At The Dot
April 2012
Contents
Announcements
Amazon Kindle Update
10 Reasons To Cross The Moat: New Anthology
Staff Promotions And Announcements
New Releases From Sam's Dot
Coming Attractions!
Thank you so much for visiting us again. As always, we try to make our newsletter enjoyable, and we hope you find it so with this April 2012 edition.
Announcements
Whether you are among those who believe this year will last 356 days or you hold that this will be a standard leap year of 366 days, we at Sam's Dot hope it is a good one right up through the very last minute of it.
If you have anything to announce regarding releases of publications, market listings, anything to do with the genres we publish, and you would like to have that presented here, please e-mail Sam's Dot at sdpshowcase at yahoo dot com [you'll have to combine the address, we're trying to despamify], and we'll get it mentioned here.
The link to At The Dot is http://www.samsdotpublishing.com/atthedot.htm. Please pass this around to everyone on your friends lists, and invite them to stop by and see what we're all about.
Sam's Dot Publications may now be purchased from the SDP Bookstore at http://sdpbookstore.com. Just a reminder . . . and a hint.
Sam's Dot Publications are also available as eBooks from https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/samsdot. We're adding titles each week.
Announcements
As a reminder, you may recall that Terrie Leigh Relf's The Waters Of Nyr was published last year by SDP. Well, she's writing a sequel, and she has developed a contest wherein you might be able to win a spot as a character in that sequel. She gave me a contest link, and here it is, so go check it out. http://www.appleseedhosting.com/tlr/2011/12/19/win-a-character-spot-in-beacon-lights-of-ranat-the-sequel-to-the-waters-of-nyr/
A wager has been placed that I could not sensibly use the word "obfuscation" in a sentence. You lose, Big D. Next time at Baskin-Robbins, you're buying.
Where Is Cosmic Crime Stories?
Vast and enormous apologies. It's a bit late. We're going to try to have it out by May. We had some submission reading glitches. Nothing to worry about. Incidentally, the publication is becoming popular. It was a best-seller at MystiCon and at MidSouthCon recently.
Amazon Update
Some of our titles are now available from Amazon on Kindle [as well as in print!]. Here is a list of what is available as of 1 April 2012:
Broken Legacy
Cover Of Darkness #8
The G.O.D. Factor
Horror At Cold Springs
Minion Of Evil
Nyx: Malache
Nyx: Mystere
Nyx: The Protectors
A Problem In Translation
Red Moon Rising
Sea At Mughain
Shelter Of Daylight #6
Shelter Of Daylight #7
The Spell Keeper
Veil of Whispers
Walking Like Morpheus
The Waters Of Nyr
Z Is For Xenophobe
10 Reasons To Cross The Moat--
a new anthology from Sam's Dot
The guidelines are still up! The editors are Katie Hartlove [of Potter's Field 4 fame] and Sylvan Bree Baker [frequent contributor to Beyond Centauri]. We are looking for SF and fantasy short stories inspired by the title of the anthology. We will consider a few pieces of poetry as well. Those planning to write stories should keep in mind that the moat can be crossed in either direction: into the castle, or out of it. Also keep in mind that moats also encircle cities. The link below takes you to the guidelines.
http://samsdotpublishing.com/MoatGL.htm
Staff Promotions & Announcements
For some time now we have been looking at ways to upgrade and expand our brand. This ongoing process will achieve some fruition--we hope--in the upcoming two months. We'll try to keep the spare lumber and tools and scaffolds out of your way.
For this month, there are two major announcements. First, the new editor for Cover of Darkness is Herika R. Raymer, and deservedly so. Terrie Leigh Relf serves now as Poetry Editor for COD. Additionally, Cover of Darkness is now officially a quarterly publication, with issues scheduled for release in March, June, September, and December. Subscriptions are available through www.sdpbookstore.com, and we hope you will avail yourselves of them. New guidelines are being posted to reflect these changes. We urge you to check them out, even if you think you have them memorized, just to be sure you know what we want.
The second major announcement involves Shelter of Daylight. Terrie Leigh Relf is now the Editor for Shelter of Daylight. The publication will remain semi-annual for now, with releases in Spring and Autumn.
New Releases From SDP
Beyond Centauri, April 2012
This is Issue #36 of this highly successful science fiction and fantasy magazine for younger readers. In addition to the usual adventure stories, this issue features Part 11 of the serial Pyra and the Tektites, and Part 3 of the serial An Encounter in Egypt. Cover artist Bill Tracer makes his first appearance on our covers. It's time to order your copy--or better yet, a subscription--today.
