CIP: February 2024 issue

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FEBRUARY 2024

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT EVA TIHANYI WWW.CANADIANINDEPENDENTPUBLISHERS.CA

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content 4 EDITOR’S NOTE 6 INDIE PUBLISHER From avid reader to publisher: DarkLit Press 10 AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT EVA TIHANYI 14 BOOK EDITING The Human Touch: Limitations of AI Editing 17 aUTHOR EVENT thE gRAND aUTHOR tAKEOVER 20 INDUSTRY NEWS ONLINE CAMPAIGN LAUNCHED IN SUPPORT OF CANADA BOOK FUND 22 WRITING COMPETITIONS

Canadian Independent Publishers February 2024 Volume 2, Issue 1

© Snookbooks Publishing

Snookbooks Publishing PO Box 30101 Mississauga RPO Cityside, ON L4Z 0B9

Subscription Rates (6 issues) Canada: 1 Year: $75.00+HST Publisher and Editor Andrew Snook 647.779.8946 asnook@ canadianindependentpublishers.ca

The opinions expressed in this publication may not reflect those of the editor and publisher. No liability is assumed for errors or omissions. Any advertising is subject to the approval of the publisher and they have the right to reject any advertising that does not meet the publication’s standards. Any advertising approvals given do not imply endorsement of any products or services advertised.

No part of this publication my be republished without consent of the publisher or editor.

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EDITOR’S NOTE

THE VALUE OF FACE TIME

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when I was participating in book signings for my first novel, Remy’s Dilemma.

I was doing my second signing at a bookstore in my hometown. During the event, a young woman approached me to tell me that she picked up my book at the previous signing, and that she keeps her copy of my book on a special bookshelf at home. Whenever she was having a really bad day, she liked to take a book off that shelf and read it, because they made her feel a little lighter. She thanked me for writing a book that made her feel better on her worst days. I still carry that conversation around in my head today, and it still helps fuel my fiction when I’m exhausted and feel like I don’t have the energy to write.

I’ve had the good fortune of having a handful of these special conversations over the years that sit in my head and help push me forward, and they all stem from live book signing conversations. That’s not to say you won’t necessarily have a similar experience during an online conversation, but for me, it’s the face-to-face conversations about writing that I live for, and have a more lasting impact in my mind.

So, get out there and give it a shot. Who knows, you might find the face-to-face experience equally enjoyable!

Happy reading and writing!

hile we live in an ever-increasingly digital age, and that has given authors a plethora of choices and opportunities in terms of audiences to reach, it’s important to note that the “old school” approach of speaking with people face to face still holds a great deal of value.

I often hear from up-and-coming authors who are extremely frustrated and discouraged by a lack of online book sales. While it is certainly discouraging to not gain any traction with online sales (especially if you’ve been spending money on ad campaigns), you need to remember that the online universe offers almost infinite choice to readers hungry for their next literary fix. If your goal is to amass big sales numbers from posting blogs and doing interviews, the experience may leave you feeling disheartened by the end results.

Instead of focusing solely on sales, I suggest focusing on fun and positive author experiences. The reality is we have limited control over the online sales that the promotion we do will generate, so we should try and focus on enjoyable interactions with people who want to know more about our books, even if it’s only a small audience. These experiences hold a ton of intrinsic value for us as writers. They can fill up our tanks and help us push our next drafts over the finish line. With that said, I want to encourage everyone who is not doing live book signings and readings to get out there (even if you’re an introvert) and speak to people face to face about your writing.

I understand that this can be a stressful experience for many people, as fear of public speaking is very common. But if you can get outside your comfort zone and try interacting with people at a local bookstore or a live reading, I can tell you from experience that these events can be extremely rewarding.

I’ll share one example from my own experiences that took place around seven years ago,

Andrew Snook Editor and Publisher 4

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INDIE PUBLISHER

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ndrew Robert loves books, especially anything within the horror genre. A lifelong fan and avid reader of horror fiction, he especially enjoys picking up the works of independent authors.

It was this passion for books and supporting indie authors that spurred him to launch DarkLit Press in Regina, Saskatchewan, which specializes in horror and speculative fiction. The mandate of the publishing company is to “champion the work of marginalized and underrepresented authors while providing a supportive and collaborative environment.” This was important for Andrew to acknowledge, as it was his desire to help support the indie authors he enjoyed reading that fuelled his decision to jump into the world of book publishing.

