A Unique Joint Venture with PRG & OWI
Interview by A.J. Alexander
Scott Coatsworth is undoubtedly no stranger to us, ‘au contraire,’ as the French say. He belongs to our PRG family, is an author member, and is our very appreciated Webmaster! We don’t know what we would do without him.
However, today is not only about PRG or Scott but also about Scott, OWI (Other Worlds Ink), and our collaboration.
We are sure you, our members, have noticed some small changes on our website. These changes are a subtle way to modernize without bringing chaos into our looks and organization. Scott plays a prominent role in these changes. His expertise and knowledge allow us to ‘upgrade’ without losing our services to our members.
While working with him, we realized that PRG and its members can not only work with Scott as our webmaster. There is more!
Scott and his husband, Mark, are the proud owners of Other Worlds Ink, an online business offering author services that we consider could be useful to our members and the perfect supplement to the PRG membership.
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First, thank you for answering my questions and agreeing to be our featured guest on the PRG Blog today.
OWI is an online book promotion service. Where does it start; what kind of promotion do you offer?
We offer a bunch of different things. Personally, I do cover wraps – that is, I create full paperback covers, usually from existing eBook covers, so if you have an eBook you are planning to release in paperback, I can help with that.
I also format books using the Vellum app. It lets me create beautiful book files for Amazon, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Google Plus, Print, and more. Although it’s limited in a few respects compared with a powerful layout program like Adobe InDesign, I’ve learned to get the most out of it and can handle most requests.
Both of those services are here on the OWI website:
Mark and I also run several writing-related sites and offer a range of other free and paid options to get the word out about your book. All of those options are here:
https://www.otherworldsink.com/other-promo-opportunities/
What services does OWI offer that would be an excellent addition to what PRG offers our members? What is your recommendation?
We work closely with PRG on reviews – the guild reviewers pick up a number of our books, and the reviews are posted on the PRG site and on the appropriate OWI sites. We also have our own stable of reviewers. So if your book is queer romance, queer spec fic, or general spec fic, submit it here for consideration:
Of course, I know you from PRG, but also from the Blog Tours OWI offers its customers. What is a blog tour exactly, and how does it help with a book promotion?
Mark handles our blog tours—think book tours, but instead of going from city to city, your work appears on a bunch of related blogs, usually for a 3- or 7-day period.
What genres does OWI promote? If I remember correctly, the website says that it’s mainly romance. Is there a limit or a genre you would rather not accept?
So our strengths are:
QueeRomance.com: queer romance titles (all genres) and books with a queer relationship of some sort, even if the book is not technically a romance. We cast a pretty wide net.
QueerSciFi.com: Despite the name, we accept all spec fic – sci-fi, fantasy, paranormal, and horror – as long as the story has queer characters.
LimFic.com: Liminal Fiction is our “mainstream” spec fic site – the same four genres: sci-fi, fantasy, paranormal, and horror. But we’re also super queer-friendly, so “straight” and “queer” books are welcomed.
Most nonfiction (unless spec fic related) and anything not spec fic or queer romance are outside of our wheelhouse.
What would you say sets your book promotion service apart from others?
We care about everything we do. We don’t use “Artificial Intelligence” and don’t work with folks who do. We’re a small, gay-owned, two-man operation that cares about the LGBTQ+ and Spec Fiction communities.
Do you have success stories from authors who used your service?
A few 😉
“My fifth blog tour with Other Worlds Ink just finished up and I am just as pleased and as satisfied as I was with the last four. I was in the hands of professionals, who are personable and friendly, detailed-oriented, quick to answer questions, very supportive, and thoroughly knowledgeable. Everything worked like a fine Swiss watch. They did a fantastic job. I will be back for Tour #6. I recommend Other Worlds Ink blog tours without reservations. They are the best!” –Warren Rochelle, The Great Forest & Other Stories
“When my novel came out, I was nervous about doing a book tour. Scott and Mark made everything simple, right from the start by being so friendly and helpful. They provided me with clear instructions and even samples to develop my content, gave me step-by-step details of how the tour works, came up with stunning banners with quotes from my novel, and always kept me updated on progress. When the actual tour began, they made that simple too, giving me a chart of where the novel would be spotlighted and what I could expect from each. I highly recommend OWI book tours. Besides the professional efficiency, I’ve enjoyed getting to know Scott and Mark along the way. They are always there for you.” –Patricia J. Esposito
There are a bunch more here:
How do you measure the success of a book promotion campaign?
Oooh, a trick question. Very few things are going to move the needle in a measurable way. You’re likely not going to put a banner in a newsletter or book a blog tour and sell 100 or 1,000 additional copies. You have to think in terms of exposure, building readership, and the long game.
For us, a successful promotion is one where the author feels like the work was professional, the workers (us) friendly and professional, and that it got more eyeballs on their book.
What is a question that I should have asked and didn’t – and your answer?
How about “Why do you like doing what you do?”
I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was a kid, and over the last twenty years we’ve seen a profusion of tools helping authors do just that. I realized earlier on that it would be a lot more efficient if I could do some of these things – cover design, formatting, promotion – on my own, and once I got to be pretty good at them, I thought it would be fun to do them for others too.
For more of my philosophy on being a writer (it’s not easy) and a bit of hand holding, check out my non-fiction book for indie writers Suck a Little Happy Juice:
Thank you so much for being here! It will be such a pleasure to collaborate with you!
Thank you – it was fun to share all of this with your readers!
🙂
—Scott
A Mongoose Author Services Company
ABOUT OTHER WORLDS INK:
At OWI, we specialize in providing quality services for authors, especially romance and speculative fiction writers who need publicity for their new books and a place on the web to call their home.
We offer book tours (reviews, guest posts, etc) and we’re connected to a great group of bloggers who host our clients’ newly and recently released books.
We do book formatting, and can also make print cover wraps for you from your existing eBook cover. We also offer a number of other free and paid promotional opportunities.
We also offer WordPress hosting plans on a select basis to other authors – if you are interested, contact us at scott@otherworldsink.com.
Scott is an author in his own right, with more than thirty published short stories, novellas, and novels, and is an avid reader of sci fi and fantasy. His husband Mark of thirty years loves to read MM romance. Together they also run Queer Sci Fi and QueeRomance Ink.
We’ve also gotten into publishing. We publish two anthologies a year – our cli fi “World” anthology series in the spring and the Queer Sci Fi flash fiction anthology series in the summer/fall.
CONTACT OTHER WORLDS INK: Contact Us
SCOTT’S BOOK: Suck a Little Happy Juice
