$15.00 DECEMBER 2024
PUBLISHING
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First full year in the books
The end of 2024 is coming soon, and with that, marks the first full publication year of Canadian Independent Publishers
It’s been an interesting ride thus far, finding ways to manage the publication between work, raising kids, part-time school, and my own fiction writing.
So far, the publication has been
met with lots of positive responses from talented writers looking to spread the word about their works of fiction; independent publishers; and indie bookstores from across Canada. I’m really excited to see that the magazine has offered some value to the industry, and is helping writers promote their writing. Another milestone event for the publication was the successful launch of the 2025 Canadian Independent Publishers Flash Fiction Contest!
This was the first of many writing competitions I plan to run in this publication, offering writers another avenue for sharing their fiction.
Congratulations to Eva Tihanyi for her story, “Photograph,” being selected as the winner of the 2025 Canadian Independent Publishers Flash Fiction Contest!
Everyone will have an opportunity to read Eva’s award-winning story in the February 2025 issue of Canadian Independent Publishers, as well as in the 2025 CIP Flash Fiction Collection, which will be released in Winter 2025. Congrats again to all the finalists, and special thanks to contest judges Mark Leslie Lefebvre and Nicole North.
I want to also say thanks to everyone who participated in the competition, your support of the publication is greatly appreciated. Thanks also goes out to everyone who has signed up for our print issues and/or monthly newsletter. Thank you for your support. Happy holidays everyone!
Andrew Snook Editor and Publisher
INDIE BOOKSTORE
Grant Hofer pauses in the middle of the interview to say, “It’s been far more fulfilling than I anticipated. The fact that the business has been as successful as it’s been is just icing on the cake.” That, in a nutshell, describes Grant’s mandate for opening Four Points Books: have a business that pays the bills, gives back to the community, and fills his bucket every day.
The idea
Grant Hofer and his wife, Thiloma, relocated to the mountain town of Invermere, B.C. after successful careers — Grant in finance and Thiloma as a chartered accountant — and looked around for a way to serve their new community. After a trip to another town Grant commented to a friend how much he’d enjoyed visiting the bookstore. The friend said, “Why don’t you open one here?” They both loved books and reading was a central part of their lives.
Invermere didn’t have a new titles bookstore. Their deliberations didn’t take very long. One glance out their kitchen window at Four Points Mountain and they had the store’s name.
Starting out
Grant had never worked in retail, but from the start he approached the venture with a business mindset. He talked with other bookstore owners in the region and received tremendous support, encouragement and business wisdom. He approached Franklin Fixtures, a company dedicated to setting up the best bookstores, to help with the store’s design and shelving. When he crafted a business plan to take to the banks, he went conservative.
“How many books would we sell on a Wednesday in February? I figured six,” Grant says.
Like every startup, he and Thiloma encountered challenges along the way. But their joy at being bookstore
(Left) Four Points Books opened its doors in Invermere, B.C. in May 2022. Photos courtesy of Four Points Books.
FOUR POINTS BOOKS: ALL ABOUT COMMUNITY
By Tony Berryman
owners carried them through the difficult moments, and in May of 2022, Four Points Books opened its doors.
The first year Grant spent the first year in the store, at the till, talking with the customers.
“I honestly believe it’s the best place to learn about the people in your community,” he says. “You learn about their new hobby. Or you learn about the trip they’re going to take, because they’re ordering a guidebook. Or they’re delving into their family history. Or sometimes they just need a light read because it’s been a rough week.”
He learned volumes about what customers wanted and what made his community work. He also learned that he needed staff.
Finding the right staff isn’t an easy fill, he says. Bookstore people aren’t regular retail workers. They need to know the book business, be widely read, and have a broad base of knowledge so they can talk to customers on a range of topics. Once he found the right people, he needed to keep them.
