Dorchester Announces Partnership with NetGalley

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

DORCHESTER PUBLISHING ANNOUNCES PARTNERSHIP WITH NETGALLEY

New York, NY/ February 21, 2011–Dorchester Publishing announced today that they will use NetGalley to deliver digital galleys and other promotional materials to reviewers, bloggers, educators, media, booksellers, and other professional readers.

Dorchester plans to utilize NetGalley’s services to establish an environmentally friendly and cost effective approach to galley distribution. NetGalley will enable Dorchester to share protected, searchable digital galleys with a significantly wider audience. Building off of their long established network of reviewers and bloggers, Dorchester will also be offering their digital galleys to NetGalley’s 19,500 plus members.

NetGalley’s services are device agnostic: they can be uploaded on a wide range of devices, including the Barnes and  Noble Nook, Amazon Kindle, Borders Kobo, Sony Reader, and the reader’s own desktop. NetGalley registration is simple and free. In an effort to protect the value of their author’s works, Dorchester’s titles will only be available as a DRMd file.

Dorchester’s signature mix of quality Romance, Thriller, Western, and Horror titles will be available for review on Dorchester’s public catalog. Although their catalog will continue to grow in the coming months, the initial launch catalog includes:

A Congregation of Jackals, S. Craig Zahler (November 2010)

The Devil’s Temptress, Laura Navarre (February 2011)

The Lake, Richard Laymon (March 2011)

Wired, Liz Maverick (March 2011)

Showers of Gold, Zane Grey (March 2011)

The Range Queen, Jane Candia Coleman (March 2011)

Spirit, Graham Masterton (April 2011)

The Grail King, Joy Nash (April 2011)

Dark Legacy, Anna DeStefano (August 2009)

Secret Legacy, Anna DeStefano (May 2011)

The Bonaparte Secret, Gregg Loomis (May 2011)

About Dorchester Publishing

Founded in 1971, Dorchester became the oldest independent mass-market publisher in the U.S., and the only mass-market house with dedicated lines for Westerns and horror. Dorchester has always been a company that’s willing to take risks. Recently they’ve made the exciting transition from mass-market to trade paperback and e-book formats. Dorchester is proud to be at the forefront of the change in the industry to a more digital base readership while we continue to publish our signature genre fiction.  For almost 40 years Dorchester’s dedicated staff has worked tirelessly to discover and promote new talent. The romance line has built such stars as Christine Feehan, Katie MacAlister, Connie Mason, Lynsay Sands, and numerous others. Dorchester books have won awards for every category in which they’re eligible and have been featured in The New York Times, Newsweek, USA Today, Redbook, Time, CNN, The Los Angeles Times and many more.

Firebrand Technologies (www.firebrandtech.com) provides steadfast leadership and seamless information flow throughout the publishing process. Firebrand’s Title Management Enterprise Software tracks titles from pre-acquisition through post-production, marketing and sales; our Eloquence Metadata Services are the fastest, most accurate and cost-effective way to implement ONIX. With Content Services, publishers manage, store, convert and distribute final book content for discovery and sales. NetGalley delivers digital galleys to professional readers; our Ecommerce Solutions help deliver direct-to-consumer sales and landing pages.

Contact: Hannah Wolfson, hwolfson@dorchesterpub.com

What’s more romantic than a 4-book Sony bundle?

Nothing, that’s what. Except perhaps a half-naked Adonis serving you Champagne and Bavarian-imported chocolate on a remote desert island in the Pacific…at sunset…and an imminent proposal on the horizon (your dream engagement ring, of course). Well, a 4-book bundle makes a solid second.

Available exclusively on Sony for $9.96, you save over 60%!

Lady Jane’s Salon: A Hidden NY Gem

It’s difficult to be “the first” to establish anything in New York: Ray’s pizza. It’s been done…about 4,000 times. Want to be the first guitar strumming, beret wearing, harmonica playing, tap dancing performer on the street? Someone’s got that covered. Looking to set a world record in Manhattan? Check first…even the most obscure records have been set (most people running in stilettos world record set in NY ). Well you get the picture.