“It all started with me wanting to do everything I could for a lot of the authors that I read,” Andrew explains.

“I started out with a newsletter and a blog to support them, which did 6

really well. And then I tried moving into taking some of the skills I learned in marketing and public relations to market an anthology, and so, I published two anthologies. Then I slowly moved into some novels and novellas.

I did some re-releases and just kind of got my feet wet. But really, it was all in the hopes that I could do something

Andrew Robert (bottom left) is a lifelong fan of horror fiction and supporter of indie authors. His passion for both drove him to create DarkLit Press in Regina, Saskatchewan, which specializes in horror and speculative fiction. Images courtesy of DarkLit Press.

From avid reader to publisher DarkLit Press was born out of a love of horror and spec fiction for authors that are in horror and speculative fiction that I love. That was the big thing for me.”

DarkLit Press has been operating for just over two years. Andrew spends most of his time working with indie authors while brainstorming ideas to help market their books.

“It seems like every day there’s a new opportunity that comes around, something new in PR or a new promotional opportunity that comes up. I’m constantly digging into what a lot of the big five [publishers] do, and how I could apply that into my daily practices,” he says. “It started out with just social media, a newsletter, and a website, but now it’s quickly grown. I’ve reviewed through Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Library Journal. I’m also working with a site called Live Library, they’re very supportive. Every day, it’s something new. Outreach to bookstores and libraries is also a massive part of our daily work here.”

While many people would be hesitant to launch a book publishing

company in today’s challenging literary market, Andrew only saw untapped opportunities.

“I saw how a lot of publishers were very knowledgeable on the literary side of things, but not on the marketing side. And so, I always felt like there is opportunity for someone with a different mindset to come in and just do more with the marketing,” he says. “Our newsletter is a little over 40,000 subscribers now, and they are very dedicated readers. That’s quickly evolved into a big part of our community that we’ve built.”

An avid horror fan himself, Andrew is also very active within the reader community.

“I’m heavily involved in the reader community. I’ve done a lot of reviewing and I’ve gotten a lot of different writing opportunities.

I’ve had articles in magazines like Scream Magazine and Fangoria, and on LitReactor, he says. “Being involved with that, I had kind of an ‘in’ with readers, and I still stay very involved with readers, which is just not something we see often. I’ve got a very supportive 7

By Andrew Snook community behind me, and I’ve cultivated that over a long time.”

Thinking back to the first horror stories that Andrew remembers reading that made him fall in love with the genre, he recalled Stephen King’s Pet Cemetery and Joe Hill’s NOS4A2.

“I remember being at work and just wanting to read something scary. And I thought, you know, I’ll try NOS4A2 by Joe Hill. I remember having to put it down. It was just too much, that first chapter.

It scared me so much. So, I ended up putting that one down and I read Pet Cemetery by Stephen King. And since then, I just couldn’t stop. I ended up going back to NOS4A2, and it’s one of my favorite books now. And it just snowballed from there,” he says.

Learning curve Starting the company didn’t come without some bumps along the way. Andrew still remembers lessons learned from his first anthology.

“The anthology was a perfect example of my inexperience

INDIE PUBLISHER

shining through,” he recalls. “I started out with wanting to invest in an anthology of beach vacation horror. And so, I remember going through all these stories, me and another involved editor in our community, and just loving so many stories. And I ended up buying 30 to 35 different stories, thinking that it would all fit into one solid anthology, and that was definitely not the case. It would have ended up being a massive book.”

To manage all the stories he purchased, Andrew ended up splitting the collection into two separate anthologies over a twomonth period. In the end, both publications found some success.

“We had some incredible authors, Philip Fracassi being one of them, who’s very well known in our space. He had a novel reviewed by Stephen King this year, and he’s just done great. So, I was really excited to have him in these books, amongst other really respected authors in our community.”

Andrew says one of the toughest parts of his duties as publisher is having to select which authors to work with.

“I have a really hard time saying ‘no.’ I have these great people who are always pitching these awesome ideas,” he says. “I do way too much, way more than I should, for sure. It seems like a release every month, which is fine.

I’ve spent a lot of time mapping out social posts and planning them. I’ve got two years of newsletters planned out, and pitch my books for bi-weekly newsletters, which I’m slowly making into weekly.”

