Kindle self-publishing star LJ Ross is setting up her own print publishing operation to sell her books through the book trade.
Louise Ross is a former lawyer turned self-publishing super-seller who has had a string of smash hits with her crime series starring DCI Ryan set in Northumbria in the North-east of England. There are now 15 books in the Ryan series and total sales are reckoned to be over four million with the vast majority being ebooks.
LJ Ross is still exclusive to Kindle for ebooks and her titles are available for sale or through Kindle Unlimited. She has published print editions as print-on-demand through Amazon’s CreateSpace and KDP Print.
Now she has established a print publishing imprint called Dark Skies Publishing (named after the title of one of her early Ryan books) to sell paperbacks, with the debut title for the business being the first book in her new Alex Gregory forensic psychologist series, Impostor. The aim is then to publish two further Alexander Gregory titles and all the DCI Ryan books during 2020.
Indie author Mark Dawson recently signed a print-only deal with Welbeck Publishing for print editions of his best-selling thrillers.
Setting up your own print imprint is a bold venture as it must be a big financial outlay for Ross. She is going through traditional distributors to the trade and ordering substantial print runs of nearly 20 books but it should bring her much wider recognition among readers.
In May this year, Ross signed a deal with audiobook publisher WF Howes for audiobook editions of the Dr Alexander Gregory series.
As well as being a self-publishing superstar, LJ Ross also supports new writing through the Lindisfarne Prize for Crime Fiction which she set up this year in association with the Newcastle Noir Crime Writing Festival.
It offers a prize of £2,500 for a short story of first two chapters of a novel from new writers who are from or whose work celebrates the North of England.
The winner of the first prize was Cressida Downing for The Roll Bearer’s Daughter, which is set on Holy Island in the 15th century.
The 2020 Lindisfarne Prize is currently open to entries until March 31, 2020. You can find out more about entering the contest here on the LJ Ross website.
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