Shelter of Daylight, Spring 2012
Shelter of Daylight is a biannual digest of science fiction and fantasy. This edition includes the ghosts of an alien species who seek one more chance at the stars; the secret of a chambermaid's room; a new relationship between computers and people; the Loch Ness monster; and much more!
Drabbler 20
The theme for Drabble Contest #20 was "Deathbed Confessions," and from cover to cover this issue is filled with the off-beat, the awry, and the downright strange. Teresa Tunaley of the Canary Islands provided the cover art, which rather speaks for itself and the entire issue. Come get the latest entry in this long-standing series.
Minion Of Evil, by Shannon Ryan
David Graves is having a bad life. A bill collector is threatening grievous bodily harm. His girlfriend thinks he’s an incompetent loser. His human resources manager, a creature of nightmare, is sexually harassing him. His Satanist bosses have tricked him into signing a contract that dooms him to an eternity of telemarketing. And, when he finally meets a girl he likes, she's more interested in rebuilding transmissions and random acts of violence.
Can David escape his evil bosses, win the heart of a wrench-wielding psychopath, and—just maybe—save his soul?
Crop Circles by Jacob Henry Orloff
Signs and portents of the supernatural, extra-terrestrial, and paranormal abound around us, if only we understood what we were seeing. Jacob Orloff understands. He's been there. Some say he's still there. Fortunately, his transmissions have gotten through, and have been placed in this volume. Think of it as a novel of a sequence of events. It has a hint of Lovecraft, and a hint of Ghost Whisperer, and hints of things we try not to think about, because if we think about them, they will become real. So read this novel carefully, and don't say the words out loud.
Gray World: Stealing Fire, by Simon Vigneault
Faider unraveled the codes driving the whirling storms of an ancient artificial sun. He now spends his days in bitter self-destruction, staring at that arcane sun whose abundance is maddeningly out of reach, due to the blindness of the very people paying him to find access to it. Adriana hasn't given up on Faider. She silently rebels for them both, against the Sun Cage boxing in his spirit, is covertly bending its bars for him. But it's up to Faider to step through the gap.
In Westpoint, New Skye, on the dying hope of planet Skaha, a drunken Vagabond is lying unconscious in a park. Once a renowned waveseer, Vagabond has fallen to the depths, knows firsthand, as a failed hypocrite, the full range of human hypocrisy.
Shyfoil, true warrior daughter of Skaha, embraces and knights Vagabond for exactly his convoluted, compromised virtues. In the silence of his eyes she finds solace from the murder in her heart, and through his waveseer skill, which fuses quantum elegance with magical arts, she discovers he is also a worthy ally in espionage.
Together they must decide whether to trust an alien client who would charge them with stealing a most unusual, mathematical fire, and perhaps thereby honor the memory of a dead, gray world.
Sam's Dot Coming Attractions
Sam's Dot has quite a few shots in its locker this year, and here are just a few of those that will make an appearance in the next several months or so. April promises to be very busy, so get those coins ready.
"Voices of the Elders," Shelly Bryant's latest poetry collection, emerging this spring.
"Nibbled To Death," by Craig Wolf, a collection of very off-beat flash fiction whose titles include "Beach Blanket Werewolf" and "Loki Goes Deep."
Slideways, a YA novel by Faith Van Horne. It involves teenagers, Atlantis, a deadly magic spell, and Santorini, the island of the volcano Thera that destroyed the Minoan Civilization. It says YA, but this novel is for everyone. You can buy it in May. Actually, you could probably buy it in late April. Depends on when we get the cover art.
"Jupiter's Eye Redux," a poetry collection by Terrie Leigh Relf, to be released later this summer [the official title has not yet been determined].
"The Terrarium Dragons," by Lori Calkins, a YA novella about, well, dragons found in a terrarium. There's some space travel and telepathy involved. Scheduled for a May release.
The Wild Women Of Redgunk by William Eakin. The University of the Ozarks' most famous professor of philosophy is at it again with adventures whose risque title says it all. Think Jeff Foxworthy meets Area 51 . . . or maybe St. Tropez. Hoped-for release date is around June.
"Origami Stars & Other Tales," a collection of short and pithy fiction by Terrie Leigh Relf, to be released later this summer.
The Ancient One by Terrie Leigh Relf and Henry Louis Sanders. It's the sequel to SDP's best-selling vampire novel Blood Journey. These folks like a lot of blood in their cuisine--a bit like the French in that regard. Looking at a late April release.
"Saving Death," a novella by Angel Favazza, scheduled for a late April release.
There are more . . . but these should whet your whistle.