Growing demand To manage the growing workload and demand of his publishing company, Andrew branched out this year and hired some outside help.

“I allowed myself to hand off some of my work, and I took on some imprints that have the same core values as part of our brands.

They’re going to take on some of the work that I want to say ‘yes’ to but just can’t. And so, I’ll be heavily involved with them, but also letting them kind of do things on their own under my brand.”

One of the new brands now under the DarkLit Press ban8

ner is Hedone Books, which is a cross-genre of dark romance and horror that “promises to push the boundaries of desire and depravity, while blurring the line between fantasy and nightmare in a captivating and safe environment for readers and creators alike.”

Keeping active with his readership has allowed Andrew unique insights into the types of books his fellow horror fans are looking to consume.

“I like to think I’ve got some intuitive decision-making skills that maybe not all publishers have.

I think I know what my readers like because I’m very involved,” he says.

One of the things that readers are looking for these days are marginalized voices, Andrew notes.

“Readers want marginalized voices. They want underrepresented narratives. And that’s really what I’m dedicated to, bringing those voices out. And readers absolutely love them. I’ve had great success with a book by Caitlin Marceau, who’s also Canadian, out of Quebec. She has a book that’s called, This is Where We Talk Things Out. It’s kind of dark, psycholog-

ical, familial trauma. It resonated with readers really well. I cannot believe how well this book has done. We’re approaching 10,000 sales on that with almost no promotional effort. It was one of my first releases, and it just has not stopped. Readers just love it.

TikTok got a hold of it, and other communities, too.”

Andrew hopes that level of success finds all of the indie authors his company supports.

“I love indie authors. I love supporting them. I’ve always told my authors that if there was anything that I want to be able to do with their time, it’s to help them build their platforms, so they could walk away with being able to be a successful self-published author, and to have their own self-publishing business, like Brandon Sanderson does now,” he says. “So many other authors are able to do it, so why can’t my authors? I’ll help them build up their newsletters. I’ve got a section on my website that’s called, “Our Little Free Library of Horrors.” And what that is, is I’ve gotten them to build a reader magnet. I get them to write a story involved in whatever book I’m

publishing to get readers situated in the world they’ve built. The free library is all digital. Readers can visit and take out whatever they want, but they have to sign up for newsletters. And so, it helps those authors build up their newsletter subscribers, and just gets them involved in things that they should be doing if they wanted to run a self-publishing business.

One of the long-term goals of DarkLit Press is build a strong distribution agreement.

“We’ve had a distributor reach out that we’re excited to talk to,

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and I’m hoping more will come of it. I would love somebody here in Canada and somebody in the U.S. Proper distribution is the number-one goal for me,” says Andrew, adding that he would also like to be in a position to hire additional staff. “I do everything from formatting to promotion and marketing, and I would just love an assistant. That would be a big goal for me, and to have a staff editor. I contract it out to people I trust now, but I would love to be able to hire somebody on full time.”

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT

Eva’s first collection of poetry was published more than 40 years ago in 1982. Since then, she has released ten collections with indie presses.

Cover photo: Darlene Hareguey.

Pen name: Eva Tihanyi

Eva Tihanyi has been embracing her passion for the written word her entire life. Originally from Budapest, Hungary, she arrived in Canada at the age of six in 1962. Growing up in Windsor, Ont., Eva quickly discovered her interest in books and writing, and has been writing ever since.

The form of literature she has embraced most throughout her lifetime is poetry. Eva had her first collection of poetry published more than 40 years ago in 1982 by a small Toronto-based press. Since that time, she has released ten collections (all published by indie presses) and her poems have been published in over 50 periodicals and many anthologies. Her eighth collec-

Recently published books: • Circle Tour (Inanna Publications, 2023) • The Largeness of Rescue (Inanna Publications, 2016) • Flying Underwater: Poems New and Selected (Inanna Publications, 2012) • Truth and Other Fictions (Inanna Publications, 2009) • In the Key of Red (Inanna Publications, 2010) Place of residence: St. Catharines, Ont. Website: www.evatihanyi.com

A chat with

EVA TIHANYI 10

By Andrew Snook

tion of poems, The Largeness of Rescue, won a Fred Cogswell Award for Excellence in Poetry.

Eva’s passion for writing is only equal to her passion for reading.

For many years, Eva wrote book reviews for The Toronto Star and The National Post. She was also the First Novels columnist for Books in Canada from 1995 to 1999.

