Michael Merriam’s novella Terror at Tierra de Cobreis currently a nominee for the 2024 Small Spec Book Awards and is eligible for any award with a novella category including the Locus Awards, the Nebulas, the Hugos, the Stokers and the Silver Spurs. It was published in March of 2024 and is around 38k words long.
Volumes 1-5 of the Astreiant Series, which we are re-releasing this year, are all reprints and are only eligible for novel or novella awards that allow for new editions of previously published works. Point of Hearts (Astreiant #6) by Melissa Scott, will be out in early 2025. POINT OF HOPES (Astreiant #1) by Melissa Scott and Lisa A. Barnett is currently a nominee for the Midwest Independent Publisher’s Awards.
First – a cover reveal! Artist Matthew Bright has done an outstanding job with the cover for our new edition of the Lambda Award-winning novel Death by Silver by Melissa Scott and Amy Griswold! We’ll be releasing it in 4/13/23 and preorders will start going up next week. Lynes and Mathey #2, A Death at the Dionysus Club, will be out in December. What are they about? They’re fantastical mysteries set in Edwardian England and feature two gay heroes who use magic to solve murders. As you would expect from these two authors, the world-building is reach and detailed, the characters are complicated and interesting and the books are terrific reads.We can hardly wait to share them with you!
March Events
March 8th, 6:30-7:45 PM:Michael Merriam will be reading at DreamHaven Books in Minneapolis, as part of their Speculations Reading Series.
Marscon 2023 – March 11th-13th, Minneapolis, MN. Queen of Swords Press will have a hall table featuring Catherine Lundoff and Michael Merriam, and they’ll both be on programming as well.
Rosemount Writers Festival – March 18th, 9-4:30. Jennie Goloboy and Catherine Lundoff are teaching “Marketability: How Professionals Look at Your Manuscript” from 12:30-1:30, and Queen of Swords Press will have some titles for sale.
Paganicon – March 17-18th. Michael Merriam will be doing a book signing of Last Car and his other books on 3/18 at 9AM.
March 19th, 9:30-11:30 AM PST – Rambo Academy (online class): Catherine is teaching No More Lone Wolves: Writing Characters in Community.
The Story Hour – March 22nd, 7-8PM PST. Online reading series. Catherine will be reading from some of her recent work, along with another as yet unnamed author.
March Sales
March 5th through the 11th is Read an Ebook Week at Smashwords. Most of our titles are on sale so if there are any you haven’t picked up yet, now’s the time!
It’s Catherine’s birthday sale! The Wolves of Wolf’s Point books will be on sale through IHeartSapphFic the last weekend in March.
Our award-eligible book for this year is The Language of Roses by Heather Rose Jones (Last Car is a new edition resissue). Roses is eligible at the novella level for the Nebulas, the Hugos, World Fantasy and any other fantasy awards that have a category for Novellas. It is 40 K words long and we published it in April. It is a queer retelling of Beauty and the Beast, is currently under consideration for the American Library Association’s Stonewall Book Awards and there is a reading copy of it available in the SFWA forums (it is also on the Reading List). If you loved this novella, shoutouts are much appreciated! It’s very hard for small press books to get big award traction so boosts, reviews, recommendations and so forth help a LOT!
Otherwise, Catherine Lundoff’s queer weird west tale “Grimwood” is eligible for short story. It appeared in Queer Weird West Tales, edited by Julie Bozza (LIBRATiger 2022). Alex Acks has a short story in the gaming tie-in collection Starcraft Warchest: Nature of the Beast. We’ll add more as we hear about them – lotta re-issues this year (Rem and Michael) and other stuff going on!
News Some catchup events from October! The Language of Roses by Heather Rose Jones is a Barbara Gittings Literature Award nominee for the American Library Association’s Stonewall Book Awards! And big thank you to the librarian(s) who nominated it! Silver Moon by Catherine Lundoff is out in a new German edition from Ylva Publishing this month and getting some nice reviews!
Catherine was also interviewed by Canvas Rebel Magazine for their series on diverse entrepreneurs.
And you can listen to Jennie Goloboy’s terrific reading and interview from Space Cowboy Books on their Youtube channel here.
And finally, Rem Wigmore has a great new essay up at the Climate Fiction Writers League.