New York may be a city of seconds, thirds, fourths, and fifths, but it’s the firsts that keep people coming back. One of my favorite “firsts” is Lady Jane’s Salon, Manhattan’s FIRST reading series devoted solely to romance fiction. Founded by romance authors Maya Rodale, Hope Tarr, blogger Ron Hogan, and Dorchester’s own Leanna Renee Hieber, Lady Jane’s Salon is dedicated to sharing quality romance fiction (and cocktails!) with New York’s voracious romance community. Founded in February 2009, the Salon just celebrated Her Ladyship’s second anniversary in grand style this past Monday. It’s hard to believe that Lady Jane’s has become such an integral part of New York’s romance community in just two years, but alas, it has, and I think it’s safe to say that it will continue to grow.

Scheduled for the first Monday of every month, the Salon is a congregation of romance fans and industry professionals from all over the city. The locale— Madame X, a bordello-style bar that seems perfectly fitting for such an event. Its dim red lighting, plush seating, and dirty drink menu make it an ideal place to indulge in a little romance (fictional or otherwise) after a long Monday at work. As the audience sips their drinks, guest authors take the stage one at a time to share excerpts from recent books or upcoming releases. Often by the end of a reading, the room is as quiet as a monastery and one or two audience members can be caught drooling into their champagne glasses. Lady Jane’s authors know how to impress, and they also know just which bits to read to have people scrambling to their feet to buy a copy.

Lady Jane’s boasts a fabulous array of readers: Lauren Willig, Leanna Renee Hieber, Delilah Marvelle, Sarah MacLean, Sabrina Jeffries, Kate Noble, Caridad Ferrer, Courtney Milan, and oh so many others. As author Sabrina Jeffries says, “Getting to read at Lady Jane’s salon is like being voted onto Author Island.” If you’re a romance author, reader, fan, etc., Lady Jane’s Salon is something you need to know about. It’s a true first in Manhattan, and there aren’t too many of those left these days.

Lady Jane’s meets the first Monday of every month from 7-9 at Madame X, 94 West Houston Street. Admission is $5.00 or a gently used romance novel. Cash bar. Proceeds benefit organizations that assist women in need. Click here for more details.

One more reason for Romance fans to love e-readers

People Magazine's Best and Worst of 2010

The covers of romance books get a pretty bad rep, for good reason. The common cover is graced by a shirtless, wavy haired, muscle-rippling manly man and a long-haired beauty with either a limb immodestly peeking from her 18^th century gown or a minuscule corset revealing a little too much. They’re passionate in the cheesiest of ways. Yet this hasn’t seemed to stop readers from buying them over the years.

What romance genre publishers like Dorchester are waiting to see is if the privacy of e-readers will prompt more people to buy romance novels. Will the shy readers of the world feel less embarrassed now that they don’t have to worry about their covers giving them away? It seems that the answer is yes. According to The New York Times, the romance genre is currently the fastest-growing segment of the e-reading market. Barnes and Noble made a special “romance store” for the Nook color. Romance sales are skyrocketing across the e-marketplace. Publishers are even anticipating that romance e-book sales will quickly surpass romance print sales within the year.

It seems romance is currently winning the e-reader race. Who would have thought that something as simple as a cover could have prompted such a change?

Bitten Bundles

There was Dracula, Anne Rice, Interview with a Vampire, Twilight, Vampire Diaries, True Blood, and oh so many others. Are you one of the multitudinous mortals left wanting even more? Well then our Blood Lust bundle is just for you. Including My Wicked Vampire (Nina Bangs), Sunrise in a Garden of Love & Evil (Barbara Monajem), Sacrament (Susan Squires), and Embrace the Night (Amanda Ashley), there’s more than enough in this bundle to satiate your vampiric desires.

Bundled exclusively on Sony. At $9.96, you save over 60%! So go ahead and treat yourself to something dark and sweet this Valentine’s Day.

  Sale ends February 21st.

