YHP&P

• Yellow Horse News – Sell, sell, sell! Buy, buy, buy!

  Posted by Admin on 09.21.10 0 comments

  

  I think we’ve said before that we never got into this gig for the money (not that it wouldn’t be grand to become fabulously wealthy, of course). We do it for the love of our art and that really is the truth. We also write, illustrate, animate, photograph, design, make music, and publish so that we can share our respective arts with the wider world. What’s the point of creating otherwise? OK, so that’s a big philosophical question. Let’s not go there…

  This was meant to lead into our announcement that sWitch is now available to buy from Amazon and Barnes & Noble (and maybe even other online retailers we haven’t had time to check yet). You can buy it now for only $13.13.

  It took approximately a week for sWitch to get from the Ingram catalog to the retailers and we’re filing that bit of information away in our currently stuffed-to-overflowing micro-publisher brains. We’ve also been busy stuffing our heads with arcane bits of knowledge about the ePub format, xhtml, manifests, spines, .mobi files, epub validators and Sigil. As a result, the epub version of sWitch has been submitted to Amazon for Kindle and we hope that it won’t be too long before it will be available to purchase for the tidy sum of $6.66 (of course).

  Next up is the iPad version for iTunes, which should be quite easy to get our heads around since it too, requires formatting as an epub file. We may add a couple of niceties to stretch our wings in preparation for some other iPad projects in the future (nudge, nudge, wink).

  sWitch will also soon appear in the UK and EU and we’ll let you know when and where! By the way, Our distributor tells us that they only offer books via the Espresso Book Machine  in Australia, so we’re sorry about that. We’ll see what we can do to address the situation!

  Finally, we are still waiting on our sWitch proofs from our local short run printer. Keep your eyes out for an announcement there, because we’ll be offering a special bundle package of the paperback version of sWitch plus your choice of e-book format for the price of just the printed book. That way you can start reading right away while your book’s winging its way to you. See how considerate we are?

  With my weekly rambling nearly out of the way, I should say that we’re hoping that some of the proceeds from sWitch will help fund new projects that we’ll be announcing soon-ish.

  And maybe a round of beer. Hey, we’re celebrating!

• Yellow Horse News – Veni, vidi, vici

  Posted by Admin on 09.15.10 3 comments

  Or, we saw, we approved, we waited…

  

  Although sWitch is not Yellow Horse’s first publication, it is the first one we’ve put quite so much effort into: ticked all the boxes, if you will, and scrubbed the floors, dotted the T’s, frosted the cake. As such, sometimes we burn the cookies, sometimes we get a good polish on, but we’re always learning as we go.

  OK, that made more sense when I was thinking it, but the point is, we’re really excited to announce that sWitch launched on the 13th as promised. Unfortunately, we didn’t take into account that the publication date was not necessarily the day on which the book could be purchased.

  According to our distributor, we could be looking at more than a couple of weeks before the title is available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, et al. But never fear! We are still expecting proofs from our other printer, which – if all goes well – will give us enough stock to sell directly from the Yellow Horse website.

  We also got a really lucky break when we ran across BlogFest, a celebration of book blogs that took place this last weekend. We got more traffic to the Blog-de-Suck in 3 days than we did over the entire lifetime of the site so far. We had fabulous and encouraging feedback from our new visitors and hopefully gained some long-term readers and with luck, some readers for sWitch when it’s finally available.

  We’re waiting until we know exactly when the book will be in our hot little hands before announcing the winners of the giveaway, but until then, a huge, huge thank you to everyone who stopped by and an even bigger thanks to Cinnamon Brown (yes, it’s her real name and isn’t it fabulous?) for organising BlogFest!

  Check back tomorrow for the last (for now) in our series of Dramatis Personae Tarot Cards.

• Yellow Horse News – Blame it on Baker Street

  Posted by Admin on 08.31.10 0 comments

  

  Oh, that we could. While it certainly rained enough over the last few weeks to flood both station and street, we can’t blame Baker Street for sWitch’s late release. For sightly late it will be.

