Golden Box Books Publishing Blog

My Experience with Golden Box Books Publishing Services

9/25/2018

My Experience with Golden Box Books Publishing Services
By Joe Bonadonna

Back in late 2016 I was looking to self-publish my novel, Mad Shadows 2: Dorgo the Dowser and the Order of the Serpent. At the time I just didn’t know where to turn or who to hire to not only design and create a cover for my book, but to set it all up for me for paperback and Kindle editions, and at a reasonable price, too.

A friend suggested I contact Erika M Szabo and Golden Box Books Publishing Services. So I did, and that was the start of something very cool that I certainly never expected to happen in my writing and publishing experience.

Right out of the gate Erika and I were in sync. I gave her a few of my ideas on what I was looking for in a book cover and she immediately went to work. She works fast, too. Faster than I expected and could have hoped for.

Within a week or so she had a few variations on the cover I envisioned, and she must have been reading my mind because in each one she captured the essence of the novel and what I was looking for. Book covers are often more representative of a book than they are scenes literally taken from the story and transferred into a visual image. Erika managed to do both: the essence of my story was there, as well as certain elements that captured the mood and theme of my book. Not only that, she took my poorly self-drawn map of the world in which my story takes place and created something truly outstanding.

See the book on
AMAZON

Working with Erika was a great experience. She’s highly professional, extremely talented and was very patient with me. She was all finished and waiting for me to finish my final proof and edit of my manuscript. Eventually I completed my part of the job and in less than a week Erika had the book formatted and ready for me to approve before she set it all up to go “live.” Roughly three or four days later my book appeared in paperback and Kindle editions, all ready for me to start my promo and marketing campaign. Erika did a fantastic job, which led to an interesting and fun collaboration between us.

After several weeks of chats and discussions, wherein I told her about this idea I had for a spooky children’s Halloween novel, we were tossing ideas back and forth, plotting our story and getting an outline down.

Then, while I worked on the first draft, Erika went to work designing not only a fantastic cover, but a number of very cool interior illustrations. After that, she went to work on a second draft, contributing more scenes and chapters to our short novel, while I continued to proof and edit my first draft. Well, you know how that process works so I won’t bore you with all the little details. However, before we knew it we had completed a 50-K word novel for middle-grade children: Three Ghosts in a Black Pumpkin, a novel Erika and I are both very proud of.

See the book on
AMAZON

Not only did our book win an award, Erika and I found that we couldn’t let the story end there. So we immediately set to work on a sequel, a more ambitious and complex novel that turned into a 60-K word story. And once again Erika created the cover and some awesome interior illustrations. This time, I sent her an extremely crude sketch of the map of our world of Creepy Hollow, and she artfully created a gorgeous-looking map that we added to the book. Now we had our second collaboration finished, and we published The Power of the Sapphire Wand.
This all happened in 2017.
But wait! There’s more!

See the book on
AMAZON

This year, 2018, I decided that I wanted Golden Box Books Publishing Services to publish my next book, and I wanted Erika to design and create a great cover and set the book up for paperback and Kindle editions. So after a few chats and an exchange of ideas, Erika came up with a cover that was hip and modern as well as old-school. She captured exactly what I had in mind and made it even better with her creative ideas and input. She had the cover done in a matter of a few days and waited patiently for me to finish the final proof of my manuscript. Once again, in less than a week, Erika had everything ready for my final approval, and within a few days after that my The MechMen of Canis-9 went live with paperback and Kindle editions. What a wonderful experience that project was, just like all the projects Erika and I were involved in.

See the book on
AMAZON

In fact, I also had her design me a new cover for the eventual revised, second edition of my first book, Mad Shadows: The Weird Tales of Dorgo the Dowser.

See the book with yet the present cover on
AMAZON

Not only is Erika a highly-talented artist, she is a wonderful writer of YA fantasy novels and wonderful children’s books. She has the skill, the know-how and the artistic gift to capture “on paper” what you have in your mind. Golden Box Books Publishing Services does great work and it’s always a pleasure getting involved in another project with her. You can be sure that come the completion of my next novel, I’ll be contacting Erika again. I know my book-baby will be in good hands with GBBP.
— Joe Bonadonna
https://www.amazon.com/Joe-Bonadonna/e/B009I1KYIK/

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New Release by Natalia Govsha

9/22/2018

1 Comment

Poetry by Natalia Govsha

We helped Natalia to publish her beautiful poetry book with our Ruby Publishing Package.
We did her eBook and print cover, book formatting and interior design, and because she's not comfortable with the publishing process, we uploaded and published her eBook and print.