He works hard to make his staff feel valued, and are compensated adequately and fairly. They have fun in the store and get a few perks along the way. He wants his employees to see a future for themselves at Four Points Books, a place where they can stay for
the long-term. The store design, staff, and Grant’s attention to listening and learning paid off. In 2023, one year after opening, Four Points Books won the People’s Choice Business of the Year award.
INDIE BOOKSTORE
By the numbers
From the start, Grant approached the bookstore with a slightly different mindset than most booksellers.
“Both Thiloma and I come at this with a love of books, but also a very strong grounding in business fundamentals,” he says. His previous career leaned heavily into data analytics, and he put those skills to use. He started gathering and analyzing data, and applying it to every aspect of the store. He knows which shelves turn over the most, how different books fare if they are spine-out or face-out, how to control margins and shipping costs, how to optimize his experiences with vendors.
He is careful and thoughtful
about which books to bring into the store. He loves books, and has his own personal preferences, but tries to keep emotion and bias away from decisions of what goes on the shelves. Instead he looks at the data, and then the data below that. He can see, for example, how many copies of a book are ordered by stores across the province. Then he analyzes further — is the book part of a school curriculum, which would exaggerate the numbers? Is the data skewed because of an ethnic theme that is more popular in the Lower Mainland? Or would it do well in his store, in the British Columbia Rockies? Above all, he listens to his customers to find out what they want. If three people come in asking for a
book, it’s definitely time to bring a few copies in. The result: a 3- to 4-per-cent returns rate, compared to the industry average of 16 per cent.
“But at the end of the day, I need happy customers, and that’s more important than making a buck,” he says. “It’s a bookstore; we’re not getting rich. It’s always going to be a labour of love.”
All about community
Giving back to the community is a strong part of the store’s mandate, and very important to Grant and Thiloma. Even before they opened, other booksellers warned him that special events and book signings were not always profitable. They put a strain on staff, and incurred costs such as advertising and catering. Four Points Books hosts them anyway. The store strongly supports local authors, hosts an Indigenous Speaker series in conjunction with the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, and holds fun events like the Vinyl Bookstore in December, an evening featuring Stuart McLean’s classic, Dave Cooks
The Turkey. They collaborate with other local businesses on community projects, and also contribute behind the scenes to community enhancements where the bookstore’s name is never mentioned. “This community has given us so much,” Grant says. “The network of people that we have around us as a family and, more broadly, as a bookstore has been far better and more genuine than anything that we’ve ever experienced in our life.” They make a point of paying forward the tremendous goodwill and support they’ve received.
A second store
When the bookstore in the nearby town of Golden went up for sale, Grant went to take a look — not with any intent to expand, but for another opportunity to learn. The owner asked him, why do you want to buy the store?
Four Points Books owner Grant Hofer shows off a couple of the great reads people can pickup at the bookstore.
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Grant laid out his love of books, his desire to keep bookstores in their community, and the potential economies of scale and improved relationship with publishers from having two stores. He ended up convincing himself. After some negotiations, Four Points Books had a second location in Golden.
Having excellent store managers is key to running a larger business, he says. With two stores separated by more than a hundred kilometres, he couldn’t be everywhere at once. He started looking for help. Grant now has two managers in place who know and love the business, and who he trusts to run the day to day while he focuses on the larger picture.
He also saw the need for someone to handle all the activities that are one step removed from the floor. He now has a dedicated staff person who runs events, works with publishers on cooperative ventures, takes care of the planters on the sidewalk, and assists him with a myriad of other special projects.
Nimbleness: The indie advantage Grant and his staff pay attention to emerging book trends. Booktok in particular, he says, can catapult a title into instant popularity. Some trends that appear on social media are not relevant to his store. A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, he gives as an example. “If someone comes in and says, ‘I really want to cry. I want to be crushingly sad,’ this is the first book we suggest.” It’s not for him. But it has a strong social media following, which keeps customers asking for it. Although the shelves are certainly full, the bookstore keeps its inventory lean — if they have a title, it’s on the shelves, not in a back room. But they are constantly analyzing trends and constantly ordering. If a customer comes in and asks about a newly-popular book, often Grant has it already on order and will put their name on a
copy. Like all small indies, however, Four Points can’t carry everything, and handles thousands of special orders every year.
