I first got a taste of Billy Young’s writing in October 2008 when I read his book Banshee Angel of Judgement. Having been an avid fan of horror in high school, I still enjoy the occasional read that can send shivers up my spine. Mr. Young has a talent for not falling into horror stereotypes where it’s easy to guess who will die first and who won’t die at all. His writing also appealed to me because he actually concentrates on building a strong plot rather than focusing on the fear factor of the story. His latest book, Bublos, is no different.
Bublos traces the journey of a hidden scroll from t
Last month, in our first edition of Book Synthesis, we discussed the first few pages of the front matter of your book: the first blank page, the title page, and how to format both the front and back of these pages. This month we’re moving forward just a few pages and discussing the copyright page and the table of contents. Obviously, the copyright page is a must for your book, and a table of contents if completely optional.
Joseph Pfeiffer’s book has been on my reading list since he queried us last December. After reading it, I’d love to save it for a Father’s Day review because the book would be very appropriate for that time, but I didn’t want to make the author wait another four months to read my review. That being said, take note of this book because it would actually make a great Father’s Day gift.
Having been impressed with Ken McConnell’s first book, Starstrikers, I was more inclined to give his next book, Null_Pointer, a look. But after reading the blurb and the preview, I was immediately impressed with the subject matter and anxious to read it regardless of how much I enjoyed his first work.
I have to admit that I’m not usually a fan of historical fiction that takes place in time of war. Battle scenes and descriptions of armory bore me, but I decided to give Luke Jackson’s book, The Wrong Choice, a read mainly because I’ve been researching the Civil War a lot lately for a project of my own. I thought reading something else from that genre might help or inspire me.
Just this week, The New Podler emailed me asking for my participation in A Symposium: The Function of Self-Publishing at the Present Time:
The publishing industry is undergoing change in how books are delivered. It is not unreasonable to presume that in a decade electronic devices such as the Apple tablet or the Kindle will be the premiere platforms delivering text to millions of readers. On the other end of the spectrum there is the democratization of the publishing process itself. Once reserved only to a chosen few, publishing has become available to anyone wishing to publish his or her book either through traditional means or as an ebook.
In November 2008, we posted a list of “book boo boos” that we commonly see in self-published books. To this day, we still see a number of mistakes and formatting problems in previews of books and proofs we are considering for review. Authors who are new to this are still not seeking out assistance or doing research when it comes to putting their best book forward. That’s why I decided to start a monthly post which I’m calling “Book Synthesis.” Synthesis is defined as “the combining of the constituent elements of separate material or abstract entities into a single or unified entity.” In book terms, those elements are your title page, copyright page, table of contents, dedication page, body of text, etc. which all together make up your single book.
With no preview and a descriptive blurb consisting of only two sentences on Lulu, I took a chance on reading and reviewing Stephan Zimmermann and Bill House’s very short published work, The Dogwood Murders. It’s definitely a chance I’m glad I took as this is a very nice short story, and being that is probably it’s only drawback. It’s so good that it’s a shame that it is so short. This could definitely be developed into a nice novella or longer piece of work. I see it working great in a collection of similar short stories, that had I read, this particular story would have definitely stuck out with me.
Recently, Mario Lurig, the creator of NovelRank, left a comment on LLBR and added all of our reviewer’s books to his site. Mario’s site tracks your book’s sales on Amazon, and his service is free. It’s a great tool for authors and Mario is always posting lots of useful information on the blog portion of his site. Look for a post later today highlighting the “best and worst of Lulu.” We caught up with Mario to learn more about NovelRank and how it works.
It is ironic, is it not, how everything seems so poetic in death, yet we rarely see the poetry in life?
I couldn’t think of a more truer statement than this, spoken by a God-like king on the first page of Cheryl Anne Gardner’s book, The Splendor of Antiquity. True, we’d expect our Gods to say such profound things and the narrator of this book does not disappoint with such expectations. After all, he has been dead for centuries and our lead female, an archaeologists named Joliette Deneauve, is about to dig him up.
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If so, we'd love to hear from you. LLBR is looking to add a few more reviewers to its team. Email us at llbookreview@gmail.com for details.
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