Passing on her knowledge and love of writing to the next generation was a big part of Eva’s life for many years, teaching English and other arts-related courses at Niagara College from 1989 until 2020 when she decided to retire from the profession.

Now living in the Port Dalhousie community of St. Catharines, Ont., Eva has embraced life as a fulltime writer.

Canadian Independent Publishers had the opportunity to sit down and chat with Eva to learn more about her lifelong passion for the written word.

You mentioned that you’ve always had a love for reading and writing. Can you tell me a little about how it started?

I’ve been doing this all my life.

Even in my very early childhood, I was a book lover, a total book nerd. I remember loving Dr. Seuss in Grade 2. I loved words and my favorite classes were always

to do with reading. In Grade 4, I started a school newsletter. The words and I were always at it. My first official creative writing class was when I was 14, and I’ve never looked back. I fell in love with poetry then, and poetry has been a part of my life ever since.

In addition to your writing, you were also a dedicated educator for your entire career. Did you always know you wanted to be a teacher as well?

I did my master’s degree at the University of Windsor (English and creative writing). I was one of those odd kids, who, from a very young age, knew where I was going career-wise. Much to my engineer parents’ chagrin, I announced as a teenager that I was going to be a writer. What I fell into by accident was the teaching.

I never had the specific intention of becoming a teacher, yet I ended up teaching for 42 years in the Ontario college system. Crazy!

I started teaching at the age of 22 at St. Clair College in Windsor, and again, it was literally nonstop. Throughout all those years, I had the pleasure of teaching a number of literature, elective and creative writing courses, but I was teaching broadcasting students primarily for the last 20 years of my career.

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Back to your writing, do you have specific people, places or things that inspire you?

I wouldn’t say a specific place because the writing always comes out of experience. Your experience is going to generate the writing, somewhere along the way. It doesn’t come out of nowhere. But I will say that in the last number of years, I have had the great pleasure of living in Port Dalhousie, a community in St. Catharines.

It’s a neighborhood that’s been around for 100 years. It’s right on Lake Ontario. I look out my window and I can see across the lake and see the CN Tower on a clear day. Living by the water in this way, being in a community where I am so blessed to be in that natural environment with the water, the sky, and the trees has had an enormous impact on my last book, Circle Tour, which just came out in May of 2023. I’ve been working on that book for about six years, but the second half of it was written during COVID, and so, I was just one of those very lucky people who happened to be in a place that was relatively safe, and very sanity inducing. So, in that sense, “place” has had an impact.

What would you say has continued to fuel your passion for writing all these years?

A writer really is who I am. It’s the

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT How do you how do you find tackling a novel compared to working on poetry?

It’s different. Some people can do everything at once, like work on a poetry collection, a novel, and a short story. That is not me. I tend to focus on one genre. If I’m working on a collection of poems, chances are I won’t be working on a novel. So, now that I’m working on one, I’m not writing poetry. I’m finding the novel a much tougher go because I can’t get hung up on one word at a time. [laughs] What would you say have been the biggest challenges of being an independently published writer throughout your career?

As someone who has had 10 books with various indie presses, the biggest single challenge is promotion and marketing. Independent presses don’t have any kind of budget for marketing. And you’re lucky if you get one or two reviews, especially if it’s poetry. I’ve actually been very fortunate. Circle Tour has had eight different reviews already online, which is amazing. I’m excited about that, because I know how hard it is to get anyone to review anything. And if people don’t know your book exists, how can they read it? If a large publisher — say, HarperCollins — publishes your book, you’ll get the benefits of more promotion and people (including reviewers) will pay more attention. But these days, even the big publishers don’t have the marketing budget they used to have. As for the indie presses, we’re just lucky to still have them at all.

most significant part of my identity. When people have occupations, such as being a teacher, a lot of times that job becomes their identity. But even though I taught for all those years, I never first saw myself as a teacher, although that was my job. It gave me a regular paycheck, which allowed me to pay the bills, and I enjoyed it very much, but my primary preoccupation was always with writing. What fuels me is life. The experience of being alive at a certain point in time and in a certain place. I’ve also always had a strong belief that writing can be healing, not just for the person doing the writing, but also for the reader. I’m a voracious reader and have always found comfort in being able to see some of my own experiences reflected in other people’s work. I think poetry, in particular, has that ability to give that emotional context to experiences in ways that other forms of art can’t. I love the imagery, the sound of the language. There is a mystery to poetry, how it strikes directly into the unconscious and works its magic.

