With this past Saturday having been Take Your Child to the Library Day, I’m always reminded of a conversation I once had with Richard C. White, author of SWC’s supernatural graphic novel Troubleshooters, Incorporated: Night Stalkings, pirate-fantasy digital comic The Chronicles of the Sea Dragon Special, the fantasy-adventure titles For a Few Gold Pieces More and Harbinger of Darkness, and the popular how-to book for writers, Terra Incognito: A Guide to Building the Worlds of Your Imagination.
Rich had been a guest at a science fiction convention and had spoken with some school librarians who were interested in adding Terra Incognito to their lists of e-book titles. But how, they asked, would they be able to obtain it? As librarians, they’re required to order books from distributors, not from publishers; that applies to e-books as well.
Well, it just so happens that one of The ’Warp’s digital distributors, Smashwords, makes our titles available to libraries through Baker & Taylor’s Axis360 and OverDrive e-book programs. To quote from Smashword’s arrangement with the programs:
“Library patrons are able to check out only one copy at a time. The books are wrapped in DRM so they time out after a specific period of time. The library can purchase multiple copies if they decide demand warrants multiple simultaneous checkouts. Otherwise, the library purchases a single copy and allows only one copy at a time to be lent out. If a library patron wishes to obtain a book that’s already checked out, the patron is sometimes given the option to purchase a copy through a retailer.”
In the case of OverDrive, “If a library patron wishes to obtain a book that’s already checked out, the patron is sometimes given the option to purchase a copy direct through OverDrive (for libraries that utilize OverDrive’s ‘Buy it Now’ feature).”
Via Smashwords, the following titles can be ordered through Axis360 and OverDrive:
Terra Incognito: A Guide to Building the Worlds of Your Imagination is our popular how-to book for writers and gamers in which bestselling fantasy author Richard C. White (Gauntlet: Dark Legacy: Paths of Evil, The Chronicles of the Sea Dragon Special, Troubleshooters, Incorporated: Night Stalkings) takes you through the step-by-step process of constructing a world for your characters, from societies and governments to currency and religion. Included is an interview with New York Times bestselling author Tracy Hickman (Dragonlance) that discusses his methods of world building, as well as his creative experiences during his time as a designer for gaming company TSR, the original home of Dungeons & Dragons. In fact, the book is so popular that it’s currently being used as a textbook in the Interactive Media Design program at Becker College in Worchester, Massachusetts!
For a Few Gold Pieces More collects Richard C. White’s fantasy short stories about a Rogue With No Name who travels a world of epic-fantasy adventure, looking for treasure—and revenge against the woman who sent him to prison for a crime he didn’t commit (but she did). Think Lord of the Rings meets the “spaghetti Westerns” of director Sergio Leone (A Fistful of Dollars; The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly). It’s “entertaining, old-school sword and sorcery, in the tradition of [Fritz Lieber’s] Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser,” according to author Jim C. Hines of the Magic ex Libris book series, and we at SWC couldn’t agree more!
Harbinger of Darkness is Rich’s third title, and his first original novel for SWC. In it, a thief named Perrin steals an extremely valuable—and magical—gem from the evil king ruling her home country. With thugs and fellow thieves and the king’s assassins hot on her trail, Perrin finds just staying alive is becoming a full-time occupation, which directly conflict with her secret life—and identity—as a humble bookseller’s daughter. It’s sword-swinging adventure at its finest!
You can also obtain our Saga of Pandora Zwieback young adult novels, Blood Feud and Blood Reign—written by yours truly, Steven A. Roman. You know how popular young adult books are these days, don’t you? Well, here’s another series your patrons might be interested in!