Being an indie bookstore means we can be nimble, he says. The 7,000 books on the shelves constantly change according to the ebb and flow of customer requests, world events, social media trends and community needs.
What’s next
“Hopefully we don’t expand for a while,” Grant laughs, although he’s always open to opportunity. “There are a few irons in the fire.”
When pressed on his plans for the immediate future, he says, “The integration of the new store in Golden was quite taxing on our entire team, so now we’ll slow
down a bit and focus on other business priorities, like internal systems and marketing.”
Also, he wants to enjoy Invermere and the Columbia Valley, the place he and Thiloma now call home, and the community that has treated them so well. Continuing to build on a successful business, and taking a breath, will position Four Points Books for whatever opportunity comes next. For more information on Four Points Books, visit: www.fourpointsbooks.ca
Tony Berryman is a freelance writer and author of The Night Nurse, which was published in 2020. He also co-writes under the pen name, Trigger Jones. Learn more about Tony’s books at: www.tonyberryman.com.
The owners of Four Point Books decided to open a second location in Golden, B.C., when the town’s local bookstore went up for sale.
BOOK Promotion
By Corinne Moulder
New authors hoping to make a mark in the literary world need to establish their credibility to readers — and quickly.
A positive review from a professional book reviewer is a proven credibility booster in the eyes of readers, media, and potential endorsers of your book; it enhances virtually all of the marketing assets you’ll share with both your personal network and your target reading audience.
As many new authors won’t have direct access to relevant media lists or industry connections, paid professional book reviews are often the most accessible and impactful promotional course to take. And if you’ve paid for a review through a professional service like Kirkus Reviews or Foreword Clarion Reviews, it can also be a great stepping stone to securing future unpaid reviews.
In this blog post, I’ll be detailing five ways you can get the most out of the powerful marketing tool that is your paid book review.
1. Secure an early book review
To start, it’s critical to read the fine
print, particularly for expected review return dates and submission guidelines. Turnaround times, which impact some of the below suggestions, differ from review service to review service (oftentimes with options to pay for a faster return). The submission details and required assets also differ from provider to provider — like confirmed vs. open-ended publication dates, unformatted Word documents vs. final PDFs, etc.
For most independent authors, soliciting early reviews is not an easy task as pre-order strategy and traditional print times don’t typically factor into the rollout. Select professional review services, like Kirkus, allow you to submit your final, unformatted manuscript for review consideration — even if the publication date is not set.
As soon as your manuscript is complete, you can process the submission with the aim to procure a professional review while your book is in formatting and before it goes to print. If the review produces a key phrase or positive quote that highlights the strength of your book or writing, you may print it on the book cover. You
may also include pieces of the early review in your endorsement outreach/blurb requests.
2. Target Audience Gut-Check
At this early stage of your book rollout, you’ll already have a good handle on your target reading audience. That said, since most professional review services match books with reviewers who are content and genre experts in that space, an impartial professional review allows you another opportunity to gauge how your core reader interprets your book. Doing this while you still have time to pivot in marketing strategy enables you to get ahead of any hurdles or expand on a smaller detail that the reviewer caught or, potentially, break into other niche audiences not already on your radar.
3. Feature pull quotes in your marketing material
From movie posters to bestselling book covers, pullquote blurbs from reviewers can give prospective readers and media a bite-sized taste of your book’s value. In today’s fast moving world, that can be the difference between someone picking your title up and passing it by.
Isolate pull quotes from your review and add them to most of your marketing material. Pull quotes and phrases should appear anywhere you’re including a book synopsis: your website, press release, media kit, Bookstore Sell Sheet, event flyers and banners, social media graphics, bookmarks/postcards, social media graphics and captions, etc.