  No, the reason for the tardy arrival of Yellow Horse’s second child is the result of a rather protracted labor, something many parents will recall not-so-fondly. Late arrivals are often painful and sWitch is no exception. We failed to anticipate quite how long the Lightning Source application process would take (having thought we’d actually already been through it), nor how much time would need to be spent on their approval of our first release with them. We expect that subsequent births will be quicker and easier, as they tend to be.

  OK, enough of the childbirth analogies. Since we can’t yet offer up a bound copy of sWitch to our readers (who are no doubt waiting with bated breath), we are instead very pleased to present our new website. The new Yellow Horse site outlines all our services, provides some examples of our work and, when sWitch is released, will allow you to purchase copies directly from us. We’ll ensure that you’ll get some extra goodies if you buy from us as well, so check back next week when we hope to announce a bouncing baby book…sorry – the release of sWitch, a novel by the very talented Mr Scott Norton.

  (PS, the site has been tested on Firefox, Safari and IE7. If you notice anything hinky, don’t hestitate to let us know!)

• Yellow Horse news, but not as you know it

  Posted by Admin on 08.24.10 2 comments

  
  It’s been frantic around the Yellow Horse stables yet again. Scott’s been head-down in his adaptation of HorrorCon, Louise has just finished what we hope is a final edit of sWitch and I’ve been galavanting in London-town working on Facebook applications and basically living the life of a celebrity.

  Some of this may not be quite true.

  Consequently, much of what should have been done by this week isn’t quite and next week isn’t looking to slow down all that much.

  As you might know, sWitch is due to be released in August, which means we have until the very last day of the month to meet our deadline. Can we do it? Or will flooding at Baker Street put paid to our cunning plans? Tune in next week for the exciting conclusion.

  Meanwhile, a reminder of what sWitch has in store on August the 31st.

  Since you’re here, a couple of wee snippets of publishing news: heavyweight marketing author Seth Godin is leaving Portfolio Books to self-publish (although we notice that they don’t call it that, but rather “sell direct to his fans”); Barnes & Noble have released a Nook for iPhone; Amazon is stirring up the mainstream UK press with its £109 Kindle; and “a senior publisher” is annoyed at the devaluation of books by nincompoops.

  And because we love reading and we love photographs (and we’re around the world), we really must recommend you go off and have a look at Steve McCurry’s images of people around the world reading. Fabulous.

  Don’t forget to come back when you’ve finished.

• Yellow Horse is out and about

  Posted by Admin on 08.10.10 0 comments

  

  It’s been another busy weekend at Yellow Horse. And elsewhere, truth be told. Scott’s been busy with final edits to sWitch before he passes it back to me for the final layout and then on to Louise for the last polish and proofread. He’s also been hard at work on the screenplay adaptation of HorrorCon.

  The weekends, however, are all about the music! Scott did his acoustic thing at the Dead Dog in Sea Isle City, while I spent a couple days doing my photography thing at the four day Cambridge Rock Festival. It was a brilliant few days out meeting old and new friends and photographing some legendary British Rock veterens, including Mickey Moody of Whitesnake, Chris Ousey from Heartland, Harry James from Thunder, and Laurie Wisefield of Wishbone Ash. Add to that the likes of Hazel O’Connor and the Subterreaneans, OD Saxon and Praying Mantis, along with my friends, the Chancellors of Vice and Split Whiskers and you really couldn’t ask for a better time. Check out a small selection from the festival below if you’re so inclined. I say small, as I took more than 2000 photos so it will take some time to get through them all!

  In addition to all that, Scott and I have been working on the new Yellow Horse website, which we hope to have ready to go by next week. I’m in London all week, so will be working on sWitch edits on my train journey there and back to sleepy Cambridge and will be working on the website in between. Phew!