Do you like to experiment with other forms of writing?

I’m halfway through the first draft of my first novel.

I’ve also written the lyrics for a 14-song album called When Lightning Strikes the River with Carlie Howell, who composed all the music and did all the arranging. But poetry is my great love.

Do you have any other upcoming projects that you would like to share?

I’ve been invited to give a workshop in February at the Kristen French Child Advocate Centre Niagara.

The centre is a non-profit organization that supports kids and teenagers who’ve experienced abuse and trauma. They’re running a creative writing workshop and I’m going to do a poetry session with a group of 13- to 16-year-olds. They’re going to write their own poems. I’m really excited to bring poetry to them because, as I said earlier, I think writing can be healing.

It can help to facilitate processing things, if nothing else. If you can write it down, it’s helpful. I really believe that.

To learn more about Eva Tihanyi’s written works, visit: www.evatihanyi.com.

CHECK OUT MORE AUTHOR SPOTLIGHTS AT: WWW.CANADIANINDEPENDENTPUBLISHERS.CA 12

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BOOK EDITING

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By Astra Crompton

rtificial intelligence (AI) is sneaking into all industries. Authors now find that powerful technology provides new tools (and new limitations) that are just a couple of clicks away. AI-supported editing tools like Pro-Writing Aid, Grammarly, and Hemingway App have been around for years, but now there’s ChatGPT and other generative learning AI software — the latter of which can generate not only suggestions to your writing but also entirely new content based on prompts and direction from the user.

In one scant calendar year, it can feel like we’ve gone through the looking-glass and entered a new age of AI-assisted expression — especially if you’ve been swept up by all the media hype around generative software like ChatGPT. But what actual impact can these tools have on your writing? And how do they interact with the accredited human editors that authors and publishers have relied upon for centuries?

Today, we’ll explore five key editorial areas where the instantaneous (and often useful) feedback of AI software 14

should be augmented with an author’s critical eye and a professional editor’s thoughtfulness: 1. Grammar rules Grammar and spell checkers aren’t new. Microsoft Word and Google Docs both provide a grammar and spell check feature that runs your text through a gamut of common grammatical and spelling errors and flags these for your consideration. These useful tools are a writer’s first line of defense during self-revision. Especially if you set your manuscript up properly with your language convention (Canadian English rather than American, for example) and autocorrect pesky issues like replacing straight quotes with curly quotes.

However, there are still limitations to these tools. For instance, you’ve probably encountered words that aren’t recognized by the spell checker and yet, after a frantic few minutes of searching dictionaries and online, you discover you did spell the word correctly. You add it to your “personal dictionary” and continue on. Similar issues can happen when a writer is