Review quotes can also be used to round out your Amazon Author Central & Goodreads pages. Include a bolded pull quote at the top of your book description. On Amazon, add the full professional review to the Editorial Reviews section for maximum impact.
4. Share it with your network
Draft a blog post with the complete review and your reaction to the early feedback on your book. Does it make you more excited to release? Or make launching your book feel all that more real? Does the reader’s response make you think about the book any differently? Include the complete review or a link to the review in your newsletter or website. Share on social media. Whether a graphic/video, a reflection post (similar to the blog prompt above), or a simple post to share with your followers, dripping out snippets of your professional review is a proven way to hype your network and create more buzz. You can also create a shareable graphic so your launch team can easily share it with their networks.
5. Weave your review into other marketing initiatives
The value of book reviews is acutely felt when reach-
ing out to third parties and other potential partners for their support. Here are a few specific way you can maximize your marketing and promotions intros with reviews:
• Bookstore and Library Outreach: Include professional review snippets in your emails and letters to bookstore managers to boost credibility. Connect with your local library, sharing updated marketing material that highlights pull quotes from your professional review.
• Signings and Events: Include pull quotes and snippets within event materials (handouts, flyers, posters, banners, etc.).
• Blog Tours: When coordinating, either yourself or with the aid of a publicist or outside vendor, ensure that the final blog tour description includes a pull quote or select key phrases from the review.
• Book Giveaways and Promos: For any giveaways or promotions you’re running for your new book, include a pull quote or snippet to boost credibility and appeal to readers.
• Book Award Submissions: Round out submissions with inclusion of your review to help your book stand out from the sea of others competing in the same category.
• NetGalley: If your book is available for request on NetGalley, include a pull quote at the beginning of the book description.
It’s important to keep in mind that a paid, professional review should be one of many “starting points” to obtaining earned, unpaid feedback and reaction to your work. A paid review alone will not move book sales nor will it miraculously elevate your marketing strategy — but it will give you an early take on impartial feedback for your book and content to uplevel your promotion plans.
Remember that what you end up doing with the paid review is the most important part of the process. Authors can receive glowing five star reviews from paid services, but if no promotional endeavors are done to showcase and have eyes on this review, the impact will be small. Review service companies rarely promote the book review on behalf of the author, so, for any reviews you do receive, be sure to leverage it to its full potential!
Corinne Moulder is the vice-president of business development at Smith Publicity, where she drives innovative strategies to elevate authors and brands.
This article was republished with permission from FriesenPress. For more tips on marketing and promotion, visit: www.friesenpress.com.
Sitting down and diving into a spooky story can be a fun way to spend an evening. For Alyson Hasson, the horror genre has always been a goto form of entertainment. Her love of scary stories and movies combined with her passion for pirates drove her to release her debut novella, Island of the Unclaimed, which was published by Hedone Books in 2024. Here’s a sneak peek into Alyson’s spooky tale:
Sybil never imagined leaving her home in London. It was a luxury she could never afford. Her entire life was spent scraping the bottom of the barrel, sneaking scraps, and making do with what little money her brother Walter could smuggle back to them from Nassau.
But as time passes and the last delivery from her brother becomes more distant, she soon realizes that she might finally be on her own. Left with nothing but a heading and a broken compass, she ventures into unknown waters.
While the seas are rough, her journey becomes even rougher as she joins a pirate crew. Desperately tracing her brother’s footsteps, she finds herself hurtling towards the same fate. Her last hope lies in unearthing her family’s secrets and making it to her brother’s last known location, a cursed island in the middle of the ocean.
I recently had an opportunity to sit down with Alyson and learn more about her passion for writing and the horror genre.
Pen name: Alyson Hasson
Recently published books: · Island of the Unclaimed (Hedone Books, 2024)
Place of residence: Saint John, N.B. Website: www.alysonhasson.com
Follow her on social media: Instagram: @alyson.hasson
Threads: @alyson.hasson
Bluesky: @alysonhasson.bsky.social
alyson hasson
By Andrew Snook
A chat with
Have you always enjoyed writing fiction?