Sneak Peek at The Devil’s Temptress by Laura Navarre

“Historical romance has a new champion—Laura Navarre! The Devil’s Temptress is historical romance at its finest—sumptuous, seductive, and thrilling. Alienore and the Raven are exactly the passionate, larger-than-life characters I love to read about.” —Nancy Holder, New York Times Bestselling Author of Wicked and Crusade

 

Excerpt from

The Devil’s Temptress

By Laura Navarre

(February 2011 e-book release, August 2011 trade release)

She had managed to elude the queen’s jailer all day, but Alienore feared her luck was about to turn. When the queen insisted she attend this frivolous revel, Eleanor of Aquitaine had thrown her to the wolves.

Resigned, she stationed herself in an alcove to await Sir Guy. Then the shifting crowd parted like the Red Sea before Moses. Slowly she lifted her gaze, and saw him.

By his height she knew him, a colossus casting his blade-straight shadow across the flagstones. By his sinuous grace she recalled him, stalking toward her across the tourney field.

Not for him the courtiers’ costumed frippery—unless he came as descending Night. He drew her gaze over his forbidding frame, starkly clad in a black surcoat. A belt of hammered bronze, knotted at his hips, divided the darkness. But his face made her tingle, head to foot, with the lightning charge of wariness.

Swarthy as a Saracen, with aquiline features, sharp planed and cruel, he was beautiful as her father’s sword: lethal and humming with contained violence. Amber eyes burned beneath drooping lids; bitter disappointment had carved lines around his mouth. The jagged seam of an old scar sliced from his ear to his shaven jaw. His mane of ink black hair poured over powerful shoulders to slither around his hips.

Dismayed, she stared into his exotic countenance as a feverish shiver raced through her. She had been waiting for him all her life—but that was utter nonsense. She mistrusted this dangerous excess of emotion, and anchored herself against the black knight’s pull.

How does she manage it? The Raven groped after his scattered wits. Lady Alienore did nothing to command attention, but stood before a hundred eyes with dignity and the queen’s own poise. Now a frisson of response sizzled through him as the blade of her gaze pierced him.

 He stared into her wide gray eyes, darkening with storm clouds of anger and alarm. I know those eyes, he realized, incredulous. They belonged to the masked knight—the knight he’d left sprawled in the mud that morning. The knight he’d thought for a fleeting second was a woman, before he dismissed the instinct.

Allah save him, he was a fool! Who else would defend the Rievaulx girl, with her dubious reputation?

Richard of Aquitaine strode forward to stake his claim. Clenching his fists, the Raven fought an impulse to haul Alienore of Lyonstone bodily away from her lusting prince, haul her into his own arms. He wanted to demand what in hell she thought she was about, masquerading as a knight on the tourney field. He could have killed her before he knew her!

Grimly he mastered his jostling emotions, and girded himself with an armor of calm. He would not reveal that he knew her secret. Why should he? For all he lacked a courtier’s charm, women seemed to find him appealing enough. Let her swoon into his arms as her damned cousin had done, and the battle would be halfway won.

Alienore swam up from her curtsey before Richard of Aquitaine—the queen’s lion-faced heir. Costumed as the Sun, he blazed in crimson, tongues of flame leaping from the crown over his ruddy hair. Larger than life, he eclipsed lesser mortals, yet somehow she had overlooked him until his jocular voice boomed out.

“My demoiselle, you are the evening star, throwing radiance over the mortal world.” Richard kissed her cold fingers.

“Your Grace, I am Athena. Surely that is evident.”

She battled a familiar rush of impatience for the court’s empty compliments, while the outcast knight hovered on the edge of vision, marking her every word and gesture.

To the prince she said, “I am given to understand you are newly knighted. ’Tis a very great honor.”

Even at barely sixteen, three years her junior, Richard of Aquitaine possessed his mother’s subtlety. His piercing gaze saw past plaisance, and he barked out a laugh.

“Poor Alienore! Already chafing to return to your duties? Tonight you’re mine, to do with as I will.”

She flushed beneath the words, uttered before the Raven’s sleepy gaze. Would the black knight recognize the champion who’d defied him? Unlike others at court, she had never been crafty at concealment. The lodestone of his presence drew her eyes up, to meet the burning cinders of his gaze.

