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Greetings!
Our acquisition binge should be over for a bit, but not before we announce the purchase of Dark Discoveries magazine. Dark Discoveries has a tenured history in the horror genre and we are ecstatic to have not only the magazine, but James Beach a part of JS as well. James is the founder of the magazine and will remain as editor in chief. We are excited to welcome him and the Dark Discoveries group into the JS family. We will do our best to honor the tradition that James has created with the heralded publication while doing what we can to enhance it where possible.
As we push forward with the JS business plan, our marketing strategy seems to be paying off in spades. August was our best month in sales and revenue ever, beating July, which held our previous top spot by well over 30%. If we can keep increasing sales by 30% plus each month I should be retiring in a year or two. Don't laugh, the first two days of September have been crazy good. It just might happen.
We of course couldn't be attaining these lofty goals without some very talented authors. In August we signed Jaleta Clegg to 9 more books in her Science Fiction series. Jaleta will be growing old with the JS team apparently. Her recently released book, Priestess of the Eggstone, along with Vale of Stars, will be the focus of Norman Rubenstein's remarks when he speaks during the Library Journal's September 18th Webinar on the space tech. genre. To register just click on the link to the right. Norman is a little nervous, so show him whatever support you can. I have simply told him if he falters he will be fired. I do whatever I can to positively reinforce everyone on the JS team.
We would also like to welcome Brian Knight and Brian Matthews to the fold., two new JS authors with some great offerings coming in 2013. Seems odd that we are already booked so far in advance but we are being inundated with so much talent right now. We realize how lucky we are and feel privileged to work with so many top-notch authors. It is a very difficult exercise to pick the right books for our catalog and we want to thank everyone for continuing to submit their work. If you are an author that didn't get selected by us just keep in mind how many times so many fabulously successful authors were rejected. It doesn't mean your work isn't well done, it might just mean it doesn't fit into our specific catalog, so please keep trying. You will find that home eventually.
Ironically, in the midst of our overwhelmingly busy schedule, September will not find JS releasing any new offerings. Please accept my apologies. This will probably be the last month I will ever be able to say that. We decided a few months ago to take a break as we geared up for our October/November award winning releases. Not only will Craving be coming out in October, but Twice Shy and The Devil of Echo Lake, both of which tied for 1st place in our $2,000 in 2012 writing contest, will hit the stands. In November we will release Terovolas, which placed 3rd in the same contest, a very tight race between all three. Four excellent books, all within a few weeks of each other should catapult our Halloween season to the stars.
Hopefully everyone enjoyed the free books we offered the past few days as we continue to extend our gratitude for your support. While we feel blessed to have such talented authors joining our team we fully recognize we are nothing without our customers/supporters. We will continue to hand out free offerings whenever we can so stay tuned, you never know what or when the next one will be coming your way.
Christopher C. Payne
President
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Barnes & Noble, Inc. has announced amazing new, lowest-ever pricing on its award-winning NOOK Tablet and NOOK Color devices, just in time for the back to school season. Customers can now purchase the highly acclaimed NOOK Tablet starting at $179 and NOOK Color for $149 at all of Barnes & Noble's nearly 700 stores nationwide, online at NOOK.com and through the other leading retailers offering NOOKŪ products.
To read the full article, click on the title link above.
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The first words of its filing say it all: "Apple has not settled with the Government." Within the tight five-page limit imposed by judge Denise Cote, Apple yesterday voiced opposition to the government's proposed settlement with three publishers (Hachette, Simon & Schuster, and HarperCollins) in its e-book price-fixing case, arguing that the company stands to be punished by the deal though it never "participated in, encouraged, or sought to benefit from collusion." Apple urged the court to do one of two things: approve a more narrowly focused settlement that bars collusion; or reserve final judgment on the settlement until the company has had their day in court.
To read the full article, click on the title link above.
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Forget the Olympics! Britain's Big Event of 2012 is, of course, FantasyCon 2012, which is being held in the historic seaside town of Brighton, East Sussex, over September 27-30. Membership is fast approaching the 400 mark, so if you haven't joined up yet, then please do so now. All you have to do is go to the How to Join page on the website, submit the form with your details and then pay via the PayPal buttons. Alternately, you can print out the form and mail it with a check to the address given. To read the full article, click on the title link above. |
A sentence is a sentence is a sentence.