intentionally breaking a grammatical rule for effect. 3. Style flexibility Your grammar checker will tell you it’s wrong . . . but Part of what makes text effective is delivering a readis it? In fact, you’ve probably seen that rule broken in er’s expectations. Different genres have certain tones, traditionally published books before. vocabulary, even formatting conventions that help Further, writing aids were built with a specific style the reader orient themselves in a book. This includes guide and audience in mind. Grammarly, for exam- levels of formality, but also includes how complex the ple, is based on AP Style to cater towards business prose is, the consistency of the points of view and and journalistic writing. But commercial publishing tense used, and even specific word choices. in North America defaults to Chicago Manual of In a Western, you wouldn’t look twice at the use of Style and — unless you’re writing a business book for “varmint” or “smoking gun,” but they’d feel out of business people — that formal style may not be the place in a cosy baking romance. Think of the gritty, right tone for your work. crude language you’d find in a noir thriller, or the A pair of educated eyes can look past these limpoetic elegance of a YA fantasy. Even in nonfiction, a itations and maintain a clear style for your work. A no-nonsense investment book will use very different human editor can also ensure that the words you language than a heart-on-your-sleeve self-help. choose and the way you arrange them best suit your AI-generative text will regurgitate something that audience. sounds vaguely like the source it was fed, but it cannot do so in an intentional, cohesive way. It can’t 2. Author voice measure the lyrical flow between sentences or notice This leads us to your “author voice” — every author repetitious sentence structure or word choice that develops their own unique sound through the will trip up readers. Likewise, grammar tools lack the course of their writing. Some write exactly how they nuances to maintain style or to differentiate between speak. Others slip into different voices depending different characters or speakers’ unique voices. on the character or genre they’re writing, but there’s A human editor can look at the work holistically, still something quintessentially them in the plot ensuring that specific characters (or contributors) devices or arrangement of the sentences. This is sound consistently like themselves, that the narrative voice, and it’s the first thing a good editor strives to or framing text maintains a cohesive style, and that preserve. chronology is managed clearly with correct tense use Many AI tools homogenize voice for more common- from scene to scene. ly used phrasing, or try to replace certain words or phrases with more “suitable” alternatives. You may 4. Factual accuracy have seen these tools warning you that your strong- A growing problem with AI-generated text is that its ly worded dialogue may “offend some readers.” factual accuracy is dubious. Because these tools are By implementing too many of these changes, the trained on content written by other people, they may elements that made the writing sound like you get mash together information in ways that are problemfiled away and the content ends up sounding dry, atic. This includes perpetuating commonly believed generic, or — worst of all — cliché. but inaccurate factoids, incorrectly attributing works A human editor looks for those sparkling turns of or words to people who never created them, and even phrase, those unique metaphors, or unusual word providing wholly inaccurate summaries for works. choices that make a character come alive or a story Traditional publishers and distributors require their feel fresh — and preserves them. When recasting authors to attest to the accuracy of any claims or sentences, they aim to retain the author’s meaning research they present in their manuscripts, which while making the context clearer for readers. They means self-published authors are equally responsible remove correctly spelled but incorrectly used words for ensuring their books are accurate. You cannot rely and replace them with the word the author intend- solely on software to have your best interests at heart ed all the time. (after all, algorithms don’t have “hearts”). A human And editors look for tone, delivery, and language editor can help you weed out incorrect facts, names, choices to ensure they’re actually suitable for the attributions, or missing quotes. intended audience. Your AI tool may not flag your Note that human editors aren’t infallible either, but content for audience-refining improvement without that extra level of critical assessment can help catch precise user input, where your human editor might blind spots in the research, anachronisms that will note that a sentence is too complex for your take the reader out of the story, possible areas for Grade 5 readers, or has too much jargon for lay copyright infringement, or outdated studies or readers to easily comprehend. The sentence may language that may impede the longevity of your have been perfectly correct, but it wasn’t as effective book. as you’d like.

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5. Copyright concerns Using an AI editing tool like Grammarly does not count as authoring your text and shouldn’t impact your claims to copyright. Using AI-generative tools like ChatGPT could. In March 2023, the U.S. Copyright Office ruled that it will only assign copyright to works created by a human author(s). Distributors are requiring authors to identify when a work has been created through the use of generative tools. AI-generative tools each have their own requirements for how content produced from their models should be credited or cited in a published work. But this landscape continues to evolve quickly as creatives and companies assess how (and if) they want to incorporate these tools in their work.

If your end goal is the satisfaction of bringing your story or idea to print, we’d recommend using AI tools only as a support while drafting. You might use AI-generation to help you brainstorm ideas that you then rework or refine in your draft. You might also feed your content to an AI-generative tool to help kickstart promotional material or social media post content. However much or little you use these tools, be sure to self-edit before submitting your manuscript. If you use AI tools in your revision process, do so with engaged and proactive caution. Don’t just accept all suggestions without considering their impact. Accept those that you recognize were correct-

ing errors. Critically consider leaving as-is those that don’t feel accurate to you, and outright reject those that change your meaning.

Then you can submit this polished manuscript to your human editor to get their holistic and trained eye ensuring every word and line you’ve kept on the page is serving your needs. They can then catch the tricky aspects that an AI tool missed, implement a consistent style guide, and query those areas that might need further attention.

By all means, play, explore, and test AI tools however much or little you choose to engage with them. But they’re no substitute for pure human creativity and critical editorial advice. At the end of the day, you are the author and the story is yours. Satisfaction comes from the doing as much as from the end result, so enjoy your writing journey!

Astra Crompton is a writer and illustrator with 20 years of experience in self-publishing. Her short stories have been published in magazines, anthologies, and used in school curriculums. She has taught courses and written articles on creative writing for five years. As Editing & Illustrations Coordinator, Astra also manages, coordinates, and vets FriesenPress’s industry-leading editing and illustrations teams.