Coming in November:
Strong Women Strange Worlds – November 4th, 12 Noon EDT. Jennie Goloboy is one of the featured reader’s at this month’s virtual reading.
Twin Cities Con – November 11th-13th, Minneapolis Convention Center, Minneapolis. Queen of Swords Press will have a table and our local authors plan on stopping by to sign books.
Publishing Basics for Genre Fiction – November 15th, Springboard for the Arts. Online, 6-7:30 PM CST. Catherine will be teaching this free online workshop that provides an overview of genre fiction for new writers.
Speculations Reading Series – November 16th, 6.30 – 7:45 PM. DreamHaven Books, Minneapolis. Catherine will be reading from some of her recent fiction.
I Heart SapphFic Mega Sale – November 25th-29th. Our lesbian titles with romantic plots or subplots will be on sale on Amazon for Thanksgiving weekend!
Finally, some upcoming cool news!
Want to talk to Catherine about your book idea? She’ll be taking pitches at our Discord channel on 11/20 from 2-4PM CST. We’re going to try this out and see how it goes so please stay tuned.
And more cool news! We just signed the contracts for the gay Victorian supernatural duology Death by Silver and Death at the Dionysis Club by Melissa Scott and Amy Griswold! Silver will be a 2023 title and Dionysis a 2024 one.
We have also signed a new novella from author Dee Holloway. Little Nothing is an alternate history with fantastical elements set in Florida during the Civil War. It features a young interracial lesbian couple who have to find a way to stop the Confederacy from using magical creatures from the swamps against the Union forces. Good Stuff! More news coming soon!
We’re very excited to announce our 14th title – The Language of Roses by Heather Rose Jones is a novella-length queer retelling of Beauty and the Beast with a twist and it is out everywhere today! You can buy direct from us or at these fine outlets. It’s getting some lovely early reviews on Goodreads!
A Beauty. A Beast. A Curse. This is not the story you know…
We have a new title releasing on 5/23/18 (due to a slight delay). Emily L. Byrne’s Medusa’s Touch is a new science fiction romance, set in the far future. It will be available in ebook initially, and in a print edition later on this summer. It’s currently in preorder!
What’s it about? Glad you asked!
Medusa Pilot Captain TiCara X273, ex-street kid, former bondslave and veteran of the Corps Wars, thought she wanted nothing more than to be captain of her own starship. Or, at least, that was all that she thought she wanted until Sherin Khan came back into her life. A bar singer turned corporate rep, Sherin is now working for Ser Trin Vahn, one of TiCara’s best clients and head of Vahn Corp.
Once they are thrown together on TiCara’s ship, TiCara and Sherin can no longer deny their simmering attraction to each other. But a simple mission to transport the ailing Vahn to the legendary asteroid, Electra 12, for medical treatments turns dark and dangerous as betrayal leads to betrayal. TiCara’s greatest enemy is pursuing them, there’s a traitor on her crew and Sherin has a secret that can tear them apart. Can they learn to trust each other before it’s too late?
“Emily L. Byrne’s Medusa’s Touch draws the reader deeply into her deftly created universe of starships and danger and conflict, with a fascinating main character who is entirely relatable even while she pilots her ship by means of hi-tech tentacle implants. Whether she feels the exultation of being at one with her ship amidst “the splendor of the starfields,” or the ecstasy of sex with the beautiful, mysterious woman she can’t entirely trust, we feel it all with her, and gladly follow her through inner turmoil and blood-stirring battle. “ – Sacchi Green, Editor of Witches, Princesses and Women at Arms
Publisher Catherine Lundoff appeared on the show Hannah’s Bookshelf on North Manchester FM on 2/3/18. She and host, Hannah Kate, talked about Queen of Swords Press, werewolves, steampunk, upcoming projects and what to read after an apocalypse. The interview was broadcast and streamed live and will also be available on Mixcloud.
We’re celebrating our first birthday with 3 prize drawings! Sign up for our newsletter by 1/16/18 to be entered to win a chance at ebooks, swag and a fun extra prize! (If you’re already signed up, no worries! You’ll be entered too!).
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.
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Michael Merriam’s novella Terror at Tierra de Cobre is currently a nominee for the 2024 Small Spec Book Awards and is eligible for any award with a novella category including the Locus Awards, the Nebulas, the Hugos, the Stokers and the Silver Spurs. It was published in March of 2024 and is around 38k words long.