Pan is a 16-year-old Goth girl who’s spent the last decade being treated for mental health problems because she can see monsters. It’s only after she meets an immortal monster hunter named Annie that Pan discovers she’s never been ill—her so-called “monstervision” is actually a supernatural gift that allows her to see into Gothopolis, the not-so-mythical shadow world that exists right alongside the human world. You’ll find Pan battling her own brand of evil dead in the following titles:
Blood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1: This critically acclaimed novel isthe beginning of Pan’s story, explaining how she, her parents and friends, and Annie are drawn into a conflict among warring vampire clans searching for the key to an ultimate weapon (or so the legend goes)—a key that just so happens to have been delivered to the horror-themed museum owned by Pan’s father. It’s a character-driven action-fest that leads immediately into the second novel:
Blood Reign: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 2: Pan and Annie face even greater challenges as the vampire clans draw up plans to go to war with humanity. Leading the charge is a fallen angel named Zaqiel, whose previous attempt at subjugating the world was stopped by Annie—who, back in the day, was Zaqiel’s lover!
So if you’re a librarian interested in adding those titles to your digital bookshelves, head over to Axis360 or OverDrive and place your order today!
Women in Horror Month is here again, that annual celebration that shines the spotlight on the contributions of all the female creators—writers, artists, movie directors, producers, special makeup artists, special effects experts, etc.—who’ve brought thrills and chills to generations of fans around the world.
There’s also the Illustrated Classic 
Today is Take Your Child to the Library Day. Founded in 2011 by children’s librarian Nadine Lipman, the annual event is held the first Saturday in February and encourages librarians to reach out to their communities and show folks just how wonderful reading can be.
Are you a horror fan? (I certainly hope so, given the site you’re currently visiting!) Well, over at the Pandora Zwieback blog—you know, the site for our resident teenaged Goth monster fighter who stars in novels I write—there are a couple of posts you might want to check out.
How amazing is this? It was in 1989, thirty years ago this very month, that StarWarp Concepts’ first leading lady of horror—the soul-stealing succubus, Lorelei—made her comic book debut in the pages of the digest-sized Lorelei One-Shot Special. To celebrate the occasion, we’ve got some exciting releases and events coming this year that you Lori fans are sure to enjoy:
Then in September comes 
Vampires of the Void
He picked a magazine off the coverlet which showed an incredibly endowed young woman in a skintight costume who was sucking the blood of a young man…. The name of the magazine—and of the young woman, apparently—was Vampirella.—Stephen King, ’Salem’s Lot
So why are we so excited about this momentous occasion? Well, if you read yesterday’s post about our publishing plans this year, you know it’s because we have a project in the works that ties directly into Vampi’s anniversary. (What, you thought I was just gonna plug some other publisher’s character for no reason? You should know me better than that by now!)
Lorelei Halloween Special #1 by Steven A. Roman, Eliseu Gouveia, and Steve Geiger: 2019 is also Lorelei’s 30th anniversary, and to celebrate the occasion the creative team behind the critically acclaimed graphic novel 
Tales to Sorta Tremble By, edited by Steven A. Roman: During the 1950s, comic book publishers were required to include text pages in their releases if they wanted their publications to meet U.S. postal requirements as magazines. They solved this problem by running mini prose stories, one to two pages in length, in the comics—including the horror ones. Tales to Sorta Tremble By collects 13 of those stories, with subjects ranging from vampires and werewolves to evil killer plants and mean-tempered zombies.
I’m takin’ care of business
Chasing Danger: The Case Files of Theron Chase by Richard C. White: The popular author of Terra Incognito: A Guide to Building the Worlds of Your Imagination, Harbinger of Darkness, and For a Few Gold Pieces More takes a walk on the noirish side of dark urban fantasy with this collection of stories starring a private eye whose clientele are of the supernatural kind—werewolves, mer-folk, and the like. Think Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe meets Lev Grossman’s The Magicians—with all the strangeness that goes with it!
Blood & Iron: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 3 by Steven A. Roman: The conclusion to Pan’s first epic literary adventure brings to a head all the action from the previous novels, Blood Feud and Blood Reign. Trapped on an island of monsters and fallen angels, what can she, her maybe-kinda new boyfriend (they’re still working on the details) Javier, and their immortal-shape-shifting, monster-hunting mentor, Annie, do to prevent a horrorpocalypse? Is that even a word? Will Pan live long enough to consult a dictionary? Do they have dictionaries on monster isle? Guess we’ll all find out!
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