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Author event

Authors taking over Carleton Place in support of First Book Canada

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By Andrew Snook

ozens of independent authors will be descending on Carleton Place, Ont. for The Grand Author Takeover on Feb. 23 and 24 in support of First Book Canada, a non-profit organization working to remove barriers to an equitable education for children living in low-income communities.

The two-day international author event will feature a meet and greet with authors on Feb. 23 from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. and a book fair and author signing on Feb. 24 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Tara Tappin, one of the authors organizing the event, says she was surprised by the level of interest from local authors and businesses.

“We were quite astounded by the response from authors who were interested,” she says.

“We have the Ontario Chamber of Commerce involved, we have some of the local businesses that are interested in promoting the event. We are still in talks with them about how exactly they’re going to do that – if they want to contribute coupons, gift cards or something for the gift bags.”

The event will feature 18 Canadian authors and 10 U.S.-based authors.

Attendees can purchase a ticket for the author signing event on Saturday, Feb. 24 for $10 at the door. They can also purchase a VIP Gold Pass for $70, which includes attending the Feb. 23 Meet and Greet with authors.

All passes are also available for purchase via Tickets Please and Eventbrite.

VIP Gold Pass holders can enjoy wine and 17

charcuterie on the evening of Friday, Feb. 23, while spending a couple of hours mingling with the authors. They also get a gift bag and a ticket for the Saturday author signing.

Half of the proceeds from the event will go to First Book Canada, while the other half will go towards holding the event again in 2025, Tappin explains.

“We would like to make it an annual event, but it’s costly. Right now, we’re paying out of pocket to get it going. But we’re hoping to set half the money aside for the following year,” Tappin says.

The organizers have also published an anthology in support of First Book Canada called Hear Me Out, a collection of 15 short stories spanning several genres. All the proceeds from sales of the Hear Me Out anthology will be donated to First Book Canada.

“They provide education and books to low-income communities. They work with teachers, so if they’re in a district that doesn’t have the funding, they help get them the books and supplies they need. To us, as parents and authors, it’s important. So, we’re pretty proud of this,” Tappin says.

Pre-orders of Hear Me Out are available for purchase on The Grand Author Takeover website.

The Grand Hotel is located at 7 Bridge Street in Carleton Place, Ont. For more info or to purchase advance tickets, visit: www.thegrandauthortakeover.com.

Author event

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he Grand Author Takeover event is aptly named, as it is taking place at a venue with a unique history with writer appeal. Built in 1872, The Grand Hotel is one of the oldest buildings in Carleton Place, Ont. “It was built to service the railroad.

The city was basically smiths and barrel makers back in the day, and the railroad came right behind us right now,” explains Rod Scribner, co-owner of The Grand Hotel. “The hotel was a stopping point for quite a long time, Carleton Place was a busy little place back then. And that’s what it did for a half a century, at least. Then it started changing as the city was changing.

It became a few different things over the years. Back in the ’70s, it was owned by the Hells Angels.”

Rod and his partners took over The Grand Hotel in 2016 and transformed it back to its old glory, converting the building into an English-themed boutique hotel for weddings and other high-end special events. It boasts an 18

Edwardian-inspired 1,200-sq.ft. bridal suite and 16 additional guest rooms.

The hotel also features fine dining with executive chef Jordan Forester for weddings and special events. The newly redesigned Smith & Barrel Pub, a high-end lounge, offers Old English sophistication, luxurious seating areas, and upscale cocktails.

“There’s really no other place where

Rod Scribner (left), co-owner of The Grand Hotel, took over the building in 2016 and transformed it back to its old glory. Built in 1872, The Grand Hotel is one of the oldest buildings in Carleton Place, Ont. Photos courtesy of The Grand Hotel.

A Grand Venue for Authors you can kind of take over your own private 17-room boutique hotel for your wedding, whether it be a boutique wedding or up to 200 people, where you can customize the food and drinks, close the doors and have a private event space.

That’s really what we geared it towards,” Rod says.

“It’s become quite popular, whether it’s for corporate upscale events, private events, or weddings.”

While these amenities are impressive, one of the most unique aspects of the boutique hotel is the names of each of the guest rooms.

