Month: September 2024

Publishing Demystified

The purpose of this one is simple. Most likely everyone here knows I run Fae Corps Publishing and I have been doing this in the background for a while now. I plan on talking clearly about the tools I use for publishing, and the way that each one works. Demystifying what I do. Is that to say that I will be making my own self unnecessary? No, because my experience is valuable. I just feel like so much of the process is made out to be harder than it needs to be.

I have 2 things for today.

One is a minor announcement that I have decided to turn this into a book. I am going to be hopefully less scattered in my way of teaching in it … but I’m working on it. I don’t know how long it will take to get it done.

Okay, and second I want to discuss covers. You will to publish a book need several versions of the cover. I know that it will seem confusing and counterproductive. It is necessary however.

You will start with a png of your front and rear cover. If you are buying it from a artist you might only have the front and full in the png…but I’m talking to you as if you are doing everything like I do. I use the system at Barnes and nobles to get the spine.  Barnes and nobles will let you upload a pdf of your front cover and one of your rear cover and then they will help you design the spine. You can download the full cover from there. If you download it immediately you usually will not have to remove the barcode.

Once you have the pdf I recommend you export the page to jpg to give you a full cover image. You will need that. The pdf is going to be the wrong size for at least one of the other places. having a full image will help you to get the cover sized for the sites as needed. (You will not want a barcode on the image. If you ended up with the barcode erase it.)

You will need a jpg of the front cover for Amazon. Everywhere else wants a png. Amazon is the most picky thing ever.

Remember that I said I used two pdf to do Barnes and nobles? I use the template found on Amazon. They provide three templates for each item. A front, a back, and a Full cover template. With the right pdf program you can fix the picture in place of the outlines. Do make sure that you remove the words first or the sites will not accept it.

Ingram has its own template, and it is very specific to each book . It includes the barcode for Ingram.

The cover of the paperback is not going to be the same size as the one for the hardback. And only Ingram offers options for other editions.

I will leave on the bottom of the post the upcoming calendar. I feel like that will help. As You can see this changes slightly each week. Things get adjusted because Authors are not ready or I get a book that I had promised space.

October –

11th – Fighting Ignorance by Patricia Harris

18th – My Gothic Angel by Laj & Khoury Hawkins

25th – Anthology – Nightmare Whiskers

November-

8th – Thoughtfish by Ruan Bradford Wright (2nd Edition)

15th- Would You Like Fries with That By Mariah Lynde

26th – The Crypt Keeper’s Notebook by ZyhrenSong

December –

1st – unknown by Raz T Slasher (middle grade) (*though I don’t normally have an unknown in my list of release dates… from a couple of authors I will take the chance for “kids week” and save the spot. If I don’t get the book from them I will just have an empty spot for the day. But I think that they are worth it.)

2nd – Where’s my Sugar by Patricia Harris

3rd – Pip 4: Pip that is not Yours! By Patricia Harris

4th – Anthology Fae Recipes

5th – Unknown by CM Snow

6th – Spoiled Naughty Ponies by Capri Summers

7th – MG: The Grim Face of Reality by Sean Armstrong

8th – Hood of Sedna by Mina Skye

13th – Anthology Honesty in Verse

2025

Everything from here down is still in the process of being acquired for Publication with 2 exceptions (Fae Speaks & Rebirth )

January

1st- Best of Fae Speaks Anthology

17th – Darkness Within by Serena Mossgraves

February

7th – From the Ashes by Mariah Lynde

21st – Rebirth by Mariah Lynde

March

14th- Gowan by Ruan Bradford Wright

Monday Poetry

Poetry

I turned the page

By

Patricia Harris

As I expected the world
To be a story worth reading,
When I found that I was
Not enjoying the day…
I turned the page.

The story is going to be
One that I chose to write,
And if I am ready to with
nothing to stop me,
I turned the page.

Book Birthday, Belated

I keep forgetting to post these….

I should have Posted this on the 27th and guess what? You can get your copy here.