 “Ah.” Richard scowled. “You recall me to my duty. I promised an introduction for monsieur. Sieur Le Corbeau is our new master-at-arms…for a time.”

She itched to give this Raven the cut direct, but churlishness ill became an earl’s daughter.  After a palpable delay, she offered an unwilling hand. “I am the queen’s privy chancellor. In her name, I must bid you well come.”

She would bid him well come in the queen’s name, but never her own—this wretch who’d left her lying in the mud!

“You’re Alienore of Lyonstone.” The Raven’s sword-toughened fingers closed around her hand.

From the minstrels’ corner, the clash of tambours underscored his rasping voice, hinting at old injury to his throat. Somehow, she found it not unpleasant. An exotic aroma curled in her nostrils: musk and sandalwood. A shiver rippled up her spine as he bent over her, night black hair spilling forward to tickle her hand.

“My lady,” he rasped with his ruined voice. “I’ve waited long for this.”

“Indeed?” She spoke in her chancellor’s voice. “Have you business with the queen? I should warn you. Unlike others, I am hers before I am any man’s.”

“Be at ease, lady. I’m no grasping courtier, come to plead your support with Eleanor.”

He raised her hand to his lips. A shocking heat arced through her.

“In that case, monsieur, what is your business here?”

“Why, lady,” he whispered. “My business is you.”

John Skipp Kickstarts the Undead

John Skipp, Dorchester horror author extraordinaire, is raising money in style for his upcoming film, Rose. Skipp’s official press release (below) divulges all the juicy details of the live action film, his Kickstarter program, and—you guessed it—zombie walks.

KICKSTARTING THE UNDEAD:

SKIPP TAKES “ROSE” TO THE ZOMBIE-WALKING STREETS

“Big buck investors come and go, but the audience for cool zombie entertainment is incredibly loyal, and staggeringly huge.” So says bestselling horror legend John Skipp, who is taking an unusual grassroots approach to funding his much-anticipated 3D zombie puppet musical extravaganza, Rose.

Rose — think Pee Wee’s Playhouse meets Night of the Living Dead — is the story of Rose (newcomer Chase McKenna), a hot machete-juggling ex-mental patient with a cable access puppet show, who becomes an unlikely hero of the zombie apocalypse.  “Mixing hardcore horror and wacky Bizarro is what it makes it fun,” he says. “Its abnormality is its strength.”

So on Monday, Skipp launched a 45-day campaign on the popular website Kickstarter, with the goal of raising $250,000 for the live action feature. He is appealing, in particular, to the thousands of Zombie Walk groups around the world, by offering incentives that include using actual zombie walk footage in the film.

Kickstarter is a site devoted to audience-funded creative projects of all shapes and sizes.In the case of Rose, a $1 pledge gets your name listed (“Visibly listed,” Skipp stresses) in the “Special Thanks” portion of the credit roll. $1,000 gets you an Associate Producer credit. Other incentives range from books, personal thank-you calls or Skype conversations to signed copies of the screenplay, set visits, active zombie participation, and Skipp actually flying to your town, in order to do live commentary on a screening in your own home.

“I got invited to a Facebook group called ‘The Zombie Apocalypse,’” Skipp says, “in which over 400,000 people signed up to say, yes, if the zombie apocalypse happens, I will definitely be attending. Several hundred thousand more remain unsure as to whether they’ll show up. I don’t know if that means they think they’ll be already dead, or what.

“But it made me think, ‘Man, one skinny dollar from each of those folks, and we could make this movie twice!’ And I think Kickstarter’s an amazing model for funding wildly original projects that mainstream Hollywood wouldn’t touch. And those, of course, are the films we need most.”

The campaign ends on Feb. 24, while the team  — including producer Jane Hamilton (Parasomnia) and Almost Human FX  (Quarantine, The Crazies) – gets prepped for production. For more information, interviews, and inspiration, go to:

http://www.kickstarter.com/e/mFx4j/projects/1676362079/john-skipps-rose-the-3d-zombie-puppet-musical