Articles by Steve Semken

How many of you are just like me? You are constantly attempting to catch up all the time. You have a list of things to do that you wish you did not have to do, a list of things you know you have to do–some of which are good and some bad, a list of […]

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What seems like much more than twelve years ago I penned the following sentence to a book I ended up writing entitled The Tin Prayer: Words of the Wolverine. “Each morning I reach into the earth and pinch a small amount of always constant clay from the ground. Roll this pinch of earth into a […]

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Is there a more powerful set of words than, “Once upon a time,” or, “In a land far, far away”, or maybe, “On a dark and stormy night?” What are all these? Each of them excite and trigger in each of us the anticipation of a coming story. The thrill of hearing a new story […]

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I receive lots and lots of queries and even more face-to-face questions regarding the idea of what makes a good book. People want to know if I’ll accept their book idea for publication. Sometimes I even wonder myself: how do I know what is good or not? How can an author know if they have […]

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I Might Become President: Doing Creative Work For People Is Good In this day and age of the internet the cutting-edge business community spouts off constantly about the value of what you can give away for free. There is much ado about something regarding podcasts and YouTube videos. There is a theory certainly that there […]

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As Thanksgiving rolls around this year I am thinking about a talk I just gave to a group of writers. I was telling them about my decisions and struggles to become a writer myself, the efforts to write during breaks at work, the need to promote my writing and how I finally made the jump […]

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Buy local, support local, go local, shop locally… these campaigns have all the potential in the world, but they are normally thin and lack much thought. They sound encouraging and many people see the “local” aspect and believe that just going to a farmer’s market will be enough, that just shopping at an independent bookstore […]

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If you had asked me ten years ago would I still be in business as an independent book publisher I would have laughed and said, “No.” But I wouldn’t have meant it. I am determined to do what I care about and it would take a lot to talk me out of what I do […]

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There is a part of writing and publishing that is entirely dependent on audience engagement. Like the tree that makes no noise if no one is there to hear it: that is, no writing is heard if no one is there to read it. In this case, it’s literally true, the book makes no noise […]

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After someone finds out you’re a publisher, (the first question, “What do you do?” comes the next question–“What do you publish?” This second question, as is the third question to come soon, is oftentimes a thinly veiled trick question. The third question, as you may have guess, almost 95% of the time takes the form […]

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