INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR JOHN HOWELL!

Please help me welcome John Howell to Jemsbooks Blog Segment of Interview an Author.

It’s a pleasure to have you here today, John.

1. Please tell us something about yourself.
Well, Janice, I spent over forty-five years in the business world and when it came time to retire from there I took up my passion which was writing. I did try to write a book about ten years before retiring. The printed version of the manuscript still holds the laundry room door open in the wind. Yes, it is that good. I found working and writing did not complement each other.

Jjspina: It is difficult to work full-time and write. Good that you can write after retiring.

2. When did you know that you wanted to be an author?
I think I knew from the creative writing assignments we had in high school. I…

Out Now—A Werewolf State of Mind by Lucy Felthouse (@cw1985) #PNR #shifter #werewolf #romance

Blurb:

Anneke’s typical day at the office is thrown into disarray when she finds her next patient is anunwitting werewolf. And it doesn’t end there.

From the moment Caleb Kitt walks into Doctor Anneke Lund’s office for his psychiatry session, she knows his problem isn’t mental. He’s been experiencing night terrors, having violent and bloodthirsty dreams, and waking up naked in strange places. But he’s not losing his mind, as he suspects. He’s actually a werewolf—he just doesn’t know it yet.

Anneke isn’t just a psychiatrist—she’s also an empath, meaning she can read minds, and influence thoughts and behavior. She rarely uses her powers, but recognizes she may have no other choice as Caleb must be convinced of his supernatural status before the next full moon arrives. When it does, though, she finds herself going…

Welcome all you hackers and programmers, and all the artificial intelligence listening in today. This is Lisa Burton Radio, and I’m your host, Lisa the robot girl. I’m pretty excited about this interview, because my special guest today is a police consultant working in the Counter IT section of the Artificial Crimes Unit. “Welcome to the show, someone who only goes by the name of Q.”

“First off, I just have to say, this really isn’t my kind of gig—I mean, it’s good to meet you, definitely, but when you work and play in the shadows, the spotlight tends not to be your friend. I guess, when you’re doing penance, though, you do what you gotta do. So, here I am.”

“It all sounds pretty covert to me. I’ve never known a cop who had a code name.”

“I’m not really a cop, per se. Now, the Department does sign…

Today’s post was written by my good friend, Lyn Miller-Lachmann, one of my classmates from VCFA. Lyn has written novels like Gringolandia, Surviving Santiago, and Rogue. She’s here to talk about her work as a translator. Take it away, Lyn!

The months of August and September are busy times for us translators of children’s books. For the past several weeks, we’ve honored international women writers and the women who have translated their work, and next month we recognize those books for children originally published outside the U.S. and Canada, many of them translations, as part of #WorldKidlit month.

I have had the good fortune to translate six books for young readers from Portuguese to English, all but one of them written by women. I became a translator quite by accident when I attended a meeting of children’s book authors where Claudia Bedrick, the publisher of

Hi to all the Story Empire readers! P. H. here for this week’s Wednesday post with a bit of marketing news. For those with a newsletter, there were some recent major issues with one of the bigger email marketing services that you may not have noticed. MailerLite reported they were blacklisted several weeks ago and they have been working with the issue since. Here’s the scoop on what happened, what MailerLite has done and how you can keep your newsletter delivering correctly.

First of all, it’s important to remember when using larger email marketing services like Mailchimp, MailerLite and others that their reputations regarding SPAM are affected by the larger email marketers which can affect smaller ones like those of writers. Personally, I was using a smaller, author-designed service until a few months ago. It had a better SPAM reputation across the board and I had great results. Unfortunately, the…

Trade Remained Publishing’s Brightest Spot in 2017

The release late last month by the Association of American Publishers of its final sales estimates for 2017 highlighted a number of trends. Although total sales were down only marginally in 2017 compared to 2016, industry sales have now fallen for three consecutive years, dropping roughly 6% between 2014 and 2017, when sales were estimated at $26.23 billion.

During the 2014–2017 period, of the four major categories tracked by AAP, only the trade segment recorded gains. Indeed, between 2014 and 2017, while overall industry sales fell 6%, trade sales managed to rise 3.4%. Between 2014 and 2017, the professional publishing segment had the steepest decline, with sales falling 24.2%. Sales in the higher education market dropped 18.0% and pre-K–12 segment sales were off 24.2%. All three segments are dealing with changing expectations from their customers. But in something of a bright spot, all…