About Us — The Human Face of Digital Publishing
When I started Stillpoint Digital Press in 2011, all that I intended to do was to take my own varied experience as a writer, an editor, and an ebook designer and offer a service that was both more professional and more personal than that offered by the ebook self-publishing “services”: digital publishing with a human face. From the beginning, that idea has resonated — and has brought me in directions that I never anticipated.
News from the Stillpoint
Risuko Lightning Sale!
With Bright Eyes less than a week from release, we wanted to let you know that we are offering David Kudler’s award-winning first novel Risuko on a special sale for a limited time — both ebook, paperback, and hardcover!
This week only, you can get a special deal on the first volume of Seasons of the Sword:
The ebook is only $0.99!
Order Direct from Stillpoint • Order from Your Favorite Store
The paperback is only $6.99!
Order Direct from Stillpoint • Order from Your Favorite Store
The hardcover is only $16.99!
Order Direct from Stillpoint • Order from Your Favorite Store
We’ve never offered the book at these prices before, and won’t be likely to again — if you’ve been waiting to order a copy for yourself (or for someone else) now is your chance!
Kunoichi Tales Kickstarter Under Way
We’re excited to announce that the Kickstarter campaign to support the launch of Bright Eyes: A Kunoichi Tale, the second title in David Kudler’s award winning Seasons of the Sword series, is now open — and already 80% to its initial goal!
About the Kickstarter Campaign
This crowdfunding campaign, which runs through April 10, will help us create the best possible book — while guaranteeing our supporters copies at less than the retail cost.
As author David Kudler wrote, Continue reading Kunoichi Tales Kickstarter Under Way
Timepiece giveaway ends tomorrow!
Goodreads Book Giveaway
Musings
Book Descriptions 101: Have I Got a Book for You!
Great! You’ve gotten a potential reader to visit your book’s product page. Maybe it was your fabulous cover that intrigued them, or the brilliant title, or — hey! — maybe it was your name, you celebrity author you!
In any case, it’s now time to seal the proverbial deal. Make the sale. Get the interested customer to become a reader and, hopefully, a fan.
How? Continue reading Book Descriptions 101: Have I Got a Book for You!
Book Covers 101: You CAN tell a book by its cover
Let’s Talk Covers…
Your mother probably taught you many things, among them the truism “You can’t tell a book by its cover.”
Now, while that wisdom holds in most of our lives, one place where it doesn’t, ironically, is in publishing. Continue reading Book Covers 101: You CAN tell a book by its cover
Book Marketing 101: What to do BEFORE you pay for ads
The first thing you need in order to sell your book(s) is a quality product — well-written, well-edited (not by you), and well-designed (both the ebook, the print edition, and, possible, the audiobook — not to mention the cover). But that’s not enough. If you build it, they probably will not come.
Creating books is only the first half of the job. The other half is actually making sure that you’ve created an audience who want to buy them.
Now, when I say that to new author-publishers, they immediately think I’m talking about paid ads on Facebook, Google, Amazon, BookBub, etc.
But that’s not what I mean. Continue reading Book Marketing 101: What to do BEFORE you pay for ads
Toss them out the window! Using and forgetting the Hero’s Journey
This morning, I was giving a talk to a group of writers on Joseph Campbell and the Hero Journey or Monomyth (in this case, specifically with regards to setting, rather than plot or character). I ran the group through a basic overview of Campbell’s schema, and gave them a number of examples from movies (since visuals are always helpful) — including two movies that I know for a fact consciously used Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces as inspiration: Star Wars: A New Hope and The Matrix. And I mentioned that, while I loved the first Matrix movie, I felt as if I could hear the pages of Campbell’s magnum opus turning as Neo’s journey progressed. Call to Adventure? Check. Crossing the Threshold? Check. Belly of the Beast? Double-check…
One of the participants asked, very reasonably, how to use and honor the Hero’s Journey schema without falling into the trap of writing a story that is formulaic.
When I was studying to be an actor, we had a wonderful master teacher named Archie Smith. Now in addition to being a terrific teacher, he was also (though in his late 60s) still an actor and a student of acting; he would sit in on many of our classes with other teachers and go through the exercises they had us work on, then apply them to his own work on stage and talk to us about what he’d learned.
One day, one of our classmates asked Archie how we could keep all of our acting fresh, even as we tried to apply all of these technical concepts that we were learning. Archie told us to learn all of the techniques that he and our other teachers were giving us, to internalize them… and then, he said with great glee, “Toss them out the window!”
Continue reading Toss them out the window! Using and forgetting the Hero’s Journey
Review: Lethal White — Deadly Fun
Since The Cuckoo’s Calling, I’ve enjoyed the Cormoran Strike series, written by J.K. Rowling as Robert Galbraith. Each entry has been a mind-tickling, exciting mystery in the old-style gumshoe detective vein, with all of the flourishes that made Rowling’s Harry Potter books so enjoyable — memorable characters, sly humor, exciting plot, and a deft hand at shifting moods unexpectedly. The latest entry in the series, Lethal White, provides many of the delights of the earlier books while revealing increased skill on the author’s part — but also revealing a disappointing tendency toward formula. Continue reading Review: Lethal White — Deadly Fun