E-books can be the first stop for Authors-

When Ed Newman, an advertising director from Minnesota, considered re-issuing his young adult novel “The Red Scorpion” to a new audience via e-book publishing, he naturally shopped around for the best venue. As it turned out, the best course for Newman was to pair with 16-year- old high school marketing student TJ Lind and form his own publishing company specifically for the e-market. New or established authors seeking the growing e-publishing arena may want to follow in Newman’s footsteps.

Anyone who has been following the publishing industry or has bought a book via Kindle, Nook or another e-reader device has witnessed a monumental change to this industry in recent years. Since e-books and readers debuted, their popularity has grown consistently. Estimates from the Association of American Publishers showed that e-book sales went up almost 116 percent, to $69.9 million, during the December 2010 to January 2011 holiday season. Mass market paperbacks sold $30 million less than e-book sales during the same period. The numbers of e-books sold continues to grow. Many mainstream publishers saw e-books account for 13 to 25 percent of their revenue in the first quarter of 2011.

Furthermore, reduced costs associated with e-publishing make it easier for aspiring authors and publishers like Newman and Lind to self-publish and keep costs more manageable.

“N&L Publishing is not your typical publisher,” says Lind. “The unlikely combination of an experienced marketing executive and a 16-year-old marketing student brings a unique approach to the publishing industry. Based in Duluth, Minnesota, N&L publishing is breaking industry standards by being one of the first purely digital publishers. This is publishing for a new generation, the technology generation.” Newman, who wrote his novel in the 1990s, asked Lind to read it first to make sure it was still relevant for today’s teens. “It was important to me that he believe in the product and, after reading it through, TJ made a few important edits and also an important marketing decision,” says Newman.

Lind suggested that when people finish a good book they will look around for more of that author’s works. “It just so happened that I had quite a bit more unpublished material and set about to assemble three volumes of short stories which we aim to get published on Kindle and Nook this fall,” says Newman.

“The Red Scorpion” is a haunted house suspense/thriller with a supernatural twist. According to Newman, the original concept for this story was conceived more than 25 years ago in a dream, a dream recreated in an action sequence that appears late in the novel.

“I suppose it’s something akin to the final battle that you see in so many Hollywood films where the hero and his arch enemy are squared off in a fight to the death,” says Newman. “In my dream, naturally, I won by waking up. In the novel, our teen hero, Dusty, has to overcome on his own.”

“The Red Scorpion” is scheduled for ePublication in mid-September. Prior success with other short stories that have garnered Newman attention and praise from peers helped pave the way to future projects for N&L Publishing.

“We may even open the door to considering works by others,” says Lind. “We’re very much looking forward to the next chapter.”

More information on N&L Publishing can be found at Facebook.com/NLPublishing.