Book I Have Read

Okay this is not going to be an assigned thing. I may decide to do it instead of a normal weekday post, as I am this week…or I might drop it in randomly as I feel the desire. The Fae Corps Blog Does a Saturday TBR and they are not always books that we have read, but ones that look good amongst the recommendations we get. These are all going to be ones I have read, and This will be my clear thoughts on them. Now as I sometimes sign up to be an ARC reader, I will not always have the link for you to buy the book…but I will try to post when any I do miss the link on are live.

I have always been a voracious reader. I go through a trade paperback in about 4 hours. Since I have started publishing, finding time to read seems like a bit of a luxury. Not because I don’t read now…on the contrary. I am always reading things that people send me to publish, to edit, just to get opinions on. So reading for fun just seems like something I really don’t get to do as often as I would like. I have thousands of books on my kindle. And enough paperback and hardback books that it often causes fights. (My boyfriend’s of the opinion that if I am not reading them I should donate them). I keep the ones that I am willing to re-read. That means that eventually I will pick them back up.
But the last few books I have indulged in…Ones I sought out for personal pleasure that had nothing to do with publishing…I found myself taking a couple of days to read. Simply because I was enjoying them, so I would put them down and stop for a couple of hours to do other things before coming back to them. So I realized that maybe beyond the Goodreads/amazon/and the like reviews…maybe I should take the time to tell you guys about these books.

I see hundreds of ARC opportunities. I have so limited time. I sign up for the ones that Really catch my mind. The latest one was a group of books that were all interesting looking mostly because one of my favorite authors was a part of the group. I will be getting a new book once a week until Halloween (as I understand it.) The third one finally got to be read . I forced the issue of being able to get to read….something that is such a luxury anymore. I admit that I skipped ahead to the author that was the whole reason I signed up for this group of ARC.

This one is Cursed by Darkness by CM Haines.

Y’all, I will always recommend anything that CM Haines.

I really enjoyed the characters in this. They were strong, with some interesting differences. The war and the warriors in a richly detailed world makes me want more. I loved it and highly recommend it.

I still have a couple of these books to do… so far I have been greatly rewarded for signing up.

Friday Share

Friday Share

So you found a new book?

Or maybe you just published one?

Did you find a new webcomic that you like?

Or a song you think everyone should hear?

No need for explanation…Just Share it.

You find a good deal that you think we should all see? Just share!

Or hey even a joke you think too fun not to share, Just share it.

Post links in the comments.

Occasionally I will too.

Thursday Thoughts

Meme - I am Done

I avoid politics.

I really don’t want to have the discord in my soul that politics brings. However, I have found myself being drawn into the fray a lot more lately.

I purposely did Fighting Ignorance as a volume of political poetry because I found myself actually mad about the political issues that were coming out.

I remember thinking that everyone was pushing me to have opinions on politics when I was trying to survive being a young adult in a world that was trying to destroy me. So I refused to get involved. It did the opposite of what everyone was trying to do.

I wanted nothing to do with the news, because it would add more stress on an already tired me. Terrorism was not the people who came from a far to change my country…it was the nightly news telling me that humans were doing such awful things to each other.

I now see the political climate and wonder why we are going backwards. I read a new bill that will make voting harder for those who are like me. My birth certificate and my drivers license have two different names. My name was changed as a child. It was supposed to be changed on my birth certificate as well and due to a paperwork snafu it was not.

I keep seeing more political issues that make me feel like this country is not a safe place for me to live in, and I have no ability to do anything about it. This is why I hate politics. It engenders fear.

I am going to keep hoping for things to turn out well, I will be voting…even if my voice is probably not going to be heard.(1 live in a red state and with the electoral college in place only 51% of the vote is needed to make the choice. So my voice is likely to be unheard.)

I don’t like politics and I don’t like that I have no voice in the way my life is going to be run.

Terrorism is not always an external thing. Sometimes it’s the nightly news telling you world events.

Wednesday whisper

Poetry

Peeling

By

Serena Mossgraves

I need to finish all the stories
That lay half written,
Instead of dreaming of new tales
Where I am a monster
That can just peel away their skin.

The theme is utterly clear
Mentally I want to strip out
Of who I am,
Peeling away from the
Responsibilities…
Yet, still I am not a
Monster.

