Who am I? What are the things that make me the way I am today?

Any writer today knows that you need to have interesting characters if you ever hope to draw in readers. In most modern fiction, characters are the drivers of the story. This is particularly true of fantasy. Is it not surprising then to see so many book series based around characters rather than plots–see for example: Jack Ryan, Jack Reacher, Robert Langdon, Drizzt Do’Urden. Even readers of the Discworld novels often call the different books series by their lead characters, differentiating the Tiffany Aching books from the Rincewind books from the Sam Vimes books.

Even amateur fantasy writers know they need to provide some interesting characters in their stories. Most will start by dividing their cast using archetypes. At the most basic level, you have broad role archetypes, such as hero, sidekick, and villain. Within…

Things have been quiet here for a long while, but I assure you, we are still kicking. It has taken me a long time to get over several personal tragedies, which only led to me getting behind on all the OMAM projects. I finally feel like things are turning around.

If you wish to get the most up-to-date news from us, I urge you to subscribe to our newsletter. We only send one letter per month, or less, so it won’t overload your inbox. But it will give you the first word on OMAM news, as well as early or exclusive access to content.

First and foremost, I have been getting help recently from two part-time, assistant editors. If you already subscribe to our newsletter, you’ll know Allison Filiatreault. She pens our worldbuilding article series. Each of our monthly letters includes one of these topics, which are less…

To those in the US, I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. To everyone else, happy holidays in general!

With the exception of the release of our newest novel, SCION OF THE ORACLE, late last month, things have been quiet at OMAM. There’s a reason for this, of course, and unfortunately, it’s not a good one.

Over the past month, I have been dealing with two sudden family tragedies, which have turned my world (not to mention my work) upside down. As such, publishing efforts here have come off the tracks. I am still struggling to get back to work and my routine. This has all caused delays rippling down the production line.

But now that I am back, and starting to get into the flow of things again, I wanted to give you all an idea of where OMAM is at.

First and foremost, I am closing down…

I’ve learned a lot about book design over the past five years, both through self-publishing and working with others. And I’ve grown a lot as a cover designer myself, though I’m not anywhere near the level of a practiced expert, such as the folks at 100Covers who do the art for our main books.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve completed my first full paperback cover, and I wanted to share it with you along with some insights I’ve picked up along the way. We’ve posted tips on book covers before, so I’ll try not to retread old ground.

The cover is new image for my short story novel IN THE VALLEY OF MAGIC. The reason for the new cover is that I am experimenting with a new paperback size, 5x8in, which required a new image. I did not have the files for original cover, since VALLEY was originally…

By Melyssa Van Lydegraf

Imagine entering a bookstore, with the goal of finding your next engrossing read. You find the shelf with your favorite genre and start browsing through the selection. An intriguing cover catches your eye, and you open to the first page to get a sample of the story.

After a couple sentences, you realize that you have no idea what’s going on. The author clearly has a vast vocabulary but attempting to piece together the narrative leaves you thinking it will be a chore to get through this book. You place it down and decide to go for another book instead.

This scenario happens more often than expected. You could have the most interesting story, the best characters, or the twist ending to beat M. Night Shyamalan, but a portion of your potential readers will never know because your opening chapter is a struggle to get…