I was always interested in different stories and spooky shows when I was growing up. When I was young, my parents were very careful with what media they allowed me to consume. I found that got me going to write my own stories. I was creating stories and making up different narratives as a form of entertainment. Storytelling was one of those big things for me growing up. All through middle school, I would be writing at lunchtime or with a group of friends in the library. That’s pretty much all I did. In high school, I kind of got out of it. I didn’t write again until adulthood. When the pandemic hit, you couldn’t go anywhere. You couldn’t see your friends. We were even limited in the family we could see. So, I consumed pretty much everything on Netflix. I was working from home but my husband wasn’t at the time, so I was alone quite a bit during work hours. I found my imagination had no outlet, and I had a lot of time to think, so I got back into writing short stories. That spiraled into books and writing anything I could, keeping my imagination going.
Over the years, have there been authors that have got you more interested in writing?
My favourite movie growing up was The Ruins. It really got me into Scott Smith’s writing when I was sixteen. Scott Smith hasn’t written a lot of books, but The Ruins and A Simple Plan were phenomenally written for how I enjoy reading a story. I really love his writing. He was very expressive about how the inner dialog of the character and how different psychological attributes affect how a story progresses. Adam Nevill is also a huge inspiration to me. I’ve read pretty much all of his books, but Last Days and No One Gets Out Alive were really well done.
He also has a couple of short story compilations that are a horror story without any people involved. All you see is the aftermath of these different events, but there’s no character that’s leading it, except the setting. I think that’s really cool. That’s always stood out to me. I don’t necessarily think I write exactly like either of them, because everyone has their own voice, but I really try to strive to bring those two styles into my writing.
Your first novella, Island of the Unclaimed, was released earlier this year. How did it feel to get that first copy in your hands? It was crazy. It was a long time in the works, about two-and-ahalf years from being picked up to being published. When I was holding the book and looking at it, I was like, Is this actually real? Am I awake right now? It was really amazing. It makes me want to get more books written. The novella’s path was actually a little bit unique, because it changed
hands with publishers. It was published by Hedone Books, but it was originally picked up by DarkLit Press.
Do you intend to write more using these characters, or are you working on other projects? I might expand this story. I would like to add some extra chapters to the end, but I don’t think it would go beyond that. I don’t think the characters will move on to other stories. I’m working on a book now that is very different. It’s still in the horror genre, but it has a little bit of fantasy mixed in with a lot of Celtic folklore. So, it’s a very different book that’s set in modern day versus a historically set pirate horror story.
What got you interested in the horror genre? It’s just been something I’ve always loved. I grew up on Goosebumps (R.L. Stine), and that just spiraled into liking horror. My mom doesn’t like scary stuff, so she would have to endure watching it with me. I always found it a little humorous that it made her uncomfortable, because it would scare her. When I was younger, not much would scare me in terms of movies. So, I thought it was funny.
Was the pirate aspect of your story fuelled by any particular books or movies?
That comes directly from Pirates of the Caribbean. When I was younger, I had an obsession with Johnny Depp and the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. I remember in Grade 5, my mom had to have a talk with me about not wearing my pirate outfit to school, because I wanted to be a pirate. The historical stuff from that time always interested me. It was just so different. A life at sea that was unruly and crazy with different adventures was always interesting to me.
Another one of your passions is photography. Are there certain subjects you enjoy photographing? What do you enjoy most about snapping photos? Photography is another passion I have had since I was young. More recently I have been focused on taking close ups of the forest floor. I have always been particularly interested in nature. Especially mushrooms and moss. Their appearances can vary so greatly and even be different for individuals in the same family. It’s like living artwork plastered across rocks, trees and the forest floor. That’s a big part of why I enjoy getting out and taking photos, but also because I just love being outside in general. Hiking is another hobby that is refreshing for me, so combining the two allows me another outlet to recharge and connect with the world again instead of getting stuck inside the internet permanently.
