In the midst of all this talk about the Kindle publishing explosion, I get to take a break to provide one more case study. She’s no Konrath or Eisler or Hocking (yet), but our own Courtney Cantrell has become a part of the phenomenon.
Or perhaps I should say we’ve made her a part of it. Consortium Books officially released her book today, April 12, 2011, although it’s been available on Amazon for most of a week now. If you haven’t already gotten a copy, go pick one up for 99 cents.
Publishing Colors of Deception has been quite the learning experience. Before that, I’d been playing the dual role of President of Consortium Books and published author for the last eight months, working two of my own books through from start to finish, but back in February we got to work on Courtney’s book, and for the first time I got to approach the process as just the publisher.
That gave me a new perspective, and an opportunity to see how much we’re doing right (and to fix a handful of things we’ve been doing wrong). Overall it was an incredibly encouraging experience.
Of course, it was made easier by the fact that Courtney has written a fabulous book with a striking setting, and that she brought her enthusiasm to every stage of the design process. She has carried it on since the final edits, too, promoting the book on Twitter and Facebook so effectively that she has, in a matter of days, achieved more sales of her book than either of mine has ever done in a given month.
Go Courtney!
And she didn’t stop there. She worked with our Director of Marketing, Joshua Unruh, to plan a book giveaway themed around her novel. Check it out:
In celebration of the publication of her first book, Colors of Deception, Courtney Cantrell is giving some copies away! Over the next two weeks, she’ll be collecting entries for a contest. Her two favorites will each win a free, signed paperback.
In Colors of Deception, cute college sophomore Holly Idaho discovers that a demon in stalking her. Over the course of the story, Holly realizes that this demon has a rabid and morbid fascination with the music of rock band INXS.
Why INXS? You’d have to ask the demon.
According to this demon’s favorite band, we all have “the devil inside.” But maybe this devil prefers a different kind of music?
Maybe you think a demon should prefer Country & Western. Or might demons just sing the Blues? Perhaps they go for the classics like Black Sabbath.
Maybe they’re insidious and love The Girl from Ipanema.
So here is Courtney’s challenge to you: In one hundred words or less, tell her what music you think demons listen to and why.
Be scary, be humorous, be ridiculous, or be whatever you want to be. Courtney’s two completely arbitrary favorite entries will each receive:
- a signed copy of Color of Deception,
- a mention on Courtney’s blog,
- and the winning entry posted on Courtney’s blog.
Courtney will probably post some other non-winning entries she thinks are clever as well.
Submit your entries here, in Courtney’s email form. The contest ends at midnight, Central Standard Time [UTC-06:00], April 26th. Thanks for playing — and happy writing!