“All the rooms are named after famous authors,” Rod says. “Every room has a name on it, including a family member of one of my business partners, Steve Moodie. Susanna Moodie was an author back in the day, and she’s actually on one of our rooms. When we bought the hotel, it was a shock. Steve was like, ‘That’s my relative.’ We were laughing. It was kind of hilarious.”

Susanna Moodie was an English-Canadian author who lived from 1803 to 1885. She wrote about their experiences as a settler in Canada. Other authors whose names you can find on the rooms of The Grand Hotel include:

Alfred Lord Tennyson, Lewis Carroll, Oscar Wilde, Matthew Arnold, Ernest Dowson, Edward Fitzgerald, Alfred Edward Housman, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Robert Louis Stevenson, Oliver Goldsmith, Charles Heavysege, Charles G. D. Roberts, Pauline Johnson, and Hazel Patterson.

“Whether by design or not, I know 19

By Andrew Snook there’s been lots of famous people that have come through the hotel over the years,” Rod says.

“We’ve done lots of celebrity weddings and events, and many films have been filmed here. I think we filmed 10 or 12 films in the last six years, whether they be Hallmark or Hollywood-type stuff, because the building sets up for it. There’s also been famous musicians, athletes, and actors that have been through here. I’m curious myself as to what the author connection was.

Obviously, some of them must have stayed here.”

Honouring the author spirit, The Grand Hotel is excited to host The Grand Author Takeover on February 23 and 24, 2024, and welcomes the many authors and readers who will be in attendance.

The Grand Hotel is located at 7 Bridge Street in Carleton Place.

For more information about the hotel or booking events, visit: www.thegrandhotelcp.ca.

INDUSTRY NEWS

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Canadian publishers launch online letter writing campaign to increase the Canada Book Fund he Association of Canadian Publishers (ACP), in partnership with l’Association nationale des éditeurs de livres (ANEL), has recently launched an online letter writing campaign to urge the government to fulfill its commitment to increasing the Canada Book Fund in Budget 2024.

In the most recent mandate letter from the Prime Minister, the Minister of Canadian Heritage was directed to increase key writing and publishing programs, including increasing the Canada Book Fund (CBF) budget by 50% in the 2022-23 fiscal year. This mandate letter commitment has not been fulfilled by the government during the last two federal budgets.

This lack of action is not tenable. The Government must not let down the book publishing industry yet again.

The CBF supports Canadian-owned publishers who employ best business practices, commit to innovation, and promote diverse Canadian authors at home and internationally. The standards for success within the program are high and the CBF is an essential support that ensures their businesses remain competitive, and that a diverse, Canadian-owned publishing sector thrives in all 20

regions of the country.

The current federal investment in book publishing has not kept pace with the needs of an evolving industry, resulting in serious consequences for Canadian publishers. This lack of support from the federal government is creating an unstable environment that will have a negative ripple effect on the future of Canada’s publishing sector. If the government does not invest in Canadian stories, they will cease to be published.

ACP and ANEL are asking for the public’s support to help ensure that the government keeps its promise to the publishing sector in Budget 2024.

Please take 30 seconds to send a letter to your MP to help maintain a thriving Canadian publishing ecosystem.

Make your voice heard!

Send a letter to your MP at: https://act.newmode.net/action/increase-canada-book-fund; or at: https://act.newmode.net/action/augmentation-du-budget-du-fonds-du-livre-du-canada.

Submitted by Association of Canadian Publishers.

CANADIAN INDEPENDENT PUBLISHERS FOLLOW US: @CIPMAGAZINE CANADIAN INDEPENDENT PUBLISHERS @CanIndiepubs www.canadianindependentpublishers.ca

WRITING COMPETITIONS Next Generation Indie Book Awards Deadline to submit: February 14, 2024 www.indiebookawards.com Next Generation SHORT Story Awards Deadline to submit: February 28, 2024 https://storyawards.co Ontario Poetry Society Ellen S. Jaffe Humanist Award Deadline to submit: March 15, 2024 www.theontariopoetrysociety.cA Independent Publisher Book Awards Deadline to submit: March 16, 2024 www.ippyawards.com WRITER’S DIGEST SELF-PublisheD Book AwarDS Deadline to submit: APRIL 1, 2024 (EARLY BIRD) www.writersdigest.com/writers-digest-competitions/selfpublished-book-awards CANADIAN Book CLUB Awards Deadline to submit: July 31, 2024 https://thecanadianbookclubawards.ca

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