What are some of your future goals as an author?
My current goal is to try to get my next book secured to be published. It’s already probably close to 40,000 words, and I’m about halfway done. So, it’s going to be quite a bit bigger than the novella. I would love to get in with one of the big mainstream publishers, but that’s a lot harder to do. So, I’m probably going to seek out an agent over the next little while, and hope that I get a book deal with someone.
Some people get writer’s block, and they have to find ways to combat it. Do you find it’s difficult to manage your time so you can get in front of the computer and write?
Most of my writer’s block is directly linked to my day job, because I work in supply chains with operations in a big corporate business, and it can be really demanding and really high stress. Sometimes I come home and have nothing left to give, and I just need to have that decompress time. Lately, it’s been a little bit harder to find writing time. But I usually try to combat that by reading, which will help sometimes. You don’t have to think as much when you’re reading, because you don’t need to make up the words for the next sentence. But I find sometimes I’ll read something easy, like a romance book or something a little bit fluffy to get me back into that creative headspace, so I can get back to writing. Sometimes just thinking about my story, thinking about the plot and where I want it to go without the intent of writing helps a lot, too.
A lot of writers are naturally introverted people. They want people to read their books, but they don’t want to talk to people about them. Is this a challenge for you?
I’m very introverted, so it’s definitely a struggle. I find the worst part is just selling yourself and being like, “I wrote this book, and you’ll love it. Read it!” I don’t want to talk about myself. It’s like when someone asks you to do an introduction. That’s like a special kind of torture for introverts. I’m really just writing books that I would want to read, and if that picks up some readers, then that’s amazing.
To read more about Alyson Hasson and her fiction, visit: www.alysonhasson.com.
BOOK PUBLISHING
By Brian Cliffen
Self-publishing can feel like a whirlwind of excitement, deadlines, and checklists. It’s an exhilarating journey, but sometimes, in the rush to hit that final “Publish” button, crucial elements get overlooked. Savvy authors will know that paying attention to these less glamorous but essential details can make the difference between a book that sits ignored on the shelf and one that catches attention.
To ensure your book reaches its full potential, let’s explore five commonly missed yet essential aspects of the self-publishing process:
1. Offset print runs
While print-on-demand (POD) services are popular for their flexibility and low overhead, offset printing offers distinct advantages for self-published authors — especially when planning for special editions or large orders.
Offset print runs give you greater control over your book’s pricing and profits, enabling you to set competitive prices and keep more of your earnings. This is particularly advantageous for authors anticipating higher
sales volumes through bookstores, events, or direct-to-reader marketing, as it significantly reduces the per-unit printing cost.
It is also ideal for creating special or limited editions, such as collector’s copies with custom covers or unique finishes like embossing and foil stamping. This level of quality and customization makes it perfect for targeting niche markets or dedicated fans who appreciate unique products. Although it requires an upfront investment, it empowers you to meet your publishing goals with quality and control that POD can’t always match. If your marketing strategy involves selling in bulk or producing special editions, consider offset printing as a valuable option to elevate your self-publishing journey and maximize your book’s potential in a competitive market.
2. Book returnability
Bookstores are hesitant to stock books they can’t return. If yours doesn’t sell, they’re stuck with it — and that’s a financial risk they’d rather avoid.
Brick and mortar bookstores have long required books to be returnable before adding them to store shelves. However, online booksellers are now following the lead of physical bookstores in requiring a Returnable status to list POD titles. Books without returnability may be inaccurately displayed, listed as unavailable, and experience long shipping delays. Traditional publishers understand the importance of returnability and manage this for their authors. As a self-published author, you can, too! Many POD distributors allow authors to mark their books as returnable. However, the cost of processing POD book returns falls on the author; this can mean paying out of pocket for the disposal of books returned to retailers like Amazon. If you haven’t planned for it, managing returns can be an unwelcome distraction while you’re trying to sell your book. Unless you have a robust personal sales funnel for direct or consignment sales, consider incorporating returnability into your publishing budget to significantly boost your book’s availability and sales potential. At FriesenPress, our Book Return Insurance service helps authors cover the financial risks of book returns with one yearly payment.
