to or use to build a reading list of your own. Catherine has a shorter Goodreads list of her reviews of some of the books in the bibliography.
LGBTQ Science Fiction Goes Worldwide – Catherine’s original history of LGBTQ speculative fiction posts here now here. Her updated versions which include more horror and are longer are being posted on a monthly basis on Queer Sci-Fi and her list of speculative fiction with queer female protagonists cane be found here. The Gaylactic Spectrum Awards have a reading list of early works here (see also the award lists) and LGBTQ Reads for more recent works.
Worldcon 75 – We’re going to Finland!
Our publisher is going to be on several panels and will be doing a signing. We will also have Queen of Swords Press titles available for sale.