Right away I have to give credit to my publisher-Lyrical Press. It originally started as a romance publisher and has quickly expanded to other genres. The staff is really friendly and always answers questions right away. It is primarily an e-book publisher, but they print some books as well.

They also have an editing department and a promotional department. While this may not be a big deal, keep in mind that some publishers do not have either of these. In other words, books go onto the shelf that are horrible in terms of grammar, and they are not promoted, so no one buys them or even knows about them.

As I said earlier, the staff is very friendly and responsive. I recently had some tax questions regarding earning revenue in the United States, and they were kind enough to get the required information for me (which doesn't change the fact that I need to get an ITIN number...ugh).

In conclusion, they are a great place for new writers. I can't stress enough how difficult it is to get into the business. Most publishers get thousands of applications every single day, and they reject 99%. Factor in that some publishing places need you to have an agent, or live in a certain country or be willing to wait at least two years, or to be a certain sex or be handicapped (I kid you not). I know of some people have spent several years trying to publish their novel, without any success. I was very lucky with Lyrical Press.

So kudos to them.

Hello, everyone. My name is Natasha Bennett, and I am the author of War of the Soulites. What is that, you ask? Well, I'll get to it in a few paragraphs, so please bare with me. First of all, thank you for taking the time to visit my blog (or maybe no one is reading or ever will, and I'm just writing for no reason. But that works too).

I guess I should start with some very basic personal information. I was born in Kamloops and shortly moved to Victoria, B.C. I lived back and forth between there and Sooke, but I currently live in Victoria now. I have a normal full-time job which I really love, and in my spare time I am a Web Designer. I also write novels and short stories in my spare time, and strangely, some of them are getting published.

My publisher has encouraged me to have a blog to post about my work, so that's what this blog is going to be about. My books and stories in progress. Occasionally it might have some random thoughts and drabbles about my real life, but I'll try and keep that to a minimum.

One other point before I get to the novel-in this blog I really don't want to be criticized for any grammar issues that come up. I like to think that my grammar is above average, but most of this blog will probably be on the fly and I do not have a professional editor looking over my shoulder.

Okay, so on with the book. As I mentioned before, it is called War of the Soulties, due to be released in April 20, 2009 by Lyrical Press. Here is the cover:



Ain't it pretty? It was created by Renee Rocco, the publisher of Lyrical Press. http://www.lyricalpress.com/war_of_the_soulites.html

War of the Soulites is a dark science fiction book and will hopefully be the first in a trilogy. Next week I'll be releasing a short chapter excerpt (Yay! A reason to post next week!) and go into the book in more detail. What is it even roughly about? Well, it's about war, action, romance-all that good stuff. It's about a ship that has an incompetent captain, a mass-murdering first officer, and a chief medical officer with shaking hands. Tune in next week to find out more.