3. Professional interior design
We all know about the importance of cover design — but what about a book’s inner pages? Professional interior design is often an overlooked step that can make or break a reader’s experience. A book with inconsistent fonts, poor margins, or odd line spacing can disrupt the reading flow, making your book look less polished and ultimately turning readers away.
Beyond aesthetics, proper book design ensures readability across different formats. Whether your book will be printed as a paperback, hardcover, or eBook, the interior layout must be tailored to that specific format. For example, eBooks need reflowable text, while print versions require perfect alignment of elements like chapters, headers, and pagination.
Many DIY authors try to handle the interior themselves, but even the savviest InDesign users can miss the nuances that give your book a professional edge. A designer experienced in book formatting will ensure industry standards are met and that your book is as easy on the eyes as it is engaging.
4. Complete metadata
Even if you’ve written your book, edited it to perfection, and put it together in a beautiful book design, have you done everything to ensure potential readers can find it? Metadata is the unsung hero of book marketing that determines whether your book appears in search results or remains buried in the
digital abyss.
Metadata includes your book’s title, subtitle, author name, keywords, BISAC categories (subject codes), and other descriptive information. These fields feed into online retail algorithms, helping potential readers discover your book. Thorough, detailed metadata can make a significant difference in your book’s visibility on online platforms like Amazon. Take the time to thoroughly research your categories and keywords. Use tools like Amazon’s bestseller categories to see where similar books are ranked. Ensure that your metadata accurately reflects what your book is about and its intended audience. Don’t skip out on a compelling book description, either — it should include primary keywords to boost discoverability.
5. Competitive book price
Setting the right price for your book can be tricky, but it’s one of the most important decisions you’ll make as a self-published author. Price it too high, and you might scare off potential buyers. If the price is too low, you could undervalue your work or struggle to turn a profit.
Your pricing strategy should consider factors like production costs, perceived value, and what your audience is willing to pay. Research similar books in your genre and see what they’re priced at to get a good range of potential prices. Be mindful of your page count to ensure you’re comparing relevant titles.
Keep in mind that different formats (paperback, hardcover, eBook) will require different pricing strategies. For example, eBooks are generally priced lower because there are no printing costs, while hardcovers can command a higher price due to their tangible value.
As you navigate the self-publishing landscape, it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of seeing your book take shape. However, by paying close attention to these often-overlooked details, you’ll ensure your book stands out in a competitive marketplace and reaches its full potential.
Self-publishing offers unparalleled creative freedom, allowing you to bring your vision to life exactly as you imagine it. But with that freedom comes the responsibility to approach the process with professionalism and thorough preparation. By treating each step with the care it deserves, you set your book up for success and position yourself as a confident, capable author!
Brian Cliffen is the marketing manager for FriesenPress. This article was republished with permission from FriesenPress. For more tips on marketing and promotion, visit: www.friesenpress.com.
Pen name: Lance Robinson
Recently published books:
· Chasing New Suns: Collected Stories (2024) Place of residence: Thunder Bay, Ont. Website: www.lancerobinsonwriter.com
Follow on social media:
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When Lance Robinson was in Grade 6, he got hooked on science fiction. He would take out every book he could from this school’s library –Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke. He dove further into a love for science fiction when one of his high school teachers assigned Dune as a reading assignment. Lance jumped into science fiction writing in the 1980s, crafting his own short stories, eventually getting published in a variety of small press magazines. After taking a 15-year hiatus from short story writing, Lance has jumped back into his fiction and has found success publishing in well-known publications such as Analog Science Fiction & Fact. In 2024, he won the Writers of the Future award for his short story, “Five Days Until Sunset.”