Actually, it would be more to the point to paraphrase George Orwell's trenchant comment in Animal Farm: All sentences are created equal, but some are more equal than others.
By this I mean that any sentence-and here I include fragments-may be effective when used in the right context. Every form of sentence structure offers something than none of the others do.
To read the full article, click on the title link above.
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Some while ago, I attempted to write an essay on the uses and abuses of is (and its cohorts are, was, were, be, being, been, seems, and becomes) in poetry. I set out to do so without ever using the word except as the word. I could talk about the meaning symbolized by those two random symbols-i and s-but I could not use is as a sentence verb.
I had no idea how difficult doing so would be. It required that I revise sentence after sentence, struggle to find active ways to express state-of-being ideas. Eventually, however, I succeeded; the chapter is titled "Compression III-Linking Verbs" in The Art and Craft of Poetry (Borgo/Wildside, 2009).
To read the full article, click on the title link above.
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Hellfighter
David T. Wilbanks
Acid Grave Press
May 14, 2012, $2.99 (Kindle)
Reviewed by Darkeva
Hellfighter by David T. Wilbanks starts off like a sword & sorcery tale with a warrior, Caddoc, lusting after Geniece, a barmaid. After failing to impress her by pulling down his pants, he has to deal with a group of pissed off soldiers that he gets into a brawl with. Although it was nice to see the violence was a bit more graphic here than standard sword and sorcery fare, it was less fun to witness the Superman effect that most of the subgenre's leading men have, in which they fight a group of men or creatures with minimal damage to themselves, if any. Still, it's best not to over-analyze sword and sorcery and just enjoy the ride.
To read the full review, click on the title link above.
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Shadow Valley
Michael R. Collings
Borgo Press
Paperback $14.99 /eBook $2.99 / Audible.com $17.95
Review by Andrew Byers
If you've seen the film Deliverance or read James Dickey's original book - and if you haven't, you should - then you're familiar with its classic premise: outsiders heading into a remote, sparsely-populated area that is about to get flooded and having a set of unexpectedly weird and perilous adventures. Shadow Valley has the same basic premise - an outsider (in this case, a female bureaucrat rather than a group of white-water rafters) must enter the eponymous Shadow Valley to deal with the last few inhabitants before the valley is flooded as a reservoir - but veers off into an entirely different direction.
To read the full review, click on the title link above. |
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SPONSORED BY: JournalStone Publishing, NightShade Books, Random House, and Library Journal
EVENT TIME AND DATE: Tuesday, September 18, 2012, 2:00-3:00 PM ET/11:00 AM - 12:00 PM PT
Get ready to take some notes in your captain's log during the lineup of fall's Science Fiction books. Learn about Priestess of the Eggstone: The Fall of the Altairan Empire (Jaleta Clegg) and the race to get the Eggstone back to prevent an outbreak of war. Rob Zeigler's debut novel Seed takes place in a starving, broken United States where orphans try to reshape the future. Bloodfire Quest: The Dark Legacy of Shannara by Terry Brooks takes place in a dark mirror-world where the barriers are eroding. The second book in the Shannara series focuses on the quest for the missing Elfstones and things aren't going as planned. Join panelists from JournalStone Publishing, NightShade Books, and Random House as they discuss their exciting forthcoming titles.
For information on how to participate in this fascinating webinar, click on the title link above.
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JournalStone Publishing President, Christopher C. Payne, is pleased to announce that JS has just purchased the acclaimed internationally distributed, quarterly slick full-color magazine, Dark Discoveries, and its related website from founder and publisher, James Beach, who will also be joining the JS team and remain as Senior Managing Editor of the magazine.
To read the full article, click on the title link above.
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SAN FRANCISCO, August 29, 2012 -JournalStone PublishingPresident, Christopher C. Payne, is pleased to announce the imminent release of the debut issue (Volume 1, Number 1) of the new biannual (Spring/Summer and Fall/Winter) digest, Nameless. This perfect-bound journal (more of a book, really), is printed in full color, and filled with over 150 pages of fascinating and original fiction, art, interviews, reviews, and nonfiction.