Tuesday Tunes

A day for me to discuss music

Lyrics –


Heaven ablaze in our eyes
We’re standing still in time
The blood on our hands is the wine
We offer as sacrifice

Come on and show them your love
Rip out the wings of a butterfly
For your soul, my love
Rip out the wings of a butterfly
For your soul

This endless mercy mile
We’re crawling side by side
With hell freezing over in our eyes
Gods kneel before our crime

Come on and show them your love
Rip out the wings of a butterfly
For your soul, my love
Rip out the wings of a butterfly
For your soul

Don’t let go
(Rip out the wings of a butterfly)
For your soul

Come on and show them your love
Rip out the wings of a butterfly
For your soul, my love
Rip out the wings of a butterfly
For your soul

Don’t let go
(Rip out the wings of a butterfly)
For your soul

Don’t let go
(Rip out the wings of a butterfly)
For your soul (soul, soul, soul, soul, soul, soul…)

My 2 cents –

This one was recently sent to me. I can’t tell you that I have not felt this way. Love should never demand you sacrifice who you are.

Publishing Demystified

The purpose of this one is simple. Most likely everyone here knows I run Fae Corps Publishing and I have been doing this in the background for a while now. I plan on talking clearly about the tools I use for publishing, and the way that each one works. Demystifying what I do. Is that to say that I will be making my own self unnecessary? No, because my experience is valuable. I just feel like so much of the process is made out to be harder than it needs to be.

Formatting is hard, y:all.

You have to start with your page size and go from there. Fae corps publishing only uses 6×9 unless we’re doing a kids book. Children’s books are generally an 8×8 or an 8.5×11.

Then you have to deal with the font and the margins. I try to choose a fancy one for the title page and then something easy to read for the body. I personally don’t like Times New Roman. It looks wrong to me. I usually do Book Antiqua or Garamond. I keep the formatting roughly the same for all of the books. The Chapter title is usually centered, Bold, and Underlined. The margins are 1 in on all four sides. There’s a few authors that have done the formatting themselves…and I am not adverse to them. I only keep the page size the same. If they want to do the rest of the work I don’t argue.

The problem comes with the authors that don’t listen and send me their work in pdf format.

I can try to do a convert from pdf to word…but some of the words convert wrong. So I will end up with odd question mark symbols in my document that I now have to go figure out.

Adding pictures is another headache. You have to set it up properly and get it so that the text flows around it properly. That takes practice to get it right every time.

Format is only the first stage of any book.

I will leave on the bottom of the post the upcoming calendar. I feel like that will help. As You can see this changes slightly each week. Things get adjusted because Authors are not ready or I get a book that I had promised space.

September –

27th – Human Shaped Verse by Patricia Harris

October –

11th – Fighting Ignorance by Patricia Harris

18th – My Gothic Angel by Laj & Khoury Hawkins

25th – Anthology – Nightmare Whiskers

November-

8th – Thoughtfish by Ruan Bradford Wright (2nd Edition)

15th- Would You Like Fries with That By Mariah Lynde

26th – The Crypt Keeper’s Notebook by ZyhrenSong

December –

1st – unknown by Raz T Slasher (middle grade) (*though I don’t normally have an unknown in my list of release dates… from a couple of authors I will take the chance for “kids week” and save the spot. If I don’t get the book from them I will just have an empty spot for the day. But I think that they are worth it.)

2nd – Where’s my Sugar by Patricia Harris

3rd – Pip 4: Pip that is not Yours! By Patricia Harris

4th – Anthology Fae Recipes

5th – Unknown by CM Snow

6th – Spoiled Naughty Ponies by Capri Summers

7th – MG: The Grim Face of Reality by Sean Armstrong

8th – Hood of Sedna by Mina Skye

13th – Anthology Honesty in Verse

2025

Everything from here down is still in the process of being acquired for Publication with 2 exceptions (Fae Speaks & Rebirth )

January

1st- Best of Fae Speaks Anthology

February

7th – From the Ashes by Mariah Lynde

21st – Rebirth by Mariah Lynde

March

14th- Gowan by Ruan Bradford Wright

Monday Poetry

Poetry

Trading with the fae

By

Patricia Harris

They told me
They could take my pain
And steal it away.

Trading with the fae
Is worse than
Dealing with the devil
Any day.

The promises made
Are sweeter than sugar,
And the result is naught
But disappointment.