  Finally, stay closely tuned next week as we’ll be announcing a new signing to our coterie of authors as well as a brand new imprint!

• Yellow Horse News – We have “people”!

  Posted by Admin on 08.3.10 5 comments

  

  That’s right! We had been waiting to announce this momentous event when we could simultaneously launch our new website with lovely biographies for all us “peeps”, but we’re so excited to introduce our new editor that we’ve decided not to wait.

  We really are extremely pleased to welcome Louise Woods to the Yellow Horse stable. Actually, that’s probably not a good analogy. She’s more like one of the trainers, but I digress…

  Louise will be providing our Yellow Horse authors with a full suite of editorial services and presented us with one of the most impressive CVs we’d ever seen. Currently working on her PhD in English (on falling in Shakespeare, she tells me) at Jesus College, Cambridge, and with Master of Arts (with distinction) and Master of Philosophy degrees in Medieval and Renaissance Literature, she’s the recipient of many prestigious awards, including a Triple Scholarship, The Benefactor’s Prize and the Edwin Stanley Roe Prize from Jesus College.  Louise is an Academic Supervisor in the English Tripos at Cambridge and previously an Admissions examiner at Cambridge and Oxford Universities.

  I first met Louise at a Sidney Sussex Vampire Society film screening, so we know she’ll fit in well at Yellow Horse. When I asked her what attracted her to the Vampire Society, she told me she “got hooked pretty quickly on the combination of friendly vampire academics, squashy cushions, red wine and some (admittedly not all) superb vampire films. Essentially, it was an incredibly welcoming atmosphere with the added frisson of horror films and brie.” A nearly perfect combination, indeed.

  Louise is a voracious reader with interests in many genres. When pressed, she was able to narrow it down to a rather fascinating ideal: set in the Renaissance, grand tragic themes of passion, sex and death, art, and literature. She cites Shakespeare, of course, but others along the grand tragic Renaissance lines include Tom de Haan, A Mirror for Princes; Jill Paton Walsh’s Knowledge of Angels; and Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel series. These are dark, erotic, fantastical works and yet another reason we think she’s the perfect editor for Yellow Horse.

  Louise has always wanted to spend her life writing. She has a preference for short stories but tells us that poetry, on the other hand is more daunting: “Particularly after my disastrous first attempt many years ago, when, Pound-like, I prioritised metre and wrote the first line in anapaests. I was devastated by the subsequent realisation that I’d commenced my poetic oeuvre with a line that rhymed pretty closely with “There’s a hole in my bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza.”" Not to worry, Louise, that’s pretty much the only “poem” I can recite by heart so I would have been well impressed.

  Another of Louise’s great loves is dancing. She holds a Half Blue in Latin and Ballroom dancing and choreographed our friend Kevin Jackson’s short film, BITE: Diary of a Vampire Housewife, as well as being scheduled to appear as “vampire-in-waiting” in the sequel. When she told me that “club dancing is missing something when there is nobody with whom to hybridise hip-hop and salsa, or do an impromptu jive to “Build Me Up, Buttercup”", I knew that we were twins separated at birth (with quite a few years in between, but that’s besides the point).

  Despite being what she calls a “hypocritical vegetarian” (meaning only that she doesn’t always read the labels on snack foods), Louise amuses herself writing restaurant reviews, which you can see on her website.

  Finally, if anyone has a novel they’ve written in Middle English or perhaps a Vernacular Paleography text they’d like to submit, Louise is fluent in both.

  Welcome to Yellow Horse, Louise!

• Yellow Horse News – Film Funding Falls Afoul

  Posted by Admin on 07.27.10 0 comments

  

  As we may have mentioned, Yellow Horse isn’t just books, but also art, photography, animation, music and, of course, film, so it was understandable that we were surprised to learn that the UK Film Council is to be scrapped under the British government’s latest round of funding cuts. I’m not a terribly political person, and as a displaced American, my political nouse is not sufficient to editorialise on the decision, however, having worked directly for another quango (quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation) that is directly funded by the Film Council, I do have a small understanding of the work that they do. Screen East has funded Games Eden in the east of England for some 4 years now and I have seen first hand the opportunities that small organisations and individuals can take advantage of through these non-governmental bodies.

