As detailed in my blog update on August 26th, I have returned to publishing via my imprint Martell Books after having taken a long hiatus in 2015 to focus on Zenither. As detailed in my long essay about Zenither, multiple factors led to road blocks we weren’t able to overcome. As the company possesses significant intellectual property (patents, trademarks, the proprietary software platform, etc) and the company is now focusing on a licensing strategy. This means I have abundant free time, being semi-retired, and I am focusing on releasing my backlog of unpublished non-fiction and other creative works that I had been saving to promote once Zenither was at scale.
Last month I released an illustrated re-release of my novel Pandemonia Chronicles: DAWN and The Book of Chivalric Humanism (a secular humanistic philosophy framework).
This month I have published two original books,
- Manga Fantasy Monster Coloring Book: 54 Illustrations For Kids, Teens and Adults: A coloring book featuring enemy designs from an unreleased game project currently in hiatus.
- The Millennial Gentleman Handbook: A Man’s Guide to a Life of Etiquette, Prosperity and Good Fortune: A guide book for men and young teenage boys discusses the purpose of a man’s life, and instructs in a set of eight virtues that should guide a man’s moral choices in life. Also included are essays about learning the social graces, etiquettes and other useful rules for a life of prosperity, wealth and success. I also included a list of recommended books that I believe all young boys should read before they become of age.
I am also conducting some experiments with the so-called ‘low-content book niche’, publishing a series of notebooks and specialty journals. Some of the currently released titles are,
- Be a Filmmaker Not a Film Major Storyboard Journal
- Top Secret Classified Confidential Password Tracker
- Diva in Training Girl’s Diary Notebook
- It’s Halloween Time Composition Notebook
- Grid Graph Paper Composition Notebook for Role Playing Games
- Nerdy Cat College Ruled Notebook Journal
Each of these covers have interior variation versions, with wide rule paper, college rule paper, primary handwriting paper, diary pages, and so forth. There is actually about 20 or so of these type of notebooks pending approval for Amazon listing, which seems to take about a week to be reviewed and approved. You can find the full list of these type of notebooks by searching for Martell Books on Amazon, if you’re interested in looking at them all.
I am still editing the next installment of the Luther Darkmore Creep World series, and I think I will have it ready for release next month. At present the series’ website is down due to a hacking that damaged the site directory files; the malware has been purged and I just haven’t had a moment to fix the files. So at present, the Amazon series page I linked to just now is the easiest way to find them all.
Lastly, in writing The Millennial Gentleman Handbook‘s Recommended Reading list, I realized there are many books of significance that are long since out of print. Not all of these books made it onto the list I included in the handbook, but as these books are in the public domain and appear to have no high quality versions available (those few that are available have poorly formatted versions uploaded in large volume by KDP spam publishers, using awful and uninspired cover designs), I have decided to devote some time to releasing high quality, well formatted versions of these books with attractive covers for paperback and hard cover. I am calling this re-release of public domain literature and non-fiction works the Martell Classic Books series (seemed the most straight-forward way to go about naming the re-releases)
The first of these titles to be released is The History of Chivalry by George Payne Rainsford James, whose files are already submitted for the listing to be approved and will probably be released within the week. For an idea of the cover design, here is a preview.
If the Martell Classic Books releases prove successful enough, I will look into producing leather bound editions of these titles but for now it will be paperback and hardback editions using designs something like this. I am considering developing a color code system for different genres, but some titles will have wholly unique covers designed to mimic the original first edition printings.
I have spent a day organizing a list of around 150 titles for the Martell Classic Books series into a spreadsheet, the vast majority of which is non-fiction. There are about five titles I think really need to be re-inserted into circulation as paperbacks, so I am going to get those released over the next week or two, and then work on releasing my own manuscripts again. I will then release new volumes in the classic books series as time allows.