Earlier this year, Lance released his first short story collection, Chasing New Suns: Collected Stories. The collection is seven tales of mind, heart, and spirit ranging from Apartheid era South Africa to humanity’s first foray beyond the solar system; precarious ecosystems in northern Alberta; the shiny glam of time-adept neocolonialists between the stars; and more.
Canadian Independent Publishers recently caught up with Lance to learn more about his passion for short fiction. A
LANCE ROBINSON
By Andrew Snook
chat with
What got you interested in short story writing?
Back when I thought I wanted to be serious about writing, the advice was that to have a chance at publishing a novel, it really helped to have a track record of publishing short fiction. I think that advice still stands, although it’s not quite as strict as maybe it was back then. Having read that advice and having come across some brilliant short fiction – especially Ray Bradbury – I decided I wanted to try writing some short stories.
You started your journey in short fiction writing 34 years ago. It must feel pretty good to have your collection in your hands. Absolutely, although it wasn’t really 34 solid years, because at some point in the past, I gradually drifted away. My daughter was born soon after I started a PhD. So, I did my PhD and had a baby, and by then, I drifted away. I didn’t write much for about 15 years then
came back to it. I moved back to Canada from Kenya about five years ago, and thought, I want to get back to writing again, and when I did, it just went really well. I won the Writers of the Future contest. I’ve had stories accepted in Analog Science Fiction & Fact Going back and rereading some of the early stories and seeing that a lot of them still stand up, and having a copy that I can hold in my hands and physically touch and flip the pages feels good.
What did you find most challenging about getting the collection completed from the writing stage to having prints in hand?
I think it’s developing the discipline to write regularly with a reasonable degree of productivity. I’m still a fairly slow writer. I’m in awe of those people who do thousands of words a day. Having a full-time job, kids, and life, and just developing the discipline to carve out that time, to do it con-
sistently, has probably been the hardest part.
Do you find the market to get short fiction published easier or harder these days?
I don’t have enough to go on to say for sure. On one hand, I know I’m writing better stories than I wrote back in 1990 when I had my first publication. Back then, all my publications were in small press magazines, although I submitted to the big names at the time –Asimov’s Science Fiction, Analog Science Fiction & Fact, and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Once I worked my way through the big names, then I’d submit to small press magazines. These days, I’m getting stories accepted in Analog. It’s easier to find markets now. There are tools online that make it relatively easy to find a decent list of magazines with descriptions, websites, and so on. That’s a lot different than it was in the 1990s, when you were relying on newsletters, fanzines,
AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT
and other people trying to cobble together information.
Do you have any suggestions for less experienced writers about how they approach trying to get published with their short fiction? Are there mistakes you’ve learned from over the years that you would recommend they try and avoid?
Number one: after you’re done your first story, move on to your second. If you feel like you’ve done a good job on your first one, you can develop this emotional attachment to it. You need to overcome that, because if your second story isn’t better than your first one, your third one will be better than your first one. For the most part, it’s a bit of a jagged line, but it moves on an upward trajectory in terms of the scale and art of storytelling. Number two: if you want to get published, don’t rush a story. Don’t send the story off five minutes after you hit save on the first draft. I typically edit as I go along, and so, I’m not one of these people who writes a
first draft from beginning to end without interruption, and then goes back and does a lot of editing. I tend to do a lot of editing as I go along, but even so, I still get to the end and then I need some emotional distance from it. You can burn your markets if you’re submitting a story to a magazine before it’s ready, before you’ve finished polishing it. So, just have a little patience.
Do you still have goals of writing longer fiction or creating another collection?
Yes. My story that won Writers of the Future was actually a prequel of another short story I’d written years earlier and had published in a small press magazine. When I came back to writing when I moved back to Canada, I remembered that story, and the world building. I still had ideas churning in my mind, and it seemed like a rich, fertile ground for some more story ideas. So, I developed the prequel short story that won Writers of the Future. I’m still working on more stories in the
same universe. I’m also working on a novel set in the same world.
Check out Lance Robinson’s short story collection at: www.lancerobinsonwriter.com.
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