  The lottery funding that supported the Film Council will not be taken away, by all accounts, but how it will now be allocated is in question. Games Eden may not survive the cut, nor in fact, may Screen East itself. As for the work done to directly support the UK film industry? The UK Film Council said today that it has invested more than £160 million in Lottery funds over the past ten years, generating £700 million at the box office worldwide. There are conflicting opinions as to whether they have been wholly effective, but the Guardian’s round-up of the recent films funded by the council gives yet another indication and there is plenty of opposition to the announcement.

  Of course, it got me wondering what sorts of funding opportunities exist in the US and found this handy guide to Funding Bodies in the US. In fact, the entire website is pretty useful.

  More useful independent film resources include indiewire and ShootingPeople. For networking resources, see Massify and, of course, the website that brought Scott and Teddy together, NextCat.

  And since we’re on a film theme, here’s an amazingly creative stop-action animation to wind things up. It’s long, but worth it.

  BIG BANG BIG BOOM – the new wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

• d’ya wanna be in our gang…

  Posted by Admin on 07.22.10 0 comments

  

  OK, so it’s not Tuesday, but today starts with a T, so I feel like I haven’t let the side down. We’ve been so busy here at Yellow Horse, it’s been a real struggle keeping up with everything. Much of what we’re doing is still up-in-the-air, or secret, so there’s very little of our own news we can reveal either. Trust us though – it’s cool and spooky and all those good/bad things we’ve promised to deliver. Eventually.

  Just kidding. It’s all coming very soon, indeed.

  A couple of publishing news items did catch my eye this week, however: Bowker (the ISBN people) are launching a manuscript submission service for authors and publishers; NetGalley allows publishers to present ARCs (Advanced Review Copies) to reviewers online – sadly we’re too small to get in there as there’s a five book minimum, but we aspire to it! If you’re a Twitterwriter, search out the hashtags, #dearpublisher, #dearbookseller, #dearauthor and #dearreader for some interesting tweets; and J.A. Konrath has sold a bunch of books all on his lonesome.

  In actual Yellow Horse news, my esteemed partner in publishing mentioned some Yellow Horse merchandise yesterday and lo and behold, we’ve put a toe in the water with a Yellow Horse shop all of our own. More designs are in the works, but in the menatime, you can check out (and buy, please, please, do buy stuff), here or here if you’re in the UK. I quickly rustled up a mug and a hat so there was more than shirts, and… shirts. He’s a cheeky devil, our Scott, and I’m not one to shrink from a challenge.

  
  View more personalized gifts from Zazzle.

• You scream, I scream – Yellow Horse news

  Posted by Admin on 07.13.10 0 comments

  

  Last week I promised a double dip of publishing news and it may be the heat of the summer has kept everyone on the beach, or I’ve got heatstroke, but I can’t seem to find a great deal of news–certainly nothing themed, as is my wont. I shall endeavour to fulfill my promise, nevertheless. And maybe even sneak in some thematic rambling too.

  Our first scoop, therefore, is rainbow sherbert: a bit of this, a bit of that, and a splash of the other from the publishing world.

  First off, it looks like even more literary agents are coming over to the idea of self publishing. Steve Ross is the director of Abrams Artists Agency’s newly formed book division and according to Publishers Weekly, he’ll be heading up Abrams Author Services. Says Ross: “While some authors and their work remain best suited for an established publishing company, others may benefit from a more personal, hands-on approach with a different financial structure, an approach only now possible thanks to the rapid proliferation of accessible options in such areas as self-publishing, digitization, and distribution. We see these as two distinct businesses, separate but inextricably intertwined, with the collective goal of maximizing the potential for each individual author.”

