Last Tuesday, I told you about a 2015 interview that I did with Steve Williams of the site Write a Revolution…which, I recently discovered, has disappeared from the ’Net—along with WaR’s website. So, for those of you who might have missed it the first time, I’ve been serializing that interview here at Zwieback Central for your reading pleasure. Part 1 was posted on Tuesday; Part 2 appeared Wednesday; and Part 3 was published on Thursday. Now here’s the conclusion…

WaR: How did you design your cover and/or any illustrations?

SR: When dealing with artists, usually I’ll start off by doing a rough sketch of the composition I’m looking for, and providing them with any reference material they might need. For designers, I’ll sometimes do a rough design of the cover in my Mac’s Pages application, just to give them a starting point they can riff on. Or if I have something particular in mind I’ll say, “No, I want it exactly like this, but with a professional finish to it.” The cover for Lorelei Presents: House Macabre was meant to emulate 1970s and ’80s DC comics; if you look closely, you can see an “Approved by the Monsters Code Authority” seal in the upper right-hand corner.

I try not to waste artists’ or designers’ time with a game of “I’ll know it when I see it”—that approach just winds up annoying everyone. Doing it the way I do seems to work out just fine; a few of the artists have even told me I’m one of the best art directors they’ve ever worked with.

WaR: Did you format your own eBook or outsource?

SR: For the PDF versions of StarWarp’s books, comics, and graphic novels that are sold through the company website, I have my designers deliver a lower-res version of the print files, with the covers combined with the interiors. Higher-res versions of those files are provided to places like Comixology to meet their distribution requirements.

However, the Pandora Zwieback novels get mass distribution and require separate file formats for Kindle, Nook, and Smashwords (who distribute to iTunes, Kobo, and Oyster Books), so I outsource them to an e-book conversion company called 52Novels. All I have to provide them with, other than a Word doc file of the manuscript, is the design material I want to carry over from the print versions—front cover, title page, house ads—and they put it all together. I was really happy with the work they did on Blood Feud, and they’re great people to work with, so I went back to them with Blood Reign and in all likelihood will continue to use them.

WaR: Did you find the overall process of publishing a book an easy one or especially difficult?

SR: It was difficult starting out because I had to learn the process on the fly, but strangely enough that tends to be the method I’m most comfortable with: just jumping right in and figuring it out as I go. It was the same way I got started in comics publishing, back in ’93, except for the book market I was able to rely on books like Dan Poynter’s Self-Publishing Manual and Self-Publishing for Dummies for guidance. And I had some familiarity with the ins and outs of the industry, having been an editor for ten years at a New York publishing house called ibooks, inc. (no relation to Apple’s iBooks).

What made the process of reinventing StarWarp as a book publisher a bit easier was in hiring the designers I worked with at ibooks, inc., so I’d be working with people I knew, and who were familiar with my methods. The rest of the business stuff, though, was up to me.

WaR: Let us know a marketing or promotional tip or piece of advice that has worked well for you.

SR: One of my friends in publishing suggested exhibiting at book festivals. With my background up to that point mainly being in comics, I wasn’t sure how that would work out. But considering the responses StarWarp Concepts has gotten at the Brooklyn Book Festival and BookCon over the years, I’d have to say that was pretty good advice!

WaR: What are you working on next?

SR: Blood & Iron is the third Pandora Zwieback novel, and it wraps up the “vampire war” storyline that runs in Blood Feud and Blood Reign. I’m also looking at putting together Lorelei Presents: Return to House Macabre, another one-off anthology comic for Lorelei to host; I’ve already got two stories in-house.

And that’s the end of the interview. Thanks go out to Steve Williams and the folks at Write a Revolution for running it last year—as publisher of and main writer for StarWarp Concepts, I’m always appreciative of sites who show a little love toward our endeavors. Who knows where the next interview will appear…?

On Tuesday, I told you about a 2015 interview that I did with Steve Williams of the site Write a Revolution…which, I recently discovered, has disappeared from the ’Net—along with WaR’s website. So, for those of you who might have missed it the first time, I’m serializing that interview here at Zwieback Central for your reading pleasure. Part 1 was posted on Tuesday; Part 2 appeared yesterday. Now here’s Part 3…

WaR: Have you tried giving anything away for free or include special offers to try and entice readers? E.g. free chapters, promotional items, limited day price reductions.

SR: Absolutely. At the StarWarp Concepts website, we offer free sample chapters from the Pandora Zwieback novels Blood Feud and Blood Reign, and there’s The Saga of Pandora Zwieback #0, a free, downloadable 16-page comic book that acts as an introduction to Pan’s book series. That one originally started out as a print comic that I handed out as a promotional item at comic book conventions and book festivals. And depending on budgetary limitations, I’ll have either brochures or catalogs printed up to hand out at shows. It’s important that people know that StarWarp has a growing backlist of titles.

WaR: Are there any promotional ideas that really did not work out or “bombed”? Things that you definitely will not be trying again?!

SR: Ooh, where to begin…? (laughs) Well, I’ve stopped exhibiting at New York Comic Con, for one thing. The last one I attended was in 2013—I had the best location I’d ever had at that show, and wound up with a larger space than expected because the show runners had misjudged the borders of the booth layouts, but at the end of four days I’d spent $1,500 for the location and taken in…let’s just say nowhere close to that in sales.

For the 2011 New York Comic Con, I used the show’s database to contact people who’d listed the StarWarp booth as one of their planned visiting points, and e-mailed them certificates for exclusive Pandora Zwieback sketch cards that the novels’ cover painter, Bob Larkin (who used to work for publishers like Marvel and Bantam), had done for me. Only one guy showed up to claim a card—and even he didn’t really want it. He’d come to the booth to find out what was going on with Lorelei! (laughs)

In 2014, I tried a similar promotion at the first-ever BookCon, only this time I was offering prints of Bob’s cover painting for Blood Feud. Again, of all the people I contacted, only one person showed up to get their print.

There were others, but I’ve depressed myself already, remembering just these. (laughs)

WaR: Have you ever come across any book promotion ideas that were maybe a little unorthodox?

SR: I’ve considered other ideas—I wouldn’t really call them “unorthodox,” but stuff like hiring a Pan spokesmodel to try and attract more women and teenaged girls to the booth so they can learn about the book series. It’s a car show/comic con kind of approach—you don’t see it used all that often at book festivals, so I guess that might be considered unorthodox. We’ll see what happens if I ever get around to hiring one.

WaR: Do you mostly stick to online promotions or do you do much offline networking as well?

SR: I attend some conventions and book festivals during the year, which tends to work better for sales than the online promotions, because I’m able to tell attendees about the books, on a one-on-one basis. The big show for me is the Brooklyn Book Festival, which is held in September, because I’ve started building a fanbase there that will seek out the StarWarp Concepts booth so they can check out the latest releases.

WaR: What have you struggled with the most during your adventures in writing and publishing?

SR: Getting recognition for the company and our titles. It’s a cliché that the Internet is just a big void you’re shouting into, hoping to get attention, but it’s true.

WaR: Do you network with fellow writers or self-published authors?

SR: I have friends who are writers and self-publishers, and we’re all in the same boat, to varying degrees, all trying to get the word out on our projects. We compare notes on our approaches, and share convention war stories and stuff like that. A mutual commiseration society! (laughs)

Coming Monday: The conclusion of this four-part interview, focusing on the more technical aspects of getting StarWarp Concepts titles ready for the masses. See you then!