To read the full article, click on the title link above.
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SAN FRANCISCO, July 20, 2012 -JournalStone Publishing President, Christopher C. Payne, is pleased to announce signed and numbered hardcover 1st editions, restricted to one hundred (100) copies each, of two forthcoming JS novels, both of which tied for first place in JournalStone Publishing's annual horror writing contest: Douglas Wynne's The Devil of Echo Lake, with an Introduction by noted author Joseph Nassise, and Patrick Freivald's Twice Shy, with an Introduction by celebrated author Lisa Morton.
To read the full article, click on the title link above.
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JS 2012/2013 Publishing Schedule - Subject to additions/changes.
Kristina Meister - Craving - 10/12/2012 Douglas Wynne - Devil of Echo Lake -10/19/2012 Patrick Freivald - Twice Shy - 10/26/2012 Ed Erdelac - Terovolas - 11/16/2012 Sean O'Brien - Vale of Stars - 12/14/2012 JG Faherty - Burning Time - 1/18/2013 Multiple Authors - Limbus - 1/25/2013 Anne C. Petty - Cornerstone - 2/8/2013 Benjamin Kane Ethridge - Untitled - 2/15/2013 Joseph Nassise - The Fall of Night - 3/8/2013 Kristina Meister - The One We Find - 3/15/2013 Carole Weeks - Untitle - 4/12/2013 Allyson Bird - Bull Running for Girls - 4/12/2013 Brett J. Talley - Untitled - 5/10/2013 Brian Matthews - Falling Man - 5/17/2013 Jeffrey Wilson - Fade to Black - 6/14/2013 Jaleta Clegg - Untitled - 6/21/2013 Lisa Morton - Summer's End - 10/4/2013 |
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Research is a good writer's tool. The single caveat to any research effort is to be that good writer who can see into the information for the spark which will ignite the story. Information is only information, if applied without this cunning and imagination. The best of writers will admit that many times, even a day of research will produce only one tiny element to include in their narrative, yet small as that item may be, the audience will experience the story and not merely read it.
JournalStone author, Anne Petty, is one such writer-able to touch small notes that sweeten her text into grand adventures.
To read the full article, click on the title link above.
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Interview with
Annastaysia Savage, an author at JournalStone Publishing
Many writers have crowded personalities. They are plagued-or entertained- by multiple Muses. Authors who write for Young Adults and for grownups must have some very interesting internal conversations. Characters of any age can be arguing for space within their heads. Sorting out all that commotion and making a coherent story from the noise is a true talent. Add mythical, magical creatures to the din...well, that's altogether something harder to control.
Author Annastaysia Savage has no difficulty at all with the characters she brings to life.
To read the full article, click on the title link above.
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I'm a busy guy. My "day job" is high school teacher--physics, robotics, and American Sign Language--in a tiny Western New York town. As part of that I put in 600+ hours a year running a FIRST Robotics team (www.team1551.org), and I teach night classes at a community college. I'm on three committees at work (and chair one of them), sit on my local School Board, and am Vice President of the Ontario Finger Lakes Beekeeping Association (www.ontariocountybeekeepers.org). I'm a self-employed beekeeper and, what brings me here, I'm also a novelist. I'm an outspoken, opinionated, unapologetic geek, fascinated by nature and people in equal measure.
To read the full article, click on the title link above.
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"Nothing ever begins."
So begins Clive Barker's novel Weaveworld. It's a great line to start a book with, and as philosophical tenets go, it's one that I can get on board with. The opening paragraph-one of the best ever in my humble opinion-elaborates on that bold statement by illustrating that the threads of any tale can always be traced back to some earlier tale.
When JournalStone asked me to write an article introducing myself to our readers, my first thought was that I should begin at the beginning, and my second thought was, but nothing ever begins.
To read the full article, click on the title link above.
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About Us
JournalStone is a small press publishing company, focusing on horror, fantasy and science fiction in both the adult and young adult markets.
We are members of & actively support:
HWA - Horror Writers Association
WNBA - Women's Nat'l Book Assn.
HPLHS - HP Lovecraft Historical Society
IBPA - Independent Book Publishing Assn.
SFWA - Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America
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