  Oh yes.

  We’ve also run across another small press doing lovely (and dark) things with short runs of special editions, edgy experimental projects and out of print books. Subterreanean Press sounds like our kind of people. We’ll be watching them!

  And I know we’ve gone on about it before and while we love technology, deep in our hearts we’re wannabe Ludites. We love the feel of a weighty tome and the smell of freshly printed paper. Even old, slightly mildewed paper if we’re honest. So to learn that books are more relaxing and satisfying to read than e-readers warmed our cockles. Which melted our ice cream, but we’re totally OK with that.

  Our second dip is dark chocolate and caramel – Yellow Horse colors, of course!

  Now you probably won’t be surprised to learn that we’re not really in this game for the money. Yes, it would be great to make our livings writing, making movies and traveling the planet, camera in hand, but we do have our feet on the ground because really, all that is what lottery tickets are for. No, we’re doing this so that we can share our collective artistic vision with the rest of the world and let’s be honest, our vision isn’t entirely mainstream, so we have our work cut out for us.

  For example, what we’re trying to achieve sometimes put us out of pocket, even with Print on Demand, DIY slogs late into the night and weekends slouched over our laptops (sometimes squinting in the sunshine trying to see the screen while ice cream drips onto our keyboards–we’re not martyrs, you know!). Anyway, we’ve been discussing ways of raising enough capital to pay for printing, postage, and equipment to help us make this venture a success.

  One option is to create and sell Yellow Horse and sWitch merchandise. We want Yellow Horse t-shirts and pint glasses and sWitch mugs and bookbags, and think that  maybe some of our friends might like them as well. Proceeds from those sales are barely likely to cover the cost of a few promotional postcards, but every little bit helps! Plus we really, really want the t-shirt.

  Another idea is to try and fund some of the bigger film projects via KickStarter. Kickstarter allows creators to set a funding goal and get interested parties to pledge seed money. What’s great about KickStarter is that it’s no risk for either party. No money changes hands until the funding goal is reached, at which point, backers send in their pledge and receive a little gift from the project creator, plus a nice warm fuzzy feeling that they’ve helped a fabulous creative project see the light of day.

  So what do you think? Any clever fund-raising ideas out there other than, you know, selling books?

• rockin’, rollin’ and castin’ – yellow horse productions update

  Posted by Admin on 07.6.10 0 comments

  

  The clue is in the name, but we’re not just about publishing at Yellow Horse. Those who know Scott, know that besides the day job as a copywriter and video producer, he’s also a talented screenwriter and director. Those who know me know that besides my day job in marketing, web and graphic design, I’m also a photographer and relatively recently, a video editor.

  Scott’s hard at work casting a screen adaptation of his novella HorrorCon for production in the spring of 2011. Current plans are to broadcast it online as webisodes, so keep watching for more news about that.

  We’re both passionate about music – Scott, of course, has been performing for years with the incredibly hard-working Surrounded by Idiots. More recently, Scott’s been doing the solo acoustic thing in Sea Isle. If you’re ever down the shore and want to check him out, keep an eye on his website – it’s frequently updated with new gig dates.

  My passion isn’t peforming (I briefly took up the ukulele, only to find I had no musical talent whatsoever), but I’m an avid listener. Soul music is my great love, so I’m really proud and excited to be associated with The Chancellors of Vice, a local funk/soul band here in Cambridge. Next weekend they’ll be on the big stage at the Big Weekend so I’ve been shooting some test video in preparation for that.

  (pop on over to YouTube if you want to see the clips in HD)

  And what’s new in the small press and self-publishing world? Between investigating graphic novel and children’s book printers, casting, shooting, and the long holiday weekend, you probably know as much as we do. Catch us next week and we’ll give you a double dip.

  PS, many thanks to Poppet for her kind words about the Blog de Suck and sWitch!
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