EBOOK link:
https://www.amazon.com/If-You-Look-At-Sky-ebook/dp/B07HCF8T6X/

PAPERBACK link:
https://www.amazon.com/If-You-Look-At-Sky/dp/1723707333/

Poems about a person who wants to understand a single universal Mind that lives both in human beings and in the universe, initially and unconditionally; and who feels the vibration of true love - as the eternal primordial state of the world. This book is an attempt to turn symbols, allusions, allegories into something alive and sensually perceived, having flesh and blood, filled with personal being.

Natalia's experience with our service

"I'm happy that fate gave me a meeting with such a wonderful person and a great specialist -Erika M Szabo! I am a poet and I can neither design a book nor sell it. Three years ago, a very well-known company published my first book. It was self publishing. A terrible experiment ... I felt lost in this tangled world of publication ... And now, thanks to our mutual friend on Face Book - Lorraine Kolmacic Carey, I met Erika! She created a magnificent image of my book! She guided me step by step through the difficult way of publishing the book - from opening an account on Amazon to ordering a book for myself. Thank you very much! I very much regret that my first book was not born in her tender hands ... THANK YOU ERIKA!!!"
~Natalia Govsha

Our Publishing Services

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No More GBBPub Magazine

9/22/2018

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The book marketing methods are constantly changing.
Although the interest of the readers remain high, our main goal is to help authors with marketing and sales. The past few months the authors reported declining sales when advertised in our magazines, therefore, we decided that it's not worth the time we put into designing and publishing the magazines if the authors can't benefit from advertising in them.

Instead of continuing the monthly magazines, we refer authors to our sister blog where they get more attention and promotion.
Visit the #OurAuthorGang blog at http://asmallgangofauthors.blogspot.com/

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Literary Award Contests #GBBPub

8/9/2018

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Announcement

After a long discussion between the GBBPub staff and our faithful judges, we have to announce with a heavy heart that we will no longer offer Literary Award Contests.

It has been a great two years and our judges rewarded a lot of books that deserved the award and recognition.

However, the value of book awards has been greatly reduced by the popularity award contests that are popping up by the hundreds on social sites.

These contests have no value because author groups are voting for the books or the authors hire click farms to vote for their books on Google forms that the contest organizers provide.

We find this type of contests misleading because the books are not read by judges to decide which book deserves the award, but the winners are decided by the number of votes.

There are still long lasting, prestigious award contests out there that readers trust but the majority of the awards posted on books lately are useless popularity awards that doesn't reflect the value of the books.

Due to this change in how award contests are conducted, we no longer wish to be part of it.

The winners of our contests can proudly present their award badges, knowing that our contests were done with integrity and fairness.

We wish every author great success!
Erika, Denise, and Zita

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Re-blogged: Why Should I Write Book Reviews? #BooksByErika

8/9/2018

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Books need reviews and not just because good reviews boost the author's ego (which really does) but because reviews are an essential part of book marketing.

Without reviews a book gets lost in the thousands of other books released every month.

With lots of reviews the books can stay in the spotlight and readers can find them.

Read the full post HERE

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Re-blogged: Readers Do Judge a Book By Its Cover! #BooksByErika

8/9/2018

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https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DCVRRK7/
A reader made her day with this message!

People always say, "Don't judge a book by its cover."
It applies to a lot of things including not to judge people before we get to know them, but in my opinion, it doesn't apply to books.
The truth is that we do judge books by their covers because that's the first thing we see. If the cover of the book doesn't shout "look at me" we keep scrolling or in a book store, we go to the next shelf.

Read the full post HERE

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GBBPub NEWS

My Experience with Golden Box Books Publishing Services

My Experience with Golden Box Books Publishing Services
By Joe Bonadonna

New Release by Natalia Govsha

Poetry by Natalia Govsha

Natalia's experience with our service

Our Publishing Services

No More GBBPub Magazine

Literary Award Contests #GBBPub

Announcement

Re-blogged: Why Should I Write Book Reviews? #BooksByErika

Re-blogged: Readers Do Judge a Book By Its Cover! #BooksByErika

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DCVRRK7/
A reader made her day with this message!

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GBBPub NEWS

​My Experience with Golden Box Books Publishing Services

​My Experience with Golden Box Books Publishing ServicesBy Joe Bonadonna

New Release by Natalia Govsha

Poetry by Natalia Govsha

Natalia's experience with our service

Our Publishing Services

No More GBBPub Magazine

Literary Award Contests #GBBPub

Announcement

Re-blogged: Why Should I Write Book Reviews? #BooksByErika

Re-blogged: Readers Do Judge a Book By Its Cover! #BooksByErika

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DCVRRK7/A reader made her day with this message!

SERVICES

Flip-books

Categories

Archives

My Experience with Golden Box Books Publishing Services

My Experience with Golden Box Books Publishing Services
By Joe Bonadonna

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DCVRRK7/
A reader made her day with this message!