Saturday, May 29, 2010

Amazon and Other Places to Click

We are proud and thrilled and eager and honored to announce that Teresa Burrell's The Advocate's Betrayal is available to pre-order on Amazon. With 31 days left before the release, that's not long to wait for the next installment in the Advocate series! Just click through from our website, and you can lay claim to one of the very first copies. Alternately, if you're a big fan of e-books, or if you just like to supplement your print library with digital editions, the book is being released in pretty much every available e-book format. You'll be able to download to your Kindle, nook, or iPad the first day of the release! It's just our way of offering something for everyone.

Friday, May 14, 2010

Going to Press

When our VP, Holly Foland, and I went to visit our printer for the first time, I fell in love with Industry. That is, I fell in love with it again. I remembered all the factories, fisheries, farms, hangars, canneries, and warehouses across the country that I visited as a child. They were always fascinating hubs of work. Good, hard work, done well. Each a master of the art of specialization. A picture of what's behind the scenes of the individual products we use every day.

Our first book went to the press today. I should feel excited, or perhaps anxious about it, but instead I feel a confident assurance. I have seen their work, and they do it well. I have walked by the great rolls of paper in stacks to the ceiling, watched the books shuffle over the conveyor belt, the gloved workers packaging them quickly but carefully into their boxes.

Every step of the way, from Teresa typing the first word on the page to the aimless customer catching sight of it on the shelf, it's a huge and happy effort. We are proud to take our place in this great industry and look forward to what the future holds.

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Jeff Sherratt and the Digital Age

Many of our readers bemoan the changing tides. E-readers and digital manuscripts are encroaching on what used to be sacred territory - the world of literature. Bookstores are getting rid of their comfy chairs and replacing them with digital displays. Even libraries are beginning to offer digital book loan programs. It is the end of an era, and the beginning of another. Already, I miss the old days.

Even so, I cannot deny the appeal of the new. In a lot of ways, it comes down to practicality. E-books are more affordable and more portable. There are dozens of features on every e-reader device that will appeal to dozens of different kinds of readers. They are a natural extension of every other technological shift in our world. It was really only a matter of time. On the other hand, print books will not be disappearing any time soon. You may find certain genres or formats gradually disappearing, but there are some books that simply cannot be transferred into digital form - and classics or personal favorites that we will want to see and feel and watch grow with age. Let us then consider the e-reader to be a complement to traditional reading. Perhaps someday it will be the other way around, but for now, print still reigns.

We at ZOVA Books are proud to honor both tradition and innovation as we provide you with the newest works from our favorite authors. This is why, in the midst of sending Teresa Burrell's book to the printer, we've signed our second author, Jeff Sherratt. Jeff's had this book in hiding for a while, so we're really excited to offer it to our readers as an exclusive digital book. It should be up for sale in the next few weeks, so check back for updates (yes, like a title and plotline...) as we move forward with this and other exciting developments.