Lorina Stephens's Blog, page 83

Seven Book Agreement with Paul Lima

This morning Five Rivers reached an agreement to publish seven books by well-known Toronto-based freelance writer, Paul Lima.  In January 2009, Five Rivers released Lima's How to Write a Non-fiction Book in 60 Days. To date it has gone on to sell almost 700 copies in Canada, the US and UK, and has constitently held the top 100 spot in its category on both UK and Canadian Amazon sites. It is available through online booksellers in both print and eBook format globally, direct from Five Rivers, ...

Five Rivers' Submission Guidelines

Some of you have asked about submission guidelines at Five Rivers. The guidelines can easily be found on our website at http://www.5rivers.org/contents/en-ca/d89.html, but in the interest of clarity I'm posting them here for you.
Five Rivers Chapmanry is a micro-publisher of fiction and non-fiction, catering to new Canadian authors. We employ print on demand technologies as part of responsible management of environmental and financial resources by printing only the books required, rather than ...

The Amazon/Macmillan fracas: the flaw in both arguments

As many of you know by now publishing world giants Amazon and Macmillan fired salvos at each other over the weekend, resulting in authors, pundits, corporate captains, and the public tossing about comments, criticisms and invectives.
To synopsise, as I view it, Amazon had its corporate knickers in a knot over Macmillan's pricing policy (eBook prices over $9.99.), and yanked Macmillan's titles from their online catalogue. Macmillan responded, as did its authors and the world, that Amazon...

On Writing by Stephen King

On Writing: A memoir of the Craft
By Stephen King 297pp.

Review by Robert Runté

I've been an academic and editor for 30 years, but am now working on my first novel. Two-thirds of the way through, I felt the need for a little moral support, so ordered a shelf of books on writing from Amazon.ca. This one happened to be on top of the stack when I went on holidays and needed something for the plane.

The book quite surprised me: the first 94 and last 19 pages are in fact autobiography, which is certai...

Amazon vs Macmillan

A very cogent analysis of the current fight between Macmillan (one of the major American publishers) and Amazon that has Amazon removing ALL of Macmillian's titles from its "shelves" is presented by author Charles Stross. Stross is mostly focused on the fate of the large commercial legacy publishers here, but in an aside points out that if monster corporations like Macmillan can't take on Amazon, micropresses like ours and self-publishers will have to accept any terms Amazon cares to dictate...

Stephens demonstrates mastery of distopian/strange fiction

A reader review of And the Angels Sang appeared last week on LibraryThing, which was cross-posted to Amazon.com. We thought we'd share.

Lorina Stephens demonstrates mastery of distopian/strange fiction, sci-fi, and fantasy in this recent seventeen story anthology. Although many pieces are previously published, shorter unpublished works such as 'Protector', 'The Gift', and 'Zero Mile' are captivating looks at phenomena just on the edge of our current reality - while longer pieces such as the...

Eric Orchard to create cover for new YA novel by Simon Rose

There's a great deal of celebration at Five Rivers, and much of it has to do with the fact we've reached an agreement with Eric Orchard, to create the cover illustration for Simon Rose's new young adult novel, Flashback .

Eric's work has to be some of the most dynamic, quirky, original art we've come across in decades. His style has the ability to cross boundaries, to speak to both innocence and darkness, reminiscent of 19th century pen and ink, and woodcuts, with something else quite unique...

Prix Aurora Awards now open for nominations

Canada's Prix Aurora Awards are now open for nominations. Our own Lorina Stephens' fantasy novel, From Mountains of Ice, is eligible for nomination. You can easily make your nomination online at the Prix Aurora website, at http://www.prixaurorawards.ca/English/AwardProcess/nominationVoting.htm

The Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Awards ("the Auroras") have been presented annually since 1980 with the exception of 1984. The name Aurora has been officially in use since 1991.

The primary...

Why so many divisions on the website?

We seem to be asked that quite a bit recently: why so many divisions on Five Rivers' website? Some people seem to think it looks unprofessional to have several seemingly unrelated businesses lumped into one website. Others think it displays a lack of commitment. Allow us to illuminate the subject.

Five Rivers is a family owned and operated business dedicated to the pursuit of excellence and individualism. Our partners, Gary and Lorina Stephens, each pursue their own visions under Five Rivers' ...

Settling into 2010

It would seem 2010 is going to be about change, new frontiers and the realization of dreams, at least if the first four days of this new year are any indication.

The year here started out very much on a personal note, with a somewhat sudden decision to launch into a full-blown kitchen renovation, precipitated by a Christmas gift of a new dishwasher. The dishwasher wouldn't fit the old (c. 1960) cupboards and counter, which meant removal of old and installation of new cabinets and counter...