Support the Artists to Support the Arts - The Consortium

We’re proud to announce the release of A Consortium of Worlds #2, a short story anthology by our Consortium Writers!

A Consortium of Worlds is your window into Consortium Books’s outstanding stable of speculative fiction authors. A Consortium of Worlds is a showcase of new and innovative voices in all types of fiction from a publisher dedicated to allowing every writer his or her own voice. There are no slaves to trends or what’s-hot lists here, only writers imagining newer and brighter vistas of unseen tomorrows, untold yesterdays, unknown todays, and untouched worlds of pure imagination.

Joshua Unruh knows that villainy wins all too often in the real world, but what might happen if supervillainy won? Courtney Cantrell smashes fiction and reality together to see what pretty pictures she can make with the pieces. Thomas Beard tells a tale that could be a fable of humanity or a true story from history. Becca Campbell looks to a future where normal is the new freak. Aaron Pogue takes us into a landscape destroyed by the blast-fires of dragons rather than a nuclear furnace, yet no less post-apocalyptic for the difference.

Also in this issue, we bring you intelligent and erudite essays guaranteed to challenge you and make you think. Katy Clift asks if Twi-Hards and Potterheads can’t focus on their similarities instead of their differences. Allison Scott takes a hard look at the first impressions of the e-book shopper.

This issue is Volume 2 of the quarterly magazine. Approximately 30,000 words. Edited by Courtney Cantrell and Joshua Unruh.

Learn more at the book’s product page.

Consortium Books is proud to announce the digital release of TEEN Agents in The Plundered Parent Protocol, by Joshua Unruh.

Mourning, Noone, and Knight. These girls fight evil 24/7!

Best friends Elly Mourning, Hea Jung Noone, and Saturday Knight are about to celebrate their thirteenth birthday. But just before the party starts, a small army of robots descends from the skies led by a mysterious and handsome boy, ruining their party and kidnapping their dads!

Now their fathers are missing and presumed dead. Nobody believes the girls about the robots, nobody believes them about the handsome boy, and nobody believes them about the kidnapping.

Nobody except the Teenage Extranormal Emergency Network, that is.

But before the girls can save their dads, they have to impress TEEN’s director enough to join the agency. To do that, they have to survive tests and death traps. If they manage that perilous task, they only have to outsmart one of the world’s greatest teenage secret agents and a power-mad ten-year-old bent on world domination…all without letting a cute boy come between them.

If the job were easy, they’d send grown-ups. Lucky for the world, this is a job for TEEN Agents.

Get your digital copy exclusively at Amazon.com! A paperback format is coming soon.

You can find out more about this book at Unstressed Syllables.

If you’ve been waiting anxiously for a paperback copy of The Dragonswarm, you can get it now!

The sequel to the bestselling epic fantasy Taming Fire by Aaron Pogue is now available for $12.99 from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Click here to find out more about the book.

E-authors face a lot of competition. Even though they have a pricing advantage over traditional publishing companies, there are already  many inexpensive and free e-books available. This means that low prices are not enough. E-authors have to find additional ways for readers to notice their books and become interested in reading them. E-authors create a positive first impression when they have book covers that look professional and excellent book descriptions.

The cover is usually the first impression of an e-book that readers have when they are surfing online. On most websites, a cover image is small but can also be viewed at a larger size. A quality design will look sharp in both sizes instead of blurry. The title should also be readable in both sizes. Some e-authors create their own covers with a specialized program or a graphic design program. If they do not have the time, skills, or desire to do it themselves, then they hire an individual or company to help. The cover is important because it shows the book’s “personality,” giving potential readers a glimpse of what to expect.

Another way e-authors can create a good impression is by having well-written book descriptions. When online shoppers click on a book, the description is usually the first text that they see on the page. It is positioned far above the reviews, so if shoppers do not like the description, they will probably not read the reviews. The description tells what the book is about and attempts to create interest in the reader. It also helps shoppers determine what the genre of the book is and what makes the book different from others in that genre. Some books do not have a description at all, which makes it difficult for shoppers to tell what the book is about, especially if the book does not have any reviews either. Shoppers are less likely to buy a book if the only information they have to go on is the cover.

Since the description is usually the first thing that shoppers will read, proofreading carefully is important. Errors in a small block of text could give the impression that the book also will have a lot of errors. Ultimately the quality of the book’s contents matters the most, but a favorable first impression is a crucial aspect of being a successful e-author.