Meet a few of our Authors… By, FrancescaM.B
Hello Everyone,
This blog post is more on the casual side and so will be written more informally than some of my previous blog posts. I thought I would talk a little bit about my Authors and their books and the book publishing process for each Author. As an Author Representative for Empire Publishing, I get the wonderful opportunity to meet with all sorts of different people and help them bring their hard work to fruition. My hope is that in writing this, it can help other inspiring Authors understand that they are unique and that their writing and their dream that they have, is worth every bit of the effort to see it through. I am going to discuss the different ways each Author made their dreams come true. And hopefully, it will inspire someone out there to give me a call and let me do the same for them. I will list a few of my unique Authors in chronological order so you can see how we, as a company, and I as an Author Representative worked out something very special for each one.
- Sam Lybrand, Author of God Save America was my very first Author whom I helped to get his book published. When Sam called me, from South Carolina he was a very polite man inquiring about getting his manuscript published. He didn’t really have too much of an idea of the process. He only knew that he had finished his manuscript and began the process of calling around to different publishers to find out more information. Sam is retired, living on Edisto Island. He is on a fixed income, and his concern was how much it would cost. He was a retired salesman, so he figured he would make money off his book once it was published. But he had a mission, he wanted to write about American Standards of Behavior, which is the subtitle of his book. He is a Christian man, and he wrote about Christian values in our country. When I heard the passion in his voice for the message he so badly wanted to get out – I knew I had to find a way to help. And I knew I could. I arranged for him to publish his book, without breaking his bank. In this arrangement, Sam got what is more like a Traditional Publishing package, where he didn’t have to use any money out of pocket, and Empire takes 40% royalties from books sold online. And Sam got 60% of the royalties. He was so happy with his book, he called back later, and with the royalties from his book, he was able to buy the CopperPackage and receive 100% Royalties on his second book, Sam’s Edisto Island Paradise. Sam, is now selling hundreds of his books to local stores and gift shops all around Edisto-Island.
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Next, comes Barbara Klein who wrote the Emmi Stories. Emmi the Pink Elephant, volume 1 and 2 are Christian short story books. Barbara did all of the illustrations herself. Not by drawing or painting, but, by cutting out construction paper, the pictures have amazing detail for being cut from different colors and textures of paper. However, due to the nature of this type of illustration, we had to come up with a way for her to scan them and then we had to enhance the color and do a special interior formatting so that each illustration was vivid and made to fit the size book she wanted. She had already published three inspirational books with another publisher before she discovered Empire Publishing. Her first book she published with Empire Publishing was A Memoir Mosaic, The Europe of my Heart. Barbara Klein was a missionary, and she traveled around the world for 35 years, on one-way plane tickets. Her memoir reflects those amazing memories. All of her books are available on AMAZON. And she has a website that was created by Empire Publishing www.OverflowingWells.com.
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The Unrelented by LeRoy Tyon, is a story about Crazy Horse and the Battle of Little Bighorn. I first got the call from his wife Joan, who was searching for a way to publish LeRoy’s story. His story is told in an authentic Sioux tone, as he told the story exactly how it was passed down by his ancestors. Leroy is Native American Sioux Indian and his great great grandfather fought with Crazy Horse as a warrior. LeRoy and Joan did not have access to a computer with a word doc, so they snail mailed it to me all typed up and I retyped it in a word doc and then drove it up to their house about an hour and half drive my house. They are both retired and living on a fixed income, so I made the same deal for them as I did for Sam. They paid me for my time to type it up in a word doc and for me to help them do some social marketing to get them exposure for their book. They are now (in less than 9 months) all set up to get 100% royalties and are doing their own social marketing on Facebook. The book can be purchased in print or on Kindle.
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Next up, Author-Artist Galina Evangelista who was born and raised in Russia, had written three large manuscripts and had published one book many years ago with a different publisher. Her flagship book is What Price Freedom a true story about one woman escaping cold war Russia to save her Jewish son. Her second book a full novel, she published with us was Family Secrets about Russian Billionaire, and the story is quite fascinating. I got the call from her agent Steve one day, and he told me about her books and her art – that is out of this world gorgeous. I was excited to meet Galina, and as it turned out, she was even more amazing than I could imagine. Her life story, her talents, and her charm. She went on to publish 4 more books after the first two, the Richy Knight series, that are written for the young adult. All of the illustrations are her original artwork. Galina and her agent selected the Titanium Package for her books which included for us to make her website www.GalinaEvangelista.com where not only did we put her books on, but we also created a Gallery for her art. Galina does custom art pieces, and her art is being showcased at different Galleries in Las Vegas Nevada.
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I got a phone call one day, from a lovely lady, Patricia De Clemente, she wasn’t feeling well, but she had proceeded to tell me about her poetry. She wanted to publish her poetry. She had them all typed up in a word doc and was ready to move forward with the process. However, she was not able to work very fast at getting the information we needed. She shared with me that she was undergoing treatment for stage 4 lung cancer. I helped her to write the synopsis for her book and got her Facebook Page all set up for her. We published her lovely book of heartfelt poems called Heart Song the Memoirs of a Poet, and we also put it Kindle. Patricia had taken a journey to Maui and she had some beautiful photographs that she had taken, so she wanted the book to contain these photographs, and felt they needed to be in color to show the true beauty of what she captured in that moment. When publishing in color, it causes the price of the book to go up. And her poetry is so beautiful we didn’t want anyone to pass on buying the book due to the higher price of color, so we made the book available in both black and white as well as color. My Authors all touch my heart in some way. But Patricia felt like I had met a kindred spirit. And I hope I get to meet her in person some day. I am happy to report that she is feeling much better and I can hear joy returning to her voice and she is considering writing a second book of short stories.
- The last on my list today, is one of the most recent new release publications, however, I started talking on the phone with J.M. Gonzales nearly two years ago. She is a brand new first time Author and has been diligently writing her novel about Sophia Avery, in Broken Silence (drama) to get it ready to be published. she has professional blogging experience and has even written for the Huffington Post. She is already working on her second novel now, and we are excited to publish her second book when she gets it finished. This young aspiring Author did a lot of research looking for just the perfect publishing company that she felt good about and found to be the most affordable in self-publishing packages. We offered her a 6-month payment plan for the Silver Package that was in her budget. It came with a Kindle edition as well. She selected her own cover art and our design team created the cover. It turned out fantastic. I think we are all happy with the results of her book, and we wish her millions of sales in the future!
I wish I could write about all my wonderful Authors, but I am afraid my page would be too long. If you or someone you know has a story they want to tell, please have them contact me at Francesca@Empirebookpublishing.com Visit us on Facebook or Twitter