This is a fantastic guest post by author of the Foundations Series. I have read the first book and love it. It is a sci-fi/fantasy book that rivals most of what I have read in the past. The book is engaging, the characters interesting, and it would be a great book to use in a classroom to teach social structure, equality issues and many more topics. I am happy to review books, and love that I have this opportunity. Thank you to author Holly Barbo for writing such a wonderful book, and posting such a sweet post for all of us book bloggers. We love reviewing great books, and this is truly a great book!
Guest Post
To understand why I love you guys so much I need to give you some backstory. Seven years ago in the shadow time before the latest economic slump and the arrival of the e-reader, the publishing world was a much different place. The big six publishing houses in New York were the only beacons of hope for a book. The lighthouse gate keepers were the literary agents. They screened what was offered by authors and the chosen manuscripts were edited and groomed then peddled to the publishers. Those books picked up by the big six had contracts and book tours.
The financial world started to change in 2007 and by the fall of 2008 banking had altered. Credit lines had always been necessary for businesses to operate and bridge the gap between the time when cash went out for printing or book distribution and when profits came in from book sales. That safety net was cut or greatly reduced and with the cash deprivation publishing houses turned to their crystal balls, polishing them up and squinting hard, not looking at what was fresh and new but at known sellers. The air around those fortune telling globes became rank with the old stale incense of past glories. No fresh air was let in to clear the stagnating miasma.
Outside the closed halls of the publishing institutions the winds of change began to build in a force fueled by the fluttering of millions of pages of new manuscripts and the cries of consumers for original stories to consume. In the whirlwind came innovation. 2009 and 2010 brought us e-book readers, self-publishing espresso machines and indie presses which changed those unknown stories into books...and here is where you lovely people play such an important part in this new world. There are no city-to-city book tours or ads on TV for these dewy fresh books. You are the voices carried by the wind that are heard by others. Each reader, blogger and book tour gives honest expression and interest of how you feel about our stories. It is your viral exclamation that spreads the word. We don’t have the old paradigm. We have you and nothing can stop your voice. I think you are marvelous!
